Love and Power

Lordly Power and the Power of the Lord

When I used to teach at the Seminary, I tried to begin every class by reading the following from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

It was a passage that grounded me. It helped center me on what I take to be the essence of theological education: the inculcation into the strange world within the Bible; a radical redefinition of the good, the true and the beautiful; and invitation to mystery. Theology is not just systems and ways of thinking…. it is an invitation to have one’s knowledge reshaped by vulnerable love. 

Earlier in this passage, Paul contrasts the power of the cross with the power of the “rulers of this age:”

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are…

One of the reasons that I became a Mennonite is that I have deep suspicions about power. I saw Anabaptism presenting a picture of power that was deeply embedded in the life and teaching of Jesus. Through times I shifted from a vision of Christianity that is focussed on “renouncing power” to a vision of Christianity that is focussed on redefining power. 

One of my favorite quotes about power comes from Martin Luther King. He writes:

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

Is all power bad? No, I don’t think it is, but power can have a scary effect on people. I have witnessed people who were given a small scrap of power over another human being suddenly transformed into unfeeling automatons. They hurt people and say that they are acting responsibly or just doing their job or acting from duty. 

And here is the really scary thing-- power is never more dangerous than when people are in absolute denial about possessing it. Those are the kind of people who will kill you say that you enjoyed it. 

As Christians, King argues, we should reject power that is reckless, violent and abusive, but we should also reject a vision of love that is just warm feelings and toothless sentimentality. It is not loving to allow a violent or abusive person to keep hurting other people. It is the duty of love, rightly understood, to say no to others using power to abuse, maim, devalue and hurt people. This doesn’t mean that we don’t hold out a hand of love and conciliation to a wrongdoer. As Christians we have a holy obligation to never stop calling people by the names God had given them: children of God, made in God’s image, dearly beloved. 

King insists that “Love is a kind of power.” We can give love other names: creativity, redemption, transformation. Power that is grounded in love is open.... it is the power that allows us to be vulnerable...it is the power that allows us to keep speaking the truth even when our voices shake.  Love is the power that allow us to risk forgiveness....it is the power that imagines new futures in times of famine and global pandemic... it is the power that helps us to keep trying. Love is true resilience. It is not resilience packaged up in a bogus neo-liberal think tank. Love is the resilent affirmation of the goodness of life. Vulnerable love is not some  magic elixir or self-help tenant.  True vulnerability is embedding one’s life in the story of Jesus Christ: “It looks like freedom and it feels like death, it must be something in between I guess.” 

Loving my Enemies

A few years ago Pope Francis reminded me of a method of praying that I learned as a child. Francis, while arguing that praying doesn’t need to be difficult, suggested an easy way to organise your intercessions-- assign one finger to a category of people: 

Touch your thumb and remember those who are closest to your heart

Touch your pointer and remember your teachers and those that give you guidance and direction.

Touch your middle finger and pray for your leaders

Touch your ring finger –the weakest finger--and pray for those who are sick or poor or vulnerable.

Touch your pinkie—and prayer for your self.

I have one basic problem with this method of praying: when do I pray for my enemies?

I decided that I might as well include them with “my leaders” especially since often they are the same people.

So friends, for several years I have been praying for my leaders (and my enemies) with my middle finger up.

Okay, so I am mostly joking....

But I need to confess that I feel real rage against the president of the United States. His recent tweet about the “ratings” of his nightly covid-19 briefing made be seethe through clenched teeth. His attacks on the governor of Michigan and his threat that only states where people are nice to him get life-saving equipment made me want to punch a hole in the wall.

An uncomfortable revelation has come to me:

I hate him.

This is not just political disagreement ... I deeply disagree politically with Doug Ford, the premiere of Ontario, but I confess that he is doing agood job responding to the Covid-19 crisis. He is showing compassion, wisdom, a willingness to listen to experts.

It is my sense that Dr. Fauci and others are having to do a lot of ego stoking and cajoling to keep their critical jobs of mitigating the danger to the American people. Trump is the Emperor who has no clothes, and I am sick of having to turn the other way in disgust as my fellow Americans ooh and ahh about his clothing—he is a great business man, what a great leader, straight shooter, true defender of the faith.

Thousands upon thousands of American will die because of the way he handled the critical first 6 weeks of this crisis.

This doesn’t get me around Jesus’ instruction to pray for those who persecute or Paul’s instruction to pray for governing officials....A friend who volunteered with Christian Peacemaker Teams told me once that praying for your enemies can’t be reduced to praying against them or even just praying for their conversion and reformation. You need to actually robustly pray for them: for their family, health, for goodness to come their way.  I am not sure that I have this in me. I can see perhaps why this might be an important spiritual discipline. Martin King would remind us that we need to separate the existential nature of people (their evil, sin, fallenness) from their essential nature (that they are image bearers of God). We need to correct and resist people in the frame of their existential nature while always holding on the created goodness of every human being.

This, I guess, is a pretty fancy way of saying love the sinner, but hate the sin.

I guess that praying for someone’s concrete good is a reminder that, though marred by sin, our enemies are still the beloved children of God. My enemies are not God’s enemies.

But I am still going to be praying with my middle finger up and this is why:

I don’t think that the point of prayer is that we come to God perfectly composed and with all of our mishmash of feelings all sorted. God is the one for whom every heart is open; every thought known. There is no reason for trying to pretend to God that I am wearing fancy clothes when I am naked as a jaybird.

The best I can do is to ask God to help me to sort out the broken centers and jaded edges of my thoughts and feelings and intentions.

May God make me more than I can be on my own, Amen.

Can these Bones Live?

It is 5:30 a.m. The dog is sleeping at my feet. The 8 year old is snoring away in my bed. My husband is working on the front lines advocating for the homeless in Toronto. I am scared for him, and I am frightened for our family if something happens to him. It is Sunday Morning and I am sitting in a familiar place and doing something that I have done countless times in the wee, small hours of Sunday morning: reading my Bible, typing on my computer, and racking my brain for something timely and compelling to say.

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.

This passage from Ezekial jumps off the page this morning. The image emblazoned on my mind comes from Italy where a priest is shown praying over row after row of wooden coffins. This pandemic is like a thousand terrorists attacks happening all at once in slow motion. If I had to preach this text this morning, I do not know what I would say. On the face of it this is a perfect text for this morning: a text of hope in the valley of death. Is there a promise here for us this morning?

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones...”

I still remember the first time I preached. I didn’t call it that at the time. I didn’t think women should be Preachers. I signed up to give the Bible Break at my dorm one evening. My hands sweated, I shook, I packed way too much into the allotment of 10 minutes, but when it was done something was clear to me, I had a gift. It took me a long time to discover a way to practice that gift. This morning I wake up early, but I am not the preacher and I wonder if I will ever preach again.

He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”

God asks: Can these bones live? What I would say in response to this query is: how should I know? Resurrection is your work, God.I cannot effect it. Ours is the life of a seed planted in the ground, the moth in the cocoon, the cherry fallen and rotting on the ground. 

Even Jesus did not raise himself. 

With apologies to Wendell Berry resurrection is not something we can practice. Indeed, even the examples that Berry gives are all examples of practicing the art of expecting resurrection....”Listen to carrion – put your ear/close, and hear the faint chattering/of the songs that are to come./ Expect the end of the world.”

Isn’t it the case that what Berry calls practicing resurrection is really learning how to die and to die well? --To die with hope still in place

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 

These are ancient words. Words given to the people of Israel at a particular time and place. Can it also be a words for me, you, the world? Are these words strong enough to hold up against the rows of coffins? My dark night? The exponentially growing curve? Are we kidding ourselves? I don’t know how to answer that question, but when I read:

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you... and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

My soul feels like an ember that has been blown upon. I feel and sense the Spirit moving off the page. So many translators, two and a half millennia, and yet these words come to me and they are for me.

Outside a rain storm has begun;my coffee grows cold in my cup. I think I will sneak back to bed and listen to Sam’s little boy snores. I will try to go back to sleep, I will try to rest in the knowledge that if God wills that these bones shall live that they will live. 

May we all come to feel the presence of the resurrecting God hovering over our valley of dry bones. Amen.

Puddleglum's Great Depression

I lost a blog post this morning. I am pretty frustrated, but instead of recreating my reflection on prayer and faith, I decided to say something else. I know lots of people are struggling with anxiety and depression. They have been trying with therapy and good practices to coax themselves out of their foreboding and fear for years: now everything they always feared and dreaded seems to be coming true—the worst is happening. 

I want to encourage my friends who feel this way (and I sure do) that perhaps you have more strength and resilience than you know. There is really wonderful article that I read several years ago called Lincoln’s Great Depression. It is worth a read, but the short summary is this: Lincoln had serious clinical depression. It was a great impediment to him most of his life, but in the context of the war it allowed him to be a very effective leader. His experience of daily struggling against his own internal darkness helped him to act effectively in the context of a national crises when other people were paralyzed. (Now I am a pacifist and there is time enough later to discuss the morality of Lincoln’s total war, but I have found comfort in this article.) 

I  think that C.S. Lewis might be arguing for a special charism of melancholy in his children’s book The Silver Chair. In this book, Lewis introduces one of his most interesting characters a Marshwiggle by the name of Puddleglum. In Narnia, Marshwiggles are a race of creature known for their pessimism. Lewis is said to have based the character on his gardener. Who he said would respond to a friendly comment like: “It sure is a nice day today” With a crusty retort like: “It most likely will rain before supper.”

Puddleglum is the companion of two humans Eustace and Jill and is given the mission of finding the missing Prince Rilian.Rilian is the heir to the Narnian throne who disappeared 10 years earlier. Eustance, Jill and Puddleglum learn that the Prince has been kidnapped by Green Witch who has imprisoned him in a vast UNDERWORLD. 

When Eustace and Jill and Puddleglum finally find the Prince they realize that he is not so much being forcefully held captive as he has been cast under an enchantment. He wants to be there. He no longer believes that there is any world but the dark underground kingdom of the witch.As soon as the three friends arrive the Green Witch works to enchant the as well. She sets an intoxicating fire, and slowly seducing them into believing that there is no OVERWORLD-- no land of sun, trees, and sky. 

All that exists is the UNDERWORLD.

As the intoxicant begins its work, the children no longer remember the world above ground. The Green Witch tempts them saying that thehey have only made up the idea of Aslan (the lion who serves as a kind of Christ figure in the Narnia series) They had seen a kitty and just made it larger; they have made up the idea of a SUN, they have seen a candle and just imagined it 1000s of times larger.

She goes on...and her magic is working. The children and the Marshwiggle begin to doubt themselves and to doubt the existence of the real world and of Aslan.

BUT!

Puddleglum’s persistent pessimism keeps him from being seduced. He isn’t as impressed by the beauty of the Green Witch as the others or her smooth talk. With one last bit of orneriness he stomps out the Witch’s enchanting fire.And when he does this is what he says: all you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. 

I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. 

So I won't deny any of what you said. 

But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Supose we have. 

Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.

Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. 

We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. 

But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. T hat's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. 

I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. 

I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. 

So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland.

Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

With this declaration Puddleglum get the party on the move again. Heading on the important pilgrimage that will lead them all back to the world of light, and grass, and trees where Aslan is very, very real.

We often confuse Christian hope with optimism and a sunny disposition, and when we do that it seems improbable that those who really struggle have much to offer. 

I like how Lewis flips that--allowing the Marshwiggle who has been seasoned by disappointment to be the stawart bearer of the necessary faith and hope. 

In Hebrews we hear about heroes of faith.  I have always thought of them as bold and nervy and not frightened of anything.

who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames,and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength;and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. 

And yet Hebrews goes on...

There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them

 These hero and heroines of the faith were not necessarily bold or optimistic, but they were like Puddleglum captivated by an alternative vision of the world.  

As the text recounts:

“They did not receive the things promised;

they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,

admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

People who say such things are longing for a better country”

I don't want to diminish the horrors of depression or anxiety.  At times there is no circumstance darker than the one forced upon us by our own very frail human brain.  The journey to the OVERWORLD is not alway possible.  

But we are on a strange and perilous journey.  Who knows what gifts we will need.  Those that are anxious or compulsive or capable of nevertheless persisting through crippling darkness might be our crucial pilgrimage partners.  We might be surprised by the strength and resilience that we already possess: depression and anxiety are terrible teachers, but many of us have learned complex lessons.   Take care of yourselves: we need our troubleshooters, our worriers, the people who can keep on trying against the odds especially in these dark times.

Living in the shadow of the dominion of death

Yesterday,  I watched a video of a nurse from Novi, MI describing the chaos and death in the emergency room near Detroit. The statistics are that somewhere between 1-4% of people that contract covid-19 will die, but 1/5 will require hospitalization.  I have read harrowing accounts of some of the other 80% who have recovered at home, but with severe and deeply anxiety producing symptoms.

 I confess that I am scared.

This week the Gospel text is the familiar one about Jesus resurrecting Lazarus. It is not a favorite and it doesn't provide much comfort.  I don't know what it is that I don't like about the text.  I think in part I feel bad for Lazarus.  The poor man is going to have to die twice.  The whole scene also just strikes me as kind of monstrous: the crowd covering their noses when the tomb has been opened; Lazarus stumbling out of the tomb tripping over his grave clothes.

It is an incredibly messy resurrection.

And what lesson precisely are we to take from this passage?

Jesus wept? --every 8th grade boys favorite Bible verse.  When my brother was a teenager he had a job at a Christian Camp and part of the application process was memorizing three verses.  Of course, this is one of the verses that he memorized. So easy to memorize;  so easy to offer a facile interpretation--Jesus mourns with us. 

And attempts at complexity haven't helped me appreciate the story any more deeply.

When I was in Seminary,  I learned that what is translated "deeply moved in spirit" could be more literally translated as outraged.   I was taught that Jesus is not weeping in solidarity with Mary and Martha, he is he angry that no one believes in his power. I confess that it seems unfair for Jesus to be angry at Mary and Martha and the crowd. Mary and Martha seem to believe that Jesus would have been able to heal Lazarus. 

Jesus is clearly angry, but maybe not at his friends or at the crowd.  Perhaps, instead, he is angry at death itself.   I remember how powerful I found John Donne's poem Death be not Proud the first time that I encountered it.  Its tone mocks death "Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men..." And the poem also ends with the enraged declaration that death, you will die! 

Yet, I can't get there this morning. 

 I am still deeply troubled, terrified, frightened. 

 This is Jesus most dramatic miracle, but there is nothing permanent about the resurrection of Lazarus.  

 Lazarus will and does die a second time. 

Donne is able to write himself into a state where is no longer afraid of death.  I can't. Death is reigning in Novi, and in New York, and Iran, and Italy.   I am still terrified of its dominion of losing people that I love and of being sick or uncertain of my own health. 

 The miracle at the tomb of Lazarus is a dramatic sign that the kingdom of Jesus is in the thrall of life and not death.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life!  I know this, but I am still sad and scared.

And maybe that is one lesson we can take from this text. 

This is okay.

Jesus in his divine power faces death with rage and the calm resolve that death will die.  Jesus in his human frame faces death overwhelmed and weeping.

We can rest within the weeping of Jesus.  

As Christians we confess that 

Jesus was no less truly God while weeping over Lazarus than he was while raising Lazarus from the dead.

May we find grace with Mary and Martha and Lazarus  to live between the first and second resurrections, between the promise and the fulfillment: both hopeful and frightened.

To save life

When I was in Jr. High I became quite interested in the Holocaust. Looking back I think I was struggling to understand the world. I was coming to terms with the fact that this world is not safe place and that ordinary people can do truly horrific things. 

I think I was also trying to understand myself. As I read these horrifying stories, I was continually asking myself a question: Would I be willing to give my life for some one else?

Looking back I realize that answering this question became deeply intertwined with my faith exploration at this time. In my reading I discovered that there were many Christians that not only failed to act, but who also bought into Hitler’s program enthusiastically. People, who had defined Christianity so closely with their understanding of being a good citizen that they had become blinded to evil. 

I am 42 now and to some degree these questions still haunt me. I am less worried that I will be fooled into thinking that evil is good, but I also know that I am not a particularly brave person. This is part of the reason that I find the story of Le Chambon community to be so comforting. 

Le Chambon is a village in southern France where the entire village became involved in the rescue of Jews. Between 1940 and 1944, the village provided refuge for more than 5,000 people fleeing the Nazis. Here, normal farmers somehow found the bravery to hide Jewish children in their homes, to forge papers, and to sneak people over the borders at night.

There is a wonderful documentary on these events entitled “Weapons of the Spirit.” In it, one of the peasants is asked why they hid Jews. Her response always blows me a way: “we were used to it.” How does one habituate oneself so that they can act decisively and bravely when the time comes? How do we become used to being brave? In the case of the villagers of Le Chambon, many had been used to providing ordinary hospitality long before they were called on to provide extraordinary hospitality. When the time came: they were used to helping. 

It leaves me with an essential question: How do we live each day  in such a way that when the time comes saving a life is a natural act for us? 

In the third chapter of Mark, Jesus encounters a man in the synagogue with a shriveled hand. The Pharisees “were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.” Jesus asked the people assembled:“Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” Then Jesus healed the man and the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians regarding how they might kill Jesus.

Jesus’ language is so intense in this passage: Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? Certainly, he is practicing hyperbole. Surely this man with a shriveled hand will not die if Jesus does not heal him on the Sabbath day. It seems like the shriveled hand is possibly a condition that the man has had from birth. Certainly he could wait one more day to be healed.

Most commentators have viewed Jesus’ action here —where he refused to wait just one more day— as a kind of visible, willful and blatant rejection of Jewish Law. Jesus goes out of his way to break the rules of Sabbath keeping! And yet I think it is important to recognize that Jesus was reasoning from a well established legal precedent: almost any law can be broken in order to save a life. 

What does “to save life mean?”

To this days Jews still debate this question. With some more conservative Jewish doctors insisting that any treatment that is necessary to maintain or save a life is lawful to provide on the Sabbath while more routine medical procedures should be avoided on the Sabbath day. Yet,other Jews interpret what it means to “save a life” more broadly—like Jesus does in this passage—and exempt health care workers from strict Sabbath observation. 

Which makes me think a bit more about what is really going on this passage.

Jesus certainly is challenging Jewish law as understood by his familial opponents here, but I think it is also important to see that Jesus is also participating in a conversation about what is at the heart of the law—at the heart of the law is a concern for fostering life, saving life, honoring life. Jesus insists on defining “preserving life” in the broadest possible way. This brings Jesus headlong into a battle with the forces that wield death in our world.

While the Pharisees see “saving a life” to be an extraordinary and rare exception. Jesus seems to be insisting that the decision to save life or to promote death might be a bit more mundane and commonplace than we generally think. That we would be surprised by how frequently we make choices that either promote life or promote death. There is also a glimmer of something else in Jesus action. Extravagance. The Pharisees questioning Jesus’ point is that the man can wait. That one more day won’t matter. Why be concerned if the man suffers just a little bit longer? Beggars can’t be choosers. And yet, Jesus doesn’t see it this way at all. For Jesus, one more day is just too long. And he is willing to risk the anger of these Pharisees (others were more friendly). He is willing to risk death. Because that is what happens. After these Pharisees observe this healing they begin to plot Jesus’ death. Jesus risk death just to give the man one more day of more abundant life.

When I was reading those books on the Holocaust as a teenager I was looking for an answer to the question: how do I become the kind of person who would risk my life to save another? I was hoping to find inspiration. I was hoping to find resolve. Perhaps, a theological insight. I think I would have been surprised to find that inspiration in people whose motives were so mundane That in the words of the women in this clip, it boils down to what they had become accustomed to. 

What were they used to?

The were used to taking in kids from the city for a few weeks so that they could breath fresh country air. 

Or used to taking in people who were sick.

They were used to practicing hospitality even when it was difficult. Even when it meant that the soup would be a bit watery or the bread would be cut a bit thin. For the people of Le Chambon, everyday acts of hospitality prepared them to offer extraordinary hospitality. For Jesus: laying down his life for others marked his whole ministry not just his final act of love and faithfulness on the cross.

When I was a kid I worried: what if I became like the Christians that supported the Nazis? It seems impossible doesn’t it? It seems impossible that countless Christians came to believe that the handicapped, the mentally ill, the Jews would have to die so that Germany could live. And yet, the nation was facing an unprecedented depression and a leader arose and offered to get the economy going again and to make the trains run on time. I look on in horror as Christians seems to be subtly captivated by a vision of economic good that would lead to the deaths of countless people. I look on in horror as Christian politicians worry that relief checks might provide some families MORE money than they usually get in the month. 

How do we prepare ourselves to stand up against the death cult that is rising in our midst? How do we stem this tide? We must, I believe, make the choice to foster and preserve life every single day. In every possible way that is available to us. 

There is a great line in The Last Jedi. One character thwarts another from making a kamikaze run and as she pulls him to safety she says: “we win not by destroying what he hate; we win by saving what we love.”

May our definition of saving life be expanded and not limited in this extraordinary time. May we fight tenaciously to save what we love. 

No one mentions courage

Today many Christians celebrate Gabriel’s announcement to Mary: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.” I am part of a Christian tradition that, in Lent, focuses particularly on Jesus’ salvific choice to turn his feet towards Jerusalem, to obey God, and to live a life where worldly power is renounced. Other traditions see the moment of incarnation as decisive. In the Orthodox tradition the following hymn of St. Athanasius reminds worshippers of the centrality of the moment where God becomes a human being. 

Today is the beginning of our salvation,
And the revelation of the eternal mystery!

Focussing on the moment of incarnation, emphasizes Mary’s choice, her participation in God’s greatest work. This is beautifully expressed in Denise Levertov’s poem The Annunciation: 

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.

      Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.

       The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.

        God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

As Mennonites we have focused on a very particular pathway to participation with God: following the stony road trod by Jesus’ self-sacrificial love. We are a church deeply shaped by an ethics of obedience and our birth in martyrdom. Mary also is an example of obedience. As Levertov insists, however, it is not just meek obedience. Mary’s choice occurs before it is possible to literally follow Jesus. “Let it be with me, according to your word.” Her obedience is an act of co-creation with God, and it is revolutionary in Sprit.*

The world that she reimagines as being created with God is one where the proud are scattered in the conceits of their heart; where the mighty are pulled down from their thrones; where the hungry are filled, where the rich end up with empty hands. It is a vision of a new world that is beyond just the biblical concept of Jubilee. I reflect on these concepts this morning as we confront a global pandemic where it seems that the common good requires that we take the kind of bold actions that Mary proclaims in order that we can all live in safety together. We are at a moment of global annunciation. As Levertov notes there are moments of annunciation in each of our lives.

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?

        Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often
those moments
      when roads of light and storm
      open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
                                 God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

I am not by nature a courageous person, and yet one thing that is becoming more and more clear to me as I get older is the necessity of courage as a virtue. It is the virtue that make the other virtues possible. I think as Mennonites we can sometimes confuse pacifism with quietism. The reason that we do not participate in wars should not be because we are craven, but because we have been captivated by the brand new world that God began to recreate in and through Mary’s obedience. When we follow in the steps of Mary we might look meek and gentle, but engendering courage must burn within us. If we do not want the pathway to God’s new creation to vanish before us we mustn’t ever lose our commitment to a world where the poor are lifted up and the haughty are brought down …. even when—especially when-- our quiet virtue has made us rich and fast friends with those who are haughty. Our yieldedness must be the yieldedness of Mary and not the complacency of the preservers of the status quo. 

I will confess something. I am a Mennonite, but I sometimes ask for Mary’s intercession. I have a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. For me this particular story of Mary visiting human beings resonates with how and where I believe that Jesus Christ shows us in our world.  This is incarnation! 

May we each be open for the moments of annunciation and incarnation in our own lives. 

*I confess I don’t know as much as I would like to know about the theology around the annunciation. There are Mennonites who have done great work on this—I would commend Susie Guenther Loewen’s work on Mary.

On Sacrifice and the Common Good

I am trying to only check the news once a day – if I check anymore than that I start to get overwhelmed, hopeless, and angry. The news seeps in, though, despite my attempts at discipline. Yesterday, a theme seemed to be emerging in the news: it is okay to sacrifice some people for the greater good. There was Trump’s rambling comments that the cure ought not to be worse than the sickness and that the economy needs to be restarted in weeks and not months. The Lt. Gov of Texas Dan Patrick’s made this point explicitly noting that older people should be willing to sacrifice themselves for the economic future of their children and grandchildren. I also learned that one of the editors of First Things, R.R. Reno, wrote a long editorial arguing that quarantine demonstrates a specious moralism that puts “the fear of death at the center of our moral life.” There are more pressing moral matters than protecting the weakest amongst us including art, literature, social life, and community.

These sentiments make me feel both troubled and hopeless. Who thinks this way? No one I know personally. No one. Not a one. No one of any political persuasion. If they do, they aren’t acting this way. They are praying for their Grandparents or worried about their parents. They are trying to figure out how school kids who relied on free lunch are going to get enough to eat. They are posting links on how to sew masks for health care workers (ineffective – gowns? - stay tuned). Sure, I still have some friends who think that the virus is overblown (just a bad flu, etc). Yet, no one thinks the elderly should be sacrificed for the good of the economy.

What is being suggested is so harrowing. They estimate that something like 660,000 soldiers died in the US Civil War. An uncontrolled Covid-19 could cause millions of deaths. For a generation, America tried to come to terms with the casualties of the Civil War. A vast civil religion emerged: valorizing soldiers who sacrificed themselves for freedom. There was something to this, of course. The American Civil War did bring the end to a certain kind of plantation based slavery and started African Americans on a trajectory towards full emancipation. But how would we ever justify our actions if we allowed 1-4 % of our population to die for the sake of a very particular vision of the goods of economic and social life?

I worry that societies shaped by the Christian narrative have a sacrifice problem rooted in part in a theology that downplays the agency of Jesus. We have not emphasized enough the freedom of Jesus. To follow the hard, perilous road of Jesus is to be willing to die for others. The path of Jesus is one of martyrdom. There is no greater perversion of Christianity than ideologies of public good and safety that insist that a few need to be sacrificed for the many. Somehow, however, this perverse way of thinking grounds so much our our collective conversations about far too many things: prisons, abortion, capital punishment. As Mennonites in particular we must rage against any system that instructs us to sacrifice others for any greater good.

In the last week, I have seen many people posting Martin Luther’s advice on Christian conduct during a plaque. Martin Luther insists that Christians have a moral duty to protect life. This means that every modern art should be taken up to preserve life: clean the air, administer medicine, and work hard not to get other people sick. If your neighbor needs you then you are free to sacrifice yourself out of love. This is a much better theology than Reno’s. Intentional self-sacrificial love may well ground and preserves the goods of society. It is, without any hesitation however, a disgusting heresy to ground them on a willingness to sacrifice other people.

As I noted last week, we are seeing in real time that all virtue rests on courage. This is the courage of Jesus and Polycarp. Dorothy Day, Dirk Willems, and Marua Clarke. This is an intentionally chosen path to put oneself in harm’s way, not a craven and desperate justification for demanding that other people–people who have less power and freedom and resources–sacrifice themselves for the good of the rich, powerful, healthy, and haughty.

In closing, Christianity has a lot of different ways of saying the same thing: every human life is of immeasurable worth. Sometimes Christians say this by insisting that human beings are made in the image of God. Sometimes Christians say this by remembering that while institutions of government, economy, education are temporal—human beings are eternal.

And sometimes we remember that God, Godself, chose to freely die for us and for our salvation. May this teaching help us be brave instead of cruel.