Pronouncement of Paradise Potentiality

The gospel text for Sunday, August 27, 2023, is Matthew 16:13-20. While listening to a group of pastors debating over where heaven is and what is being loosed, I remembered stories from my childhood. I tried to tell them to the pastors, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I just can’t get no respect there, so I will share the stories with you, my loyal readers.

So, the story is told of a pride of lions roaming the savannah when they came to a zoo. As they were padding along, one of the lions roared and asked the others, “Who do people say that I am?” The other lions said, “The k
ing! Felix the cat! Here, kitty-kitty. Top cat! A predator!”

“But you? Who do you say that I am?”

“You are the cat’s meow! You are purr-fect!”

The pride leader said, “We all know that there is another way of living than being like these animals trapped in cages. We know that there is a way of living that is free and open—a place where a cat can be cool and laidback. We know that the ideal place for all cats is not locked up like the cats who live in this urbanized place of display and despair. What would you do if I gave you the keys to all these cages? What if I told you that what you locked up today would be locked forever and what you loosed today would live free forever?”

The other lions debated among themselves what their leader was talking about and then decided to ask if the keys were a metaphor for something? The leader said, “No, I have the keys to release all of these cats, and I give those keys to you. So now, what are you going to do with them?”

The other lions ran throughout the zoo unlocking the cages of all the animals and showed them the way to get to the land of openness and cool-cat-laidbackness, and the animals all found the new world to be as it had been created. And the mice learned to hide and travel quietly in this new place of freedom.

Or maybe you should hear the story Old Dad told us when we were growing up. There was once a beautiful mouse named Pandora. She was given a beautiful jar with pictures on the sides of mice playing and frolicking and dancing. The only problem was that this beautiful mouse was told that she could keep the jar anywhere she wanted, but she was never, never to open it.

For years the jar sat on a shelf of honor in her house. Other mice came and admired the jar and asked what the beautiful jar contained.

Pandora always said, “I don’t know now, and I will never know because I am never, never to open it.”

“What a shame,” one mouse said.

“I bet it’s something really good,” another mouse said.

“It must be something amazing with all those beautiful pictures,” another mouse said.

And the years ticked by on the old Grandfather’s clock, and then Pandora couldn’t take it anymore. One night, at midnight, she crept up the Old Grandfather’s clock and then to the honored shelf, and she pushed on the cork in the jar until, all-of-a-sudden, the cork popped out. A fog rose up out of the jar and all kinds of evil stuff entered into the room and, from there, the world while Pandora struggled to find the cork and put it back in the jar. When she got the cork back in the jar, the only thing that was left in it was hope. There hope sat until the great mousiah came and gave the mice that followed him the power to again pull the cork from the jar on the honored shelf.

When the cork was finally pulled, hope sprang out, and, to this day, hope continues to offer a better world—a world that is not filled with just evil and despair, but trust, hope, and love. It is not that evil and despair have been overcome and put back in the jar, but we now can live with the promise of a world that is better if all of the mice can learn to talk and work for the things hoped for instead of trying to prove that they are better than the other mice—if they can learn that trust and hope and love are not just released from the jar, but that they can grow and flourish in our world when we give them away to others who can then trust, hope, and love.

IMAGO DEI (Image of God)

I gave Peter this idea last February. Even though I was repeatedly encouraging, just like all my other advice, he was slow to act on it. Finally, he has it written, and, with my fine editorial touch, we offer this for you to ponder.

 

In 1970, the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America elected to ordain women. I doubt that any of those voting really understood the implications and ramifications of that decision, but the world was about to turn; and the turn changed the way we think about Church, society, and the way we relate to God and one another. This decision to ordain women led to some seismic shifts that partially led to the forming of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and initiated a broader view of the Imago Dei, the image of God for God’s people. In the process, I assert, we have become better as believers and as people in general.

 

By the time I began seminary in 1992, women comprised half of my class within the newly formed ELCA, yet many congregations, although they may have intellectually supported the idea of women’s ordination, were resistant to call a woman as their pastor.

 

At the same time, there were still articles being written in some conservative Lutheran journals concerning women’s ordination and the Imago Dei. I recall the concern of one article was that pastors were to be the Imago Dei for the congregation, i.e., Jesus had a penis and women do not. Therefore, women could not be the Imago Dei for the congregation and should not be ordained.

 

This is nonsense. God’s diverse presence reflects the wondrous and complex world we live in. Trying to entrap God in maleness denies the feminine images of God in the Old Testament, and insisting on God’s maleness revealed to us in Jesus as God’s preferred leadership model denies the role of women’s leadership in the early Church. For the ELCA, as for the Israelites, it took some years wandering in the wilderness, but eventually the Church stopped murmuring about the leeks and melons in Egypt.

 

This shift in our Imago Dei understanding did not stop with women. In the 80’s the idea that the Imago Dei meant that pastors needed to be fully able-bodied changed as well. Increasingly, people living with disabilities came to the Church and said, “We too are called to serve.” Now the Church again had to deal with who could be considered for ordination.

About this time, the Church also considered its understanding of pastors of color and the Imago Dei.  White pastors served many congregations of color, but could pastors of color serve white congregations?  Can more than just white, able-bodied people reflect the Imago Dei for all congregations?

 

By the time the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed in 1990, further consideration needed to be made. If the Imago Dei included women, people living with various disabilities, Black, White, Asian, Native American, Latino, Arab, Palestinian, Indian, and more, could the Imago Dei include the openly LGBT (now 2SLGBTQIA+) community as well? Could it be that Jesus wasn’t only speaking pretty words, but that he meant them, when he said, “I give you a new commandment, …. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples ….” (John 13 NRSV).

 

Slowly the Church started moving toward understanding that the Imago Dei might be more elusive and inclusive than our U.S. society was comfortable with. In considering Gen. 1:26 (transliterated), “And said God (pl.), ‘Let us make man in our image according to our likeness’.”, a growing number of scholars, including parish pastors, no longer hear God speaking in royal we language nor in specifically Trinitarian language. They hear God literally using us to describe the Imago Dei, God’s image/likeness, as variegated, multi-abled, multi-gendered, multi-lingual. We are the Imago Dei. God is truly beyond our imaginings and beyond our limitations, and all humankind, with our many shadings, our many abilities, our many physical challenges, our many languages, and manifest in all genders, represents the Imago Dei. God is God and we are not, but we are all God’s reflection in the world.

 

As the ELCA entertained a more diverse Imago Dei and what that might mean for its congregations, while continuing to be the “whitest” denomination in the U.S., our civil society, especially large businesses, engaged a practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This understanding of DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—speaks to an understanding within the Abrahamic religions of God being active in history. As God was an active partner in the freeing of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and Babylon, so God continues to be active in our lives today.

 

When we recognize God’s activity in all people we meet and in all we do, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny the Imago Dei in all the world. Pushing the Imago Dei question further, I assert the new more diverse representation of the Imago Dei can lead us to a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive society. God is working in the midst of our secular society to break down the walls of polarizing judgment and replacing them with the acceptance of the many images of God, building relationships of trust. Potentially, this is the kingdom of heaven that has drawn near (Matt. 4:17, 10:7).

 

As a Christian in the Lutheran tradition, I can claim that Christ’s presence (Imago Dei) continues to be revealed to us in our neighbor as we are called to be Christ to our neighbors.  In this relationship of being the revealed and the revealer of the Imago Dei, we are called to love and serve our neighbor thereby celebrating our diversity, seeking equity (and justice) for all, and welcoming all into the inclusivity (welcoming wholeness) known in God’s presence, the DEI of Imago Dei.

 

Wrestling in this way with the diversity of the Imago Dei and its call for equity and inclusive community, tests and emboldens our ability and willingness to recognize God’s active presence in our current political maelstrom. As I see God active in Cyrus rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and restoring the sacred vessels to it (Ez. 1), I also see God’s activity of DEI in desegregating our schools, the civil rights movement, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the abolishment of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and women’s equality. This vision of Imago DEI activity in the world reveals a glimmering hope of a kingdom/rule of heavenly peace.

 

Our witness to the diversity of the Imago Dei when speaking of human rights and the dignity of human life without regard to gender, disability, or race, stands against that of those who obfuscate God’s image of wholeness by opposing DEI policies and claiming the meaning as being division, exclusion, and indoctrination (Ron DeSantis). Currently, many try to limit God’s presence while pandering to the privilege of the few, for example, Wisconsin and other states are slashing the cost of DEI from their budgets.

 

It is always difficult to embrace new ideas, but this concept of DEI is not new. Scripture tells us that we should care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, (Lev. 19:34, Deut. 24:17-18, Ps. 82:3, James 1:26), and the poor (Lev. 19:10, Lev. 23:22, Deut. 15:7-9). We are not to put stumbling blocks before the blind or revile the deaf (Lev. 19:14). We are to build communities where the lame and the maimed are honored and able to travel with us on the Holy Highway (Is. 35).

 

Indeed, our Diverse, Equitable, Inclusive God loves us enough to enter the diversity of our lives, justifies us by his grace, and includes us in his own atoning work. A much wiser person than I once said, “Either Jesus is the Messiah, and he died for all; or he wasn’t, and he died for nothing.”  My Lutheran tradition says, “Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God intends that all should be saved.”

 

From Paul’s words we understand, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? … Know in all these things that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 8, NRSV)

 

So, I ask, can we delimit God’s undeserved love, freely given? Can we have life and have it abundantly without knowing the overflowing fullness of the Imago Dei? As faithful followers of Jesus, can the Imago Dei be witnessed in who we are today? Can people know that we are followers of Jesus by what we say and do?

 

It seemed like such an easy concession in 1970, but that tiny chink in our theologically, paternalistic armor has revealed the vulnerability of our chauvinistic lens through which we see a binary, male Zeus-like conqueror as our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. In that vulnerable revelation of the Imago Dei, we see the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the queer and the straight, the variously able-bodied—we see us, and we are good. We are good enough for God to reveal Godself as one of us—truly human; valued enough to die and rise for us, that we should know eternal life, that we should hear God’s words of hope and promise anew—"given for you and all people for the forgiveness of sin.” Maybe God’s voice is more like it is in the movie Dogma rather than the voice in The Ten Commandments. Maybe God’s voice is heard in the cacophonic babel of our polyphonic world.

 

I wonder if anyone in 1970 imagined hearing God’s joyful laughter as we experience how much more God is. I wonder whether they, seeing God’s activity in the world then, could anticipate God’s activity of the Imago Dei today? And then, I wonder if we can appreciate God’s activity in our lives today?

 

Or are we afraid of what God is doing and therefore we try limiting what God is doing in our midst? Finally, who do we think we are, that we are able to limit the Imago Dei and God’s love is shown in the world?

Introduction

Greetings pensive ponderers of the profound and profane,

My name is Nicodemus. I am the oldest of a rather large family. Well, I was the first pinky. I happen to have a number of siblings, but I am the prime pup. My sibs claim that I got my name from Nickey duh mouse, hence Nicodemus, but I think that Mom and Dad had another agenda going. My brothers are Nicandros and Nicholas. My sisters are Nicole, Eunice, and Bernice. Can you see the Nike pattern? No, not the swishy shoes.

Growing up, Mom and Dad told us Greek mythology stories at bedtime, and Dad really had a fascination with Nike and victory. I think that he thought that by using Nike’s name for us kids that we would all know that we were always winners in his eyes. I could be wrong, but that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

To think of us as winners was important to me as a young pup, because Nicandros, Nicholas, and I are blind. It’s important for us and now for you to know that even though we were blind, we were still winners. This encouraged us to try all kinds of things that other mice were doing, and then again it encouraged us to do some really fun, and sometimes dangerous, stuff.

I remember the day we discovered that the farmer’s wife wore wooden sandals and made lots of noise when she walked across the kitchen floor. She was really easy to follow, and Nicandros and Nicholas convinced me that we should run after her as a sort of game. We assigned points for getting close to the sandals, between the sandals, and touching the sandals. How were we to know that she had an irrational phobia about mice?

Anyway, we set out across the kitchen floor, and then she stopped at the refrigerator for something or other. The door opened, cold air rushed out on us, and there was a pleasant smell of bacon, leftovers, bacon, vegetables, and, did I mention, BACON? I really love bacon—crispy but not burned, firm but not tough, salty and sweet, maple sugar cured is best.

Bacon, mmmm. Where was I? Oh yes. When we heard the farmer’s wife stop, we stopped too, and while I was deliberating on the attributes of bacon, she let loose a scream you could have heard in the milking parlor with all of the milkers going and the cows lowing, and the farmer and the workers talking with the radio on and the hose running. I mean, it was really loud and high-pitched. There was a scrambling and slipping of wooden sandals that went on, and then Nicholas squeaked, “Run for it!”

We all ran for the corner where the entrance to our nest was located, but with the noise and the clumping of those wooden sandals and the adrenaline, the room seemed to grow. I, at least, got a little disoriented and ran into the pipe that came down from the kitchen sink. Suddenly there was this pain. I realized that part of me had been left behind, as it were. Maybe because I was lightened, or maybe it was that extra shot of energy you get when you are scared past the point of being frozen stiff, but I ran like a shot into the corner of the cabinet and found a crevice just big enough for me to slip through. I was out of breath, and my heart was pounding, and my tail, oh, my tail, it hurt, but it wasn’t there anymore.

After a long time, I slipped back out of the crevice and found my way home. Nicholas and Nicandros had found their way home too. We were all safe, but we had all suffered the same indignity: she cut off our tails with a carving knife!

You probably have already noticed the bandage on my tail. I wear it to cover the attachment of my prosthetic tail. It helps to keep me in balance and reminds of the consequences of risky behavior and bad decisions.

Yes, it took some time before we found a way to get to the Sears store, but we finally got there and got fixed up. Why Sears you might ask? Well, Sears was a premier re-tailer at the time. Today, we’d probably go to Walmart, but Sears is what we had in those days.

Through several misadventures and some fortunate coincidences, I found my way to the Wisconsin School for the Visually Handicapped (WSVH), 1700 West State Street, Janesville, Wisconsin, now the Wisconsin School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (WSBVI), where I encountered blind—hmm, people. Among them was Peter Heide. I sort of bonded with him. Perhaps our partnership was precipitated by the fact that his name started with P, my favorite letter; it has such purpose.

We’ve had a long friendship, and we have walked the same circles—so-to-speak. Over the years we have traveled to Europe, Egypt, Israel, Canada, and Mexico, not to mention forty-five of the forty-eight contiguous states and my personal preference, Puerto Rico!

Along the way, Peter got his sight back, lost it again, got it back, lost it again, got it back, and lost it again. I keep telling him, if he would just put things back in the same place every time, he wouldn’t keep losing things, but did he listen to me?

Throughout the roller coaster of getting sight and losing it again, I have been the voice of encouragement that keeps reminding Peter of all the fun and interesting things one can do when you are blind. Being blind means that you can be a winner. After all, am I not Nicodemus? A winner for the people?

While Peter was riding his rollercoaster, he decided it was time to attend seminary. I too felt the pull, so I packed my portmanteau and went with him. There were some dark times, even with blind humor, but with my encouragement, theological insights, and of course, my literary genius, I managed to get him through graduation, supported him during his approval interviews, saw him through ordination, and then I settled into being the local Church Mouse. I even wrote a column in the church newsletters for a time.

Today, I spend most of my time thinking about the old days and trying to keep up with what’s going on. Sometimes I give Peter good advice on things to ponder and write on. Sometimes I let him put his name on stuff I’ve written. I hate to complain, but mice have a tough time being recognized. Well, unless you are Mickey (guess what, growing up, I had to call him Uncle Michael). And being a blind mouse besides, makes everything harder, so I just let it go when he takes the credit. Besides, after all these years, I sometimes can’t tell where my ideas end and his begin. We are, one could say, sympatico.

Anyways, this is my corner of the world, and I invite you to come and visit the wanderings and wonderings of the playful and portentous, not to sound too pretentious, things I think are important. Expect some parody, poignancy, and piety. I ask no pardon. After seminary and being Church Mouse for twenty-five years, biblical stories and theology inevitably will pop up too. Still, I hope you will join me for my paw-padding perambulations.

Your pal, Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse