Prayer and the Powers--A Sermon

Prayer and the Powers

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

June 17, 2012

The apostles said to the Master, “Make our trust grow!”

And the Master said, “If you had trust no bigger than a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Uproot yourself and plant yourself in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Luke 17:5-6

Prayer is rattling God’s cage and waking God up and setting God free and giving this famished God water and this starved God food and cutting the ropes off God’s hands and the manacles off God’s feet and washing the caked sweat from God’s eyes and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy and following God wherever God goes. . . .

Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, p. 303

Last night on CNN I watched a segment about belief in God. The host was interviewing people about a recent survey that said more and more young people are doubting the existence of God. The people being interviewed thought that was a pretty good thing seeing this survey as an indication that reason would eventually eclipse superstition. One of the guests implied that it is time to give up on outdated belief systems, magical thinking, and supernaturalism.

The reasons offered for this shift were many and varied. The culture wars, science, boring church services. In particular, the internet was acknowledged as having a role. The worldwide web makes available information at the touch of a finger as well as social networks of other doubters and skeptics. More and more people under 30 are calling themselves atheists or skeptics.

These surveys poke at our emotions. I can imagine different reactions from among you. People tend to think this is either good news or bad news. Others will dismiss it as youthful rebellion, reasoning that once these young people face existential angst, danger, or suffering, they will believe in God.

The announcer tried to extrapolate by saying that if these trends continue in 50 years belief in God will be a view held by a small minority. I thought about the 1960s and the theologians who announced the death of God and others who wrote that we were on the verge of creating a secular city. They seemed to predict God’s demise prematurely. Yet maybe this time God really is fading away.

What I wanted to explore further as I watched the show was what “belief in God” means. The announcer and the guests seemed to want to suggest that there are two types of people,

1. those who are religious and 
2. those who don’t believe in supernatural beings.

I kept wanting to suggest to the folks on my television screen that there might be a third type.  These are people who would agree intellectually with the atheists that there probably is not a supernatural being who exists outside of the natural world and comes to mess with it on occasion. Yet these people would also say that they have a heart for transcendent experiences such as awe, wonder, creativity, compassion and that church and God language is part of that. I think I want more definition regarding the phrase “belief in God” before I side with one camp or the other. I want some more options.

I find myself interested not so much in what God is but in what God does. What does God do exactly?

Bishop John Shelby Spong said that Copernicus and Galileo rendered God homeless. When they discovered that Earth was not the center of the universe but was like the other heavenly bodies, the planets, that moved around the sun, they messed up the medieval system of heaven “up there” where God lived.  Heaven became Earth and Earth heaven. In a few centuries along comes Darwin with his theory of natural selection. Humans are more like apes than the angels. Darwin and later the astronomers rendered God jobless. There was nothing in nature for God to do. The universe works without him.

I slightly object. I agree with Bishop Spong that this conception of God has lost out to reason and to science. Yet that isn’t the God who ignites my heart anyway. That God was an explanation for things for which we now have better explanations. Further we may not need the stories of the gods or of the god of our tradition to be literal or real. Our conception of God is changing. But that doesn’t mean that God is gone or has nothing to do.

In fact, I think, or perhaps I have faith, that the most interesting thing that God does and has always done is not to sit up in his home above the clouds and throw down balls of fire on sinners. The most interesting thing that God does is give us a sense of meaning, belonging, and vitality.

I do not insist. I have no need to defend God or my concept of God. As we know, some folks are quite evangelistic about their god. They need you to believe. I don’t intend to be one of those people. BYOG. Bring Your Own God…or none. It wouldn’t break my heart if someone explained my blather about God as a misunderstood psychological quirk or a biological brain burp.

I do think that humans have a capability to experience transcendence, that feeling of being more than who they are normally. That feeling can enable them to engage in acts of love, compassion, heroism, awe, creativity, and beauty. They can discover and offer forgiveness, find a sense of belonging and happiness, and feel at home in their own skin. That is religion for me and God is my shorthand way of expressing that action.

I said earlier that I don’t really care much about what God is, but I do care about what God does. That is what God does for me. God wakes me up. It is also true, that I wake God up. That is done in the religious setting in the experience of worship that is ultimately prayer. One of my favorite quotes is from Walter Wink, the theologian who died earlier this year and who inspired this series of sermons this Spring on the Powers. Wink writes:

Prayer is rattling God’s cage and waking God up and setting God free and giving this famished God water and this starved God food and cutting the ropes off God’s hands and the manacles off God’s feet and washing the caked sweat from God’s eyes and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy and following God wherever God goes. . . .

That is a provocative paragraph. It messes with our aesthetic of theological correctness. There is something improper about waking God up, isn’t there? Yet this image is as old as the Bible. The Psalmist yells at God:

“Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?” Psalm 44

This isn’t a polite prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep….” This prayer is a call from the depths. It is a demand. It is a call to action. It is banging the pots and pans.

The rest of that particular psalm, Psalm 44, continues:

23 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not cast us off for ever!
24 Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
25 For we sink down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Rise up, come to our help.
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

You can appreciate and use that prayer even if you don’t believe in a literal being out there who hears it. What you are awakening is your own vitality. You are rousing your own strength that is also transcendent. You are finding your voice, tapping into that well-spring of energy and creativity you didn’t know you had, calling to that courage that you thought had been lost. In the words of poet, Ntozake Shange,

I found God in myself and I loved her, I loved her fiercely.

Again, I don’t insist. If God is more other, more literal or more real than what I have suggested, I don’t object. I would say that prayer is real. The reality is the passion and the openness to possibility. It is the faith that uproots and plants mulberry trees into the sea. It washes the caked sweat from God’s eyes. It makes your logical and reasoned mind connect with what really motivates you, that is your largely unconscious emotional brain and body. When worship is done in community and prayer is done with others, it can lead to feelings of love and compassion.

Most of what we think we want and what we do is not based on logic or reason. We use logic and reason to rationalize what our emotions and sense of aesthetics want and do.  Meditation and worship--or prayer--gives language to our feelings. It helps us bring to consciousness what has been unconscious. It helps us be aware of what is going on. Or to put it another way, we are waking God up while God wakes us up.

This sermon series has been about the powers that be. These forces dehumanize. I am not going to go into that anymore today except to say when the powers that be get you down, and they will, what are you going to do? How are you going to keep your sanity, your humor, your happiness and your hopefulness? Where will you find your strength and your perspective?

Wink’s response is to rattle God’s cage and wake God up. How? Lots of ways, but one I’ll offer:

Go to church. 

It isn’t totally outdated, oppressive, and hypocritical. It isn’t all about being forced to believe in dogmas or other impossible things. It can be if you want it to be, but it can also be a place that is like a deep well where you can utilize the wisdom, ritual, and practice that goes back thousands of years and touches the heart and the unconscious. Couple all of that with modern ways of knowing and we can probably wake that God up and get some stuff done.

Or maybe we need a break from doing too much stuff and need to be still, draw from the well, and fill up our tank. In that case, we allow God to embrace us, smile upon us, call us his or her own. We may not even know what we need. The most important and interesting things often take us by surprise. Then we can follow God wherever God goes. That is especially important in a world where the powers that be are rough and ruthless.

I started this sermon with the survey that said that young people are doubting God’s existence in larger and larger numbers. I think we should pay attention to that and ask what that means. We don’t necessarily need to judge it, fight it, or celebrate it. I do think it is an opportunity to talk about what we mean when we use the word God. But more than that, we have is an opportunity what it means to be human and to find happiness and a sense of purpose and meaning within life.

That is the focus of my next series of sermons as we begin summer and spiral both backward and forward to the spiritual path of awe and wonder.

Amen.

Pentecost's Miracle--A Sermon

Pentecost’s Miracle

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

Pentecost Sunday

May 27, 2012

Acts 2:1-12; 2:43-45; 4:32-35

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’

…Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

…Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

In March 2011 the Jesus Seminar concluded a ten year study on the book of Acts. For ten years the fellows of the Acts Seminar have been sifting through Acts to separate the historical from the legendary. They will publish their findings in early 2013. The Jesus Seminar is not a particularly speedy bunch.

They did come up with some interesting conclusions regarding Acts from which we get today’s story of Pentecost. Acts has been understood and read as the history of the early church.

“Is it history?” asked the scholars of the Jesus Seminar. Answer:  Probably not.

It is fiction.  If the word fiction sounds too dismissive, John Dominic Crossan suggests "parable."

Jesus ascending to heaven?  Parable
Twelve (Male) Apostles? Parable
Receiving the Spirit at Pentecost? Parable
Preaching of Peter? Parable
Conversion of Paul? Parable
Journeys of Paul? Parable

The Acts Seminar concluded that Acts is a second century work, perhaps as late as 130 CE. One of the Fellows, Dennis Smith, presented a paper, "Top Ten Accomplishments of the Acts Seminar." Here are those top ten accomplishments:

1. The use of Acts as a source for history needs critical reassessment.
2. Acts was written in the early decades of the second century.
3. The author of Acts used the letters of Paul as one of his sources.
4. Except for the letters of Paul, no other historical source can be definitively identified for Acts.
5. Acts can no longer be considered an independent source for the life and mission of Paul.
6. Contrary to Acts 1-­7, Jerusalem was not the birthplace of Christianity.
7. Acts constructed its story on the model of epic and related literature.
8. The author of Acts created names for characters as a storytelling device.
9. Acts constructed its story to fit ideological goals.
10. As a product of the second century, Acts is a historical resource for understanding second century Christianity.

If these scholars are correct then virtually nothing of what we read in Acts comes from historical memory. It is all a fabrication, drawing from available literature and legend to create a story of origins that suited the ideological interests of the author.

I think this is a big deal. I think it is a big deal for Christians to come to terms with their texts. I don’t think what I have said is particularly earth shattering to this group. You know how to separate legend from history. You know the difference between watching the news and the sci-fi channel.

Even though we may not know what exactly to do with these stories and with our entire tradition once we look behind the curtain, nevertheless, looking is liberating. When I grew up in church we needed to swallow this stuff. Christianity was based on believing six if not a dozen impossible things before breakfast.    If you didn't believe these things the problem was with you and your lack of faith.  Everything needed to be taken at face value from Adam and Eve to Jesus rising from the dead, ascending to heaven, and returning in the rapture, who knows, maybe this afternoon.

I don’t believe any of that anymore and I don’t think I am the worse for it. In fact, I think it is far more interesting to read these texts critically and try to find out what was behind them.   That allows us to connect on a human level with those who wrote these texts and understand why they wrote what they did. 

According to Acts, on Pentecost the twelve males were in a room and a tongue of fire lands on each one’s head. They begin speaking not in their own language but in the languages of everyone from every nation.  First the Jews then the Gentiles are part of this new, universal community that is based on sharing.  So goes the story.

One reason the author tells this story 100 years later is to show that Christianity is a gentile religion.  One of the messages is to assure the Romans that unlike Judaism, the Christians won’t be starting any apocalyptic revolts.

There had been revolts in 66-70, 115-117 and the big one between the years 132 and 136 was the Bar Kochba revolt. Simon Bar Kochba believed by many to be the messiah, the Christ, led a revolt against Rome to restore Israel. This revolt did not end well. The Romans crushed it killing over half a million Jews, almost decimating the entire population. It is not a surprise then that the author of Acts wants to distance the Christian movement from the apocalyptic revolutionaries.

One way to do that is to show that the apocalypse has already happened and that the messiah has already come. In chapter two of Acts, the author includes in the form of a sermon from Peter an apocalyptic text from Joel regarding the last days when the sun will be darkened and the moon turned to blood. The author has Peter say that this text has been fulfilled at Pentecost. The fulfillment is the speaking of all the languages of the world in a universal message.

The real Messiah, says the author of Acts through Peter, is Jesus who “you Jews” crucified. The author of Acts blames the Jews not the Romans for the crucifixion of Jesus. Talk about revisionist history. Peter goes on to say that God raised up this true Messiah. The book of Acts is a conflict between the followers of Jesus and those who the author calls, “the Jews.”This is all fiction.  Obviously Jesus was a Jew as were his early followers.   It has had unfortunate consequences regarding Jewish-Christian relations up to the present time.

But what Acts is saying through the fictional character Peter to people in the second century is that revolution against Rome is a mistake.  Don’t follow these Messiahs. The true messiah, was killed, raised and his spirit is with us. By the time Acts is written, Christianity has become a gentile religion. Its message is one of accommodation to Rome as opposed to resistance.

According to the author, after hearing Peter’s sermon, everyone who “welcomed his message was baptized” and they shared all possessions, which is, of course, the real miracle. You get the sense in reading Acts that the author is writing about a time in which miracles of healing and raising to life, of sharing possessions, is long past. At the same time, this miracle of community and empowerment still yet can happen and indeed does in some degree in these house churches even in the author’s present.

This is survival literature.  How do you live under the shadow of empire?  How to live when occupied?  One choice is apocalyptic revolution. You see this present in the Apocalypse to John or Revelation, which is Christian apocalyptic literature. There were a number of apocalyptic sects, Christian and Jewish. The various Jewish revolts of 66-70, 115-117, and 132-136 form not the background but the foreground for this complex literature and the movements this literature reflects.

Acts took a different turn. The author of Luke-Acts downplayed the apocalyptic and had the fiery apocalyptic texts, like Joel, be fulfilled in the forming of the community. This fictional story of beginnings ended up becoming history. It paved the way several centuries later for Christianity to become the religion of the Roman Empire. One Empire. One God. It is the Luke-Acts narrative that forms the calendar for the church year, from Advent to Christmas to Lent to Easter to Pentecost to Advent again.

Of course there were many other movements that didn’t ultimately survive. If we want to know the diversity of origins we need to look at those movements. In June during our Thursday study group, we will be looking at those texts by watching a DVD series by Bart Ehrman entitled, Lost Christianities. That will begin Thursday, June 14th.

What do I take away from this?

I think it is good to look at our literature without necessarily having to believe it or praise it. We can seek to understand the authors of the literature to try to figure out what it was they wanted. For what did they dream? For what did they desire? To what did they commit their lives and hopes?  What was their struggle?  Then from that variety of literature, what can we take and use for today?

I have been a reading a book by John Michael Greer called Apocalypse Not: Everything You Know About 2012, Nostradamus and the Rapture is Wrong. The author traces what he calls the apocalyptic meme from the Zoroastrians to the present. Meme is a word coined by biologist Richard Dawkins. Like a gene in biology, a meme is a cultural unit that survives and spreads. The apocalyptic meme, according to Greer, is a posture that takes many forms, but the basic meme is that the world is evil and an age is coming in which it will be made right. Whether by God, or humans or a combination, this bad age will be overthrown, usually violently, and a golden age will come.

That meme certainly has found a host in Christianity. Not only in Christianity, other religions, including secular movements have been invaded by this meme. Everything from the Crusades to Marxism to Nostradamus to the Mayan calendar to UFOS to the rapture to people storing weapons waiting for the collapse of civilization to the New Age change of consciousness is a result of this meme. The basic meme is 

1. the world is bad, so
2. a new age is coming in which the bad whether they be political leaders, sinners or whoever are thrown out and
3. the good folks will emerge and bring a golden age.

Greer thinks this is not reflective of reality but of an interpretation of reality.  It is the apocalyptic meme.   One thing that is true about all apocalyptic movements, religious and secular, is that they are all wrong. It would be good for us to recognize that. Greer writes his book in the hope that…

“…there’s at least a chance that the upcoming failure of the 2012 prophecy might encourage people to take a hard and skeptical look at the apocalypse meme itself, to recognize that longing for the annihilation of most of humanity has no place in an authentic spirituality, and accept that our happiness as human beings depends on how we choose to live our lives here and now, in this beautiful world on which we each dance for so brief and precious a time.” P. 178

With that in mind I read this text in Acts and celebrate Pentecost in a small way.   This passage is an exaggeration, a legendary, poetic, parabolic expression of the truth of our common humanity.   That is something to appreciate.  The image of hearing a common humanity in our own language and sharing what we have may not be something that happens suddenly or in the future or in a big dramatic fashion.  Perhaps  Pentecost happens in small ways each day as we open our own lives to the Sacred Spirit of life in and around us.

That is the miracle.

Amen.

A Just War is an Oxymoron: A Sermon

A Just War is an Oxymoron

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

May 13, 2012

Roman 12:1-21

I feel sadness today. I have been drawing ideas for my sermons this Spring from Walter Wink. Walter Wink died this week, Thursday, May 10th, peacefully at home at the age of 76. Part of the sadness comes from the vacancy, a looming black hole, that is left when a person who has lived a magnetic life dies. Wink was magnetic in many ways. He drew me in by the way that he was able to articulate concepts of the Bible in a modern idiom.

He showed that the wrestlings of our ancestors continue in us. The principalities and the powers or the powers that be, were as real in the time of Jesus and Paul as they are today. He ruined almost every movie for me with his analysis of the myth of redemptive violence. Every time I cheer for the hero to beat the bad guy into a bloody pulp I know I am participating in the myth that violence is good, just, and redemptive.

He calibrated the propaganda meter in me so that I’ll never be able to hear a president, congressperson, corporate executive, media pundit, religious leader or military general speak without knowing that it is more blasphemy from the Domination System. This system of rules written and unwritten, bureaucracy, public relations, power and influence seeks to delude us into thinking that its way is the eternal way, the way that is non-negotiable, the way, the truth, and the life.

He drew the connections between all forms of oppression including racism, sexism, economic exploitation, militarism, and heterosexism. These forms of domination including domination of Earth are pervasive at the corporate and individual level. We are all complicit. There is no escape into self-righteousness. We have to do the work of engaging the violence and deception within as we engage the violence and deception without. In other words his ideas were not just ideas, they were commitments to ways of living that we can choose or not choose to engage.

The larger sadness I feel is that with his passing I realize that I have not engaged the powers nearly enough. I have hesitated, hedged, sought self-justification, and have been too concerned with position and reputation to commit to giving myself fully to this domination-free order, this way of distributive justice, this way of peace. That is what happens when magnetic figures pass. You recognize your own shortcomings in light of their accomplishments.

Finally, I feel sadness because I wish I could have done better with these sermons. I haven’t done him justice in my feeble explanation of his ideas that are radical and yet simple. As he wrote in his chapter, “Beyond Pacifism and Just War” in The Powers that Be:

But the church’s own witness should be understandable by the smallest child: we oppose violence in all its forms. And we do so because we reject domination. That means, the child will recognize, no abuse or beatings. That means, women will hear, no rape or violation or battering. That means, men will come to understand, no more male supremacy or war. That means, everyone will realize, no more degradation of the environment. We can affirm nonviolence without reservation because nonviolence is the way God’s domination-free order is coming. P. 144

Walter Wink affirmed that the ways and the means must be consistent. If our hope and our goal is peace, the way to peace must be peace. If we wish to hope for and work for a domination-free order, we are invited to live it now.

Since starting these sermons I have received some good comments.

One person asked me if my sermons were directed at men more than women. While I didn’t really think about it that way, I think the questioner, who happened to be a woman, had a point. While women are capable of violence, it has been the men that have done the lion’s share. Why might that be? Is it genetic? Are males naturally more violent than females? It could be. I might defer to our evolutionary biologists for that.

Whether men are or are not biologically set up for aggression more than females, it is true that the domination system enculturates violence in men and targets men and boys for violence. It may be true that boys and men have a natural desire to blow up stuff, but that desire is reinforced, mythologized, and honored in our culture. Under the values of the Domination System, to be a man, to be masculine, is to be violent. The myth of redemptive violence is particularly targeted towards men. For men, violence is sexy. Part of our task is to sever that connection between violence and manhood. Transforming aggressive tendencies into nonviolent resistance and constructive peacebuilding needs to be a central part of the agenda of a domination-free order.

I think Julia Ward Howe put it so well in 1870 when she sought to transform Mother’s Day into a day of peace for humanity. These are powerful words of resistance:

Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.


Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy, and patience.


We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

She called for a congress of women. She was ahead of her time as is often the case with prophets. Perhaps now after 140 years of the deadliest violence Earth has witnessed, that such a congress will happen.

Another asked me to clarify whether or not violence is innate to the human species. Our brains do have aggression centers that have been necessary for survival. We have evolved for fight or flight. So, violence is natural. Some might argue that because violence is natural, nonviolence will never be effective.

Human beings have the capacity to transcend and to control biological urges at least some of the time. Even though our bodies crave and store sugar which is an important thing to do when sugar is scarce, now, knowing that, we can make decisions about diet including sugar intake and find other ways to transform those biological cravings into healthier ways of living in the present. In other words, human beings have evolved decision-making capabilities that allow us to manage to some degree what we have inherited from our ancestors and to survive changes in our environment.

Since the dawn of civilization, tendencies toward violence because of biological aggression have been exploited by the Domination System. The mythology of war, masculinity and redemptive violence rather than curb biological aggression has nurtured it. Rather than provide ridicule and shame to those engaging in violent behavior, including so-called just war, we have instead in the words of Julia Ward Howe, provided “caresses and applause” to those “reeking with carnage.” Change the myths and we can change behavior.

Those writing in biblical times knew this. Genesis chapter 4, written around 1000 BCE in the time of the height of the Israelite monarchy, the Domination System was in full swing. At that time this story was placed in the founding chapters of its mythology of the human being. The myth of Cain and Abel wrestles with the question of whether a violent end is our fate. These words were placed in the mouth of the Lord to Cain who was about to slay his brother:

“…sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

The sin is of course, violence. The key here is that the human being can master it. Cain did not. But he could have, and that is the hope that drives the entire biblical tradition. Violence does not have to be our fate. It could be. But it doesn’t have to be. The open ended question is directed at us. What will we do to stop that cycle?

Another comment I received is also insightful. Most of us don’t see ourselves as Clint Eastwood types just looking for hoodlums to make our day. We are instead more like Gregory Peck who is true and good and abhors violence, but at the last resort engages it because only a coward lacking morality wouldn’t fight for the good against evil.

The question is this: is there a way not to be cowardly and not to be violent? The myth of redemptive violence says no. That is why at the end of the day or at the end of the film, Gregory Peck has to give in to violence. That is why in every war every country convinces its people that its war is just, necessary and one that Gregory Peck (or a comparable hero) would fight.

Since the time of Augustine, coincidentally when Christianity and the Roman Empire united, a theory of just war was needed. Among these criteria are:

• The war must have a just cause.
• It must be waged by a legitimate authority.
• It must be formally declared.
• It must be fought with a peaceful intention.
• It must be a last resort.
• There must be reasonable hope of success.
• The means used must possess proportionality to the end sought.
Also, three conditions must be met...
• Noncombatants must be given immunity.
• Prisoners must be treated humanely.
• International treaties and conventions must be honored.

We might ask if recent wars initiated by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan meet these criteria. Those who like these wars will say yes and those who don’t will say no. The Just War criteria is embedded with the myth of redemptive violence. Because of that, virtually any war can be excused as just.

That said, the Just War criteria can and should be used to evaluate, mitigate and reduce levels of violence. I quote Walter Wink: 

“I propose that we terminate all talk of ‘just wars.’ Even as the word ‘pacifism’ sounds too much like ‘passivity,’ ‘just war’ sounds too much like ‘war is justifiable.’ The very term is saturated will illusions about the rightness of war that are no longer acceptable. Those who regard all wars as criminal can scarcely use these helpful criteria when they are forced to discuss them within a framework that is basically inadequate.”

“…Instead, I suggest we rename the just-war criteria ‘violence-reduction criteria.’ that is, after all, what most of us are after. We are not seeking a rationale for legitimating particular wars, but ways of stopping warfare before it starts, and of decreasing its horrors once it begins. Perhaps both just-war theorists and advocates of nonviolence can find common ground for attempting to restrain bellicosity in the phrase violence-reduction criteria.” P p. 139-140

From Wink’s perspective which is a good third way, we can use the just war criteria not to justify whatever skirmish the Powers want us to fight, but as violence reduction criteria before and during the wars themselves.

There is a reason those in power, the powers that be, lead us into wars, and spend our capital on so-called defense.  That reason is connected with national political and economic interests.   The reason for war is not because our enemies are bad and evil and we have to kill them with our weapons and our sons and daughters bodies as a last resort.  That is the myth that justifies our violence.   The glorification of violence and war perpetuates that myth.  The so-called morality of war, the "just war" perpetuates that myth.

Wink put it clearly:

Violence is contrary to the gospel. But we are not always able to live up to the gospel. I am embarrassed at how easily I can lash out at anyone who makes me angry (it is the lashing out, not the anger, that disturbs me). Even so, when as individuals or nations we are unable to act nonviolently, we are not excused for our actions, nor may we attempt to justify them. P. 140

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe also put it clearly:

We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm!”

Happy Mother’s Day.

A Cheeky Response--A Sermon

A Cheeky Response

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

April 29, 2012

As you know, we once were told, ‘An eye for an eye’ and ‘A tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, don’t react violently against the one who is evil; when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well. If someone is determined to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat along with it. Further, when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go along an extra mile.

Matthew 5:38-41

When the Jesus Seminar searched through the Jesus tradition to determine what deeds and words might be part of the voice print of the original historical Jesus, they decided that witty aphorisms and parables were more likely to belong to Jesus than long speeches. What was remembered from Jesus was more likely to be little nuggets of wisdom rather than long theological discourses.

These three “case studies” (turn the cheek, give your coat, go the second mile) are found in Matthew with a parallel in Luke. The theory is that they go back to an earlier source, scholars call Q, the first letter of the German word Quelle, which means source. That is material is common to Matthew and Luke not found in Mark.

These three “case studies” turn the cheek, give your coat, and go the second mile, seem to belong to Jesus. They were all voted “red” as in “Yep, sounds like Jesus.” They are non-literal, comic, surprising, and transformative for those with ears to hear.

It is also likely to be true that the primary audience for Jesus would have been peasants. These would be people who would know first-hand the indignities of being in debt, of losing land and livelihood, of being occupied by a foreign army, humiliated by superiors, and having nothing more than the shirts on their backs.

It is likely that Christianity was not at its beginning a movement of the rich and famous. It was of the poor and infamous. In the second century a man named Celsus criticized Christianity. He ridiculed it because of the company it kept. We know of Celsus’ writings because early Church father, Origin wrote a treatise called Against Celsus. He quotes Celsus remarks about the early Christian movement. Celsus is speaking sarcastically from the first person as if he were a Christian inviting people to join:

Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly. By the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and little children.

Later he says:

In private houses also we see wool-workers, cobblers, laundry-workers, and the most illiterate and bucolic yokels, who would not dare to say anything at all in front of their elders and more intelligent masters. But whenever they get hold of children in private and some stupid women with them, they let out some astounding statements as, for example, that they must not pay attention to their father's and school-teachers, but must obey them; they say that these talk nonsense and have no understanding, and that in reality they neither know nor are able to say anything good, but are taken up with mere empty chatter.

What Celsus noticed is that these early Christians upset the social order. Slaves, women, and children are worthy of the Christian god. That is not a good thing from the point of view of Celsus. The Jesus’ movement earliest appeal was to those who had been left out and marginalized by the dominant social order.

We should remember that the founding narrative of Christianity is that its hero, Jesus, was executed and tortured as a common criminal by established, legitimate authority. In elevating this person to son of god like Caesar, the earliest communicators of the Jesus’ message were making radical statements about life, life’s meaning, the meaning of justice and peace, and whose side they thought God was really on.

“Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near,” said Celsus.

From the point of view of the slaves, women, children, and day-laborers who did draw near, the educated, wise and sensible of Celsus’ class were part of the problem. It was that class who were backhanding them on the cheek, taking their coats in payment of debt, and conscripting them to carry their military packs.

These three case studies of Jesus that were preserved could have been just a snippet, headlines of longer teachings and conversations that Jesus would have had with people about dignity and resistance. One could imagine all kinds of arguments, a lot of back and forth with Jesus and others about what to do and how to respond to the oppression and humiliation. One can imagine the arguments would have been heated and passionate:

“What do we do with these Romans? What do we do about these landowners? What do we do about these priests and accountants who side with them over us? Do we have an armed revolution? Do we just take it and let them abuse us, starve us, and kill us?”

These are serious questions. I can imagine that Jesus was in the thick of it. The choice as we know was armed revolution in 66 CE that was crushed by the Romans. It resulted in the destruction of the temple and the burning of Jerusalem. This is the context of Mark’s Gospel.

Historical Jesus scholar, Dominic Crossan, thinks that Mark’s gospel account of the execution of Jesus is a parable not about Jesus’ own time and life, but about the destruction of Jerusalem in 66-70. The choice of the people to release Barabbas the revolutionary rather than Jesus was the choice the Jews made to choose armed revolt rather than non-violent revolt. It was a choice that the author of Mark’s gospel thought was a bad idea.

It is after this failure of the Jewish War from 66-70 that the gospels are written. It is as though the gospels are written looking back and through the revolt and war of 66-70 to Jesus 40 years on the other side and saying, “What if we had listened to him? What was he saying again?”

What was Jesus saying? Was he saying, “Armed revolt! Take up the righteous cause of God!”

Or was he saying, “Be passive. Just take it. Your reward is in heaven. God will take care of all of it.”

Or was he saying something else?

These three case studies provide the clue. Jesus offered a third way. These case studies, these three sayings are remembered not by any means as his complete teaching but the briefest of outlines for a program of resistance to oppression that is non-violent with the emphasis on non-violent and resistance.

According to Dominic Crossan, the kingdom of God is participatory. We can’t do it without God. God won’t do it without us. It isn’t a violent intervention by supernatural power. It is non-violent and takes over like leaven in bread and a mustard weed in a field. It transforms all, including enemy, to friend. The evil is the violence. You are simply not going to get peace through violent means. Peace comes through justice not through victory. The way to peace is not violence. Peace is the way.

Jesus is speaking to people who are humiliated. His first lesson to them is:

You are a human being.
You are the light of the world.
You are the salt of the earth.
You are a child of God.
Do not participate or cooperate in your own humiliation.

Jesus is not to be interpreted as saying, “Allow yourself to be a punching bag. If your spouse hits you just go back and submit. Turn the other cheek.” That is a misreading. That is what happens when bullies get control of the Bible. The Bible does not belong to the bullies.

Notice the detail. “When someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other.” The setting here is a backhanded slap from the superior’s right hand to the right side of the face. What do you do when that happens to you? When a slave-owner, a person in authority, a father, or a husband does that, what do you do? Do you hit back? That would result in death, a severe beating, or imprisonment? Do you cower? That is what the superior wants. The bully wants you to be humiliated.

No, says Jesus. You neither hit back nor cower. You stand there and turn the other cheek. You are making a communication that you are a human being. It is an act of defiance. You might get whipped for it. But you are showing yourself and the other that you are a human being. The invitation is for the other to recognize you as a human being as well. It is not an aggressive act. It is assertive.

If someone takes you to court and takes one of your garments, give them your other garment. To survive people had two garments. The outer garment served as a blanket at night. The law was that in payment for a debt you could take a person’s garment but you had to give it back to them at night. It is a setting of humiliation in which people lost everything to burdensome debts. The owners have nothing left to take from you except your coat. What do you do?

The first principle is that you do not participate or cooperate in your own humiliation. You make a public spectacle. You not only give them your coat, but you take off your undergarment too. You stand before them naked. Rather than receive this injustice passively and cower with humiliation, you stand up and act. Your nakedness shames the oppressor.

This has become a technique in modern non-violent movements. This is from ABC News:

Nigerian villagers who have long clashed with oil companies doing business in their backyards are trying a creative protest tactic. They've dropped their guns, and some have even threatened to drop their clothes.

Hundreds of unarmed women from local tribes in the oil-rich but desperately poor Niger Delta region brought production to a halt recently at pipeline facilities owned by ChevronTexaco by merely occupying the sites. Several dozen village women are still holed-up today.

To make their point, the women threatened to disrobe — a strong local shaming symbol — and managed to strike a deal with ChevronTexaco that will bring jobs and funding for schools, hospitals and other services into their struggling community.

Check out The Righteous Mothers and their song “Old Fat Naked Women for Peace” as they sing about this non-violent resistance tactic.

The inspiration for Ghandi and King for non-violent resistance came from Jesus. Jesus was not about passivity. He was about transformation.

The third test case is if “someone conscripts you for a mile, go a second mile.”

This isn’t just someone. This is a Roman soldier. Soldiers were allowed to grab civilians and force them to carry their gear. In a similar vein, in the gospel of Mark, the story is that Simon of Cyrene was conscripted to carry Jesus’ cross.

The law was that Roman soldiers could only force someone to carry their pack for one mile. Jesus says, “So when this happens to you, don’t give the pack back. Offer to continue to carry it. Force the soldier to break the law and see what happens!” Imagine the soldier and the peasant fighting over the pack. Rather than be humiliated, you take the upper hand.

Some of the principles of non-violent resistance are found in the gospels and in these case studies of Jesus. Thanks to Walter Wink, author of The Powers That Be for interpreting these sayings in the light of non-violent resistance. These principles are in general:

1. You are a human being with dignity and so is your opponent.
2. Do not cooperate with your own oppression or humiliation.
3. Do not return violence with violence.
4. Find creative ways to assert to transform relationships from “power over to power with”.

These are principles that can be used in interpersonal relationships, at work, at home, in communities, perhaps even between nations.

It is the third way.

The way of transformative peace.

Amen.

Breaking the Spiral of Violence--A Sermon

Breaking the Spiral of Violence

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

April 22, 2012

Earth Day

Luke 22:24-27

Then they got into an argument over which of them should be considered the greatest. He said to them, “Among the foreigners, it’s the kings who lord it over everyone, and those in power are addressed as ‘benefactors.’ But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must behave as a beginner, and the leader as one who serves. Who is the greater, after all: the one reclining at a banquet or the one doing the serving? Isn’t it the one who reclines? But here among you I am the one doing the serving.

As we move through the season of Spring, we are walking the path, or dancing the spiral of the via transformativa, the way of compassion and justice-making. This is the path of naming, unmasking, and engaging The Powers That Be.

The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium is a book by Walter Wink. Walter Wink is an interesting guy. He wrote a book on Jesus and Nonviolence and had it delivered in secret to clergy in South Africa. He snuck into to South Africa illegally and led workshops on non-violence. He thus exerted influence in helping the movement against Apartheid be non-violent and have the basis for that non-violence based in the teachings and life of Jesus.

Walter Wink has not backed away from walking with those who are most oppressed by The Powers That Be. He knows Empire’s cruelty and violence. Yet he firmly holds out hope and participates in a way of living and being that is transformative. He really does believe in non-violence and trusts that the human race will get it. He writes:

“The reign of God means the elimination of every form of violence between individuals and nations. This is a realm and a possibility of which the imprisoned by their trust in violence cannot even conceive.” P. 89

We can, from Wink’s perspective, conceive that the human race could move beyond violence as a program of solving conflicts even at the level of nation-states. He believes that believing that humans will always solve conflicts violently and always have is part of the socialization we have received from the Domination System. For Wink, violence is not innate and inevitable. It is learned. It can be unlearned.

That is why I am spending quite a bit of sermon time with his ideas. I think that radical statement that violence is learned needs a hearing. I am spending valuable sermon time on his book because his ideas have been influential to me and because I think they are important. That doesn’t mean of course that I say, “Yes, yes, yes,” to everything he writes. But I say “Yes” often enough.

When I first read about his analysis of the myth of redemptive violence that I spoke about last week, it changed my way of thinking. I can’t see anything now, whether they be cartoons, movies, advertising, propaganda, orchestrated patriotic spectacles, and so called news reports, without seeing that myth playing itself out before my eyes time and time again. That myth is in short: violence saves. Only by violent means can the good guys beat the bad guys. Our salvation is to identify with the violent--yet good--hero.

His understanding of the Domination System as a translation for the word kosmos in many places in the New Testament helped me make more sense of the Gospels and Paul. It brought the scriptures down to Earth in the struggles that we face everyday with the powers. The Powers are not individual people, for people are interchangeable and expendable within these institutions. The Powers That Be are those personalities, commitments, rules, and forces that lie behind and within institutions.

Wink sees the historical Jesus as enacting a program of non-violent resistance with the emphasis both on non-violent and resistance, not passivity on one hand nor becoming the very evil we deplore on the other. Wink sees this message not just in the historical Jesus but as a thread that weaves itself through the whole witness of scripture.

The myth of redemptive violence is presented to us by the powers as part of our socialization into the Domination System. Whenever a conflict rises, we consistently give in to the argument that is offered as the clincher: the only way to save the world is to stop these bad people with force of arms. It is the only way. The Powers have to do one thing. Repeat the myth and insert the enemy of the day as the bad guy.

The myth is necessary to keep the inequity in place between the wealthy and powerful and those without wealth and power. That inequity is as much within a nation as between nations. As inequities increase within a nation, it becomes by necessity more violent both to people within the nation as well as to those outside of it. Stories of domestic spying and harsh crackdowns on protestors are some examples of this.

One of the ways a violent society keeps the lid on things, is to let out its violence in a ritualized, orderly way by way of scapegoating. French philosopher, Rene Girard, saw this by analyzing myths. Collective violence from the perspective of the persecutor against a particular group served to focus the violence of a society on a scapegoat. Blame the troubles on this person or group of persons and focus ritual, programmatic violence upon them.

Girard in analyzing the New Testament saw that that scapegoating mechanism was turned upside down. The gospels were written from the point of the persecuted. Jesus is the scapegoat. But, his violent death showed that the scapegoating mechanism was wrong. An innocent person was tortured and killed. The powers were wrong to do this. The powers were not keeping order and peace by executing bad guys. Jesus’ death unmasked and exposed The Powers That Be as wrong and needing overthrow.

Jesus’ death did not show that he was the last scapegoat. It showed the end of scapegoating. Throughout Western history, Jesus’s torture and execution has been used successfully to show that scapegoating is wrong.

On the other hand, The Powers That Be have had success in getting us to reinterpret Jesus’ death as some kind of transaction to satisfy a violent God. God kills Jesus instead of killing you and sending you to hell and whatever. That is the interpretation of Empire. When Christianity and Empire are in bed together, that is what you get.

But the original and powerful and liberating interpretation is that Jesus’ violent death exposed the violence of the powers and thus defeated them.

One modern illustration of how this was used was during the civil rights movement. In Nashville students, black and white together, sat illegally at all-white lunch counters. They brought their cameras and the news media. They were treated violently but did not retaliate to violence with violence. They resisted. They were not passive. They didn’t leave. They didn’t acquiesce. They received violence but did not back down. The purpose was to expose the violence inherent in segregation.

To see young students beaten and mistreated by The Powers That Be or the Law, exposed to the rest of the country that the Law was wrong. Eventually, enough people could see that blacks were being scapegoated so that the laws would change. These laws, such as segregated lunch counters, were part of the larger systemic violence against black people.

The students used the symbol of Jesus on the cross, the innocent victim, to expose the powers of inequity and violence. The death of Jesus when interpreted as exposing scapegoating and domination as unjust is liberating. This is a way in which the spiral of violence is named, exposed, and defeated.

The Powers That Be don’t want Jesus’ death interpreted in that way. They want it to be seen as Jesus receiving the torture and death you should get because you deserve God’s wrath. That is an incredibly abusive interpretation. It lets the powers off the hook. In this scheme Church and Empire work together to keep people passive and to continue to scapegoat whoever it is they want to direct violence upon whether they be “heretics” or enemies of the state.

Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods.
He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.
Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends.
Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again.


'Cos everybody's got to have somebody to look down on.
Who they can feel better than at anytime they please.
Someone doin' somethin' dirty, decent folks can frown on.
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me.

Kris Kristofferson’s Jesus Was a Capricorn is a great song about the scapegoat mechanism. The song itself shows how Jesus’ death exposed the scapegoat mechanism as unjust and exposed the violence of the powers. The song also demonstrates how the powers continually want to turn it back on more scapegoats. “Everybody’s got to have somebody to look down on…”

The reason we call this a spiral of violence is that everyone thinks they are on the good side. Only in cartoons and in silly movies do people think of themselves as an “evil genius.” Everyone thinks that he is the good guy. Whether these guys live in Pyongyang, Tehran, or Washington DC., each one operates from the myth of redemptive violence.

It is no surprise that weapons and militarization are increasing. It is no surprise that individuals are amassing as many personal guns as they can. There are bad guys out there. We are good guys. We have to stand our ground. If we don’t have a scapegoat, “someone to look down on,” what do we do with our violence?

We need to learn a new plan. As Walter Wink writes:

Either we learn to stop the spiral of violence and scapegoating, or, having been stripped of the scapegoating mechanism as an outlet for our violence, we will consume ourselves in an apocalypse of fire. P. 93

We have to die to the Powers. That is we have to die to the socialization and the values we have received by the Domination System. As Wink writes:

“…we have been socialized into patterns of injustice…[we have] become complicit in our own alienation and that of others…we grew to love our bondage, to rationalize, justify, and even champion it.” P. 94

This dying and rebirth is a part of the symbolism of transformation. But it also must include a social dimension. It is not simply private peace. Wink says:

Many North American Christians die to their privatized egos, but not to the arrogance of American imperialism. Thus, dying to one’s ego can be just another false spirituality unless it involves dying to the Powers. P. 96

So when Jesus' disciples debate among themselves who is the greatest, who is the good guy, who is the one on top, he scolds them. Those are the values of the powers. They lord it over others. That is the foundation of the Domination System. Violence is built on that foundation. This is seen in violence and exploitation against people and Earth. This task of dying to the Powers does not happen once and it is over. It is a lifelong process. Writes Wink:

This means our abandoning egocentricity not only as individuals, but as cultures, as nations, even as a species, and voluntarily subordinating our desires to the needs of the total life system. P. 97

The reason we have Earth Day is because of the violence against Earth by The Powers and our complicity with them. On Earth Day celebrations all over the world today, people are resisting the powers of domination and violence to Earth and to all Earthlings.

Here is the take home:

We can do this.
Violence is not inevitable.

Human beings can and do solve virtually all of their conflicts without violence. In fact, in virtually all of our interactions, violence is not allowed as an option. Violence is not the way to solve conflicts in the home, at school, and at the workplace. The members of the Elizabethton City Council do not bring their six guns to work out budget issues. Violence is not an option. We learn violence.  We learn nonviolence.

We don’t believe and act as if our family members are so evil and vile that they must be controlled by violence. I am not saying there is not violence in homes. I am saying that we know that is wrong.
We call on our educators, social workers, and counselors and teach people skills to solve conflicts non-violently so that we can live equitably. We teach people to solve conflicts without violence. We help people leave violent situations. Violence is not an option. At almost every level of our individual and collective lives we know that and live that.

If we can do this at the level of personal interaction, we can do it at all levels of interaction if we want to do so. We could declare and live into the reality that violence is not an option. To do that we have to make commitments for justice and equity. We may have to take risks and make sacrifices because The Powers That Be do wish to keep the violence and the inequity gong.

But we could do this.
We can engage the powers and transform them.
We could decide that violence at any level is not an option.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

I think Earth Day is a fine day to make that commitment.
One Earth.
One beautiful blue ball.
One home.
One family of Earthlings.
Living in peace.
Living in equity.
Living sustainably.
Imagine it.

What a beautiful world.

The Myth of Redemptive Violence--A Sermon

The Myth of Redemptive Violence

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

April 15th, 2012

On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
--Isaiah 27:1


All of a sudden one of those with Jesus lifted his hand, drew his sword, struck the chief priest’s slave, and cut off his ear.  Then Jesus says to him, “Put your sword back where it belongs. For everyone who takes up the sword will be destroyed by the sword.
--Matthew 26:51-52

I'm Popeye the Sailor Man,
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.
I'm strong to the finich
Cause I eats me spinach.
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.


I'm one tough Gazookus
Which hates all Palookas
Wot ain't on the up and square.
I biffs 'em and buffs 'em
And always out roughs 'em
But none of 'em gets nowhere.


If anyone dares to risk my "Fisk",
It's "Boff" an' it's "Wham" un'erstan'?
So keep "Good Be-hav-or"
That's your one life saver
With Popeye the Sailor Man.

It is clear by the calendar and the leaves on the trees that we are in the season of Spring. At First Presbyterian we have structured our worship services around the four seasons. Each season corresponds with a spiritual path in theologian Matthew Fox’s typology of Creation Spirituality. The spiritual path associated with Spring is the via transformativa, or the way of compassion and justice-making.

The spiritual life is an earthy life. Creation Spirituality is not ethereal. It is not about escaping the body or transcending the body, the earthly, or the material, but recognizing, celebrating, and an engaging the sacred nature of the body, the earthly, and the material.

These four paths
celebrate with awe and wonder the universe in all its vitality and mystery,
honor mortality, limits, struggle, and the need to let go,
welcome creativity as the vital force of change,
and engage Earth and all of life with compassion and justice.

An image for working through these spiritual paths is a spiral danced rather than a ladder climbed.

Creation Spirituality is neither fluffy or spooky in my opinion. It is not about denying reality and substituting pipe dreams in its place. At least as I have adopted and adapted it, Creation Spirituality is a way to engage the contingencies and the mystery of life with awareness, commitment, and possibility. It isn’t about believing dogmatic theologies that control, punish, and reward. There is nothing you have “to believe.” There is no orthodoxy.

There is an acknowledgement that religion is a human product. The stories that we have created regarding God are our stories. They are the stories of our ancestors as they used their creativity to find meaning in this strange mystery of existence. Since our religion is a human product, so are the religions of others. We approach them as we do our own, with curiosity, respect, critique, and engagement.

The fourth path, the via transformativa, or the way of compassion and justice-making is taking that creativity (path 3) which arises from the intersection of wonder (path 1) and struggle (path 2), and directing that creativity toward justice for all earthlings, including our more than human earthlings and Earth itself.

Creation Spirituality embraces science of course. The rise of science is the icon of human creativity. Creation Spirituality also invites humanity to direct that creativity, that scientific and technical knowledge, toward sustainability and justice. Creativity is not a good in and of itself. Not all ideas, not all creativity leads to justice, fairness, and sustainability. Our creativity has created the most destructive weapons imaginable. The challenge of our time is place our creativity in service to humanity and to all earthlings and to Earth, for present generations and to the thousandth generation into the future. No small order.

It is critical that each of us consciously takes up that challenge. The path of compassion and justice is the path of engagement and it is a spiritual path. This path involves awareness and critique. That critique exposes destructive mythologies and values. This fourth path of Creation Spirituality is the path of exposing, naming, unmasking, and engaging those forces that are certainly creative but behaving in ways that diminish the goodness of life.

We can call these forces “The Powers That Be”. “The Powers That Be” are not particular people. They are the unseen forces that determine how the world works. “The Powers That Be” make up the personality of institutions. They consist of the ideology, the mythology, the structures and the rules. I talked about this last week. I’ll repeat it here.

When we speak of things like the “mainstream media” or “Wall Street” or “corporations” or “the government” or “the church” we are not speaking of particular individuals, except as those individuals participate in their role as agents for “The Powers That Be” of the institution in question. The individuals, the managers, the executives, and so forth are interchangeable. Sometimes when speaking of “The Powers That Be” we use the phrase “they”. That is what “they” say. That is what “they” do.

These “Powers That Be” lose sight of their intended purpose and instead become self-serving. Theologian Walter Wink says that the powers are good, fallen, and redeemable, all at once. When they are “fallen” they do not act on behalf of what is good for human beings or for Earth, but for their own self-interest or their own profits or power.

This is not hard to see. The resources of Earth, whether it be fresh water or forests or fossil fuels and minerals, that have been formed from deep time, hundreds of millions, even billions of years, are being processed and used within a few human lifetimes, two centuries perhaps, with an ever-increasing gap between those who have access to these resources and those who do not.

“The Powers That Be” the personalities of our institutions that include, government, corporations, education, media, and religion, act as though this is perfectly normal, that there is no other way to live. We are told that there is this “economy” that must grow indefinitely. Whatever it takes to feed it must be done. It is as though it is alive, like a monster.

This injustice which is another name for unsustainability, against future generations and against those who lose out in this resource race in this generation, is held together by organized violence. Weaponry and militarization on behalf of the powers are needed to keep this inequity and this injustice going. You cannot have inequality without violence. When the media report a violent outbreak among the Palestinians or in Greece, what they are not reporting is the systemic, organized violence that has been present there all along. Just because there is quiet that does not mean there is peace.

Underlying the violence itself is the myth of violence. That is what I want to speak about today.

This myth of violence, or as Walter Wink calls it, this “myth of redemptive violence” is what needs to be addressed at an intellectual and spiritual level. This is part of the work of the fourth spiritual path.

What is the myth of redemptive violence?

Let me put it this way. If everyone on Earth consumed at the rate of the average North American, we would need five planets of resources. Or another statistic. The world currently produces 78-80 million barrels of oil each day. The United States consumes about 18 million barrels of oil each day. The U.S. consumes about 25% of the world’s oil. We are about 5% of the world’s population. That is an inequity. I am not making a judgment, just stating facts.

Here is another fact. The United States spends more on its military than the next 17 nations combined. The U.S. spends six times more than the next big spender, China. We have military bases and a military presence all over the world, especially in those places with prized resources.

Is there a correlation or a connection between those facts? Is there any connection between being the biggest military on the planet by a factor of six and the consumer of resources vs. the rest of the world by a factor of five? Anyone who might look at those facts objectively would say, yes. The military-industrial complex keeps this inequality in place. But, it would not be polite to say that, nor patriotic. More than that, for most Americans it is impossible to see. You are squirming in your pews right now and you are the liberal bunch. “He can’t talk about that. That isn’t spiritual.”

The reason we cannot see it is because we have been trained from childhood with the myth of redemptive violence. Everywhere we look, from movies, cartoons, national celebrations, media editorials, and media reports, reinforce the belief that there are bad guys out there and they can only be stopped by good guys with weapons. We have to defeat terrorism. The enemy used to be communists, and we will use them again if we need to do so. Muslim fundamentalists are the latest incarnation of bad guys.

The myth of redemptive violence is the myth that violence saves as long as it is in the hands of the good guys and not the bad guys. Popeye is good. Bluto is bad. Superman is good. Lex Luthor is bad. The Terminator is good. The Terminated were bad. This myth is as old as civilization itself.

How does good defeat evil?

By recognizing that we all have good and evil within us and if we honestly talk about our feelings, wants , observations, and thoughts, and work together with negotiation and collaboration, we can come to solutions on shared problems?

Ppppssshhh. What kind of movie is that? What kind of entertainment is that? Popeye doesn’t have a conversation with Bluto and work out their problems by using “I” statements and acknowledging feelings. No, after 25 minutes of being pounded by Bluto, Popeye, miraculously finds his spinach, and at last minute biffs him and buffs him and always out roughs him. This continues episode after episode after episode. Neither of them ever learn a thing.

This plot, this myth, is played out in every cartoon. Our children know this myth simply by breathing the air. It doesn’t end with children. It is provided in adult formula as well in movies, television and in the news reports about war heroes. We are the good guys. We are fighting the bad guys. If you ever have a lingering doubt and have a fleeting heretical thought that connects consumption with war, just calm yourself and say, “We are the good guys. We are fighting the bad guys.” Then go shopping.

When “The Powers That Be” decided that Iraq wanted a regime change, they obliged by pounding the American and British populace with the message that Saddam Hussein was evil, had weapons of mass destruction, and the only way to deal with him was to bomb and invade the country. The heretics said things like, “You don’t think this might need more conversation? You don’t think there might be other ways of engaging this than war? Do you think your own geopolitical interests might be coloring your judgment?”

The answer was, “Of course not. Why do you hate America?”

Why do you hate America? If you question the myth of redemptive violence, that is the answer. What you are hating is the myth that has taken on spiritual depth in our psyches. Violence saves. We are saved by identifying with the hero who God has blessed with victory by his glorious sword. To say anything else is blasphemy.

The answer is from my perspective that I love America. I want it to do right. When it is uncritical of its violence and consumption it isn’t doing right. We need a better guiding myth than the myth of redemptive violence.

This isn’t just about the United States. This myth is as old as civilization.

The Ancient Near Eastern Babylonian version is the Enuma Elish. In this ancient myth, Marduk slew Tiamat the sea monster with an arrow. He took his sword, and cut her carcass in two parts. From her carcass he created the heavens above and the earth below. Her blood became the blood of the gods who in turn created human beings to be their slaves. This myth gave license for the king to control the people with violence because it is believed they were created by violence and that is all they understand.

In the 5th century BCE, the ancient Hebrews were in captivity to the Babylonians. They learned their myths. They took this story of Marduk and Tiamat and rewrote it. I t became Genesis chapter one. They demythologized the story. Tiamat became the deep, or the unordered waters. Same root word. The sun god became the greater light that God turned on. And so forth. The creation itself was not an act of violence but of creativity. God called to be and it was. Humans were created not as slaves but as good and in God’s image. Violence is not part of the created order but an aberration. It could be conquered as YHWH said to Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door, but you must master it.”

There are earlier more violent versions of creation in the Bible. In the Psalms and in Isaiah, YHWH creates by destroying Leviathan or Rahab the sea monster. Those are leftovers from the earlier mythology. The Bible is ambiguous about the myth of redemptive violence. At times it is critical as in the teachings and parables of Jesus and in some of the literature of the Hebrew Scriptures. Sometimes it uncritically embraces it as in the violent stories of Joshua and in Revelation when Jesus is seen as the conqueror at the end of time. We should read the Bible critically as well.

The fourth spiritual path of Creation Spirituality is to engage the powers and challenge them to do justice. Yes it is spiritual work. I am going to be spending the next several weeks talking about this work. Walter Wink and his book, The Powers That Be, will be a conversation partner.

What I want you to take away today is this. Organized violence that we see in the empires of civilization is taught. It has become mythologized. The myth reinforces a lie that humans are either good or evil and that the good must overcome the evil by violence. By violence we are saved and redeemed. This myth of redemptive violence is used to justify inequity. It is legitimated by religion.

I invite you this week simply to observe. Watch the cartoons, the video games, the news reports, the movies, and see if you can identify the myth of redemptive violence.

We can break this cycle. We can embrace a theology that says human beings are not inherently violent. We are a mix of motives. We can do the important work of being self-aware. Maturity and salvation comes from recognizing that the evil is not the other. The evil is the violence. What we do on an everyday level, solving conflicts by conversation, sharing feelings, separating observations from our evaluations, can be done at all levels. Religion does not have to legitimate violence. We have resources within our Christian tradition, traditions about Jesus that can empower us toward a non-violent and sustainable future.

Amen.

Easter and the Powers That Be--A Sermon

Easter and The Powers That Be

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday

I Corinthians 2:6-8

Now of course I do have something to say about wisdom, when I am with those who can fully comprehend it, but it’s not a wisdom of this age nor of those who rule it at present, all of whom are destined to be deposed. I am talking about a hidden and mysterious wisdom of God which God intended before time began: to raise us to the glory of God’s presence. None of the rulers of this age knew anything about this. If they had known, they would not have crucified the one who has become our exalted lord.

I want to speak today of the phrase, the concept, and the reality of “The Powers That Be.” You know that phrase. The Apostle Paul in the scripture I just read from I Corinthians uses the phrase, “the rulers of this age.” I am pretty sure that is the same thing as the phrase we know as “The Powers That Be”.

“The Powers That Be” or “the rulers of this age” are not particular people. They are the unseen forces that determine how the world works. “The Powers That Be” make up the personality of institutions. They consist of the ideology, the mythology, the structures and the rules. If you want to get ahead in an institution you play by the rules. You learn those rules that are unwritten. Everyone knows the rules.

When we speak of things like the “mainstream media” or “Wall Street” or “corporations” or “the government” or “the church” we are not speaking of particular individuals, except as those individuals participate in their role as agents for “The Powers That Be” of the institution in question. The individuals, the managers, the executives, and so forth are interchangeable. Sometimes when speaking of “The Powers That Be” we use the phrase “they”. That is what “they” say. That is what “they” do.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck told of the story of a family migrating from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. In the telling of this family’s journey Steinbeck painted for us a portrait of the times. He wrote about how people lost the land and how bewildered they were in how it all happened. Unseen forces and powers were at work that were beyond their control and comprehension.

This is an excerpt from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. It describes what happened when the bank repossessed the land from those who had worked it, in some cases for generations:

The owners of the land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for the owners came….if a bank or finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank—or the Company—needs—wants—insists—must have—as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time….


You see, a bank or a company…those creatures don’t breathe air, don’t eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don’t get it, they die….the bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size…we have to do it. We don’t like to do it. But the monster’s sick. Something’s happened to the monster….

Sure, cried the tenant men, but it’s our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours….


We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man.


Yes, but the bank is only made of men.


No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it. Pp. 42-45

I don’t repeat this quote in my sermon to pick on banks. It is just that Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath happens to be one of the finest illustrations of “The Powers That Be” in literature.

It is important to say that institutions and the powers that be that are the driving forces within these institutions are not necessarily bad. They simply are. In fact when they uphold the good they are good. Theologian Walter Wink writes that the powers are simultaneously good, fallen, and redeemable. All three all at once.

There are times when the powers become like monsters as in the excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath. That is when the institutions lose sight of wisdom, that is, of their intended vocation, and instead become ends in and of themselves. This is the situation in The Grapes of Wrath. The banks lost sight of their intended purpose. Instead of enabling people to stay on their land, by means of sharing capital, they made their own profits their purpose. This story is being played out before our eyes every day in the present.

“The Powers That Be” have their effects on us individually as well. When we become self-absorbed, cynical, and despairing, that is a sign that we are beaten down by the powers. The work of engaging and transforming “The Powers That Be” is the work of Easter. That work is both within and without.

All the images, symbols, and themes associated with Easter such as resurrection, rebirth, a new day, dying to an old way of being and rising to a new way of being, are part of this engagement and transformation of the powers within us and outside of us.

Easter is a shift. Easter is a shift in consciousness. It is what Paul called the wisdom of God “that raises us to the glory of God’s presence.”

That is why we say liturgically that we are invited to live the Easter faith in the present. Christ is risen today, in the present. Today is Resurrection Day and so forth. Today is the new day. Today you are a new person. That is the spirit of the poem from Mary Oliver that I included in the bulletin:

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.



So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

That is I think the wisdom of God that Paul speaks about. Had the powers that be, or the rulers of this age, known that wisdom, “they would not have crucified the one who has become our exalted lord” writes Paul. They wouldn’t have felt they needed to do so. Had they known that wisdom they would not have seen Jesus as a threat.

Regardless of “The Powers That Be” we, that is you and I, have the capability of choosing what we will be at the deepest level of our self. That is the wisdom of meditation, for instance. Through the practice of meditation or through the practice of participating in the life of a conscientious community we experience ourselves free, liberated from thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and powers.

This individual liberation that is part of the Easter experience is very important especially for those who engage the powers of the institutions. Our congregation is an activist church in many respects. While we try not to tell people what to think or do, we nevertheless do engage issues of importance. Whether those issues include our environment, working for peace, for healthcare, for civil rights for LGBT people, or for science and religious literacy, we engage the powers. It can be discouraging work. The powers are called powers for a reason. They are powerful. At times intractable.

If we don’t have a center, if we aren’t careful, we can take many paths that are going to be dead ends. I am not speaking hypothetically, I am speaking from experience. We can be discouraged or cynical, even immobilized. We can be self-righteous or aloof. We can even become what we hate and return violent speech or actions with the same.

Paul knew this. Jesus knew this. Krishna and the Buddha knew this. The wisdom is not to avoid engagement but to engage with awareness. Krishna spoke of it as doing one’s duty without being attached to the results. The Christian way of saying it is to live and act with integrity and leave the results up to God.

Easter is a celebration and an acknowledgment that the wisdom of God has been around for a while. As Paul writes, “I am talking about a hidden and mysterious wisdom of God which God intended before time began: to raise us to the glory of God’s presence.” That is poetic and metaphorical language. What other language can we use? It is language that speaks about the glory of being human as God created us. We are now in God’s presence. We are human beings created with and for dignity. Nothing can take that away.

That is why I think the original followers of Jesus did not give up when Jesus and thousands of others were tortured and executed by “The Powers That Be”. Rather than give up in despair and rather than return evil for evil, they found inner strength and became creative. They said,

“Every time we gather for a meal of bread and wine we will remember. We are Christ's body. Christ is alive with us. We will continue to remember and to resist. We will show hospitality to those who are victims of imperial bullying, to the outcast, to the slave, to the stranger. We will lean on and support each other. We will remember and tell the stories of the victims. When we get self-righteous or discouraged and when we lose hope, we will remember who we are and whose we are. And we will dream, hope, and work for the day in which the kingdom of God, the empire of God, the empire of justice and peace, the wisdom of God which God intended before time began, will be realized on Earth.”

That is what the original acclamation, “Christ is risen” meant.

Christ was risen in them.
Christ is risen in us.
Christ is risen in you.

Today is a new day.
Our past is past.
Kiss it goodbye.
The old has gone,
the new has begun.

You who hunger and thirst for justice, wisdom, peace…
Come to the table.

As Mary Oliver writes:
So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
Your life.

Amen.