Friday, September 26, 2008

October 5--No Other Gods


Lectionary focus for this week:

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

(Additional texts: Psalm 19, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46)

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2).


Let’s get real. We just can’t seem to get it right, can we?

The very first of the Ten Commandments, the very first of the many commandments throughout the Book of Exodus, the very first commitment of any believer in the biblical tradition: put absolutely nothing in a higher place than God.

We just can’t seem to get it right, can we?

Of course, for the ancient Israelites not getting it right meant worshipping other tribal gods in the midst of a polytheist culture. But it also meant ignoring the widow and the orphan. It meant cheating in the marketplace and seeking wealth for some but not for all. It meant forgetting their desperate origins and the god who had led them out of slavery and into freedom. It meant replacing that god with all that glittered and thrilled but that could not ever finally save them.

Not so terribly different than we are, are they? Here we are so many thousands of years later, still worshipping the stock market or a political party or job security or physical beauty. Still holding on to anything that we can shore up to make our lives stable and to keep uncertainty at bay. Still doing all of this at the expense of the most vulnerable, the most uncertain, the most unstable. Still doing all of this at the expense of God.

The past several weeks have been nothing if not a stark condemnation of our national failing of the first commandment, regardless of our religious tradition or lack thereof. Even those of us who call ourselves “progressive” Christians, even those of us who have advocated all along for economic justice, even those of us who condemn “socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor” . . . we still, if we are honest, worship the god of security and control. We, too, want stability and prosperity we can depend on, even if we would be sure to declare such security as the equal opportunity for all. We still want our retirement plans and our health care and our out-of-season fruits and vegetables from the local grocer. What would happen if we really—and I mean really –put absolutely nothing higher than God?


This may sound overly pedantic, but this economic crisis we find ourselves in—and my personal reaction to it (panic)—has actually led me to reflect linguistically on the very name of God used by the ancient Israelites as it is recorded in the First Commandment. This God we are to place before all other gods is named with four Hebrew letters: YHWH.

YHWH is translated as LORD in most modern texts, but in its Hebrew form, YHWH is the unpronounceable, the mysterious, the holy. Because these letters are related to the Hebrew verb “to be,” modern theologians have declared YHWH as the “ground of our being” or as “the God who is.” In this interpretation, the God we are to worship before all other gods is ultimately indefinable--a dynamic mystery who will be whatever it will be, regardless of our human inability to make sense of it.


This is not good news in the midst of an economic crisis! The God we are to put before all other gods, the God to whom we make our highest commitment, the God whom we are to love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is an indefinable, dynamic mystery that we are not allowed to make any sense of? No wonder we just can’t seem to get it right!

At least the stock market has a number I can watch go up and down, at least a political party has a platform I can read and debate, at least the job has a paycheck I can deposit, at least the drugstore has cosmetics I can lather all over my face. These things make sense. They make me feel secure. A mysterious God with an unpronounceable name who refuses to be defined? Well, we’ve got more than enough uncertainty in our lives already, thank you very much. Why make it our highest priority!


But herein lies the paradox, at least in my view. It is this indefinable, dynamic, eternal existence that will in fact last forever. It is, in the end, the only thing that will last forever.

It is our financial markets and political parties and jobs and bodies that ultimately will fade, no matter how hard we try to fix them.

When we can put that truth before all others, when we can put that God before all others, when we can recognize that our security is fleeting and our control is ephemeral, only then can the ethics of our relationships with one another and ourselves—including our efforts at economic justice—fall faithfully into place.

And that is what the Ten Commandments are all about. Trusting only in this indefinable, dynamic, eternal existence so that we can stop manipulating the sky and the water and the earth into our own image and instead exercise faithful stewardship as caretakers of God’s abundance (Ex 20:4, modern interpretation). Trusting in this indefinable, dynamic and eternal existence so that we can practice a life-giving balance of work and rest, rather than panicking over what remains to be done or slipping into the sloth of believing our labor doesn’t matter (Ex 20:8-11). Trusting in this indefinable, dynamic and eternal existence so that we can honor the gift of human companions and seek their good, rather than treat them with contempt (Ex 20:12-17). Trusting in this indefinable, dynamic and eternal existence so that we can repent of ever misusing its name and pray for the grace to continue in trust (Ex 20:7).


It is so very hard to trust, so very hard to accept that the uncertainty we fear is, in fact, the divine stability. That the mystery we avoid is, in fact, divine truth. That the existence we worship is intangible, but the present reality is fleeting.

It is, however, the deepest spiritual truth . . . and one that we can also find comforting in these difficult times. This crisis, too, will not last forever. This moment, too, is not eternal. God is dynamic and indefinable, not confined to our fears, not pinned down by our panic. God can make all things new, and God is doing so in this very moment. God is still with us, being who God is, leading us from slavery to freedom, challenging us to live faithfully with one another. We can still turn from the false gods of security and power. We can still turn to the God of life. May this be our prayer in the days and weeks ahead. Amen.

Gusti Newquist

Thursday, September 18, 2008

September 28--Hitting a Rock with a Stick

Text focus for this week:

Exodus 17:1-7 and Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

(Additional lectionary texts for this week:

Philippians 2:1-13 and Matthew 21:23-32)

My mother has a black and white photograph hanging in the hallway of a three year old girl holding a two foot long stick. The girl’s eyes are wide with anticipation as she prepares to whack the brightly decorated papier mache llama hanging just to her side. She has been told there is a special treasure inside that piñata and that if she just hits it hard enough with her stick, then streams of candy—butterscotch and peppermints and Hershey kisses—will flow down like river. She really wants that candy.

The three year old girl hits the piñata really hard, harder than she has ever hit anything in her life. She swings that long stick so hard, in fact, that she loses her balance and skids onto the concrete floor, scraping her hands and her knees.

No candy flows down from that pretty piñata. The only things she has to show for her valiant efforts are bruised up limbs and a deflated dream.

“There was never any candy in that stupid llama!” she screams at her parents in her distress. “You tricked me and now everyone is laughing at me. I wish I could just go home. I wish I had never come here at all!”

She stomps over to the corner and refuses to speak to anyone. Not to her mother, who tries to convince her there really is candy in that llama. Not to her father, who chastises her for acting like a baby. Not to her best friend, Susan, who brings her the stick and begs her to try again. This candy-loving, stick-whacking three year old has given up hope and refuses to pretend otherwise.


The ancient Israelite community we encounter in our text from Exodus this week has also given up hope, but on a much more spectacular scale than our piñata-challenged three year old. The ancient Israelites are literally wandering from one place to another in the wilderness between Egypt and the land of Canaan, never quite sure where they will end up next. They live “paycheck to paycheck,” which for them means gathering up frost-like flakes that fall on the ground each morning and a handful of quail each night. It is not much—not butterscotch or chocolate or even milk and honey—but it is enough to sustain them from one day to the next.

The industrious ones among them fear their luck may run out and want to save for the future. Maybe the manna won’t come the next morning! Maybe the quail won’t come the next night! But when they try to save the manna and the quail, it just turns to worms overnight. Day-to-day living is the only option in this barren desert.

The social climbers among them crave the stability of food and drink from their former lives in Egypt. Slavery is better, they say, than this uncertain existence. But the decision to leave has already been made, and they have no choice but to press ahead.

And so the ancient Israelites arrive at a new camp on a new day—sustained but worried, pushing forward but second-guessing—and realize there is no water for them to drink. And it starts all over again. “There never was any land of milk and honey calling us out of Egypt!” they lash out at Moses. “You tricked us and now we will die and our children and our farm animals with us. We wish we could just go back to Egypt. We wish we’d never come here at all!”


What do you do if you’re Moses, the reluctant leader of this rag-tag alliance? What do you do if you’re the parent of a three-year old who has never seen candy spill from a piñata? What do you do if you’re stuck in a day-to-day existence and don’t know how you’re going to pay next month’s rent?

“I will stand in front of you on a rock at Mount Sinai,” the Holy One offers to Moses. “I will stand with you in front of that papier mache llama,” says the parent to the small child. “I will stand with you as you go to that temp agency,” says our God to the laid-off social worker. “Hit that rock with the stick, and water will come out of it so that the people can drink.” Hit that rock with the stick and streams out of the rock will cause water to flow down like rivers.

Hit that rock with a stick, says our God to everyone who wonders how we’re going to survive in these uncertain times. Keep on hitting it, even though you’re blindfolded, even though others second-guess you, even though you second-guess yourself. I have led you out of your slavery, and I have given you manna and quail, and I will give you more than enough water, as if from the deep ocean. I have done it before, and I will do it again. And I will stand with you, even until the end of the age.

We don’t know when that papier mache piñata will finally break, we don’t know when that rent check will finally come, we don’t know when that stream will finally flow, but God is still with us, and we are still with God. May we trust it in plenty and in want, in certainty and in doubt. Amen.

P.S. Kelsey Rice Bogdan has graciously exited her role as MBS Blogger and passed on the duties to me! I'm Gusti Newquist, a June 2008 graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Presbyterian minister-to-be. I served as the MBS seminary intern from October 2005-May 2006 and am delighted to be back with MBS in this capacity.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

September 21--How God Provides


Passages for this week:




I have been thinking quite a lot lately about those hourly workers laboring in the vineyard who appear in Matthew’s gospel for this Sunday. I have been imagining what it might be like to begin a physically demanding job in the wee hours of the morning, to work hard all day, and then to watch other people who arrived many hours later receive the exact same payment that I did. I have been thinking that it makes perfect sense for people in this position to complain about the lack of fairness in the system, to feel cheated, to judge those who worked less than they did as slackers or cheats. Of course, if we are in this position and have been brought up to be good Christians, we might immediately reject this natural instinct of jealousy or self-righteousness as morally wrong . . . and instead adopt a paternalistic attitude toward “those less fortunate” who of course should be cared for, even though they didn’t really deserve it, and even though we would never be one of them.

At least this is what I imagine myself thinking about the story if I were still safely employed in a job I loved with more than adequate health insurance and a sizable pension plan with a matching 401 (k). Like many “hard working” Americans, I have been an overachieving workaholic all my life, easily falling into the trap of assuming I deserve to be compensated better than my colleagues . . . easily falling into the trap of believing I actually have earned everything I have achieved, rather than admit that at some level I simply may have happened to be in the right place at the right time when the landowner came around offering work at 6 in the morning. (Okay, maybe it's been closer to 9.)

I am no longer in that position, at least for now.

I have learned in this past week that it is an entirely different experience to read the parable of the workers in the vineyard from the perspective of someone seeking employment, swirling through a sea of uncertainty, scraping together temporary and part-time jobs, wondering when a more stable employer will stop by to pick me up . . . at 9am? . . . or noon? . . . or 3pm? . . . or—please God, at least let it be by 5!

From this new perspective, I have been imagining those workers waiting in the marketplace, alternating between confidence and doubt, knowing in one minute they have the skills and the desire to earn a decent living but watching the minutes and the hours tick by with nothing to show for it. Wondering if they would ever have anything to show for it.

From this new perspective, I have also been marveling at the generosity of an employer who would spend an entire day seeking out and then hiring everyone who wanted to work . . . and then providing all the workers with a wage that would support them through the next day, even if they did not technically “earn” it. And I've been thinking that perhaps if I could just know that 5pm would not pass me by empty-handed, I could rest and renew, rather than panic and fear. Perhaps if I could just believe that everyone in the marketplace would get hired eventually, I would faithfully discern the call of God, rather than descend into cut-throat competition with my equally gifted peers. Perhaps if I could just trust that I would receive what I needed when I needed it, regardless of when I started working again, I would actually be able to enjoy the marketplace in the meantime.


The kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells us in this parable, is like a person who owned some land and went out very early to hire some people to work in his vineyard. The kingdom of heaven is like trusting God’s eternal provision, whether we start working at 6am or 5pm or somewhere in between. The kingdom of heaven is like trusting a God who seeks us out, who pursues us from early morning and well into the evening, who dares us to shed jealousy and fear and pride and doubt in order that all may be fed and all may finally thrive. The kingdom of heaven is here with us now, as well as in the age to come.

And this is how God provides for us all. May we believe it, may we trust it, may we live it into reality in the days and weeks to come. In the name of Christ. Amen.







Friday, September 5, 2008

September 17--Practicing What We Preach

Here comes our good friend Peter, rocking the boat as usual. We’ve met him three times before in the gospel texts over the past six weeks, but we just can’t seem to get enough of him. So far Peter has progressed from an aborted attempt at walking on water to a dramatic confession of Jesus as the Christ . . . only to turn around and chastise his Messiah for telling the truth about his pending death and resurrection.

Our friend Peter just couldn’t leave well enough alone, even after all that. He had to follow it up with a question to Jesus about forgiveness.

“Lord, when my fellow believer sins against me, how many times must I forgive him?” Peter wonders. “Should I forgive him as many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive him more than seven times. You must forgive him even if he wrongs you seventy times seven” (Mt 18:21-22).

I think it might be easier to walk on water.

Forgiveness is one of those thorny theological concepts for those of us who claim to pursue God’s justice in the world and who have been appalled by the misuse of this powerful spiritual discipline. We know far to well that the immediate call to forgive an abuser, or those who commit genocide, or even an older sibling who ceaselessly taunts a younger one can trivialize the deep suffering and legitimate anger on the part of those who have been wronged. As L. Gregory Jones points out in Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, “Christians have too often supported forgiveness, love, and forbearance while failing to acknowledge the moral force of anger, hatred, and vengeance” (244). To the contrary, anger can actually serve a moral purpose, as a protest against injustice and as a commitment to our inherent human value in the face of dehumanizing acts. And when our efforts at forgiveness suppress bitterness, rather than restore right relationships, we can inadvertently strengthen the hand of those who do harm but do not seek to change their ways.

But as I re-read Matthew's text for this week, I'm starting to think Jesus had some of this complexity in mind when he offered his parable in response to Peter’s question. A modern day version of that parable might go something like this:

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a loan officer who decided to demand payment in the midst of a sub-prime mortgage crisis. A homeowner who simply could not pay the debt was brought before the loan officer, who ordered foreclosure. So the homeowner begged the loan officer, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of compassion, the loan officer decided not only to stop the foreclosure but to cancel the entire loan altogether!

But that same homeowner went straight to his brother, who owed him a thousand dollars, and demanded repayment. His brother pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But the homeowner refused and garnished his wages until he could pay the debt. When the homeowner’s family members saw what had happened, they were angry. They told the loan officer what had happened. The loan officer said, “You selfish jerk! I forgave you an entire home loan because you pleaded with me, but you couldn’t forgive a thousand dollars from your brother?” And in anger, the loan officer placed the house on auction the very next day.

Forgiveness in this parable is all bound up in power and fear, rejection and hypocrisy. What might have become a reconciliation and new life for the homeowner and his brother instead turned to disaster for them both. What might have led to a more compassionate lending practice on the part of the mortgage company turned into anger and retrenchment. All because the homeowner couldn’t share the wealth. All because he couldn’t forgive even one time.

Perhaps Jesus tells us to forgive one another seventy times seven times because he knows we won’t get it right the first time, or the second time, or the seventh time. I think Jesus knows that there is no “forgiveness light switch” that we can simply flip up or down. It’s a lifelong journey of naming and confronting evil and suffering, both that which is done to us and that which is done by us. In the meantime, we participate in an ongoing community of confession and repentance and reconciliation, sharing the truth of our lives with others who help us always turn toward healing and wholeness. And our family of faith holds us accountable when we are not able to give even a small portion of the grace we have received. And our God remains faithful even until the end of the age.

So I hold out hope that we can keep trying to walk on water, that we can keep trying to forgive one another, that we can keep trying to ask for forgiveness ourselves. Not as a particular moment in time but as a daily discipline and a divine gift. Not as a way to pacify pain or to overlook injustice, but as a way to transform it into a new reality. This is our Christian walk. May we move forward with courage and faith. Amen.

Gusti Newquist

P.S. Kelsey Rice Bogdan is on vacation this week.