What Does “The poor you always have with you” Mean?

The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.
--John 12:8 RSV

It was early in my career as an ordained minister and I had just preached a sermon about economic injustice to the “fiscal Republican” crowd at the church I served in a Wall Street bedroom community on Long Island. Afterward, a member who happened to be a great guy engaged with me in a friendly manner. We talked about my sermon in which I said basically to be Christian means working to eliminate poverty. He pointed out to me that Jesus himself said, “The poor you always have with you,” meaning, he felt, it’s an inevitable law of the universe that some will be poor so why bother? I was flabbergasted. It was the first time, but far from the last time, I would hear this verse used to suggest Jesus wanted us to NOT care about poor people. It’s a bit of bad biblical interpretation that politicians, pundits and snobs like to throw around.

I bring up this verse today because it is Holy Wednesday. In Christian tradition, Wednesday night of Holy Week focuses upon Jesus being anointed at Bethany by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (NOT Mary Magdalene as tradition has confused the various Marys of the Gospels—go read Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and he will explain it to you). In John’s version (Matthew, Mark and Luke all have different details), Mary anoints Jesus with expensive perfume, Judas objects (because he wanted the money himself according to the narrator) and Jesus explains Mary was preparing him for his burial. Then he drops his words about “the poor.”

Yesterday, I shared some background on why Jesus became angry enough to disrupt the merchants at the Jerusalem temple—the exploitation of the poor. Now, here Jesus is the next day talking about “the poor” again. It’s almost as if Jesus cared about poor people and wasn’t promoting a private individualistic piety as so many Christians think! I bring “the poor” up not because I’m such a great social activist or even particularly generous but because Jesus won’t stop talking about poor people even the days before his impending death. It matters, because Christianity has made Jesus’ teachings and ministry about an otherworldly ticket to heaven rather than about concrete acts of love in the here and now.

Recently, I’ve come across a sermon the writer Kurt Vonnegut preached on a Palm Sunday. I’m sure folks better educated than I are well aware of it, but it’s new to me. Vonnegut described himself as a “Christ-worshipping agnostic” which in my book is better than self-identified Christians who ignore Christ’s teachings. In his sermon, the author chose to focus on the verse containing the phrase “the poor you always have with you.” His interpretation is the same as my interpretation, and if Christ’s death and resurrection are to mean anything in the here and now, then I think this matters greatly if one wishes to follow Jesus. Here’s some of what Vonnegut had to say:

Whatever it was that Jesus really said to Judas was said in Aramaic, of course-and has come to us through Hebrew and Greek and Latin and archaic English. Maybe He only said something a lot like, "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me." Perhaps a little something has been lost in translation. And let us remember, too, that in translations jokes are commonly the first things to go.

I would like to recapture what has been lost. Why? Because I, as a Christ-worshipping agnostic, have seen so much un-Christian impatience with the poor encouraged by the quotation "For the poor always ye have with you."

I am speaking mainly of my youth in Indianapolis, Ind. No matter where I am and how old I become, I still speak of nothing but my youth in Indianapolis, Ind. Whenever anybody out that way began to worry a lot about the poor people when I was young, some eminently respectable Hoosier, possibly an uncle or an aunt, would say that Jesus Himself had given up on doing much about the poor. He or she would paraphrase John 12, verse 8: "The poor people are hopeless. We'll always be stuck with them."

The general company was then free to say that the poor were hopeless because they were so lazy or dumb, that they drank too much and had too many children and kept coal in the bathtub, and so on. Somebody was likely to quote Kim Hubbard, the Hoosier humorist, who said that he know a man who was so poor that he owned 22 dogs. And so on.

If those Hoosiers were still alive, which they are not, I would tell them now that Jesus was only joking, and the He was not even thinking much about the poor.

. . .

f Jesus did in fact say that, it is a divine black joke, well suited to the occasion. It says everything about hypocrisy and nothing about the poor. It is a Christian joke, which allows Jesus to remain civil to Judas, but to chide him for his hypocrisy all the same.

"Judas, don't worry about it. There will still be plenty of poor people left long after I'm gone."

Shall I regarble it for you? "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me."

My own translation does no violence to the words in the Bible. I have changed their order some, not merely to make them into the joke the situation calls for but to harmonize them, too, with the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount suggests a mercifulness that can never waver or fade.

As we look towards the death and resurrection of Jesus, let us remember that Jesus wasn’t offering us just a heavenly afterlife but a way to help people escape Hell on Earth so that God’s will might be done “on Earth as it is in heaven.”

Grace and Peace,
Chase

I Want a Calm Non-Offensive Jesus

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 
--Matthew 21:12 NRSV

Some of us grew up with an angry Jesus ready to show up at any moment to fight the Battle of Armageddon. Others of us grew up with a kind Jesus who was the Good Shepherd always pictured cuddling with little lambs. The Jesus I grew up with was kind of schizophrenic, both angry and kind, depending on the mood of the preacher I was listening to at any given time. When I realized there were options about what to believe about Jesus, I definitely identified more with the kind one, yet I’m aware there is a danger in doing so. One can end up with a Jesus so kind he is passive and inoffensive. This Jesus doesn’t demand much of us, and so we turn to him only when we have need but never when he has need of us.

If you’re like me, focused on Jesus’ radical service, inclusion and love, then his violence on Holy Monday is a shock. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus went to the Jerusalem temple on Monday of Holy week and “cleansed” the temple, driving out the money changers and merchants selling animals for sacrifice. Geesh, Jesus, what happened to loving your enemy and turning the other cheek?

When we understand more of the historical context, Jesus’ actions make a little more sense, although they still may shock those of us in the “kind Jesus” crowd. The Jerusalem temple was the center of first century Jewish religious life, the place connecting heaven and earth. There was no way to be a faithful Jew and neglect one’s relationship to the temple. Faithful Jews were expected to offer sacrifices at the temple for important life events, but it was impractical for people who travelled from a distance to the temple to bring livestock with them. So, the temple began offering one-stop shopping where one could show up and buy an animal for the priests to sacrifice.

This “convenience” was more complicated than it might seem. The Ten Commandments forbade graven images, and that included most coins which had Roman deities or emperors claiming divinity on them. In a holy place like the temple, special coins without such images could be exchanged for the normal currency (sort of like a currency exchange at an international airport). The “money changers” charged a healthy fee for their work with a big cut going to the temple officials themselves. Then one had to buy animals to sacrifice which were also up charged to maximize profit and enrich temple officials further. If you were a lower economic class person—and most people were in first century Israel—you were exploited by the rich to carry out your religious obligations. Some scholars think most of the wealth of Israel in that time was located at the temple, and it functioned more like a bank than a house of worship.

Understood in this light, Jesus’ act of “cleansing” the temple is outrage over the use of religion to exploit poor people. A strong word of warning needs to be stated here—this Gospel story has been used for centuries to promote the falsehood that Jews are greedy bankers who exploit people. Down through the centuries, through massacres, pogroms, the Holocaust, The Merchant of Venice, and conspiracy theories about the faked document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, this text has been used as a weapon rather than as a tool for justice. 99% of the Jews in Jesus’ day had nothing to do with the temple’s financial exploitation of the poor. A number of first century Jewish groups recognized the corruption of the temple establishment and sought ways to be faithful without it, such as the Pharisees we see in the Gospels and the Essenes who possibly wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jesus was not alone in his rejection of this kind of religious manipulation.

The point of this text is not to condemn some other religion than Christianity but rather to guard against using religion for our own ends. Besides, once Christianity became a state religion, if not before, it became the one who exploited the poor in God’s name. Christian history is one long story of rich rulers and clerics using God to enrich themselves.

Can we deal with a Jesus who gets angry at the exploitation of the poor in God’s name? Christians who want an angry Jesus are obsessed with end times nonsense instead of injustice in the here and now. On the other hand, Christians who want a calm non-offensive Jesus don’t want him meddling in their pocketbooks. Jesus seems to confound both groups of Christians.

The Gospels and scholars agree that it was Jesus’ actions at the temple which directly led to him being executed. Caring for the poor rarely makes you popular or rich. This Gospel story invites us to think about unjust laws, regulations and rules which enrich the richest and take away opportunities for those on the bottom of the economic ladder to climb upward. Most of the time, these unjust laws, regulations and rules are created and passed by people who claim to be Christian but who obviously don’t get angry about the same things as Jesus.

Similarly, the prophets of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel,” peddle a brand of Christianity that enriches themselves at the expense of their flocks. On TV, the internet, and social media, they exploit the gullible and the desperate in Jesus’ name. Since they are usually the most visible Christian voices in media, it is no wonder younger generations who know no other kind of Christianity run from it. If more Christians were angry about what angered Jesus, would those who reject organized religion stop and take notice?

I like my non-offensive Jesus because I’m a comfortable middle class suburban guy. I feel sure if my life weren’t so insulated from the economic pain so many experience, then I would share Jesus’ anger.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

"The Office" is the Family Some of Us Never Had

Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” --Matthew 12:48-40 NRSV

I love the American version of the TV show The Office. I watched it occasionally when it originally aired on NBC 2005-2013. I was a new parent then and couldn’t make appointments for TV shows (Tivo and DVR’s hadn’t hit the market yet). It was when the show started streaming on Netflix that I really watched it and fell in love with it. Now I listen to two different podcasts hosted by the show’s cast members that talk about the making of the show. Apparently, I’m not alone, because according to The New Yorker, in 2018 alone The Office streamed for over 46 billion minutes on Netflix! Younger generations love it too. My teenagers begged me to watch it with them, which is amazing not only because they wanted me to do anything with them at all but also because they had even heard of a show that aired before smartphones were invented. Why is this show so loved?

If by some chance you’ve missed The Office, here’s a rundown. The show began as a short-lived series in the UK (14 episodes) about a paper company’s employees in a boring suburb of London being filmed by a documentary film crew. The boss played by Ricky Gervais was a needy non-PC pest to his employees who eked out a living by barely tolerating their boss. The UK version was making fun of a kind of reality TV show popular there, but before reality TV took over the airwaves in the US. 

The US version also takes place in a paper company office but this time in working class Scranton, PA. The then pre-movie star Steve Carrell played the needy non-PC pest of a boss and the cast were largely unknown when it started. It kept its documentary feel and what made it remarkable at the time was how humdrum and everyday the action was, at least for the early seasons. It resembled life at a real office only with wackier characters--depending on the level of wackiness at one’s non-TV show job. 

My own philosophy of TV sit-coms is they are all about families--families by blood/adoption or by situation. Most of them are about families--think the Cleavers, the Huxtables (pre-Cosby’s rape convictions), the Keatons, the Conners, etc. The situational families were people thrown together by life, usually jobs, who come to love each other as family--think The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Murphy Brown and Friends. The Office is in the latter category.

I can’t speak for other generations, but I know as a member of Generation X--the first generation where divorce became the norm--my generation grew up looking for family we didn’t have at home. Friends of mine who are LGBTQ people tell me how after being rejected by their families they had to choose and create families made out of friends who would accept them. Now, I would guess there are plenty of people out there who recognize their need for family for all sorts of reasons. In The Office, you see how people thrown together by their jobs grow to care about and support each other despite how irritated they are by one another.

My whole life I’ve grown up in churches who described themselves as “families.” Over the decades I’ve experienced that often churches are at best dysfunctional families and at worst abusive ones. Nonetheless, I think part of the reason I felt called to be a minister is because in spite of the pain I have experienced from some congregations, I grew up feeling that church was a place where people cared about me, knew me and helped call out what was best inside of me. I had lots of adoptive grandparents and adoptive aunts and uncles who cared for me and taught me about God’s love. Yes, I’ve let go a lot of the bad theology I learned growing up, but I have held onto the truth they taught me in word and action--the truth that God loves me.

Maybe this is what Jesus was talking about when he offers harsh words about his own family who think he’s gone crazy. If you’ve ever felt misunderstood or rejected by your family, Jesus knows how you feel. Jesus understood that sometimes we have to choose and create our families when our families by blood/adoption can’t live out what a family should be. So he said, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus intended for the church to be a family for people who had none. That’s why the metaphor of family fills the New Testament. Churches are made up of people, and oftentimes people screw up what it means to do the will of our heavenly parent. It’s good to know that the family-making Spirit of God isn’t limited only to churches. Whether they are religious or not, wherever there are groups of people who do the will of God by creating communities of love, the Spirit is at work. As the theme song to one situational family sit-com sang, “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.” Everyone deserves that kind of family whether it is by blood/adoption, church or even at the office.

Grace and Peace< Chase

Stop Doomscrolling

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 
--Philippians 4:8 NRSV

Back in the day when I still watched the evening news on one of the three broadcast networks, I recall each 30-minute program basically breaking down into about 12 minutes of commercials, 15 minutes of headline news that was typically all negative, and a final 2-3 minute story that was positive. (I assume this is still the case?) This final feel-good story was sort of like an after-dinner mint. It was a palate cleanser, so you didn’t leave the broadcast feeling bad after watching all the “serious” news.

Today it seems like the non-stop news updates on our phones, news stories shared on social media and 24-hour cable news channels have left us only with the bad taste in our mouths. Even the after dinner mint of good news is difficult to find. In my social media feeds, I’ve seen this non-stop consumption of bad news described with the term “doomscrolling,” as in continuing to scroll through our social media unable to stop taking in the negative. Instead of merely being informed about what goes on in our society or learning enough to do something positive in order to make the world a better place, doomscrolling amounts to a fixation on the negative for no real healthy purpose.

It turns out there may be a reason for our doomscrolling. This morning the New York Times had some interesting news about media coverage of the last few years. A research study of national US media found it overwhelmingly negative when compared to other Western media. The study didn’t offer a conclusive reason for this negativity but did note that media outlets seemed to be giving consumers what they want. News articles shared tended to be almost exclusively negative. Most journalists, the piece noted, were less concerned with consumer demand than with trying to expose the truth that politicians, celebrities and powerbrokers want to hide. Yet, its author admitted, “our healthy skepticism can turn into reflexive cynicism, and we end up telling something less than the complete story.” Media consumers who want “the complete story” may have to work hard to find positive news to balance out the negative.

Minister and writer Vince Amlin shares about well-meaning Christians overwhelmed by the deluge of bad news:

Most of us believe that being informed citizens and compassionate churchgoers means faithfully taking our daily dose of world tragedy. The results are predictably toxic. Bad news piles up until we feel paralyzed with powerlessness.

I get this. Any who wish to follow Jesus need to avoid denying just how bad the world can often be, but if we only focus on the bad news, we do not see the full story of what God is doing in our world. In a culture apparently obsessed with bad news, we need to be on our guard against doomscrolling.

The word “gospel” literally means “good news,” but maybe we have domesticated the “good news” into a religious formula that amounts only to a ticket to heaven rather than a worldview. In order to remain faithful to God’s demands of justice, peace, mercy and love, we cannot afford to give into despair. Despair, or worse indifference, accomplishes nothing in terms of making this world a better place. Instead, we must commit ourselves to looking for the good news of where God is at work in our world, so we are inspired to join in. This requires us to heed the Apostle Paul’s encouragement “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

The next time you find yourself doomscrolling walk away from the phone, tablet, computer or TV and focus on the blessings you have, the people you love and the good things of God constantly happening all around you.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Pain is Our Teacher

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
--John 3:14-15 NRSV

I haven’t been able to read any of the retrospectives chronicling one year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Living with the pressure, stress and confusion of the past year has been difficult enough that I don’t wish to turn back and reflect upon it. Yet, as is the case with all pain, I know the time will come when I need to take stock of all that has happened since this pandemic began. Neither denying pain nor wallowing in it offers a healthy way out of it but looking at one’s pain, when energy exists to do so, allows pain to be our teacher.

Over the past two Sundays, I’ve been preaching out of the Gospel of John and if you were able to track what I’ve been saying (a big IF sometimes, I know, given who the preacher is), you have heard me mention that John’s Gospel presents a different understanding of Jesus’ death than elsewhere in the New Testament. Rather than seeing Jesus’ death as the ultimate sacrifice offered for human sin, a means of conquering evil or as Jesus being our substitute and taking the punishment due us for our sins (the most prominent theological understandings of Jesus’ death—not all of them are actually found in the Bible), John presents Jesus’ death as a universe-changing moment for humanity to look at its own pain and turn away from what causes it.

In John 3, Jesus references a story from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) from Numbers 21. It’s a weird one that I was never taught in Sunday School. In it, once again the Israelites in the desert wilderness complain against God, even though God miraculously rescued them from slavery and continues to provide for their needs. So, snakes come upon their camp and start killing people with poisonous bites. God instructs Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and hoist it up on a long pole. Anyone bit by a snake, should look up at the bronze serpent and they will be saved from death. Why an image of a snake? Why not a pill or a vaccine or just make the snakes go away? Perhaps, God wanted the people to remember what bit them and why. Their refusal to trust God, despite God’s continued care for them resulted in poisonous snakes. They need a reminder of what caused the threat to their lives and who saved them from it.

Jesus says in John 3 that just like that bronze snake, he will be lifted up. By “lifted up” he is referring to his inevitable death “lifted up” on a cross and his inevitable ascension “lifted up” to heaven after his resurrection. Just like with the bronze serpent on a tall pole, people get to look upon Jesus on the cross and see the pain of this world and why it occurs. On the cross, humanity gets to see the violence, deception, betrayal, self-serving politics, oppressive religion, torture, derision and abuse inflicted upon the most innocent victim ever, in sum all the ways we humans damage one another, ourselves, creation itself and even God. Then people get to look at Jesus lifted up to heaven resurrected and whole in order to see that God’s healing and redeeming love is greater than all the pain we cause.

Once we see the pain of our world and ourselves and then see a way beyond it, we are changed. We become people no longer intent upon a way of destruction but rather people intent upon God’s way of love. We may choose God’s way of love half-heartedly and imperfectly, but nonetheless we are changed. Looking at Christ’s pain—which is also our pain--allows pain to be our teacher, so that transformation can happen.

Moments when we can look at our pain are moments when we look at the snake that bit us or look at the Cross and its depravity. Such moments allow us to learn from past self-inflicted mistakes, heal from past abuses inflicted upon us and recover from the toll this life can take upon each of us. We discover strength we didn’t know we had to offer empathy and kindness to others in need of healing. We learn gratitude for blessings taken for granted. We understand who our real friends are because they are with us in our pain instead of turning away from it. Pain becomes our teacher.

I pray for you the same thing I pray for myself: for pain to become our teacher. I pray for moments of clarity and strength which allow you and I to look at the pain in our own lives and the pain in our world so that pain can show us God’s way of love, healing and forgiveness. As we grow closer to an end to a pandemic, as mass shootings return to the headlines, as the daily pains occur while we live our complicated yet blessed lives, may there be tender moments for you and me where we can allow our pains to teach us its sacred lessons.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

The Dwindling Returns of Anger and Outrage

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 
--Luke 6:32-33 NRSV

Presidential Inauguration Day is about two months behind us and while there’s plenty of vitriol to go around, it feels to me like the general level of partisan demonization has returned to its usual furor rather than the insane levels of the last few years. For me at least, I can still get riled up any time I want by checking my Twitter feed, but no longer is every waking moment an exercise in reining in my political self-righteousness. Maybe there’s enough mental bandwidth to go around now, so I and we can consider whether or not living in a state of perpetual outrage is healthy?

I spent a good decade or so defining myself over and against fundamentalist Christians who were sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic and every other kind of hateful -ist and -phobia that exists. It’s a good thing to refute that kind of Christianity, but at some point saying only “I am not. . .” leaves little room for one to say “I am. . .” One can spend so long criticizing the negative in the “other” that all you are is negative with nothing positive to say or be. One’s identity can become only about anger and outrage. Those things are non-renewable, so one must keep looking for someone or something to be angry and outraged about lest one be left with no identity at all.

Jesus understood that our identities have to draw from a spiritual source that never runs dry. That’s why he called us to love others, especially our enemies. It seems laughable, impossible even, but when all you’ve got is anger and outrage for people who don’t think like you do or look like you do, then there isn’t much to you at all. It’s impossible to enjoy this one, fragile, precious life we’ve been given when there is no love, joy and happiness inside a person, only anger and outrage. Besides, love is the only real way to find union with God. When all of one’s self is devoted to anger and outrage, those things become our gods, false idols whom we unknowingly worship and devote our lives to. We end up have nothing left to give the God who is love.

Don’t get me wrong, Jesus also demonstrated that there are appropriate times to be angry—anger at injustice, anger at religion being used as a weapon, anger at the exploitation of the poor and powerless, but life is about more than anger. Jesus didn’t ask us to be passive in the face of injustice nor did he expect his followers to sit idly by while the powerful and rich abuse people below them on the social hierarchy. Instead, he called us to a better way where we resist becoming the same as the evils we claim to be against. Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy captures this idea, “When we are violent to our enemies, we do violence to ourselves. When we brutalize others, we brutalize ourselves. And eventually we run the risk of becoming our oppressors.” Ultimately, finding a way to love our enemies is a way to love ourselves.

Jesus taught resistance to violence for many reasons. One reason is the ones we are violent against are made in God’s image just like we are. A second reason is that we are made in God’s image just like they are, and the violence we direct outward flows inward too. It may not seem like posting on social media, hate-watching cable news or gathering with like-minded friends to decry the “others” who don’t think like you do is actual violence, but in a spiritual sense it most surely is. Writer Parker Palmer says it this way:

“Violence is any way we have of violating the integrity of the other. Racism and sexism are violence. Derogatory labeling of any sort constitutes violence. Rendering other people invisible or irrelevant is an act of violence. So is manipulating people towards our ends as if they were objects that existed only to serve our purposes. …Violence is not just about bombing or shooting or hitting people. To create peace in our lives–and our world–we need to be able to sit with frustration and hold the tension of opposite views.”

I don’t like it any more than you do, but perhaps the best way to love one’s enemy in 21^st century America is to build relationships with people who disagree with you. I know there are some people with whom that won’t work. If someone refuses to acknowledge your sacred personhood because of your gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, etc. real relationship isn’t possible. You have to love that person from a distance behind healthy boundaries. But if a way exists for people to be in relationship who think and believe differently while acknowledging each other’s worth in the eyes of God, then the only Christian way is the way of love.

As Christians, our true identities can only be found in love not in anger and outrage.

Grace and Peace,
Chase 

Vampire Churches

Recently I introduced my 14 year-old to the 90’s TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (He loves it, as all people of good taste do.) It’s a cheeky teen high school drama but with vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. The show’s heroes have seen all the classic monster movies, so they tend to crack great one-liners at whichever monster-of-the-week shows up. Part of the fun is watching various monsters’ expressions of surprise when their scary ways are recognized as predictable and even boring.

When it comes to vampires, Buffy plays off of all the old vampire tropes--sexy but dangerous guy (or girl) lures unsuspecting person into some necking that turns fatal. The person getting their blood sucked out may not see it coming, but we, the audience, see it from a mile away. Vampires, it turns out, are fairly easy to spot--just look for the pasty-faced goth with some dangerous dental work.

Churches can be vampires too. When a church has declined in numbers (as most churches have) and its dedicated older members have served in all the leadership positions more than a few times (as is the cast in most churches), churches begin to look at new people not as people to love but people to use. Churches end up sucking the life out of new people who get involved, give money and show up for events. Most people don’t make it that far. They see vampire churches for what they are and run for the exits.

I’ve been a part of vampire churches full of tired members who want their church to survive but no longer wish to do much about it. New folks who come in find a warm welcome, and because there aren’t enough willing members to fill leadership spots, folks new to the church are too quickly put into those roles. Almost always the new person is tasked with responsibilities for a church they barely know, and when they try something new without understanding a church’s culture and history, sacred cows get disturbed and long-time members mount an angry resistance. The frustrated new person leaves, and the church looks for fresh blood in the next new person to show up. (The same dynamic can happen to new pastors too.)

A few weeks ago in this newsletter, I shared an essay by one of the only church consultants I think makes any sense, Mark Tidsworth. Although he doesn’t use the term “vampire church,” he describes this phenomenon well in an essay titled “How to Shrink Your Church.” Here’s how to become a vampire church.

• Train your church to value newcomers for what they can do for you. They are giving units and bodies in the pews. They are assets to integrate and manage.

• Train your church to ignore the fact that newcomers tend to bolt when they realize they are being used in the name of Jesus. Describe them as unfaithful or spiritually immature. This will help you to continue using people as assets to serve the top priority.

• Train your church to ignore the fact that self-serving institutional motivation is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ, who calls us to love others as Christ loves us.

• Teach people to believe that focusing on the numbers is how we grow churches. Teach them that number attainment means we are a successful church. This helps them avoid the messiness of having to actually love and serve people.
  
  Maybe your church is not a “vampire church,” but it could become one pretty easily just as many other churches have done. All it takes is looking at people outside the church as things to be used to help the church survive rather than as people who need the Good News of Jesus Christ and an experience of a loving community. It’s that simple. The danger in becoming a vampire is that a vampire slayer eventually will show up. For vampire churches, the slayer turns out to be a culture who wants nothing to do with self-serving congregations. Grace and Peace, Chase P.S. In my references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I side-stepped the accusations against show creator Joss Whedon which describe him as abusive towards people who worked on his films and TV shows. Addressing Whedon's alleged abuse deserves more attention than this post can give it. For now, I'll just say that I feel about Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a way, perhaps, similar to its star, Sarah Michelle Gellar who played Buffy. She has stated, "While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be forever associated with Joss Whedon,"

A 1900 Year-Old Message From God

These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate, says the Lord.
--Zechariah 8:16 NRSV

This week media outlets around the world are telling of the discovery of new Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls were one of the greatest archaeological finds in the 20^th century, and the revelation that more are still being found sixty years after the original ones were discovered is rather stunning. The name “Dead Sea Scrolls” refers to numerous caches of biblical texts found in caves in the hills along the western side of the Dead Sea in modern Israel. The scrolls include both biblical and extra-biblical writings dating from around 100 BCE to 200 CE Their discovery changed the way biblical scholars understand Judaism in the Roman era out of which Christianity arose. Scholars had previously understood the Judaism of this era to be relatively monolithic, but the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a Judaism that was diverse and tolerated many different understandings of its sacred texts.

Despite what you may see on sensational cable TV documentaries, there is no great conspiracy surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls which reveals the end of time, the Illuminati or the true assassin of JFK. Instead, there has been a tumultuous scholarly squabble over who wrote the various scrolls, when they were written and what do they reveal about ancient Judaism. Over the decades, different groups of scholars have fought over who gets to examine the scrolls and which theories about them are valid. Generally speaking, many of the scrolls appear to have originated among a group of Jews living in an ascetic community near the Dead Sea (although some scholars argue against this consensus view). They hid their sacred texts and other items in nearby caves when Roman armies crushed Jewish uprisings in the first and second centuries AD/CE These most recent discoveries appear to be from a cave dubbed the “Horror Cave,” because human remains were found in it. Apparently people hid there from the Romans, and they possibly died there while under siege.

Maybe the most important thing about the Dead Sea Scrolls is their age. Prior to their discovery, the earliest manuscripts known of the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) dated to the 9^th century CE. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the late 1940’s and afterward, among them were copies of the Hebrew scriptures dating to nearly 1000 years earlier! Despite some differences, the overwhelming majority of the copies were essentially the same, despite the thousand-year gap in versions. (Manuscripts of the Greek new Testament in contrast demonstrate numerous differences as scribes through the centuries made changes to them.)

The latest Dead Sea Scrolls found are from a Greek translation of the original Hebrew prophets Nahum and Zechariah dating to the second century CE. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure I’ve never preached a sermon on Zechariah or Nahum, so don’t feel bad if you’re not familiar with either of them. The Nahum verses don’t excite me too much, but the two verses from Zechariah seem made for our time.

The Hebrew prophets demonstrate a radical concern with justice among the people of Israel. Their words not only inspired the people of ancient Israel but continue to inspire people today. Just think of how Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words, which he quotes from the prophet Amos, continue to speak to us: “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

The verses from Zechariah read:

“These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate — declares the Lord.” (translation printed in NYTimes)

In our time full of conspiracy theories, “alternative facts,” denial of science, unchecked social media posts, and shameless media manipulators, I can’t think of a more relevant word from God. Perhaps these newly discovered ancient scraps from the Dead Sea Scrolls can lead us to reconsider how we speak, email, tweet, post to Facebook and share on Instagram 1900 years later.

Grace and Peace,
Chase 

Waiting is the Hardest Part

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
--Psalm 40:1 NRSV

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sang, “The waiting is the hardest part.” I’m not sure what Tom and his buddies were waiting for, but I certainly agree that waiting is the worst.

In the first verse of Psalm 40, I want to skip to the end where God hears the cry of the Psalmist. The first half of the verse, the part about waiting patiently, I’d rather not deal with. I’m not very good at waiting, and from what I can tell, most of us in our “on demand” society are bad at it too.

In this season of waiting, while some get vaccines and others wait for them, while all of us wait for what post-pandemic life will be like, it is difficult to be anything other than impatient. We’ve been waiting for a year now, and I’m a little worn out from it. Is there anything good to be found during this time of waiting?

From a spiritual perspective, God seems to feel there is a benefit to us waiting sometimes—waiting for answers, waiting for a change, waiting for God to show up. Yet, this is counter to how things operate these days. We don’t have to wait for TV shows to air, because we can stream them whenever we want. We don’t have to wait in line for our groceries, our prescriptions or our fast food takeout—all of it can be delivered on our schedules. We are getting closer to not having to wait for much of anything, which is perhaps why waiting for this pandemic to be over grinds our gears so much.

Some of the most meaningful things in life can’t be streamed on demand or ordered online for a scheduled delivery. A C-section can be scheduled, but there is no guarantee a baby won’t arrive sooner than expected. There’s no precise equation to govern when you fall in love with someone or if and when they return that love. The best meals aren’t prepackaged nor can they be microwaved, rather they are prepared, cooked and served when the time is best. Despite our best efforts to control nature, it still takes time to grow a flower, a vegetable or a tree. Some things are like Christmas morning when you were a kid, they are better because you had to wait for them.

The scriptures, the mystics and the truly wise all seem to offer the infuriating idea that there can be something gained as we wait, especially as we wait on God. This time is not wasted but rather it is fallow time, a time when the ground must lie fallow during winter for it to be ready for the seeds of new life to find purchase and grow. As much as we often wish for God to snap the divine fingers and give us what we want when we want it, the landscapes of our own souls may not be ready for what God seeks to do. More time is needed to prepare the soils of our hearts, more time is needed for us to gain trust in God and learn humility, more time is needed before we are ready for what God offers us.

Whatever you are waiting on, trust that what is outside of your control is in God’s hands and will arrive in God’s timing. It’s easier said than done, believe me I know, but God is interested in preparing us for what is to come. That preparation goes down easier if one doesn’t resist it. Wait patiently for the LORD trusting that your cries will be heard.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

What Meghan and Harry Teach Us About Church

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 
--Luke 5:37-38 NRSV

Over 17 million people watched Oprah Winfrey’s interview this week of the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex Harry and Meghan. (Are they former or do they still have their titles? Forgive me for not knowing all the details of British royalty!) Millions more, like me, have watched the highlights and read recaps of it. What the now ex-royal couple revealed says a lot about the institution of the British monarchy and provides a metaphor for thinking about church in 21^st century America.

One of the main reasons for Meghan and Harry leaving the royal family has to do with racism. Apparently, some in the royal family were very concerned their son might be born with dark skin. (As an adoptive father of two mixed race sons whom my wife and I adopted at birth, I can empathize with having family members concerned with a new family member born “too dark.”). Furthermore, the press covering the Royal Family—apparently an industry unto itself—applied a double standard in its coverage of Meghan compared with say, its coverage of William’s white wife Kate Middleton. As Meghan and Harry related, the silence from the royal family when Meghan was attacked spoke volumes about how they felt about her. Perhaps, the greatest act of racism occurred with Meghan and Harry’s newborn son, Archie, was not given the title “Prince” with all that comes with it, as his white cousins received.

As someone who has only a passing interest in the British royals and more importantly as a white man, when I heard of the racism directed at Meghan and her son, I thought, “That’s terrible,” but missed the wider systemic issues involved. A number of black women have written about the interview, and as should be no surprise, their responses were more insightful than mine.

Both Zeba Blay in The Huffington Post and Salamishah Tillet in The New York Times pointed out the Windsor family’s history of colonialism is a backdrop for its treatment of Meghan. As an American (and a white man), I tend to think of British royalty as sort of the same thing as characters at Disney World—something for the tourists, but unlike cartoon characters, the royal family gained their wealth by heading an empire based upon conquest and exploitation of conquered peoples—most of whom happened to be darker-skinned. To allow a woman of “mixed race” into their ranks goes against the history of the royal family. The royal family, as an institution, clings to its wealth and power even as every year passes its relevance wains in a pluralistic democracy seeking to shed its imperial past.

As a minister with standing in two historically white denominations, I hear echoes of Meghan and Harry’s experience among clergy and lay people I know who happen not to be make, white, heterosexual and/or cisgender. Through the blinders of my white experience and privilege, I grew up believing that racism was a thing of the past. Similarly, as I gained awareness of them, I thought sexism, homophobia and transphobia were on the way to the scrap heap of bad human ideologies. Yet, the more I have learned from people with different experiences than my own as a white male, the more I have realized all these -isms and -phobias remain living things still causing oppression. The church in its broadest and most particular senses remains a hotbed for such dehumanizing ideas and practices.

Like the British royal family, Christianity has a history of empire, exploitation and violence. Its many institutions were created with these intentions in mind. The teachings of Jesus became militarized to empower the few and to oppress the many. Just like the British royal family, the church today clings to its former cultural relevance struggling in all the wrong ways to prove it has a place in a world seeking to shrug off its oppressive ways. Like the British royal family, the church presents a kinder and gentler face to the world, yet its racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and so much more remain “baked in” and have never been successfully removed.

I have encountered this resistance to a more inclusive and just church in numerous ways. Church members of “open-minded” churches have said they welcome everyone but end up resisting such inclusion in practice out of fear of being called “the gay church” or having people from the wrong side of town (e.g. poor, non-white) show up. As harsh as the judgment may be toward the British royal family for its racism, shouldn’t a harsher judgment be on the church? The Windsors pledged fealty to an earthly kingdom with all that entails, but Christians have supposedly claimed to belong to a different kind of “kingdom” altogether—the Kingdom (or Reign) of God.

I wonder what would have happened if the British Royal Family had embraced the inclusion of a non-white member and her children? In their attempt to protect their institution, they ended up undermining its continuing reason to exist. What if instead they used the occasion of one of their very white princes marrying a woman of color as a way to forge a new future where their “Commonwealth” was more equitably shared among darker-skinned people who have been historically exploited?

Some of the same questions could be asked of the church. What does it take for every level of the church to embrace a new future where the inclusion and graciousness of God is modelled for a divided world? What parts of the church’s institutions must be dismantled in order to allow for such a future to occur? In every occurrence of the church resisting such a future—from global actions down to local congregations—the church’s efforts to defend itself only result in its inevitable demise. Two thousand years ago, Jesus declared that new wine (wine that was still undergoing the process of fermentation) could not go into old wineskins (skins that had already been stretched by past fermentations and would no longer stretch). Then, as now, the inbreaking of God into the world requires new models, new structures, and new ways of being.

If the church doesn’t find its “new wineskins,” it will end up much like the British royal family—a curiosity from a bygone era.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

Is It the Wife’s Fault if Her Husband Cheats on Her?

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 
--Galatians 3:28 NRSV

Maybe you saw the article today in the KC Star about the pastor of a southeastern Missouri church who gave a sermon saying wives have a responsibility to look good, so their husbands don’t cheat on them. Among his “biblical” instructions to women was for them to lose weight, not wear pajamas and flip flops to Wal-Mart, and essentially give their husbands sex whenever they want it. He also mentioned a male friend who has a “divorce weight” for his wife and stated that not every woman can be a “trophy wife” like Melania Trump but maybe they can be a “participation trophy.” All I can say is “Wow! Does anybody wonder why people are leaving churches in droves these days?”

Far be it from me to pile on this guy who has made national news and received all kinds of negative feedback, including from his own church members, but I think this can be a teaching moment. According to his church, this pastor has taken a leave of absence and is receiving counseling. His own denomination, General Baptist Ministries, has issued a statement rejecting his remarks. (Generally speaking, General Baptists are not what you would call virulent feminists, so for them to feel the need to publicly disown someone’s remarks on women, they’ve got to really be saying some outrageous stuff.) Let’s hope this pastor reconsiders his views of women and Christians like him begin to realize we are no longer living in the Middle Ages.

I feel like this example of religious sexism can be a teaching moment as well for churches who have egalitarian views of gender. In an age of social media and posts going viral, outrageous statements like the ones of this pastor spread like wildfire. Unfortunately, when teachings like these go viral, the image of Christianity as intolerant, abusive, sexist, homophobic, racist, etc. etc. etc. becomes cemented as the dominant understanding of what Christianity means. Alternative and more inclusive versions of Christianity have to work extra hard to overcome this form of bad public relations.

The beginning of overcoming this kind of bad press has to be local groups of Christians approaching scripture from a different way altogether. The Bible is a diverse enough collection of writings that you can pretty much find justification for whatever preexisting beliefs one has. If you are looking to justify a sexist position you can find scripture to do so, and if you are looking to justify a position that understands women as people equal to men, you can also find verses to do so. The late writer and ex-Christian fundamentalist Rachel Held Evans framed this reality nicely in her wonderful book Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. 

If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we’ve been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything.

In the case of this pastor from southeastern Missouri, he was preaching on the first half of the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 7:4, which reads: “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.”  Unfortunately, he gave little attention to the second half of the verse, which reads: “likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” His position is a particularly acute case of selective reading of scripture.

This verse occurs in a particularly confusing passage where the Apostle Paul addresses the subject of marriage with the assumption the Second Coming would occur any day. What has gotten lost for almost the last two thousand years is that Paul’s declaration of mutuality between husbands and wives was a radical idea in his day. Sadly, for most of Christian history, the second half of this verse declaring husband’s bodies are under the authority of their wives has been utterly ignored. Christian men throughout history have been perfectly fine with viewing women as their property while ignoring the radical idea that men and women should be in a relationship of equals.

A different way to approach scripture is to notice what parts of it mirror the cultural value of its day and what parts offered a radical alternative. What fostered the spread of early Christianity, according to many Bible scholars, is that Christianity offered a radical form of egalitarianism unavailable most everywhere else. In Galatians 3:28, where Paul apparently quotes a phrase used in early Christian baptisms: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”, he presents a dramatic form of inclusive Christianity that even the most progressive forms of present day Christianity struggle to live out. 

For Christians struggling to not be sexist, there are other choices besides the false one to either accept a sexist form of Christianity or reject Christianity altogether. We can turn to our own sacred scriptures with a spirit of finding the verses which speak to the equality and inclusion we feel is true and Christ-like and do so as dedicated Christians. When we do so, we discover feminism is not a secular movement in opposition to our religion, but rather an intention of God all along that sadly most Christians have failed to see.

A more difficult task than reading scripture with a heart focused on inclusion, grace and love is promoting this vision of Christianity in public awareness. I know many Christians who believe men and women are equal (along with LGBTQ people, people of all races and classes, etc.), but still most people who have rejected organized religion see Christianity as only a means of oppression. This is the church’s burden in 21^st century America.

How do we change this perception of Christianity? I wish I had an easy answer. Stories like this preacher in southeast Missouri spread go viral, but stories of churches where women have equal authority as men don’t seem to spread at all. I wonder what a church might look like if it was full of people willing to approach their scripture and tradition with a God-given passion for equality, justice and grace for all people with no exceptions? Apparently, the early church spread, because just this type of thing occurred. Could it happen again?

Grace and Peace,

Chase