Unity and Diversity

The Pope approving the statutes of the Order of the Franciscans,
by Giotto, 1295–1300,
from Wikipedia page on Francis of Assisi.

This comment on a previous post got me thinking:

I agree that there is a diversity of doctrine among the members of congregations, I wish you had addressed the limitations of such diversity, instead of just blessing it. It seems that, if the diversity becomes too great, the church becomes paralyzed and is never able to speak or act as one--Frank Ruff

***

It is impossible to explore the topic of Christian unity before diving headlong into a discussion of unity and diversity.  That’s the crux of the matter, no pun intended.  How do we congregate together into some kind of a unity while also acknowledging and respecting all the differences among people and in their beliefs and actions?

You might even say the history of Christian denominations is a history of this very question. Denominations have broken off either because people perceived there wasn't enough breathing room for diversity or because people thought there was too much and wanted a stricter observance along certain lines. Has there been any split that didn't occur along these fault lines?

Too much unity and we can end up with uniformity--everyone looking, acting and speaking identically. It can be suffocating and brittle. People have to dampen or hide part of who they are in order to belong. It doesn't respect the full, unique dignity of every person who was created by God with a myriad assortment of attributes and temperaments.

On the flip side, too many differences and we can end up with chaos. People may simply dissipate from each other, not in a cataclysmic fight but more of a gradual drifting away. There has to be some underlying principle of unity that bonds people together, otherwise there's no reason to have anything to do with each other.

Even when people disagree over doctrine they often can still be united enough in their practice of the faith.  Too often, Christianity has focused on having the right beliefs but Jesus is the Way as well as the Truth.  Many longstanding Christian denominations have a detailed list of doctrinal beliefs that the tradition has handed down. But even with that, the actual members of any congregation may be divided in what they actually believe and practice. Churches like to pretend everyone is on board, but that is simply not reality.  In those cases, the people are still united enough to congregate together, do service together, worship together and work out their spiritual walk together.

It's not a question of unity or diversity. It's not simply about unity and diversity, either. as if those attributes could sit side by side somehow. We are looking for something much more intricate and woven together. We are all looking for that unity within our diversity.  They are not opposing concepts, even though their dynamics can appear that way. We can't harmonize our differences to the point of wiping out differences. Some groups have tried, but the differences did not actually go away--they were just painfully swept under the rug, only to reemerge later.  And we shouldn't accentuate our differences to where we forget what we mean to each other and how we are related.

So then where is the balance between?  Well, that's the million dollar question. I think our churches, and the whole human race, struggles with this question every day. I've experienced (near) perfect unity in diversity only momentarily in this life, but it's amazing to get a glimpse of it.

I’ve always been impressed studying Catholic Church history and looking at Pope Innocent III.  When St. Francis and St. Dominic came onto the scene and started their orders of mendicant friars, the Church could very easily have splintered into different factions.  The Franciscans and Dominicans were different enough in so many ways--from each other and the larger Church--to warrant breaking off.  Instead, the pope was able to hold it all together. Likewise, the friars were willing to do their share to stay part of the universal Church.  A couple hundred years later when Martin Luther proposed reforms, there was no room for diversity--or even room for discussion and debate--and the Church splintered.  That splintering continues today. 

That same inability to tolerate diversity—or stay in communion during times of disagreement—is a sin that stains all of western Christianity.  To this day, the theological beliefs of Franciscans can be tremendously different than those of Dominicans, yet they stay together. I think most people would be absolutely shocked to find out exactly how different those different schools of thought actually are. For example, they have monumental differences in how they understand Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Dominicans lean much more toward atonement theology while Franciscans affirm something more incarnational.  Catholic theologian Hans Küng even said once that the differences between Catholic schools like these are often greater than the differences between Catholics and some Protestants.  Yet, in the genius of the 13th century, the decision was made to stick together while the decision made since the Reformation is to split in response to disagreement. 

Who's at fault for the Protestant Reformation? That's a 500-year old debate and one I'm not likely to solve here! That's like asking who is at fault in the case of a divorce. Usually, it's a safe bet that both sides are equally responsible. It's almost always best to start with this assumption unless circumstances strongly prove otherwise. It's always possible that one party was just too unwilling to cooperate or that one party was able to reach out and create an opportunity for reconciliation when none seemed possible. In the 13th century,  both sides were willing to pull together and make compromises. Both sides were stubborn and willing to split in the 16th.

Too much rigidity and you break. The people who love strict rules should realize that rigidity also precedes schism. Yet, too much compromise and you can end up compromised. I don't know what the right formula is, but I think there is something in the example of Francis, Dominic and Innocent III that we should take seriously.

Just Say It, Jesus!

Detail from "Sermon on the Mount" by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Jesus was action-oriented. He avoided questions about his identity. He spoke in parables rather than in theological explanations. He spent time with all sorts of folks and performed a lot of healings (both of body and of the fractures in society), and he ultimately suffered, died and rose from the dead.

Christian theological debate, by contrast, has been obsessed with beliefs more than actions. These include pinpointing the specifics of Jesus' identity and the nature of God. There are many preachers today who will tell us that our very eternal fate depends on getting certain theological concepts right.

But ask yourself this:

If those beliefs are so important--if our very destiny for all eternity depends on adhering to the right set of beliefs--then the puzzling question is: 

Why didn't Jesus just tell us? 

Jesus could have simply said, Hey you know, I'm fully human and fully divine, I'm part of the three persons of the Trinity, and you need to do precisely A, B and C to be in good standing with this Christianity program I'm rolling out. Oh, by the way, I want to see churches, cathedrals and Mass on Sundays, yadda yadda.

There are lines in the New Testament that are instructional. But let's be honest--they are wide open to all sorts of interpretations. All interpretations are not equally valid, but there is plenty of room for significant disagreement.

Jesus had every opportunity to tell us that we had to have certain beliefs. There are hundreds of pages in the New Testament and a handful of authors. Any of them could have spelled it out in black and white. They could have made a list. Why in the world did Jesus tell stories with unclear meanings if having clear, succinct theological answers was so important?  It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

If razor-sharp doctrinal understandings are so important, then the New Testament actually comes across as a cruel trick. It is like the most sinister scavenger hunt where the stakes couldn't be any higher.

Are we to buy the argument that God speaks to us in puzzling metaphor, allegory and code, and it's up to us to decipher nuanced theological interpretations in order to stay in communion with the Body of Christ?

I think it is much more likely that Jesus wants us to be engaged in the process of figuring things out. He wants us to wrestle with the deep issues. He wants us to struggle over paradoxes and parables. It's more about the questions than the answers. It's more about the process than the conclusions--"The medium is the message," as Marshall McLuhan said. 

Like a Zen master, Jesus confuses us on purpose. His stories seem to turn reality upside down. The parable put issues side-by-side that normally do not exist side-by-side. As a mentor of mine used to say, "out of confusion comes clarity." Jesus scrambles our brains so that we jar ourselves lose from the false reality around us so that we can get a glimpse of the Kingdom.

 

"What if changing our perception of God

 has the potential to change everything?"

-- Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance

The process of doing theology does matter--but maybe not in the way we think. Maybe it's more like going to the gym. You pick up weights and then you put them back down. The world has not changed at all, but you have changed in the process. Theology is important--I am writing, after all, a blog on theology at this very moment--it just needs to be put in its proper place in the hierarchy of importance.

Are our beliefs a pathway toward God or a way to build imaginary divisions between people?

Most Christians believe that God is a Trinity of three persons. But some Pentecostals are not Trinitarian. Muslims affirm the same God that Abraham affirmed, but Islam has some significant differences from Christianity. Are some of these folks outside of the reach of God's love and mercy as a result? That seems enormously difficult to believe. It took western Christianity about 300 years to formulate the precise language for the Trinity and the dual natures of Christ. Those debates have been recorded in the writings of early Christians. What became of the people who didn't understand the Trinity before the larger Church accepted it? What about the people who grow up immersed in one faith tradition and not another?

It is not the New Testament that is playing a cruel trick on us--it is the longstanding malady of obsessing over theological beliefs that gets us off track. It leads us on a wild goose chase, demanding that we find answers that Scripture itself probably may not even give to questions it is not even asking.

I totally understand that church communities will want to take the paradoxes and parables and try to extract from them some guidelines for living life on earth. However, we cross a line when a church community is married to its own conclusions. If those conclusions were so important, Jesus could have simply given them to us. He didn't. It has taken the churches hundreds--and in some cases thousands--of years to come to certain doctrinal conclusions. It's got to be more about the struggle. Rules and laws have their place, but they only make sense if we are compassionately involved with our whole being in the questions.

If black-and-white answers to questions of belief were of such paramount importance, why did Jesus seem to do everything EXCEPT give them to us?

I think there is great freedom in this. I'm sure it ruffles the feathers of people who are devoted to a particular set of doctrinal beliefs. But for the rest of us, it's bread for the journey and par for the course.

Who is My Brother's Keeper?

This picture has been going viral lately. 

It is easy to draw conclusions from it. You see a homeless man with a sign asking for money. Standing next to him is a Wal-Mart employee with a "Hiring" sign. The Wal-Mart employee is looking right at the homeless man (as if to invite him to apply), but the homeless man is not looking at the Wal-Mart employee.

When we come face-to-face with someone begging for money, the most human response is to feel empathy. However, we are afraid to engage with this person. We don't want to get involved in his life. We have things to do and other plans for our time and money. It is also scary to let go and enter into the Gospel call to charity and love. Faced with all the pain in the world, if we started opening our hearts and responding to the needs of the world, how could we possibly have anything at all left for ourselves? We could easily give everything--including our very lives--on behalf of others. In response to this, we hunker down and find reasons to block them out.

Deep down, we know we are our brother's keeper--but it scares us. We would have to change so much, and let go of so much, so we turn away.

This picture is designed to alleviate people from having empathy or a conscience to do anything about poverty. The message is: "He's poor/homeless by his own choice, so we don't have any responsibility to him whatsoever."

This picture may reassure us that this man is homeless due to his own choices. It seems abundantly clear that opportunities to change his life situation are readily available--in this case, literally standing right next to him.

It means we don't have to feel sympathy for the man asking for money. It means we can wash ourselves of any responsibility to do anything for this man or change the social conditions that may have brought him to the point in life where he is begging for money. We don't have to change ourselves at all. We simply do not have to do anything.

The message is even more sinister than that: It suggests that it would be bad if we did help him. If so, we would somehow be interfering with his own spiritual development. He needs the satisfaction of a job well done in order to build up his self-confidence, some say. If we help him, we would be robbing him of the opportunity to meet his own needs. We could risk spiritually crippling him. 

I've heard those arguments before, and I'm sure you have, too.

Like most things in life, the answers are not always so simple. We all know a family member who has managed to meander through life subsisting almost entirely off of handouts. Parents, siblings and neighbors feel sorry for that person and coddle him endlessly. What's the result? The person ends up spoiled. He is angry and demanding. In a situation like that, it is easy to say that the charity is not helping him but rather only enabling his dependence. It does not create a happy person but rather a miserable, dependent person. We are doing things for him that he could and should do for himself. We end up feeling good about ourselves but doing no good at all.

Pictures like this one are designed to uphold the belief that efforts to help poor people are nothing more than a scam--the poor are poor either by their own choices or their own laziness, nothing more.

I have done a fair bit of charity and outreach work. Those who are taking advantage of the system are a small minority when they exist at all. The people who would benefit from "tough love" are few and far between. Stopping all charity efforts in order to "teach those people a lesson" would be to literally starve the vast majority who genuinely need that help in order to impact the few who would be better off without.

I can also tell you that in 100% of cases, if someone is poor and asking for help, they certainly need something.  They may not need money or a handout, but they need something.

The Gospels call us to compassion. The word "compassion" literally translates as "to co-suffer." In order to follow the Gospel call of compassion, we actually have to walk with people--not judge them from a distance. Then and only then we will be in a position to have the courage to decide if we are actually enabling their happiness or enabling their problems. Even then, any decision like that must be met with incredible trepidation, but at least we would have some basis for making that very serious decision to withhold charity from a person asking for it. Usually, it is best not to make judgments on a person at all, but in reality there are times when helping someone out can pull you into an unhealthy, draining codependent relationship, and you have to set a boundary and know when to opt out in those cases. You can't possibly know that from looking at a picture about two men you know nothing about.

People who have strict opinions about refusing charity to the poor, refusing asylum to immigrants and refugees and refusing mercy to the imprisoned are almost always people who have very little direct experience with these people and the details of their lives. Walk with people, and get to know their lives and how they arrived at their present condition.

The Facebook page Kissing Fish quoted the following brilliant response to this picture:

Traci Schloss Brown
September 18

I've been waiting to comment on this picture that has been shared with the intent being humorous and probably spurred by some underlying frustration. Today is the day to serve up a little reality. Here are my questions for the Walmart guy:

1) Will you hire him if he doesn't pass a background check or has committed a felony?
2) Will you provide him clothes to work in and when those get dirty will you help him get them washed or do you think that first paycheck will pay for an apartment, utilities, appliances, and laundry detergent?
3) Will you immediately pay for any healthcare including mental healthcare he needs? With medications?
4) Will you keep him as an employee if he has an exacerbation of PTSD, anxiety, schizophrenia, or anything else while at work?
5) Will you have someone watch his only earthly possessions while he is working so no one steals them?
6) Will you provide childcare or transportation or a bed for a good night's sleep or food to sustain him while he works? (I could go on...)

Maybe the answers are "yes." If so, kudos to you and I will be bringing a large number of friends to apply for every opening you have. If not, hmmmm.... the "just get a freaking job" argument is not so easy to quip, is it? Many of those who are homeless do work or want to work. Many can't. It is truly not a simple fix. Judging them helps in no way at all! Some homeless hold signs... One of the reasons is because people don't talk to them. (I am fully aware there are bogus people out there plying on sympathies who hold signs and don't have legitimate needs.... I actually don't advocate for giving cash to those "flying signs.") My point is, "just get a damn job" is not simple. Please take some time to understand some of the most devastating underlying issues. These are people with feelings and worth. Please treat them like it!!

It is also worth adding that many Wal-Mart employees require public assistance to supplement their income. Wal-Mart may have available jobs, but those jobs do not provide for a living, even with full-time hours.  It's a sad day indeed when it's better to be on the street begging than working at America's largest employer.

NOTE:  According to this website, the picture is a fake and the local affiliate of Wal-Mart does not know who the man is holding the "Now Hiring" sign.

What does it say when people have to fabricate a fake picture in order to prove a point?

Don't Be a Cool Church Leader, Just Be Real

Go church!

The research has come in:  Young people want substantive leaders. They don't (necessarily) want hip, stylish, trendy ones.

The study originally published in Christianity Today and then reported in Baptist News Global brings hard numbers to the conversation.

All I can say to this is: 

AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!

I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to bang my head against the table on this subject. I have talked to campus ministry group numerous times as a colleague or visitor. I'm told they want ministers who can "relate to the students." 

When I ask follow-up questions to gauge what they mean, I discover this: 

They want the cheerleader model of ministry.

They want someone fluent in current student-ese--someone who knows all the latest dances, songs, TV shows and secret handshakes. They want someone with the personality of a walking pep rally. Their goal is to portray the church not as some stodgy, dusty artifact but as cool, modern and relatable. They believe this kind of person accomplishes that.

That's fine . . . up to a point. I guess the litany of old, white men in leadership over the centuries has taken its toll.

But I would challenge them: 

Do you realize that many students are introverts?

Do you realize that many students are gloomy, moody and depressed?

Do you realize that students want true connection with someone more than just about anything else? They are hungry for something and someone real. 

Ask a student to name their favorite professor or campus leader--it is probably an elderly nun or a reclusive, quirky professor. It might be the dormitory janitor who they chat with as he's outside smoking while they are brooding over a heartbreak.

All that we can ever really give anyone is ourselves.

***

You might think Catholics would understand this better than most.  Millions of young people around the world have lined the streets or have attended a World Youth Day hoping for a glimpse of a world traveling pope.  Whether it's Francis, Benedict XVI or John Paul II, it's not age or cool, hipster style that brings them out in droves--it's leadership, presence, wisdom and the prospect of connecting to someone or something meaningful.

In fact, if you roll out a photo album of some of the most beloved Catholics in recent years, you would see bald monks and grey-haired activist nuns. However, we often throw this wisdom out the window when it comes to lay ministry. The shortage in vocations to the priesthood and religious life has created at least a couple generations where young people have mostly had only older role models in the clergy. Young, hipster priests are pretty rare. Whether by choice or necessity, we have given our elderly priests and sisters a chance that they wouldn't have gotten interviewing as a lay person for a campus ministry position.

Mother Teresa was a Catholic sister from Albania who ministered to the people of India, among other places. She looked different from most Indians. She had a wildly different religion. She spoke with an accent. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was sincere in ministering to the people and making a true connection. When her heart was set on that, all other boundaries were in play to be transcended.

***

I've worked a lot in urban, rural and multi-ethnic ministries over the course of my career. It is wise to bring in local people to assist in this work because they have local knowledge and local sensitivities. However, this can be problematic if we lean on it too much.

Bear with me here, because I'm going to make a very nuanced point: 

Let's say you work with a predominantly Caucasian-American group. You want to do ministry with African-Americans or Hispanic Americas. It would be completely unwise to attempt to minister to these groups without consulting with them directly. The Catholic Church has gotten into loads of trouble over the years making pronouncements on people or ministering to them without actually asking for their involvement in the process at all. You would ideally want some African-Americans or Hispanics as part of the leadership, direct ministry, or at the very least, in a consultant role.

However--and this is where I could risk getting into trouble, but stay with me a minute--you don't have to. 

No, I'm not against diversity, and I certainly don't want to bring back anything that resembles colonial tone deafness.

Here's the reason:

It would be a sad day indeed if we discovered that the only people who can serve African-Americans are other African-Americans. It would be a sad day if the only people who could relate to rural people are other rural people. It would be a sad day indeed if the only people who could minister to young students are leaders who look and act like what we think students look and act like.

The whole Gospel message gets blown to bits if we end up thinking this. It's a gloomy prescription for endless isolation, misunderstandings and miscommunication. It offers no hope of ever transcending our boundaries. It gives us the message: I can only understand you if I've had exactly the same life and experiences that you have had. That's just plain horrible and it runs counter to Gospel hope of inclusion and ultimate reconciliation of all people through Christ. It runs against centuries of Christian tradition where unusual, unlikely outsiders often become the heroes.

Jesus was male, but he reached out to women. He was Jewish but he reached out to Samaritans. The British St. Patrick went to Ireland. St. Francis visited the Sultan. Dorothy Day, once a frequenter in trendy literary circles, went to the slums of New York City. These are not exceptions but rather the general rule of Christian discipleship.

Yes, if a group of elderly, Caucasian nuns want to minister to the urban poor on the streets of Kolkata, India, they ought to consult with local people. There ought to be some local people as consultants or as members of their team. It would be enormously disrespectful and unwise not to do so, and I would bet any money that Mother Teresa did exactly that.  However, that should not stop them from making the effort on their own. In fact, it should enable them to reach out rather than disable their efforts to do so.

All that we can ever really give anyone is ourselves.

***

The cheerleader prescription for campus ministry usually fails on two levels:

1. It makes wrong assumptions about what students are like in the first place.
2. It incorrectly assumes that in order to minister to students one must look and act like students.

That's not ministry, and that's not leadership, and I don't believe that's where the Gospels are calling us.

I would also caution campus ministry teams: Young people can see through any charade in a heartbeat. The cheerleader model caters to only certain students and it truncates the global, diverse church into a little club with a very specific, approved approach. It's also like the "popular kid" trying to witness to a world full of outcasts.

There are some people who actually are like a walking pep rally. That's who they are and they are fully sincere in that. Kudos to them. I would argue that their ministry would only be successful--any ministry is only successful--if it is based on sincerity.

To church leaders, I say this:  Be brave enough to be yourself.  Trust in the dignity in which God has created you. Be whatever you are--nerdy, goofy, quirky, young or old, plain or complex.  Don't be trendy. You don't have to know the latest catch phrases or technology.

Just be you.

That's all that you can ever give, and honestly, that's all that anyone ever really wants.

***

See 2 Corinthians 5:16-21: In Christ, we are all called to the ministry of reconciliation.

Moving Beyond Tribalism, Jesus Style



Missionary celebrating Mass in a rural barn.
Glenmary archives.



Jesus seemed to treat everyone who crossed his path with the same respect and dignity. I find this to be one of the most amazing things about his earthly ministry.

It didn't matter if someone were rich or poor. Jesus seemed equally willing to be scandalized by hanging out both with "sinners" and tax collectors (I put "sinners" in quotes because maybe the Bible was recording the public chatter, and "sinners" was really another word for "outcasts"). Jesus developed quite a reputation for himself for doing this.

Jesus could still be tough on people. He could still get angry. But he never seemed to lose sight of that basic, God-given dignity of every person. 

This is enormously difficult for most of us. When we encounter anyone, we often do it through layers of social strata. We are quick to find out which groups they belong to. Which race?  Which political party? Which religious denomination? Which social class? What profession?

It's like we need to know these things before knowing how to interact with someone. We may take their opinions more or less seriously based on which groups they belong to.

Jesus seemed to completely ignore all of the above and simply interacted directly with the person.

Imitating Jesus in this--I believe--is one of the strongest aspects of Christian discipleship. And the most challenging.


Free Christian Clip Art, ©2008 GospelGifs

We don't handle cognitive dissonance very well.

We develop allegiance to certain groups or causes--our family, our denomination, our race, our country. We have plenty of reasons to sing the praises of our group and plenty of reason to deride the aspects of others. A lot of that may very well be based on fact--or at least, a highly-selective representation of the facts.

But what happens when a piece of information come along that doesn't fit into the narrative mold that we have fashioned? What if something comes along that challenges the way we have put it all together in our mind?

Studies have shown that our tendency is to simply throw away the new information outright. Or we rationalize or find other ways to minimize it. We say things like: "Oh, that's not a big deal." "That was just an off day." "This person is not as bad as that other person."

You can see this play out in American politics. People will support a candidate even though that person may be complicit in doing the very same things that we claimed were the reasons for not supporting another candidate from another party.

Many people today support Donald Trump who were the very same people who couldn't tolerate Bill Clinton's sexual antics. Clinton was so bad, they argued, that they had Clinton impeached. There was no shortage of sermons and soliloquies deriding and denouncing Bill Clinton for this. In their equation, Clinton's sexual exploits made him unfit for the Office of President. Period. There was no room for ambiguity. No if's, and's or but's. He was a terrible role model, they argued, and any other positive achievements he may have made were tainted by these sexual exploits.

Trump has arguably a far more scandalous history of sexual exploits. He has shown no remorse or evidence that he wants to change any of that. Yet, he is accepted by the same people who found Bill Clinton unacceptable.

I hear very few cries from the "moral majority" about this. I hear more talk about the "lesser of evils" and "trying to look at the whole package" and other rationalizations. Perhaps the crusade against Clinton wasn't really about his sexual exploits in the first place--maybe that was just a cover for other motives.

Or maybe this is an example of a poor way of dealing with cognitive dissonance.  It goes something like this:  If he's in your political party, you shrug off his negative side. If he's not in your group, you hold his feet to the fire and hate him for most everything he does. You give the benefit of the doubt to those in your group and you have little tolerance for those outside your group.

[And yes, I am quite aware that these same kinds of arguments could and should be made about candidates on the "other side."]

That's exactly the opposite of what Jesus was modeling for us.

Jim Wallis is right in saying that racism is American's "original sin." Perhaps it's the original sin of the entire human race. Jesus tried to pull us out of this tribalism--where we have unquestioned brand loyalty to "our group" and suspicion, derision and outright hatred for those in other groups.

It's a good exercise to listen to what someone says without first knowing anything about their background. I have done this in online chat rooms. I have read brilliant commentary from people who later turned out to be extremely young, and have also read moronic commentary from people who I later discovered to be doctors, lawyers and heads of industry--the so-called high status professions. I might have listened to all of them differently if I had known ahead of time their age or position. 

In a likewise manner, it's good to take passages from famous speeches and ask people their opinion. Later, tell them who said it.

Authentic, Jesus-style dialogue calls us to leave tribalism behind and enter this space of Mystery.  We call this liminal space--it exists between categories and preconceived notions. It's just listening to what is truly being said and interacting with the truth of the person in front of you without first labeling based on which groups a person is associated with. It's the space where we can hear God so well, because we have suspended our own assumptions and conclusions and can truly listen.

It takes a lot of work to evaluate everyone and everything on their own merits and not rush to conclusions based on which group they belong to.

The Meaninglessness of Life

I have to admit that my favorite part of the Bible is the book of Ecclesiastes. It is famous for the passage which forms the song Turn, Turn, Turn, written by Pete Seeger and popularized by the Byrds--"There is a time for every purpose under Heaven."

Yet, many Christians keep the book at arm's length. Some even wonder why it is even in the Bible at all. It is the proverbial red-headed stepchild. A lot of folks don't know what to do with it. It's kept around, because we are loyal to the biblical canon. In other words, we are stuck with it, but we just sort of keep it... over there.

It could have been written today. It's message is extremely modern. Qoheleth is struggling with a sense of existential angst. Everything seems futile. All our hard work seems to amount to nothing.  Generations of people come and go.  He struggles with the purpose of life.

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't struggled with those very same questions.

Case in point: I have known my grandparents. I know something about my great-grandparents (at least some of them), but with the exception of a detail or two, that's as far back as my history goes. I barely know anything about the very people I come from just a few generations before me. Yet, I imagine they had joys and sorrows. I imagine they achieved much and failed a lot, too. Yet, they came and went. It's wrong to say they have no enduring legacy, because I'm here--but the details of their lives have been all but lost.

It's easy to wonder, like Qoheleth does, what's the point of it all?  Do we just eat, drink and be merry and make the most of our short time?  Qoheleth seems to have tried that. Yet, just looking for temporary pleasures doesn't bring him fulfilment, either. It reminds me of another song:  U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Nothing seems to satisfy him.

Qoheleth commits himself to hard work. He is as industrious as anyone, having achieved more than most. He gets some satisfaction from a job well done, but that doesn't last. He sees the false pride that is underneath the pursuit of "hard work" (Eccles. 4:4). This is not the prosperity Gospel. He is still empty.

Do we fall into despair? Do we just give up?

It's probably good that Ecclesiastes just sort of hangs there, unresolved. We like everything wrapped up in tidy little boxes, but the spiritual journey is one of struggle. The Bible is not ultimately a book of easy answers but rather of toiling with the deep questions. The Book of Ecclesiastes makes perfect sense in light of that.

The paradox is: You just can't get to the answers without agonizing over the questions for a while.

We do ourselves a tremendous disservice when we attempt to resolve all questions as quickly as possible. Great spiritual masters tell us that God often speaks to us in the spaces between our words and our thoughts.  If we seek easy answers and don't leave space for God, we may be missing a lot--that's true even if we fill that space with God, because all we are doing is filling that space with what we think of as God--our own conceptions and voice--which actually can drown out God's voice.

It is almost as if the writer of Ecclesiastes in desperation reaches some kind of breakthrough. Sometimes you have to be pushed to your utter limits to break into the liminal space necessary for change and growth. The writer realizes that this is indeed a world of dust--and that's okay. We have to trust God in that.

It is an enormous challenge to face this. It is good to realize this, though, as that forces us to grow. It forces our true self to grow through the shell of the false self, so we can live our true nature. But those are some major growing pains and they hurt. It is normal to experience a monumental grieving process, because there is a lot at stake--virtually everything we know gets carried off in the wind like so much dust.

In the Gospels, Jesus is continually calling on us to discern between what is eternal and what is not. Jesus calls us to let go and be not afraid. He tells us that there is reason to hope in this, even if--or maybe especially if--we hang onto hope by the skin of our calloused fingertips with our last bit of strength. He tell us that what is lasting is not of this world--it is of the Kingdom. All worldly pursuits, all riches, even the emotional "riches" of pride--maybe especially so--come from dust and return to dust. At best they are meaningless, at worst they are distractions that keep us from finding true meaning.

You have to realize that this world amounts to nothing more than dust in order to really understand the message of Jesus. We are not supposed to build a permanent home for ourselves here. Jesus made that quite clear.

Everything of this world does perish. Qoheleth is right in discovering this. 

The rest of the story (in the voice of Paul Harvey), however, is that everything of God does not perish.  When it is all said and done, all that remains is faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13).  That is exactly why it behooves us to let go of everything false to live into this Truth: Give up everything and be with the poor in faith, hope and love. If we were not so attached to our possessions, our wealth and our worldly sense of security, we would probably do this rather easily. It involves us shedding our false self to let the Kingdom within shine. Jesus shows us the Way: He continually ignored worldly titles and statuses and instead encountered anyone and everyone in peace and recognized their dignity. He is in and with the poor. That is where Jesus is and that is where his Church ought to be.

Our religious structures can be a barrier for this true spiritual journey, too. When we think our church is the only "right" one, when our doctrines are the "best," then we can actually stop listening to God and listen only the echo chamber of our own conclusions. Make no mistake--God can speak to us through religious doctrines and structures, but when they become a false idol then the religious tradition that could have pointed us to God now stands in the way. 
 

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What do people gain from all the toil
    at which they toil under the sun?

A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down,
    and hurries to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south,
    and goes around to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
    there they continue to flow.

All things are wearisome;
    more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    or the ear filled with hearing. 

What has been is what will be,

     and what has been done is what will be done;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”?
It has already been,
    in the ages before us.

The people of long ago are not remembered,
    nor will there be any remembrance
of people yet to come
    by those who come after them

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 (NRSV)

On Sustainability: No Need to Look Under the Hood

People are working hard to take better care of the environment. We are unraveling generations of bad practices that have unfortunately become commonplace. As Pope Francis pointed out so well in his encyclical Laudato Si, we are living in a way that is simply not sustainable. What we are taking from the earth is not being adequately replaced. The natural cycles of growth and decay are no longer in balance. Sometimes it takes a scientist to show the problems, but often we can see it for ourselves.

The word "sustainable" has just become part of our regular lingo. It's sometimes used in place of other words about the environment. As a result, we often don't pay attention to it. We should pause and consider what it means--if something is not sustainable, that means--by definition--that it cannot continue perpetually. The system will eventually run out and run dry.

If topsoil is eroding faster than it is being created, then once fertile farmlands will turn into deserts. Many of our utilities are powered by coal, but we know that coal will run out and contribute to greenhouse gases and toxic air pollution in the meantime. If we cut down trees to burn wood but do not replant new ones, we will eventually run out of trees--or at the very least, reduce how much forestland covers the earth which reduces habitat for wildlife. There are limits on these resources.

It does not require climate scientists showing mathematically sophisticated computer models to see these examples. If we accidentally dump motor oil into our morning coffee, we have polluted it. Our delicious morning brew is now undrinkable. We are simply saying that this is happening on a larger scale. For example, pollution from burning coal ruins river and lakes, and makes them unfit for swimming, fishing and for drinking water.

The earth does not have an infinite ability to process all these toxins at the rate we are producing them. Humans have historically assumed that the earth was a "bottomless pit" that could absorb whatever trash we threw her way. We now realize that just as we can pollute small areas, like our cup of coffee, we can also ruin large areas, too--up to an including the whole climate of the planet.

Some people accuse the pope of being hopelessly unrealistic, but it's the opposite: The current system is unrealistic. We have gotten accustomed to something that is doomed from the start. The good news is that we do not have to live this way. It is going to take all hands on deck--from individual households to companies to governments. We can all evaluate how our decisions affect the common home we all share.

Imagine I am going to take a car ride from Columbus, OH, to my office in Fairfield, OH. Google Maps says it is a 133 mile trip one-way. I have this wonderful car--a gift from my father. It is not mine, though. It's for my children, but I am free to use it until they are old enough. However, I only have enough gasoline to go 100 miles. In addition, the oil has begun leaking out.

Nobody in their right mind would support my decision to do this. If for some reason the oil does not completely leak out and burn out the engine, ruining the car and risking a highway accident, then the gasoline will eventually run out. The math is easy: Attempting to go 133 miles when there is only enough fuel for 100 makes no sense. This is compounded because I know there's an oil leak. What a sad way to treat a gift that is really meant for my children to enjoy.

This is an analogy of what we are doing with the climate. We are on an unsustainable, suicide mission. On the surface, the car looks fine. It runs well enough. However, looks can be deceiving. Sometimes you need to pop open the hood to get the real story. By the time the car shows symptoms of the problems, it may be too late. But if you are really honest with yourself--you don't really have to look under the hood. You already knew the math doesn't work.

The same is true for the earth. If you take a look outside your bedroom window, you may see birds flying, trees thriving and green grasses. There may be hot days and cold days. It takes a scientist to pop open the proverbial hood to give us another look--bee populations (who do critical pollinating) are dying off. Most rainwater has pesticide residue in it. Virtually all seafood has some level of toxins in them. Plastics are being absorbed into the food chain. The earth's temperature has been steadily rising since the industrial revolution began and the forests and grasslands to neutralize these greenhouse gases are being chopped down. Everything may start to look more bleak.

We can treat the earth with the same common courtesy we would treat a neighbor: If you borrow their car, you return it--with a full tank of gas. If you make a mess, you clean it up. If you damage something, you fix it or replace it. It's just responsible stewardship.

 

10 Ways Clothing Choices Can Impact Care for Creation

The bread which you store up is the bread of the hungry;

the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked;

the shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot;

the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.

St. Basil the Great

When people think about being more environmentally responsible, the first topics that come to mind usually involve transportation habits, utilities usage and food consumption. These are all very important. However, there is another area that we often overlook: Clothing. Almost every decision we make about clothing can have an impact on other people as well as on the earth we all share.

In honor of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, I offer the following. These are all very practical suggestions, but they can also be a gateway to a deeper spiritual exploration. See in these tips a nudge to focus, simplify, contemplate and rest. They can help us tune in better to our relationship with the earth and with our fellow humans.

Purchases

1. Buy Fewer Clothes. This is a hard one for Americans. We have become accustomed to accumulate--let's get more and more. But ask yourself--do you really enjoy all of the outfits you own? Like most American men, I use the same half dozen shirts and pants while many other items hang in my closest and rarely see the light of day. I spend more time just managing all this extra stuff in storage than I do actually using it. Clothing is very resource intensive. The cotton grown is sprayed with more pesticides than most food crops and synthetic materials are petroleum based. Most clothing is also made by people exploited for barely subsistence wages. We can do better.

2. Donate Clothing. It is easy for me to hoard. Sometimes it is the quote from St. Basil above that helps me let go. I have possessions taking up space when there are poor people who could benefit from them. I keep some mementoes for nostalgia, and I try to purge the rest. It helps to think of it as just sharing it with someone else rather than truly letting it go.

3. Buy Second Hand Clothing. It's not just ecological; it's not just economical . . . it's also fashionable! Why spend $30-60 on a pair of pants when you can get virtually the same item for $5? You may end up with a stylish retro wardrobe. It may take some hunting and pecking in order to find the right items, but you have to do that at retail stores, too. I know people who dress themselves almost entirely from thrift stores and they look every bit as sharp and stylish as people spending more money for the same items at retail prices. We can live smarter.

4. Consider Organic/Fairly Traded Clothes. This one is hard, as the availability of these items is still pretty low and the cost is often high. However, we must ask ourselves not why these items are so expensive, but rather why is most clothing so cheap? Chances are, that cost is being paid for in damage to the earth and abusive labor practices.

Laundry

5. Wash Clothes Less Often. I enjoy being clean as much as anybody, but let's face it--a day at the office does not require a thorough wash with heavy duty laundry detergent. Wash socks and undergarments each time but pants, sweaters and shirts can often get multiple uses between washes. This saves water, reduces the environmental pollution from detergents and saves on your carbon footprint. Most importantly, it frees up time that you could spend with your family and on other nobler pursuits, such as allowing time for rest and for honoring God. We have been conditioned to think we have to 'keep up with the Joneses' and spend virtually all of our energy in this never-ending treadmill of consumption and busy-ness. Most of it is not necessary--all that extra work depletes us, depletes the environment, and gets in the way of our relationships and spirituality. We can re-learn how to be people who honor the Sabbath--rest and contemplation of God are so important. In fact, Pope Francis recently recognized "contemplation of creation" as a Spiritual Work of Mercy!

5. Let Nature Do The Drying. This has become controversial. In fact, there are many neighborhoods where it is prohibited to dry your clothes outdoors! Some of those neighborhoods are starting to change and allow this once again. In the meantime, you can get an indoor drying rack. Why spend money and pollution-producing energy spinning clothes in a clothes dryer when God has given us the sun and the wind for that very purpose? Maybe the climate in your area is not conducive to drying clothes this way year-round, but all of us can take advantage of it from time to time. I have a collapsible wooden drying rack from a local Amish builder, similar to the picture. I use it to hang clothes as well as house plants.

6. Use Ecologically Friendly Detergents. We are all downstream from some people and upstream from others. The earth is a fully integrated system. What goes down the drain goes to our neighbors, and we get what others have put down the drain previously. It goes into the topsoil, rivers and oceans. Animals and plants can be harmed.

8. Use Energy Efficient Machines. When possible, find an Energy Star model. A good rule of thumb is to keep the machines you have and use them until they break down. Getting rid of working appliances in order to swap them out with more efficient models sounds great at first, but all the energy required to manufacture and transport a new appliance, plus all of the landfill waste that accumulates when it is thrown away, means that it is better to use what you have until it cannot be used any more.

9. Keep It Retro! I often find myself perusing the home fixer upper channels. All too often, I see a family on House Hunters walk into a perfectly functional house and declare that they would have to "upgrade" all of the appliances for something more stylish. I have to admit it is hard to watch that. I like style as much as anybody, but to throw away something that works perfectly fine just because it does not have a contemporary look seems wasteful. We ought to at least consider whether there are ethical implications of that decision. Can those used appliances be given to low-income families or will they just be thrown out? That is money we could use for other purposes, such as sharing with the poor. The time spent selecting, purchasing and installing new items could be time spent with our families, walking in nature or volunteering to help the needy.

10. Repair. How many times have we all thrown out a shirt just because it was missing a button? We should ask ourselves--is it really more convenient to get in your car, drive to the nearest retail outlet, select and purchase a new shirt, remove tags and drive back to your home than it is to simply sew on a new button? Some effective marketing has conditioned us to believe that buying something new is easier and more convenient--often, it is not.

As Pope Francis describes so well, being environmentally minded is not an isolated practice. How we treat our common home is also directly related to how we treat ourselves and our fellow human beings, especially the poor. It shows how we honor and regard God, too. In just these few examples, we can see that when we are wasteful with clothing choices, not only do we potentially harm God's creation, but we can also waste our time, talent and treasure doing things that are very unnecessary. We can squander what God has given us running this never-ending treadmill of consumption. As St. Basil reminds us, that is all time, talent and treasure that could be mobilized to benefit the poor.

The First Commandment Shall Be Last

 

When Jesus said, "The last shall be first and the first shall be last," I highly doubt He meant that the first and Greatest Commandment should be the last thing on our list of things to do.

If you run a successful business, you are probably centered on a mission. You evaluate everything you do in light of that mission. Knowing human nature, you have to be reminded of it time and again, to make sure it stays front and center.

You might distill that mission into a motto and share it on bumper stickers, placards hanging on doors and anywhere else eye-worthy.

Great businesses keep their eyes on the ball.

This is part five in a series exploring the centrality to Christian faith of what we have traditionally called the Greatest Commandment (links to the others are at the bottom of this post).

Jesus told us in all four Gospels: We are to love God and neighbor abundantly. Jesus gave many commands throughout the Gospels, but this one is called the "Greatest" for a reason--Jesus actually said this was primary.

Being loving is not just a collection of isolated actions. Love is not just something we tack onto our other actions. Rather, Jesus tells us that Love is the essential infrastructure on which all the other rules and parameters hang, as we explored in the previous post. We ought to put it first and then re-order everything else in light of it.

If what we do isn't loving God and neighbor, we should seriously question why we are doing it at all.  We should immediately give some serious thought to what else we should be doing instead.

Before we do anything and everything, the question that should be forever on our lips from the moment we wake till we bed down to sleep at night is: Are we loving God and loving neighbor in what we do? 

We should be researching, compiling lists, best practices. It should be out front and open.

There should be study groups at every church on how to love God and love one another. I've been to a lot of churches and I have yet to see a "Greatest Commandment Ministry Group."
 

In response to that, I find myself asking: What part of "Greatest" and "Commandment" are we not understanding?

A "commandment" is what is sounds like--a command. 

And "greatest" is also pretty self-explanatory. I'm really not sure where the confusion is here.

I don't mean to be snarky, but this is really extraordinarily simple. This is one of the reasons why Jesus said that children will get it but adults may not--why the poor will get it but the rich won't. There is nothing intellectually difficult about the Greatest Commandment. It is the centerpiece around which all else should be built, it is the structure on which the Law should hang and it should be our primary focus as disciples and as church communities. It is the sign of our Cristian identity.

Unfortunately, religion--for all its benefits--can often train people to doubt their own childlike wisdom and common sense. It becomes a way to dumb us down rather than open us up to the Mystery.

What makes The Greatest Commandment difficult is our enormous resistance to its message. It is enormously simple. It is also enormously difficult. It takes spiritual maturity to even entertain it. It requires us having tremendous trust in God and letting go of all of our attachments. It is so strong it is like looking at the sun--we can only catch a glimpse and then our bodily reflexes immediately jolt us away.

No sooner do we hear the Commandment than we immediately find all sorts of exceptions and exemptions. We seize every opportunity to push this commandment away, keep it at arm's length, minimize it or just put it off for a rainy day. We hear it but it vibes with a massive cognitive dissonance contrary to the ways of this world, so we reflexively dismiss it--Jesus couldn't possibly have meant that, right? It's so different, it's just--out of this world.

***

You could easily say you're tired of me complaining.

You could call me out on this.

I've been rambling now for several blog posts about how much of Christianity seems to ignore--or at the very least minimize--the Greatest Commandment to love God and one another, something Jesus explicitly told us to do in all four Gospels.

You could say--and rightfully so--that love is indeed preached in the churches in all that we say and do.

It IS like looking at the sun in that we don't look at it directly, but it does illuminate everything we do.

You could say that all we do flows out of love: Our worship is a love for God. Our social justice and charity efforts come out of desire to love our neighbor. You would be hard pressed to find any positive movement for mercy and justice that did not showcase the church right in the middle of it, oftentimes starting the whole movement.

Love is everywhere in the churches, you could say.

We may not have a "Greatest Commandment" ministry group, but we do have a food pantry, a hospital visitation ministry, a social justice club and a worship committee.

It might seem trite to have a church group devoted to sewing robes for the choir--but we show love for God through worship and those robes are part of that expression. When we ask ourselves, what does love look like? The answer may be: Arthritic hands delicately tending to worn holes in altar robes or a person on their hands and knees removing wax from long-burning candles on the carpet.

Jesus tells us what to do but like a good leader He does not tell us how to do it (this is a paraphrase of General George S. Patton, who seems like a very awkward person to compare with Jesus, but I must give credit for the quote where it's due).

It's up to us to work it out, sweat it out, to paraphrase someone else (this time, it's Fr. Daniel Berrigan from Ten Commandments for the Long Haul (that's better, I'm must more comfortable with the person I'm quoting here)).

But I also know from experience that those people leading those movements for social change are often the minority. They are often mocked, ridiculed and marginalized by their own church communities. Likewise, those old men and women who stay late to clean the church are often left by themselves as the rest of the congregation hurries out the door towards Sunday picnics.

Yet, when the roll call is announced, we all-too-often want to claim those marginalized people as representing us, too. We all take pride in a clean church and in the acts of service done in our name by others.

We can read about the wondrous life of St. Francis and be convinced of his saintliness. But when Francis of Assisi knocks on the door, beckoning us to follow his example of intentional poverty and service, we refuse to open. When Martin Luther King, Jr., calls us to follow his path of nonviolent social change ,we stall.

Yet, I bet if God were to hold the church accountable for following His Commandment, we would be the first to claim that the church clean-up crew, St. Francis and MLK Jr were one of us! We'd pull them right out of the margins and push them to the front of the crowd and say, "You see! They belong with us, too!"

That is the scandal--the fact that the people who love abundantly are used as a cover for the rest of us.

There probably is some truth that these saintly people are instruments in the redemption of their respective communities--redemption and reconciliation are not exclusively individual affairs (Colossians 1:20), but that should not be an excuse for the rest of us to sit idly by.

You see, there are many places to run from the totally life-changing call of this Commandment. We have no shortage of places to wiggle out of it, deny, divert attention or claim that we are following the Commandment when we are not really heeding it much at all. This blog series is, after all, a look at all little (and not so little) ways we push the Commandment off to the side.

The way we handle saints is much like the way we treat the Greatest Commandment--which should not come as a surprise, as they are the closest living embodiments to that Commandment. We enshrine them and push them away in one brilliant, clever move.


Dorothy Day figured this out. She is famous for saying: "Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily."

We either ignore the saints or we celebrate them. Both are devious ways of avoiding the task of actually being like them. Once someone has been made into a saint, we subtly put them into a category of "superhuman" and just keep them at arm's length. It's like the more we honor them the less we have to be like them!

Dorothy Day tried hard to avoid that. She's a person like me and you. What she did is something we could all do. As much as she loved the litany of saints, she knew the risks that come with that designation.

I wish I could remember who said this, and if I ever figure out how to properly attribute it, I will gladly do so. It was a great quote that went something like: Everybody loves St. Francis, but nobody wants to be St. Francis!

We love this belief stuff.

We aren't so fond of this action stuff.

Love is there. But it's not front and center like Jesus told us it should be. That is the scandal.

And yes, love does factor into why we do what we do. Why we have social justice committees is to love our neighbor. Why we have beautiful worship services is because we love God. But when God Himself gives us the Commandment to follow, how often have we made that the #1 priority?

We don't flat out deny Jesus' Commandment--we just mention it and then quietly push it off to the side to focus on something else.

We entertain the Greatest Commandment and nurture gentle embers. But why isn't it preached front and center? Why isn't it preached as essential? Why isn't it preached as fundamental? It's like we kept the words of Scripture, but we have removed all its teeth.

The Greatest Commandment comes off like something we do on the side--and that's how we have ignored it. It's hiding in plain sight. We keep it--sure. We do a few good things in the name of love, of course. We honor many saints throughout history, hoping that their witness, by association, somehow gives credit and credibility to us.

If we had just tossed out the Commandment, it would have been a pretty obvious affront to Jesus. So we keep it, and we just sort of . . . ignore it. And we all benefit from ignoring it. We talk about it just enough to act like we have checked it off our list. But Jesus wants our enthusiastic "all in."

We put The Greatest Commandment in its golden cage: Right in the middle and completely neutralized, ignored and immobilized, like the poor elephant in the living room.

***


This is part 5 in the series, "What Makes a Christian?" Each part stands on its own.
Part 1: The Elephant in the Living Room
Part 2: Like Looking at the Sun
Part 3: John 3:16 vs the Greatest Commandment
Part 4: The Law Hangs in the Balance of Love
Part 5: The First Commandment Shall Be Last