Progressive Wednesday

Clergyman Charlie: On Adam and Eve

People sometimes ask “Who did Adam's sons marry?– Often a minister replies, “Ha, ha, that's a good one!– as he shakes their hand and ushers them out the door. I think some clergy are a little afraid to shock people by telling them what they know about that story. Would you be shocked if I say that the story of Adam and Eve is not historical, but it is true? It is myth, not fact.

But understand a myth is a non historical story that teaches an absolute truth. If you read the story carefully, there are more problems that who the first children married. After Cain killed his brother Abel, he was expelled from the community. Cain said that if he was a fugitive, whoever met him might kill him. But God said he would protect him.

Who was out there to kill him? Good question if the story was “true.–

But if you realize that this ancient story, handed down over campfires for generations before it was written down, was meant to convey profound truths. People before the scientific era didn't think as we do, wanting everything measured, tested, proven. They could enjoy a story without our questions. Maybe that's better. At least it is the way to read these Biblical stories.

The word “Adam– in Hebrew means “man.– Adam's story is the story of you and me. We depart from God's way for us and that brings' destruction and dismay. Our children give in to jealousy and violence, and these impulses lead to disaster, broken relationships, heartbreak. Isn't that true? We know it is.

By the way, the fact that God protects a murderer from death may be an early comment against capital punishment.

Meditate on the stories in the first chapters of Genesis. Let them speak to you. They are full of truth we need to hear. And if we do that, the question of who Adam's sons married becomes irrelevant. There wasn't an Adam: there is just you.

Clergyman Charlie: On Church Unity

The divisions of the Church are a scandal.  We are so used to them that they don't alarm us, but they should.  We pray to God and hope our prayers are answered, but we fail to answer the request that Jesus made of us.

According to John 17, Jesus prayed for the unity of the church.  In verse 21 he asks for unity so that the world may believe.  Some say he prayed for “spiritual unity,– but the unity must be so visible that the world sees it and believes.  This requires bodily as well as spiritual unity.  A body without a spirit is a corpse; a spirit without a body is a ghost.

But we are so used to our hundreds of denominations that this doesn't seem alarming to us.  We don't stop to think how this undermines our message of unity and peace and reconciliation.  If we can't reconcile with one another, how will those outside the church believe we have anything new to offer?

There are churches that call themselves “Bible Churches– and “Bible believing churches.–   I don't know of any other kind.  Are they implying that other churches don't believe the Bible?  Sometimes these churches read one short Scripture before a long sermon, while other churches that don't call themselves that read a lot of Scriptures every Sunday.

Some call themselves “non-denominational churches.–   There is no such thing.  A denomination is an identifiable group within the whole.–   Even if one solitary church doesn't affiliate with any other group, it is a denomination itself.  And such churches rarely have structures to hold leaders accountable for misconduct.

Some refuse to associate with other Christians.  If there is a group of pastors, or a council of churches, and they don't come, what does that imply?  That they are the only true church?  What a presumption to make!  What does that do to Jesus' plea that all his followers be one?

We can have unity and still allow a great deal of diversity.  In Luke 10:25-28  , Jesus was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life.  He said to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  I don't hear any long creed there!

It should be possible for all followers of Christ to recognize each other even though they disagree on rituals, ceremonies, and creeds. They should unite in love and action.

Some churches refuse to get involved in “politics.–   By saying that, they refuse to get involved in working for justice in the world.  That is the opposite of what the prophets proclaimed, and different from the Apostle Paul's urging that we be ambassadors for Christ. (II Corinthians 5:20)

Some churches are so uncommitted that they don't get involved just because they are too busy with less important things, or because they fear controversy.  That is unacceptable also.

Our world needs for Christians to unite and stand up boldly for justice and peace in our world.  As some have said, the church is a “sleeping giant.–   If it were to awake and arouse itself, it could shake the powers that be and make a witness for Christ in the world.

We Christians should call on our local church leaders to work with denominational leaders for visible unity.  Let's call on churches that are not involved with other churches in the community to reach out and join hands with all the other churches in the town.  Let's start acting ourselves as though our divisions are totally unacceptable to us, and that we are part of a larger whole.

Then we'll be doing our best to answer Jesus' prayer that his followers may be one so that the world may believe.

Thanks to this churchgoer for the picture

Clergyman Charlie: On voting your conscience

Some years ago I visited a church made up primarily of recent immigrants to the United States. I won't mention the name of the church or nationality of the people because I don't want to cause them trouble, though enough years have gone by that it might not matter anyway.

While there, on a Sunday morning, I heard the minister exhort the congregation to become voters. Now that they were citizens, he said, they had a responsibility to become informed and vote.

In order to help them do that, he continued, he had arranged for tables to be set up at the rear of the sanctuary and people were on hand to help them register. He said he wanted everyone who had become a citizen to register to vote before leaving. I was applauding these efforts silently, but then was startled when he continued, saying, “And I want every one of you to register Democratic.–

I thought, “He can't do that!– But he just had, evidently without knowing that was forbidden. And I was amazed that nobody in his congregation seemed offended by what they had heard.

Well, churches and other non-profit organizations aren't supposed to endorse certain candidates, but we can vote our principles. If we become informed about what our religion teaches and then vote for the party that is most in line with those principles, we will do well.

For instance, the Bible is clear that we should regard the earth and all of nature as belonging to God, and not to ourselves. (Psalm 24:1) We are stewards, or caretakers, of God's world. Therefore we need to support the party that is most diligent for environmental protection.

We also know that we are to be our brother's (or sister's) keeper, to love others and not just ourselves. (I John 3:11) In that case, we should support the party that is most eager to work for health care for all.

We have a duty to be compassionate to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. (Isaiah 58:6-9) We should be eager to support policies that help the poor become self sufficient. We should accept the idea of paying more taxes, if necessary, to assist those who are behind. This would include day care programs, an adequate minimum wage, and assistance to those who are in need.

We should be peacemakers. (Matthew 5:9) Not peace hopers, but those who work for peace. The party that is more willing to work for peaceful solutions to problems and more reluctant to use force should get our support.

Our Scriptures teach us that we are free to follow God according to our conscience. We do not submit to a “yoke of slavery– (Galatians 5:1) but can use our own best judgment in doing what is loving in various situations. Some would call this “situational ethics– as though that is a bad thing. I would call it a good thing. Do the most loving thing possible in each individual situation.

Sometimes we become distracted from the issues that matter by less important things. Sometimes I think this is intentional, that we are manipulated to focus on issues of lesser importance so as to neglect those of greater import. A prime example of this is when Bill Clinton's sexual misbehavior was used to distract the country from the policies and programs he was advocating. What his personal moral life was like was no doubt an issue for himself and his wife, but had little to do with the rest of the country.

So, when elections come up, if you want to vote for your religious principles, look for candidates and a party that will take action to protect the environment, institute a universal health care policy, show compassion and provide assistance to the poor, promote peace, and support individual choice. If you take these principles with you into the voting booth, you won't need anyone telling you how to register or vote; you'll know.

Top photo by this church goer/voter

Clergyman Charlie: On Adam and Eve

People sometimes ask “Who did Adam's sons marry?– Often a minister replies, “Ha, ha, that's a good one!– as he shakes their hand and ushers them out the door. I think some clergy are a little afraid to shock people by telling them what they know about that story. Would you be shocked if I say that the story of Adam and Eve is not historical, but it is true? It is myth, not fact.

But understand a myth is a non historical story that teaches an absolute truth. If you read the story carefully, there are more problems that who the first children married. After Cain killed his brother Abel, he was expelled from the community. Cain said that if he was a fugitive, whoever met him might kill him! But God said he would protect him.

Who was out there to kill him? Good question if the story was “true.–

But if you realize that this ancient story, handed down over campfires for generations before it was written down, was meant to convey profound truths. People before the scientific era didn't think as we do, wanting everything measured, tested, proven. They could enjoy a story without our questions. Maybe that's better. At least it is the way to read these Biblical stories.

The word “Adam– in Hebrew means “man.– Adam's story is the story of you and me. We depart from God's way for us and that brings' destruction and dismay. Our children give in to jealousy and violence, and these impulses lead to disaster, broken relationships, heartbreak. Isn't that true? We know it is!

By the way, the fact that God protects a murderer from death may be an early comment against capital punishment.

Meditate on the stories in the first chapters of Genesis. Let them speak to you. They are full of truth we need to hear. And if we do that, the question of who Adam's sons married becomes irrelevant. There wasn't an Adam; there is just you!

What’s in Carey Mack’s Pocket?: Peeps and a Ham

Editor’s note: Due to a technical glitch on our end, this week’s “What’s in Carey Mack’s Pocket?” is running a week late. Enjoy.

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This week, I have peeps and ham in my pocket. I never promised that my pockets were neat and tidy.

Easter is a tricky holiday. It's hard to explain. David Sedaris made this point better than anyone I know when he wrote about it in his book, Me Talk Pretty One Day. In a chapter titled, “Jesus Shaves,– Sedaris writes about a discussion in his French class. The conversation happened in France, in a French class, and thus in the French language. Sedaris translates the conversation into English and shares it with us. Oh, the empathy I have for him and his classmates. When I was in college, I got a D- in French. And I've never worked so hard for a D- in all my life. Unfortunately, the bulk of my work happened in the waning days of the semester as I frantically tried to make up for weeks — or months — of half or undone homework and vocabulary memorization, in the thin hope I could pass the class. I would, in my next degree program, take Greek. And my professor would write, “this was supposed to have been translated into English– on my final exam. Again, I might have done better if I'd spent more time studying Greek and less time watching Little House on the Prairie. To summarize, I am in no way making fun of the people in David Sedaris's class. Sedaris writes:

The . . . class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm . . . – ˜He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples. He nice, the Jesus.' . . . Part of [the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity] had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such a complicated reflexive phrases as – ˜to give of yourself your only begotten son.'

On Easter, my job, as a preacher is to explain this — to explain this to people who are in deep grief, or are waiting for a huge epiphany, or are dragged to church by a mother who threatens to cry if they do not, or are thinking about their sister-in-law and whether or not she's bringing the rolls, or are very jacked up on Easter candy. It's not easy. Believing in resurrection, in life after death isn't easy. It's the most meaningful thing that I do, however. Die and rise. Good Friday and Easter. I'd like to say I do it every day, but I usually have to mess up a lot before I remember that that's what works.

I like to think of it as a twelve-step program for being human. “I admitted that I was powerless over the ways in which I am human.– I need sleep. I feel things. I lose my temper. Stuff makes me laugh sometimes. I get sick. I get distracted by cute boys. And I have all these plans on how things are supposed to go.

For example, when I was in college (which I completed in four years and received a B.A. in American Studies), I was an Elementary Education major for a whole year. People who know me now find this, rightfully, appalling. Don't get me wrong. I like kids. But it would kind of be like putting the paste eater in charge of the paste, if you get what I'm saying. I'm not a great authority figure. There would be a lot of recess. I also don't like details. I worked as a substitute teacher for a year and, not once, did I get the milk count correct. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I had to let that plan die, so that I could major in American Studies, which was right up my alley and allowed me to write a paper for three credits (the equivalent of a whole class) on A Prairie Home Companion. I still feel like I really got away with something huge. But it was a big deal to major in something that didn't really have a clear vocational direction attached to it (save for academia). I needed to do it, though. And it went along with the idea that I “made a decision to turn my will [and my humanity] over to the care of God as I understood God.– It all worked out. And I didn't feel tempted to poke out my eye with a blunt-edged scissors.

When I was in elementary school, our teachers used to ask us what we'd do if we were President. Inevitably, one person would suggest that we have soda (or pop, depending on your geography) running from the bubblers (or drinking fountains, again, depending on your cultural monikers). I am pretty sure that I was in favor of re-writing the national anthem, and giving this task to Weird Al Yankovic. I guess what I'm getting at is this – “ sometimes, our will isn't what's best. I think about this, politically, these days. As much as I want to light bags of dog poop and leave them on certain politicians' doorsteps, and I want to do this really bad, I remember that I am a person of peace. I turn my crazy will over to God's will. Who is really more in favor of dialogue and forgiveness.

Anne Lamott, who says more true things than just about anyone I know, and is very familiar with the recovery process, writes:

You have to give up some false stuff to get to the true . . . and you come to with that having happened. You come to. This is the Easter message, that awakening is possible, to the goodness of God, the sacredness of human life, the sisterhood and brotherhood of all . . . maybe you’ll find that it wakes us up to exhilaration and discomfort, makes us more aware than usual that we’re alive; that grace abounds and that we can cooperate with that.

And that, my friends, is the best way that I know of to explain what Easter means to me.

What’s in Carey Mack’s Pocket?: A Book

This week, I happen to have a book in my pocket. The title of the book? A Feminist Ethic of Risk by Sharon Welch. Don't go running and screaming for the hills (or the dales, for that matter) because it has the word “feminist– in it. I want you to know that this book, and the theology that it espouses, changed my life.

You see, once upon a time, in a city called Chicago, I participated in a program called Clinical Pastoral Education, in which one spends about half the time serving as a chaplain and the other half of the time reflecting, in various ways, about the experiences that you have. It is a great education. One of the things I loved was the diversity in our group — I was the only Lutheran and there were two Unitarian-Universalist pastoral candidates.

That summer, I struggled heartily with my sexual orientation and other ways in which I knew, for sure, that I rubbed the larger church the wrong way. Moreover, one of the things that I learned that summer was that, in those moments when I found myself faced with enormous challenges, I froze. I found myself faced with issues about which I felt great passion, injustices about which I cared deeply.

And there I would be, like Ralphie in the flick A Christmas Story, who finally gets to see Santa at the department store and cannot remember for the life of him what he wanted for Christmas. As you might recall, the irony is that Ralphie has been obsessed with the Red Rider BB gun, but he and Santa settle on a football and Santa kicks Ralphie down the exit slide. Then comes the great moment when Ralphie gathers up his courage and, using his rubber boots, stops himself, and shouts, “I want an official Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock– ¦– Santa and the elves respond by telling Ralphie that he'll shoot his eye out, but Ralphie persists.

A Feminist Ethic of Risk looks into the face of the giant evils of our world, of which there are many. It posits that we assume we have two choices — “isolationist– or “interventionist– — not dealing with the injustices of the world or doing it in a violent, domineering, overassertive way. A Feminist Ethic of Risk offers a third way, a way that has become more and more important in how I deal with my relationships with other people.

I am very imperfect. At the same time, I realized, in reading that book, and in lots of other situations, that an ethic of risk is exactly that. It is an ethic — a way of being in the world, and a good way of being at that. I read it as something that I have to do because of my religious commitments, although some days I want to do it, but the truth is that I need to do it. And it is risky, indeed. Hopefully . . . (Hopefully? Yes. Hopefully) you know what I am talking about. Loving someone means risking a broken heart.

I think that Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a pastor/professor who was executed for his part in a plot to kill Hitler) said it well: “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture. It can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrust in turn brings forth war. To look for guarantees is to want to protect oneself.–

That is the feminist ethic of risk in a nutshell. We must dare love and peace and justice. This is true in our personal lives, and it is true in our corporate lives. The anniversary of Bloody Sunday was eleven days ago. Sharon Welch writes: “The memories evoked by [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.] are indeed dangerous. They endanger the continued acceptance of racial injustice as they propel people to courageous acts of resistance. Similarly, memories of defiance and victory become dangerous as they serve as the spur to further action and critique, an ennobling reminder of the good that can be attained by ordinary people.–

Motivated by the idea that they needed be in the world in an equal way (an ethic), men and women marched several blocks from Selma to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they were met with, among other things, bull whips (that's the risk part) and were beaten. People died. Those folks had no idea of the outcome of their actions, except a dream (following dreams, that is risky too, because there are not any ironclad guarantees that you will ever see it happen) — some people call that moral imagination.

Groups of women have done it. Today, I am thinking about the people who marched from Selma to the bridge. Today, their risks inspire me. I am inspired, straight woman that I am, to take some risks of my own. Because, according to my higher power, that is what I need to do.

What’s in Carey Mack’s Pocket?: A Primer

My first second contribution to Progressive Wednesday explains the title of my columns to follow– ¦

When I was in college, I was an orientation assistant, fairly alone on a university campus in northwest Indiana. The residence halls had visitation hours — no men in women's wings after 12 during the week or 2 on the weekends. No alcohol. However, we (the other OAs and I) got to stay in the dorms unfettered, and one night we slept in the Union. Another night we played “Beirut– and drank lots of beer in one of the lounges. It owned, as the youngsters of today say.

So, one game that we played during that formative time was a game called “What's in Carey Mack's Pocket?– I’m sure my friend Ian's intentions were marginally risqué — as risqué as Ian would get in public. This game he invented was kind of a private Lutheran University version of “Is that a plantain in your pants or are you just happy to see me?– So there we were, with Carey Mack in her overall shorts, shorts which I loved because they were somewhat hippie-ish. I guess as hippie-ish as a girl could get who had a blonde bob haircut and looks wholesome enough that people bend the rules for her — a lot. (I am not complaining.)

Anyway, I had some great overall shorts that I made out of overalls from Farm and Fleet. I cut them off. I bleached them out. I tried to soften them as much as I could. I could have had a completely secret life going on in my pocket.

This is where this column gets its name. It's a metaphor.

You see, Garrison Keillor (of American Public Media) always starts out his monologues, his “News from Lake Wobegon,– with the words, “It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown– ¦.– If I had a radio show, I would probably start all of my monologues with the words, “It's been a heady week in My Own Personal New York City.–

“My Own Personal New York City– and “Carey Mack's Pocket– are the same thing. And my own personal New York City is different from Anne Lamott's: in hers, people yell at each other all the time; people in my own personal New York City yell at people less.

What's in Carey Mack's Pocket? is the way that I experience the world as this complicated, amazing, sad, hilarious mix of lotsa, lotsa different people. I will add this twist. It is what I think about a lot. It is this: hope.

The telos (or end) of my spiritual commitments is this — hope. This is not a coincidence. I had a conversion experience in which I consciously began looking for hope. Moreover, it was not just a change in epistemology. It was an internal reclamation of something that I value highly. I found myself moved by this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.– I believe, inspired a whole lot by the ideas about which Cornel West speaks, that there is extraordinary power in hoping. In hope. That is what I expect to share (in pocket-sized offerings).