Is the American empire aging toward an inevitable end, or are we suffering a national mid-life crisis? Guys buy sportcars. Nations go to war. This one, the long war as they are calling it, drifts aimlessly into a fourth year much as a 50 year old stuck in a dead-end job.
In the midst of it I ponder the world my children will inhabit as they age. The comfort and security of their aging may somehow be connected to Jesus’ challenges and, therefore, to a theology of the cross calling forth self sacrifice from a culture unaccustomed to and massively resistant to such selflessness. That can be unpacked some other day.
The sacrifices of middle age sometimes amount to nothing more than making concessions to age, and nothing less than letting go of the illusions of youth.
I’ve given up my dream of slamming a basketball – not exactly sacrificing my first born, but no small concession for a 6’0” hoops junky who once came tantalizingly close to throwing one down.
Emmanuel Levinas reminded us that paternity is preparing for a future that is not our own; indeed, for a future in which we’ll be dead. Perhaps that explains why my vertical leap topped out the year our first child was born!
The grandest illusion of youth is that such a future of our own absence will never arrive. Letting go of that illusion, often in the midst of very real sacrifices we make for our children, is the occasion of many a mid-life crisis.
Perhaps the grand illusion of America’s youth was that we could stand alone, a colossus astride the world’s economic and geopolitical arrangements. Now America’s child – the global economy, or is it the global spread of democracy – demands sacrifice, demands the letting go of our youthful illusions of unilateralism.
Levinas reminds us that an ethical demand always arises in the face-to-face encounter with the other. Perhaps that is another way to understand the solidarity with the other that the gospels call us toward. The sacrifice that Christ call us toward includes letting go of our youthful illusions of immortality and extreme individualism, while embracing a love of life lived in community and relationship to the one who beckons us from another shore.
On that other shore today stand our brothers and sisters in Baghdad. They remind us that, as children of the same God, we are inextricably bound to one another. The bombs that continue to fall there fall on us, too – exploding then if not on our heads, at least in our hearts.
Are we, then, sacrificing ourselves at the very moment we would, according to our national security apparatus, secure our futures? No. For in this campaign there is no sacrifice called forth from us by that national leadership. Rather, we sacrifice our brothers and sisters and our own hearts become collateral damage. Mid-life crises always leave mangled hearts in their wake.
And where is the church in the midst of this American mid-life crisis?
The sacrifice and selflessness demanded of the church in this time of crisis may be a letting go of our socially secure and comfortable position as chaplain to the American way of life and an embrace of the long-abdicated prophetic pulpit that echoes Jesus’ challenge to the social arrangements of his world.
At this moment – as at every moment of national crisis – that means standing in the public square and calling loudly and incessantly for justice and for a peace build upon the foundation of that justice. Such a call is not likely to be popular today any more than it was in Jesus’ time. So some of us may age a bit less comfortably and securely than we had imagined. But a future of justice and peace can be a compelling enough vision to move a middle-aged country to sacrifice its youthful illusions.
Two questions for spring, on the doing of justice, prompted by some conversation about how one might honor the memory of William Sloan Coffin. First, there is the question of how? How do we engage in a spiritual practice of social action and protest that does not simply devolve into competing factions shouting beyond one another in endless rounds of mounting anger? We do well to keep in mind Coffin’s caution that a “politically committed spirituality contends against wrong without becoming wrongly contentious.” That must involve the deep conviction that those we oppose in the social arena are also beloved children of God, and that we must always seek to find and honor the Christ in them even as we work to achieve an often radically different vision of social arrangements.
Second, there is that question of vision. What is the vision of justice toward which we aim and on what is it grounded? Put simply, provisionally and decidedly nonprogramatically, the Biblical vision of justice, as Walter Brueggemann puts it, is this: sorting out what belongs to whom and returning it.
So, for example, in a world of plenty food belongs to those who are hungry; in an economy of abundance work belongs to those who seek jobs, wherever they come from; in the 21st century health care belongs to those who are sick, shelter belongs to those who are homeless, and clothing belongs to those who are naked; in our nation’s cities good schools belong to children left behind; in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ordination belongs to all those who are called; in the Commonwealth of Virginia and across these United States marriage belongs to those who are in love regardless of sexual orientation; in Saudi Arabia, freedom belongs to women; in Northern Ireland, in Israel, in Palestine, in Darfur, in Iraq and everywhere that plow shares still give way to swords and shields peace belongs to us all.
It is far past time for sorting this stuff out. It is far past time to move beyond religion that focuses only on the next world, that insists on an unbiblical distinction between the sacred and the secular, and that, as a result, blesses the status quo even as that status crushes millions beneath the weight of injustice, oppression, sexism, heterosexism, racism, militarism and neoconservative globalism.
It is far past time to recognize that the doing of justice is the primary expectation of the God of the Bible. Perhaps such words will honor Coffin’s memory and motivate as well.
It was perhaps fitting that William Sloan Coffin died the same week that The Nation, a publication to which he often contributed, ran an article recalling his work and that of Martin King and the Berrigan brothers and other religious leaders who toiled tirelessly for peace and justice and on behalf of the marginalized and outcast. The article noted that “Their inspiring example raises a disturbing question: Where are their counterparts now?” [1]
Look around you this morning. It is Easter. The hope they gave their lives for is reborn among us. Look at the scores of us who have come out this morning to a faith community that clearly discerns God’s calling to give voice to prophetic faith on behalf of the least of these, to practice radical hospitality among those abused by church and culture, and to celebrate joyously with everyone God’s abundant creation. Look around you this morning: we are the people we’ve been waiting for, and the risen Christ is in our midst.
Where are the Coffins, the Kings, the Berrigans today? Well, we may lack their eloquence and inspiration. Indeed, we may lack their courage and imagination. But we do not lack their hope, their faith nor their love, and we are walking the same path that they walked. For the path they walked was the way of Jesus Christ.
It is the way of the cross – for it seeks solidarity with the oppressed and persecuted and accepts the likelihood of suffering for their sake. But it is also the way of the empty tomb – for it is a way of unalterable hope and abiding faith in the good intention of the sovereign Lord of history. Thus it is the way through the doubt and despair of this time; it is the way through the fear of this time; it is the way through the violence and hatred of this time; it is the way through the darkness of this time.
You know, sometimes it feels like we are living in the absence of hope. Still, I believe with Dr. King that while the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.[2]
Sometimes it feels like the very air we breathe is filled with fear. Still, I believe with Rev. Coffin that the Bible has it right: “the opposite of love is not hate but fear. ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.’”[3]
Sometimes it feels like we are living in a death-dealing culture of permanent war. Still, I believe with Father Berrigan that “the God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers.”[4]
Sometimes it feels like we are living in the midnight of history. Still, I believe there is a new day coming and it breaks forth even now, even here. For though grief and mourning linger through the night, the dawn – the resurrection dawn – sings of a blessed hope.
That is the meaning of Easter. Love and justice join hands. Hope rises from the tomb. God and creation reconcile. A new day is come! Christ is risen!
[1] “Taking Back the Faith,” Dan Wakefield, (The Nation, April 24, 2006, 14-20.)
[2] This was one of King’s favorite sayings and can be found in several speeches included in A Testament of Hope. He drew it, apparently, from the writings of Theodore Parker, a 19th-century American pastor. See Rufus Borrow, Jr., “Martin Luther King, the Church and a Value-Fused Universe,” in Encounter, Christian Theological Seminary, 2005 (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4044/is_200507/ai_n15328800).
[3] Credo, 27.
[4] These words of Berrigan are widely quoted but I am unsure of their original source. They can be found, among numerous other words from Berrigan, at the web site of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (http://161.58.58.140/quotes/others.html).
We've been talking about what it means to be human and to be dehumanized. Then I ran across this essay on Common Dreams that quotes from the blog of Tom Fox, the Christian Peacemaker abducted and murdered in Iraq. His life in Iraq, I would suggest, amounted to an extended prayer for peace. Perhaps it is time for some prayer in the streets.
As the Common Dreams piece says:
Tom's Iraq blog is his sad and informative legacy. His last entry was written the day before he was abducted. Why are we here?
"If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other. We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exists within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls."
A proposition for your consideration: If prayer is what makes us human, then what stands between us and a prayerful life is dehumanizing. So, what gets in the way of prayer for you? Meanwhile, here's a little Griz for the mill:
When we pray, we seek the Spirit. That is the essence of prayer. Of course, it is excellent advice to be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Jesus promises, “if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.” The gift of the Spirit is the answer to our prayers, for it brings us peace where we need it, serenity for what requires our courageous engagement, courage and strength to change what needs changing and a loving wisdom for discerning where we are called to engage and where we are called to step back.
OK. So now I’m curious in a practical sort of way. How do we seek the Spirit? How do we know when what we feel is, in fact, the presence of the Spirit and not just, oh, say, the spirits I just consumed (one glass of red wine, in case you’re counting) or the meatballs, or anger left over from some recent unpleasantness, or sadness at a loss? How do we move with the Spirit when we’re reasonably sure that it is the Spirit leading us? What steps to you take to pray? Are there words or phrases or thoughts that you find helpful? Are there actions? Are there places? Times of day? Situations? Does circling a fire and banging drums help? Just curious, that’s all.
Prayer provides a practice through which we come home to ourselves in the moment that God has given us with the gifts that God has provided. We do not pray to become someone else – some spiritual giant. Our prayers will not make of us more Nouwens, more Bonhoeffers, more Kings, more Coffins. Our prayers will make us ourselves – fully human, nothing more but nothing less.
As such, prayer is, as Nouwen said, resistance. It is resistance to all that would make of us something less than human. Our prayers for healing are resistance to the ways in which our own deep woundedness would deny us our humanity. That is not to suggest that woundedness is not part of humanness, but rather to acknowledge that wounds can dehumanize. Abuse suffered all too easily becomes abuse inflicted. Emotional damage too easily becomes emotional weaponry. Pain suffered too easily becomes an excuse for pain inflicted.
Prayers for healing and wholeness do not deny the reality of suffering and pain, but rather they seek a way through brokenness to compassion – to suffering with, such that our own experiences of brokenness open us to deeper connections with others in their suffering.
I tried to include a nice graphic that I found here: http://www.justpeace.org/prayer.htm. That site has a number of links on prayer from a Roman Catholic perspective as well as the picture that wouldn't cooperate when I tried to steal it -- er, borrow it -- I mean, appropriate it in an artistic fashion in keeping with the established norms of post modern art.
Because laughter is better than tears and more healthy than rage, here's a great list of comments about hunting with the vice president. Enjoy.
