1 Samuel
This is such an abused story. It's also so good I can't imagine people would pass it up.
Abused, because it's used in every context where something small beats something big. If the underdog wins in a law case, it's a "David and Goliath" story." If my poodle overcomes your Rottweiler, it's a David-Goliath story. If my pinto out drag races your muscle car--David-Goliath. But in the story itself, David makes it pretty damn clear why the story is important. David says: Guns don't kill people--God kills people. And so carrying guns, or really big spears and swords and being, if you'll pardon the expression, a "huge mother-fucker," is no help is God intervenes. God likes small people, so if you think you're big, watch out--that tiny dude has got a really big friend. So the story gets misused. It's not actually about small people. It's about their Big Friend.
Perhaps its entertaining quality is self-explanatory.
How we're supposed to make sense of this story in modern warfare is something of a mystery to me, in significant part because God seems to be advocating for refugees more these days than ensuring, say, the victory of one side over another in the Congo. And, disturbingly, Afghanistan vs. the US does not, in point of fact, make the US David. Quite the opposite. Should God choose to intervene, we're going to have our head sawed off by a little man, much to our embarrassment and the consternation of our friends.
And that leads me to what this story makes me wonder this week: how exactly do we get God on our side? That's the question this story should make us want to ask. Not: where's the nearest Goliath, I love hamburgers and ass-kicking, and I'm all out of hamburgers. But: how can we get a piece of that slingshot action?
And the answer is a real challenge. David didn't entice God to his side. God picked David. God may be a Big Friend to the small, but God seems to determine God's own involvement. We can't get a piece of that slingshot action--not by asking, not by begging, not by believing that our cause is truly righteous. Most righteous causes in Scripture suffer, get kicked down, carried into Exile, or crucified. God triumphs for the righteous, but not in the David-Goliath way. God seems to expect the righteous to be a bit more long-suffering.
No, the truly graceful thing about the David-Goliath story is that it has nothing to do with David. It has to do with saving lives, with protecting people from mercenaries, with defending God's people. But David can't call upon that--God called him, had Samuel dump a few cups of oil on his head to prove it.
So as we carry out into our daily life, we learn to lessons here. 1. Don't fight small men with oil dripping from their head. And 2. God is still an active force in the world, defending those Kingdom of God places that may be too small to see. It's tempting to become lost in the details of violence and warfare, in the politics of our age, and to believe that god has given up entirely on being involved in history. But the David and Goliath story reminds us: God is still at work in our lives, in this world, and in history, even if we can't see it--and frankly, we probably shouldn't bet against Her.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Deep and Wide, there's a foundtain flowing deep and wide
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
So God sees not as mortals do, but instead into the heart. Because of this sight, David will make the next best king, says God, and God has Samuel anoint David. He becomes "Messiah," which just means 'the anointed one.'--which is at best a tenuous kind of political existence, given that Saul is not only still alive and kicking (and clinically depressed and homicidal) but also holds still holds the throne. I think there's supposed to be a little Christian metaphor in there somewhere. Jesus becomes the Messiah and departs into heaven but will return to displace the king of this world and become its rightful king--just like David eventually flees to work outside Israel with the Philistines, but one day will return to his rightful throne, the one to which he's been anointed.
But I'm more interested in this seeing business which God seems to be better at. I feel like the typical reading of this passage runs something like this: we all only see the skin of people, whether they're pretty or not, and therefore we are materialists, falling short of God's calling to us. We should, instead, learn to look into the heart of people and see who they truly are. I think this is wrong.
We are not materialists, not as Americans in the West. We just ain't. Materialism comes in many forms, all with their nuances, like: a. materialism means that only the the 'stuff' of a thing matters, never any external form; b. materialism means that only the tangible realm exits; or c. only the tangible realm is knowable. But we're not materialists--those folks are thoughtful, devoted, and perhaps mistaken, but that ain't us. If we were materialists, we would all recycle. If we were materialists, we would fix our cars rather than buy new ones. If we were materialists in the West, we would actually CARE for all this material we throw away.
No, we're not materialists--we're shallow. We don't even care to answer the question of whether only the material world exists. We're just too lazy and shallow to bother with that, and so we sorta roughly accept that maybe what we can see is what we got. We have plastic surgery not because we believe our material bodies are all that matter, but because we are fearful that our society won't like the way our body looks. We want to maximize (or minimize, depending on the body part and our cultural background) various body parts simply so that life is more of what we desire--we are too shallow to ask if we are, in fact, desiring the wrong thing.
So, if this Old Testament lesson indicts us, it is not because we are too materialistic. It is because we are too shallow to take even materialism seriously. Thus, if God sees not like we do, that means that God sees depth.
If God sees the heart, this does not mean that God sees our absolute reality at our center--I'm not even sure that that kind of 'essentialist' (meaning all things have an essential essence) is Hebrew, much less Christian. Although I do stand in the minority view there. But the Hebrew word for 'heart' there means more like the place from where intentions arise, or the place where decision are made, or the place where dedication is played out. It is a decision organ, not an essential quality about us.
So when God looks, God sees not like we do with our lazy, shallow gaze that considers only what we want from what we see. God sees our innermost thoughts, the possibilities of who we might become. Or perhaps even better: God sees not only our immediate desires, but the greatest desires from which our immediate ones spring. And God is not afraid to judge those desires--this one will make a good king, this one won't.
What we lack is depth. We'll use any excuse to run from it. Investigating our own hearts and desires is too much work, or its too intellectual, or its too earthy and practical, we say. Or: God only wants obedience, not understanding; or, it was good enough for my forebears, it's good enough for me. We have reasons within reasons for refusing to go deeply into anything, much less ourselves or our neighbor or God, all of which would change us and lead us to the other two.
What I hear in this lesson is not only that God disdains our shallow vision, but I hear even more an indictment of our shallow age, an age that has provided us with so much fodder to feed our fleeing from depth. It is no accident so few can sit in silence for longer than ten, or even five, minutes without pain. It is no accident that many sleep with the television on, having watched it at every free moment. It is no accident that we no longer feel comfortable with terms like liberal and conservative--even our old political markers have been sucked dry of the intricacies of their stances, of the thoughtfulness of their histories.
I can't help but remember Alasdair Macintyre, who famously at the end of his book After Virtue claims that we are entering a new Dark Ages where, hopefully, a new kind of monastery will arise to preserve the arts, treasures, and depths of our kind. He claims that we need a new, doubtless very different, St. Benedict. Some folks think he's talking about universities, others about churches, but I increasingly think there is truth in his somewhat apocalyptic prophecy. Without communities of depth, how will we ever learn to see beyond the surface, to learn something about how God sees? And this is not a fatalistic question--many of us have known communities of depth, seen what they can preserve and grow.
And so, I come to the question most in my thoughts these days: how do we foster Deep Places?
So God sees not as mortals do, but instead into the heart. Because of this sight, David will make the next best king, says God, and God has Samuel anoint David. He becomes "Messiah," which just means 'the anointed one.'--which is at best a tenuous kind of political existence, given that Saul is not only still alive and kicking (and clinically depressed and homicidal) but also holds still holds the throne. I think there's supposed to be a little Christian metaphor in there somewhere. Jesus becomes the Messiah and departs into heaven but will return to displace the king of this world and become its rightful king--just like David eventually flees to work outside Israel with the Philistines, but one day will return to his rightful throne, the one to which he's been anointed.
But I'm more interested in this seeing business which God seems to be better at. I feel like the typical reading of this passage runs something like this: we all only see the skin of people, whether they're pretty or not, and therefore we are materialists, falling short of God's calling to us. We should, instead, learn to look into the heart of people and see who they truly are. I think this is wrong.
We are not materialists, not as Americans in the West. We just ain't. Materialism comes in many forms, all with their nuances, like: a. materialism means that only the the 'stuff' of a thing matters, never any external form; b. materialism means that only the tangible realm exits; or c. only the tangible realm is knowable. But we're not materialists--those folks are thoughtful, devoted, and perhaps mistaken, but that ain't us. If we were materialists, we would all recycle. If we were materialists, we would fix our cars rather than buy new ones. If we were materialists in the West, we would actually CARE for all this material we throw away.
No, we're not materialists--we're shallow. We don't even care to answer the question of whether only the material world exists. We're just too lazy and shallow to bother with that, and so we sorta roughly accept that maybe what we can see is what we got. We have plastic surgery not because we believe our material bodies are all that matter, but because we are fearful that our society won't like the way our body looks. We want to maximize (or minimize, depending on the body part and our cultural background) various body parts simply so that life is more of what we desire--we are too shallow to ask if we are, in fact, desiring the wrong thing.
So, if this Old Testament lesson indicts us, it is not because we are too materialistic. It is because we are too shallow to take even materialism seriously. Thus, if God sees not like we do, that means that God sees depth.
If God sees the heart, this does not mean that God sees our absolute reality at our center--I'm not even sure that that kind of 'essentialist' (meaning all things have an essential essence) is Hebrew, much less Christian. Although I do stand in the minority view there. But the Hebrew word for 'heart' there means more like the place from where intentions arise, or the place where decision are made, or the place where dedication is played out. It is a decision organ, not an essential quality about us.
So when God looks, God sees not like we do with our lazy, shallow gaze that considers only what we want from what we see. God sees our innermost thoughts, the possibilities of who we might become. Or perhaps even better: God sees not only our immediate desires, but the greatest desires from which our immediate ones spring. And God is not afraid to judge those desires--this one will make a good king, this one won't.
What we lack is depth. We'll use any excuse to run from it. Investigating our own hearts and desires is too much work, or its too intellectual, or its too earthy and practical, we say. Or: God only wants obedience, not understanding; or, it was good enough for my forebears, it's good enough for me. We have reasons within reasons for refusing to go deeply into anything, much less ourselves or our neighbor or God, all of which would change us and lead us to the other two.
What I hear in this lesson is not only that God disdains our shallow vision, but I hear even more an indictment of our shallow age, an age that has provided us with so much fodder to feed our fleeing from depth. It is no accident so few can sit in silence for longer than ten, or even five, minutes without pain. It is no accident that many sleep with the television on, having watched it at every free moment. It is no accident that we no longer feel comfortable with terms like liberal and conservative--even our old political markers have been sucked dry of the intricacies of their stances, of the thoughtfulness of their histories.
I can't help but remember Alasdair Macintyre, who famously at the end of his book After Virtue claims that we are entering a new Dark Ages where, hopefully, a new kind of monastery will arise to preserve the arts, treasures, and depths of our kind. He claims that we need a new, doubtless very different, St. Benedict. Some folks think he's talking about universities, others about churches, but I increasingly think there is truth in his somewhat apocalyptic prophecy. Without communities of depth, how will we ever learn to see beyond the surface, to learn something about how God sees? And this is not a fatalistic question--many of us have known communities of depth, seen what they can preserve and grow.
And so, I come to the question most in my thoughts these days: how do we foster Deep Places?
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Wallflower
Trinity Sunday
So, what good is the circling gaze? It is this: God is not a point in space we look at. God is not mystery we gaze at in the abyss and contemplate. God is not the Prime Mover, the perfect stillness that is the Self-Caused Causer of all causes. God is not the Other, the thing different from us. Or at the very least, not only these things. It turns out that to say "God is one" is a metaphorical statement, just like saying "God is great," or talking about "God's arm being strong to save."
Instead, God is more than one. We do not experience God as a separate point, but as a pilgrimage, a drawing up. We meet God in the Word, who calls us into the mystery of the Father, but the mystery in turn breathes us into the active Spirit, whose actions are patterned on Christ. We don't look at God from a distance. We get on the path and walk, or the horse and ride, or the merri-go-round that turns in both a circular fashion and into a new reality. There's a mystic in the tradition who talks about how God is the Non-Aliud, the Not-Other. God is Other from us, but not THE Other--God is not identical with us, but we ourselves cannot pare ourselves down such that God is stripped out of our reality. God is Non-Aliud, Not-Other.
So why Trinity? Because God is not someone we go to visit, or not only. We don't meet God in a consumerist sense, buying and consuming God to meet some need. God's NOT even like the ultra product, some thing that we could consume forever in our never-ending hunger because God is 'infinite.' Instead, God is a Way, a path, a Reality, that we experience and dance with. Knowing God, loving God, requires participation.
So on Trinity Sunday, we remember that faith is a dance in which we share, not a TV show we watch. If we're only watching, we simply haven't met God. If we want to know God, we gotta buck up sometime, fellow wallflowers, and get out on the floor.
Roughly a thousand years ago, the church decided to have one Sunday each year dedicated to the Trinity, and that idea has stuck around. I strongly suspect that very shortly after the holiday was established, it immediately became tradition, one still observed, that the newest priest on the block, the lowest one in the pecking order, was tasked with preaching on Trinity Sunday. Let the new kid explain the Trinity to the unwashed masses.
This is because the Trinity is today, and perhaps was then too, one of the least understood parts of our faith. I don’t know whether any of you has been asked before to explain the Trinity, but it’s a fairly daunting task. And not only is it difficult to understand, it’s really easy to make fun of. I remember very well being in college and going out to see a student written play. Both of my roommates in college were theater majors, and so every weekend we were going to see something or other on campus. But on this particular occasion, crammed into the tiny little blackbox theater, the play was winding through its plot exploring some existential crisis or other. Honestly, every play written by a college student explores some existential crisis or other, and every one involves smoking, self-exploration, and nudity whenever possible. In fact, if you can smoking, self-exploration, and nudity to happen simultaneously, it was generally judged a success.
But on this occasion, someone was doubting their faith and so went to talk to another character, one who was a kind of 'drunk the kool-aid' vacant-eyed Christian. And so the main character starts yelling at him, asking whether he's supposed to believe some shit about a God is Father and Son and a Ghost and also not these things, and on and on. The laughter in the audience was heartfelt. I found myself sighing. Nothing like presenting ideas you disagree with in their least-flattering light to mock them rather than try to understand them. It still makes me sigh.
I think part of the problem is that, for what seem like good reasons, we're all tempted to explain the Trinity on Trinity Sunday. I think is what I would call a "Bad Idea." Not--and here's where I differ with some people--because the Trinity is impossible to understand. Or even because it's weird. But I think the sermon on Trinity Sunday is simply an awful moment to try and have what is a long, theological, historical, and complicated teaching moment. I think that likely anyone, with the time and interest, could in a classroom setting come to understand the main points of the doctrine. It's really not that onerous, despite the idiotic cloud we build around it like it's the highest of all mysteries. God is mysterious--doctrine isn't. It begins, in essence, with the very strange fact that Jesus seemed both to think that he was God and that he was constantly speaking to his "Father," who also seemed to be God. You could start a class with that unusual fact and more or less explore all the possible options and come to see why we ended up with understanding God to be Trinitarian in a profound way. But Sunday morning probably ain't the time.
So, instead, let's take a short sermon idea, one that might be more helpful. Instead of talking about "what" the Trinity is, let's talk about why it matters. Why we care.
And I think the nicest way to begin is probably by looking at a picture. Or go look at it here.
Rublev, Hospitality of Abraham, such and so on. It's real famous. You all probably know more about it than I do--icons are certainly not my area of expertise.
But I want to point out only one thing--stolen boldly from Rowan Williams--that might change how we think about Trinity Sunday. I've heard it elsewhere, but Williams, as per usual, explains it better than anyone else. So I think it changes things, or at least, it does for me.
If we look at the center character, it's probably Christ. Deacon's stole, hand in the 'teaching pose' above a chalice, blue for divinity and red for something other--humanity or blood or some such. If we look at Christ, we see that Christ is looking at God the Father on our left--God's blue divinity almost entirely shrouded in a mysterious robe. But then if we look at the Father's eyes, we see the Father looking at the figure on the right, the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is looking at Christ, mimicking him in postures, in blue clothing and dressing, in the inclination of the head.
So, what good is the circling gaze? It is this: God is not a point in space we look at. God is not mystery we gaze at in the abyss and contemplate. God is not the Prime Mover, the perfect stillness that is the Self-Caused Causer of all causes. God is not the Other, the thing different from us. Or at the very least, not only these things. It turns out that to say "God is one" is a metaphorical statement, just like saying "God is great," or talking about "God's arm being strong to save."
Instead, God is more than one. We do not experience God as a separate point, but as a pilgrimage, a drawing up. We meet God in the Word, who calls us into the mystery of the Father, but the mystery in turn breathes us into the active Spirit, whose actions are patterned on Christ. We don't look at God from a distance. We get on the path and walk, or the horse and ride, or the merri-go-round that turns in both a circular fashion and into a new reality. There's a mystic in the tradition who talks about how God is the Non-Aliud, the Not-Other. God is Other from us, but not THE Other--God is not identical with us, but we ourselves cannot pare ourselves down such that God is stripped out of our reality. God is Non-Aliud, Not-Other.
So why Trinity? Because God is not someone we go to visit, or not only. We don't meet God in a consumerist sense, buying and consuming God to meet some need. God's NOT even like the ultra product, some thing that we could consume forever in our never-ending hunger because God is 'infinite.' Instead, God is a Way, a path, a Reality, that we experience and dance with. Knowing God, loving God, requires participation.
So on Trinity Sunday, we remember that faith is a dance in which we share, not a TV show we watch. If we're only watching, we simply haven't met God. If we want to know God, we gotta buck up sometime, fellow wallflowers, and get out on the floor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)