Last night, I had a nightmare. Not one of those vague anxiety dreams about too many papers to write and an endless drive-thru at McDonalds, where I work. No, last night was truly horrible: I am-- in the dream-- pregnant. I am a Truman student as I am in real life, with no husband, without even a boyfriend. I am panicking as I have never panicked before; how could this possibly be happening to me? My friends' reactions range from disappointment to embarrassment to anger. My body aches and my belly feels as though it will burst. I tell my professors I am dropping out of college to raise my baby, and they look back with shock and sorrow. I quit my church out of shame, unable to look anybody in the eye, my dreams of ordained ministry shot. I am on the floor in front of my father, groaning, "Daddy, Daddy, can you believe that I'm a virgin?" My father laughs mirthlessly, shakes his head silently, seemingly unable to speak. I run throughout Truman's campus in desperation, begging God to take this baby away from me...
And then I woke up. For one horrifying moment I felt my stomach, full of Christmas sugar cookies my mother had baked, and thought it was true. Reality set in and I knew I had a lot of plates to spin, but a pregnancy was not one of them. But the dread, the physical terror, remained vivid. I love babies. But being pregnant now, at twenty one, would be devastating. Psychologically, relationally, educationally, physically, vocationally... I would be devastated.
(I don't mean to offend people who became parents young. I know things happen, and I applaud anyone who can shoulder that sort of responsibility at such a young age. I am simply saying for me, and for many of my fellow Truman students, a pregnancy now would be terrible.)
As I lay in that twilight between sleep and wakefulness, it hit me: Two thousand years ago, give or take, for a teenager named Mary, my nightmare was reality.
What did Mary's friends say? What about the people at synagogue? The neighbors? How did she tell her grandparents, her parents? How did she tell Joseph? One day, she was daydreaming about their wedding, plotting their new life together. Then, she had to bear a dangerous secret and the scorn of everyone she knew and loved.
But Mary had a choice. God always gives people choices. She could have told Gabriel to go fly away. She could have asked God to pick some well-off, married lady instead who could better provide for this little bundle of joy, whose life would not be marred by scandal.
Instead, Mary said, "Here am I, the maidservant of the Lord."
Being the Lord's servant can lead to a lot of heartache. Mary could have been stoned, as she surely knew when the angel approached her. She nearly lost Joseph. Christmas tell us plainly that sometimes God asks us to risk everything.
We so often sentimentalize Christmas, whitewash a rather harrowing story. God used my nightmare to make me think about the shame and fear and desperation Mary must have gone through. But Christmas doesn't stop there, of course.
Christmas promises that God asks ordinary people to do extraordinary things for his kingdom, even though it might involve extraordinary danger.
Christmas promises that God wants to partner with people to accomplish God's tasks.
Christmas promises that God rewards radical faith like Mary's.
I don't want to have a baby like Mary did now. Or ever, really-- the giving birth video in sixth grade health class achieved its goal of scarring me for life, thank you very much. But I pray for the faith like Mary's to keep saying, Here am I, Lord, even when the going gets tough.
(And P.S., in case anybody reading this takes my dream seriously-- I am in absolutely no danger of getting pregnant now or in the foreseeable future!)
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Thursday, December 19, 2013
A Month of Sundays
I just finished A Month of Sundays, John Updike's at once haunting and hilarious novel composed of journal entries by the wayward Rev. Tom Marshfield. This married Episcopal priest carries on a months-long affair with his organist and soon moves on to sleep with women of all ages in his congregation. The organist is upset he is cheating on her and spills all. Tom's bishop sends him to a rehab program in which he must write a journal entry every day. By the end he has reflected upon the whole story with some soberness, but plenty of snark, and in the final entry he examines his tryst with his therapist at the rehab program!
I'm embarrassed to say I devoured the book. I couldn't stop reading late into Saturday night, knowing I would be tired for church in the morning but Updike had sucked me in! The book is definitely R-rated, but pornography this is not. Instead, it's a fascinating work of art that traces the psychological and spiritual path of a dramatic fall from grace. What does this book mean? More than I can figure out. But I have some ideas.
Tom has some fantastic lines, words I want to wrench from the context of this lurid book and misattribute and use in sermons or something else because they're just so wise. Like this one: "Compassion is not simple. That is where you so heretically condescend. You give your simple compassion to those whom you imagine to be simple." What a great insight into so much flat, paternalistic, "Christian" "charity." Or, "Irony is the style of our cowardice." Or, "Our body looks up at us as from a cloudy pool, but it is us, our reflection." So good!
And I suppose that's partly Updike's point. People can say wise things without being wise themselves. Smooth words are not necessarily indicative of an unstained soul. Jesus says that at the end people will say "Lord, Lord!" and Jesus will reply, "Go away; I never knew you." As soon as we're lying to God we're in huge trouble. That kind of empty, insincere piety can't fool Jesus, but it sure can fool people, like Tom's congregation.
And Tom himself. He seems unaware of the consequences of his own actions. He insists he doesn't want to separate from his wife, yet continues to blatantly sleep with more and more women. In a bizarre scene, while in bed with a deacon's wife Tom practically coerces this stunned woman to recant her belief in God and howls that Christianity is just a fairy tale. Yet he stubbornly clings to his profession and is surprised to face disciplinary action even though his harem has swelled to alarming ranks. Tom is out of touch with reality; he sees himself as untouchable. That blind, relentless pride is a major factor in his moral decay. If normal rules no longer apply to me, I am free in the most dangerous way possible, free to destroy myself and everyone around me.
And I say I because I could do it too. Bed a third of the congregation? No, fornication isn't my style. But I think massive pride, though, and an ego of soul-crushing proportion is an omnipresent danger for most people, myself included. A lot of clergy and leaders in general seem susceptible to that sort of egoism. And it can lead to a whole host of sins, of which Tom's sensational serial adultery is but one.
Another thought: Tom was no longer accountable to anybody. Having ceased believing in God, he was certainly not holding himself to the Spirit's refining fire of examination. And he disengages with his wife, disdains his associate pastor, and never makes mention of colleagues in ministry or any sense of participation in community. His mistress the organist makes some apparently salutary suggestions about improving his preaching and cutting back on music-- all during their trysts! And the final journal entry's description of his sleeping with the therapist highlights that he isn't being challenged by her, either. Without anyone to lovingly question us, inquire how much sleep we're getting, take us out to dinner and refuse to budge until we divulge what's really on our minds... we lose the Spirit's movement in the community. Everybody, especially pastors, is in doubly big trouble when they've isolated themselves. Tom has become an expert in adroitly cutting off this kind of sacred intimacy, barters it away for cheap sex, which resembles but ultimately avoids the kind of intimacy Tom desperately needs. I think Updike wants us to ask ourselves if we're guilty of the same sin, perhaps committed in smaller, less grandiose ways.
I can't quite explicitly recommend this book since it is so explicit in parts-- body parts. Detailed body parts. But it's such a fine literary work and a thought provoking study in the anatomy of sin for anybody over eighteen, I'd say. Updike's choice to make A Month of Sundays a series of journal entries makes us feel awfully close to Rev. Tom. Which is a good thing, because most of us aren't that far from becoming, in one way or another, like him.
I'm embarrassed to say I devoured the book. I couldn't stop reading late into Saturday night, knowing I would be tired for church in the morning but Updike had sucked me in! The book is definitely R-rated, but pornography this is not. Instead, it's a fascinating work of art that traces the psychological and spiritual path of a dramatic fall from grace. What does this book mean? More than I can figure out. But I have some ideas.
Tom has some fantastic lines, words I want to wrench from the context of this lurid book and misattribute and use in sermons or something else because they're just so wise. Like this one: "Compassion is not simple. That is where you so heretically condescend. You give your simple compassion to those whom you imagine to be simple." What a great insight into so much flat, paternalistic, "Christian" "charity." Or, "Irony is the style of our cowardice." Or, "Our body looks up at us as from a cloudy pool, but it is us, our reflection." So good!
And I suppose that's partly Updike's point. People can say wise things without being wise themselves. Smooth words are not necessarily indicative of an unstained soul. Jesus says that at the end people will say "Lord, Lord!" and Jesus will reply, "Go away; I never knew you." As soon as we're lying to God we're in huge trouble. That kind of empty, insincere piety can't fool Jesus, but it sure can fool people, like Tom's congregation.
And Tom himself. He seems unaware of the consequences of his own actions. He insists he doesn't want to separate from his wife, yet continues to blatantly sleep with more and more women. In a bizarre scene, while in bed with a deacon's wife Tom practically coerces this stunned woman to recant her belief in God and howls that Christianity is just a fairy tale. Yet he stubbornly clings to his profession and is surprised to face disciplinary action even though his harem has swelled to alarming ranks. Tom is out of touch with reality; he sees himself as untouchable. That blind, relentless pride is a major factor in his moral decay. If normal rules no longer apply to me, I am free in the most dangerous way possible, free to destroy myself and everyone around me.
And I say I because I could do it too. Bed a third of the congregation? No, fornication isn't my style. But I think massive pride, though, and an ego of soul-crushing proportion is an omnipresent danger for most people, myself included. A lot of clergy and leaders in general seem susceptible to that sort of egoism. And it can lead to a whole host of sins, of which Tom's sensational serial adultery is but one.
Another thought: Tom was no longer accountable to anybody. Having ceased believing in God, he was certainly not holding himself to the Spirit's refining fire of examination. And he disengages with his wife, disdains his associate pastor, and never makes mention of colleagues in ministry or any sense of participation in community. His mistress the organist makes some apparently salutary suggestions about improving his preaching and cutting back on music-- all during their trysts! And the final journal entry's description of his sleeping with the therapist highlights that he isn't being challenged by her, either. Without anyone to lovingly question us, inquire how much sleep we're getting, take us out to dinner and refuse to budge until we divulge what's really on our minds... we lose the Spirit's movement in the community. Everybody, especially pastors, is in doubly big trouble when they've isolated themselves. Tom has become an expert in adroitly cutting off this kind of sacred intimacy, barters it away for cheap sex, which resembles but ultimately avoids the kind of intimacy Tom desperately needs. I think Updike wants us to ask ourselves if we're guilty of the same sin, perhaps committed in smaller, less grandiose ways.
I can't quite explicitly recommend this book since it is so explicit in parts-- body parts. Detailed body parts. But it's such a fine literary work and a thought provoking study in the anatomy of sin for anybody over eighteen, I'd say. Updike's choice to make A Month of Sundays a series of journal entries makes us feel awfully close to Rev. Tom. Which is a good thing, because most of us aren't that far from becoming, in one way or another, like him.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
A Certain Kind of Afterlife
A couple weeks back, in my Death and Dying class, we watched a documentary entitled, "A Certain Kind of Death." It was probably the most frightening movie I have ever seen. It follows coroners, autopsy people, and basically all the government services that process dead people. They were following people who had no living family or friends nearby to make the phone calls, do the cleanup, go to the funeral, right to the crematorium. Unflinchingly honest, this documentary showed even severely decomposed bodies. At multiple points I nearly lost my breakfast and at other times I could only watch through trembling fingers.
Thank God, and knock on wood, I have never seen a dead body up close and personal. Rotting, black flesh, eyes and nose caving in, maggots in their orifices... it was extremely disgusting. And at the end, they showed bodies at the crematorium, with blood and other fluids dripping everywhere. The technicians put the body in the oven like a pizza, then open it and with a rake break up pieces of bone. Then the bone pieces get ground up in a blender. And if the remains go unclaimed for years... they have to make room for new boxes, and dump them all into a hole in the ground. Clouds of ashes, pieces of people floating through the air... this movie was nothing short of horrific. And yet, it is reality.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Everyone I know, their heads will one day be black and maggots will crawl from their shrinking lips and their orifices will ooze body fluid into the earth. My friends. My professors. My brother and sister. My parents. Me.
That day we watched the movie, I had already planned to go to the nursing home to visit some people from church. I already knew I needed to go, but I felt even more sure about the decision after this chilling documentary. But the whole time, in the back of my mind, I thought: one day these gnarled hands gripping mine will go pale and ghostly and then rot away. And the rest of my mind suppressed the thoughts, knowing that my contemplation of death would show on my face, that people in the nursing home need hope and life, not death, spoken to them.
And as Christians, we have the greatest hope in the world. We do not deny our bodies will become ashes and dust. We know that isn't the end. The clouds of ash, the clouds of people will turn to flesh. The rotting corpses will turn to fresh, shiny life. We believe, as the creed says, in the resurrection of the body.
What must that mean to my old people, whom I love, whom I pity, who stand on the precipice of death so far away from me in my naive youth? The ones with wheelchairs and walkers will run again. The ones who can't hear or see anymore will behold the face and voice of God.
A physical, literal resurrection of the body, not a spiritual heaven but a coming new heavens and new earth... after watching that documentary, I think I understand a bit better. Death is horrible, it's disgusting, frankly. I thought of Martha, who told Jesus Lazarus' body would smell. In that culture, death was more frequent and more public without hospitals and coroners and funeral directors. But death is always unsanitary. Belief in a certain kind of afterlife, the biblical one, in which we will live a perfect, embodied, healed existence, means we can have hope even as we look on the grisliness of death.
And after that horrible Friday, Jesus' body turned that awful translucent, pale color, his tongue lay askew, the hands that healed the blind were like rancid meat...
All so that won't be the end for me. Or for you.
If you can stomach it, it was a good documentary. But keep some tissues and a trash can and a Bible handy.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Rethinking Thanksgiving
My belly is still full and I am about to pass into rich, dreamless sleep, the kind that comes from tryptophan and good memories. However, I've been thinking a lot lately about Thanksgiving. It is a quintessentially American holiday, a fixture of our civil religion. Civil religion isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I think Christians have a responsibility to critically reflect on the ways in which civil religion mingles with their faith, and possibly hinders it.
I am considered about some of the language I hear around Thanksgiving. I squirm a little inside when I hear people give thanks for their possessions, health, affluence. At its worst, an American Thanksgiving becomes a celebration of affluence. And I don't think that pleases God.
That oldie-but-goodie hymn, "Give Thanks," says:
Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because he's given
Jesus Christ, his Son
We are supposed to give thanks for God's gift of Jesus Christ ( Christmas and Thanksgiving can go together!). Jesus is our ultimate gift, not our shiny cars and big houses. Jesus, after all, had no place to lay his head.
Or another great hymn, "For The Beauty Of The Earth"
For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise
God's creation and love received from others and all around... that's why we praise God.
But I know it's hard. I know that even though I'm a college student, I'm extremely rich by global standards, and even by some American standards. I think God wants rich people to acknowledge the spiritual danger of wealth and to feel a moral imperative to give it away.
I am thankful for God's grace. I am thankful for every family member around my Thanksgiving table, and for all of my friends. I am thankful for the hard work my dad does so we can afford Thanksgiving dinner, and my mother's loving labor over our turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc. I pray that day by day I can witness the ways God is at work in my life and the lives of others around me and give thanks. And that I'll be too distracted by grace to be worrying about money.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
An Accidental Field Trip
Because I injured my neck when a box fell on my head at McDonald's, I am taking muscle relaxers. Because I am taking muscle relaxers, I accidentally slept until noon this Sunday morning. Because I accidentally slept until noon, I could not attend church this beautiful morning. Because I couldn't go to morning church, I looked up churches with Sunday night services and landed upon Our Lady of Presentation Catholic Church and Grace Baptist. Because the Catholic Sunday night Mass is in Spanish, I went to Grace Baptist. And that is how a young female liberal Methodist ended up at a King James only, thoroughly Calvinist, all male-led Baptist church tonight.
I walked in and immediately noticed a huge American flag and the flags of every branch of the military on the wall perpendicular to the altar. I was immediately annoyed. I'm very patriotic and I respect the military with all my heart, but that doesn't belong in the sanctuary. One American flag, fine, but church should be about God. The bulletin prattled on about eternal security and getting saved. I immediately thought of the old response to the door-to-door evangelists' query, "Are you saved?"-- "Yes, I was saved on Friday two thousand years ago." And as a PowerPoint connoisseur, I can tell you their PowerPoint was quite amateurish.
In other words, I felt I was entering the buckle of the Bible belt. (All right; that sounded weirder than I meant it to. Perhaps the sterility of the sanctuary stifled my sexual-connotation-radar.) Looking back, I can see I was being snooty, sniffing at their conservatism and dismissing their very real faith.
We sang two simple hymns, "Take My Life" and "Give Thanks." And then, Pastor Pete said we were going to go around the room and each person would say what he or she is thankful for. The results were stunning. Husbands and wives, parents and children thanked God for one another. Grown men were moved to tears by what God has done for them. And nearly every person showed a deep, organic understanding of the ways God has moved in their lives; they were thinking theologically, and it was impressive. Luckily, I was sitting in the far back corner of the sanctuary and I was one of the last people to say what I am thankful for.
I said I am thankful for the ways God calls each one of us. I knew I could not thank God for calling me into the ministry there because these folks would think I am damned for being a woman called to be a pastor. But when I said I'm thankful for my calling, these far right folks nodded heartily. I continued, "And thank you God, for bringing me here tonight. I've learned a whole lot."
And I meant it. Then, Pastor Pete said we were supposed to get in small groups and pray together. Every person in my group thanked God for me. These strangers talked to God about me. It was quite moving.
I am truly thankful I went there tonight, or rather that God led me to Grace Baptist. Of course I'm as Methodist as ever, but I think we liberals can learn some stuff from the right-wingers. And more importantly, so many right wingers are devout disciples. I really want to try the going around the circle and giving thanks thing. Not in worship; I feel strongly that worship needs to be more engaging than that. Maybe in a small group or Sunday School class I'll lead one day. I pray the church God gives me to lead, if that's his will, will be red hot with Holy Spirit fire like these KJV-only Baptists. I guess the Holy Spirit really does go wherever he wishes, like Jesus says in John 3. And sometimes, it's the "open-minded" who are actually trying to close doors. I'm thankful this Sunday that the Holy Spirit isn't bound by my prejudices.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Liturgy with John Lennon
L: Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
C: You give abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance (Psalm 68:9)
L: They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
C: Your loyal love extends beyond the sky (Psalm 108:4)
L: Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind
C: We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10)
L: Possessing and caressing me
C: We are your children through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26)
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine.
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We are more than conquerors through him who loved us
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: Neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: Nor things present, nor things to come
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: Will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:37-39)
L: Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
C: You answered us, Write the vision, make it plain on tablets (Habakkuk 2:2)
L: They call me on and on across the universe
C: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:10)
L: Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
C: Then you spoke out of the whirlwind, and answered (Job 38:1)
L: They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
C: The wind blows where it will. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine.
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: And we also were included in Christ
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We heard your word, the truth of our salvation
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We were marked with a seal, with the Holy Spirit
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We are your possession (Ephesians 1:13-14)
L: Sounds of laughter, shades of life are ringing through my open ears
C: Your joy is in us, and our joy is complete (John 15:11)
L: Inciting and inviting me
C: You invited many guests to your banquet; you said everything is made ready (Luke 14:17)
L: Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns
C: Your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105)
L: It calls me on and on across the universe
C: You have said, "Here am I, here am I," all the day long (Isaiah 65:1)
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: You keep us strong until the end
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: You have called us into fellowship
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: And you are faithful (1 Corinthians 1:8-9)
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
C: You give abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance (Psalm 68:9)
L: They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
C: Your loyal love extends beyond the sky (Psalm 108:4)
L: Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind
C: We are sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10)
L: Possessing and caressing me
C: We are your children through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26)
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine.
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We are more than conquerors through him who loved us
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: Neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: Nor things present, nor things to come
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: Will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:37-39)
L: Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
C: You answered us, Write the vision, make it plain on tablets (Habakkuk 2:2)
L: They call me on and on across the universe
C: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:10)
L: Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
C: Then you spoke out of the whirlwind, and answered (Job 38:1)
L: They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
C: The wind blows where it will. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine.
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: And we also were included in Christ
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We heard your word, the truth of our salvation
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We were marked with a seal, with the Holy Spirit
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We are your possession (Ephesians 1:13-14)
L: Sounds of laughter, shades of life are ringing through my open ears
C: Your joy is in us, and our joy is complete (John 15:11)
L: Inciting and inviting me
C: You invited many guests to your banquet; you said everything is made ready (Luke 14:17)
L: Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns
C: Your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105)
L: It calls me on and on across the universe
C: You have said, "Here am I, here am I," all the day long (Isaiah 65:1)
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: You keep us strong until the end
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: We will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: You have called us into fellowship
L: Nothing's gonna change my world
C: And you are faithful (1 Corinthians 1:8-9)
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
L: Jai garu deva om
C: Victory to God, Divine
Thursday, October 31, 2013
A Preaching Slam
Last night I went to a poetry slam, and it was really, really cool. It was my first time in bar, which was nice, although I didn't have anything to drink because I had a huge paper to finish. And some of the slamming poets were pretty attractive and others I'm friends with, but that wasn't it, either.
I think poetry slams can teach me something about preaching. See, a lot of the slams were laugh out loud, uproariously funny. We were guffawing at times, and yet pierced by the stinging barb of their observations. One slammer shouted fiercely: "Don't write!" and proceeded to explain in hilarious detail why everything good that will be written has already been, and if you haven't conquered Derrida, why should the likes of you bother writing a thing? Another slammer howled that his refusal to capitalize and use proper punctuation in text messaging is actually a political statement-- and went on to explain the war between grammar Nazis and commie comma splicers. I'm making it way more boring than it was!
Humor and truth go together. And they go especially nicely with performance.
Sort of makes me think of the prophets, and the best prophet, Jesus. I think their jibes and stinging wit get a bit lost in translation sometimes, excessively softened by our sickening sentimentalism that sees Jesus as meek and mild, cosmic Santa who walks on eggshells to never offend anybody and gives us everything we want. A good poetry slam will shatter that idol, as will even a cursory glance at the gospels or prophets. Well, cognitively shatter it, anyway; these idols remain stubbornly entrenched in our hearts without the saving grace of the living God. Sometimes that grace comes through slam poetry.
Jesus insisted the only way to live is to eat his flesh and drink his blood, with the humorous hard hitting dead serious style of slam. Isaiah proclaimed our righteousness is like filthy rags. And he didn't mean the kind you use to wash your car; he meant the ones that start off clean in the feminine hygiene aisle.
I'm sorry if I offended anybody. But Isaiah isn't, I am sure.
Some religious people take a perverse joy in offending people, and those people are really obnoxious, ironically as bad as the Pharisees whom they claim to hate. I don't think the slammers last night were like that. They were caught up in their message and would use any means possible to rattle us, but they didn't annoy for the sake of annoying. This subtle distinction was clear in their sweaty, sincere, raw faces. And the humor helped, too. It's easier to get the point when we're all laughing or stricken by the absurd. Like when Paul says he counts it all scubula compared to the all surpassing gain of Christ-- scubula is Greek for a word for excrement also beginning with "s" in English. That probably rolled a few heads... but in laughter, in clarity, towards Jesus Christ.
Does that mean I'm going to be a cussin' preacher when/if I get a pulpit? I remember being very young but old enough to know I loved to write, and my mother telling me when (for her it was always a when) I got published, she didn't want to see any swear words and would cross them out if there were any.
So don't freak, Mom, and all the surrogate mothers and grandmothers I will gain by virtue of my ordination. I won't cuss in the pulpit, not aloud, anyway. Those slammers I saw last night would do nothing to distract from their point, from their art. And I will try my utmost to do nothing to distract people from the good news. But sometimes we get the good news best when it comes through jokes, through the absurd.
The kingdom of God is a slam poetry night. And I pray God will make me half as good a slammer in the pulpit as the folks on the Dukum stage.
I think poetry slams can teach me something about preaching. See, a lot of the slams were laugh out loud, uproariously funny. We were guffawing at times, and yet pierced by the stinging barb of their observations. One slammer shouted fiercely: "Don't write!" and proceeded to explain in hilarious detail why everything good that will be written has already been, and if you haven't conquered Derrida, why should the likes of you bother writing a thing? Another slammer howled that his refusal to capitalize and use proper punctuation in text messaging is actually a political statement-- and went on to explain the war between grammar Nazis and commie comma splicers. I'm making it way more boring than it was!
Humor and truth go together. And they go especially nicely with performance.
Sort of makes me think of the prophets, and the best prophet, Jesus. I think their jibes and stinging wit get a bit lost in translation sometimes, excessively softened by our sickening sentimentalism that sees Jesus as meek and mild, cosmic Santa who walks on eggshells to never offend anybody and gives us everything we want. A good poetry slam will shatter that idol, as will even a cursory glance at the gospels or prophets. Well, cognitively shatter it, anyway; these idols remain stubbornly entrenched in our hearts without the saving grace of the living God. Sometimes that grace comes through slam poetry.
Jesus insisted the only way to live is to eat his flesh and drink his blood, with the humorous hard hitting dead serious style of slam. Isaiah proclaimed our righteousness is like filthy rags. And he didn't mean the kind you use to wash your car; he meant the ones that start off clean in the feminine hygiene aisle.
I'm sorry if I offended anybody. But Isaiah isn't, I am sure.
Some religious people take a perverse joy in offending people, and those people are really obnoxious, ironically as bad as the Pharisees whom they claim to hate. I don't think the slammers last night were like that. They were caught up in their message and would use any means possible to rattle us, but they didn't annoy for the sake of annoying. This subtle distinction was clear in their sweaty, sincere, raw faces. And the humor helped, too. It's easier to get the point when we're all laughing or stricken by the absurd. Like when Paul says he counts it all scubula compared to the all surpassing gain of Christ-- scubula is Greek for a word for excrement also beginning with "s" in English. That probably rolled a few heads... but in laughter, in clarity, towards Jesus Christ.
Does that mean I'm going to be a cussin' preacher when/if I get a pulpit? I remember being very young but old enough to know I loved to write, and my mother telling me when (for her it was always a when) I got published, she didn't want to see any swear words and would cross them out if there were any.
So don't freak, Mom, and all the surrogate mothers and grandmothers I will gain by virtue of my ordination. I won't cuss in the pulpit, not aloud, anyway. Those slammers I saw last night would do nothing to distract from their point, from their art. And I will try my utmost to do nothing to distract people from the good news. But sometimes we get the good news best when it comes through jokes, through the absurd.
The kingdom of God is a slam poetry night. And I pray God will make me half as good a slammer in the pulpit as the folks on the Dukum stage.
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