Making Room for Our Enemies and Everyone Else (a sermon)

          At first glance, the choice of scripture for this conference of clergypersons might seem a bit like wishful thinking. For the most part, the United Methodist Church is not bringing in new souls on a daily basis. Unlike the very early Jesus Movement, new members are not joining steadily as the Risen Christ’s followers did, as described by the gentile doctor Luke:  they were worshipping together daily in the Jewish temple and enacting the Eucharist meal in members’ homes. Surely they had a harder time “making room” for hungry new converts in small Middle Eastern dining rooms than we do in our churches. (How do you get congregants to fill in the seats closer to the front, anyway?). Much of our budgetary, program, and worship planning is infused with wishes for more members.

          However, we do not read the Bible literally. We are not envious of the salad days of Christianity; rather, we are in awe that such a huge spiritual movement sprang from a small, embattled minority of the Roman Empire. Amazingly, it jumped from some messianic factions of Jews to various communities throughout the Mediterranean, prevailed against the no-nonsense Romans until it emerged from within as the triumphal leader of the Holy Roman Empire. Clearly, the ancient Hellenistic world was ready for monotheism. I ask the following question not because I have any answers, but, What inspiration are we, located in the current world’s center of power, ready for?

            We do try to apply Acts 4:26-27 semi-literally. There are some thriving house churches and many Wesleyan-style group meetings. We have a long, convivial tradition of pitch-in dinners. My own church organizes home-based dinners that place people together who might not know each other well. Although they sometimes degenerate into 2^nd- or 3^rd-hand gossip-fests, these dinners have helped to create strong, lifelong bonds. Together we bemoan the devastation caused by deer in our gardens, much as the early Christians bemoaned Roman occupation. Well, kind of.

           However, if Acts 4:26-27 is not read literally we do have much in common with the early Christians. Just as the early Christians were worshipping and communing together in house churches in the wake of the original Pentecost, we meet here today in the time following our celebration of Pentecost, a yearly reminder of the Spirit of God who joins us in holy love. For all of us, early as well as contemporary Christians, Pentecost caps off the Christ-oriented Easter season with a supremely Trinitarian emphasis. God is with us three-dimensionally, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. From the beginning, from modest home-based re-enactments of the Final Supper to stylized, high-church, liturgically rich Eucharist ceremonies we all celebrate God’s work in us and throughout history, remember Christ’s sacrifice and wonder at our inclusion in God’s kingdom, and revel in the Spirit’s fellowship that sanctifies and heartens us to be God’s hands in the world.    

          Modern theologian from Bosnia Miroslav Volf (whose book Exclusion and Embrace I am actually reading) recalls the early Christian concept of perichoresis in discussing the action of the Trinity. I picture perichoresis like an eternal, spherical, multicolored Maypole dance, with the three persons of the Trinity intertwining in perfect harmony and sequence, continually creating beauty for God’s dearly loved earth. It’s a pretty picture of divinity, but as theologians have commented, what does perichoresis tell us about how to act? What is the ethical value of perichoresis? Volf provides a compelling explanation of our involvement in divine perichoresis. Volf says,

“Humanity is, however, not just the other of God, but the beloved other who has become an enemy. When God sets out to embrace the enemy, the result is the cross. On the cross the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy; in the agony of the passion the movement stops for a brief moment and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in [see John 17:21]….Having been embraced by God, we must make space for others in ourselves and invite them in—even our enemies.”  

There is so much packed into this quote that I’ll interpret his words, and then read them again. Volf envisions God proceeding in the ongoing Trinitarian dance of perichoresis, but God wishes to include us, even though we’ve estranged ourselves from God. Inevitably, Christ’s earthly journey ends at the cross, which becomes the site where God cracks open a space for us. In response to God’s grace we must also make space for those who are our enemies. [Repeat Volf quote.]    

          Perhaps you’ve recognized the very theme of the 2012 Conference, “Making Room,” in Volf’s words. God makes space for us, so we must make space for others. As Volf puts it, “we must make space for others in ourselves and invite them in—even our enemies.” Two things are important here: one, that we make space in ourselves, and two, that we make space for our enemies. Starting with the early Christians, who had to learn the lesson that tax-collectors, Samaritans, and prostitutes, not to mention uncircumcised gentiles, are welcome, all Christians are challenged to make room in our own narrow worldviews for the other. For the enemy, even.

          Who is the enemy? Certainly we each have our nemeses, bullies from our childhoods we’ve managed to love in retrospect, or rivals who have gotten too far under our skin. We struggle to deal fairly with opponents who endorse or commit actions we find politically, ideologically, or physically reprehensible. But we identify these enemies individually. What about the ones selected for us by society, whom we may not harbor personal resentment against? What about the scapegoats (historically our most recent immigrants), or the unemployed purveyors of black-market goods, or the least-mainstream-behaving people? We have to consider these “enemies” as people who need to be loved, defended, and included, as we are all included in God’s love. However, loving unconditionally is really hard, since our natural inclination is to hold out love as a condition for a change in behavior. Even harder is maintaining Christian humility in the face of defiant self-defense. It’s very difficult to resist the upwelling of self-righteousness, as we all know. Conflicts do get personal, and enemies don’t always want to be redeemed on our terms.

          Consider the “enemy” Muslim. Our country is at war against people who define themselves principally as Muslims, and we’ve already incurred over one hundred thousand civilian causalities. Our government has stretched the limits of laws protecting citizen privacy, strenuousness of interrogation, and public trials, mostly in reaction to the vile behavior of a small percentage of Muslims. The majority of American Muslims live unobtrusively, unwilling to protest the wars in the Middle East for fear of association with the extremists. These traditional enemies of the Christian faith, these infidels, don’t even want to be “saved” in our Christian manner. Imagine making room for them!

          I do, in fact, make room in my living room for the prayer rugs of Muslim family members. I make space in my budget and schedule to cook extra food that is ready for them to eat at precisely sunset every day during the month of Ramadan. I’ve made room in my heart for these family members on their own terms, not without some interreligious tension—but I certainly haven’t resolved the overriding issues of loving societal enemies. Let my experience be one small example of a few socially maligned enemies humanized by interpersonal bonding.

          Actually, interpersonal bonding can go a long way. It can be the basis for interfaith dialogue and action, which can unite people across faiths, and even bring out the best in members of each tradition. Our scripture for the conference makes a wonderful model for interfaith relations, for it demonstrates people inviting others into the fold with glad hospitality.

 And, if we’ve succeeded in welcoming former enemies into fellowship, how much simpler is it to welcome other Christians ecumenically? How about genuine United Methodists from across the world?

True story: Here is where I took a break to walk the dogs and assess where this sermon was headed. As I started out in the neighborhood with my parents I mused aloud whether the point of loving one’s neighbor is to expand our ability to be inclusive, so that people already defined as brethren would be that much easier to accept. Neat trick, God, getting us to embrace United Methodists in Africa and Asia even more readily than we accept the Presbyterians across the street. But one drawback to this conclusion is the danger of ranking people by degree of enemy-ness.  

          I also wondered aloud if I really want to endorse Miroslav Volf’s heavy emphasis on our guilt in becoming enemies of God, and the associated burden of gratitude requiring us to love our own enemies. My parents agreed that those are interesting issues, then changed the subject (conversations with me can be too weighty for a daily dog walk). When we got about three blocks from home some beautiful, giant raindrops began to fall, and before long we were getting soaked. As we stood under a big tree getting more soaked the thunder kicked in, the dogs whined and squirmed, the rain fell in sheets, and we could tell this was more than a short cloudburst. When we thought we were as wet as we could get, we struck out, wading across the flash-flooded street with our clothes slapping against our skin. We made it home wet to the bone, but not before my dog made a stop that had to be scooped up. During my ill-advised shower (the thunder seemed to be receding) I decided that I would take this downpour as a sign for my sermon.

          Some might take it as a stern warning against dragging the theology so deep into our human culpability. If I’d only heard the storm from the safety of home I might’ve taken it that way, but I was actually out in it getting drenched. Therefore, I must recognize that I am implicated in this “enemy” situation. Although Volf does NOT invoke guilt and sin in traditional ways, our liability could stand some updating from the original-sin era. Let me be clear: we are continually estranging ourselves from God, every time we create an enemy. Whether we behave as enemies towards individuals or groups, whether it is an isolated affront or an ongoing action by a group of which we are a part, even our nation, we must work to recognize and change our own enemy behaviors through Christian love. Enemies are not simple givens, or fixed in the past, but are also created and upheld by well meaning people like us, intentionally or not.   

          This is not meant to heap even more guilt on us, but rather to help us see our active role in defining who our enemies are, which frees us to circumvent the whole reactive cycle. Metaphorically eliminating the log in our own eyes would surely “make room” for more loving inclusiveness of others. We know in our souls that God is constantly and unconditionally making room for us to live in God’s embrace, and we are inspired to share this joy with everyone who God loves: that is, everyone.        

         

              

             

  

                      

Is Extolling Humility Oxymoronic?

          My adult sons were ribbing me at our weekly lunch out together. One said, “It’s the best website on humility out there,” and another said, “She’s the most modest person you’ll ever meet.” One of them had picked up on the tacit joke in one of my early blog posts: there’s a proud history to Christian humility. Really, how can I highlight humility with humility? Isn’t drawing attention to it kind of the opposite of humble?

          Like all virtues (the topic I studied last fall in a class on virtue ethics), if it is examined too closely it disintegrates into hypocrisy or idiosyncrasy. It’s like Ferris Bueller’s friend staring more and more deeply into the pointillist painting of the park, until the picture becomes dots and the dots mean nothing. The way to avoid this effect is to---and I’m getting this from Aristotle---examine the virtue in action rather than isolate it from experience.

          Now, if you saw me this morning on the sidewalk in Hokkaido waiting hopelessly for the crosswalk light because I didn’t see or understand the instructions for requesting the signal, you might say I’m just clueless, not humble in the pure, penitent sense. While truly humble people probably don’t strive to be among the cognoscenti, just being perpetually out of the loop doesn’t mean I’m humble. I could be resentfully oblivious, for example, although I’m usually not.

          In my case, a virtue that I hold as important has been tested by cross-cultural relations for a very long time. Some might say I border on martyrdom, unnecessarily. However, rather than give up attempting to enact this virtue, I’ve decided to advocate for it, here in this blog. One could say I exemplify humility with “edge,” if that’s even possible.

          I’m here to say that humility is hugely important and needed now more than ever.

          But don’t take my word for it (as Levar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow), hear it from Utne Reader editor David Schimke (Nov-Dec 2011):

“Where are today’s pure hearts?

The answer is that they are all around us. They are the everyday citizens, academics, artists, and activists who eschew empty promises and choose instead to take action. They walk their talk, no matter how many landmines litter the long journey. They tell the truth, even when a little white lie would make things easier in the short term. They are passionate and open-minded, opinionated and humble.”

Muslim Cats and Dirty Dogs

Evidently the Prophet Muhammad was a cat person, because cats are allowed to "assist" in praying...

However, dog saliva is considered dirty, so my dogs are relegated to live in the shed and garage. There is a silver lining: Conscientiously spending time with the dogs results in my only exercise, a 40-minute-average dog walk every day.

Bonding Across Difference (Theory)

Frankly, I was watching the white American dad in front of me as much as the guest speaker. The dad had really short hair, which could’ve just been the family’s way of saving on haircuts, by keeping them less frequent, but had the effect of giving the man a military look. Also, he could’ve been worried about taxes or anything else, but I was struck by how uptight he looked at the beginning of the talk. His preteen daughter looked at his face anxiously from time to time.        

          The speaker was a professor of geography at the local university. His emphasis on his American identity began as he mentioned that before his time here, before his years at other American schools, he was originally from Bangladesh. In fact, although his qualifications to speak about Islam to a group of United Methodist confirmation pupils and their parents spring from his recent tenure as president of the town mosque, he and our pastor both emphasized his connection to her as a baseball parent. She and his wife had worked concessions together, a sure sign of American camaraderie.

          Their social sameness strategy was wise, because this affable religious leader is savvy to how contemporary theory emphasizes difference. After he’d waded into the broad outlines in his Introduction to Islam he announced that he’d be discussing how Islam is different from Christianity, instead of dwelling on their similarities. The father stiffened even more.

          Difference theory erupts all over, unconsciously spreading across fields and originating in post-existential continental postmodernism theories. One version of difference theory would say that there are no ultimate universals, so people and cultures are basically just different, and therefore have different interpretations and perspectives of events. A contrary current of theory was substantiating the interfaith movement’s attempt to build bridges, notably in the British Common Ground (as in finding common ground in scripture and theology) group, but difference theory has won out. Or so it would seem, except that this speaker was framing his acknowledgment of theological difference with lived American similarity.

In fact, by the end of his talk he’d won the father over to a state of relief, by invoking American equal rights empathy by his indignation over his son’s mistreatment. His son’s bus driver had joked about the boy’s carry case having a bomb in it. Hearing that was a valuable wakeup call for those of us like the tense father who are self-censoring the very same impulses. We need to hear it over and over: stereotyping a group based on the behavior of a few of its members is racist, or sexist, or ethnocentrist, but amounts to plain old prejudice and results in discrimination.

Moral of the story aside, my interest lies in the viability of difference theory to undergird a possible interfaith theology. For example, if it is recognized that the seemingly common story of the “akeda,” God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son (Isaac, for Jews and Christians, Ishmael for Muslims) bears actually very different meanings for the three religions, and thus for all their individual adherents, can the story be called common at all? At what point does commonality break down, and can a very thin thread of similarity sustain an interfaith theology at all? Alternately, if an interfaith theology is predicated on absolute difference, with no pretense of commonality except intertwined histories of armed struggles with the other groups, then is there anything to hold such a theology together? Does the interfaith movement require other kinds of similarities to create bonds? In effect, does the recent, local interfaith encounter rest on the members being baseball parents together?     

     

Rearticulating Humility with Christianity

Underlying Agenda, Part II:  Rearticulating Humility with Christianity

           I’m directing this blog at an audience of tolerant American Christians and secular activists coming from a mixed Christian background. The message is this, that self-defense against a supposed enemy (for example, Muslim war targets and proselytizers) only serves to undermine Christian agape and further contributes to the loss of compassionate Christian identity. As I see it, the more that louder “strong-arm” Christians claim institutional identity for themselves, the more compassionate, open-minded Christians quietly pack up their humility and bail on Christianity altogether.

          Since when was religion about streamlining? Making faith about literal translations from a wildly assorted spiritual text has the effect of throwing the baby out with the bathwater: the precious, mindful element takes off, and nothing of the original revolutionary caritas remains. Without humility, Christianity is nothing but false triumphalism. Into the oppressive Roman Empire God sent His Messiah, as a baby, not a warrior, who preached (among other anti-intuitive points) that the meek will inherit the earth, whose most violent act was throwing a hissy fit outside the Temple, and who was executed in humiliation. Even the Resurrection didn’t set the repressive conditions right (the Romans destroyed the Temple a couple of decades later), for the point of salvation is internal transformation. It’s not about forcing others to live by an inflexible code; it’s about internalizing the message of Christian love, which leaves one aghast in gratitude, searching for ways to show that same unmerited, unconditional love to the most different of others.

Thus the Christian’s struggle in the world becomes ever more complex, in the effort to distinguish between the reassuring appearance of propriety and actual expressions of love.

It’s a shame that people comfortable with complexity think they have to abandon their Christian heritage, whether elbowed out by the effects of “streamlining,” or by prioritizing complexity for its own (empty) sake.  Where families’ traditions diverge, it may seem narrow-minded or arbitrary to commit to one denomination (or religion) or another, but opting out entirely rationalizes a lack of commitment. Likewise, deferring the decision to attend church (synagogue, mosque) until the children of a “mixed marriage” are “old enough to decide for themselves” usually results in their lifelong agnosticism. I’ve even known people who attempt to keep their children from becoming indoctrinated in a single ideology, but that’s just trusting popular culture (i.e. watered-down, sometimes warped Judeo-Christian morality) to provide their children’s foundational ethical narrative. Rationalizing and delaying commitment are simply easier routes.

 However, there are those who consciously lead their children into rechanneled commitment to worthy activist causes. In fact, I suspect that there is a lot of latent Christian motivation in the secular antiracist, green and Occupy movements, and how can that be bad? Indeed, it is very good when people are advocating on behalf of the disadvantaged. I would go so far as calling that Christian, not to force a necessarily self-professed allegiance onto people, but rather to recognize that their actions may very well spring from Christian compassion.

But why label it? Because dissociating humility from Christianity cuts people loose from their innate spirituality, and it robs them of the rich historical allusions present in the Christian narrative of redemption. I’m sure that I could find some statistics (if I took stock in statistics as a method of proof) on the high percentage of non-practicing people with a Christian heritage who say they are “spiritual.” Let’s say it’s a trend, rampant in Europe, too. By separating their good deeds from their spiritual impulses their ethics become subjective, they are cut off from corporate worship, and religion becomes so private as to be embarrassing.

Thanks to Freud and Alfred Kinsey we’ve brought sexuality partially out of the closet, so why would we shove the equally basic human instinct to worship a Creator back into it?

No doubt faith is unintellectual. Yet my “intellectual” reason (there are other more primal reasons) for not converting to Islam is that I view religion as deeply embedded in culture. I’m Christian partially because it’s inscribed into the language I speak and read, and comprises the cultural stories of redemption that I encounter again and again. I’m Christian because I think in trinities and dozens, and because “The Shawshank Redemption” and other Stephen King stories echo through me. Some people are spiritual seekers looking for new experiences with the divine, whereas I groove on the deep resonances I find between Charles Wesley’s lyrics and the early Church fathers’ writings. Religion’s more than a subject of study, though, for I’m embroiled in uncovering layers and making meaning for my own life.      

It could be argued that all Americans with a Christian heritage have access to these layers of meaning inscribed in our very way of thinking—or that alternately, am I arguing that people without a Western heritage cannot be Christian?—but the point is depth of investment. Christians coming from non-Western backgrounds are actively making connections between their cultural wisdom and Christian tropes, whereas secular Westerners have available the history of Christianity but lack the holistic investment needed to completely appreciate its legacy.

But I’m not defending Christianity’s track record, which is abysmal. I’m not staying with Christianity for its anti-Christian abuses throughout the past 2000 years (although I am implicated in those abuses and need to work within Christianity to atone for them), but for its revolutionary compassion that quietly emerges from time to time. Humility may not only spring from the Christian narrative, but the story of Jesus, God’s living message on earth, provides a clear model to follow. It’s a model that undergirds much secular American activism. I choose to dig into my tradition, seeking awareness rather than alternatives.

This blog will attempt to re-articulate humility and Christianity in both senses: to speak anew about the largely abandoned concept of selflessness, as well as to attempt to rejoin the two, the way a limb is rearticulated after being severed from the body.

Witness to Humility in the Extreme

Underlying Agenda, Part I:  Believe Me, I’m a Witness to Humility in the Extreme

          Let this be an addendum to the stated purpose of the blog. Essentially I’m endorsing an improbable, unpopular action: living in Christian humility in all interactions. Furthermore, I’m assuming, under the current state of affairs (post 9/11 and due to the continuing US wars, not to mention xenophobia exacerbated by high unemployment), that one of the most extreme stretches for most Americans would be behaving humbly towards Muslims.

          I am in the ideal position to attest to the challenge of humility towards Muslims; after all, my well-intended homemade cookies were rejected at the women’s university in Riyadh because my hands are considered dirty. “Who needs ‘em? I’ll save on cookie dough” might be a natural, perhaps benign, response. For me, the ongoing effort to live in humility with Muslims is both very real and provides an extreme example of the challenge of humility. How does one remain open-hearted in the wake of cultural denunciation while not internalizing it? I pray for the courage to be loving. The upshot?: I don’t believe that I have dirty hands, yet I’m willing to allow Muslims to obligate me with their hospitality, despite the fact that my reciprocity is sometimes rejected.

Who am I kidding? Over the years I’ve retreated somewhat from these painful encounters. Still, I have plenty of cultural conundrums to recount for the sake of pushing humility to its limits.     

Tuglool

Tuglool:  A mild pejorative in the Arab Magreb.  It is used for a person who doesn’t react to a taunt, and means “bump on a log.”  When I was taunted in this interactive Mediterranean culture, my German-Scottish reaction was to “rise above” and not “lower myself” to the level of the person teasing me.  While I may be slower than most Americans at the quick retort, and don’t think that retorting is necessarily un-Christian, in my bruised state I defended my nonreaction as “turning the other cheek,” thus theologizing what could be viewed as a simple cultural difference.  Still, the issue recurs from time to time, and I defend my gullibility as an indication that I don’t carry a chip on my shoulder.