First, this was written about 1500 years ago. Amazing. Put this guy in a pulpit today.
Second, we have the rare occasion to hear from Hannah's song on the coming Sunday. To someone raised on Mary's magnificat, Hannah's musical number feels rougher, closer to the guts, with less care for poetics and more presence of viscera.
Hannah suggests something to us that, while a perfectly common lesson in Scripture, is one that we continue to ignore on almost every level. "Not by might does one prevail."
Such a simple sentiment. Notice that it is not the opposite of 'might makes right.' Instead, Hannah is claiming that one simply does not succeed by might. Might doesn't win things. It's not the strength of the arm or military of bank account that allows a person to prevail. I find myself wondering: do any of us actually believe this? Do I believe this, on any level? And notice, too, that Hannah doesn't claim that this is an ideal that we should strive for--she claims it as fact.
I can think of at least three different ways we could understand this statement.
1. The Sun and the North Wind. If you don't know this story: This particular folk tale relates how the two place a bet on who can get a guy to lose his winter coat faster. The strong North Wind tries to blow it off him, but the guy just holds the jacket tighter and tighter. The sun just relaxes and opens up, and it warms up, so the guy takes the jacket off.
Not by might does the wind prevail, but simply by letting go does the sun win. Might doesn't prevail because the very process of forcing something raises everyone else's forcing, and all the forces prevent anyone from moving. Relaxing, as does the sun, opens up new worlds and possibilities by letting us all relax.
2. The Tao Te Ching. Here, we are commended to hold to the weaker because it wins us the stronger. Without wandering here endlessly in Chinese metaphysics, here is a short summary of how the Tao imagines that might does not prevail. It is, says the Tao, that someone submits that creates the possibility of any kind of contest at all. If I punch my dog, I can do that only if my dog is there to be punched, treats the punch as a punch, and so on. Literally, with no dog, I don't get to feel like a dog-puncher. My dog creates the possibility of my being a superior feeling dog-puncher. By submitting to the punching, my dog enables my feeling strong, victorious.
Something similar happens when Christ invites us to turn the other cheek. If we punch back when we are hit, we have fulfilled all the rules for the creation of a fight, a violent contest where the fighter wins. If we turn the other check, something that looks like weakness, we reconstitute the whole situation by the very definition of how we behave. By weakly submitting to being hit, but then inviting a second, we have made it clear that it is only at our invitation that the situation exists. The suggestion seems to be that victimhood is undone not by becoming a victimizer but by undoing the system by acknowledging our complicity in it and changing it.
3. The weak win because they leave room for God's action. The strong prove so blind to God's action because of the reliance they develop on their own strength, but because the weak always turn to God--having no other choice--they find victory.
So, do the weak win in our society? I still, I think, have a hard time believing that. But perhaps Hannah's point is a deeper one. When we live in a society of violence, of victimization, of force, then nobody wins. It's only the weak that invite God's presence in, which is the only thing that just might save the weak, just might save me. Only by changing the game does anyone win.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Newcomers
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
That Ruth. So unbelievably daring.
It's fantastic how this story never grows old, this simple of story of a foreigner who worms her way into the heart of a culture and the genealogy of a king. Her virtue is her faithfulness, her courage is her sexual indiscretion, and her secret weapon is friendship. Her story undercuts easy theology about welcoming 'the other.' It demands that we recognize the respect, love, and joining to the other that our very own system of justice and our very own systematic theologies require.
And the story we hear this week is that great climax on the old sinful threshing floor. A parishioner of mine recently told me that she can't read the story of Ruth without hearing the Reba song, Fancy. A woman with one shot at a better life relying on her sexual wiles, uncovered feet and the threshing floor in the Hebrew and "men with their pants off" and "very heavy drinking" in more accurate English.
Of course, it's more than that. Ruth's story is also that of a pair of women on the fringe of society, risking starvation, who are willing to challenge the patriarchy to receive what should have been Naomi's by right. Score one against the masculine hegemony.
And of course, it's more than that. Ruth's story is about friendship and dedication and faithfulness, with a fidelity that extends from God through its characters and into Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi, and through them, God's fidelity extends through David, and into Israel, and into the whole world.
But here's what I keep thinking: is Ruth's example really what I expect newcomers at my church to do in order to join? Are they really going to be faithful past reason, seduce our men, and then stay and form happy lives here with bad coffee and powdered creamer?
I'm wondering if Ruth, in its outline rather than its details, is the lie we tell ourselves about evangelism. I'm wondering if we all hope new people, perfect in their faith and dedicated beyond reason, will show up and wait for us to get things right. I wonder if we keep hoping the other will show up and knock us down with their beauty, and then set us back on the right path so that we'll grow and finally become generous to those in need and defend of the outcasts of society.
It seems to me that is subconsciously what we hope. How much easier it would be to have Ruth show up at our door rather than the endless bitchy church shoppers! How much easier it would be to have Ruth at our door than the great absence of people who fear the religious because they have lost all sense of its meaning, importance, and message.
So, perhaps, rather than admiring Ruth from a friendly and hopeful distance, we are called to be Ruth. We are called to be faithful in a foreign land that is America, a land that only sometimes lives up to its notions of justice and caring for widows and orphans. We are called to be courageous in a land with our flagrant indiscretions of passion, our attempts to love people whether they deserve it or not. We are called to be the newcomer showing up at people's doors, inviting them to live up to the full possibility of our shared humanity in their own context.
Perhaps, God calls us not to hope people come to our party, but to show up at the parties of others and encourage them to see that a fullness of party cares for the least of our world.
That Ruth. So unbelievably daring.
It's fantastic how this story never grows old, this simple of story of a foreigner who worms her way into the heart of a culture and the genealogy of a king. Her virtue is her faithfulness, her courage is her sexual indiscretion, and her secret weapon is friendship. Her story undercuts easy theology about welcoming 'the other.' It demands that we recognize the respect, love, and joining to the other that our very own system of justice and our very own systematic theologies require.
And the story we hear this week is that great climax on the old sinful threshing floor. A parishioner of mine recently told me that she can't read the story of Ruth without hearing the Reba song, Fancy. A woman with one shot at a better life relying on her sexual wiles, uncovered feet and the threshing floor in the Hebrew and "men with their pants off" and "very heavy drinking" in more accurate English.
Of course, it's more than that. Ruth's story is also that of a pair of women on the fringe of society, risking starvation, who are willing to challenge the patriarchy to receive what should have been Naomi's by right. Score one against the masculine hegemony.
And of course, it's more than that. Ruth's story is about friendship and dedication and faithfulness, with a fidelity that extends from God through its characters and into Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi, and through them, God's fidelity extends through David, and into Israel, and into the whole world.
But here's what I keep thinking: is Ruth's example really what I expect newcomers at my church to do in order to join? Are they really going to be faithful past reason, seduce our men, and then stay and form happy lives here with bad coffee and powdered creamer?
I'm wondering if Ruth, in its outline rather than its details, is the lie we tell ourselves about evangelism. I'm wondering if we all hope new people, perfect in their faith and dedicated beyond reason, will show up and wait for us to get things right. I wonder if we keep hoping the other will show up and knock us down with their beauty, and then set us back on the right path so that we'll grow and finally become generous to those in need and defend of the outcasts of society.
It seems to me that is subconsciously what we hope. How much easier it would be to have Ruth show up at our door rather than the endless bitchy church shoppers! How much easier it would be to have Ruth at our door than the great absence of people who fear the religious because they have lost all sense of its meaning, importance, and message.
So, perhaps, rather than admiring Ruth from a friendly and hopeful distance, we are called to be Ruth. We are called to be faithful in a foreign land that is America, a land that only sometimes lives up to its notions of justice and caring for widows and orphans. We are called to be courageous in a land with our flagrant indiscretions of passion, our attempts to love people whether they deserve it or not. We are called to be the newcomer showing up at people's doors, inviting them to live up to the full possibility of our shared humanity in their own context.
Perhaps, God calls us not to hope people come to our party, but to show up at the parties of others and encourage them to see that a fullness of party cares for the least of our world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)