Let's talk about Idolatry: Lectionary Reading for October 11th

 One of my favorite parts of being a Pastor was nearly always the novelty... you never knew what any individual week was going to bring to the table and it was pretty darn fun. Still, sometimes it's good to have a rhythm, and for me, the process of Sermon writing was my favorite rhythm. It would start with reading the texts on Monday, taking a solid guess at what the Holy Spirit was up to and then submitting my bulletin based on that guess.

Then, the real fun would start.

For the next couple of days, in the midst of the other work of being a Pastor, I would live in those texts, often walking to the Sanctuary to walk around, trying out phrases, reading the text aloud (which can REALLY change how you read) and seeing what ideas would jump up. Often, those ideas followed the initial line of thought for the bulletin somewhat... but occasionally, the impulse would go in another direction entirely.

I usually started those sermons with an apology that what the people were about to hear would NOT be following the expected course they'd read in the bulletin. Some of them would roll their eyes at me, others would lead forward. Typically, if the Holy Spirit interrupted my usual rhythm to take me in a different direction, the result was pretty good, at the very least, they knew it would be interesting.

Here are the texts for October 11th!

Exodus 32:1-14

 The Text:

With Moses delayed coming down from the mountain after receiving the 10 commandments, the People of Israel assume that he is dead and get started with the idolatry, with Aaron melting down the people's gold belongings (many of which were probably "gifts" from the Egyptians when they fled Egypt) and making a golden calf. God informs Moses of this and decides to wipe the people out, and start over again from Moses. Moses then pleads on the People's behalf and changes God's mind.

The Take:

It's worth pointing out here that Israel's seemingly shockingly quick descent into idolatry probably was not MEANT by the people as an abandonment of the God who saved them. You have to remember that only Moses had really spoken directly to the LORD at this point, and the storm on the mountaintop when he received the Ten Commandments gave them more than enough reason to believe that Moses was dead. In the loss of their previous reminder of the presence of God, they turned to another... in admittedly a way Aaron at least should have seen was a really bad idea, but you also have to remember they had to this point in their lives been second class Egyptian citizens,  and in the chaos since their exit from Egypt, it's reasonable to assume that they hadn't been caught up on details such as how THEIR God, unlike others they had known, was not about idol worship.

God and Moses then descend into what can only sound to us now like a pair of parents arguing over their children. If you are a parent (and have a partner in that endeavor) you likely WELL know what it is to go home and have your partner inform you of what YOUR child did in your absence. That context is worth remembering... I have occasionally muttered to my wife "That's it, this time I kill her," about our daughter, but that is never the meaning, and my wife never has taken it as such. It's frustration voiced in hyperbole, not murderous rage. (Let me step away from the keyboard to confirm that she knows that... yup, confirmed!)

This isn't to say the LORD is above violence according to the authors of Exodus... we're just a few plagues out of Egypt, after all, but huge mistake I think a lot of people make in interpreting the Old Testament is the fact that the Hebrew people were funny, liked jokes (especially puns) and in general had nuance... it's stodgy old white people who've done everything they could do to drain all humor and color from the source material.

So while it is certainly POSSIBLE that God was just about to go down the mountain and wipe out the Hebrews once and for all, it's at least worth a second to consider that something else might have been going on.

Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

The Text:

This is a psalm about our previous text, and skipping right over the parents quarrel it goes straight to the sins of the Israelites and gives praise to God for being Merciful. It cuts straight to the quick of the Hebrews as well, naming their calamitous misrepresentation of God as the sin it is, and taking a moment to again praise God for patience in the face of such a colossal mistake. 

The Take:

 This is another text that you probably read in a very serious way, thereby missing out on a lot of the tone that is just screaming out at you if you allow yourself to hear it. 

 

You. Mistook. Your GOD. The one who SAVED you. From EGYPT. You mistook that GOD for a gold Bull. A creature that eats GRASS. YOU THOUGHT YOUR GOD WAS A BULL.

 

I mean, if you allow yourself to hear the incredulity the psalm, it can totally shape how you read the whole text, and as the psalmist sings on behalf of Israel, it reads somewhat like a VERY apologetic spouse thanking their partner for the forgiveness offered when they had done something incredibly stupid.

 

Philippians 4:1-9

The Text:

So the middle part of this text probably rang familiar for a number of readers, it's a fairly famous text, and often ends up in "memorize these texts" collections. Focus on the good. Do not worry about the bad, but raise your concerns before the Lord. Always rejoice for what has been given, and hope for the good of all. This famous text is then couched in the midst of some closing exhortations, two members of the church in Philippi have been quarreling and Paul asks them to get along, and urges the people of God to focus on the truth, and to push for it, to push for the good.

 

The Take:

 It's easy to read this is a Biblical "don't worry, be happy"  but there's a bit more meat to it than that. It takes work to find the positive, it takes work to seek the truth. It takes work to bring a quarrel to a close and it takes work to remember to give praise to God in the midst of hardship and toil. The joy, truth, and peace being extolled here is NOT a passive acceptance of the status quo but instead a work of discernment, identifying the good, the pure, and the true, and holding THEM up as the model for your life, rather than whatever happens to be at hand.

 

 

Matthew 22:1-14

 

The Text:

 

The parable of the Wedding Banquet, where the Master of the House prepares a wedding banquet (hence the name) and invites guests, only to receive a number of excuses, and so throws wide the doors to let everyone in to be sure the banquet is well attended, but then still requires a certain decorum from those in attendance.

 

The Take:

 

This one sure can be a doozy, eh? Widely seen as a parable of the slow expanding of the phrase "The People of God" this text has taken on some anti-Semitic baggage over the years,  often used by Christian Pastors as a sort of "taking of the torch" from the Jews by the Gentiles. It's worth pointing out that the original invitees are never UNinvited, their refusal to commit is simply shown as a reason to throw wide the doors. Anyone with qualms over such a reading may feel free to take it up with Jesus in John, where he says plainly, "Salvation is of the Jews."

Matthew itself is widely called the Gospel to the Jews, intended as a Christological apology to the Hebrew people in a time of chaos and transition, so you're not making wild assumptions when you say that Matthew's intention likely was NOT "Oh well, no more Jews" in the kingdom.

The end is telling, though. Here the doors are, open wide, but then the Master sees an invited guest who did not dress appropriately, and has them bound and thrown out. Here IS an invitation lost... you can't just show up, you need to make an effort.

The Takeaway:

 

I find myself struck here by a running theme of calling out the "People of God" for inappropriate behavior as it relates to God, namely, mistaking our God, creator of Heaven and Earth, for something that God is not.

When we look at Idolatry, we often see it as this dumb thing. What are those people doing, worshiping a lump of metal! We looks especially at the sin of the Hebrews in Exodus in such a dismissive way. "Hah, God had JUST helped them escape from Egypt and now already they're making up a new God to follow and giving that God credit? How dumb can you be!?"

But when we treat the sins of the People of God that way, we minimize the risks. They were dumb, we are not, and so we fail to take the warning of the text at face value.

Some might have been surprised at my minimizing of the sin of the Hebrews in the Take on that particular text, but I did so because it is important to keep in mind what really happened. The Hebrews had reason to believe that Moses was dead, and Moses, to that point, had been their most visible reminder of the presence and commandments of God. In their minds, they probably weren't replacing God... they were replacing MOSES.

But Moses was a flesh and blood guy who spoke with the LORD and could tell them when they were going right or wrong, a Prophet. An Idol had no opinions, had no agenda, was an empty object upon which the desires and biases of the people could be projected, and thereby deified. They took the living, breathing God and replaced God with an inanimate lump of gold, in the image of a creature which, while powerful, was also non-threatening.

I think that sin is one that is not only understandable in our modern context, but also prevalent. Many of our older representatives of the LORD have moved on and in their place we have placed Idols. We tell ourselves we are still worshiping the same God, but in place of a God with desires, drives, and commandments, we have started worshiping something inanimate, something unchallenging, something that permits us to project our own angers, fears, and biases upon it.

In North America today, that idol is often Americana, a rose-colored glasses version of an old America which was once "great." We lionize our old morality, our old religion, our old social structure as a better time, and as that gilded material starts to harden in the mold we start to see any deviation from it as a deviation from the will of God, even when God's scriptures again exhort us to seek out what is good, true, and pure, we instead cling to the status quo, to what is familiar. We say the word God, we sit in buildings we call Churches, but all the while we worship nostalgia, rather than the God announced in the scriptures.

And because we have learned to worship what is familiar, what is comfortable, it never occurs to us that we might be called upon to CHANGE ourselves as we answer God's call. And when God sees us, no different at the banquet table than we had been at any time in our lives and asks why we didn't even think to wear our Banquet robes, we have no answer.

Because the idols we worshiped never told us to change, it never occurred to us that we might need to.

When You Just Can't Pray for Trump

 A lot of my colleagues, some of them good friends, have posted their prayers or calls for prayers over the health of the President and the First Lady on their walls today. I want to acknowledge that this is, in fact, a Christian response. We should always hope and work for the well being of any member of God's creation, and not let their actions dictate our own.

That said, today, the going on that count is not easy. For me, and I know for others as well. There is distrust (Is this real, or just another lie from the pathological liar?) there is worry (How many more people will he endanger with his reckless behavior?) there is anger (Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequence of your own actions.).

We're supposed to show empathy, sympathy for him and his family, wish them well, and pray for them. And well, I... as a sinner, it is true... I just can't.

Part of it is compassion fatigue. 2020 has been a royal mess. I've lost good friends this year for a myriad of reasons. I know of good people who have been hurt and are continually being hurt largely by Trump's decisions. And so for Trump's utterly irresponsible and frankly criminal response to Covid to land so thoroughly in his lap... I find myself utterly unwilling to spend my energy praying that the man be spared the consequence of his repeated and ongoing actions.

And yeah, it's hypocritical. After all, Salvation itself is Christ saving us from our repeated and ongoing actions. It's not particularly healthy, either... much like his taxes, Trump has repeatedly failed to pay rent for the space he's occupied in my head for the last 4 years. Forgiving him, praying for him, letting him go might be a mentally healthy decision on my part, but I'm not there yet. (It's also worth remembering that his crimes have most affected the poor, the immigrants, the people of color, which makes them absolutely not mine to forgive.)

So I look now to those like me. You've heard it from me... praying for your enemies, for those who hurt you, can be freeing, liberating. It's a way to let them go (and, as Jesus adds, pour some hot coals on their heads in the process) and let your actions not be affected by such negative influences.

But if you can't, you need to know that you are covered, as well. A full third of the Psalms are Psalms of rage at the enemies of the People of God, rage at those who hurt them, who persecuted them, who tore them down over and over and over again. Those Psalms did not mince words, did not back away from the rage, did not spend six paragraphs on the need to forgive and pray for the health of those who hurt them.

Your rage, your hurt, your fear, your desperation are all real. And they are not invalidated by an inability to spare much sympathy for the author of our current crisis who is assured to get the very best of medical care that he permits his doctors to administer. Our tax dollars will pay for his wellbeing, so its okay if you're not ready to spend your mental energy on it as well. We're in a Pandemic, and spoons are limited.

So if you just can't pray for Donald Trump, pray for those who also suffer due to his action and inaction, but who lack such a comprehensive safety net. Share your love with those around you, give aid to those who truly need it. And if your anger demands to be heard, to be vocalized, remember that not only does the Bible understand such actions... it helpfully provides a script, should you need one.

A New Plan: Lectionary for October 4th

 Hey there, everyone! A LOT has changed since the last time I posted, for me, for the world at large.

2020 has been a real dumpster fire of a year, though it hasn't been without some bright spots. The biggest bright spot for me right now is that my family has recently purchased a house, making us homeowners for the very first time, which is very, VERY exciting!

The bad news is the reason why we NEEDED to buy a house... for the last couple months, I have not been the pastor of a church. My call at First Presbyterian Church of Weyauwega ended a while back, not too long after my last post, due to a number of reasons. This has worn on me over the last couple months, and while I was given a fairly generous severance package, it has been hard, over the last little bit, to think of myself as a PASTOR in the midst of all of this.

One of the things I miss most about the Pastor life was the regular routine of working Lectionary Texts while doing other things during the week. The other things will be different now, more raising my daughter, fewer committee meetings, but I think, on recommendation from friends and my therapist, that I am going to try to reactivate Ask Pastor Dan as a home for such musings until such a time as I am doing it professionally for a church again.

Now, I've stumbled on this kind of thing before... there are probably at least six or seven Pastor Dan "reboot" posts over the course of my timeline, but hey... let's give it a shot, and see what we can come up with, yeah?

So let's get started. These are my gut-reactions to the lectionary texts for October 2020. If you'd like to read the texts I am reading, you can always find them here.

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20 

The Text: 

The Ten Commandments! You've probably heard of these before, either in Sunday School or on a stylized image of stone tablets on a sign in a yard to show someone just how serious about Biblical Law somebody is.

 

The Take:

Not a whole lot to be said about the Big 10 that hasn't been said before, though I do feel that these days they are almost more interesting in what they omit than in what they forbid. "Thou Shalt Not Be Gay" isn't on here, you'll notice. "Thou Shalt Not Have Abortions" is also absent, though of course so-called Pro-Life Advocates would try (VERY erroneously) to group that under the murder bit. So often, the Ten Commandments are used as this shorthand for classical Christian Morality, but when you look at them, and then at the "sins" the Evangelical church concentrates on, you see the two have very little in common.

Psalm 19

The Text:

A Psalm of praise that focuses a full third of its length to the praise of the Law of the LORD. It gets quite effusive, and while Ancient Hebrew did not have punctuation, if they did, you would expect this to be full of exclamation points.

The Take:

As a younger Biblical Exegete, texts like this always got me nervous, but these days I find I take a great deal of comfort in them. So often, I find people bending over backwards to show how hateful actions are, in fact, loving actions, and this text reminds me that the law of the LORD is actually very straightforward. It says what it says, it doesn't say what it doesn't say, and if you're gonna spend all your time beating around it, do you really love the Law as much as you claim to?

Phillipians 3:4b-14

The Text:

Paul being Paul! This is a solid brag from the Apostle, but a brag with a point, pointing out that as a Pharisee and a Zealot, if ANYone could claim to have achieved greatness through the law, it would have been him. 

The Take:

This is the great debunking of works based righteousness, with Paul coming out and saying, straight out, that no one reading the text could have a greater claim to works based righteousness than he himself, and so we should take his full meaning when he says that works based righteousness, that is, the claim that we have achieved something by being better practiced in the law than others, is in fact wasted time compared to the Love of Jesus Christ, the act of attempting to pay your way when your ticket has already been punched. He clarifies that this is not an excuse to be mediocre in your faith, instead, 

Matthew 21:33-46

The Text:

The parable of the Wicked Tenants! This is a meaty one. A landowner buys a field, plants, builds a wall, then hires tenants to tend to the land. They go on to earn their title, killing the slaves, servants, and even ultimately the Son of the landowner when he sends them to collect his due.

The Take:

The lesson, of course, is that those who are put in a position of stewardship, and abuse their power to hurt the servants of the Master and deny him his due, are of course due for punishment. This is one of the parables that, in the broader context, gets the Temple Authorities to start plotting against Jesus.

The Takeaway:

So at first glance, in picking texts, the Gospel Passage here would seem to be the odd duck out, right? Three texts examining the roll of the Law, and then a condemnation of temple officials. Because the Parable includes the death of the Son of the Landowner, we often think of it as a prediction of Christ's Crucifixion and leave it at that, but looking at all the texts together, I think a strong theme very quickly presents itself.

Temple Authorities, here representing clergy, church officals, and other such positions, have long been the arbiters of God's law to the people they serve. Yes, we worship the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is Christ, ultimately, who holds the power to condemn, but in practical terms, it is these interpreters, amongst whom I number still, as a Presbytery Moderator, who often serve as the day to day arbiters.

And yet? We often screw that up royally. Just look, for instance, at the take on the Ten Commandments themselves. How out of sync with the stated goals of most Evangelical churches are they? And yet, in the name of upholding a twisted version of "the Law," so many people cause so much harm, wounding and even killing the servants of God who remind us of the laws simplicity, and yet again for those who remind us that it is not, ultimately, adherence to the Law that determines our righteousness.

So what do those who stand on images of the law, but abuse it, and twist it away from the Lawgiver's Son to serve their own needs deserve?

Of that, there is very little need to interpret.

The Danger of Looking Back

I've found myself thinking a lot about Lot's wife, lately.

If you're unfamiliar with the story, during the destruction of Sodom, the only ones willing to stand against the culture of rape in the city, Lot and his family, are evacuating as the city is destroyed. They are warned not to look back, but Lot's wife does, and is promptly transformed into a pillar of salt.

I always hated that story. First off, the role the story of Sodom plays in the Church's long history of homophobia makes you want to skip it entirely, and the callus attitude to this unnamed woman who simply wanted to look back at her home as it was being destroyed always bugged me in Sunday School.

 

Years later, I've thought a lot of the claims made in 2nd Timothy concerning all scripture being God-breathed and useful. I used to have such arguments with my friends over that passage, but in more recent times I've found a great deal of comfort in it... I still don't believe it equals inerrancy, but the USEFULNESS of passages is always good to look for... and I think I have finally found the usefulness of the woman who became a pillar of salt. 

As we sit in this time of Covid, we see a country being ravaged, not only in terms of health, but in terms of economics and social cohesion, and like Sodom, it becomes increasingly difficult to see our predicament as anything beyond the consequence of our own actions. Having embraced a culture of  rape and xenophobia, the culture of Sodom was destroyed, and likewise, having accepted a culture of personal license, partisanship, and profit at all costs, we are being devastated, with warnings of worse to come unless serious changes are implemented.

Despite the repeated failings of those in positions of leadership, America's battle with Corona virus is not without its victories, and yet even as the curve started flattening, so many are eager to fling the doors wide again, and attempt to return to the status quo, even as it continues to burn down around them.

We've been shown, it the abruptest of terms, how our way of life is flawed, and opens us up to tragedy and destruction. And yet, so many of us just want to go back to the way it was before. As I watch the numbers of those infected increase in every state that reopens prematurely, including my own home of Wisconsin, I start to see the lesson;

 

It is natural to long for a return to a state of normalcy. But when that state is literally being actively destroyed by its own sins and failings, even those who escaped the initial destruction can be pulled back into it if they decide to turn back to that status quo.

From what I have read of those suffering from Covid-19, instantaneous transformation into an inert pile of salt might actually be the preferable consequence.