Greatness

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Mark 10:35-45

When humorist Dave Barry landed a college internship with a magazine in Washington D.C., he wasn’t prepared for “the great Washington totem pole of status.” Barry writes, “Way up at the top of this pole is the president; way down at the bottom, below mildew, is the public. In between is an extremely complex hierarchy of government officials, journalists, lobbyists, lawyers, and other power players, holding thousands of minutely graduated status rankings differentiated by extremely subtle nuances that only Washingtonians are capable of grasping. For example, Washingtonians know whether a person whose title is ‘Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary’ is more or less important than a person whose title is ‘Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.’” Washington parties, Barry says, were serious affairs at which everybody worked hard to figure out where everybody else fit on the totem pole, and then spent the rest of the evening sucking up to whoever was higher up.

In the Mark passage, the brothers James and John approach Jesus to ask for special treatment. Interpreters disagree about what motivates them. Is this a totem pole way of looking at discipleship? Could they be so clueless about who Jesus is that they’re imagining a triumphant scene with themselves sitting in positions of honor at King Jesus’ right and left? Or is it that Jesus has just told them for the third time what lies ahead in Jerusalem and they’re starting to wonder about their own futures? Either way, their request is grounded in their love for Jesus. Maybe that’s why Jesus doesn’t reprimand them, and instead, tells them they don’t know what they’re asking. He gently brings them back to the hardships that will come first, through the images of the cup of suffering and the baptism of death.

The other disciples aren’t pleased that James and John are jockeying for position. It seems that all the disciples are stuck in a totem pole way of looking at power: who’s on top, who gets the best seat at the table. Meanwhile, Jesus is up-ending the seating arrangement. He says that what the world usually calls greatness is not great at all. He refers to the Gentiles, the Romans who occupy Judea. These Gentiles think tyrants are great. Then Jesus gives the disciples a new recipe for greatness. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

To be great is to serve. I believe many of us struggle with Jesus’ words as much as the disciples did when they first heard this, even if we’ve heard it many times. Sure, we know serving is good, but if you wish to be great, you must be a servant?

In order to grasp why serving leads to greatness, and not just in some sort of irrational, Jesus-always-loves-a-paradox sort of way, we need to remember that Jesus has been steering his disciples toward transformation – and along with them, us, and the whole world. Jesus knows that what’s behind the totem pole scenario is fear: fear that we won’t have enough, be loved enough; that we are not enough. He knows that what’s behind it is a way of looking at the world that says there are only so many pieces of the pie and so I’d better get my piece; that there are winners and losers in the world, and I’ll do whatever I can to be a winner.

It’s a way of looking at the world that has caused much of the suffering, disconnection, and violence that humanity brings upon itself. It’s this way of looking at the world that Jesus turns on its head when he heals people, forgives sins, touches the untouchable, includes the outcast, and breaks the rules that drag people down and disconnect them from community. From the beginning of Mark’s gospel, he’s insisted that God is near and claims us as God’s beloveds. Jesus has modeled the compassionate life that God wants the whole world to live; this, he says, is what God’s kingdom looks like. Jesus proclaims that this is good news, not just for those at the bottom of the totem pole but for all. Now, Jesus is showing the disciples that serving is the way out of the fear of “not enough,” and even the way out of “not enough” itself. Serving changes us, and changes our world.

Serving helps others, and it helps us. It heals others, and it heals us. It connects us with others, and it connects us with ourselves and with God. Serving is how God transforms the world and transforms us. Jesus’ lesson here is summed up by Richard Rohr this way: “Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.”

“Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” Good parents always learn this. People in recovery in Twelve Steps groups learn this. The twelfth step is about serving others who need help with recovery, and the universal experience is that it turns out to be life-changing and healing for the person who is doing the serving, as well. A woman in recovery writes, “At first, I didn’t understand when my sponsor said, ‘You’ve got to give it away to keep it’ but after being around the Program for a while, I began to feel a lot of gratitude. I wanted to give back some of what was given to me so freely. I began to be a temporary sponsor for newcomers. It was then that I realized how this helping others business revitalized and strengthened my own personal recovery. I needed to help others as much for my own recovery as for theirs.”

“Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” The predictable trio of money, power and fame cannot give you yourself or protect you from the fear of “not enough.” The drive to be at the top of the totem pole cannot give you yourself, and in fact it feeds the fear of “not enough.” The greatness promised by the totem pole is illusory, a trap that leads to more fear, and more disconnection from self, others, and God. “Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” In a very real, non-paradoxical way, that is greatness.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

“Dave Barry Goes to Washington,” 2002, http://www.thisisawar.com/LaughterDaveWashington.htm. 

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).

The Eye of the Needle

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Mark 10:17-31

Even people who claim to be Biblical literalists have their limits. You can practically see the skid marks when folks come to a screeching halt in front of this passage in Mark. “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me,” said Jesus. All of a sudden, reading the Bible literally isn’t so appealing. This is probably one of the scariest passages in the Bible.

But what if it isn’t a scary story? What if it’s a healing story? What if the key phrase in this passage is in verse 21: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”? Without this phrase, we can read Jesus’ instructions to give everything away either as a test to see if this man was faithful enough, or worse, as a requirement for entrance into the Kingdom of God. When we hear that Jesus says what he says out of love, however, that changes everything. Now Jesus is not setting the bar, he’s responding to need.

“You lack one thing,” Jesus goes on to say. Jesus doesn’t mean “lack” in the sense of “you can’t get into the Kingdom without it.” Rather, it’s more like, “There is one thing keeping you from the full and abundant life that God wants for all of us.”

Jesus was a master at inviting people into transformation in exactly the terms that they needed. His response was always tailored to the individual standing in front of him, the person saying, “What must I do to live?” So, this man came asking what he could do to find the peace that has thus far eluded him, and Jesus has a specific prescription for him. “This is what will set you free. Let go of your wealth.” Now, wealth is essentially morally neutral, but it can be dangerous in these ways: It can make us believe we don’t need each other. It can cause us to believe that we are more deserving than others. We can fool ourselves into believing that we alone are responsible for our wealth, while we ignore all the factors besides our own hard work that contribute to our situation, factors like race, privilege, the GI Bill, parents who were educated or could loan us a down payment, living in safe neighborhoods with good schools, and on and on. Almost invariably, wealth insulates us from other people’s needs. In the Mark passage, this man’s wealth has formed a wall around his life and Jesus is inviting him to something better – something risky, and free, and full of the transforming power of the Spirit.

Jesus tells this man that the one thing that is keeping him from enjoying the abundant life God promises here and now is all his possessions. And this is important: he doesn’t just tell him to give away what he has. He tells him to give it to the poor. According to Jesus, our lives are inextricably bound up with the lives of others.

The man walks away, deeply troubled, because he can’t imagine that what Jesus is offering him is better than all his stuff. Jesus knows it’s hard. That’s why he says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God. And no, the eye of the needle is not a small door in a larger gate into Jerusalem where the camels would have to be unpacked before entering. That interpretation is based on a fiction invented in the nineteenth century, a fiction that comforted people who liked to think that if it isn’t actually impossible for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, then it isn’t impossible for them to enter the Kingdom. But this gate-in-the-wall fiction misses the point because that interpretation assumed this passage is about going to heaven after we die, and it is not. The Kingdom of God, as Jesus said, is among us, within us, it is “at hand,” because the Kingdom of God is living now, now, as though we are part of God’s Kingdom, as though God is the ruler of our hearts and minds, here and now. What Jesus is saying with his eye of the needle comparison is that it’s very hard for people to let go of the belief, to be healed of the belief that living walled in by your money and possessions is better than what Jesus offers. Jesus invites this man to a life in which he is truly aware of his connectedness with God, God’s creation, and God’s people, aware that his well-being is intimately tied to the well-being of others – and that is what living in the Kingdom of God looks like.

We are left wondering: Would we walk away, too? I like the fact that we don’t really know the end of this story. We don’t know whether the rich man eventually got it. Faith is a journey, and it takes a long time to be a disciple. It is a process of transformation, being changed from the inside out and the outside in over the course of a lifetime. What this actually not-so-scary story in Mark tells us is that whatever Jesus asks of us, he will ask out of love, and in order to heal us. And as someone else once said, “A trip becomes a journey after you’ve lost your luggage.”

© Joanne Whitt 2024

No Bouncers

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Mark 9:38-50

   Just before this exchange with his disciples, Jesus catches them arguing over which one of them will be the greatest.  In this passage, the disciple named John has learned of somebody who is healing in Jesus’ name, imitating the work of Jesus.  John has problems with this healer’s credentials.  He’s not following us, John says.  How do we know he has it right?  The disciples seem to think that it’s important for those who follow Jesus to do so in one prescribed way, their way.  This healer is not following the rules.  It’s not surprising that the disciples would conclude their way is the right way; they’ve given up a great deal to follow Jesus. They’ve left their homes, families, and livelihoods.  But it looks as though they’ve also become attached to being the special ones, the insiders. 

  Jesus gives a two-part response: First, he answers the specific question.  Don’t stop him.  If he’s doing it in my name, he’s on the right track.  If he’s not against us, he’s for us.  Look at what he’s doing, not at his credentials. 

   It’s the second part of his response that’s harder to read.  These verses are often interpreted as a dire warning about temptations to sin.  But what’s interesting here is that the warning is aimed at his disciples directly in response to their challenge to the credentials of an outsider.  Jesus knows the damage that can arise from “I’m right, you’re wrong” relationships.  His ongoing conflict with the Pharisees is over their insistence that anyone who doesn’t follow their rules is a spiritual outsider.  Maybe he even had some insight into the evils that would be done in his name in the millennia to follow, when Christians encounter others, both other Christians and non-Christians, who aren’t doing things or believing things in exactly “the right way.”

   Jesus is clearly exasperated.  “Don’t get in the way of those who believe in me,” says Jesus.  Don’t put obstacles, stumbling blocks, in the path of those who are not yet strong in faith.  If you do, says Jesus, then you, the disciples, have stumbled; you’ve messed up big time.  His harsh tone tells us how important it is that the disciples understand it’s their job to take the wide view of faith, not the narrow one.  The followers of Jesus aren’t supposed to be a little clique off in the corner.  One writer put it like this: “If, to use one of Jesus’ own analogies, the coming of the kingdom is like the start of a grand dinner party, then Jesus wants his followers to be like gracious hosts welcoming the guests…. Jesus neither needs nor wants bouncers guarding the door to the grand feast he is initiating.”

   We are to welcome, wherever we find them, the allies of the Christian faith.  When we see people doing those things that Jesus taught and in which Jesus rejoiced in others – mercy, justice, integrity, reverence, faith, love – welcome them.  Make room for them.    

   Then Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”  In the ancient world, salt was used to cleanse and preserve as well as to season.  Jesus seems to be referring to both uses.  The cleansing/preserving aspect is that the disciples are to be harder on themselves than they are on others; they are to hold themselves to high standards of service and compassion while at the same time making room for others on the journey of faith.  If they do this, they will bring good flavor – saltiness – to their ministry, and to the world.  They will be at peace with each other because they won’t be competing to be the greatest or scrambling to maintain discipleship as an exclusive, private club.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources: “A Season of Discernment: The Final Report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church,” approved by the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (2006).

He Took a Little Child and Put It Among Them

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Mark 9:30-37

This chapter in Mark’s gospel begins with a glorious vision, what we call the Transfiguration. Three of the disciples see Jesus on a mountaintop, talking with Moses and Elijah, and they hear a voice coming from a cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved: listen to him.” The disciples now have a better understanding about who Jesus really is and they must have started thinking in terms of what sort of power and glory was in it for them. Jesus, however, orders them to say nothing to anyone. Then for the second time he tells them that betrayal and death are in his future. They must be in utter denial about this because on the road back home to Capernaum, a few of the disciples begin to dream of being in high places with Jesus.

Back in Capernaum, Jesus asks, “What were you arguing about on the way?” but he already knows. He sits down and tries again to get through to his disciples: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” No wonder they were silent; they had argued about who was greatest of all and Jesus calls them to be last of all. They had heard these opposites before – to save your life, you have to lose your life, to be first you have to be last, to be great you have to be a servant. Jesus was always talking this way, but it was probably nearly as hard for the disciples as it is for us to reject the conventional definitions of what greatness is, what success is, who is important. We don’t really believe the meek inherit the earth, do we? In our culture, success is measured by where you live, what you drive, who you know, how much money you make, where you went to school, the degrees following your name, how many people you influence on TikTok; we live in a very competitive, status-conscious society.

So Jesus takes a little child and puts the child in the midst of the disciples. You might wonder why it just so happened that there was a child handy. In first century Palestine there were almost always children handy. Children were part of the fabric of life, and generally were allowed to roam freely in and out of people’s homes and workplaces. They served as neighborhood communication links. I can imagine a first century child reporting what’s happening over at the neighbor’s house, just like children do today. Maybe something like, “Joshua’s dad got a new camel.” But children had no status. They were little more than their fathers’ property. They didn’t “count,” quite literally. In the stories of the feeding of the crowds with the loaves and fishes, three out of the four gospels tell how many men were present but don’t mention women and children, who were most certainly there. A child was socially invisible.

But Jesus sees the child. And Jesus wants them to see the child. He wants us to see the child, too – and welcome the child, not because the child is innocent or perfect or pure or cute or curious or naturally religious. Jesus wants them to welcome the child because the child was at the bottom of the social heap. Children in Mark are not symbols of holiness or innocence; more often they are the victims of poverty and disease. Jesus brings the child from the margins into the very center. This child is not a symbol but a person, a little person easily overlooked, often unseen and unheard. And at the same time, a stand-in for all people at the bottom of the heap, regardless of age.

In 21st Century North America, we look at children differently, at least for the most part. We all want our kids to be safe, happy, and free from want or worry. We all want our kids to learn how to work hard and make sacrifices. The question is, “For what purpose?” To increase their status, or their parents’ status? Or to make the world a better place? To succeed as the world defines success? Or to serve the world as God calls them? Certainly, we need to value our children, encourage their gifts, and celebrate their successes. But even more, we need celebrate that they and every other child on the planet are beloved children of God regardless of their achievements. We need to treasure and care for not just our own offspring, but everyone, including the least, the last, and the vulnerable, with whom Jesus identifies in verse 37: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Be Opened

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Mark 7:24-37

   After a confrontation with some Pharisees, Jesus needs some alone time.  He sets off for Tyre on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of Galilee, in present-day Lebanon.  It was a region inhabited by Gentiles – pagans, non-Jews – so Jesus has left the land and people who are “clean” to enter a land that is “unclean.”  He tries to remain incognito but almost as soon as he arrives in Tyre, a Gentile woman kneels at his feet, begging him to heal her daughter. 

   Unlike Jesus, this woman is in the land of her ancestors; the Israelites and their Jewish descendants are the more recent arrivals.  But the Jews see her as foreign, maybe in the same way some people see Mexicans in Texas and California as foreign even though they arrived generations before the white settlers.  In response to the woman’s plea, Jesus brushes her off, quoting an old proverb: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  I wish I could tell you that in the original Greek or in the context of first century Middle Eastern culture Jesus is not insulting this woman.  But then as now, comparing someone to a dog is rude.  Ancient Israelites and Jews in the first century despised dogs.  Dogs were unclean scavengers. 

   It’s not what we expect from Jesus, but then again, maybe this is a glimpse at the humanity of Jesus.  Like humans in our own culture, he looked at the woman and put labels on her: Gentile, pagan.  Those labels came complete with a whole story that had nothing to do with the woman, because he knew nothing about her.  The story had everything to do with the very human first century culture in which Jesus was immersed.  The story that Jesus and everyone else he knew were told and believed was that his group, his people, were more deserving, more worthy of attention, benefits, privilege, healing, holiness.  Her group, in contrast, was less than worthy in all those ways. 

   For centuries, commentators have tried to soften this story by saying Jesus doesn’t really have such an ugly prejudice; he’s just testing her.  She passes the test, and so her daughter is healed.  But that interpretation would make the woman the only person who has to pass the test of putting up with a racial slur before receiving Jesus’ mercy.  That just doesn’t work for me.  I am convinced that this woman changed Jesus’ mind.  I’m convinced Jesus learned something. 

      If the woman is offended by Jesus’ remarks, she doesn’t let it show, but her response also contains a challenge – a lesson. She says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” In essence: “We all eat the same food.  Why shouldn’t we be at the same table?” Her response cuts to the very heart of Jesus’ own boundary-breaking, taboo-busting ministry of table fellowship.  After all, he’s the one who eats with tax collectors and prostitutes.  He’s the rabbi who breaks bread with sinners.  The table is where Jesus shows the world who God is, and so the table is where the woman calls him out. 

   Jesus hears her.  The ethnic and religious Other teaches him that Syrophoenician lives matter, reminds him of his very own Good News, and then shows him how he might push that Good News beyond the narrow confines of one people, one culture.  The Jesus who never loses a verbal contest with anyone else in Scripture concedes to an audacious, female “foreigner”: “Because of your teaching, the demon has left your daughter.” 

   In other words, Jesus changes.  He allows himself to be humbled, rearranged, and remade.  Barbara Brown Taylor describes the moment this way: “You can almost hear the huge wheel of history turning as Jesus comes to a new understanding of who he is and what he has been called to do.”  The Syrophoenician woman’s faith and persistence teach him that God’s purpose for him “is bigger than he had imagined, that there is enough of him to go around.”

   Right after this encounter, Jesus heals a deaf man – another Gentile – in the region of the Decapolis.  Placing his fingers in the man’s ears, Mark tells us that Jesus looks up to heaven, sighs, and says, “Be opened.”  Jesus sighs.  What kind of a sigh is that? Is it something like chuckling to himself when he realizes the words, “Be opened,” are about to come from his own mouth?  Or – from God’s mouth?  Be opened.  Get it, Jesus? 

   Be opened.  Be opened to the truth that being human isn’t so bad because like Jesus, we can learn, grow, and change.  Be opened to the disruptive wisdom of people who are nothing like us.  Be opened to the widening of the table.  Be opened to Good News that stretches our capacity to love.  Be opened.

Resources:

Herman C. Waetjen, A Reordering of Power (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1989).

Debie Thomas, September 2, 2018, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1907-be-opened

Wil Gafney, “The Woman Who Changed Jesus,” http://www.wilgafney.com/2017/08/20/the-woman-who-changed-jesus/

Stand!

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Ephesians 6:10-20

   In the past, I’ve avoided preaching this passage because of the militaristic imagery of “putting on the full armor of God.”  We humans have proven ourselves too ready to pick up actual weapons, and the church is guilty of conspiring with empire, intentionally and unintentionally, in its use of non-metaphorical force.  The language in this passage can be dangerous.

   However, the writer intended it to be metaphorical.  Early Christianity was so pacifist that some early clergy refused to baptize members of the military unless they renounced their profession.  The writer of the letter to the Ephesians subversively adapts a rhetorical form called peroratio that would have been familiar to his readers.  A perortorio was the speech a Roman general gave to stir his troops before battle.  I’m picturing Aragorn’s speech at the Black Gate in “The Return of the King.” 

   The use of military equipment as a metaphor is also subversive.  All the equipment named is used for protection, not attack, except for the sword of the Spirit.  That sword is the word of God, or spoken proclamation, and at verse 15 we’re told that what is to be proclaimed is peace.  Some commentators note that the specific pieces of armor mentioned here are likely taken directly from the book of Isaiah which refers to belt (11:5), breastplate (59:17), footwear (52:7), helmet (59:17), and sword (49:2).  And of course, each piece of armor stands not for something violent or oppressive, but for or truth, righteousness (not self-righteousness, but commitment to what is right), faith, and salvation.  If the word “salvation” bothers you, another word for “salvation” might be wholeness, healing, shalom. 

   This text is not a battle cry in which a militant church will bring about God’s kingdom by attacking all the forces that oppose God.  Rather, the call is for the new Christians to stand firm, to withstand the attacks from the society and culture around them.  It’s important to note that the Ephesian Christians were a small minority of the population.  They were surrounded by a culture with values very different from those taught by Jesus.  If a majority population used these military metaphors, it could sound very different. 

   I was reminded of the effectiveness of a perortorio toward the end of Tim Walz’ acceptance speech at the recently concluded Democratic National Convention.  Walz, a former football coach, said…

You know, you might not know it, but I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this.  But I have given a lot of pep talks.  So let me finish with this: Team, it’s the fourth quarter, we’re down a field goal, but we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball.  We’re driving down the field.  And, boy, do we have the right team.  Kamala Harris is tough, Kamala Harris is experienced, and Kamala Harris is ready.  Our job—our job for everyone watching—is to get in the trenches and do the blocking and tackling: one inch at a time. One yard at a time, one phone call at a time, one door knock at a time, one $5 donation at a time.  Look, we got 76 days. That’s nothing. There’ll be time to sleep when you’re dead. We’re going to leave it on the field.

   As it happens, I hate American football.  I never liked football very much, but my brother-in-law’s slow deterioration and death because of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) from his years of playing football gave me an excuse to hate it.  Still, I don’t have to like football to understand the purpose of pep talks.  I understand that Walz is using blocking and tackling as a metaphor for taking a stand, for doing something when there is a fight worth fighting, and when losing that fight could mean disaster for many people.  In the same way I don’t have to approve of war to understand military imagery when it is used to encourage and inspire people to take action in the face of evil.  All the pronouns for “you” in this passage are plural: standing firm is not something we can do alone. 

   The writer’s call to “stand firm” reminds me as well of the 1969 song “Stand” by Sly and the Family Stone:

            “Stand!  For the things you know are right. It’s the truth that the truth makes them so uptight.”

   Do Christians need this pep talk now?  As noted, the armor is designed to help folks stand fast: it is not armor for aggressive action. Standing fast does not require a person to hurt a neighbor in any way.  Still, it’s dangerous to classify those with whom we disagree as agents of evil.  It would be especially dangerous if done by a majority population.  So perhaps the question for us is whether those of us who trust that God is love and trust that loving God and neighbor is what it means to follow Jesus are in the minority in our society today.  Then again, perhaps the better question is whether we need encouragement to keep putting one foot in front of the other as we follow Jesus.    

   Perortorio, pep talks, protest music.  All are calls to take a stand; all are intended to prepare, fortify, and motivate people to face the fight ahead of them with determination, courage, and perseverance. 

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources

Sally A. Brown, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21-2/commentary-on-ephesians-610-20-7

Richard Carlson, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21-2/commentary-on-ephesians-610-20-6

Brian Peterson, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21-2/commentary-on-ephesians-610-20-4

Sarah Henrich, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-21-2/commentary-on-ephesians-610-20-5

Be Angry (but …)

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Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2

   Many of us grew up being told we shouldn’t be angry.  Some of us weren’t allowed to be angry.  In an article entitled, “Most Women You Know Are Angry — and That’s All Right,” journalist Laurie Penny writes that female anger in particular is taboo.  I don’t know whether it’s true that most women are angry, but it is true that most women have been given all sorts of coded messages that anger is shameful, like “Why so hostile?” or “Don’t get hysterical!”  One of the things we hear most often, either subtly or explicitly, is that angry women are unattractive.  Penny writes, “This is supposed to end the discussion, because more than anything else, women and girls are supposed to want to be attractive.”  That – that right there – that just might be one of the reasons most women you know are angry. 

   And that’s all right.  The Ephesians passage says be angry … but.  Be angry, but do not sin.  We could spend years on what the writer means by sin and whether sin is a helpful concept, but let’s just agree the writer means, “Be angry, but don’t make things worse.”  In a burst of emotional intelligence that is exceedingly rare in Scripture outside of Jesus himself, the author of Ephesians acknowledges that it’s okay to have feelings.  What matters is not how angry you feel, but what you do with it. 

   Brené Brown writes, “Internalizing anger will take away our joy and spirit; externalizing anger will make us less effective in our attempts to create change and forge connection.”  Externalized anger – anger that is acted out – makes things worse.  People often act out their anger by being belligerent and aggressive – in other words, they use anger to bully people.  Others act out anger by manipulating people through passive aggressive behavior, coldness, cutting off communication.  Both ways of acting out anger make things worse, make positive change or transformation less likely, make connection and understanding less likely.

   But anger can be useful.  It can keep you moving and working when you want to give up.  It can give you courage when you need it.  Anger can be a tool as well as a weapon, and it’s a tool we shouldn’t let rust or never learn to use.

   A number of years ago, Bill Moyers (one of my heroes) gave an address at Occidental College entitled, “A Time For Anger, A Call To Action.”  He cited the staggering statistics about the growing gap between the rich and poor in this country and then he told a story about two families in Milwaukee.  Moyers said, “One is black, the other white.  The breadwinners in both were laid off in the first wave of downsizing in 1991 as corporations began moving jobs out of the city and then out of the country.  …  They’re the kind of Americans my mother would have called ‘the salt of the earth.’  They love their kids, care about their communities, go to church every Sunday, and work hard all week.”

   “To make ends meet after the layoffs, both mothers took full-time jobs.  Both fathers became seriously ill.  When one father had to stay in the hospital two months the family went $30,000 in debt because they didn’t have adequate health care.  We were there with our cameras when the bank started to foreclose on the modest home of one family that couldn’t make mortgage payments.  Like millions of Americans, [these families] were playing by the rules and still getting stiffed.  By the end of the decade they were running harder but slipping further behind, and the gap between them and prosperous America was widening.”

   “What turns their personal tragedy into a political travesty is that while they are indeed patriotic, they no longer believe they matter to the people who run the country.  They simply do not think their concerns will ever be addressed by the political, corporate, and media elites who make up our dominant class.  They are not cynical, because they are deeply religious people with no capacity for cynicism, but they know the system is rigged against them.”

   Moyers talked about his own faith.  A life-long Christian, he’s angry about the fact that Jesus has been “hijacked,” as he put it, “and turned from a friend of the dispossessed into a guardian of privilege.”  He spoke of the Jesus who fed hungry people, broke down barriers, touched the unclean and brought them back into community; the Jesus who got angry, whose message of mercy and love was expressed in action that disturbed the peace.  

   Moyers’ speech shows how anger doesn’t automatically threaten disconnection and destruction of community.  Ever since unfairness was invented, the function of anger is to protect social connections by protesting unfair treatment.  It is an alarm clock, a signal that things need to change.  Anger screams, “Something is wrong!” and provides the energy required to restore fairness and social harmony.  Bede Jarrett said, “The world needs anger.  The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.”  In order not to make things worse, we need to transform our anger into something life-giving: courage, love, change, compassion, justice, but our anger is a calling.  It is God speaking to us, saying, “Get off your … get off your recliner and get out there and DO something!”

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Laurie Penny, “Most Women You Know Are Angry – and That’s All Right,” August 2, 2018, Teen Vogue, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/women-angry-anger-laurie-penny. 

Bill Moyers, “A Time For Anger, A Call To Action, February 7, 2007, Occidental College, Los Angeles, http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0322-24.htm. 

Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (Encinitas, CA: PuddleDance Press, 2003).

Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness (New York: Random House, 2017).

Bread of Life

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John 6:24-35

I confess I often find John’s Jesus annoying.  He speaks in code and then seems to scold people for not getting it.  In this passage, he declares, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  He is offering himself as metaphorical bread.  But what does that even mean?  What does it mean when so many people need real bread, real water; when way too many people would dearly love never to be literally hungry or thirsty again?  Just last week, the United Nations reported that progress in fighting global hunger has been set back 15 years, leaving around 733 million people going hungry in 2023, equivalent to one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa. 

I agree with biblical commentators that by equating himself with bread, Jesus is saying he is essential for life.  Some commentators explain that Jesus is not referring to physical life, but “eternal life,” a phrase Jesus uses in this passage.  Many if not most Christians have been taught that “eternal life” begins when we die.  Brian D. McLaren posits that what Jesus actually meant by “eternal life” might better be translated “life of the ages,” or “life to the full.” Jesus was not proclaiming what Diana Butler Bass refers to as an “elevator religion,” focused on getting people up and away from a troubled earth to heaven.  Rather, Jesus came to be the savior of the world, this world, the world that God so loves (John 3:16).  God’s primary mission, embodied in Jesus, is saving the earth and its inhabitants from human evil and folly.  Thus, “I am the bread of life” must mean something more important, more earthly and more urgent than, “Believe in me and you’ll go to heaven.”

This passage follows John’s version of the feeding of the five thousand.  In John 6:1-24, a crowd is following Jesus to hear and be healed by him.  They grow hungry, but Jesus’ disciple Philip says, “‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’”  They learn that a boy in the crowd has five barley loaves and two fish, clearly not enough.  Yet after giving thanks to God, Jesus distributes the boy’s meager contribution, and everyone has enough to eat.  As McLaren writes, “When I was a child, these stories were explained to me as evidence of Jesus’ supernatural power … But now … I see that Jesus is engaging in powerful prophetic drama, demonstrating through sign and wonder a radically different economy, one that doesn’t depend on spending more and buying more, but on discovering what you already have and sharing. … This is a different economy, indeed – one based on contemplative gratitude and neighborly sharing, not consuming more and more, faster and faster.”

So, what makes Jesus “bread” – what makes him essential to our survival?  I’m borrowing liberally from Brian D. McLaren:   

  • Jesus reveals a God who loves us not because we are so deserving and loveable, but because God is so loving, without limit or discrimination.
  • In case after case, Jesus calls people to repent from the goal of growing their personal wealth portfolios, and instead he calls them to grow their good deeds portfolios for the common good, especially the good of the poor and marginalized.
  • He challenges people to believe there could be a better, more human, more satisfying alternative to the economy of the Roman Empire, and to our own economy of unsustainable consumer capitalism.
  • In story after story, we see that the driving motivation in Jesus’ life is love.

It comes down to this: What is it that will save this world?  Hate, or love?  Fear, or love?  Indifference, or love?  Violence, or love? Greed, or love? 

Jesus as “bread” also reminds us of the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist.  Doug Gay and Werner Jeanrond write in the introduction to their treatise on theology and economics: “The central Christian practice of sharing in the Lord’s Supper is a definitive sign of how all that comes from God is to be offered back to God and shared with our neighbors.” They quote Chris Wigglesworth: “The economy is for God which means it is for my neighbor; it is for my neighbor which means it is for God.”

Sometimes poetry helps these images clunk into place.  This communion prayer comes from a Christian base community in Lima, Peru:

God, food of the poor,
Christ, our bread,
give us a taste of the tender bread
from your creation’s table;
bread newly taken from your heart’s oven,
food that comforts and nourishes us.
A fraternal loaf that makes us human;
joined hand in hand, working and sharing.
A warm loaf that makes us family;
Sacrament of your body,
your wounded people.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

“Fight against global hunger set back 15 years, warns UN report,” July 24, 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1152451

“The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024,” published by UNICEF, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Cultural Development, World Health Organization, World Food Programme, https://data.unicef.org › wp-content › uploads › 2024 › 07 › SOFI2024_Report_EN_web.pdf

Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian (New York: Convergent, 2016)

Brian D. McLaren, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007)

Calum I. MacLeod, “A Place at the Table,” August 5, 2012, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL, https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2012/080512.html

Does Power Corrupt?

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2 Samuel 11:1-15

   Let’s get one thing out of the way: This passage about David and Bathsheba is not about sex, and it isn’t even about adultery in any way we would define it today.  You can’t call it cheating on your husband if you don’t have a choice, and you can’t call it cheating on your wife if you have multiple wives and concubines in your harem.  The only way this is adultery is in the 1,000 B.C.E. context that David violated Uriah’s property rights in his wife.     

   Older interpretations of this passage like to implicate Bathsheba.  She was just so alluring that David couldn’t help himself.  In 2024, we understand that it doesn’t matter what a woman wears, where she walks alone at night, or whether she bathes naked on the roof.  She is not “asking for it.”  When the king orders his messengers to go get a woman and bring her to his bedroom, this is not a seduction; it’s certainly not a love scene.  The power difference between David and Bathsheba means there is no way there could be anything approaching mutual consent.

   This story is about abuse of power. 

   Some details of this story might be lost in the formal biblical language.  The timing of Bathsheba’s ritual purification is mentioned because it means only David could be the father of her child.  That’s why David panics.  After trying unsuccessfully to get Uriah to sleep with his wife, David sends him to the battlefront, specifically instructing his commander to make sure Uriah is left unprotected, “so that he may be struck down and die.”  Which is what happens. 

   David saw something he wanted, and he took it.  When it looked as though there might be repercussions, he ruthlessly arranged a cover-up.  Bathsheba didn’t matter; Uriah didn’t matter.  That is the definition of abuse of power: When someone – an individual, nation, corporation, religious or ethnic or any other group – says, “I’m going to get what I want, and I don’t care about you.”  There is no aspect of life untouched by the abuse of power: business, the workplace, the schoolyard, politics, international relationships, personal relationships, parenting, policing, the church – you name it.  We all have seen power go to people’s heads.  One word for these people is bullies. 

   In the 19th century, John Dalberg-Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Some studies seem to support a theory that we all try to get away with as much as we can, and that the only thing that keeps us in check are rules and punishments.  But there is other research that supports something Abraham Lincoln said: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

   When people become truly powerful, they often start believing they got there on their own.  But no one gets where they are alone.  Parents, education, a mentor or a team, privilege, advantages of all kinds, even luck land people in power.  Power is given as much as taken, and if power is to continue, the people underneath you have to be willing to allow you to remain in power.  So as it turns out in these other studies, people who recognize that their achievements are due not only to their own talent, hard work, or cleverness, but also to the help and support of other people, don’t participate in corruption.  Corruption is a byproduct when a person in power is arrogant instead of grateful.

   David forgot who he was and how he got there.  He forgot whose he was – God’s own man.  Would this troubling story even be in our Scripture if David had been grateful to God and to the people who were counting on him, rather than arrogant?

   There’s also research showing that power brings out the best in some people.  These experiments reveal that power doesn’t corrupt, after all; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies.  If people are inclined to dirty tricks, shady dealings, or grabbing whatever they want, more power makes that more apparent. Which makes you wonder whether, as someone put it, power doesn’t corrupt; it’s just that power attracts the corruptible. 

   The grace in this story is that we aren’t stuck with it.  God transforms this story; that’s next week’s passage.  Until then, there is grace in knowing that this narrative of abuse of power and of the inevitability that power corrupts is not the narrative we inherit as God’s people.  In Jesus, we are given a powerful contradiction to this story.  Jesus teaches and lives so clearly the power of love, the one power that consistently changes people for the better.

   David’s story sheds light on an important truth that applies as much to us as to any king, or, as we barrel toward the November elections, to any president.  Stan Lee, author and artist of the Spider-Man comic book superhero series, wrote, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  Jesus said the same thing: “From the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Brian Resnick, “How Power Corrupts the Mind,” July 9, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/how-power-corrupts-the-mind/277638/;

David Berreby, “Study: To Prevent Abuse of Power, Focus on Procedure, Not Results,” http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/study-to-prevent-abuse-of-power-focus-on-procedure-not-results;

David Bergstein, “Why Power Corrupts,” January 17, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bergstein/why-power-corrupts_b_4611433.html.

Romesh Ratnesar “The Menace Within,” July/August 2011, https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=40741. 

Christopher Shea, “Why Power Corrupts,” October 2012, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-power-corrupts-37165345/?no-ist. 

Luke 12:48 (NIV)

Rest a While

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Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Did Mark include this vignette just for pastors?

It goes like this: You realize you need a break. You see your co-workers are getting burned out, too. You know that to keep doing ministry with energy, imagination, and compassion, you all need time off. You know this. So you arrange a vacation, a break. It’s not selfish; it’s the responsible thing to do. Then something happens. The matriarch of the congregation dies. A child is diagnosed with cancer. There is yet another mass shooting and this time it’s local. The sanctuary roof collapses.

They are like sheep without a shepherd and you are the shepherd. You put off taking that break.

It isn’t just pastors, though, is it? It’s anyone in a caregiving job or relationship. Including parenting.

It’s tempting to conclude that the all-the-time lesson of this passage is that Jesus doesn’t take a break; we should always choose self-sacrifice over self-care. Luckily, the Gospel reveals that Jesus took frequent breaks. Again and again, he went off to be alone to pray (Mark 1:35, Luke 4:42, Luke 5:16-18, Matthew 14:13). If his ministry had lasted more than three years, I’m sure we would have seen even more examples of his withdrawing, resting, re-centering, reconnecting with himself and God. If you expect your ministry to last more than three years, you’ll need frequent breaks, too.

But, like Jesus, sometimes our plans are interrupted because we have compassion for those who rely on our care. That doesn’t mean we never take breaks. It just means we reschedule.

As someone who served in congregations for 25 years, I know you simply can’t sustain ministry without some balance. Time off, exercise, family, friendships with people who don’t call you “Pastor So-and-So,” hobbies, therapy, spiritual direction, travel, play – these aren’t self-indulgent. They are self-compassion, and they contribute to your ministry by contributing to your physical and mental health. They also connect you with the world beyond the parish, and that, too, is vital to ministry. The same goes for parenting or caring for an aging parent or incapacitated family member. Without time away, genuine compassion so easily turns into resentment. Without time away, we often look for other ways to escape: numbing or “taking the edge off,” disconnecting from our feelings or other people’s feelings, even acting out in ways that turn out to be self-destructive, or that destroy our effectiveness in ministry. Burn out is a real thing.

Does anyone still believe exhaustion and busy-ness are status symbols? Did COVID knock out of us the inclination to over-schedule, over-commit, and overwork? If so, while there are few silver linings to the pandemic, perhaps that is one.

Jesus shows us here that there will be times when we need to show up for a crisis. We have the resilience to do that if we are rested, refreshed, and restored. So maybe that weekend away you’d planned doesn’t happen this weekend. Ink it in for next weekend.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.