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Tonight we will not gather for our Bible Studies so that we can gather for the Christian Funeral of Mike Patterson. Here in the west coast, especially among so-called conservative Protestants, the funeral has been replaced by the memorial service. The two are actually very distinct services, with very different ends and purposes involved.

The Book of Common Prayer gives a very good description of the "liturgy for the dead":

"The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.

The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that 'neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anythig else in all creation, will be able us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn."

Posted by johnwright at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

I woke very early this morning, praying for Mike Patterson. The funeral approaches tomorrow, and I feel that it is an important time for myself and the congregation -- and Mike's friends from the beach. The depth of Mike's witness, embedded in the life of the congregation, came to me from a scene on Sunday. Charlee, Mike's friend who opened her apartment to Mike to allow him to die in it, and allowed us in to suffer with him, attended our worship service on Sunday. Unbeknownst to me, it was the first time that she had ever been in a Christian worship service.

As often I do when visitors arrive early, I take them on a little tour of our building, to see where the other congregations meet, and introduce them briefly to our life together. I was standing with Charlee and Buddy, Mike's brother, in the courtyard, when Ezra Bulgrien, still under two, came around the corner with Josh, his father, and his three year old brother Micaiah. Ezra saw Charlee and trotted up to her and gave her a big hug. He knew her and welcomed her from the time that he had visited Mike early on in his illness. I thought of the Gospel, "Unless you become such as these . . ." It was a little sign of the kingdom come to one who has to be trying to figure out these strange Christian friends of Mike's.

Mike continues to teach me. It is interesting to walk through death with Mike in light of readings I've been doing over the past years. Many of you know that I read, and even am associated with through the book I edited, "Conflicting Allegiances", a theological movement called Radical Orthodoxy. The writings of those associated with this thought is very abstract and esoteric -- often infuriatingly and frustratingly so -- in their engagement with the western philosophical thought. Yet they emphasize the Eucharistic, liturgical center of Life, found in the difference that is the Triune God, to sustain a real difference in creation, a difference seen in the concrete life of the church -- local bodies of Christ who lives for the peaceable kingdom of God in this world amidst the violent kingdoms of man. They do this in contrast to what they find in postmodern thought -- an eclipse of real difference, real distinction by the sameness of nihilism -- the reduction of everything to nothing. My readings in the pre-Vatican II Ressourcement movement arises from going back in the face of the 'nothingness' of this type of postmodern nihilism to the sources of the Radical Orthodox thought, and its relationship to the concrete life of post-Vatican II Catholicism. It some ways, what these thinkers see is that the postmodern is an inverse of the modern, the "end of the modern" in its constant repetition of the new and improved, the reduction of everything to nothing by making everything a commodity -- and nothing else. Worth and meaning comes according only to the "value" ascribed by competitive political/market forces. "Reality" is shaped by fundamental violence; it is nothing but violence, the eternal conflict to produce worth that is the market the consumes all (non)reality.

What does this have to do with Mike? As many of you know, Mike was poor. There is no shame in this for so was our Lord. As was our Lord, one's poverty becomes especially manifested in one's death -- Jesus depended on the care of his body by a rich man after his death. Friday night the same issue of the care of the body arose for Mike.

Mike had desired to donate his body to UCSD to be used for research -- in his death, to give his body as a gift for others. It was also a way to save others from incurring expense in the care of his body. Yet it was not to be. Legalities and illnesses that Mike bore in his body made the institution not desire his gift. The higher up in the bureaucracy that one spoke, the more evident this became by the rudeness and strength of the rejection.

The social worker who advised those who had taken responsibility for Mike's body said that there is a county program for the care of the deceased. It was decided to go that route. Yet on Monday, it was discovered that this program was basically a "disposal program" -- forgive me, but not too different from picking up carcasses from the street to dispose of for public health purposes. In this program, the bodies of the poor are cremated (not unusual in So Cal). The disturbing thing is that the body, now transformed into ashes, will not be returned to anyone for internment. Ashes are combined, and then "disposed" -- taken to the garbage dump?

The poor lose what little human dignity that the liberal capitalist society gives them in life in their death. Return of the ashes to friends or family, or reverent internment in the ground or scattering ashes in an appropriate place would not be too costly. Yet such dignity is withheld, most likely to avoid incentives for persons to use the program -- and thus incur more costs to the county. The poor become literally the dust that fills the land fills -- indistinguishable from other cast offs from the society. In other words, nothing. One sees here the nihilism that the market produces, the assessment that human beings sustain "worth" only by what "worth" they produce or what others attribute to them. Dignity does not adhere to the human being, made in the image of God, for whom God sent the Son as human to redeem and sanctify, but is found in human valuation that has its grounding in nothing. Without this grounding the human body is reduced to the same gray, indistinguishable dust that the poor are forced to live within daily. Post-modern nihilism that levels the body of the poor to the nothingness of dirt, the reduction to the sameness within the discarded of society within the landfills.

Of course, as Christians we know, as we observe on Ash Wednesday, "from dust we came; to dust we shall return." In this we share the conviction with the post-modern nihilists that we are creation, matter, the same dust as all creation. But as creation, we sustain a difference from all other creation -- because we are created by God in God's image. God in whom all difference lies, sustains us in our difference even in death -- the basis for the hope in the resurrection in the age to come. Therefore, we cannot -- and will not -- allow Mike's body to be so treated. He is not "nothing," but still our friend and brother, and we will honor his body in our memory, and care for him in the ultimate weakness that he has experienced in his death. We will do this in celebrating a Christian funeral -- an Easter liturgy, in which we mourn but hope.

We will do this by not turning his body over the the county for disposal. He will be treated with the dignity and honor that one created in the image of God, one redeemed and sanctified by Christ, bears as a witness to us all. Amidst a culture of death, we will celebrate and sustain life even in the face of death. In so doing, God has used the nihilism of our age to return us to one of the works of mercy -- the burying of the dead.

This practice was prominent within earliest Christianity in which the congregations refused the dehumanization of the treatment of the poor dead by the Romans. Those of wealth built vast memorials for internment above ground to display their honor, their humanity in their wealth, for all to see. Like today, one's humanity in death was seen as a function of wealth.

The early church thought differently. They cared for the bodies of their own, even in the death of the poor in their midst. Robert Wilken writes, "To the casual observer, the Christian communities in the cities of the Roman Empire appeared remarkably similar to . . . a burial society . . . Like these other associations, the Christian society met regularly for a common meal; it had its own ritual of initiation, rules, and standards for members; when the group came together, the members heard speeches and celebrated a religious rite involving offerings of wine, prayers, and hymns; and certain members of the group were elected to serve as officers and administrators of the association's affairs. It also had a common chest drawn from the contributions of members, looked out for the needs of its members, provided for a decent burial, and in some cities had its own burial grounds. . . . The Christian communities, writes the Roman social historian Jean Gage, 'offered at first glane an astonishing resemblance to a type of fraternal association, namely the funerary or burial society'" (Christians as the Romans Saw Them, p. 44).

It is interesting that God can use contemporary neo-pagan nihilism to force us to resurrect an ancient Christian practice that the church gave up when it surrendering the bodies of its dead to the liberal state, and thus to the market. May God sanctify our bodies as well as we journey together, not towards nothing, but towards God. We discover in real, concrete ways we as a congregation possess citizenship in a different city, the city of God, rather than the city of man that surrounds us.

Posted by johnwright at 7:50 AM | Comments (2)

Tonight around 9:45 pm, Michael Patterson left this life for life eternal. Mike had managed to get up and move around a little in the morning. As the day had worn on, Mike's breathing became more and more labored, though he was able to speak some with those around him through Friday afternoon. By Friday evening, his breathing had grown shallow and he was no longer able to communicate. He died surrounded by Liz, who had done such a wonderful job caring for him, Buddy, his brother, and with a cell phone connection to Sharon, his sister.

Mike taught us much in life as well as in death. As we grieve for our loss, we also rejoice in the hope of the resurrection and the eternal communion of the saints in the age to come. The experiences of these past weeks have given me much to reflect upon.

As some of us gathered to pray around Mike's body and to give his body to God, we shared little stories from Mike's life. We remembered together that all life, every life, is a gift from God, to be cherished and honored, and lived for God's glory. Amidst our grief and tears, there was laughter and thankfulness, marvels on the ways that God had brought Mike into our lives, completely unawares what would lay ahead of us -- for him and us together. We Christians have a word for such experiences that happen through Christ -- we call it "Providence", and the experience of it in our lives, "grace."

Posted by johnwright at 2:01 AM | Comments (0)

It is interesting to note the interaction between conflict, the suffering of messianic believers and the healing presence of these believers in the first part of Acts. God does not preserve the apostles from suffering -- they keep getting themselves in trouble -- yet the suffering always is absorbed into the greater mission of their witness. Acts 5:33-42 is wonderful for its seeming resolve of the issue -- but don't worry, it still hasn't gone away! We still live amidst these dynamics as we live faithfully.

V. 33: Who are "they" and why do they want to kill Peter and the apostles? What is it that he has said that is so outrageous? How do these people see Jesus and the early believers? Why?

Vv. 33-39a: Who defends the early Christians? What does it tell you that a leading Pharisee witnesses on their behalf? Why does he have the believers placed outside before he speaks? What does this show?

He associates the Jesus and the Apostles with Theudas and Judas the Galilean. What does this tell you about how they were perceived? In both cases, it was the Romans, not the Jewish leaders who put down the movements of what we call 'peasant rebellion' from witin Judah. What therefore is Gamaliel suggesting in dealing with this new Jewish messianic movement? Does he believe that it is of God? What is his council? How would the popularity of the group as a result of their works lead to this response?

Vv. 39b-40: What happens to the apostles? Why? Why are they told not to speak the name of Jesus? How is this group perceived by the Jewish leaders? Why do the leaders repeat the order when the Apostles have just ignored it the first time, and explicitly stated that they would not stop speaking about Jesus? What does this tell you about the leaders power in relationship to the Apostles? How is really "free"? Why?

Vv. 41-42: Why do the Apostles rejoice, not in their release, but in the fact that they get flogged and threatened? Why is such a dishonoring really an honor? What is the basis for their dishonor? Can one separate their dishonor from their loyalty and witness to Jesus?

Why don't the Apostles listen to the leaders, but continue to proclaim Jesus as Messiah? In this context what is it to be proclaiming Jesus as Messiah? What is it for Jesus to be the Messiah? Why would they teach both in the temple and in their homes? Any guesses on the nature of that teaching? (utter speculation!).

We have here agan the disobedience of the church to the authorities. What are the consequences of this disobedience? What is the basis for this disobedience? This might be interesting to see how this works in a culture that supposedly is set on "freedom" for the individual to express oneself. What does the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah say to such a culture?

Enjoy the evening!!

Posted by johnwright at 3:59 PM | Comments (0)

Our Sunday reading spoke of our "exit" and "return" to God that is our life -- from God, through God, and to God are all things. We are sojourners in this world, just passing through. In some sense I think that culture teaches us that we belong here. Thus we want to deny our transience, look to accumulate goods, experiences, relationships, whatever, like we can build a permanent dwelling here.

Yesterday was a day of beginnings. I began classes; I met for the first time with my girl's rec league soccer team. I love my students, and I've had the joy of coaching some of my soccer players for 4 years already. The pastors of the multicongregations shared together, and decided to meet monthly for sharing and prayer. Beginnings. From God, through God.

I returned home around 9:00 to find a message on my phone from Laura Krebs. Laura has taken much responsibility and care for Mike Patterson as he has weakened. Laura left a message that, according to hospice, Mike probably will not be with us much longer. To God. Pray for him as he makes his final journey in this life.

Before my meeting with the pastors, Deron and I met with Dave Harrison. We've known Dave four years. Dave told me that I was the second person that he met here in San Diego, down on the lot at 13th and Broadway. Last week Dave got a diagnosis that he has bone cancer in his legs. As he just had other medical procedures, chemo or radiation therapy is out of the question.

Dave has decided to go back home to Missouri. We convinced him to stick with us one more week so that we can help him make the transition to the VA hospital there, and get other connections. The congregation has put Dave and Bob up for a week in a hotel so that he might rest and prepare for the transition. We will send him as a congregation on Sunday. To God.

As I awakened early this morning, I've been praying for Mike and Dave, how thankful I am for the gift that they've been for me in my life. As many of us know, Dave drinks a bit, if that's not an understatement. But he's taught me so much about life. I don't know if I've laughed any deeper about the absurdity of the way society treats the poor than I have with Dave. I deeply love him, and God has given me great joy when Dave came into my life. It hurts to experience the transience of life with friends when they move through our lives. I will miss Dave horribly, and would love to be able to share these coming months of his coming struggles and sufferings with him.

Mike has taught me so much about human dignity and wisdom and honor and love. I guess that I knew in the back of my mind that his condition had so worsened last week that the progression of the cancer might take him this week. I woke him from his sleep last Friday, and we laughed at the shock of waking up to see my face looking at him! We've looked for the butter pecan Ensure for him that he likes, but it doesn't seem necessary now -- it's a little harder to find than we anticipated. I look forward to seeing him today and spending time in his final journey together.

The world's ills, the ravages of sin, are so prominent that, in abstraction, the suffering, the transience of everything is hard to take. Anger seems the appropriate response. Both Dave and Mike have suffered greatly by this absense that is evil and sin, as well, with the rest of us, contributed to that void that is sin. Yet in personal interaction with them, in friendship with them, God's love has seemed to transform even the evil of the world -- such as when the police tried to confiscate Mike's pick-up truck in which he lived from him by searching through it in the middle of the night, waking him from his sleep -- into something different, something beautiful, something indescribable. Through making the journey together, God teaches us the nature of the redemption in Christ, the solidarity with each other that is really possible, and that transience really is okay as we journey in Christ together. For we are from God, and through God, and moving to God.

Posted by johnwright at 5:12 AM | Comments (0)

I have much to blog since my spin through Deutschland -- readings done there, experiences going from nation-state to nation-state, Scott Harrison's acquittal from his case, Mike Patterson's speedy deteriorization of health and suffering with him, the Pope's messages at World Youth Day, the beginning of the academic year, my girl's soccer team beginning, dialogues with friends like Eric Lee at ericisrad.com and David Jones at ressourcement.blogspot.com. But as I have to finish my first lecture for 11:00 am, I'm just going to append my sermon from yesterday.

It was the first time that I had preached since early June. It was a bit scary for me, honestly, because I was speaking more of God, rather than merely "God for us." As a matter of fact, I was trying to refocus our attention that God can only be "God for us" when we allow God to be God. The Romans 11 passage has become increasing important for me. Within classical Christianity, it is a central passage. One could argue that it frames all of Thomas Aquinas and even Augustine's thought.

One has to recognize how preaching breeds insecurity in this cultural environment. Any comments and discussions would be very helpful to teach me more. I'm going to try and do better responding to the discussions than I have in the past!

Sermon:

We live in a ‘religious society’. Coming back from Europe last week, I can literally feel the difference in non-descript ways. But what is the nature of that religion? Our Epistle reading today speaks of God in very interesting ways; the Gospel reading brings our central issue to bear. I’d like to look more closely at these passages together, after reflecting for a moment about tendencies deeply embedded in us by our sin, encouraged by the world in which we live.

1. We’d like a god who would answer our questions; a god to justify our agendas; a god who will fit into our lives.

a. Our Epistle reading is the climax of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Time and time again Paul explodes his readers’ preconceived ideas of God’s action in the world. Has God forsaken God’s covenant with the Jews? No!! But God has used the Jews rejection of their own Messiah, their own King in order to include the Gentiles into the spiritual heritage of the Jews. God will not be drawn into a preconceived agenda; God will not subordinate God’s life to the issues and agendas of the creation. God will not allow God’s own Life to be used for justification of an agenda already within creation outside of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

b. Wow, this hurts. In our culture we’re really taught in very subtle ways that God exists for our agenda, to help solve our problems. Sometimes its personal agendas. You know, we can live without God until trouble arises, emotional, relational, or material problems. Then its, “Yo, God! Time to exercise your will and help me out of my bind!” God exists to solve our personal problems. Personal visions of divine aid come our way. God exists to help us! Or maybe our agenda is different – maybe it’s what our society calls the political. God exists to justify our public agendas in the world – O God of liberty, help spread democracy throughout the world by our violence! Or, O God of Justice, bring down the capitalist exploitation of the poor so that we might distribute material goods to bring forth your reign by our programs!

c. We think that we know God’s agenda – it’s obvious! God exists to justify our agenda; God exists to fit into the slots, the questions that we ask. God is exactly like us, except bigger, stronger, more loving, with a will that is not limited by having a body, by the material limits that we find in our lives. It’s easy to move from the world around us to God, to find a way to fit God into the world, into our private lives, into our public agendas. You know, I’m sure that God has really, really, really big glasses that God looks through to see the world as it really is!
d. Deep within our selves we really want a god that can fit into our lives.

2. Instead Paul points to the true God, a Mystery whose ways remain beyond our comprehension, Whose Life remains beyond our Language, whose very Being remains completely unknown to us outside God’s own Revelation to us.

a. There’s a biblical word for this god who can fit into our lives: it’s called “an idol.” We can wrap our minds around idols, whether we carve them out of metals, or shape them by our language, or honor them as “the cause”. We can control idols. We can acknowledge them as gods, as projections of our own desires, our own agendas, even as they justify our issues, our agendas in something beyond ourselves. We want to move from the creation as it appears to us to make God correspond to the creation in a one-to-one manner. God becomes one of the guys or girls, a really big, nice Person among all of us little, not so nice, persons – an idol.

b. “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God’s judgments, how inscrutable God’s ways! Who has known the mind of God? Who has been God’s counselor? Who has given a gift to God that the giver might be repaid?” Any God that we can wrap our heads around isn’t the true God. Any God that fits into our lives, our agendas, any God that we can reduce to part of our plotting is not the true God. God does not need us; we are utterly superfluous to God. God doesn’t need advice from us; there is nothing that we can give God that is not God’s already. We can’t reduce God’s ways to a rational agenda, a human movement within history to bring all things to an end by our actions, by our calculations, by our rationality or morality.

c. God’s ways transcend our ways, not only in extent, but in kind. God’s ways are different than ours because we are creation and God is not – God is Creator. There is not some standard that God shares with us that both we and God must live up to. No third category stands outside God that joins us with God. All standards find themselves in God, beyond our comprehension that we can participate in only as we participate in God our Maker. God is not an idol – God does not exist to justify our agendas, to fit into our issues, our problems, our agendas. God is, well, God, unknowable, unsearchable, except to God’s own Self. God is not some familiar object like an old blanket, nor some abstraction found within the created order like justice. We won’t control God, for God acts at such a different level that even saying that God acts has to take on an entirely different meaning for God than for us. God is ultimately Mystery – not against reason, but beyond reason, a Reason of a completely different order than that of which we can even imagine. God doesn’t fit into any category we can make – not even the word God. God explodes the word God in God’s very Being. God is Ultimate; God is Mystery; God is Other, so Other that God is not merely Other.

d. God is not some energy within creation to be controlled, not an ideal to be achieved; God is so far beyond us that God is intimate to us; God is Mystery.

3. Well, John, that’s hard stuff. Actually this is really good news. God does not fit into our lives; we are called by God to find our lives in God: the One from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.

a. To say that we cannot know the mind of God is not to say that the mind of God is not. It is to say is that God is not our projection; God’s Life does not depend on ours. It is to say that our life, indeed all things, depend on God. All things find their beginning, existence, and end in God. God is not a “thing”, but the origin, medium, and end of all things.

b. Creation is moving; to be created from nothing is to be able to change. Created from nothing, different from God, superfluous to God, all that is, really is, is from God, existing as purely gift. God is Origin, Alpha, not a cause within creation, but the Origin like the idea of a work of art is in the mind of an artist. Everything – and God is not a thing – finds its origin in God. But more. God is not origin so that everything becomes independent of God. Every thing exists through God. Creation is not a one-time and over thing. All that is continues to be only as it, as we, find ourselves through God. Moving, changing as creation, this change occurs through God, in God, from whom are all things. And from God, through God, all things have an end, a goal, a purpose: to move to God. God is not merely Alpha; God is Omega, the beginning and the End. All things from God, through God, move to God. God doesn’t find God’s Life in creation as one thing among other things. All things find their true life, their true Being, their true Reason, in God!

c. Very simply, we are not created so that God can answer our questions, solve our problems, help us out, justify our agendas. We are created from God, to live through God, to ultimately find our truest selves as we move to God. How this happens, how God so moves us from God through God to God, is not for us to decide. God has given us life as gift, shear complete gift, utterly unnecessary to God, that we might participate in the Life that is God, our Origin, our means of being, the End of our Being as a result of the Gift that is Life. We are to live in God, from God, through God, for God. Not one of us, not one human being, not one molecule or atom, not one ameba or rock, exists that does not find its origin from God, its existence through God, and its destination to God.

d. This is wonderful good news: all things find their true being from God, through God, towards God.

4. As from God, through God, made in God’s image, we find our way back to God in God’s revelation of God’s own Self in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fully God, fully human, in one person.

a. Perhaps you’ve already seen humanity’s problem. We are from God, live through God, but how do we move to God? We’ve seen our tendency to idolatry, to fitting God into our lives, not finding our lives in God. In sin, our lives become disordered. Our movement to God becomes distorted, twisted, perverted. We can’t find way home, even though we know we have a home from which we came, for when we try, we find ourselves sucked into idolatry because God’s ways are inscrutable, unknowable in and of ourselves within creation. We can know that God is, and that we are for God, but in our sin, we are stuck, perverse, malformed, unable to find our way home, like confused children separated from their parents at the county fair.

b. Our gospel passage speaks to us: “Who do you say that I am? Jesus asked. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” God has shown us the way home to God by becoming one of us, assuming human flesh in the Jewish Messiah Jesus so that we might find our way to God. God participated in creation by taking on human nature without diminishing God – I told you earlier that God was Mystery – so that we, God’s creation, might participate in God, might find our true end in God, might have God restore us to our truest self, our fullest self, not according to our plans, our projections, our wishes, but to God. We live our own agenda most when it is not our agenda, but God’s, living fully by faith in God through Jesus Christ by the Spirit’s power. We can’t fit God into our agenda, because God is already there, behind it, through it, in front of it, always pulling us to God’s own self.

c. Our job in life is to be conformed to the image of God through which we were created, the image that we see revealed to us by God in Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit, the image that is our truest self for it comes to be fully in God. Our job is to journey from God, through God, to God. This is an intensely inward journey – made by faith, intensely personal faith, in hope for love. It involves prayer, devotion, searching the Scriptures, fasting, watching and emulating the lives of the saints. It is an intensely bodily journey – love of God lived out in love of neighbor, those also from God, through God, for God, in the works of mercy, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the ill, caring for the stranger, visiting those in prison, burying the dead. It is the journey seen in the journey of Jesus Christ, in utter obedience to God’s kingdom that Jesus himself began.

d. God has shown us the way home, the way to our true end in God, through God’s revelation in Jesus by the Spirit’s power.

Conclusion: At this Table is our true end, made evident even now as we anticipate God’s restoration of all things in God: the body and blood of Christ, the Eucharistic, Thanksgiving feast where God pulls us literally into God’s own Life through Jesus Christ by the Spirit’s presence. You are from God; you live through God – whether you admit it or not. You are for God, the unknowable God who has opened God’s own Life for us to participate in, to find our end, through Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. Come, friends, come. Come to find yourself, your life, in God from whom you came. Come in faith. And be thankful.

Posted by johnwright at 8:15 AM | Comments (0)

Friends,

I hope that you enjoy my incompetence. I blogged a whole study today, and thought that I had posted it around 12:40. Yet it seems to have evaporated into the blogosphere.

If someone can find it, I'd be happy. I have an appointment that I have to get to now -- so it was on Acts 5:22-32. It really is a wonderful passage.

Sorry.

John

Posted by johnwright at 5:12 PM | Comments (2)

I'm trying to finish up my paper for my trip to the conference on Judah and Judeans in the Fourth Century in Muenster, Germany. Through a comparison with some late Babylonian temple texts, I'm looking at the temple sacrificial system as a type of economic redistribution of wealth. Temples in antiquity are like huge catering services! One text from a place called Uruk talks about 10 sheep being cooked at one of the four meal services of each day. If this same amount was provided the other three times, that butchering and preparing forty sheep a day. That's lots of lamb chops!!

What's that have to do with Acts 5:12-21? Maybe a little more than my story about Grandpa Wright last week -- then again, maybe not!! But the text presupposes a temple system where the high priest controlled the economic exchange of goods through the temple -- the flow of wealth. From what we can tell, during this time the high priest oversaw this flow of wealth to make sure it benefited the elite in Jerusalem. This gives a background to the different perceptions on the church that this passage depicts.

The passage seems to suggest four different groups:
(1) believers in Jesus the Messiah and members of this Jewish messianic new age under the authority of the apostles.
(2) persons being initiated into this people as a result of the witness of the apostles and others.
(3) persons curious but afraid to be associated with the new Jewish messianists, except to receive benefits from them.
(4) The high priest and his associates who attempt to stop the spread of this Jewish messianic movement.

Maybe you can read through the passage and see what group appears where. Do you find any patterns of differences between them?

Read vv. 12-13: Why would the apostles and the church, meeting in the temple, have people's respect, yet at the same time, the same people not be willing to join them?

V. 14: Given this context, what is it to be a believer? What is the difference between the believers adn the "esteemers"?

Vv. 15-16: Why is the healing witness of the Peter so important? Is to be healed to become a believer? What is the point of the healings?

Vv. 17-18: Why are the high priests and their associates upset at the apostles? (don't forget to look back to chapter 4) Why do the high priest resort to coercion? What type of coercion do they use? Why?

Vv. 19-21: What "good" does the coercion of the high priest do? Where are the apostles when the high priest calls for them in prison? What does that imply about where the priestly officials are not? Who is more faithful to the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel?

The passage raises issues about the perception of the church, and its relationship to various different groups outside it. How do you think different people perceive you, and us as a congregation? What do people who do not really "believe" want from us? Does the church hold this back in Jerusalem? Who perceives you/us as a problem, or a threat? Why is this so? What does the passage suggest is our mission in such a situation?

If you still have time, maybe you can speculate more why I told the story about the dog and the apple butter. If you find out, let me know!! Have a wonderful evening together!

Posted by johnwright at 2:18 PM | Comments (2)

Last Friday I had a conversation with a colleague in the School of Theology. In the midst he asked me, somewhat seriously, how long would it take until I was arrested. I replied that I never seek to be provoke the authorities; as a matter of fact, it had been a long time since I had been directly threatened with arrest. I guess some police were leery last December when the city shut down feeding the hungry from the Salvation Army for awhile, and we decided to go to the streets to distribute food. I'm not sure if our actions were legal or not -- I do know that Christ was present there. But it had been awhile since I had been directly threatened -- last time was at an inactive bus stop by 13th and Broadway while praying with some friends from the Bread of Life when we were outdoors. I stayed with those with whom I had just prayed as the police wrote them tickets for the open cans of alcohol that were at the stop -- even though they were not on my friends. When I didn't leave, I was told to leave or they would arrest me for interference with the police. But that was over a year ago.

Yesterday it happened again!! I went to the closing arguments of Scott Harrison's trial for first degree murder in answer to the request of the family. I firmly believe that Scott has been framed. His family and others have suffered greatly by the state's decision to accuse him of a murder that he did not commit.

I met Kirsti, Scott's wife,and her family, outside the courtroom with other friends, including those who had at one time been part of the Mid-City congregation. The church -- individual friends of Scott from various congregations -- gathered outside in a circle, held hands, and a pastor from Kirsti's parents church led in prayer. It was a prayer for justice and strength for Scott and ourselves. I had my collar on, as I usually do when I go to court, to be visible as a clergy.

Before anything began with the closing arguments or reading of the special directions for the jury, the prosecutor surprised me when she suddenly complained to the judge about the "disgusting behavior" of those of us who had gathered outside the courtroom. Apparently, unbeknownst to me or anyone, the jury had been gathering outside the courtroom as well. The prosecutor accused us of jury tampering.

The judge then proceeded to agree with the prosecutor and threaten us with arrest if any such behavior took place again. She asked for all persons who were part of the prayer circle to look at her and speak that we understood her. Others did; I did not. She did not give any chance for us to speak, nor grant any legal reasoning for her threat. Honestly, I couldn't help but smile as I'd just been reading the Martyrdom of Polycarp and the judges behavior was so much like that of the Roman governor there.

The last little incident came when I was walking quickly out of the courtroom to meet my friend Craig Keen for lunch. As I walked, three persons related to the victim were walking out. All I heard was one speaking with a certain venom in her voice, "Psycho Christians." Whereas the prosecutor had interpreted our prayer in terms of a rational means of manipulation; the victim's family (for whom I have prayed much over the years, and would have invited to pray with us, for their suffering has been greater than all in the loss of their husband and father) saw it as an act of irrationality.

Three things here in terms of the way liberal political theory helps us understand this perspective. First, the prosecutors shows how our society understands prayer to be "functional" -- not about God, but a human attempt to manipulate the world around us. The prosecutor obviously understood the audience of our prayers to be other humans not God. Like many within and outside the life of the church, it is a functional atheism. Prayer is a human work for human ends that finds its useful function within the world around us. This is why "spirituality" has become so popular these days. It is a private experience within an individual that can help them cope with the world around.

Second, from the family's perspective it was "irrational behavior." Whereas I am sure that there would have been no problem privately bowing one's head and silently uttering prayers in the foyer, the fact that we gathered as the church, physically present in solidarity wtih Scott and the victim's family of the hideous murder 13 years ago, the fact that prayer was audible violated keeping prayer in its rightful place for it to be rational -- private and personal. Outside a courtroom, visibly present, audibly praying, if not a manipulative act for human ends, is an irrational act -- for the secular public world, common supposedly to all humans -- defines rational. To move the irrational into the rational realm is a "psycho" move.

Third, and most interesting is the judge's behavior. Her blatant coercive rhetoric to stop a group of Christians from praying together within a government building. Her behavior towards the prayer and her instructions to the jury correspond. Each jury member has to "not be influenced" by anything "but the facts." They have to leave their particular historical contingency behind (as if they can!), and become the isolated, autonomous rational person of modernity that the law presupposes and the coercive power of the state imposes. Our refusal to be autonomous individuals, ie, our insistence that we gathered in solidarity as the church outside and within the courtroom, even with Scott, directly threatened the myth and thus the legitimacy which the legal system is built upon. For the trial and closing arguments were not about truthfulness, but rhetorically imposing one's interest on the jury - the interest of the state or Scott's interest. The judge acts as arbiter of impersonal justice (the rules) to allow the "law" to function so that the autonomous rationality of the jurers can pick and chose through the competitive interests that the lawyers represent.

But the bald, coercive, direct threat of the judge surprised even me -- who expects the coercive power of the state. It is the sort of rhetoric that Talal Asad analyzes so well in Formations of the Secular. Asad analyzes the adoptation of modern secular categories in Egyptian law. He writes "the idea of religious toleration that helps to define a state as secular begins with the premise that because belief cannot be coerced, religion should be regarded by the political authorities with indifferene as long as it remains within the private domain. The individual's ability to believe what he or she chooses is tranlated into a legal right to express one's beliefs freely and to exercise one's religion without hindrance -- so 'religion' is brought back into the public domain. This freedom is qualified, however. The public expression of religious belief and performance of religion ritual must not be a probable cause of a breach of the peace, nor should it be construable as a symbolic affront to the state's personality. . . . the secular state, like others, is conceived of as a person who can be morally threatened" (p. 206).

What we encountered yesterday was the coercive power of the state in the judge that works very hard to make us individuals with private beliefs of our own choosing. That is not meant to be evaluative but descriptive. If we know that the liberal state is about primarly sustaining its coercive power over the bodies of Christians by making them individuals rather than members of the body of Christ, and individually members of it, we can develop together the skills necessary to resist this secularizing program of the state. We can make evident that the state is not about "freedom" at all, but about, rather, submission to its authority.

My quarrel with liberal political theory is thus not an abstract disagreement, but comes from my pastoral, embodied work. It comes when I can't talk with doctors about Mike Patterson's condition to get the information to love him better; it comes when I discover the state intimidating me not to pray for Scott when the state has isolated him from his family for over a year of his life; it comes when the state won't let us engage in the works of mercy except under its jurisdiction. But deeper, it comes from the ways the politics of liberalism form us to experience life in certain ways that make it difficult to live holy lives today, and then we make our experience as "natural."

Maybe some day I will get arrested. I don't look forward to the day, but if it comes, I hope it is for the right reasons, at the right time, in the right place.

Posted by johnwright at 1:40 PM | Comments (1)

This has been a long, difficult week in some ways. But it also shows the blessings and goodness of God to me for which I must be thankful. Next week on Thursday I fly to Germany to participate in an international conference on "Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century BCE". It's an honor to receive an invitation to present a paper there, but, of course, it means I have to write my paper. I've tried to devote time to finishing it this week. I've almost made it.

With this technical academic work going on, it has been a full week pastoring. I'm going to try and visit some of our sick today. One feels the weight and the complexity of the illnesses. In Southern California, it is very hard to work with the medical profession. Confidentiality laws, meant to protect patient's rights -- and in some ways do, also isolate the patients for control by the medical profession.

I stopped by the hospital on Tuesday evening to see "Pops." Pops is a friend of the congregation, and has been very ill. Pops isn't the most verbose of persons, and we talked, I tried to get him some crackers, but I couldn't get a sense of the diagnosis to provide proper support for him long term. It actually took me two times to see him because the first time he was involved in "a procedure". The fact that I was pastor made no difference, or that I've known Pops a long time and could help with him. The medical profession isolates -- makes a claim on bodies as under their care. Again, I understand the good in this, but it is an isolated good that becomes disordered against the good of the patient, because the body of the person does not "belong" to the medical profession -- through the Eucharist, the body is part of the body of Christ, and individually a member of it. To deny this reality -- the true reality -- in medical treatment makes things difficult.

Tuesday night I went to Bread of Life, our little version of the classic soup kitchen. Numbers are up, even at the beginning of the month. More and more people, in order to cover rent, have to do without food, and so join us regularly. People are so gracious and thankful. My friend Sue, whom I've know for about 8 months, may soon be able to move off the streets. Sue has been a tremendous gift to those on the streets with her presence there. She cares for people, befriends them, and I sense the depth of love that people have for her. She is a RN, and has received a job offer in a hosital about a mile or two from the church.

But of course, it is difficult to move from living on the streets to a job, even once it is offered, because it costs money to start a job, as well. We were able to share some funding from our congregations common good so that she can re-certify in a minor area as well as acquire the necessary goods for beginning work. I am hopeful that she can move into one of our houses in the area of the church as she makes a transition back where her gifts can be utilized in different, more sustainable ways. Her wisdoms, skills, joy, perseverance in this time that I've known her have been very humbling. It makes it hard to complain about other things that I face. My hope for my congregation is that they don't see the work of mercy of feeding the hungry as primarily about the distribution of food -- though of course that is important -- but about the reception of the Spirit for their sanctification through the gifts that God brings into our lives as a result -- gifts like Sue.

Wednesday I met with a pastor of a larger Church of the Nazarene nearby to talk about beginning a meal out of our building for the neighborhood in which our building dwells. The few miles that separate our congregations are a demographic chasm -- it is a "suburban church"; we are an "urban church" -- whatever that means. Yet the collegiality is profound as we share together. Unfortunately he is involved in finishing selling part of the church properties, trying to get the move past the Community Development Corporation now.

It is interesting how such an agency, not even governmental, is given control over the church in this society. It shows very concretely that while "religion" in liberal societies is "free" - one can hold whatever private "belief" that one has, the church is not free, nor is it trusted to work for the good -- only commercial and government agencies are imagined to have moral capability. Because of the possible complications, we have again had to push back the starting of this date. Thus, this commercial/governmental agencies authority over the "common good" really involves a common good that excludes the poor. Yet our sister congregation is going to help us immediately in starting our food pantry, and so we will slide into the sharing of food with the neighborhood where our congregations gather.

After that meeting I drove off to LaJolla to visit Mike Patterson, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer -- where he had been transferred to receive help from a new, more specialize medical team. For those who do not know San Diego, LaJolla is an elite community, a beautiful area overlooking the ocean, as well as the site for a Univeristy of California site and a major world sight for the biotech industries. The PGA has a tour stop there every spring. We don't get many folks who get hospitalized in LaJolla from my congregation. I got directions, turned into a hospital, drove down to part, walked in only to find that I was at the wrong one -- there are two hospitals side-by-side. In a society where medical care is an increasingly inaccessible good, in the wealthiest area of San Diego hospitals are abundant.

I drove to the next entryway and found my way to the hospital -- run by UCSD. I walked in and found a large, three story open concourse with elegant columns, open space, doors to a beautiful garden, marble-like flooring and interior -- but no information or welcome desk (there was valet parking available outside,though!). I didn't know how to find Mike, so I saw a nurse walking out of a little convenience shop and asked if she could direct me to the welcome desk. She asked, "Who do you want?" I told her the name and she responded, "Did he ask for you?" I had my clerical collar on at the time and I responded that he was my parishioner and friend. She pulled out a list from her pocket and said, "He's not on the second floor; he must be either on 3 East or E West." I thanked her, and proceeded up the elevator.

He wasn't on 3 West. When I told the nurse station that he was receiving treatment for cancer, she said, he must be on 3 East. So I went there, past the ugly instituion doors that said "Keep doors shut" that separated the wards from the beautiful interior. I walked inside to be told that Mike had been released the day before, and that they could give me no more information. I was not able to speak directly with any medical professionals who we might support Mike, what to expect, explain some about his wider social conditions that will directly effect his care. The nurse looked sympathetically at me, because she knew that I was appraised of the situation. I stated, "It is a shame that the medical profession cannot work more directly with clergy for the care of the patients; but I understand the law and what you have to do." Again, the legal, social structures make a body an individual, isolating and separating that body from the body of Christ, from pastoral care, in the name of 'individual rights.' When rights language replaces language of what is good, the individual's body is handed over to the power of the state and the organizations that work for the state's interests. In the process, Mike has been handed over to "medical experts" who don't know him, and who really don't have time or interest for his whole care and setting -- they are compensated to take care of his illness, not for suffering with him as we are called to do, uniting his and our sufferings with the sufferings of Christ.

As a result of this, I believe that we need in our congregation to get medical release forms filled out before hand, and keep them on file. We need to protect the good of each other, of course, but provide a means of circumventing the state's control of our bodies when we need medical care. This might be good for other congregation's to do as well.

I had a visit with another member of the congregation to talk about the use of the image of a pilgrim way-station for the congregation's life. I need to reflect and write on it more. That evening I had a long conversation about the staffing needs and programs of the congregation. Part of the pastoral office is to exercise certain judgments for the good of congregational mission. This is the most unpleasant aspect of the office, for I know the contingencies of my judgment, and that my judgment can and will be different from others. My judgments can be therefore hurtful to others, just by their nature. This stinks. It is hard work to overcome. It is not fun to hear disapproval of me or of the congregation -- worthy though the disapproval might -- or might not -- be.

Meanwhile, Scott Harrison's trial for murder, special circumstances, has proceeded all week. We have tried to watch the kids some and support; yet we feel the weight -- the power to kill has been granted by the state to a body of strangers of our brother and friend who I am convinced is innocent of murder, and the victim of other's lies. But in the United States, the legal system is about winning, not necessarily about obtaining truth. Though from what I can tell the prosecutions case has not been strong (I don't believe it can be), the defense has not waged much a case except to show the holes in the prosecutions case. The verdict will be guilty or not guilty, not guilty or innocent. Closing arguments will be held on Monday. The family has asked for persons to attend in support for Scott. I am planning to go and get back for our church board meeting that evening.

Yesterday evening, my brother Brian Becker reminded me of the plight of the 15 Haitian refugees in Dominica. Dominica seems willing to release them to the United States -- and even wants to help to do it. But to get the legal coverage here for them is difficult. We suddenly are involved in international affairs, where our ability to live in solidarity with our French speaking congregation through these refugees, has to be mediated, and thus controlled, through the state. I'm not sure exactly how to go at this, for the energy and emotions and time and money to work through various agencies and governments seems overwhelming. Yet God has brought us into direct solidarity with these people who are legally disenfranchised -- the Visas of all but one of the group have now expired in Dominica. As Haiti itself falls into violent disorder, who can we not go ahead? Yet one feels one's helplessness, but also the responsibility and hope put upon us by the group and by our French-speaking congregation.

Other items have loomed as well in the background. A young friend of the congregation's father may have died suddenly; his friend was in my office yesterday with tears in her eyes of concern, for she was scheduled to visit the family on Monday. The Nuer congregation received a shock this week when the VP was killed in the Sudan. The civil war from which they fled, and which had been settled, threatens to emerge again, and they all have concerns for their families in light of the genocide of the past 30 years. A member of that congregation is going to preach for us tomorrow.

We are meeting tonight to watch a video, "Invisible Children", that looks at the forced militarization of children in sections of Africa. A member of our congregation was involved in filming a sequel this spring and is going to share with us. We also are going to discuss helping Ashby get her Children's Home going in southern Kenya.

Tomorrow when we gather in worship, we are also gathering after the Eucharist to eat a meal catered to us by Lillian, a member of the French-speaking congregation, a good friend of our congregation, who was born in the Congo (I believe -- correct me if I am wrong). We are also trying to take orders for beautiful Christmas cards, made by children in the care of a congregation of the Church of the Nazarene in Africa who have lost their parents due to Aids. We hope that this direct economic exchange of goods can sustain them in their lives, as well as beginning a certain type of "catholic economy" that is not controlled by multinational corporations, but distribute goods economically for the good and sustenance of all.

It is in this setting that I woke up this morning around 2:00 am in prayer. I have to be thankful. I have been moved by my new friend, David, at ressourcement.blogspot.com who titles his email "Christ is with us!" Christ is with us, indeed! The richness and fullness of life that comes in Christ is an adventure. How could I predict my life would be so full when I was baptized? Yet it is also the context for our Lord teaching us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Posted by johnwright at 8:23 AM | Comments (2)

If the word has spread to me correctly, it might be good to take some time to digest what we have read and discussed together. Rather than trying to "apply" the readings so far, discuss how you have found yourselves in the stories so far. What has surprised you about these people who eventually became known as "Christians"?

Stories that we find ourselve in have a way of shaping us. After my grandfather Wright died, we shared stories about my grandfather. My grandfather was usually a very calm man -- I don't know if I ever saw him angry. But that day my father told me a story of how grandpa Wright had driven his family to his father's farm. Upon return the had a big bowl of apple butter in the middle of the front seat between my grandmother and grandfather, with my dad, his sister, and the family dog in the middle of the back seat in the old 40's car. For some reason, my grandfather had to step suddenly on the brakes. The dog flew out of the backseat and landed in the midst of the apple butter and then proceeded to shake itself all over the car. My dad laughed deeply as he told that grandpa got down right mad at the situation -- the most upset he ever saw him. Through the story I found out what it was to be a Wright, and how to laugh at things that at the time seem like a disaster, but really aren't.

With whom have you most identified in Acts? When have you experienced the continuation of this story? What virtues does one need to continue this story?

Spend some extra time in prayer this week, as well as sharing your experiences of engaging in the works of mercy. What is the greatest obstacle from engaging in such works?

Next week we'll continue into chapter 5 of Acts, a summary of the continued growth of these Jewish messianic believers and maybe dip into chapter 6, the response of the authorities to the practices of the believers.

Posted by johnwright at 2:01 PM | Comments (1)