Italy Memories

“What was the most memorable highlight of your trip,” my husband Steve asked Marj and I while we were driving back from the airport.  We started talking about all the art and architecture we’d seen.  Everything seemed to be memorable.  Yet, there was one very special moment that will be in my heart forever.  Marj and I stopped in a vestment and church appointments shop across the piazza from the Cathedral in Florence.  A beautiful red chasuble and stole caught my eye.  The shop was tended by nuns from the order of St. Paul.  I motioned to one of the nuns that I wanted to try on the red chasuble.  “For me,” I said, pointing to myself.  Her eyes lit up.  “Epis-co-pal?” she asked. “Si,” I said.  “Anglicana?” “Si.” Before I could blink, she’d flung the vestments over my head.  I looked at myself in the mirror and knew they were coming home with me.

As I paid for them, the nun folded the fabric and wrapped everything in paper.  I thanked everyone and headed out the door.  The nun followed me out the door and tapped me on the arm.  “Preghiere,” she said, pointing to herself. “Preghiere.”  Then it hit me.  She was asking me to pray for her – asking me to bless her.  I did and then she hugged me.  As Marj and I left the store, the tears welled up in my eyes.  She may have asked me to bless her, but in doing so she blessed me ten times over.  Thanks, Holy Spirit, for my most memorable moment in Italy.

10 Statements

American culture provides dramatic presentations of Moses delivering the Decalogue.  Who can forget Charleton Heston in The Ten Commandments coming down the mountain after the fiery carving of the tablets by the voice of God?  Or, the scene with Mel Brooks in History of the World, Part I, where he’s juggling three tablets, drops one and declares “God gives you these 15, I mean, 10 commandments.” Only Mel Brooks could put into a movie what we’ve always thought about!  Of course we have had our share of legal struggles with regard to public displays of the Decalogue as well.  That’s why, when I saw that they were the selection from the Hebrew Scripture today, I decided to take a look at them.

First, I took a sneak peek in the story before Moses went to the mountain in the first place.  He’d just been exhorted by Jethro, his father-in-law, to delegate his authority to some of the others for judgment and decision making. Jethro was a good mentor and called out Moses on his potential burnout trajectory.  Moses follows Jethro’s instruction and, of course, now that he has time on his hands, God calls him to do something else.  This in itself is enough for another sermon – but, it’ll have to wait for another time.

So, Moses is summoned to Mount Sinai and God tells Moses to tell the people to get ready for a theophany. He ascends the mountain and has a dialogue with God.  Moses asks questions and God answers.  When Moses descends, he provides the people with a shorthand review of the conversation.  These “ten statements” (as they are literally translated from the Hebrew) become the basis of how the Israelites are to live in relationship with God and in community.  They are a great foundation, because it doesn’t take long before the Israelites are at odds with Moses, Aaron, and each other. 

Given the fact that in our own time we’ve been having impassioned debates about the appropriateness of these 10 Statements, I think it behooves us to look at how our Hebrew ancestors would have understood them in their time.  The Decalogue can be arranged in two different pairings. In Pairing #1, the first three delineate our duties to God and the last seven our duties toward our fellow human beings.  Another pairing would be to take the first five as those with an attached explanation and the second five as ethical requirements.

The Israelites were in a culture where there were many gods.  The God of Israel acknowledges this but requires that God’s people worship only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They are not to make statues or other images in order to worship them.  God needs to be the focus of worship and adoration.  The God of Israel is an impassioned God – the covenant between God and God’s people is like marriage.  To worship an idol is equal to committing adultery against God and God grieves over the betrayal.  And while God will visit the guilt of such a transgression to the third and fourth generation, the kindness of God outweighs this guilt to the thousandth generation.

To make wrongful use of the name of the Lord referred to the self-curses made by people in court or in public affairs that would take effect if the invoker spoke falsely or failed to keep a promise.  This sounds like “may the Lord do such and such to me if I . . .”.   My gut tells me that God probably doesn’t want to hear God’s name used as profanity, but that was not the original intent of the statement.  The first three directives are there to ensure the deepest respect for God and require us to make a decision to honor God.

And so, how do we honor God?  That’s where the rest of the Decalogue comes into play.  First and foremost, we keep Sabbath.  This is not just a day wherein we stop working, but a day that is dedicated to a special purpose for God’s glory.  This didn’t just extend to the master of the house, but to the slaves and spouses and children.  Sabbath time recognizes that God rested at the time of creation and to honor God, we too must rest. We honor God by honoring our parents, by seeing them as human beings, and by helping them when they become infirm.  We honor them in order to bridge our relationships with God and with others.

We honor each other by not taking the life of someone illicitly, by honoring the marriage vows of others as well as our own, by not stealing from others or creating false stories about them.  We honor each other by not scheming to acquire something that doesn’t belong to us.

These 10 statements are only the outline.  The next few chapters of Exodus go into detail about how we are to keep them.  And, if that’s not enough, you can go to Deuteronomy and Leviticus to get even more instruction.  It’s a contract that keeps lawyers busy even in modern times.

Okay. So that’s the scholarly interpretation.  It doesn’t really do much for me on its own.  So, what is there about the recitation of the Decalogue that seemed to call me into contemplation?  I envisioned myself as one of the people waiting for Moses at the bottom of the mountain. I’ve just experienced liberation from the enemy.  I watched the Pharoah’s soldiers swallowed by the water as they tried to follow us.  We celebrated with songs and dancing.  But, then it sank in that we were really on our own.  The food we were able to take with us was disappearing, the water was nearly gone, and the Promised Land didn’t seem to be anywhere on the horizon.  Now that we had no external enemy, we began the process of making enemies of each other.  We started doubting our leaders, demanding that they give us the comforts we’d left behind.  Without some standards for living with each other in this new land, it was obvious that chaos would over take us.  Moses – we pleaded – do something!

When I think about those at the mountain’s edge, I realize that we are again struggling to understand how to live with each other in a new world.  But in the 10^th year of the fall of the Towers, it’s not that we have no enemy but that we see enemies on every side.  People who have twisted the scriptures to match them to their own personal agendas declare that only they have the path to God and all others should be dismissed or dispatched.  The news is full of stories of people who have dishonored their parents or others who have mentored or coached them, stolen from others, been caught in sexual improprieties, lied under oath to protect their interest, or taken another’s life – usually in conjunction with one of the aforementioned offenses.  We constantly bow to gods other than the One who has created us in the Divine Image.  We are a people in the wilderness longing for order, looking to our leaders to provide it, and forgetting that the means of achieving order lies not in the hands of a few, but in the wills of the many.

To make matters worse, when we are brought up short, we usually retreat to the minutia of Exodus or Deuteronomy or Leviticus to find a loophole to defend our cause.  We forget the overarching command to be in relationship with our God and with each other.  It is no wonder that Jesus declared that there were only two commandments – love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.  And when he was questioned about who our neighbor was, he replied with the story of a loathed enemy who assisted the downtrodden when those who thought they had God wrapped up neatly in their front pocket did not stop to offer aid.

There are no policies, or laws, or rules, or regulations that can codify our obligation to our Creator and subsequently to all of the created order.  Anyone who has ever written a contract or customary knows that sections are written to prevent someone doing something that someone else has done before.  Before too much time goes by we are so bound by the law that we have forgotten why we have gathered in the first place. 

Of course, some rules are necessary to keep us safe and to set standards, but they should not be used to separate people into artificial strata in order to fulfill the whims of a few or to keep others at arms length. What is necessary is that we place our egos and self-interest aside in favor of the Divine desire for all.  That is what the 10 Commandments call us to do.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep these laws.  Amen.

(c) 2011 C. B. Park  - All rights reserved

"There's always next year."

Well, it’s over. Baseball that is - my ‘other’ religion.  It was disappointing season for my Cubbies. (I’m comforted only by the fact that Reds fans feel the same way.)  Spring always brings such hope.  It’s the excitement of resurrection!  New players, new line ups, the rekindling of faith.  The previous season is long forgotten and we start anew.

Then, it happens.  Bad pitching.  No runs manufactured.  Losses in extra innings.  All of a sudden it’s July and terribly obvious that there will be no opportunity to practice your faith in that extraordinary and magical month of October.   The autumnal equinox ushers in tomb-like quietness.  What does one do to survive this dark night of the soul? One might ask what does one do to shake off the ‘ho-hums’ when we find Church to be less than what we’d hoped or when we feel that the Divine has let us down.  

It may sound illogical, but the best thing to do is keep the faith in the midst of doubt.  Attend and be a weekly part of what is ultimately the Eternal Game.  Come to worship to be a part of community.  It is those folks who come only to see a “star” player, or a good preacher, who often are disillusioned by a bad outing.  Come to church willing to be involved personally.  People who come just for the ‘show’ – the vestments, the music, the chanting – miss the joy experienced in receiving the sacraments.  Think about it.  Could you go to a ballgame and not sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the 7^th inning stretch with your fellow believers? I didn’t think so.

Moments of perfection, moments of failure are just that – moments.  Keeping the faith requires that we acknowledge all of the moments of our lives as the “multiplicity of movements¹” with God and with our fellow human beings  that move us closer to unity with each other.  The dark days and nights, while difficult to experience, actually prepare us to be ready to spring up when the time is right.  So, don’t despair in the off-season.  In the Big-Inning, God created everything and God continues to create new life from chaos.  It’s so with nature, it’s so with you.  

I think that’s a theological way of saying “There’s always next year.” 

¹Thorn, John. “Thorn Pricks: Baseball as a National Religion.” http://thornpricks.blogspot.com/2008/04/baseball-as-national-religion.html

God Isn't Fair

“Does God love Osama bin Laden?” my friend asked me while we were Skyp-ing.

“Yes, I believe God loves everyone,” I said.

“You have got to be kidding!” she replied.

“God hates nothing God has made.  God created all human beings, therefore God loves all human beings.  I am pretty confident though that God did not like Osama bin Laden’s behavior.”

“So, do you think bin Laden’s in heaven?”

“Yes, most likely he is.  Unless, of course, he doesn’t want to be there.”

“That’s hard to believe,” my friend said. “He may want to be there, but his actions certainly would prove otherwise.”

“I know,” I said.  “It’s just that I can’t believe that when brought face-to-face with the forgiveness inherit in the love that is God that anyone could resist.  Therefore, unless we find ourselves rejecting it, we will all be together in that place.  God isn’t fair.”

We ended our conversation and I thought to myself, “Well there’s a new definition for grace – God isn’t fair.”  The parable Jesus tells about the laborers points up the generous and unfair justice of God. 

From a 21^st century perspective, this parable is a labor union nightmare.   To be honest, it’s a corporate management nightmare also.  Who in their right mind would pay someone the same wage for less work?  Who would settle for a system that doesn’t take seniority into account?  No one.  This parable is simple craziness.  From the point of view of the people Jesus would have been talking with – people who had no land of their own, people who depended on the generosity of others – this parable is equally crazy.  No one in Jesus’ time would have believed this parable to be true.  However, contrary to modern listeners, they would have believed that truth was present in it.

The truth is that the landowner was not paying people according to what they merited, but according to his own generosity.  In other words, none of the laborers could truly earn their wages.  Another truth was that the landowner went out several times to gather people to work in the vineyard.  In that time – and to be honest even today – if you are not chosen in the first round of the morning, you probably would not have work and your family would go hungry.  Going back and retrieving the marginalized workers at midday and at the end of the day said that the landowner wanted to include everyone who was there.  

The landowner was practicing social justice – an imperative to strive for a society that excludes no one.  Jesus was telling the people of his time that eternal life was theirs, and it didn’t matter when they accepted the invitation.  That’s great for the latecomers, but then as now, it annoys the folks who have been working since dawn.

Let’s face it, it is human nature to grumble when we see something that we think is unfair.  It’s unfair that this person got a job over me.  It’s unfair that that family has more money when I’m working just as hard.  It’s unfair when someone younger than me gets more recognition when I’ve been at this longer than they have.  But, we need to take care.  Grumbling can quickly lead to resentment.  Resentment then leads to jealousy and envy. 

This jealousy/envy is something we need to take seriously.  The 1^st century Christians did because of their Mediterranean cultural experience.  Jealousy or envy was called “the evil eye”.  In fact, I actually looked at the Greek for this passage – don’t faint – and indeed that is what is said.  The Greek says “ is your eye evil because I am good?”  The modern scholars have misinterpreted this piece of the parable.  It’s too bad. The “evil eye” statement gives us an even deeper appreciation of the generosity of the landowner and the strength of his statement in the parable.

To the people of Jesus’ time, the eye was the window of the soul.  If anyone had an ‘evil eye’ then that person would be said to have the power to project their jealousy or hatred to another just by looking at them.  Avoiding their glance would be a high priority.  Many amulets and charms were created to distract those persons who were thought to have the “evil eye”.  People who were disabled, or different in any way were always suspected of having this power of the “evil eye” – leading others to think that illness or deviance or disability could be ‘caught’ – therefore, persons became marginalized. Sadly, not much has changed in this regard.

I believe that the point of this parable is not only to acknowledge the overwhelming, over reaching, unfair generosity of God but also it is a warning to us.  To be envious of someone because they seem to be getting more money or more recognition or more material reward is a step toward a dangerous journey.  When we do this, we knowingly or unknowingly place people in the margins of our community and demonize them.  If instead, we stop obsessing about our material wealth and concentrate on the astounding generosity of God, we can see that there is enough to go around and that all of God’s creation is good.

We have all been given work to do and the gifts and talents to do that work.  We have no time to be jealous of other people’s gifts.  We need to use that time to develop and appreciate our own.  We should stop being angry about people who inherit the kingdom at the 11^th hour and instead rejoice that they are included in God’s forgiveness.   When we find ourselves doing good because we think that it will ensure ourselves a place in paradise we should remember that God’s generosity has made it possible for us to work at all. 

Jesus’ parable asks us to let God be God and get over ourselves.  God isn’t fair, and you and I are in along with everyone else.  It would behoove us all to learn better how to get along and be gracious with each other, especially with those people we tend to marginalize.  You just never know who’s going to come in late, sit down next to you and share equally in the heavenly banquet.

Amen.