sermon from the pit

[lady gaga, jesus, and little monsters]

Richard Beck on his blog has an excellent post about Lady Gaga and how she embodies the gospel:

In short, in this song [Bad Kid] Gaga is trying to get on the inside of these "monsters," to speak to their brokenness, sadness, loneliness and alienation. To society these are "bad kids." But Gaga sings to them "You're still good to me."

And I ask you, doesn't that sound a whole lot like Jesus?

Gaga calls out to the little monsters. And Jesus eats with tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes.

...

This is what I think. I think every Christ-following church should start talking to their youth groups, saying unambiguously: We want you to be a wall of protection for kids like Jamey. Seek out and protect--emotionally and socially--every weird, weak, nerdy, lonely, queer kid at your school. We don't care if they are a goth, or a druggy, or a queer. Doesn't matter. Protect these kids. Churches should train their youth groups to be angels of protection, teaching them to find these kids and say, "Hey, I love you. Jesus loves you. So no one's going to bully you. Not on my watch. Come sit with me at lunch." That's what I think. I think every Christ-following church should start Guardian Angel programs like this, teaching their kids to stick up for kids like Jamey. Not with violence. But with welcome and solidarity. Because it's hard to bully a group. So let's welcome these kids into a halo of protection and friendship.

From The Gospel according to Lady Gaga by Richard Beck. Reading the entire post is recommended!

What a difference it would make for today's youth, if churches encouraged and equipped their young people in this way! What a challenge to be outwardly-focused in a way that is concrete and desperately needed.

[hitler’s sweater]

From Richard Beck's book, unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. Regarding a study which (put briefly) investigated whether people would be willing to put on a sweater purportedly worn by Hitler:

What studies like this reveal is that people tend to think about evil as it if were a virus, a disease, or a contagion. Evil is an object that can seep out of Hitler, into a sweater, and, by implication, into you if you try the sweater on. Evil is sticky and contagious. So we stay away.

What we see in this example is how disgust psychology regulates how we reason about and experience aspects of the moral universe. Disgust psychology prompts us to think about evil as if it were a virus or polluting object. When we do this the logic of contamination is imported into moral discourse and judgment. For example, as noted earlier, we begin to worry about contact. In the domain of food aversion contact with a polluting object is a legitimate concern. But fears concerning contact might not be appropriate or logical in dealing with moral issues or social groups. Worse, a fear of contact might promote antisocial behavior (e.g., social exclusion) on our part.

The example of Hitler might sound extreme, but consider another study done by Paul Rozin, Maureen Markwith, and Clark McCauley. In this study the researchers observed that many people don’t want to wear sweaters previously owned by homosexual persons, or even lie down in the same hotel bed if a homosexual person was the previous night’s occupant. In short, just about any behavior judged to be sin could active disgust psychology, subsequently importing contamination logic (e.g., contact fears) into the life of the church.

Beck, pp. 25-26.

man's best friend

Once in a while, Pastor Stickman's resistance to wearing his reading glasses does him good.

And further to dog's love for us, the Archbishop of Canterbury has asked,

What difference would it make if I believed I am held in a wholly loving gaze which saw all my surface accidents and arrangements, all my inner habits and inheritances, all my anxieties and arrogances, all my history, and yet loved me wholly with an utterly free, utterly selfless love? And what difference would it make if I let myself believe that each person around me is loved and held in the same overwhelming, loving gaze, and that this love made no distinctions of race, religion, age, innocence, strength or beauty?

(as quoted in a sermon by Bishop Jane on March 4, 2012).

And that is what dog is like, loving us with an utterly free, utterly selfless love, no matter what, and wanting us to do the same for others.

trump

Why is it that the "gay = sin" card so often trumps the "love your neighbour as yourself" card?

I realize that some people believe "gay = sin" is Biblical, and others do not. The point here is that, for those who do believe it, why do they so often stop believing in love? Why do they find it so easy to treat people in ways which are opposite to the way of Jesus?

Why, when faced with ideas that seem contradictory, do we find it hard to choose love?

[in or out]

I couldn't resist posting this image from www.postsecret.com (week of January 21/12). It illustrates how we sometimes judge people based on the silliest things.

FYI
Postsecret.com is a website to which people send their secrets on postcards. Each week, a selection of postcards is shown online. The postcards cover a wide range of topics and emotions. Richard Beck has written about postsecret.com on his blog, particularly from his perspective as a research psychologist. On his first post on the topic, Beck says,

No doubt, many with find PostSecret odd, exhibitionistic, ill, and voyeuristic. I think these adjectives do apply. But at its core I think PostSecret has touched a nerve and is meeting a need. A need for authenticity and acceptance that the church has failed to address.

defining anti-gay

The pastor and church doesn't treat lgbt people the same as straight people, yet claims to not be anti-gay. Do you agree? Does it matter how lgbt members of the congregation feel about this?

Who defines anti-gay — the powerful or the powerless? The privileged or the marginalized?

Compare this cartoon with the 'defining hate' cartoon — there it is pretty obvious that we wouldn't and shouldn't let the slave owner decide whether he is being hateful toward his slaves. Is it as easy to decide with this cartoon? While the overall situations are not parallel, do the same principles apply in terms of the minority being given a voice and the right to say whether they feel those in power are against them?

defining hate

Would you believe the slave owner who says that he does not hate his slaves? Would you even need to ask the slaves their opinion on this question? Or would you say that owning someone is inherently hateful regardless of whether you "take good care of them" or not?

Who defines hate - the powerless or the powerful?

[psychological non-starters]

From Richard Beck's book, unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality

In sum, the antagonism between mercy and sacrifice is psychological in nature. Our primitive understandings of both love and purity are regulated by psychological dynamics that are often incompatible. Take, for example, a popular recommendation from my childhood years. I was often told that I should “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” Theologically, to my young mind (and, apparently, to the adults who shared it with me), this formulation seemed clear and straight-forward. However, psychologically speaking, this recommendation was extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to put into practice. As any self-reflective person knows, empathy and moral outrage tend to function at cross-purposes. In fact, some religious communities resist empathy, as any softness toward or solidarity with “sinners” attenuates the moral fury a group can muster. Conversely, it is extraordinarily difficult to “love the sinner” –to respond to people tenderly, empathically, and mercifully—when you are full of moral outrage over their behavior. Consider how many churches react to the homosexual community or to young women considering an abortion. How well do churches manage the balance between outrage and empathy in those cases? In short, theological or spiritual recommendations aimed at reconciling the competing demands of mercy and sacrifice might be psychological non-starters.

Beck, p. 3

After drawing numerous cartoons which comment on the idea of "love the sinner, hate the sin," I found Beck's take on this from a psychological perspective very interesting. And it's pretty obvious that most churches who believe this infamous saying aren't doing a good job of following it.

opposites

And how can we encourage one another to be more like the Jesus we read about in the Gospels?

historical hiccup

History repeats. With the occasional hiccup, the extraordinary disruption that changes everything, but unfortunately not everyone....

[unclean: intro]

After reading Exclusion and Embrace by Volf, I heard about Richard Beck’s book unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. Not only does he refer to Volf frequently, but his book is a fascinating look at the very real psychology which influences exclusion and embrace. A key Bible passage he references is Matthew 9, where Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees confront Jesus’ disciples about his behavior and he replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (verse 12).

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Echoing Hosea, Jesus defends his embrace of the “unclean” in the Gospel of Matthew, seeming to privilege the prophetic call to justice over the Levitical pursuit of purity. And yet, as missional faith communities are well aware, the tensions and conflicts between holiness and mercy are not so easily resolved. At every turn, it seems that the psychological pull of purity and holiness tempts the church into practices of social exclusion and a Gnostic flight from “the world” into a “too spiritual” spirituality. In an unprecedented fusion of psychological science and theological scholarship, Richard Beck describes the pernicious (and largely unnoticed) effects of the psychology of purity upon the life and mission of the church.
          (from the back cover). 

I will be posting some quotes from his book that relate the themes on this blog. They will be labeled quotes from beck.

If you are interested in reading the book yourself, here’s the reference:
unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality
Richard Beck (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011)

Jamie Arpin-Ricci has interviewed Richard about the book. Read the interview at missional.ca

enlightning

I doubt that when making his point, Pastor Stickman expected to have it illustrated so immediately or so aptly. Not only is god taking care of the sin, but the pastor is not exempted from being included as one of the sinners who should be loved.

Granted, perhaps his view of how god takes care of sin has been heavily influenced by Ananias and Sapphira (see Acts 5) and needs some adjusting to reflect more of the example of Jesus.

even them

For those of you whose understanding or use of the Greek letter lambda is related to physics, biology, ecology, criminology or some other scientific field, here's an additional use which pertains to this cartoon:

According to Wikipedia, "The lambda was selected as a symbol by the Gay Activists Alliance of New York in 1970, and declared the international symbol for gay and lesbian rights by the International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1974." And thus, it is not uncommon to find it in the names of gay conferences, businesses, etc. And, ironically, for those of you who are Anglican, it means that the name of the conference in the cartoon is quite close to the Lambeth Conference where bishops of the Anglican Communion are convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

p.s. this is not pastor stickman. Note the conference sign, the stand is at the side instead of at the center (though pastor stickman may occasionally have the stand at the side if he's using powerpoint), and there are no steps up to the stage

[the Eucharist]

From Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace:

Inscribed on the very heart of God’s grace is the rule that we can be its recipients only if we do not resist being made into its agents; what happens to us must be done by us. Having been embraced by God, we must make space for others in ourselves and invite them in – even our enemies. This is what we enact as we celebrate the Eucharist. In receiving Christ’s broken body and spilled blood, we, in a sense, receive all those whom Christ received by suffering.

Volf, p. 129

Interesting. Though Volf frames it the other way around, this quote reminds me of the verses in Matthew 6 and Matthew 18 that speak about God forgiving us if we forgive those who sin against us:

"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6:15-16, NLT

love covers

Once in a while, Pastor Stickman gets it right, and this is one of those times.

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins". I Peter 4:8.

real men are from marks

The recent controversy about discipline at Mars Hill Church, which I inadvertantly touched on in a recent cartoon ten virgins, inspired this cartoon (the comments at the ten virgins post include links to the original blog posts which describe what happened). Mark Driscoll is their head pastor.

To be clear, I do not know Mark Driscoll's heart -- this cartoon is based on reading what he says and writes, and what others say about him. So I could be way off.... In any case, one could substitute various pastors' names for Mark's name as he's not the only one. Thankfully, many pastors do serve their congregations well.

[generous spaciousness]

What is generous spaciousness? While some people grasp this easily and others can find it confusing, it is a key term in the conversation about relating with one another in the context of gender or sexual identity differences. It applies equally to the broader context of how people can relate to one another in the context of differences in beliefs, history, experience, tradition, etc.

Generous spaciousness is a descriptive term that is used extensively by Wendy Gritter, executive director of New Direction Ministries whose blog, Bridging the Gap, is subtitled "nurturing generous spaciousness in the church." In a recent post, she addresses the question of what "generous spaciousness" is all about:

And that raises the first point about generous spaciousness: It is intended to describe the environment, climate, ethos within expressions of the Christian community as it pertains to engaging with gender and sexual minority persons. It is not a theological position statement. It is not about doctrinal boundaries. It is not about promoting particular positions.
We believe that such an environment is best nurtured from a series of postures:

• The posture of hospitality: all are unconditionally welcomed and invited into relationship
  
• The posture of humility: we all hold our own convictions deeply with the keen awareness that, “I could be wrong” given the reality that none of us has a perfect pipeline to God and all of us see through a glass dimly
  
• The posture of grace: I seek to have eyes to see the good fruit in another person’s life – particularly those with whom I may have particular disagreements; I expect the best, not the worst, of those I am in community with; I recognize that there will be times I am misunderstood and I determine to not get defensive or combative about it; I will do my best to not take offense and respond in the manner of Christ

Read the rest of the post for the second and third points, as well as examples of how this might apply in a Christian family, a church, and a Christian organization.

Bridging the Gap has another fifteen or so posts about generous spaciousness -- click here or click "generous spaciousness" in the labels list on Bridging the Gap.

Note: Wendy Gritter is writing a book on this topic, due out in May of 2014. Catch a glimpse of the cover here.

the first shall be last

texas

Really? LGBT people would also know them as the friendliest little church in Texas? Or is this just wishful thinking in the pastor's mind?

What does it mean to be gay-friendly? What kind of stickers do churches need on their front doors?

And how do you feel about adults addressing someone they don't know as "honey?"

[the view from there]

From Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace:

In The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel suggests that in order to know the world adequately we must “step outside of ourselves” and ask “what the world must be like from no point of view” (Nagel 1986, 62)…. Nagel concludes: “One must arrange somehow to see the world from nowhere and from here, and to live accordingly” (86). This seeing “from nowhere” and “from here” he calls “double vision.”

I suggest that we keep the double vision, but that, at least when it comes to knowing the social world, we replace “the view from nowhere” with “the view from there.” …

Seeing “from here comes naturally…. But what does it take to see “from there,” from the perspective of others? First, we step outside ourselves…. We examine what we consider to be the plain verities about others, willing to entertain the idea that these “verities” may be but so many ugly prejudices, bitter fruits of our imaginary fears or our sinister desires to dominate or exclude. We also observe our own images of ourselves, willing to detect layers of self-deceit that tell us exalted stories about ourselves and our history. To step outside means to distance ourselves for a moment from what is inside, ready for a surprise.  

….

Second, we cross a social boundary and move into the world of the other to inhabit it temporarily (MacIntyre 1993, 78). We open our ears to hear how others perceive themselves as well as how they perceive us. We use imagination to see why their perspective about themselves, about us, and about our common history, can be so plausible to them whereas it is implausible, profoundly strange, or even offensive to us….

Third, we take the other into our own world. We compare and contrast the view “from there” and the view “from here.” Not that we will necessarily reject the view “from here” and embrace the view “from there”; nor even that we will find some compromise between the two. These are two possible outcomes but other outcomes are possible too…. The only thing we must do as we take others into our world is to let their perspective stand next to ours and reflect on whether one or the other is right, or whether both are partly right and partly wrong.

Fourth, we repeat the process. Before the movement away from the self to the other and back starts, we inevitably possess explicit or implicit judgments about the rightness or wrongness of the view “from here” and the view “from there”; it would be both impossible and undesirable to suppress these judgments…. We can never presume that we have freed ourselves completely from distortions of others and deceptions about ourselves, that we possess “the truth.” Every understanding that we reach is forged from a limited perspective: it is a view “from here” about how things look “from here” and “from there.”

Volf, pp. 250-253 (selections)

small group

Words mean different things to different people. Sometimes we need to step into their heads to understand what is meant or, if all else fails, to ask them directly.

seek and destroy

This is usually not expressed so clearly, but it does happen. We identify the person with their sin instead of seeing their heart, and we seek to destroy them, in subtle or not so subtle ways. It could be the whispers behind their backs or the looks of disgust we cast in their direction. It could be less subtle, like standing outside an abortion clinic or at a gay parade, holding signs that label people.

Definitely some mixed messages here. The initial "so we love the sinner" gets completely neutralized / cancelled out by the idea that "hating the sin" is accomplished by identifying the source (namely, the sinner) and destroying it (him or her).

Would you read this differently?

[people of the second chance]

People of the Second Chance (overthrow judgment. liberate love) bills itself as "a global community of activists, imperfectionists and second chancers committed to unleashing radical grace everyday, in every moment, for everyone." They seem to be a "newer kid on the block", but have well-expressed mission and goals, and some interesting projects to show with more planned for the future.

They have just launched a new campaign called "Labels Lie: Don't Accept Them. Don't Use Them." Here's how they describe the campaign:

"The campaign’s focus is on being liberated from the prison of societies’ labels. We don’t have to live with the shame of what people have said about us. We don’t have to accept these statements as our true identity....

When we judge, label, diminish and criticize each other, this becomes the fuel for
shame and guilt to fester in our souls. A label says we are unworthy, flawed and unacceptable.

Sadly we live in a society driven by stereotyping, gossiping, labeling and blame…and it is destroying us. Words like ugly, stupid, adulterer, addict, illegal, failure, ex-con, slut, fag and other dehumanizing labels are thrown around with no regard for how they damage.

It is time to talk about shame and the toxic labels we believe about ourselves.

It is time to be liberated from the lies of labels and experience the powerful truth of who we really are…Loved…Worthy…Beautiful…Accepted. "

(from Mike Foster's introduction)

View entire set of Labels Lie posters

People of the Second Chance website

ten virgins

The words in the first panel of this cartoon come from a sermon I heard recently. It is the passage from Matthew 25 about the ten virgins and the bridegroom, and how some were ready and others were not.

The other two panels carry on to a possibly logical conclusion. Not one that I agree with, nor one that is in line with the ethic of Jesus, who seems to have spent much time with those who were excluded from the traditional religious circles.

getting along

"People are people so why should it be,
You and I should get along so awfully..."
(from "People are people" by Depeche Mode)

That is the question, isn't it.

[the self of the other matters more than my truth]

From Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace:

But what about those who in the name of truth oppress the weak? This brings us to the second implication of the encounter between Jesus, Caiaphas, and Pilate, which must always complement the first: the self of the other matters more than my truth. Though I must be ready to deny myself for the sake of the truth, I may not sacrifice the other at the altar of my truth. Jesus, who claimed to be the Truth, refused to use violence to “persuade” those who did not recognize his truth. The kingdom of truth he came to proclaim was the kingdom of freedom and therefore cannot rest on pillars of violence. Commitment to nonviolence must accompany commitment to truth otherwise commitment to truth will generate violence. The truth is a shield against the violence of the strong against the weak, I argued earlier. If the shield is not to turn into a deadly weapon, it must be held in a hand that refuses to do violence, I want to add here.

Volf, p. 272

hellooo

It's easy to "love" people from a distance. But do they feel the love?

 It's also easy to label people from a distance, a distance that lets us think that we (whoever we are) are somehow different, normal, better, right, a distance that hides our common humanity.

[flexible order and changing identities]

From Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace, discussing the prodigal son:

For the father, the priority of the relationship means not only a refusal to let the moral rules be the final authority regulating “exclusion” and “embrace” but also a refusal to construct his identity in isolation from his sons. He readjusts his identity along with the changing identities of his sons and thereby reconstructs their broken identities and relationships. He suffers being “un-fathered” by both, so that through this suffering he may regain both as his sons (if the older brother was persuaded) and help them rediscover each other as brothers. Refusing the alternatives of “self-constructed” vs. “imposed” identities, difference vs. domestication, he allows himself to be taken on the journey of their shifting identities so that he can continue to be their father and they, each other’s brothers. Why does he not lose himself on the journey? Because he is guided by indestructible love and supported by a flexible order.

Flexible order? Changing identities? The world of fixed rules and stable identities is the world of the older brother. The father destabilizes this world—and draws his older son’s anger upon himself. The father’s most basic commitment is not to rules and given identities but to his sons whose lives are too complex to be regulated by fixed rules and whose identities are too dynamic to be defined once for all. Yet he does not give up the rules and the order. Guided by the indestructible love which makes space in the self for others in their alterity, which invites the others who have transgressed to return, which creates hospitable conditions for their confession, and rejoices over their presence, the father keeps re-configuring the order without destroying it so as to maintain it as an order of embrace rather than exclusion.

Volf, p. 165

prodigal

Definitely not the story that Jesus told, and definitely not a picture of our heavenly Father who loves all his children.

opposite sunday

What we do and what we say are often not in sync, and it seems that "opposite Sunday" has made this apparent to this pastor. Not that the "unopposited" saying "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is a good saying to start with, but if a person says it and then is actively doing the opposite....

guess

A "Guess who's coming to dinner" program would be a lot more exciting if the invitations were handed out on street corners and in the inner-city, don't you think? Unfortunately, it's not any more likely to happen than "Back to church Sunday" attracting large masses of people. In this example, one can only assume that either the woman found the brochure lying around somewhere, or that a very adventurous parishioner handed some out in a red-light district.

Today's reading: Matthew 22: 1 - 14.

Background for those who are not part of this particular church sub-culture phenomenon: some churches hold a "Guess who's coming to dinner" event. Everyone interested signs up. The organizer makes groups comprised of four individuals or couples, and chooses one host from each group. The host only knows that three other sets of people will be coming over for dinner, but not who they are. The other three sets of people only know whose house they will be going to, but not who the other invitees are. After the first dinner where they all meet, each couple takes a turn hosting during the following three weeks.

[sin as exclusion]

From Miroslav Volf's book Exclusion and Embrace:

An advantage of conceiving sin as the practice of exclusion is that it names as sin what often passes as virtue, especially in religious circles. In the Palestine of Jesus’ day, “sinners” were not simply “the wicked” who were therefore religiously bankrupt (so Sanders 1985), but also social outcasts, people who practiced despised trades, Gentiles and Samaritans, those who failed to keep the Law as interpreted by a particular sect (Dunn 1988, 276-80). A “righteous” person had to separate herself from the latter; their presence defiled because they were defiled. Jesus’ table fellowship with “tax collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:15-17), a fellowship that indisputably belonged to the central features of his ministry, offset this conception of sin. Since he who was innocent, sinless, and fully within God’s camp transgressed social boundaries that excluded the outcasts, these boundaries themselves were evil, sinful, and outside God’s will (Neyrey 1988, 79). By embracing the “outcast,” Jesus underscored the “sinfulness” of the persons and systems that cast them out.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude from Jesus’ compassion toward those who transgressed social boundaries that his mission was merely to demask the mechanisms that created “sinners” by falsely ascribing sinfulness to those who were considered socially unacceptable (pace Borg 1994, 46-61). He was no prophet of “inclusion” (with Johnson 1996, 43f.), for whom the chief virtue was acceptance and the cardinal vice intolerance. Instead, he was the bringer of “grace,” who not only scandalously included “anyone” in the fellowship of “open commensality” (Crossan 1991, 261-64; Crossan 1994, 66-70), but made the “intolerant” demand of repentance and the “condescending” offer of forgiveness (Mark 1:15; 2:15-17). The mission of Jesus consisted not simply in re-naming the behavior that was falsely labeled “sinful” but also in re-making the people who have actually sinned or suffered misfortune. The double strategy of re-naming and re-making, rooted in the commitment to both the outcast and the sinner, to the victim and the perpetrator, is the proper background against which an adequate notion of sin as exclusion can emerge.

Volf, pp. 72-73

defense of marriage

It's been said that what we value is seen less by our words and more by what we spend our time, energy and resources on. If that's the case, one might wonder how much we as Christians really value marriage.

Both divorce and common-law relationships are counter to the traditional Christian understanding of marriage, yet I do not see anyone engaging in protests or political action to have those revoked or cancelled. Yet when gay and lesbian people want to enter into committed marriage relationships with their partners, straight conservative Christians are expending enormous amounts of energy to stop them.

So do Christians value marriage? Really??

Perhaps some Christians just value heterosexuality and the privilege that comes with it, including the privilege of promoting marriage but having the option to get out of it. That's a convenience many do not want to give up, considering that divorce rates are generally as high among Christians as they are among those of other faiths.

Or perhaps, rather than being about valuing marriage or heterosexuality per se, this is about conformity and order and power, and thus some devalue and castigate those who are different from themselves – men and women who are equally loved by our heavenly Father and who have other beliefs, views, interests, attractions.

n.b. I am not a historian, and do not know how many objections Christians had to the legalization of divorce and the establishment of common law status and benefits, at the time that these were initially happening. I am commenting here on the current reality of what I see taking place in North America.