Justice?

I think it may be the only ending of its kind that I have seen in the last six or seven years. I am thinking of the ending of the movie the Gran Torino. The old man with cancer gets himself killed by the gang of hoods, and the movie shows the hoods being taken away by the Police. One of the policemen tell the neighbor youths that the case is a "lock" because there were lots of witnesses.

The movie turns the bad guys over to the our criminal justice system with implied confidence. That is not how the bad guy usually gets it. In other movies that I have seen and in the mystery novels that I have read, that is usually not the case. There are two much more typical endings. The most typical is the "good guy" in some major action-filled climax in which they battle to the death. The Revelation of St. John style of resolution. The good guy usually pulling out a victory in the last second. The second ending is much more common in the books I read. I just finished T is for Trespass by Grafton. As the police arrive, the evil woman jumps out of the hotel window and commits suicide. P.D. James, Dorothy Sayers, Martha Grimes, Ian Rankin and many others tend to have the bad guy die in some other way, but the "bad guy" is seldom surrendered to the criminal justice system. Ian Rankin even has taken to having the "bad person" slip away and avoid any legal or public punishment.

Is it a lack of faith in the criminal justice system, that the makers of these movies and writers of these stories do not believe that the reader will be happy to have the evil one end up in our criminal justice system? No one thinks that Madoff will be appropriately punished by the criminal justice system for his fraud. Is it more of a statement that in this world there are no clear cut, good guys - bad guys, and the struggle between good and evil continues on. Mystic River, the movie, seemed to suggest that that is the river of life, a mix between good and evil. They struggle on different sides of the street and the flow of the struggle is never ended.

Certainly one of the great engines of the desire and hope for Heaven is that there will finally be a fair and just resolution to this conflict between good and evil. That there will finally be a place where all of the little and great evils will be sifted and there will be a complete and appropriate balancing of the justice that each of us claims we want. One of the things that makes mystery novels so much fun is to see each writers vision of justice.

The Joy of Doubts

There is an L.A. religious reporter who has written a book about how his experiences with religion have caused him to lose his faith. He now calls himself a “reluctant atheist.” There is a movie called “Doubt” about a nun who was so arrogant and sure of her own righteousness that she ruins a whole parish and school. The power of the movie is at the end she cracks into tears and acknowledges that she too has doubts. There is a scholar at UNC who is one of the foremost authorities on Biblical manuscripts and early church documents who was once an fanatical evangelical who has become a bitter revengeful scholar because he discovered that the church he was a part of lied to him about the authority of scripture. The church told him the Bible was infallible, with no errors, and in his scholarship he discovered that they could not make that claim stick.

History shows a very depressing and sad story of the destruction and death that has been caused by those who were absolutely sure they were right. The pain and suffering that has been caused by leaders and groups who claimed to have the absolute truth and refused to entertain any questions or admit any mysteries is enough to make many people reject the whole idea of faith and religion.

There is no denying that the faith groups, which make those kinds of claim, attract a lot of people. The insecurity and fears of the human soul desperately want and hunger for that kind of certainty. To trust one’s immortality to an ambiguous creed that says “perhaps” or “maybe” just is not good enough for some people.

And yet there are Biblical stories that suggest that lots of the Biblical characters had to live with uncertainty, with unanswered questions, with something less than full absolute confidence. Abraham had to live a long time on the basis of a promise that had not been fulfilled. Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt for more than forty years and the people of Israel were never convinced completely that Moses knew what he was doing.

But in the middle of this Lenten season we are reminded that Peter and the rest of the disciples were caught in a great conflict between claiming that Jesus looked to them like the Messiah, but that Jesus talked to them about a death and a sacrifice that raised all kinds of questions for the disciples. They were not sure, and when the moment of arrest came, they fled.

But there are two moments in this Lenten journey that gives us a powerful example of the faith that is never completely, one hundred percent sure all of the time. One is in the garden where Jesus is not sure he wants to go through with this, and asks if there isn’t some other way. And the second is the cry of Jesus on the Cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Sounds like Jesus is not sure where God is or what God is doing. There is a moment of doubt and uncertainty in the heart and mind of Jesus.

A living and dynamic faith is living in the tension of trust and obey in the midst of wonder, doubt, mystery and hope. There is an energy and a power in a faith that is full of curiosity, asking questions to which it does not have the answers, trusting oneself to a mystery and love that one cannot prove and cannot describe. How else can one be surprised by joy if one always knows what is right?

Graceland

Perhaps it is a sign of the times. In the last month I have seen more lists of favorite things than I have seen in ten years. Perhaps it is a development out of our hard times. If I have no money to worry about what new gadgets and toys to buy, I will play with my old toys. Perhaps there are always periods of reflections when people stop and look back and rank their favorites. But I have seen in three or four places lists of favorite books, lists of favorite movies, lists of records (some people still have records) and lists of favorite Cd's or tunes.

One of my reactions is to wonder about myself as I could not tell you the top ten movies that I have enjoyed in my life. I could not name the ten or five best albums in my life. I hardly know the real names to most of the songs I liked. I was never one of those people who knew the director of a movie. Even now when the credits start to roll, I leave the theater. I never knew who the people were in the Four Tops or the Supremes. I have not found that these things marked my life in pivotal ways. Maybe the reality is that they marked it much more significantly because I was not consciously aware of the shaping.

But one person's list of top five albums had in it an album by Paul Simon and was the album was Graceland. While I do not know what Paul Simon intended by the song by the same name, but there is a line that I think is pure gospel. "There are reasons to believe that we all maybe received in Graceland." I immediately think of the Kingdom of God as Graceland, the land of Grace, and I do believe that there are good reasons to believe that we all, all people, may be received into Graceland. Because if we are all saved by Grace, and not by works, and if God is gracious and loving, then there are good reasons to believe as Paul Simon says, "we all maybe received in Graceland."

Grace is everywhere. Enjoy. The real hell is that grace is all around and we refuse to see it, accept it and share it.

At the end, finally?

I would not have guessed it, if I had been asked, but yesterday at the meeting someone mentioned that we Presbyterians had been debating this issue for the last 33 years. For almost as long as I have been a minister, we have been arguing over who is eligible for ordination. I certainly hope this is the last time we see this issue.

We have spent 33 years arguing, voting, debating, fussing over whether or not gay and lesbian people might be ordained to the offices of Deacon, Elders, and Ministers of the Word and Sacrament. That is a lot of time invested in one very small issue. During that same time we were living through a huge economic bubble that was fueled primarily by GREED. In that same period of time we have developed a national health care problem of obesity, which seems to speak of GLUTTONY. As a nation we have strutted around the world in hubris and arrogance, which is PRIDE. We have great evidence that there is still horrible slave traffic in young women for sexual activities, which is LUST. And the Presbyterian bodies have been focused on the sin of homosexuality and have tended to remain rather silent on the other sins.

In the old questions and answers of the confessions, sin is "any want of conformity or transgression of the Will of God." And the Bible does list Homosexuality as a sin. So lets not argue about that. Even if we believe they were born that way, we are all supposed to believe we were all born into sin. So calling homosexuality a sin is not a great help in moving the discussion along.

The real question is always what do you do with the sinner. We have lots of divorced people who have remarried who are ordained and accepted as leaders, but the Bible calls them adulterers. And we do not demand that they divorce again. We have many aggressive business people who might even say they were greedy, but we do not prohibit them from holding office. One would hate to ask how many people in a congregation have looked at a Playboy centerfold with admiration. But we do not exclude them from ordination if they are selected by a congregation.

We just need to stop wasting our time, our energy, our passion on this tiny part of the population and get on with larger issues of loving justice, doing mercy and worshipping God.

I hope this is the last time we vote.

In response to Glory

I have just returned from a wonderful week of "rehabbing" an old house in New Orleans for a victim of Hurricane Katrina. It was for me a wonderful week. I had something to do all week. I love doing that kind of work, and there were great people to work with. So there is a part of me that can identify with Peter in the story of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-9). That is the story when Jesus takes three of his disciples up a mountain, and he is transfigured. Jesus is clothed in splendor and encounters Elijah and Moses. Caught up in that moment of amazement, wonder, mystery, and glory, the first thought Peter has is to build something. Peter says something like, Golly, this is great that we were here. Let's build three booths. One for each of them.

It is equally fascinating to me that Jesus completely ignores that suggestion. Certainly Peter demonstrates the great desire that most of us have to do something, to respond to these glorious moments, to somehow preserve and perpetuate the wonder and mystery of holy experiences. Here is a holy place and it ought to be marked by some monument so that we can find it again and perhaps be touched by the glory again and again. Building something to honor, to proclaim, to testify to, to reflect the "mysterium tremendum" of the holy in our lives is deeply ingrained in us. One only needs to look around at the churches, synagogues, cathedrals, mosques, temples to see how magnificently the desire to reflect the transcendent into the physical is.

On the dark side there are tons of concrete and steel that have been built by religious people in order simply to keep a congregation together on some visible goal. It is well acknowledged by religious leaders that congregations need goals and visions. That all congregations want to be "doing the Lord's work" and successful religious leaders quickly discover that the best goal is a new building, or a renovation project. "Always keep them in debt and always have something that they need to build and you will have much better luck keeping the community together." College Presidents have the same understanding.

But Jesus does not dignify the suggestion of Peter by a response. In fact, as they come off the mountain he tells his disciples not even to mention it to anybody until after his death and resurrection. Jesus does not seem to have the least little interest in buildings and structures. His consistent focus is on living a life that is befitting the Kingdom of God. He talks about the Beatitudes as to who will be blessed in the Kingdom. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and spirit and love your neighbor as yourself." His judgment at the end is suggested to be on how you treated the poor, the naked, the thirst, the prisoner, without any thought about how it might benefit you.

Which seems to me to suggest that if we do have this deep innate desire to respond to the Holy and to bear witness to the holy by building something, then we might do very well to focus primarily on building homes for the homeless, building health care centers for the poor, paying for legal defense of the defenseless, digging wells for clean water in dry lands, on building better schools for all children. The best response to the revelation that Jesus is the one through him we most clearly see the love and grace of God is not to build more booths, but to share that love with others by building a better community for those who need it.

My Turn

I am very excited about my trip tomorrow. I leave for New Orleans to join a group of other volunteers in a project called Rebuilding Together, New Orleans. It is now my turn to go to New Orleans and help. Other groups have gone and done their work and I have rejoiced as each group has gone, but I have not been able to go. But now there is a work project and I have time, and so I go.

Rebuilding Together is a group which works with Preservation National on rebuilding and preserving homes. In much the way Habitat works, Rebuilding Together works primarily on repairs and restorations. I am not sure that they build any from the ground up.

I do not know anybody in this group. I will meet 19 other people and we will try to become a work team. This program provides room and board for its volunteers at a fee of $250 for a week. They supervise the work and have the work planned and organized. They ask me questions about my abilities and like so many other times, I did not know how to answer. How skilled are you at carpentry? Well, I can cut a board and nail it, but not as quickly as others and not always as neatly as I would like. Plumbing? well, I can fix my commode and change washers and know about cut off values, but glue and wrap PVC,I am not sure. Electricity? I am great with wires, boxes, and all electrical matters, when there is no electricity in the line, but I do not play with them when they are "alive." Roofing? I have roofed my whole workshop, but it did not have valleys and chimneys and complications. So I tried to say I was better than some and not as handy as others, but we shall see how it goes. They let me come. I can surely push a wheelbarrow.

This will make me very happy, and I hope that it will do somebody in New Orleans some good. But I know that I am late to this work. The urgency is way past, and the people who need this help have been suffering too long. I know it is better than doing nothing, but blessed are those who responded immediately.

Who Will Be Left?

The press, the TV people, the internet are full of stories about the picture of Michael Phelps smoking pot. He has been quick to admit that it is a real picture of him. He has acknowledged that he has made a mistake, and he has apologized to anybody who was bothered by his actions. The mountain out of this molehill is another example of our temptation to forget the humanity of our heroes. Michael has been a man under discipline for more than eight years. After four years of training and swimming he was arrested for a DUI in 2004. After four more years of intense training he was pictured trying pot. He is after all a college youth who has denied himself a whole host of activities that most college youths take for granted. So a couple of times in eight years he allows himself to try something that the rest of the college young people have tried. He does not handle them well because he does not have much experience at how to handle them. He makes a mistake. He is not perfect. He is a human being.

It is a basic affirmation of our Christian faith that all of us are not perfect. It seems to be one of the hardest doctrine in the Christian faith for us to get into our thinking. The orthodox affirmation that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" means that there is evil and something less than perfect about all of us. The continuation of that doctrine, "the total depravity of humanity," suggests that like sugar that gets dissolved in a glass of water evil is a part of all we are. The best of us and our best deeds always have a tiny taint of that selfishness that is seen most clearly in our worst times and most evil acts.

That should mean that as Christian people we are never surprised when that evil suddenly becomes visible in a person. In fact, we ought to be expecting it to be there. The neighbors are always saying that so and so was a very quiet neighbor and we never thought he or she would do that kind of thing. Well, why not? The neighbor was a human being. Of course, the evil shows up in lots of different ways in different people. Madoff's selfishness in the Ponzi scheme is different from the evil of Timothy McVeigh but both of them believed themselves to be their own gods, the one to decide what was right and wrong.

As long as we are going to eliminate a person from a role model, from a job, from a position of respect everytime we catch a glimpse of the "not perfect" in them, we are going to discover that there is nobody left to look up to. The much more important criteria is what they do when the "not perfect" in them comes out. Phelps has quickly and honestly acknowledged his. Richard Nixon never acknowledged his. If we keep looking for somebody without sin to be our hero, to be our leader, to be our role model, then we find the options reduced to one in the Christian faith, and even He was quick to be baptized for the remission of sin by John the Baptist