Thanks be to God for R.E.M. (especially “Everybody Hurts”)
The call for tributes to favorite REM songs went forth, and I immediately replied with my request to write about “Everybody Hurts.” Actually, “request to write about” can be interpreted in this context to mean “begged, pleaded, and may have crossed the line over to ‘demanding’” (It’s just a very personal song for me). The nod of approval came my way, and off I went …
I should’ve asked for “Stand” – something peppy and fun; or something from Reconstruction of the Fables (or, Fables of the Reconstruction, depending on how you look at it). “Everybody Hurts” is just too personal.
I have a very small select group of friends (more like brothers than friends) that pray for each other, encourage each other, and carry each other – we are forever bonded together because of our connections with the deepest, darkest depression and suicide. “Take comfort in your friends,” sings Mr. Stipe … little does he know. Or, perhaps he does.
When your day is long and your night … your night is yours alone;
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life … hang on.
Michael (not Stipe, but a different one) was one of the friends in our group. He was a gifted and beloved youth minister. I was just getting to know him (I was the new kid in this circle of angst-ridden ministers/writers). An online private discussion about depression and faith emerged within our small group. Someone mentioned Elijah’s depression and Elijah crawling inside the cave to die. Michael posted, “yes, but Elijah’s story had a happy ending.” Just a few days later, Michael’s wife came home and found him dead … suicide. Despite our best efforts, there was no comfort for Michael, not even in his friends.
Sometimes everything is wrong …
If you feel like letting go, hold on …
For me, more than any other song, “Everybody Hurts” gets it. The words are repetitive and direct, yet overflowing with the imagery of overwhelming darkness. The music, at first, is very simple, slow, and hypnotizing.
Stipe doesn’t preach. He just shares the emotions as only one can who has experienced them personally (I have no idea about his experiences with depression, but somehow he knows…). He doesn’t smile and try to make anyone be a shiny, happy person. He just shares in the emotions. And instead of offering easy answers or “always look on the bright side” platitudes, he just pleads.
When you think you’ve had too much of this life, hang on …
The music begins to build. The strings begin lifting the music higher. The passion grows higher. The pleas and the rhythm build on each other until musically it borders on gospel (especially with the organ). Somehow Stipe’s continuing plea to “hold on” becomes a chant of hope.
Hold on …. hooooooooooold onnnnnnnnnnnnnnn …
For others of us in our small group of close-knit friends, we’ve each pleaded with each other many a long, dark night.
Hold on.
Sometimes only those who have been there can understand the depths of the loneliness, and only those who understand have earned the right to say “hold on.”
Take comfort in your friends …
REM’s “Everybody Hurts” is more than a song. It is itself a dear, close, comforting friend.
For Michael (not Stipe, but the other one), I wish we could have helped you hold on a little longer.
And for Michael (Stipe), Bill (Berry), Peter (Buck), and Mike (Mills) – thanks be to God.
Click here to watch the music video
Click here to watch R.E.M. perform it live (Stipe transforms into a worship leader and the song transforms into a truly gospel experience)
Nevermind the Nonsense (Ode to Jesus & Johnny Rotten)
Just in the three years I’ve been in Starkville, we Mississippi State fans can count on four or five or even six hands how many terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad calls cost us victories – with no thanks to the men wearing black and white stripes, often referred to by fans as “stupid refs” (no offense to my referee friends).
That LSU football game two years ago. That UK basketball game last year. How Auburn got that first down last week when everyone in the whole world can see in pictures and video that they clearly missed it by a good inch.
The notorious, belligerent, somewhat anti-social punk rocker Johnny Rotten, at the end of his final live show with his band the Sex Pistols, yelled out to the audience, “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Rotten walked off the stage, left the band, and the Sex Pistols disintegrated not long afterwards.
So, ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
We want life to be fair. We want to know, we want a guarantee, that if we keep our end of the bargain, that the other parties are going to keep their end of the bargain.
If we feel we have been cheated, there are all sorts of clearly defined procedures we can follow to register a complaint and have it examined by an official.
A student who believes she has been graded unfairly and in a manner not in keeping with the syllabus grading scheme, can register a complaint with the school and have someone look into the matter.
A customer who believes he received a less-than-satisfactory product can ask to speak to a manager, or send a complaint to someone in a corporate office, and have the matter looked into.
American citizens who feel a particular law or court ruling is unfair to them can join together and have lawyers argue their case all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Why do we do these things?
Because in all areas of life there are times when, whether or not we actually have, we get the feeling we’ve been cheated.
Jesus tells a parable about workers in a vineyard. About workers who worked all day and expect a full-day’s wage … and they received it.
But there are also workers who got hired later and only worked half the day, and worse, workers who got hired at the end of the day and only worked one hour … and at the end of the day when the money started being distributed, the last ones hired got paid first, and they got a full-day’s pay, then the half-day workers got a full-day’s pay and finally, the all-day workers who – you guessed it – got a full-day’s pay.
The all-day workers, naturally, complained because they felt cheated.
This is what the Kingdom of God is like, Jesus says – grace doesn’t always appear fair.
Have you felt resentment toward the grace that has been poured out upon another person obviously less deserving, when you’ve been doing good all along? Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
A single mother finds her way into a local church, and the church takes her and her child in warmly. She volunteers and helps out often around the church and takes part in functions. After a while she is asked to help co-direct the church nursery.
A longtime member of the church, one of the most loyal and hardworking people in the church, complains to the pastor – that woman has no business helping in a leadership role with the children. She’s unmarried. Her life has been a mess. She still doesn’t have it all together; so what if she’s good with the kids? What kind of example is it if the church starts letting just anybody come in and start serving?
The longtime member was feeling more than a bit cheated. Cheated over leadership issues (why hasn’t she been asked to be in a leadership role?), but cheated also because of grace; this single mother had a not-very-polite past, and occasionally a still-not-very-polite-present, and yet grace was being poured out upon her as equally as to the longtime member.
In Jesus’ Kingdom in which a Johnny Rotten is as welcomed and loved as a Bill Gaither, instead of complaining about being cheated, give thanks; for somewhere somebody is complaining that she’s been cheated because you’ve been treated equally to her.
Nevermind the religious nonsense, here’s to God’s cheating grace.
Learn more about Bert Montgomery at his website.
When Proselytizing Gets Terrifying
Last weekend, a small team of evangelists from a group called Cheap Missions Trips came to Vanderbilt’s campus to “save the lost.” They drove around Greek Row with microphones and a speaker, trying to convince the tailgating students to turn from their sinful ways and follow God. A video was posted on Youtube by the organization, but they apparently removed the video after the dramatic response. However, it has since gone viral, reposted by Vanderbilt students on Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, and a myriad of other social networking sites. The reactions range from Greek students who find the whole thing to be a joke to Christian students who are disturbed and slightly embarrassed by what they see as a distortion of their faith.
The evangelizers appear to be a man and a woman with two small children in tow, possibly a family. The video begins as they’re driving onto campus; the woman says that they’ve come to Vanderbilt to help these young people see the error of their ways. She comments that she can smell the beer from the fraternity lawns, and that parents who send their children to college also need to repent. Their message for the students is primarily that “no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven” and that the young ladies should “put some clothes on.” First in their car, then on the sidewalk, they spread their message with a portable speaker and a sign, engaging in multiple one on one conversations with students before the campus police apparently asked them to move on, at which point the video stops, ending with the text of Ezekiel 33:8-9 and the URL for the Cheap Missions Trips website.
When I find myself so seriously offended by something like this, I try to take a step back and think about exactly what is so offensive about it. So I’ve spent some time trying to name exactly what it is that’s bothering me about this video and the actions of the people in it. Well, for starters, the video is titled “Caring for the Lost at Vanderbilt,” and no one is doing any caring for anyone. Shouting at people that they’re going to hell is not a way to demonstrate care. The negative way in which these individuals are presenting the Gospel is also problematic. Their entire message is a list of all the things that their intended targets are doing wrong, a list of accusations thrown out at people rather than endeavoring to seek a conversation about what an individual’s world is like, and what they might be seeking that we can walk alongside them in. For that matter, the list of accusations is quite literally thrown out, and no conversation is being sought at all; these individuals spend about half the video shouting from their car, seemingly intentionally avoiding any interaction with these “sinners.” Even when they’re on the sidewalk, they’re not really listening to the young people they’re talking to. Not to mention the fact that, beyond tactics, I don’t agree with their theology in and of itself. Drinking alcohol, dancing, and wearing sundresses are not inherently sinful activities, at least not the way I read scripture. They are all things that can be done in an irresponsible way, but that’s a completely different issue.
If you ask me, the Word of God is being distorted by these “preachers;” it’s not even being misrepresented so much as its not being presented at all. From what I could understand of the conversations recorded in the ten-minute video, an actual, direct quote from scripture is not used once, and an actual Bible doesn’t even make an appearance. They are twisting the message of Christ into a message of condemnation of all who behave in a way that these two people disapprove of. I found the video profoundly disturbing, and could hardly make it through the whole thing.
Now, I am a Baptist, so I fully acknowledge anyone’s right to come to any theological conclusion they want, even if it doesn’t agree with my own. The problem is that we as the Church are part of a big, huge, complicated world, and ultimately we’re called to bring Love into that world. There are a lot of different issues we can choose to tackle in trying to bring Love into the world; we have to learn to prioritize. So if I could speak to the evangelists that came to Vanderbilt last weekend I would say this. You live in a city where more than 2,000 men, women, and children are sleeping without a roof over their head every night. You live in a state where 87 people are sitting on death row. You live in a country where an estimated 43.6 million people live below the poverty line. You can believe that the young people partying on Greek Row are sinners, but if you want to truly live out the Gospel, Cheap Missions Trips, you need to do some serious reprioritizing.
______
Note: I graduated from Vanderbilt University in May of this year, and am now a first year Masters student at Vanderbilt Divinity School. The views in this post are my own and not those of my Alma Mater or current school. I also recognize that the views and tactics I am discussing here were observed in two individual evangelists and may not necessarily reflect those of the organization they claim to represent; however, the name and website of the organization, Cheap Missions Trips, was posted at the end of the video, and to date the organization has not issued a retraction or any other response. The video may be viewed here.
Two 9/11 Prayers
Rabbi Seth Oppenheimer wrote two prayers for 9/11 services. The first was delivered after the original events of 9/11, read at a mosque in Starkville, Mississippi (after rotten fruit had been thrown at the mosque). The second was delivered at a 10th anniversary service at Mississippi State University.
Oh my brother Ishmael.
My brother,
here,
far from the disputed wells of our father,
here we can remember we are brothers.
We can remember,
your daughter is my niece,
your son, my nephew,
your wife, my sister.
Here, so far away from walled cities,
we can remember that we buried a father together.
We can remember that our blood is the same.
Together,
we can weep.
(9/14/2001)
The following prayer was offered as the invocation for 9-11 ten year student political organization memorial, at Mississippi State University on 9/11/2011:
They were Christian and Jew,
Moslem and Hindu,
Buddhist and Sikh,
Of every religious tradition and those who had turned their back on religion.
They were living their lives,
Fulfilling the homely virtues of hard work and constancy.
Pilots and washerwomen
Executives and housewives
Soldiers and waiters.
Death came for them out of the sky, fueled by hatred and rage.
What did they do,
Those trapped above the flames,
suffocating in the rising smoke?
They called those close to them,
I love you, they said.
I love you
I love you
Thousands of voices,
some heard live,
some recorded.
I love you.
Hatred struck,
Love responded.
Death came, fueled by hatred and rage.
Those who could escape,
Stopped and helped a neighbor less able.
Gathered together to make a slower descent
Out of nightmare
To help carry those who could not climb the stairs alone.
Hatred struck, seeking to terrify and divide our nation.
The people
Surrounded by approaching death
Gathered together to protect life.
Death came from the sky,
Brought by those who sacrificed their lives to bring death.
On the streets, the firemen and policemen of the city,
Out of the hallways of the pentagon not shattered by the plane’s impact,
Those able to act,
Moved into the inferno,
Risking their lives,
Sacrificing their lives
To bring life,
To save life
Acting out of duty
Acting out of that generalized love of neighbor that is the best expression of patriotism.
So many died in the service of life,
Of love.
In the air,
Above Pennsylvania,
Some learned what was happening.
They could not save themselves,
But their last act could be the salvation of others.
They used their last minutes of life
They acted so that others would be saved.
Self sacrifice for the sake of life and love
Defeated
At great cost
Suicide for death and hatred.
And so it is how we must distinguish ourselves
Let us be the ones who act for love
Let us be the ones who seek to save life.
We are blessed that,
On that day of crisis,
The best of our countrymen was brought forth.
May we be so blessed
That we might honor their memory
By fulfilling the best that is in us
By living the love, duty, and self sacrifice
That they showed that day.
And, may we never forget.
Stumbling Around in the Dark
A few weeks ago I was stumbling around in eerie quiet darkness.
No literally stumbling around in the dark.
A powerful thunderstorm with straight-line winds had roared through Georgetown, leaving in its destructive wake downed trees and most importantly for my neighborhood, no power.
Not even a street light was on. No hum of air conditioners. No flickering lights of TV screens.
In fact, the only flickering came from the many candles lit to try to keep people from stubbing their toes.
So there I was, stumbling around in the dark. We went out to talk to the neighbors, but it was so dark, I literally had to squint to try and see who I was talking too. Then we came back in and as I tried to get candles situated throughout the house, I felt something furry brush up against me. My heart skipped a beat, and then I remembered. The dog.
It was truly one of those times that you don’t realize how much you rely on light until it is out. It made me wonder how many times we have physical light, but continue to stumble around in the darkness.
Think about it. We may have abundant sunshine outside or every light bulb is functioning, but we still feel like we’re fumbling around in the dark. Life’s stresses and everyday occurrences can leave us bumping your knees, elbows and head and wondering how we are going to get through the day.
So we click our “light switch” on and get God’s light shining on our lives. It may be stopping and taking a deep breath, saying a centering prayer, repeating a favorite verse or opening your Bible and meditating on what God is guiding you to. It may be just simply refocusing on God and taking solace in knowing He has a plan for you.
We were reminded that dark night of the old Vacation Bible School song about “Letting our Little Light Shine” – do we hide it under a bush, no! Do we blow our candle out, No! We let our little light shine.
Do we let our light shine? Or are we too busy posturing to get ourselves heard or getting bogged down in living every day that our light has dimmed? Are we truly a light for Christ? Or do we spend more time complaining about what has been dealt to us that day.
Take our evening in the dark. After lighting a dozen various candles – who knows what Yankee Candle scent we made that night – we made the best of it. We played rummy by candlelight, teaching our daughter the classic card game (wouldn’t you know it, she won) and shared quite a bit of laughter.
We may not have gotten a lot of sleep that night, but the sun came up the next day, and a few hours later, the power returned. And God was right there shining and leading us on our journey. Hopefully, I’m letting his light reflect off of me for others to see.
Thinking, Saying, Doing!
Gandhi once said, “Happiness occurs when what you think, what you say, and what you do, are in perfect harmony.”
We all want happiness. How we express that desire may be different for each of us. And what that happiness looks like in the end, most likely is different for each of us. Happiness could be winning the big game; being accepted into the college of our choice; having children who are healthy; having a career that fulfills our lives. No doubt we could come up with any number of other qualities, opportunities, or fulfilled dreams that could make us happy.
But when you look closely at the quote from Gandhi, you may become disheartened. We want happiness. But getting what I think, what I say, and what I do in perfect harmony as the key to happiness may well be beyond our skill. If I don’t say what I think, and do what I say, happiness may well escape me. It would likely be right here that Charlie Brown would most likely give up and let out his famous phrase, “Good Grief!”
But maybe there’s a way. Our minds are constantly filled with thoughts that demand our attention and consume our time. What if we were to somehow filter through those thoughts and get to the core of what really matters to us. I suspect that sifting our thoughts may just be what the doctor ordered. Some of my thoughts I can’t do anything with right now anyway, so let them go. Other thoughts will require the input and advice of others, so I can move them to another place until that input and advice is received. There are some thoughts that can simply be tossed aside. Like when I begin to think what it would be like to hit the jackpot in the lottery drawing. It’s not likely to happen since I don’t buy lottery tickets. It’s fun to dream, but no need to let the thought consume me.
I don’t know what Gandhi would say, but filtering my thoughts seems like a plausible place to start.
How about the saying part? Seems like I remember a part of a song I learned as a child. “O, be careful little mouth what you say.” It’s easy to let the wrong words slip across our lips. And once they are spoken we can’t simply take them back. But it’s also just as easy to let the right words stay tucked inside and never let them be spoken. How many times have I heard someone say, “I wish I had told her that I love her.” Words are a gift. Use them as a gift.
Then there’s this doing part. There are a number of things I do that contribute to a sense of happiness and they are connected to what I think and what I say. So often I find that the day is filled with other things to do that may or may not be in harmony with what I think and say. The challenge is to focus on doing those activities that enhance my sense of fulfillment. Sure the other things may still have to be done, but learning to prioritize those activities can sure help.
I like the quote by Gandhi. I think he’s right. “Happiness occurs when what you think, what you say, and what you do, are in perfect harmony.”
Learn more about Tommy Valentine at Fabric of Life Coaching or his blog.
Baptism is More than Water
Because of baptism, I almost was not ordained to the gospel ministry. In fact, December 29, 1968, the date of my ordination at the First Southern Baptist Church of Tallapoosa, Missouri, was almost a disaster.
The ordained folks of Black River Association took ordination very seriously. The ordaining council really did ask questions and based on the candidates answers, voted to recommend ordination or not to recommend ordination. For my ordination, the council was scheduled to meet at my home church that would be filled with my friends and family, including my fiancé and her family. The ordination, if it were to happen, would happen immediately after the council made its decision.
Bro. McClanahan, the Associational Missionary, was to chair the council. He had done a wonderful job of helping me prepare. We met on Saturday, the day before my ordination just to touch base one more time. I had known Bro. Mac all my life. He was one of God’s good gifts to the church. We had a pleasant meeting and I was about to leave when Bro. Mac commented, “Oh, you know some of the preachers from the southern part of the association will be there. They will ask you about ‘alien immersion.’” In Black River Association in 1968 “alien immersion” referred to any baptism done by any church or preacher that was not Southern Baptist. It didn’t matter if the baptism was by immersion of a person old enough to choose to be a believer. If it was not done by a “proper church and pastor,” it was “alien” and unacceptable.
“How will you answer that?” Bro. Mac asked.
“It seems to me that who baptizes you is immaterial. I do not support the concept of ‘alien immersion,’” I responded.
Bro. Mac’s face told me all I needed to know. “If you answer that way, you won’t be ordained tomorrow.”
“If I answer any other way, I will be lying.”
There we left it. When I got back to my parents’ home, I told my dad what had happened and warned him that Sunday would likely not be a glorious day. Early Sunday morning, Mrs. McClanahan called to say that Bro. Mac was ill and would not be able to be at the ordination. I’ve always suspected that his illness arose because he couldn’t stand being part of my non-ordination day. At any rate, it saved the day. Bro. Ted Thedford, a local pastor, was apprised of the situation and invited to chair the committee. This was arranged by my father and Mr. Perry Clark, a deacon of my home church, whose son Ben had already been ordained to the ministry. Bro. Thedford handled the questions about baptism, never letting “alien” enter the conversation.
I was ordained and my theology of baptism has continued to change. While I still believe that Baptism by immersion of believers is the better way, I am pleased to be pastor of a church that accepts any Christian baptism by any method. Over the past 32 years, I have baptized by immersion, pouring, and sprinkling. I’ve baptized in homes, swimming pools, hospitals, and nursing homes, as well as in our church baptistery.
One of the most meaningful baptisms was of eight year-old Sarah, who I was sure had no knowledge of what was happening.
Sarah, who was born with severe physical and mental handicaps, was mentally no older than a two year-old. She cried most of her waking hours. Her grandparents, who had taken over her care, lived in a storefront apartment in our community. They called this Baptist preacher to baptize their granddaughter “because doctors tell us she only has a few weeks to live and we don’t want her dying without being baptized.” I thought of all the reasons why I couldn’t and why it wasn’t necessary; and then I agreed to do it. In fact, I was ready to do it right then; but the grandparents asked me to come back two days later.
On the day of Sarah’s baptism, I arrived at the family’s apartment and found Sarah wearing a lovely new white dress. Her grandfather was sitting in a chair, holding her as she squirmed and cried. Beside them on a side table was a small silver bowl that her grandmother had filled with water. We read the story of Jesus’ baptism and the story of the disciples trying to keep children from bothering Jesus. Then I dipped my fingers in the bowl and made the sign of the cross on Sarah’s forehead. “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I baptize you Sarah. You are a beloved daughter of God.” As I finished, Sarah’s crying stopped. She lay quietly against her grandfather’s shoulder and smiled.
Sarah died about two months later. At her funeral, her grandparents told me, “Sarah was so much calmer, hardly crying at all, after you baptized her.”
And to think, I had thought she had no knowledge of what was happening!
Baptism is not about water or who baptizes how. It’s about grace flowing to all of us, who apart from grace are aliens.
Read more from Michael R. Duncan at his new blog.
No one is “self-made”
There is the story of the self made man: The fellow who, with no help, built up a business and a life of power and wealth. Of course, he had some opportunities. Somebody taught him how to read. Somebody took a chance on him with his first job or first sale. Someone showed him the ropes of business and taught him how to keep books and manage cash flow. So, perhaps, the self made man is not so much a real story as an inspirational arch type that has more to do how we perceive ourselves. No one is entirely self made. True, success requires hard work and a recognition of opportunities, but it is not done alone, no matter what out societal mythos tells us.
As Jews, we actually recognize a deeper and more fundamental contingency. In this week’s Torah portion we read:
Beware that you do not forget the Lord, your God, by not keeping His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day, lest you eat and be sated, and build good houses and dwell therein, and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and all that you have increases, and your heart grows haughty, and you forget the Lord, your God, Who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Who led you through that great and awesome desert, [in which were] snakes, vipers and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought water for you out of solid rock. Who fed you with manna in the desert, which your forefathers did not know, in order to afflict you and in order to test you, to benefit you in your end, and you will say to yourself, “My strength and the might of my hand that has accumulated this wealth for me.” But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He that gives you strength to make wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your forefathers, as it is this day. (Deut. 8:11-18)
The next generation, fighting for the land; farming in the Middle Eastern heat, and trying to deal with rainfall that was not always ideal might easily forget that what had already been accomplished was done with help. We are often that way ourselves. Even leaving aside theological issues and the fact that we have a created world (or a world that requires continual Divine attention to stay in existence) to act within at all and the bounty of the natural world, we even forget our debt to our fellow human beings. We drive on roads that were built before we were born, cross bridges that are marvels of engineering that took whole communities to build in terms of resources, knowledge and labor, use electricity that is provided by a grid that we did not contribute to and generated in plants that dwarf the human scale.
None of us is self made, even just considering the help we have received from our fellow human beings, both of previous generations and our own.
One of my favorite stories concerns a Roman general riding by and seeing an old Jewish man planting a carob tree. The general stops to laugh at the old man, “You are certainly a fool, planting a tree that will not bear fruit until long after you are dead!” The old man continues his work as he replies, “There were carob trees planted for me when I came into the world; I will leave carob trees for those who come after me.”
The lesson is clear. Judaism teaches us that we must prepare the world for coming generation. We are required to pass down, not just our religious, ethical, and intellectual heritage, but a physical inheritance as well by improving the world materially as well as spiritually. Our time horizon cannot be the next quarter or the fiscal year as is now in vogue. We are required to consider what we will do for the next generation and generations after.
On a smaller scale, we have each been helped at one time or another. Someone stopped and gave us directions when we were lost, helped us change a tire, helped us get our car out of the mud or snow. There is the story in Genesis of the ish, the man, who directed Joseph to find his brothers when he was lost. We all have had such an encounter and, I expect, we have been the helpful person.
When we look to lay a foundation for the constructions of a future generation or when we stop to help a stranger, we are acting as G-D’s agents. We are, in the language of R. Harold M. Schulweis, actualizing the predicates of G-Dliness. We are making G-D a real, active force in the world precisely by acting as G-D’s agents.
Let us not forget the grand and absolute reliance we have on The Holy One for our very existence. But let us remember the debt we owe to our fellow human beings, from our neighbors to the visionaries and laborers of previous generations. In recognizing that debt, may we be moved to repay it by acting as Holy agents, acting for G-D with our own acts of stewardship and foresight and with everyday acts of service and kindness to the souls we encounter every day.
Politics, Prejudices, and Hungry Dogs
It was a cold and drizzling Easter Sunday morning, early just before the sun rises, in rural northern Kentucky. I was assisting the local Methodist pastor in leading the community Sunrise Easter Service.
Rev. Davenport decided to serve Communion to everyone in attendance at the conclusion of his devotional. He had with him a freshly baked loaf of bread, a chalice of grape juice, and a small fire around which we gathered to keep warm.
As Rev. Davenport read from the Scriptures, a mangy, stray dog started sniffing around all of us; Rev. Davenport never noticed as the dog came right up behind him and me … but I saw the dog grab that freshly baked loaf of bread in his jaws and run off with it.
Didn’t even leave any crumbs for us, the children of God. The whole loaf – the Body of Christ – literally was wasted on the dogs that day.
Jesus talks about wasting good stuff on dogs. In one place he says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.” (Matthew 7:6). Later, a Canaanite woman asks Jesus for help, and Jesus replies, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He goes on to suggest that choosing to help the woman would be like throwing the children’s food to the dogs (see Matthew 15:21-28).
“Dogs” was an easily recognizable term often used to describe a people considered undesirable, lesser than, unworthy.
Clarence Jordan, when translating the gospels into the American South of the mid-1900s, has a black woman come to Jesus, and Jesus says, “I was sent only to needy white people”; hence he shouldn’t throw the children’s food to the puppies.
Culture and politics sure can influence how we view one another … even us as people of faith.
Listen to our conversations about immigration; we are really good at classifying groups of people which help us speak of each other in terms of categories rather than as humans.
A plane wreck in 1948, and its radio and newspaper coverage which identified the flight crew and the security guard, and then clumped the Mexican migrant farm workers which were being flown back to Mexico simply as “deportees,” become a powerful song by Woody Guthrie as a symbol of the way categories can desensitize us to the humanness of others.
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees.”
Maybe we would do well to stop trying to analyze and dissect and explain to our satisfaction why Jesus would compare the woman in this story to dogs, but see the whole picture in its context.
Jesus spoke to her in what was completely acceptable terms for his culture, among his followers and disciples who probably would have called her much worse. He acknowledges their prejudices and their sense of superiority in his words to her, then shocks them all by acting on behalf of, well, “the dog.”
Most of us in the American Church today will not use words to clump entire groups of people into a category as a way of dehumanizing them. Most of us today will not use words like “nigger,” “white trash,” “spic,” “gook,” “towelhead,” “faggot,” or “illegal immigrant” to help us cloud the human faces staring back at us. Or, do you object that the term ___ (you fill in the blank) was included in this offensive list?
How soon we forget that despite our well-publicized adoration of Jesus, in Matthew’s story we are not the disciples or the other followers of Jesus, but most of us are the Canaanite woman. We are the cultural “dogs.” In this context, when Jesus speaks of not giving what is holy to the dogs and wasting the children’s food on the dogs, he’s not teaching us to be careful with whom we share our grace and our resources; he’s playing into the cultural prejudices of his followers and then is going to shock them by sharing grace and resources with us.
And, like the dog on Easter morning, we now find that we have not the crumbs, but the whole loaf of God’s grace.
It’s election season again, which means candidates will be trying to publicly love Jesus more than the next candidate, and so many Christians in the US (at least in the white Protestant church of which I am a part) are more than eager to indulge in self-righteous displays on behalf of our favorite candidate.
But listen to how we categorize people. Pay attention to how we see fewer human faces and more groupings of undesirable objects. Remember that we have been the cultural dogs that received holy grace from Jesus. And may we then extend the same grace and resources to those deemed “dogs” in our culture today. For Jesus freely gives to these “dogs” the whole loaf of Communion Bread – His very Body – in spite of what our politics and our cultural prejudices demand.
Learn more about Bert Montgomery at his website.
Searching for a New Answer
This is a mean season in Walnut Hills. Jobs are scarce. Government programs are tightening their belts. Groceries are running out. Rents are due. People are scared.
On every busy corner around here, somebody is holding up a sign asking for help. It used to be you knew those folks were junkies, but these days you don’t need a habit to be that desperate. Every non-expatriate family in our fellowship is in some kind of trouble.
Last night I had to tell Diana’s not-yet-twenty-year-old daughter that she can’t keep staying with her mom because, if she gets caught, HUD will throw them both out of the cheap-but-highly-regulated apartment we rent to keep Diana off the street. We found her a place, but it won’t last long unless she finds work, and the felony on her record makes that a long shot, even with our help.
Dena called a few days before that, crying that she had nothing to feed her four kids until their food stamps arrived. I know she and her husband smoke and drink and manage their money worse than Bernie Madoff on his worst day, but hungry kids are hungry kids. Anyway, the food I took over doesn’t change the fact that they are four months behind on their rent.
I could go on, but you get the picture. In a world where almost everyone is one check away from homeless, it feels like all the checks have stopped at once. Nobody here has any savings. Nobody has any rich family members to bail them out. Unskilled, unhealthy, and often unemployable, these people weren’t making it very well even when times were good. Now they’re not making it at all.
The question, of course, is what are the rest of us to do?
Loaning money to people who can never pay it back doesn’t work, but standing by while they get evicted ends friendships almost as surely. Taking people into our homes sounds good, but only if those people are both willing and able to do what it takes to be independent again. In this neighborhood, in this economy, we need another answer.
Almost every day, somebody sends me an article about some new program that miraculously transforms inner-city nightmares like ours into dreams come true. When I look more closely, however, I find that those programs are expensive and only seem to work for the most highly-motivated poor people. They are beautiful experiments, but they aren’t scalable.
Almost every night, we expatriates here have a conversation about somebody we love who is in trouble. We take turns coming up with ideas and shooting them down: She doesn’t read well enough for that. He won’t show up. She can’t be on her feet more that an hour. Her mom won’t help. He’s drinking again. They’ll spend the money on something else.
Over and over, we try to work out problems that have no solutions. Over and over, we end up right back where we started; living and eating, laughing and crying, walking and talking together with dear people we can almost never really help. We have jobs and cars and houses and bank accounts, and most of us believe in God, but none of it really matters when it comes to making a difference in this place.
I’m not trying to bum you out. Believe it or not, I’m trying to draw you in. I figure that if enough of us lie awake wondering what to do for the rest of us, then maybe one of us will find a new answer after all.
In the meantime, especially during this mean season, God help us all.
Bart
PS For those of you wondering, I love my new job. After six years in Walnut Hills, peace in the Middle East actually seems quite doable to me! I spent two amazing weeks in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan last month, but right now my focus is on inspiring good people – people like you – to organize Abrahamic 9/11 Walks in their own neighborhoods all over the world. Think about it: Wouldn’t it be great if 9/11 became a day for Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, and everyone else to step over boundaries and walk kindly with ‘the other’? If you want to help, let me know!
Bart Campolo ministers through The Walnut Hills Fellowship in Cincinnati, Ohio. This article is reprinted with permission from his blog, which you can read here.
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