Unseemly Gloating

Understanding and praying the imprecatory (cursing) Psalms is a continuously challenging conundrum. With so many of them, rarely a day goes by that I am not confronted by discerning what I need to engage or release (5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 69, 79, 83, 94, 109, 137, 139, 143). They are rarely used in worship or devotional literature. The unsuspecting reader who is accustomed to the pretty Psalms (or pretty excerpts) and sets about to read them all in search of more such inspiration may be dismayed to find the two-thirds of the Psalms (yes 100 out of 150) are complaints and laments. Unprepared readers may cringe at the vivid curses of the imprecatory Psalms and skip over them. Some scholarly commentators even suggest they are inappropriate for Christians. However, taking cues from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eugene Peterson, and Walter Brueggemann, I have found they help me be honest with God about my most uncomfortable reactions to what strike me as unconscionable attitudes, language, and behavior. Having honestly acknowledged my own emotions and attitudes to God, even if my sense of propriety compel me to keep them internal and not speak or act them out, I am then free to relinquish this to God to deal with me and my heart and the people with whom I am troubled. I find some of this same dynamic when I am reminded that Jesus explicitly directed me, as his disciple, to love my enemies (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-35, affirmed by Paul in Romans 12:17-21). My tendency is to tell myself that I have no enemies. Then I ponder who might consider me to be their enemy based on my theological or political perspectives. Then I have to recognize that my reactions to any number of people in public life who I don’t know but whose attitudes, language, and behavior I consider unconscionable betray that I am treating them as enemies in my heart.

All of this brings me to Psalm 58:10 which jumped out at me in my Psalm prayers this morning in light of yesterday’s news of the “elimination” of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.

Does this give permission, maybe even encouragement, for gloating over the elimination of someone who has caused so much suffering and grief as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi certainly has? His death will be a further setback for ISIS that has been in retreat, but ISIS will not be eliminated, and a new leader will emerge. Bathing feet in blood is gruesome but maybe no more so than collecting exploded body parts of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his wife, and their children. Some sense of relief is probably appropriate, but who dares to claim to be righteous enough for rejoicing? Does the Psalm have an ironic tone to prompt this sort of ambiguous pondering? Does it truly celebrate vengeance? Or is it a moral mirror that compels us to recognize our own unseemly gloating?

Addendum: Reflecting on this today has reminded me of a related observation I have made since the “war on terrorism” was declared in 2001. Now 18 years later, even what “war on terrorism” means and what it seeks to accomplish remains elusive. It seems to me that terrorism is a method used my many causes for many centuries. It is a tool of both a white supremacist mass shooter and an Islamist suicide bomber. It also seems to me that by attempting to attack the method we are missing the underlying forces that drive terrorism of all sorts. My personal sense is that we will not effectively adddress terrorism, regardless of the cause that deploys it, until we understand why what seems reprehensible to us seems reasonable to those whom we neither know nor comprehend. Labeling someone who uses terrorism as evil or mentally ill may assure us that “we are not like them,” but it is tacit acceptance that nothing can be done to limit terrorism.I am not at all suggesting any approval of any of the causes that give rise to terrorism. Only that as long as we address only the method, we do not deal with what drives people to adopt it.

Not Just Our Storm

When we lived in Dallas we shopped at ate at some of the businesses and restaurants at the intersection of Royal and Preston where this picture was taken.

Last Sunday’s storm in Dallas, Texas has been on my mind this week. After all, we lived there for 17 years and have a son who still lives there, and those tornados passed just a few blocks from our former home. Also this week my lectio divina that started with the lectionary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures in Joel 2:23-32 prompted me to read Joel’s entire prophecy. The imagery of mingled disaster and hope resonated with the images of Texas destruction in on the news and gratitude for no fatalities and only a few minor injuries.

As the weather service released its analysis, they identified 9 maybe 10 tornados that left a trail of destruction for many miles. As I have reflected on Joel and world news this week, the storm in Dallas seems an apt metaphor for the storm brewing in our world. Regardless of your opinion about the politics surrounding President Trump, including but not limited to the impeachment investigation, this is but one of many tornados of chaos in our world right now. Canada's Justin Trudeau rejected a coalition in favor of a minority government. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition, the first such failure in Israeli history, so Benny Gantz is tasked with the perhaps impossible task of forming coalition government. Brexit has Great Britain and Prime Minister Boris Johnson floundering and immobile. Russia, Turkey, and Syria (with US complicity) have upended the balances of power in the Middle East and positioned the Kurds for genocide. China seems baffled by how to manage the popular, democratic uprising in Hong Kong. Chile has plunged into violent political unrest. I know more whirlwinds are swirling out there. For us in the US to think of the storm around President Trump as the only or most important tornado would be a most malignant form of “American exceptionalism.”

I suppose wanting to identify a single, simple solution – or at least explanation – of these storms is natural. However, the mingling of images of disaster and hope in Joel rightly points to a much more nuanced and complex perspective. Yes, God is present and active through both disaster and hope, but not that God will magically make it alright for us. Nor do I believe that shreds of the apocalyptic literature of the Bible can or should be picked apart and reassembled to invent a kind of Ouija so Christians can forecast events, prompting a perverse cheering the evils of disaster as a way of accelerating the arrival of hope.

Jesus taught his followers to pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10) He also said that the Kingdom of God is among you. (Luke 17:21) Now I know examining what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God has prompted all kinds of theological dancing around a variety of understandings. I don’t think it is just my Anabaptist proclivities that call me to prayerfully and courageously explore how to live in the already of the Kingdom of God, fully aware that its fullness has not yet arrived (and relinquishing personal imagining of how I want it to arrive). When Jesus spoke of “the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:1-4; 24; Luke 17:20-37) he seemed to be describing what to expect as we live this already when the not yet is distant and may seem impossible.

I am also aware of the limitations of human language that cloud the expression “Kingdom of God” with hierarchal and sexist implications. I do typically use “Reign of God,” but for my present reflections “Kingdom of God” seems to me to work a little better. In any case, I don’t want the fussing about language in our time to deter us from struggling with how to live by faith as Jesus’ followers in the storms of our time.

 So I come back to the metaphor of Sunday’s storm in Dallas alongside the mix of disaster and hope in Joel (and elsewhere in biblical eschatology). I am cautioned against a narrow, provincial outlook that sees the storms in terms of me and my community. I am cautioned against dismissing the storms that seem far from me as isolated and disconnected from me and my community. I am cautioned against invoking any one, simplistic political or religious viewpoint as either explaining or disarming the storms. I am cautioned against giving up on living the already of  the Kingdom of God by postponing it to a remote not yet.

Self-humbling in Order to be Exalted is an Oxymoron

This line at the end of the lectionary Gospel for next Sunday (October 27, 2019) has arrested my attention in my lectio divina this week. I have wrestled with how easy I find thinking of my intended humility in terms of spiritual superiority. “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” -Luke 18:14

Yet, we live in a time in which hubris, pride, ego, and self-elevation are praised and promoted. I find these words from Thomas Merton to be a helpful antidote to my seeking to recognize the presence and activity of Christ in the very ordinary routines of my present life of caring for my wife, Candy, on her Alzheimer’s journey and her 92 year old, weakening father (who moved from Minnesota to a mile and a half from us just so we could care for him on this last leg of his life journey).

“It is supreme humility to see that ordinary life, embraced with perfect faith, can be more saintly and more supernatural than a spectacular ascetical career. Such humility dares to be ordinary, and that is something beyond the reach of spiritual pride. Pride always longs to be unusual. Humility not so. Humility finds all its peace in hope, knowing that Christ must come again to elevate and transfigure ordinary things and fill them with His glory.”
-Thomas Merton 1915-1968
No Man Is An Island

Suzanne Guthrie’s meditations for this week in Edge of Enclosure revolve around the ancient practice of the Jesus Prayer. I have used the Jesus Prayer (regularly but not exclusively) for well over 25 years, and her description of merging it with breathing matches my own experience. “Breathe in the words Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. And breathe out have mercy on me, a sinner.  … Breathe in the divine and breathe out that which is not yet divine.” I encourage reflective reading of her entire meditation on this passage at http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/proper25c.html

I do not want to turn this into a political diatribe, but I must confess I have been struggling with balancing my ordinary life caring for Candy and her Dad with responding to what seems to me to be a storm brewing not just for the US and the world but in what I see as a “time of trial” for the Church from which Jesus taught us to pray to be delivered. (Matthew  6:13 “Do not bring us to the time of trial.” NRSV). I am recognizing that some of my urge to speak out and even become active in responding to this storm may well be an inclination to exalt myself, and refraining not just from speaking and acting but from anxiety about this storm may be my path of humiliation.

I still believe that if Richard Nixon had come forward with a humble acknowledgement of a grave mistake in the Watergate affair he could have finished his presidency and been remembered as the one brought the Vietnam War to a conclusion, instead of being remembered by having “…gate” attached to a multitude of political scandals for the past 45 years. In that same vein, imagine the difference for public and political responses if instead of blaming the media and democrats for changing the venue for the G-7 from the Trump National Doral Golf Club (especially now that it has been reported that the change may have come in response to a call from republicans, including identified conservatives) Donald Trump had said, “I made a mistake with that selection. I should not be receiving benefit from something so important nationally and globally.” While I know that making these observations will inevitably be interpreted as political, I want to see them as connecting the impact of meditating on Jesus’ parable with the real events with which we live, as well as with my personal pursuit of pure humility. I long for the spiritual power of legitimate exaltation that rises from authentic humility.

Muzzle My Mouth

For at least a year I have struggled with my urge to comment on distressing events, knowing that my voice adds little and changes no one, and I need inner calm to care for my wife and her dad. Thus my personal prayer this morning comes from Psalm 39:1-3,9; 69:6.

I said, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue; I will keep a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.” I was silent and still; I held my peace to no avail; my distress grew worse, my heart became hot within me. While I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: ... I am silent; I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it.

…

Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me, O Lord God of hosts; do not let those who seek you be dishonored because of me, O God of Israel.

Seeking Welfare in Exile

Jeremiah 29:7 Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Peaceable Kingdom - Edward Hicks (1780-1849)

This line from the lectionary reading for next Sunday (October 13, 2019) from the Hebrew Scripture is eloquently instructive as I aspire to faithfully follow Jesus when so much around me is going the opposite direction. For my adult life I have recognized that my citizenship in the country where I happen to reside is at most secondary to my total, unreserved allegiance to the Reign of God. Hebrews 11:9-10 has been my guiding metaphor for over half a century. “By faith [Abraham] stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” I have lived in tents, recognizing that I am a sojourner and stranger in a foreign land. That has enabled me to be portable, moving from California to Minnesota, to Illinois, to New Jersey (with a stop in Ontario), to Wisconsin, to Texas (with a stop in Oklahoma), and now back to Wisconsin for what I expect will be our last encampment until departing for the city with foundations.

Through those years that has enabled me to explore the creative tension between withdrawing from this foreign land, knowing it is not my home, and the pressures to pledge my allegiance to the country in which I reside. I have been reminded again by Jeremiah 29:7 that on my sojourn here I am to seek the welfare of the city/country of my exile. For me that means advocating , supporting, and participating in peace and justice, righteousness and compassionate mercy as signs of the Reign of God. They may be hidden, fleeting, and incomplete, but wherever the light of the Reign of God shines (or even glows dimly) contributes to the welfare of the city/country of my exile.

As I have begun my lectio divina for this week on the lectionary passages to be read on Sunday, my eye dropped down the page from the assigned reading about Jesus cleansing the ten lepers to Luke 17:20-21 which I think also speak to my reflections on seeking the welfare of the city/country of my exile where Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” I know that in the following paragraph, Jesus spoke about what to, nor not to, watch for in the unfolding of the climax of human history. I believe that Jesus emphasized the unexpected as a cautionary tale about not trying to plot out how certain signs of a schedule may or may not be in current events. To the consternation of my dispensationalist friends, I also suspect that with the comparison to Noah, the “one will be taken, the other left,” is not a reference to an anticipated “rapture” of the redeemed but to the judgment of those who went through life without observing the kingdom of God among them.

I only slightly apologize for this discursive wandering from my main point. Recognizing the kingdom of God that is among us is essential to seeking the welfare of the city/country of my exile. I am not looking for the Reign of God in any temporal human institution: not this country, not “Christendom,” not even the Church. (Though I do believe the Church has a responsibility and opportunity to be a sort of frontier outpost of the Reign of God inviting people into a community of those who seek to live as its citizens even as they are exiles wherever they reside.) So part of the marvelous mystery of the kingdom of God among us is that wherever its priorities of peace and justice, righteousness and compassionate mercy are present, the Reign of God is alive and at work, even if brought about by those who do not acknowledge Christ or even God.

When I pray, as Jesus taught, “your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven,” I am seeking the welfare of the city/country were I reside, even as I acknowledge I am a stranger and sojourner here.