Wisdom 6:12-23 Col 3:1-11 Luke 7:1-17

I think it is clear from the first reading that, inasmuch as we seek God and the Wisdom of God, it will find us; we will be open to seeing in “at the gate.” Yet it is easy to think we desire to live within the wisdom of God, but not yet truly desire it. In the words of St. Augustine, “not yet.” But why not? Is it not because, as fallen creatures, we are still ruled by our own judgments, our own values, our own sense of inadequacy—our own envy? Indeed, what have we to lose if we live fully within the divine will? Our own way, the pursuit and reliance on those things we measure ourselves by. We are still caught up in a sense of inadequacy, a fear of losing what we have, a fear of losing the future as we envision it, and envy for those who have what we have not. We are not even teachable. Let us pray to be teachable, for “a sincere desire for instruction.”

I think we can put it in terms of Paul’s “seek[ing] the things that are above,” for the ways of God are not like our own. To truly seek God is to let go of our own ned to achieve and conrol and being willing to be led into a wisdom and a way of being greater than our own.

In the Gospel of Luke, the extraordinary springs from the divine into ordinary life. The sick is healed, the dead is raised, against all expectation of the natural course of things. And in the first story, Jesus’ healing power is unleashed by the faith of the must unexpected character, a member of the occupying Roman power. And the thing that made this man special was his sincere openness to the God of the Jews, even to the point of absolute faith in Jesus’ willingness and ability to heal his slave. Jesus is astonished at him, much as the townspeople are astonished—or rather frightened—at the raising of the dead man. The centurion expresses faith in the unlikely; the townspeople, whose very tradition spoke of a saving God, expressed fear. Perhaps the centurion illustrates a man seeking wisdom, “desiring instruction.” Do we identify with him? Or do we identify with the townspeople, who were frightened by that which violated their expectations. We must ask, then, is it enough to attend worship, read the scriptures, and observe religious rules? Or are we called to an open heart seeking instruction, trusting that God’s wisdom, though embracing us, still remains beyond us?

And how might this complex of ideas speak to being a Christian environmentalist today? First, I think we are cautioned not to settle for a status-quo, that is, not to resign ourselves to continuing to use fossil fuels because our energy needs are too high to meet without them. At the same time, we must not to stop further research. In fact, we must resist the temptation to believe that God will miraculously save us.

I believe that the Christian position lies between a cynical resignation to an increasingly impoverished natural world (and increasingly artificial living environment) and the childish trust that God will deliver us from our foolishness. Rather, it is a walk a constantly questioning and listening faith, as well as a willingness to surrender elements of our way of life (convenience and comfort) for the sake of something or someone greater than ourselves. Do we grit our teeth and persevere, or do we continually open our hearts and minds in the desire for instruction?

Dan. 4:28-37 1 John 4:721 Luke 4:31-37 (NRSV)

In the passage from Daniel, it seems that King Nebuchadnezzar, while prospering according to all our normal criteria, has lost his humanity. What is his sate of mind before we see him physically parted from human culture? His is praising the world that he has “built . . . by [his] mighty power and for [his] glorious majesty.” His humanity is restored not by his own efforts, but by the opening of his vision and his heart. He sees the ephemeral nature of all created things, and the majesty of God. Almost Job-like, it is recognizing the truth of things, the precarious of his own being in the scheme of things that allows—perhaps is—the restoration of his reason, and the return of his identity. But now he has a new identity, one in proper relationship to God. Where are we? Do we, like the king, confine ourselves to a small world of our own making? Does the world we make rob us of our full humanity?

In the First Letter, John insists that to love is to know God, to live in Christ, and for Christ to live through us. Indeed, we know God because the nature of God is love, and God has revealed Godself to us in Christ. However, confession of Christ consists not merely in words of affirmation or belief in certain propositions—that is to miss the point. Confession of Christ is lived out in the fruit born of union with him. We who are “in Christ” are in Christ inasmuch as we love, and that cannot be our own doing, but God’s.

Yet, as we see in the periscope from the Gospel of Luke, that we resist Christ; a large part of us wants him to “Let us alone!” Christ has the power to remove the forces within us that continually set ourselves against others, and thus against God.

Is there an environmental message in all this? Actually, what part of his is not an environmental message? The environment includes the complex web of relationships of which we are a part—form the elements and other living creatures to other members of the human family, and with them (as well as through them), God. When we turn in towards ourselves, self-congratulatory, empire-building, we forget our radical dependency, our mutual creatureliness, our own deepest identity; in short, we lose our humanity to the fragmentation of our imaginings. What is Eden but a return to the respect, mutuality, and love for all beings that God calls us to in Christ Jesus?

Morning Readings 3-18-11

Psalm 40 and today’s beautiful reading from Deuteronomy reminds us that our relationship to God is carried out in our everyday lives. So often we praise ourselves for our “faithful” attendance at church services, but many Hebrew prophets challenged that same view, held by God’s people before us. For today the psalmist writes,

In sacrifice and offering you take no pleasure *
(you have given me ears to hear you);

Burnt-offering and sin-offering you have not required, *
and so I said, "Behold, I come.

In the roll of the book it is written concerning me: *
'I love to do your will, O my God;
your law is deep in my heart.'"

It is not outward observance, but a deep change of heart to which God calls us; visible “circumcision” is but the symbol of a deeper self-commitment of the heart.

The opening litany and Psalm 54 reminds us that much of what we are in our everyday behavior lies beyond our “religious” self-awareness. We identify with those who have been wronged, but let’s try this thought experiment. Perhaps the psalmist complains to God about us:

For the arrogant have risen up against me,
and the ruthless have sought my life, *
those who have no regard for God.

Render evil to those who spy on me; *
in your faithfulness, destroy them.

We can only turn to God in genuine repentance when we cease to identify with the faithful and righteous. Isaiah proclaims,

Let the wicked forsake their ways *
and the evil ones their thoughts;

And let them turn to the Lord, and he will have compassion, *
and to our God, for he will richly pardon.

The Hebrews reading turns on the same theme, exhorting us to recognize our weaknesses and to ask for mercy. Often, I suspect, we ask for grace when we experience suffering. Here, in fact, Christians are encouraged to stand boldly in the faith. But the passage also cautions that God sees into the hidden thoughts and intentions of our hearts; God sees the truth about ourselves which we try not to know , and for which we need mercy. And fully understanding what it is to be human, Christ sympathizes with us in our weakness of character and is ready to meet us with mercy and grace.

In the reading from the Fourth Gospel we see that John’s disciples are indignant that Jesus appears to have abandoned John and set up on his own. Jesus must have seemed to him to be at best an upstart; at worst, a betrayer, a repudiator of all that John was. Moreover, what if Jesus was right? Indignation and protection of John proclaimed their faithfulness to their teacher, but it was also a way to shore up their understanding of the truth, the foundations of their world. And for John, surely Jesus’ success provided a great opportunity for brooding and jealousy!

But that is not how John responds. He does not adopt the attitudes we find so easy, so natural. But John recognizes no competition. He knows that he and Jesus are working to the same ends (a purpose greater than themselves); that each of them has been given a purpose. In addition, John knows that he and Jesus are not equals. John’s work is not negated or diminished by Jesus; rather, John’s purpose is affirmed, furthered, and fulfilled in the ministry of Christ.

How do these readings speak to environmental concerns?

Perhaps in all of these readings we are being invited to a perspective that transcends our purely personal concerns. Faithfulness to God involves not merely being “religious,” but taking seriously the world and the needs around us. The fact that God already knows what is in our hearts, knows our secret fears, agendas, and desires—indeed, already knows the true motivations of our actions—can give us the courage to explore the darker parts of our souls, to expose the parts of ourselves we are ashamed of, to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts.

We are also exhorted to look at the ministry of others for what it is, not as a judgment on our own. Possessiveness of “our ministry”—or, to expand it beyond an obviously religious domain—“our expertise” our even “our opinion” regarding what is in best reveals a secondary, self-serving agenda that blinds us to the goodwill of the other, and might just blind us to the good sense in the other’s point of view. Our natural tendency to distrust people who disagree with us sets us at odds at time when open-hearted cooperation may be the only way ahead.

Let us look at the quandary we find ourselves in today. The global implications of fossil fuel involve political and economic stability as well as local and global environmental concerns. Yet to substitute fossil fuels with nuclear power may prove a more immediate danger. Neither can we live with and keep the world we live in more or less as it is. I normally view with suspicion those who minimize environmental dangers in favor of maintaining political and economic stability. However, I am also called to expose the automatic pilot of my judgmentality to the light of God, and to recognize that my fears of environmental catastrophe may be mirrored in their fears of political and economic collapse. The way forward may be through conversation with those who disagree with us; indeed, I suspect that without such conversation, there is no way forward. And conversation is possible only as I surrender my self-righteousness.

Deut. 9:4-12 Heb.3:1-11 John 2:13-22

The Deuteronomy Reading: In our satisfaction at the failure of another person where we succeed, we would do well to remember this passage. Perhaps, indeed, it is not about us at all. If that be so, we had better beware. In fact, rather than revel in how much better we are, this passage calls us to remember our weaknesses.

What happened at Horeb? We easily read the story and identify with Moses, annoyed at the impatient idolators waiting at the base of the mountain. But it is not easy to wait. What takes Moses so long? Has he died? Has he forgotten us? What should we do? So the Hebrews did what they thought most expedient, lost and forgotten out somewhere in the wilderness: they turned to the ways they knew. Can we blame them? Don’t we do precisely the same thing? “Don’t just sit there; Do something!”—a maxim that just about sums up our cultural attitudes…

On the other hand, I’ve seen a Zen T-shirt that reads: “Don’t just do something----sit there?” It hilarious, isn’t it, because it seems so silly; it’s so counter intuitive. And yet, that may be precisely what the Hebrews at the base of the mountain needed to do----and often what we need to do. Why is that? Because when we act, we act from what we know, our emotional reactions, our understanding of life. But what if God wants to “do a new thing?” What if we wait and listen deeply, instead of repeating the same behaviors again and again?

The Letter to the Hebrews: I find the opening of this passage confusing; the point I think the author may be making is obscured by the analogy of the builder and the house. But clearly, Jesus is set in parallel to Moses (though at a much higher level) as the head of the House of God. Precisely what is meant by that House is unclear to me. For Moses, is it the people? The cult? The Law? All of those things? The House of God presided over by Moses is set parallel to the house that God has built, presided over not by a servant, but by his son, namely: us “if we hold firm.” But this is clear: we are the House of God.

It would seem from the second half of our passage today, the house of God in both cases is the people of God. But we are cautioned not to make the mistake made by the Hebrews in the desert, not to harden our hearts when we are in trouble, not to distrust God. This theme echoes our Deuteronomy reading: we are too quick to judge, too quick to give up on what God is doing. But we are called to wait and watch through troubled times, not merely to react.

The writer counsels us to rest in the “confidence and pride that belong to hope.” It is in this way that we live out our vocation as the House of God, the living structure in which God actively dwells, presided over by the Son, the Logos itself. (What is the pride to which he refers?)

The passage from the Fourth Gospel would seem to contradict the message of waiting quietly in hope! Here we see Jesus at his most “active,” or perhaps at his most “reactive.” Yet at the height of his tirade, he makes a cryptic remark that makes this narrative seem even more bizarre, doubtless further alienating all but his closest disciples.

But what are we to see? On the surface, we are told that this is a prefiguration of his death and resurrection. But there is something more subtle to notice here. The immediate judgment both outsiders and the disciples make miss the point. Understanding of the meaning of the whole episode comes only later, in perspective. Here before us is demonstrated the fact that it is that understanding takes time. Hence, the wisdom of God, the “new thing” of God often requires incubation: confidence and trust that give space to God working in a situation and within us as well.

Environmentally: This is very difficult. Today we face even greater dangers than a week ago, with the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan. Last week the world’s energy crisis and climate change was a very difficult challenge; today it is nearly impossible. And we must act quickly in Japan; and if we are wise, we take the warning of Japan seriously and look carefully at our antiquated nuclear power stations and storage and transport of used fuel rods. Environmental dangers beset us on all sides; and however you look at it, national and economic stability of the world as we currently know it are threatened.

Do we know the way forward? Do we have the time to “just sit there”? Of course not. Experts must act immediately. But most of us, holding all sorts of opinions, can do nothing overtly constructive. Yet we can offer our minds, our hearts, our prayers. It is we who have the luxury to listen for a way forward—without a predetermined commitment to preserve our status quo. Who can hear the divine voice today? What is the word?

Readings 1-22-11

In the midst of a polemic against idols, this beautiful passage from Isaiah juxtaposes the sad fate of beasts of burden who carry the people’s “gods” into captivity, and the God who carries Israel throughout history.

The Ephesian passage encourages us to resist evil and to stand firm in the truth. Our struggles are the more difficult for not being against specific people(s), but rather against subtler (and therefore perhaps all the more insidious) influences. How do we identify and protect ourselves against this evil? We are told only to root ourselves in God, for (I suspect) that is the basis on which we can discern what is true.

The passage from Mark offers us a number of things. First, there is clear resistance to the healing that Jesus’ power of exorcism brings. It is not the vulnerable man who is afraid, but the very powers that possess him. It is even more interesting that the society itself, though threatened by the man possessed, has not only made a space for him on the margins, but wants to maintain that arrangement. Society has found its balance with this structure, a status quo in which that which is uncomfortable or threatening is marginalized, and the society resents interference in that arrangement. In addition to his natural desire to follow the one who heals, we can see good reason that he would want to leave. Yet Jesus sends him back into the community in an uncomfortable prophetic role. For him, that is to follow Jesus.

Can we find anything here that directly addresses our concern for the integrity of Creation? I think we can find it under the umbrella of idolatry. We see in Isaiah that we trust in the wrong things to save us, when God is at hand—and always has been. We carry the weight of the things in which we seek healing and salvation, but quietly and unperceived, God carries us.

I can see in the “rulers,” “authorities,” “cosmic powers,” and “spiritual authorities” the uneasy peace we have bought with practices destructive of our environment and concomitantly, our physical and mental health. Among many others, such practices include the degradation of land and water through the practices of agribusiness, our inhumane (and dehumanizing) treatment of livestock, our high level of energy consumption, the reliance of the health of our economy on a heavily consumerist lifestyle, and the destruction of native ecologies and the species that inhabit and maintain them. Like the community that kept the demoniac on the margins of their society, we maintain the status quo (comfort and convenience) of our society only so far as we keep the consequences of our economic/environmental assumptions and practices on the “margins” of our awareness.

Isa. 44:6-8,21-23 Eph. 4:1-16 Mark 3:7-19a

The reading from Isaiah evokes our tendency to idolatry: our needs, our ambitions, our comforts, our worldviews. Isaiah reminds us that we are created to serve God, and that we have been redeemed by God. Nature itself bears witness: the heavens, the depths of the earth, mountains and trees. In other words, the universe is not a stage, but a participant, an element not only of the story of creation itself, but of our story.

The Letter to the Ephesians calls us to live into our calling. It emphasizes forbearance, love, and the unity that transcends our differences. Our differences are real, but they are not divisive or exclusive; rather, they are sanctified to our common life, to our growth into the full maturity of Christ himself. The vision of the Body as difference-in-unity grounds us to stand firm against trends (from as superficial as fashions to as profound as philosophical and political ideologies) that divert us from our ultimate purpose and meaning, which is Christ.

This passage is one more among a succession of readings that challenges my self-righteous condemnation of those who dismiss those of use who warn of imminent environmental threats of global extent. I am called to see and to value voices that, however they may intend merely to protect the status quo, highlight the importance of economic and political stability.

I find it interesting that Jesus apostles are not merely a selection of people just-like-himself, but includes those of widely varying personality and character. What do we learn from this? Perhaps that the mission of Christ requires us all, not walling each other out of our discussions and our journey of discover, but through mutual interaction and love. Where do we fail? When we, like Judas, decide that ultimately we alone know what is right. And even Judas repented his choice. Nevertheless, let us take comfort in the fact that God can be served in the disaster we cause or allow.

Let us Christian environmentalists, then, persevere in our prophetic calling with a heart open to the voices of those who radically disagree, with the knowledge that those who would disown us are yet one with us in Christ. This is no promise that we will arrive at the destination we hope for, but that all together we are making the journey. This is a cause for me of both hope and grief.

Readings 1-8-11

I find the Isaiah reading consoling, but dubious. God recognizes that there is no one to stand up for the oppressed: consoling. But God’s vengeance I question, and least in the sense of historical events. The fact is, and the bible never really comes to terms with this, bad people succeed and don’t always come to a bad end even though there is a clear belief that God is on the side of the faithful oppressed.

I read Revelations as addressing the circumstances of the times, which the prophet identifies and warns against. But again we see the themes of encouragement under oppression and of the appearance of God, who sets people straight.

In the Fourth Gospel we see the rewards of those who are trusting and faithful, assurance that God’s power to heal is not dependent on proximity of a healer, but on divine intent.

The three readings give us assurance and encourage us to persevere despite great odds, but they also indicate that God will swoop in and fix things. Sometimes that is the only hope for personal healing—remembering, of course, that healing may look like what we picture it to be. But how do these themes translate to environmental concerns? Indeed, do they? Do they encourage us to continue to fight for environmental integrity despite great forces aligned against it? Do they promise the final, triumphant intervention of an angry God who will bring vengeance and set things right again? Could we believe that? Should we?