January 26, 2007

Blurring Borders in a Nation that Fears Its Neighbor

or, The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

Every year the National Wildlife Association faces the challenges of regulating the rules and guidelines of deer hunting. It seems that the prospect of getting that 8 point buck is so tempting that many hunters are willing to break the law in pursuit of this great prize.

But back in 1942, something happened that caused a dramatic drop in deer hunting. You know what it was…Bambi. That’s pretty hard to believe, isn’t it? How in the world is Bambi going to cause some big burly deer hunter to not go hunting? Two possible explanations, either they just couldn’t bring themselves to putting Bambi in the cross hairs of their thirty-alt-six, or little Jonnie Jr. wouldn’t let daddy out the door with the knowledge that he intended to blow Bambi’s head off.

It is so intriguing that one story, could so dramatically transform the way people see deer, that it would even transform a deer’s greatest enemy? But that is power of story, Bambi being the more ridiculous example. But think of the ways in which stories transform not only the way we see, but many times the way we act. Think about how stories like Uncle Tom’s Cabin influenced the ways whites viewed African Americans. Think about the way in which the Movie Philadelphia or the play Angels in America helped to transform the way many American’s viewed Aids and even Homosexuality. We could all mention stories that hit us at certain times and quite literally transformed the way we see things.

It is this transformative power of story that Jesus harnesses in his parables. Jesus is not interested in giving rules and regulations, Jesus is interested in transforming the way we live and understand our lives, and more importantly, how we understand our neighbor.

Rules can prevent us from doing certain things, and force us to do others, but this is not what God desires. God does not want to prevent or force, God desires us to live a certain way because it is life as God intends it.

But the problem is, we often times like rules. We want to know exactly where the boundaries are, so that we can go just to the threshold without going over. We often want to know what the bare minimum is, because we see this life as a matter of abiding by rules so as not to be panelized in the afterlife.

And so it is no surprise that an expert of the Law comes to Jesus asking him what he must do to inherit eternal life. This lawyer believes that life is wrapped up in laws, and in the borders those laws create. Eternal life is attained by following certain rules, and this man wants to boil the laws down to its bare essentials. Out of all the laws, which ones are vital? Jesus, in typical Jesus style, leads the man to the right answer without directly stating it himself. Well, what is written in the law, what do you read there?

“Love the lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus’ response, “do this and you will live.” That’s an interesting response, because the lawyer didn’t ask what he must do to live, but to inherit eternal life.

While I’d be done for the day if I gave the right answer in class, this lawyer still wanted to push the issue. There were no parameters laid out, no dos and don’ts, and so in his search for the boarders of the kingdom of God, he asks Jesus to define a neighbor. It is as if he cannot do anything until the borders are set up. If life, and or eternal life, is wrapped up in loving my neighbor, then I need to know who my neighbor is, right.

This is an interesting situation created by the lawyer because once you define who your neighbor is, you also define who your neighbor is not. But Jesus flat out refuses to use these categories; the categories of who’s in and who’s out are boundaries in which Jesus doesn’t play.

And so Jesus takes some of the categories of this man and completely flips them around, and puts them in a story. Why a story? Because stories have the power to transform how we see others, and possibly even how we interact with them.

And so to this Jew who is very concerned about what to do, Jesus tells a story about a Jew who did nothing. Jesus continues play with the given categories by placing the enemy as the hero who is doing the action. And then places the awkward question back in the lap of the lawyer – Who is the neighbor? Here we see Jesus not creating a border that clearly defines who’s in and who’s out, but Jesus is blurring the borders. It’s not about who’s in and who’s out, it’s about mercy.

And this characteristic of the very law in which Jesus came to fulfill. Even the law as articulated in Deuteronomy was set in place to blur certain boundaries between neighbors for the very purpose of showing mercy. In chapter 24, they are told not to harvest to the very edges, and not to take all of the olives from their trees, or grapes from the veins. Why? It is for the widows, orphans, and aliens. But it’s private property, right? Even the lines between public and private property are blurred if you obey the torah. But this is not a law to be obeyed out of blind obedience, the law, like Jesus’ parable, are to be followed because they transform the way we see our neighbor. If all during harvest time I am taking much of the harvest to feed my family, how am I going to understand the food I’m leaving? I’m probably going to start associating those widows, orphans, and aliens as my family.

How is it that so many people can see the imaginary border between Israel and Palestine as border to be defended, but cannot see it as the blurry line where mercy can be shown? Who is my neighbor? How is it that so many people can see the imaginary border between the United States and Mexico as a threat to our freedom, and not as the blurry line where we find life in providing the outpouring of our abundance? How is it that Christians can utter the words illegal and alien in the same sentence, when our law emphasizes our dependence upon welcoming aliens into our lives in order to remind us that we are all living as strangers and aliens in this world; and reminding us that just as we give shelter to the stranger, so to did God give us shelter in his body.

We are in need of practices and stories that transform the way we see each other. And that is part of what is at work when we worship together. These are no mere stories of Christ that we hear, but stories that transform the way we understand life and each other. The songs we sing are not for sentimentality, but for declaring the glory that is due God’s name. And the words that are spoken at his table are no mere words, they are words that redescribe the world. And it is an action that redescribes us into the body of Christ. So that we see no distinction between ourselves and our neighbors, but only one in Christ

And just as we are transformed by this story, may the world see us and be transformed by the lives we live, and the mercy we grant.

January 15, 2007

Sailing to Byzantium

by William Butler Yeats

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.


II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

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