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Baptized into death?

Father's Day, and a whole lot more

Ken Sehested
Texts: Genesis 21:8-21; Psalm 86:1-10; Jeremiah 20:7-13; Romans 6:10-11; Matthew 10:24-39
Circle of Mercy, 19 June 2005

In case you missed it, it’s power-tool weekend across the nation. Father’s Day, that bastard child of a holiday, commemorated only slightly more than President’s Day. My best gift was the arrival this past week of my first-born, Jessica, and her beloved, Rich. They’ve moved to Asheville, living with us for the time being, and I couldn’t be happier.

Like most holidays, Father’s Day has its competing histories. The dominant one seems to be the story of Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman who in 1909 wanted to honor her father, a Civil War veteran whose wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Ironically, Ms. Dodd came up with the inspiration after hearing a Mother’s Day sermon in her church and later convinced her pastor to dedicate a Sunday to fathers. Later U.S. presidents endorsed the idea, with Lyndon Johnson signing a declaration in 1966 and, in 1972, Richard Nixon signing legislation making it a permanent holiday. Some say his action was to distract the nation’s attention away from information then emerging from a secret source who, until a few weeks ago, was known only as “Deep Throat.”

So the holiday, signed into law by one who very nearly overthrew our constitutional government, is actually a recognition of the struggle of single parents. All of us with children know how difficult parenting can be even when shared by two people. So, yes, we can honor the special circumstances of single-parent households, particularly those where the surviving parent has to be less absorbed with power-tool sales and more attentive to laundry and late-night cries and stretching food budgets.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve done in the same year both a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day sermon. I did the former while in Cuba, during my extra week there. I was the guest preacher at the Baptist church in Matanzas. As you may know, Mother’s Day in Spanish-speaking countries is usually a VERY BIG deal, usually celebrated with a good deal of (what for me is) sentimental music and poetry and LOTS of flowers and special cakes.

I began that sermon with a story about my brief career, during student days, as a bellboy working in a New York City hotel. I told about how I was tutored by an older Puerto Rican man, a lifelong veteran in the trade, who taught me how to recognize big tippers from stingy ones. I went on to say how I sometimes felt that Mother’s Day often felt like nothing but a “tip” to our mothers. I told them that in the U.S., Mother’s Day was founded originally as an anti-war protest, of mothers refusing to relinquish their sons to the gods of war. I mentioned that on my own birthday I usually call my Mom to wish her a happy giving-birth-day, because SHE was the one who did most of the work that day.

The text I read was the passage from Proverbs which describes the work of “Sophia,” the Wisdom figure in chapter 8, who was present with God at the dawn of creation—who parallels in Jewish Scripture the work of the Logos, of Christ, as depicted in the first verses of John’s Gospel. And I reminded them that the Hebrew word for “compassion” is the same word for a woman’s womb, such that the redemptive work of God is actually “wombish” work, that the Bible’s principle word for God’s saving character is an image we usually associate with the traditional characteristic of women.

I didn’t say, “You go girls!” But I did get a round of applause when I finished, something which the pastor said had never happened before.

Last night, at the conclusion of a welcome feast we threw for Jessica and Rich (and including Zach and Karen), Nancy gave me a book as a Father’s Day present. The title is Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson, who tells the story of an African-American man—a Vietnam Veteran—who in 1970 was brutally murdered, in broad daylight, in Oxford, N.C., north of the Raleigh-Durham area. You native Carolinians may know the story.

The gift, however, reminds me that today is also Juneteenth, a significant marker in African American history, particularly in Texas but increasingly in various parts of the country. (Nancy told that story earlier.)

If this isn’t enough, tomorrow, June 20, is World Refugee Day. I mention that because one of today’s lectionary texts, from Genesis 21, is the gut-wrenching story of when Abraham—ancestral father of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike—made a refugee of his own son, Ishmael, and Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, who was Sara’s servant girl, because of Sara’s (and maybe Abraham’s) anxiety over which child should inherit the family fortune.

It’s a pretty stunning collection of texts, if you think about it: When you combine Jesus’ slash-and-burn prediction that obedience to the Reign of God will provoke such familial conflict, and the story of child abandonment and abuse by Abraham and Sarah—not to mention exploitation of slaves—what a strange set of texts for Father’s Day! Makes you wonder what the “Family Values” crowd is doing with these passages!!

Then, on top of these anti-family value stories and statements, you pile on Jesus’ bizarre comment about bringing a “sword” instead of “peace” and Paul’s insistence that followers are to be “baptized into death.” “Losing” your life in order to “find” it sounds good as a mantra—you know, kind’a has that new-agey Zen feel to it.

But following such advice in real-life situations, and as a paradigm for Christian faith, you almost wonder if this is some kind of divine sadomasochistic scam: God loves it when we suffer.

So many texts, so little time. Seems to be more questions than answers here. Father’s Day, child abandonment, refugees, “hating” your mother and father” (as another Gospel account put it); shoved up against the context of the psalmist’s list of woes, of Jesus recommending losing one’s life in order to find it and Paul’s comment about being “buried with Jesus” and “baptized into death.”

What are we to do with this bloody chaos?

I won’t pretend to answer all the questions. I’m sure I don’t even know what all the questions are. But I do know that one thing is clear; and I am sure there are many significant parables right here in this Circle; and, finally, I have two specific recommendations to make.

The one thing I think is clear is that relinquishing our own lives for the sake of others—especially when the “other” is in no position to repay the debt—is the pivot point of our lives as followers of Jesus. Every father, every mother, knows this strange wisdom: we repeatedly forego on our comforts and desires and wishes in order to nurture the life of a child.

I remember a period of several months when Jessica was an infant. She woke up every morning at 5 a.m. with a dirty diaper. And Nancy and I took turns—before coffee, even before the sun reached the horizon—with our hands in the toilet rinsing a shitty cloth diaper. (Back in the old days, disposable diapers were an occasional luxury.)

We found the wherewithal to do that and countless other chores because of the memory of joy at Jessica’s conception, gestation and birth; and the anticipation of her developing into a full-grown woman. Such is the character of life: those with assets protect and nurture those without. Not for singled-out recognition or reward or debt repayment. That’s just how life—real life, spiritual life—is shaped.

That’s the one thing, above all others, that I’m clear about. And I remain clear about this in no small measure because I continue to learn it from those of you here in this Circle who practice this losing-life-to-find-it kind of faith.

Consider Amy and Tim and Sam and Bethany pressing beyond the boundary of security, reaching half-way around the world to embrace a foreign infant facing the deathly future prospect of orphans everywhere.

Consider Kiran and Mark, relinquishing the privileged income of Kiran’s private medical practice so she can work in public health, working with people who can't afford the ungodly cost of modern health care in the U.S. And before that, Mark’s willingness—and that of Greg and Terri, and Tom and Colleen as well—to abandon the upwardly-mobile dream of a two-income family to make sure their respective children have the kind of parental presence which money surely cannot buy.

Consider Greg Clemons’—and others at Mars Hill College—willingness to risk not just the cultural opposition but also their own careers to support the aspirations of gay students for full human recognition and respect.

Consider Anthony Martinez, who was inspired to organize a bake sale—not for his own profit but for the benefit of Doctors Without Borders. Or of Joy and Will who took the risk of traveling to the forbidden land of Cuba, crossing monumental political, cultural and language barriers—not to mention nearly 20 hours in airports and airplanes, plus 1,000 miles in a van (with a bunch of grownups, no less)—to make new friends. Or of Rachel Berthiaume’s daring risk of Peace Corps service in a far-away

Or consider Louis Parish’s bold gift. Louis, I know I’m breaking a confidence which you asked me to keep. I’m doing it not to give honor to you but to give honor to the Spirit who provokes outlandish generosity from us all. As you know, Louis is retired on a very modest income—much like many of us will be someday. Recently, though, he decided that the joy of supporting his passionate convictions for racial reconciliation was more important than economic security for the future, and he made what many would consider a foolishly large gift to the work of Christians for a United Community here in Asheville. (Having said that, I am now pledging you all to confidence about this. Louis has lived long enough to know that getting credit often gets in the way of getting results. So, after tonight, “mum’s the word.”)

I could go on and on with my list until every one of you, without exception, is a living parable of losing life in order to find it. I’m quite sure I don’t even know all the ways you have said “yes” to this invitation. And I’m equally sure none of us know all the invitations that will come to us in the coming days and years. We only know that they will be challenging, that they will be risky, but ultimately the will add to the reweaving of God’s good creation, that our efforts will contribute to the repair of the world, to “tikkun olam,” as it’s called in the Jewish tradition. And we know that in the process not only with the “other” be saved, but we, too, will be redeemed by the very process which animates and empowers our efforts.

Finally, my two recommendations. The first is brief and more general: I would love to see us have more explicit conversations about baptism: about what it means, about how we do it, about when we do it. Baptism is the central ritual act of the Christian tradition. Disagreements about this subject within the church make us weary, which makes us wary of even talking about it. I think it is a profoundly counter-cultural activity, one that is essential to our shaping our vision of how life is truly “found” when it is “lost.” I think everything we do is about baptism, because baptism is about identity.

My second recommendation is much more concrete and immediate, and it’s related to an appropriate way for us to celebrate Father’s Day.

Some of you probably saw Leslie Boyd’s Asheville Citizen-Times article on Friday about Helpmate, the Asheville agency that cares for and advocates on behalf of battered women. Leslie’s story noted two things in particular.

First, Helpmate is planning next year to provide public recognition to men who publicly support victims of domestic violence. And they’re wanting your recommendations for who should receive such awards.

Second, they are resurrecting an idea, first proposed a dozen years ago, of asking 1,000 men to donate $20 to support Helpmate’s modest budget.

To close this sermon, I am urging all the men in our Circle to join me in accepting this challenge. Furthermore, I am planning to take a recommendation to our Church Council that the Circle of Mercy, via our missions budget, match the total amount pledged by us men.  (If you support, or have questions about this proposal, I encourage you to communicate with Marc Mullinax, our church moderator. If approved, the Council will bring this recommendation to our Circle for discussion and action.)

Sisters and brothers—but, on this Father’s Day, especially my brothers—this is the Gospel message: The grace of God is not a particular religious emotion. Rather, grace is the power that unlocks our stingy hearts and self-preserving habits, provoking us to find creative, imaginative ways—however small and ordinary, however large and extraordinary—to “lose” our lives for Jesus’ sake . . . which is to say for the sake of those he most clearly identified with in his brief journey on the earth: for the sake of all who are bruised and battered and broken, who have no place at the table, those for whom our political, social, cultural and economic institutions have no use.

The central calling of this fellowship of faith is not to take intelligent social and political stands . . . though we do that from time to time. Our central calling is not to do social service . . . though we do that occasionally. Our central calling isn’t even to nurture strong bonds of friendship among us here in this Circle . . . though we obviously spend time doing that.

No, our central calling is to introduce people to the new orientation which baptism signifies. Our mission is to coax each other—and the larger world—to remain open to the kind of grace which empowers us to extravagant living, grace which calms our fearful hearts and exaggerated security needs and introduces us to the vision of the coming new order whose promises are known to us the Reign of God.

Brothers and sisters, power tools are nice. When I do stone work I still mix mortar by hand, which is a backbreaking job. So someday I’d like to get a concrete mixer.

But the tools of power most effective in the world’s redemption are lives buried with Christ, baptized into the same mission and purpose as Jesus, confident of the final defeat of Satan—of the dominion of sin and violence—and the coming of the Reign of God, of a new dominion of justice and mercy and peace.

May it be so. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

God and stuff

Lawnmowers, banking boodle, and the Spirit’s traffic in human affairs

by Ken Sehested

       While the nation’s eyes were recently glued to the former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, the House of Representatives quietly passed the Financial Choice Act which rolls back much of the 2010 Frank-Dodd Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, enacted to prevent another round of reckless behavior by banks and other major financial institutions that created the Great Recession of 2007.

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“For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan . . . and they do not defend the rights of the needy.” —Jeremiah 5:26-28

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       More on the Financial Choice Act below, but first . . .

       I nearly cried this afternoon, pushing my old mower to the curb, with a “FREE” sign taped to the handle. I was happy that by the time lunch was finished, someone had already swept it up in their arms. (That’s the way I image it.) At least a few parts may live on. I’m not positive of its age, but at least 23 mowing seasons—every year, until last, firing up on the first pull of the spring. Duct tape secured the gas tank; the carriage had a serious crack; tread completely worn off the wobbly wheels; metal so corroded that I had to use a putty knife to scour its underbelly of sweet-breathed layers of grassy-weed residue after each mow.

       I like old things, and not just because I’m on Medicare’s tab. I still remember my first pair of “Sunday” shoes, the stiff-leather kind that takes hours of wear before they no longer torture your feet. And since I only wore them on Sundays, that took months.

       Having steered all my autos to their last lap, I regretted every parting, and still remember each by their assigned nickname. I buried a favorite pair of hiking boots in the high desert surrounding Ghost Ranch in New Mexico—they were already limped and came completely undone before week’s end. I could not bear to lay them in the trash as so much litter.

       It’s an odd habit, I know, to treat mere stuff with such affection. But I’m not embarrassed in doing so. My 22-year-old Roper boots have cracks, but still shine up like a fine mirror.

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The US has the 4th highest degree of wealth inequality, behind Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.[1]

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       “Let’s cut to the chase,” Sen. Al Franken said in a statement this week about the House of Representatives’ stealth approval (by partisan majority, a lone Republican voted nay) of the Financial Choice Act. “This is a straight out giveaway to Wall Street bigwigs, bankers, and firms, who are salivating over the opportunity to once again gamble with hard-working Americans' money without fear of repercussion.”[2]

       Ever wonder why no one in Congress ever speaks up on behalf of easy-earned money? Me neither. But that’s what this bill is about.

       The majority of citizens still feel the pinch of the financial meltdown that began in 2007; but the dip was short-lived for a few. The nation’s biggest banks hit new profit levels in 2016, the third such records in the last four years.[3]

       Over the course of the Great Recession, nearly $13 trillion[4] disappeared.[5] Eight million lost their jobs. Nearly four million homes were foreclosed. Median household wealth fell 35%. Two-and-a-half million businesses went under. Income inequality reached its widest margin since the Great Depression of 1929, with 95% of the economic recovery since then going to 1% of earners.[6]

       Can you guess how many captains of finance were convicted of maybe of the largest thefts in history? That would be 00,000,000,000,000.00. Shoplifters fare worse.

       In a 2006 speech to academic economists, Berkshire Hathaway holding company partner Charlie Munger rhetorically asked “Is there a functional equivalent to embezzlement?”, commenting on the all-too-common habits of investment firms and financial advisors who take risks that would shock horse race bookies.[7] “You can see why I don’t get invited to many lectures,” he admitted.

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“We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth in a few hands, but we can not have both.” —former US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

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       After the Wall Street frenzy unraveled the nation’s (and, nearly, the globe’s) economy, Congress approved a bundle of new regulations known in abbreviated form as the Dodd-Frank bill, meant to forestall financial institutions from gambling with the public’s money. The Financial Choice Act,[8] if approved by the Senate, would remove most of the Dodd-Frank bridle from the scavengers’ mouths.

       Of particular significance, the work of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) would be threatened—if not its existence, at least its independence. That’s the agency that receives, on average, 25,000 complaints each month about banks, credit card issuers, mortgage lends, student loan servicers and other financial productions’ fraudulent practices. Since the end of the Great Recession, the CFPB has returned nearly $12 billion to an estimated 29 million consumers defrauded by financial institutions.[9]

       You don’t need a long memory to recognize the CFPB’s value. Remember the Wells Fargo Bank scam brought to light in 2016, when over the course of five years the bank’s employees “created more than 1.5 million sham checking accounts and applied for 565,000 credit cards, using customer names and money. Customers were charged unnecessary fees, saw their credit scores fall or were simply confused when debit and credit cards they never asked for showed up in the mail.” In fact, as early as 2002 the company’s own internal auditor reported a spike in what they called “sales integrity” cases. The system gaming was truly systematic and longstanding, not the sudden onset of an evil design by a few rogue operatives.[10] The deceit was in the blood.

       Wells Fargo was fined $185 million, the largest such penalty in banking history. But given the bank’s 2015 profit of $22.9 billion, the fine was more of a nuisance than a penance.

       The year before the Wells Fargo disclosure, the CFPB caught Citibank defrauding its credit card customers by charging for benefits they didn’t receive. There’s much more, but enough for now.

       A January survey by Consumer Reports revealed that two-thirds of respondents doubt that banks and other financial institutions can be trusted.[11] Not for no reason: The House’s new bill would roll back the “fiduciary rule” which requires financial advisors to act in the best interests of their clients(!), as opposed to steering said clients to investment plans that create larger fees for brokers and advisors.

       Thankfully, the Financial Choice Act will likely be reconfigured in the Senate, much as will the House’s American Health Care Act. But don’t get your hopes up, for we are in a political and financial climate that upholds the rule of gold: If you can get it, you should get it—and you deserve getting it. It’s not a con if you don't get caught.

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"Now as through this world I ramble / I see lots of funny men / Some rob you with a six gun / And some with a fountain pen."  —Woody Guthrie lyrics in "Pretty Boy Floyd"

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       Just as Trump is not responsible for, but is reflective of, our current political maelstrom, the financial debauchery of recent years is not an overnight phenomenon. It’s been there from our beginning, at least as fall back as John Locke’s considerable influence on our founding culture.

       In the words of political philosopher C.B. Macpherson’s seminal book, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, it was Locke, the 17th century philosopher, who asserted “the individual right of appropriation overrides any moral claims of the society. . . . [Locke] has erased the moral disability with which unlimited appropriation had hitherto been handicapped,” justifying “as natural, a class differential in rights and in rationality, and by doing so provides a positive moral basis for capitalist society.”[12]

       Locke’s was a “prosperity gospel” before the phrase was coined, and it was embedded not in divine right but, secularly, in the nature of reality itself. He can be said to be modernity’s most brilliant defender of Mammon and a society’s political economy stripped of all transcending bounds and covenant bonds. Wealth, in his vision, is simply bracketed from moral interrogation. And Mammon’s modern spelling in Market.

       Not even Adam Smith, the 18th century philosopher considered the founder of classical free market economics, shared Locke’s optimism of human rationality. He knew that “free” markets could be dominated by a small class of financial vigilantes and required a larger regulatory climate—social, moral, as well as legal—to stem the rule of gold, writing

       “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from merchants and manufacturers should always be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined with the most suspicious attention."[13]

       I never cease to be amazed, throughout my entire career as an itinerant preacher and organizer within the faith community, at how few people recognize that our nation’s political aspirations are often in conflict with our economic interests. It was Jesus—millennia before Karl Marx posited the primacy of economics in human behavior—who said that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).

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“Whoever has the power to alleviate this evil, but deliberately opts for profit by it, should be condemned as a murderer.”  —Basil of Caesarea, 4th century bishop in Cappadocia (in modern-day Turkey), speaking of wealthy landowners who hoard their stockpiles of grain, then sell at inflated prices during a famine

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       “We do not believe that the God we know will have to do with things,” theologian James McClendon wrote in the first volume of his Systemic Theology.[14] “Yet this biblical materialism is the very fiber of which the first strand of Christian ethics is formed.”

       More plainly spoken: God loves stuff.

       Do you remember the advice Screwtape gave to Wormwood in C.S. Lewis' devotional classic, Screwtape Letters? In discussing the case of one particular human that Wormwood is attempting to subvert, Screwtape—the Satan-like central character of the book—offers this bit of advice to Wormwood, his disciple:

       "It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual,' that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism."

       In Scripture, “spiritual” reality is not segregated from “material” reality. Rather, spiritual reality is the descriptive account of the ordering of the material. “Righteousness” and “justice” are organically connected, in the same way that “wickedness” and “injustice” are twins. God breaks the bows of the mighty and lifts the poor from the dust was at the core of Hannah’s hallelujah (1 Samuel 2); and in similar fashion, Mary’s hymn of spiritual praise entails the dethronement of the mighty and feasts for the hungry (Luke 1).

       God, we are shocked to learn, takes sides. In the evocative words of Clarence Jordan, “God is not in heaven and all's well on the earth. God is on this earth and all hell's broke loose!”

       The ordering of earth’s wealth is reflective of earth’s health. Hell breaks loose whenever embezzlement breaks out. Or as the Zimbabwean proverb puts it, “When there is something wrong in the forest, there is something wrong in society.”

       No topic in the Bible gets more persistent (not to mention inflamed) attention than the pattern and structure and framework of equitable sharing of the earth’s bounty—which is itself not merely the happenstance of Creation but the very countenance of God’s presence among us.

       When you stick it to your neighbor, you’re sticking it to the Abba of Jesus. When you shorten the breath of those on the margin, you are simultaneously constricting the Breath of the Spirit in your own lungs. In vivid Pauline language, greed is synonymous with idolatry (Colossians 3:5); when your belly (e.g., your desires, your security demands) becomes your god, you are the “enemy of the cross” (Philippians 3:18-19). I can assure you, those texts are never read in White House prayer breakfasts.

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“Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.” —Japanese proverb

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       Among the urgent callings of the church—arguably, the most important—is to undermine the moral legitimacy of gangster capitalism; to reaffirm the Golden Rule’s primacy over the rule of gold; to mock what my friend Andy Loving calls "the god of fiduciary responsibility" (maximization of profit without reference to any other values). What is urgently needed is clarifying what’s at stake—that such matters are not just “politics” but questions of apostasy versus covenant faithfulness.

       I dare say this is at the heart of worship, for worship is the context of deciding worth. More than proper ritual etiquette and pious declaration, worship involves the discernment of whose promises and purposes are trustworthy. Who, finally, holds the future, regardless of current evidence? On whose provision dare we bet our assets.

       I wish I could say there are reasons for optimism in our current climate. But, alas, we are immersed in a political tradition that mocks Scripture’s insistent warning: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth’” (Deuteronomy 8:17). To proclaim "America first" is not only diplomatic folly and a threat to democratic legacy. It is heresy.

       Pessimism, however, is no reason to abandon hope. “Thing are not getting worse,” counsels the poet adrienne maree brown. “Things are getting uncovered.” Hard times draw us onto fertile ground whereby visionary insurrection is birthed. The One whom we adore has a marked ability to roll away the tomb’s seal, even those within the empire’s cemetery.

       Stuff matters. This is the meaning of the Incarnation, our most unique theological affirmation. The Spirit traffics in human affairs. If God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven, so then should we.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Endnotes

[1] http://inequalityforall.com/fact-4/

[2] https://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=3717

[3] http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/03/investing/bank-profits-record-high-dodd-frank/index.html

[4] Having a hard time imaging a trillion of anything? Maybe this will help: A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is not quite 32 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

[5] https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/costofwallstreetcollapse09122012/

[6] http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/about/news/2014/IPR-research-Great-Recession-unemployment-foreclosures-safety-net-fertility-public-opinion.html

[7] http://www.businesspundit.com/we-make-money-the-old-fashioned-way-confidence-work/

[8] “Choice” being one synonym of “freedom,” as in “everyone is free to check in to Trump Hotel in New York city.” Whenever “freedom” is mentioned, the discerning listener should always ask “free for whom?”

[9] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-assault-on-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-may-succeed/

[10] http://www.businessinsider.com/cutthroat-sales-culture-wells-fargo-vanity-fair-2017-5

[11] http://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-financial-protection-bureau/why-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-is-in-danger/

[12] Quoted in Walter Brueggemann, Money and Possessions in the Bible. Westminster John Knox, 2016, p. 210.

[13] The Wealth of Nations: Book IV Chapter VIII, p. 145, paras. c29-30.

[14] James William McClendon Jr., Ethics, Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1986, p.91

Growing in Authority, Relinquishing Control

Celia Hahn, 1994, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Hahn’s book is 20+ years old but this reflection on the kinds of leadership required in the church was useful to me halfway through a 20-year pastoral assignment and now at the end of a part-time interim pastorate that called for an initial two months and has now extended to over ten years. While Hahn reflects biblical, theological and psychological perspectives, her major contribution lies in her reliance on concrete experiences and parish interview responses.

        Hahn identifies four sources of authority (authority: ‘the permission and/or obligation to act/, p 7): authority is given and therefore received; authority is an inner awareness of calling; authority is a personal assertion; authority comes from many sources integrated, and from G-d (pp 8-10). She names this ‘integrated authority’: a meeting of person, context, initiative and the transcendent’ (p 10).

        Authority is not a control mechanism; it is a gift for the community, not a personal possession to be employed for personal benefit. Integrated authority is ‘integration’, the mediation of expectations; it belongs to G-d; it doesn’t depend on control; it does not practise hierarchy; it honours the freedom of others. Integrated leaders invite others’ authority to be exercised: start with the people where they are; refuse to be others’ authority (during a real game the coach retreats to the sidelines); people are equal; others’ gifts, partnership and authority are invited. (The early church by the fourth century had forsaken Jesus’ vision of integrated authority and slipped back under control mechanisms: authority evolved into a bureaucracy.

        Hahn points out the contributions of metaphors (eg the church as a colony of heaven, the body of Christ, servanthood).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism.

John Rempel, 1993, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        The World Council of Churches’ Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982) brought communion to the ecumenical fore, especially with the Anabaptist emphasis in the 16th century. “The eucharist is the pinnacle of the communion of the church and the Christian, yet its transcendent reality is affected by the rudimentary elements of earthly existence, bread and wine. . . . The eucharist forces us to think about communion with a spirit, unbounded in any way yet mediated by the earthbound elements of natural existence” (p. 25). “In Jesus G-d took flesh.” Rempel explores how the doctrine of the eucharist was developed by each of three radical reformers: Marpeck, Hubmaier, Dirk, keeping a balance between sacramentalism and spiritualism, being more than just an act of remembrance.

        Rempel stresses the commonalities of the three theologians: Christian life is primarily a life of relationship with G-d, i.e., a visible expression; connection between spiritual and material dimensions; the gospel of John was their major gospel; holding together faith and Spirit (Trinitarian emphasis) (pp. 199-201).

        Rempel also summarizes four contemporary Anabaptist theologians: J.C. Wenger, Gordon Kaufman, Robert Friedmann and Thomas Finger. Key quotations focus the issue. “The community’s action of sharing bread and wine is transformed into a sharing of the body and blood of Christ” (p. 222). Rempel regrets that for Anabaptists the Lord’s Supper has all to often been an isolated point of doctrine. Anabaptist ecumenical theology emphasizes the Lord’s Supper as reconciliation with G-d and with each other, a sense of community and mission.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet

David Rhoads (ed), 2007, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        ‘The degradation of nature is not a problem with a short-term solution…. The ecological crisis is a spiritual crisis…. Most of us no longer have a sense of belonging to the earth, an experience of solidarity with plants and animals, such that we deeply desire for all forms of life to thrive along with us.’ (p xiv) With this as the prompting issue, Earth and Word presents a spectrum of sermons that force us to look again at the bible and its message to and for us. There’s a richness in the spectrum of presentations here; virtually none of the ‘sermons’ are superfluous: Wendell Berry (‘Christianity and the Survival of Creation’), Ted Hiebert (‘First Things First’), Cynthia Moe-Lobeda (‘Dry Bones’), Larry Rassmussen (‘First and Everlasting Covenant’), Rosemary Radford Ruether (‘The biblical vision of Eco-Justice), Joseph Sittler (‘The Care of the Earth), Barbara Brown Taylor (‘Rest for the Land’), to name only a few entries.

        It is impossible to summarize the riches of these sermons, but typical is Ched Myers’ ‘The Cedar has fallen: the Prophetic Word versus Imperial Clear-Cutting’; Myers traces the ecological disaster of the clear cutting of Lebanon’s cedars with a moving litany from the bible itself, with the political implications (‘there was blood on the cedars that figured so prominently in Solomon’s temple and his own royal house’ (p 217), the cedars a metaphor for empire itself. ‘The bible takes sides on behalf of the trees’ (p 222).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Prophecy Without Contempt

Cathleen Kaveny, Harvard UP, 2016, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Moral differences (on issues such as abortion, capital punishment, immigration and civil rights) make it difficult to seek the common good. The western world has been influenced by the examples of its Jewish-Christian past where the Hebrew prophets were seen as pointing to the identifying and seeking to correct social evils. In our pluralistic society, the prophetic method employs ‘the fiery rhetoric of indictment.

        These Jeremiads (identifying Jeremiah’s fiery denunciations) have been a major influence on public discourses (Martin Luther King Jr who used prophetic rhetoric to facilitate reform and reconciliation rather than revenge.’ True prophets believe they must do as G-d commands and condemn the practices G-d tells them to condemn’ (p 8). But is it possible to incorporate a lively sense of humility into the practice of the jeremiad?”(p 9).

        'The greatest danger associated with the practice of prophetic indictment is arrogance [and Kaveny] uses Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address for insight about how to combine a strong commitment to combating social evil with a vivid sense of the inadequacy of one’s own grasp of divine plans for dealing with that evil. [Lincoln] offers a lesson on how modern day jeremiads might integrate self criticism into their thought and speech.’ (p 9). Kaveny does a fascinating study of Jonah as one reminder to those who issue prophetic indictments when they know so little about G-d’s plan….and that the biblical tradition offers ample room for the cultivation of humility and self criticism’ (p 10).

        Kaveny’s is a wonderful treatment that calls on jeremiahs to differentiate between ‘contempt’ and ‘condemn’ as we function in our pluralistic society. ‘The virtue of humility will become an increasingly important quality for those who want to deploy prophetic rhetoric successfully’ (p 421).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

In Search of the Good Life

Rebecca Peters, Continuum, 2004, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Globalization has a mixed press. One version lauds its success as technology draws the world closer together; another blames globalization for destroying cultures, promoting the dependency of ‘developing’ countries, and decimating the environment. We make decisions that have remarkable ramifications regarding the shape of commerce, labour and culture. What we buy and where we buy it are important ethical choices that affect the pathways that globalization will take in our world (p 3).

        Peters writes from a convinced Christian theological perspective; ’the bible remains a critical foundational resource….a living document to how G-d is calling humanity to live in the face of a changing world’ (p 19), eg what is the telos of human life? (p 25), what constitutes human flourishing? (p 28). The answer? To strive for social justice for the entire earth community! She critiques these perspectives from a reformed feminist liberationist epistemology.

        Peters sketches four theories of globalization: growth (neoclassical economics a la Adam Smith and David Ricardo, self-proclaimed value free; social development, with agencies, institutions and non-governmental organizations holding to common assumptions of how development of the two-thirds world should take place; ‘earthism’, taking earth’s care and redemption seriously; post colonialism, groups and coalitions working to ‘effect transformative social change in their settings’ (p 140). We need to rebuild community, whichever of the models of globalization we commit to.

        This is an insightful treatment of economic options; our values shape and inform our decision making, ‘making sure that we envision a future that offers justice for all of G-d’s creation’ (p 208).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Disturbing Divine Behaviour: Troubling Old Testament Images of G-d

Eric Seibert, Fortress, 2009, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        ‘The Israelites found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And the LORD told Moses to kill the man; all the people were to stone him. (Nu 15:32-36) A rather stiff penalty for gathering sticks on the Sabbath

        Seibert looks at stories in the common scriptures (=Old Testament) that show G-d as a hostile, tyrannical being: patriarchal, genocidal (the Canaanites, the Amalakites; Joshua 6-11, Genesis 22, 1 Samuel 15); there is tension in using the bible as a resource for peacemaking when G-d’s actions are an obstacle in this regard (p 7). Seibert develops a framework that allows the careful reader to reject certain common scripture portrayals as unworthy of G-d without recording the passages in which they reside as theologically useless’ (p 12).

        Seibert provides two appendices: how to deal with Jesus’ comments about end time divine violence, and the inspiration and authority of scriptures (pp 243-261). The bile is not a flat book; there are glaring differences of level of religious awareness. He develops two notions: a dual hermeneutic (‘to resist harmful aspects of a text while appreciating those aspects that are helpful (p 212), and the textual G-d (the difference between the textual G-d and the actual G-d, p 170). ‘All portrayals of G-d should be brought into conversation with the G-d Jesus reveals…. This is not a cheap reductionism but careful complementarian probing.

        A wonderful book for peace theology.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

In Praise of Mixed Religion: the Syncretism Solution in a Multi-faith world

William Harrison, McGill-Queens, 2014 reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Harrison believes religions should engage in syncretism, the blending of religion, incorporating wisdom from one religion into another. Syncretism can bend to creative transformation in many fields—religious, practical, ethical, ecological and political. He gives several examples where syncretism was a good phenomenon and when the opposite was evident. Eg, synchretism is a helpful description when religions grow, a strength that comes from the melding of viewpoints.

        Christianity has grown and developed by incorporating insights and rituals from traditions as diverse as Judaism, Greek and Roman thought and European folk religions’ (p 7). We all live in mixed religious contexts—no amount of historical digging will enable us to reach some sort of pure religious uninfluenced by other traditions’ (p 17).

        Syncretism is a good thing when particular statements are more consistent with the data, when the new statement is genuinely helpful in our world, when it sustains and even expands some important part of the religious convert. He points out that synchronicity of Buddhism and Taoism (p 97), of Islam and Greek thought (p l06), Christianity and the ancient Celtic forms (p 115-124). (Here he makes a sad mistake: it was Theodosius, not Constantine, who made Christianity the empire’s official religion (p 117). An example where syncretism has not been helpful is in the prosperity gospel, a syncretism that emphasizes self interest over communal interest (p 131).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

St Paul: the Apostle We Love To Hate

Karen Armstrong, Amazon Publishing, 2015, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Armstrong’s book is not a theology of Pauline thought but a biographical treatment of key events in his life that affected his theology and related to the historical issues of his social experiences. Eg, what were the major issues in Antioch? In Corinth (especially)?

        Armstrong’s attention to the biographical details of Paul’s work helps us to see better what personal issues focused on matters of faith. It is a sketch of early church life. Paul was a diasporan Jew; of the 13 letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament, seven are usually seen as authentically Pauline, while the remaining six tried to reduce Paul’s radical teachings to make them more acceptable to the Greco-Roman world.

        These later writers insisted on women’s subservience to men, on slaves being obedient to masters, and spiritualized Pal’s concept of the power and principalities (p 13). But Paul’s radical stance remains on some issues that are relevant today. One, he was an opponent of the structural injustice of the Roman Empire. Two, he tried to transcend barriers of ethnicity, class and gender (pp 13,14). I found Armstrong’s chapter dealing with the Corinthian opposition particularly helpful in understanding what early ecclesial life was like.

        Paul’s passionate identification with the poor is unheeded by those Christians who preach the Prosperity Gospel. His determination to eradicate the ethnic and cultural prejudices that divide us from one another, his rejection of boasting based on a spurious sense of privilege. We would do well to heed Paul’s warning to the ‘strong’ who intimidate the weak with their overbearing certainty (cf Kaveny’s Prophecy Without Contempt).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.