Yuck theology

Luke 16: 19-31

I think this is the yuckiest of Jesus’ parables. It starts out plain gross – a rich man with no mercy whose table spills abundance, and poor, humble, starving, infested & festering Lazarus who dies outside the gates of the rich man’s house. Yuck! Just to be sure we are fully appalled, Luke reminds us that the dogs lick Lazarus’s sores.

I was once led a youth summer missions program that helped build and maintain an orphanage in tiny, forgotten little La

Gloria, Mexico, a town south of Tijuana. When I think of random dogs licking things, I think of La Gloria, where stray dogs roam freely and bountifully. Many of the strays lack legs or tails, and they eat whatever they find, wherever they find it; these are the dogs that licked Lazarus. Yuck!

Lazarus dies and the angels take him to be with Abraham. Yuck again! We don’t let oozing fester wretches into heaven, do we? Lazarus is taken “into the bosom” of Abraham- this exact phrase describes Jesus’ locale with the Father prior to being begotten in John 1:18. Lazarus gets way into Heaven.

So to be clear, Lazarus- dressed, bathed and primped all wrong for the occasion lands right in Abraham’s lap, who seems to have been expecting him; and the rich man of privilege, connection, class and pedigree tumbles into the chasm, permanently.

Are we nervous yet?

Are we more shocked that Lazarus gets into heaven, or that the rich man is rejected?

Lazarus doesn’t do anything to earn his way into heaven, and the rich man doesn’t do anything to earn his way to hell. Maybe there’s a lesson here about “do nothing” divine economics.

What are you doing- particularly with the festering losers on your threshold?
What are you doing – (or not) to leverage your way into heaven?
What are you doing? Make it yucky.

-PC

Debt Relief

Today’s parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16 is deeply troubling. Many of us read it with serious ethically motivated consternation as we hear Jesus apparently praising the household manager for cheating in order to protect his own interests. “Is this,” we may ask, “..what Christians are called to act like? Surely not!”

Yet Luke tells the story with boldness, and two thousand years of Christian scribes and theologians have let the story stand. Worse yet, we get another story in a few weeks with similarly confusing ethical themes – about the “unjust judge” – so whatever Luke is trying to say, he brings it up (as if it’s important) again! God’s will may apparently engage unrighteous wealth and unjust judges who really dwell among you and me. Hmmmmmmmmm.

This is just radical and maddening enough to be the real voice of Christ! After all we are reading the gospel of Luke, and this particular gospel begins by calling attention to God’s propensity for turning upside down and inside out all human social ordering and political posturing - to describe and to create the Kingdom of God among us. So why not invert and frustrate economic justice along with the rest of the kingdom?

Can a household manager cheat and be blessed by Christ? If so, how about you? Are you supposed to relieve the burden of debtors? Are you supposed to reduce their debt so they can live – and in so doing, incrimentally impoverish the master you serve from collecting what is rightfully due?

Is this a story about God and you, and your call to forgive and restore hope and life to the indebted and oppressed on behalf of the rich master whom we cannot see at the moment?

Could this be a second chapter to the story immediately preceding it (the lost son) about extending mercy and welcome to the undeserving little brother – and in so doing, upsetting the entire household economy and sense of justice?

Yes. Luke tells these stories side by side, as if they belong together, singing variations on reconciliation, forgiveness, justice, injustice and welcome in a sonata of scripture.

So how about you, faithful one? Do you dare to offer forgiveness in Jesus’ name, knowing that your debting brother or sister is making out like a bandit in the deal? Do you dare give away the kingdom of God at half price to undeserving debtors?

Will you offer welcome and reconciliation to the visitor whose lifestyle the church has never before accepted? Will you place sacraments in hands you are quite certain haven’t received them before? Will you subvert your sense of divine justice for the sake of the Kingdom of God?

Jesus does, for your sake.

How about you; do you dare?

-PC

Leaving the light on for you

"This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:2)

When I was a boy growing up in Seattle, I listened to the radio. Nowadays we don’t do that so much, but in times prior to the ipod, teenagers listened to the radio; and the radio had personalities that everyone knew; some were announcers and somewere advertisers. Everyone in Seattle knew “Tom Shane” and “The Shane Company,” who always had a direct-diamond-imported deal for you… and everyone knew Motel 6, where Tom Bodett promised he’d leave the light on for you when you were out travelling. Do you remember Tom Bodett? I suppose Tom was busy leaving the light on for you all the way across America!

Leaving the light on anticipates the visitor; it’s a form of proactive welcome.

My sleepy little town suffers a lack of safe places for youth to ride skateboards. Our congregation, who like most churches had a long history of chasing skaters away, discerned three years ago that posting a subtle welcome sign, adding a drinking fountain, and building relationships with these kids was better public policy than chasing them off.

So we posted a sign, plumbed in the water fountain and started visiting.

Now we have a reputation around town and a slow but steady stream of new families who visit to see what a church who welcomes skaters is like . . and stay to join us.

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

The Pharisees and Scribes grumble at Jesus for exhibiting prosdekomai- Greek for “premeditated welcome” to sinners; and for eating with them.

Jesus habitually leaves the light on for sinners.

Which all means that he leaves the light on for you and me, skater dudes- with our antisocial appearances, our funny clothes, our piercings, our strange vocabulary and our genuine need for reconciliation and loving relationship – dudes- you and me... And he sits on the steps with you and me as we don’t quite land our kick-flips and he shares our Doritos.

Pharisees won’t ever like it, but Jesus won’t change. He loves you too much to be frugal with his chips, his sidewalks, his power bill, his reputation, or his life.

Lights are on! Your turn, dude.

-PC

UPDATE:

One year later - The Dalles now has a new skatepark, and skateboard traffic at Zion is much lighter. We miss them, but are proud to be a part of creating something better on their behalf...Hooray for progress!

On Freedom of Religion, Sept 11 style

My Bishop sent this letter for wide reading. It speaks for itself, for sustainability, and sanity.

-PC

Beyond Park 51: Religious Leaders Denounce Anti-Muslim Bigotry and Call for Respect for America’s Tradition of Religious Liberty

As religious leaders in this great country, we have come together in our nation’s capital to denounce categorically the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America’s Muslim community. We bear a sacred responsibility to honor America’s varied faith traditions and to promote a culture of mutual respect and the assurance of religious freedom for all. In advance of the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we announce a new era of interfaith cooperation.

As Jews, Christians, and Muslims, we are grateful to live in this democracy whose Constitution guarantees religious liberty for all. Our freedom to worship in congregations of our own choosing, to give witness to our moral convictions in the public square, and to maintain institutions that carry out our respective missions—all of these are bedrock American freedoms that must be vigorously guarded and defended lest they be placed at peril. The United States of America has been a beacon to the world in defending the rights of religious minorities, yet it is also sadly true that at times in our history particular groups have been singled out for unjust discrimination and have been made the object of scorn and animosity by those who have either misconstrued or intentionally distorted the vision of our founders.

In recent weeks, we have become alarmed by the anti-Muslim frenzy that has been generated over the plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque at the Park 51 site near Ground Zero in New York City. We recognize that the vicinity around the former World Trade Center, where

2,752 innocent lives were cruelly murdered on 9/11, remains an open wound in our country, especially for those who lost loved ones. Persons of conscience have taken different positions on the wisdom of the location of this project, even if the legal right to build on the site appears to be unassailable. Our concern here is not to debate the Park

51 project anew, but rather to respond to the atmosphere of fear and contempt for fellow Americans of the Muslim faith that the controversy has generated.

We are profoundly distressed and deeply saddened by the incidents of violence committed against Muslims in our community, and by the desecration of Islamic houses of worship. We stand by the principle that to attack any religion in the United States is to do violence to the religious freedom of all Americans. The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Qu’ran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on September 11. As religious leaders, we are appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text that for centuries has shaped many of the great cultures of our world, and that continues to give spiritual comfort to more than a billion Muslims today.

We are committed to building a future in which religious differences no longer lead to hostility or division between communities. Rather, we believe that such diversity can serve to enrich our public discourse about the great moral challenges that face our nation and our planet. On the basis of our shared reflection, we insist that no religion should be judged on the words or actions of those who seek to pervert it through acts of violence; that politicians and members of the media are never justified in exploiting religious differences as a wedge to advance political agendas or ideologies; that bearing false witness against the neighbor—something condemned by all three of our religious traditions—is inflicting particular harm on the followers of Islam, a world religion that has lately been mischaracterized by some as a “cult.”

We call for a new day in America when speaking the truth about one another will embrace a renewed commitment to mutual learning among religions. Leaders of local congregations have a special responsibility to teach with accuracy, fairness and respect about other faith traditions. The partnerships that have developed in recent years between synagogues and churches, mosques and synagogues, and churches and mosques should provide a foundation for new forms of collaboration in interfaith education, inter-congregational visitations, and service programs that redress social ills like homelessness and drug abuse. What we can accomplish together is, in very many instances, far more than we can achieve working in isolation from one another. The good results of a more extensive collaboration between religious congregations and national agencies will undoubtedly help to heal our culture, which continues to suffer from the open wound of 9/11.

We work together on the basis of deeply held and widely shared values, each supported by the sacred texts of our respective traditions. We acknowledge with gratitude the dialogues between our scholars and religious authorities that have helped us to identify a common understanding of the divine command to love one’s neighbor. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all see an intimate link between faithfulness to God and love of neighbor; a neighbor who in many instances is the stranger in our midst. We are united in our conviction that by witnessing together in celebration of human dignity and religious freedom; by working together for interfaith understanding across communities and generations; and by cooperating with each other in works of justice and mercy for the benefit of society, all of us will demonstrate our faithfulness to our deepest spiritual commitments.

We are convinced that spiritual leaders representing the various faiths in the United States have a moral responsibility to stand together and to denounce categorically derision, misinformation or outright bigotry directed against any religious group in this country. Silence is not an option. Only by taking this stand, can spiritual leaders fulfill the highest calling of our respective faiths, and thereby help to create a safer and stronger America for all of our people.

(Signed by a massive and noble list of Christian & Islamic leaders & theologians.)

and me. -PC