Wednesday 11 March 2009

Once again, for the next week or so I will be using selections from "The Strength of Love" in which M.L. King focuses on this parable: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him."



Midnight is the hour when men desperately seek to obey the eleventh commandment, "Thou shall not get caught." According to the ethic of midnight, the cardinal sin is to be caught and the cardinal virtue is to get by. It is all right to lie, but one must lie with real finesse. It is all right to steal, if one is so dignified that, if caught, the charge becomes embezzlement, not robbery. It is permissible even to hate, if one so dresses his hating in the garments of love that hating appears to be loving. The Darwinisn concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest. This mentality has brought a tragic breakdown of moral standards, and the midnight of moral degeneration.

Sure sounds like the morality of Wall St and the Banking industry. How is it that a person who is caught with a bag of grass gets thrown into jail or prison and the likes of those who get caught devastating untold numbers of families and investors - get nothing at all. In fact they...get by. At midnight there seems to be confusion. If stealing and dealing in death is done in a suit, with a tie, and under the guise of being the American way, we only punish people if we can say it is isolated to one person - which it never is - and if the evidence is so loaded no one can look away. We are teaching our children that slick is best. We forget that one demonstrates one's morality or ethic - when no one is watching. Today, being slick and working the system as the system is unfortunately set up to work, becomes a goal...a virtue...an expectation...a sign of success. Just today I received notice of a ELCA clergy person who was in and out of several parishes in our Synod. He has now been caught and charged with rape - kidnapping and more over a six year timeline. He was able to "not get caught." At midnight when no one is looking some of the most demonic acts take place even within the dress of those who would be giving witness to the Reign of God. To be quite honest, I'm feeling a bit ill. To think someone passed through two parishes before he was "caught" doing what he did to a child in a previous parish.

Connection: It is not good to point fingers. Then again, it is okay to grieve and wonder and pray and hope that the courage of a young girl to speak up may be the courage in all of us to stand up and bring light to the midnight theives of life.

O God who cares for the least and the lowest, have mercy on all who are robbed of life and liberty and who must now patiently heal because of the abuse of those who are able to be so slick they run through life using others for their own good. Have mercy on us all and continue to bring us into the light of your Reign so we can be advocates and protectors of those who are being sought after by the powers of darkness. Amen.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

Once again, for the next week or so I will be using selections from "The Strength of Love" in which M.L. King focuses on this parable: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him."

It is also midnight within the moral order. At midnight colors lose their distinctiveness and become a sullen shade of gray. Moral principles have lost their distinctiveness. For modern man, absolute right and absolute wrong is a matter of what the majority is doing. Right and wrong are relative to likes and dislikes and the customs of a particular community. We have unconsciously applied Einstein's theory of relativity, which properly described the physical universe, to the moral and ethical realm.

We all do a good job at making sure the moral order within which we live our lives fits us. We like to have the world defined by the colors we know and like. Therefore, all sides make arguments as to how the world is to be viewed and judged. Too often though, we do not bring those differing views together to see them side by side. They are left to our own building and support and justification. In such a way, that is how they can be seen as being quite relative. But the task of the followers of Jesus is to bring all of our ideas about right and wrong into the light of the life within the Reign of God. When this takes place, there will be gray...and much of it. But it will be gray only as long as we fail to bring the light of the vision of God's Reign into the picture. In those days of the early 60's sides were able to move away from one another because of race - the color of a person's skin. Therefore, people had differing ideas of what was right on the basis of what they liked to think or learned to think about race. Thanks be to God that some folks were willing to turn on the light of the Reign of God and say "NO" to the notions of the 'right of racism' that were absolutely contrary to God' image being displayed in, with, and under, all the colors of our skin and all the backgrounds of our upbringing. Even at midnight, we can make light shine together.

Connection: When you feel as though you are being pushed into a corner and made to pick this or that as "right or wrong," it may be time to step back and seek help in bringing out the image of God that is meant to be among us. It may bring some much needed discipline into our character.

When you give us the vision of your Reign, O God, we are able to see well beyond the images of life that appear all around us. To often, we settle for what we see and hear within the immediacy of the day. Hold up our heads to welcome in your Reign and bring us into a new vision. Amen.

Monday 9 March 2009

For the next week or so I will be using selections from "The Strength of Love" in which M.L. King focuses on this parable: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him."

This midnights in man's external collective life is paralleled by midnight in his internal individual life. It is midnight within the psychological order. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Deep clouds of anxiety and depression are suspended in our mental skies. More people are emotionally disturbed today than at any other time of human history.... Bestsellers in religion are such books as "Peace of Mind" and "Peace of Soul." The popular clergyman preaches soothing sermons on "How to be Happy" and "How to Relax." Some have been tempted to revise Jesus' command to read, "Go ye into all the world, keep your blood pressure down, and lo, I will make you a well-adjusted personality." all of this is indicative that it is midnight within the inner lives of men and women.

King is writing in 1963 - could be today. The fear and anxiety of the day is like mud that gets all over everything. Odd how we turn inward during these times. The real need is to open our eyes and move toward one another. This often takes place through the discipline of prayer - endless prayer. This is a discipline that brings that which frightens us and disturbs us out into the open so that we can face it all within the embrace of our God who calls us into prayer. A life full of prayer is one in which we continually remind ourselves of whose we are and who we become when we remember such things. Prayer is the foundation of our living. It shapes us and reminds us of the ethic among us and the power for life that is available to us even when the world around us seems to make us power-less. It can be easy to fall for the vision of life that is portrayed by pundits and politicians - but that is not how we are given vision for the day. In place of the threats that try to disturb us in a "Wolf Blitzer type Situation Room" where everything is urgent and desperate sounding, we are reminded in our prayer of the character of life that is available to us in and through all times.

Connection: However you pray - pray. In that prayer, keep in mind whose you are.

Come, Lord of Life, come and hold us again. When the time at hand seems like it is fright-filled, we need your word of promise to echo within our lives so that it stays fresh among us when we are tempted to fly away to simple and soft ways of facing the day - ways that never give us the rest that you promise. Be our rest and inspire us into fresh life within your Reign. Amen.

Friday 6 March 2009

Thursday escaped me. Here is the follow up from Wednesday's piece by M.L. King.

At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice. When slumbering giants of injustice emerge in the earth, we need to know that there is a God of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like the green herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man. But there are also times when we need to know that God possesses love and mercy. When we are staggered by the chilly winds of adversity and battered by the raging storms of disappointment and when through our folly and sin we stray into some destructive far country and are frustrated because of a strange feeling of homesickness, we need to know that there is someone who loves us, cares for us understands us, and will give us another chance. When days grow dark and nights grow dreary, we can be thankful that our God combines in his nature a creative synthesis of love and justice which will lead us through life's dark valleys and into sunlit pathways of hope and fulfillment.

Over and over again this is the message I try to pass over to our young children - I must say with the hope that it makes its way to our older folks. It is so important to understand that there is a love that is so deep and wide that it "will give us another chance." Within that breath of fresh air we have the opportunity to remember the life into which we have been called. It is through that loving kindness that we are brought intimately close the vision of the Reign of God that can and does turn our hearts and lives around. Young children may not "get" the concept of love...but when they again and again are welcome and honored and greeted and made much of, they "get" it. Maybe all of us do. It is within the safe space of this love that people are shaped into people with tough minds and soft hearts. It is in the domain of this love that we learn the way of justice.

Connection: Being a part of this loving community may not be what we would choose to be. It is a daily exercise that needs the gifts of God's Reign - patience, kindness, forgiveness and more...

By the power and presence of your love, O God, you shape us and invite us into the way of our Lord, Jesus. It is not always an easy way to go...for love can be seen as such a useless way to live within this world of violent power. Continue to shower us with your love. Amen.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Today's piece from "The Strength to Love" will be matched by tomorrow's - again from M.L. King.

At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice. When slumbering giants of injustice emerge in the earth, we need to know that there is a God of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like the green herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man.

This understanding...this knowledge, is the foundation that gives God's people the ability to resist tyrants and oppressors. When powers of violence and hatred and separation and lies appear to have the upper hand and there does not appear to be any power that can contain them or defeat them, God's people are to assure one another that God Reigns. This is not a pie-in-the-sky vision. It is a reality onto which we are called to cling and from which we take our next steps along the way of our Lord. We trust that God Reigns. We trust and no matter what may take place we are invited to continue our walk of trust and hope within the blessed assurance that our God prevails over all powers. This is why we can walk forward in a non-violent manner. When we do that, we befuddle the violence of the world. When Gandhi's followers kept walking forward, line by line, are were beaten with sticks by the British, they walked forward as though the power being displayed was not the power that would prevail. When King marched in the face of those who seemed to rule all that was he walked with the blessed assurance that injustice, with all its claims to power, would fold and justice would prevail within a realm of peace. We are no more than grass but so are those who attempt to be something more at the cost of God's Beloved people. So in the face of that which looks like the end, we are a people invited to live as though we are entering the beginning of something new.

Connection: It is not easy to stand up and stay standing in the face of injustice. Sometimes I like to look down and see my feet on the ground. It is a simple reminder of my place to be a child of God and to open my mouth or move forward. It doesn't always work...but it helps.

You, O God, are the ground upon which our lives can open up and take part in the peaceable Reign that you promise for all your beloved. On such a ground, injustice will fold up...violence will lose its place, and your people will stand within a new life that is a gift. We thank you, Life-giving Lord. Amen.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

We continue with King's look at the character of God.

I am thankful that we worship a God who is both toughminded and tenderhearted. If God were only toughminded, he would be a cold, passionless despot sitting in some far-off heaven "contemplating all," as Tennyson puts it in "The Palace of Art." He would be Aristotle's "unmoved mover," self-knowing, but not other-loving. but if God were only tenderhearted, he would be too soft and sentimental to function when things go wrong and incapable of controlling what he has made. He would be like H.G. Wells' lovable God in God, the Invisible King, who is strongly desirous of making a good world, but finds himself helpless before the surging powers of evil. God is neither hardhearted nor softminded. He is toughminded enough to transcend the world; he is tenderhearted enough to live in it. He does not leave us alone in our agonies and struggles. He seeks us in dark places and suffers with us and for us in our tragic prodigality.

What I now like about King's images is that he is talking about an ever-present God. A God who does not abandon us but rather joins in with us in all that causes suffering and despair. In some ways, I can interpret the idea of toughmindedness to be God being tough for us. That is...no power...no principalities (sounds like Paul) can separate us from the love of God. If you want to try to be that power...beware because God's love is so everlasting God will be right in the middle of any attempt to do us in. God will be toughminded about the powers of evil so that mercy and kindness and forgiveness and reconciliation will be the sustaining power in our lives....nothing else. I often wonder if that is what King could see. He could see God alongside the marching and speaking and truth-telling in the face of the powers of evil. He would then act as though this toughminded and tenderhearted God was and is and will be the very ground of new life.

Connection: We are invited to enter this day assured that our God prevails in all time and abides with us in and through all things.

Blessed are you, O God, for as we move through the days at hand your promise to abide with us knows no end. We are therefore granted a new day to live within the power and character of your Reign. We praise you for choosing to carry on with us. Amen.

Monday 2 March 2009

Here is a piece about the nature of God connected to the discussion of toughmindedness and tenderheartedness from last week.

The greatness of our God lies in the fact that he is both toughminded and tenderhearted. He has qualities both of austerity and of gentleness. The Bible, always clear in stressing both attributes of God, expresses his toughmindedness in his justice and wrath and his tenderheartedness in his love and grace. God has two outstreched arms. One is strong enough to surround us with justice, and one is gentle enough to embrace us with grace. On the one hand, God is a God of justice who punished Israel for her wayward deeds, and on the other hand, he is a forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal returned home.

Even in God there is the display of different sides. And yet, I would have to disagree with King in how he draws this picture. Traditionally we use words of "punishment" when we read what happened to Judah and Israel. They were a "wayward" people and they were punished. So God is seen as a Santa Claus type being....watching to see if we are living rightly or wrongly. Truth is, we would never -any of us- walk the right way. If we use King's image here, we can fall into that trap of some TV evangelists who have tried to link 911 or Katrina to an act of God "punishing" a people or a nation for not acting a certain way. In reality, even within the Hebrew Scriptures, the unfaithfulness of Judah and Israel, put them in the realm of all the other powers of the world. Had they been the covenant people whose lives were a light to all the world...would they have suffered as they did? We don't know...because there were not this light of the image of God in the world. Punishment, if we want to use that word, is what happens to ourselves when we put our trust in the way of the world. God's wrath is simply the fact that we are allowed to be who we are and trust what we will for life. As we do that, we walk away from the covenant of God's love and chose another way. The toughmindedness of God is a gracious love that will not impose itself on us...not force us to "be good." That is tough love. It is a love that is eternally gracious and eternally present with open arms even when we refuse to trust that love.

Connection: God's grace is the breath of our day that is also the power to refresh us and revitalize how we see all of life within God's Reign. Rather than try to judge between wrath and grace, breathe in the grace of our God that is always a welcome home.

Lord of Life, we have a tendency to walk away from you and move close to other powers and voices within our lives. Encourage us to turn around and see that you are the constant one...the eternal one who is present in and through all things. Amen.