I'm relfecting on the Lectionary List Scriptures that we're using as our foundational word and invitation to relfection on the meaning of life, and our lives this coming Sunday, July 1st at Fruitvale Church in Oakland. We're lifting up the following 2 scriptures because of their commonalities. Psalm 77,:1-2, 11-20 & Luke 9:51-62. Jesus is talking about discipleship...what it costs to follow him, and what it looks like. I quickly thought of German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his classic (and probably way-too-often quoted) comparison of cheap vs. costly grace (even if it is fantastically radical in terms of meaning-making in our 21st century lives and livelihoods).
Pslam 77 is the prayer-cry of someone facing deep fear, radical doubt, and extreme isolation. She cries out so that God will hear her. It's interesting that the prayer poem starts with verses focused on "I did this.." "I said this..." and then moves onto talking about God saying "you are.." "you will..." it then continues with comments in the 3rd person about how the universe responds "the clouds..." before conluding with an affirmation of faith about how God led the people through the sea, delivering them, guiding them to free, liberated life under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. The psalm-poem challenges the isolation felt by the depressed poet, inviting her to open her mind and world-view to recognize that she is part of something bigger, that her life is part of a chain, interdependent and connected to those that have lived before her (and who'll undoubtedly come after her). It's a freeing movement from the depravity of isolation to the meaning-making of community, from an experience of drifting chaos to one of centered rootedness, from me-centered to other-centered life.
In Luke 9:51-62 Jesus is confronted with different responses to who he is as a Jewish man, as well as by diverse reactions and interpretations of his call to discipleship. When the Samaritans, who were the racially excluded and oppressed victims of Jewish culture at that time (because they were viewed as hybrids - not in a good Prius-sort-of-way, but in an impure, traitorous, heretic way), reject Jesus, the latter's disciples want to reign down fire on them. They want to avenge this rejection through violence, subconsciously or maybe overtly wanting to perpetuate the genocidal/racist/elitists division and self-righteousness that they've grown up with through more violence in the hope of wiping the bad guys out. Jesus rebukes them (How? Interesting that the text doesn't say in v. 55). As they continue to journey along the road a fellow disciple/traveller announces proudly, "where you go Jesus I'll go too!" Jesus then sets about with some seemingly depressing and discouraging proclamations. Is Jesus trying to discourage his followers? Is he trying to weed out the losers? Is he anti-family in saying that you have to "let the dead bury the dead", not worrying about dying (or most likely alread long dead) family members, but rather follow him? What is he some sort of radical extremist karesh-styled cult-leader? I think that Jesus is actually unmasking the powers and excuses through a radicalized invitation. You can't have 2 masters. You can't have it both ways. You can't have it your way. You either follow or you don't. His response seems to be "Get over yourself and follow me!"
At first reading I'm a bit scandalized. I mean I want to be open, not tolerant for tolerance's sake, not open to keep all my options open, but open in the sense that I have to believe that just because I say it's true doesn't mean it's the Truth. I want to, and have committed to, follow Jesus with all of my life; yet I don't want that to imply a self-aggrandizing or self-righteous judgement of everyone else as lost, loser, or destined to burn in hell for all eternity. OK - so you say the scriptures might say that....but I'm not sure that they really do. Maybe I'm a product of my generation and culture....maybe I'm just a Bobo
Instead of community arising as a byproduct of rigid belief, people will return
to religious belief beacause of their desire for community. In other
words, people will return to religious tradition not necessarily because
they accept the truth of revelation, but precisely because the absence of
community and the transience of social ties in the secular world makes them
hungry for ritual and cultural tradition. They will help the poor or their
neighbors not because doctrine tells them they must, but rather because they
want to serve their community and find that faith-based organizations are
the most effective ways of doing so. They will repeat ancient prayers and
reenact age-old rituals not because they believe they were handed down by
God, but rather because they want their children to have proper values, and
because they want to enjoy the comfort of ritual and the sense of sahred
experience it brings. In a sense they will not be taking religion seriously
on its own terms. Religion becomes a source of ritual in a society that has
been stripped bare of ceremony, and thus a reasonable extension of the
natrual desire for social relatedness with which all human beings are born.
(pp. 242-243)
Checkout the book (Bobos in Paradise) at amazon.com or read author David Brook's Blog
I want to believe that we have choice, and yet no choice, that we have freedom and yet we have a deep need for ritual and rootedness in the past. Just because it's old it doesn't mean it's not good. Just because I want the freedom to choose doesn't mean that I think it's all about me - or that it every should be. It's a dialetic - both free to choose and not free not too choose. Reminds me of a quote from the Jewish Writings of the Fathers - the Pirke Avot 2:21,
"You are not obliged to complete the task,
Neither are you free to refrain from it."
I want to find community and both live in it and from it. For me community comes from faith, an invitation to move from me to we, from self-centered to other-focused, from radical consumer-oriented individualism to meaning-making and world-changing community. David Brooks' reflection is thought-provoking, yet I haven't choosen to participate in a faith community only in a search for community. For me Jesus said the same thing, but without the baggage that we've maybe collecteed by living in a time/culture/space stripped of ritual, meaning-making belief, and faith-based community."
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him
because of the crowd. And [Jesus] was told, ‘Your mother and your
brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ But [Jesus] said to
them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do
it.’
Luke 8:19-21
A friend turned me on to this funny mechurch video below. It gives a funny glimpse of the me-focused extremes I'm talking about and the pseudo/psychotic faith that Jesus is trying to unmask in Luke 9 and inviting followers to get over through his challenging words.
I don't think Jesus is a radical extremist all-for-me-or-nothing cultish leader, rather I think he's a prophet of justice and righteousness calling us - still today - on our self-importance, self-absorption and belief that we can satisfy oursevles through our own independent actions, thoughts, and words.
I'm turned on to Brandi Carlile these days, in one song "The Story" she sings the following words that resonate deeply with the scriptures for Sunday -
You see these lines upon my face,
they tell you the story of who I am,
So many stories of where I've been
and how I got to where I am
But theses stories don't mean anything,
If you don't have anyone to tell them to,
You. I was made for you.
If life is a story...which in a sense is what we believe if Jesus is understood as the WORD of God spoken to the universe, to us,...then we are invited to listen to the story, to tell ours...to enter a dialogue focused not upon ourselves, but outside of ourselves...not because it's good for us...but because being in the dialogue is what makes sense of life, making meaning of our actions, words, relationships, work and rest.
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