DISABILITY PROMPTS PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY IN PROBATING ANCESTRAL PROPERTY

Well, the winter wonderland has arrived. I took a quick jaunt into the 16 inches of partly cloudy that has collected around Baraboo and got temporarily disoriented. Amid the piles of snow, I got a little turned around with the way that snow dampens sound. I was getting concerned because, although the temperatures are quite pleasant for this time of year (upper 20’s and low 30’s F.), it is still cold enough to popsicle a little mouse like me in just a short time. Fortunately, I ran into the telephone pole and found my way back to the driveway. From there it was just a short run to the steps and a quick trip to the back door. That’s enough winter excitement for me this year. I think I will stay in my cozy nook playing with the music box on the snow globe and imagine adventures of daring. That seems much safer.

I must tell you, I did not forget you last week, but life has been all a-dither lately because Peter (not the disciple) has taken the position of Pastoral Fellow, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, in Evanston, IL, where he is preaching and teaching some of the work he has been doing on Reading Scripture from a Blind Perspective.

These coming weeks before Lent not only include his work there, but he is joining the ELCA Disability Ministries Advisory Team (ELCA DMAT) in New Orleans, at the annual Youth Extravaganza, and Peter (not the disciple) has invited me to come along. What to pack? What to pack? Where is my family address book so I can drop in to taste the culture of these new locales? I have promised myself I won’t do to them what they just did to me. I got so involved in packing last week that I just ran out of time to write. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The lessons Peter (not the disciple) has been studying are, of course, not from the Revised Common Lectionary. That means I do not have the usual readings near me to discuss with you, although I can say that Nathaniel sitting under the fig tree reminds me of the fig tree in the Garden of Eden as presented in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) and that placement of the tree in the garden anticipates the tree of salvation (the cross) outside the Garden of Gethsemane.

As for the Israelite without guile? Peter (not the disciple) is going to speak of the guile that Isaac uses so that he blesses Jacob instead of Esau. It is so refreshing to come to understand that God uses people who live with disabilities as a means of advancing God’s activity in the world rather than hearing again about poor old Blind Isaac who cannot discern the difference between his sons because he is not able to see them.

After all, when was the last time you read this story in Genesis 25-27 and thought about the angel’s prophecy to Rebekah? Why is it that we believe the prophecies of the angels to Zechariah, Mary, and the magi, but forget the angel in the story of Blind Isaac. The verdict is in, people. Jacob got the blessing because Isaac was part of the deception. At a time, when in surrounding cultures, the oldest son received the blessing from the father, Jewish tradition begins with blessing the second, or younger, son.

Isaac, the second son, receives his blessing from Abraham. Isaac gives his blessing to his second son, Jacob. Jacob will give his blessing to Joseph, the son of his second wife, Rachel. We presume this practice continues to the time of Moses. Here again, it is not the older son (Aaron) that leads the Israelites. Moses is the leader who is blessed to be a blessing to God’s people. David is Jesse’s youngest son, and Solomon is the younger son as well. The pattern continues through the ages until we meet John and Jesus. Here too, the older son John (of Elizabeth and Zechariah) and his younger kinsman Jesus (of Mary and Joseph), repeat the pattern of the blessing for God’s people being given to the younger of the two.

Can this pattern of blessing the younger son help us in understanding the parable of the Prodigal son? Maybe, but this week we can be certain that the disability of Isaac’s blindness helps us understand God includes all people in the subversive work of lifting up those the world would not recognize.

We laugh and gasp at the antics of Blind Isaac as the world around them probably did as well. But, at the same time, one can almost hear the chosen of God laughing at the world because the world could not see (witness, attest to) the activity of God in their midst.

Do you suppose that a blind mouse advised Blind Isaac in his program of plausible deniability?

That’s all I have for now. I have got to pa-pa-pack. In the meantime, I understand that hurricanes are not only something to be experienced; they are also something to drink. I’ll let you know how that goes.

THE TIME MACHINE

This will be the first Sunday after Christmas. The season of Christmas is the shortest season of the year. Sometimes there are two Sundays after Christmas, but never three. It only has how many days? That’s right, twelve!!! Good job! At the end of the season, there is the day of Epiphany, sometimes called Three Kings Day. It is the day when we celebrate the magi (wise men, not to be confused with wise guys), coming to honor Jesus, the new king of the world. 

It is a tumble dry kind of time where one is always a little uncertain of where one is spatially located. I got caught in a dryer one day, and so I know whereof I speak. If the temperature had been set on high, I would have been nicely roasted by the time the clothes came out, but fortunately the person was just trying to get some wrinkles out. But, let me tell you, if you want a topsy-turvy experience, take a ride in the dryer someday. (Really, I don’t recommend it.)

Now where was I? … Oh yes, topsy-turvy world. Charles Dickens captures that topsy-turviness in his account of A Christmas Carol, with Scrooge flitting around between the past, present, and future, and yet that is not quite what happens during the Christmas season either. H. G. Wells tried to capture the hazardous vicissitudes of time travel when he wrote The Time Machine, but as fascinating as that tale is, it is too despairing and hopeless for the season of Christmas.

Kurt Vonnegut can be somewhat helpful with Billy Pilgrim (Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse 5) being unstuck in time, but his worship of God the Utterly Indifferent, fails to capture the celebration of the season. “So it goes.” Back to the Future does a good job of demonstrating what happens when one tries to change history, but here again, the story line fails because it is too self-serving, and then there are all of those hideous sequels that have to be suffered.

No, none of these really captures the tumble dry, topsy-turviness of Christmas and much of the liturgical calendar. Last Sunday, we learned that Jesus was conceived and was to be born. Sunday night, we heard that Jesus was born. Monday, we read of Jesus’ participation in creation (just a few years previous), and now this week in Luke 2:22-40 we jump forty days after Jesus is born (a text that properly belongs to February 2, most popularly known as Groundhog’s Day, but liturgically known as Candlemas, the almost halfway point of winter). It is no wonder that we can’t keep a decent timeline of the events surrounding the life and times of Jesus let alone an accurate timeline of what is happening in the rest of the Bible.

Still, Sunday after Sunday, we come to our own little time travel capsule called the sanctuary to worship and experience the topsy-turvy world of our liturgical year. Advent begins the liturgical year which does not coincide with our solar calendar. (Even our solar calendar doesn’t line up with the earth’s orbit around the sun, but that’s another conversation.) We sit through time running backward through the four weeks of Advent, from the little apocalypse at the end of Jesus’ ministry, to John baptizing at the river Jordan two weeks running, and then Mary discovering and celebrating that she is pregnant. Now, in Christmas we bounce along experiencing Jesus’ birth and some early life events—his presentation and Mary’s purification at the temple, the slaughter of the children, and Jesus’ time in the temple when he was twelve).

Then we get to Epiphany when Jesus is a baby/toddler again. The next Sunday, Baptism of our Lord, gets us to the beginning of his public ministry at approximately age 30, and we end the season with the Transfiguration near the end of Jesus’ ministry. There are times in our time travel capsule when time skips forward leaving parts of Jesus’ ministry untold. Other times, time slows down, and we spend weeks concerning ourselves with Jesus being the bread of life.

From Epiphany to the final Sunday after Pentecost time is like an accordion. Sometimes Epiphany time is expanding and the time after Pentecost is contracting. At other times, Epiphany is contracted, and the season of Pentecost expands. (One only hopes that one doesn’t get his nose whiskers caught in the ribs of the bellows.)  Regardless, the goal posts of Epiphany always remain in place, the length of Lent is constant, and Easter continues to be the great new creation week of weeks. It is a lot for a mouse to ponder.

Reflecting on the Jewishness of Joseph and Mary (see Lev. 12, the time for purification of a woman who has given birth) and the temple practices of the day (see Lk. 2, Simeon’s song and Anna’s proclamation) presents a time of reverence. How can one hear the words of Simeon’s song and not feel a sense of awe at his faith? “Now let your servant go in peace, Lord. Your word has been fulfilled. My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of every nation. A light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”

This newly married couple has already gone through their own topsy-turvy relations with angels, shepherds, and one another. Now they come to do what is right by the law, and some old codger takes their child from them and pronounces him to be what they have only suspected. And if that isn’t enough, the oracle spoken by this old codger includes, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be [exposed]. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

These are dire and dour words for a young mother whose child is claimed for such great hope. This is just a little more of that tumble dry topsy-turviness that follows with the problems of keeping up with the time travel world of the liturgical calendar.

Still, to me, a blind mouse, I can only sit and wonder what it might feel like to know that vision of salvation. The words awesome and humbling, amazement and terror, fear and trembling, all come to mind as I imagine this young family’s journey in the tumble dry topsy-turvy world of spiritual time displacement. Mary and Joseph return to their home in Nazareth where we are told, “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and the favor of God.”—one last time-jump or maybe just time stretch. (hmmm)

Your pal,

Nicodemus,

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

TRADITION IS THE LIVING FAITH­­­

’Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a mouse.

 

I love Christmas time. There are so many little schnippels left behind. It is a veritable smorgasbord of tasty tidbits for mice. It seems difficult to believe that mice in C. C. Moore’s 1823 would have been less active than today, but I suppose it’s possible.

 Anyway, Peter (not the disciple) and I were talking about Christmas traditions. (Wouldn’t that be something if had been talking to Peter, the disciple? First, I’d probably have to tell him what Christmas is.) Anyway, Peter (not the disciple) and I were talking.

Why are sugar plums not popular during other seasons of the year? Did the first stocking hung by the chimney have holes in it? How did the gifts of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus come about; and how did St. Nicholas day and presents for the poor on December 6 get mixed up with Christmas 19 days later? Traditions, where do they come from?

Holiday celebrations are often driven by traditions without always understanding where those traditions come from or what their meaning is. You have heard about the woman who cut the ham in half before baking it because that’s what her mother did, right?

I told Peter how important I think Christmas is, and how I keep pondering the sign outside a church that a friend of mine had seen, “If it weren’t for Christmas, there wouldn’t be Easter.” Wow! When I mentioned that, Peter made me sit through a rather lengthy monologue. I share it with you because I would hate to be the only one to suffer through it; I mean the only to have profited from it.

 

At Christmas, people bring evergreens trees into the homes, but they kill those trees in order to get them in their living rooms and then vacuum the needles from those trees out of the carpet until next July. Why? because they are symbols of everlasting life. And rarely do people talk about the Christmas tree carrying within it the upside down cross of crucifixion of Peter (the disciple!).

Lights strategically placed among the branches simulating candles or maybe sparkling reflected moonlight on ice crystals rarely lead to pondering Jesus as the light of the world. People hang those pretty globes of red and yellow and green and blue, sometimes silver and gold, without seeing the fruit Adam and Eve plucked from the tree in the garden.

Wreaths hung on doors or walls do not remind people of the crown of thorns Jesus wore nor of the laurel leaf crowns of victory and Jesus’ victory over death and the grave; they do not even remind them of the Advent season just past nor that the circle is the symbol of eternal life. When people put candles in the windows, they talk about how pretty in looks from the street, but do they speak of the tradition coming from lighting the way of Christ to our homes?

As you said, “this is a time of tradition,” but does it mean anything for us today beyond the sentimental warm fuzzy of childhood. Sometimes I wonder whether Christmas has become the metaphor of the Church. Does it just have sentimental attachment that gives a certain sense of nostalgic peace? Has Church become more about what we get from it rather than what we do to enliven it?

Is Christmas more about the presents to be received than the supreme gift of salvation received from the tree/cross? Jaroslav Pelikan said it this way, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

Nickey, I’m afraid it is like so many other things in our lives. There is a process that we can trace throughout story and time. In Dialogic Imagination, M. M.  Bakhtin calls the process whereby divine stories become common entertainment grotesquing. He describes it through the history of Greek mythology from its divine beginnings to theater in the Turkish marketplace and Punch and Judy puppet shows of the 16^th century.

In the same way, we can see a direct line between the biblical narrative and South Park. Grotesquing is a natural process. It is the job of every generation to reclaim the importance of the divine story, thus releasing it from the grotesque.

If we ignore those stories as the “living faith of the dead “and act them out without thought, we, in turn, make them dead for those who follow. We move from tradition to traditionalism. We practice certain behaviors because they mean something, but then we just do them without thought.

If the process of grotesquing is part of what the Church is moving toward, then the presentation of a doll in the manger during times of seeking and needing life, may be the beginning of a process of grotesqued objectification that fails to present the living body of Christ among us. When that happens, we lose Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

I suppose the sign you mentioned makes sense in the course of history, but the fact of the matter is Christmas does not make Easter possible. Few remember the arguments that troubled the Early Church concerning the most faithful way to celebrate Easter, but it is Easter that makes Christmas possible.

Yes, before there was Lent, before there was a season of Epiphany, before there was Christmas, or Advent, the Early Church debated the faithful way to celebrate Easter. Should the celebration be a fixed date celebration, or should the cosmic placement of Easter be celebrated?

People had a record of the date of crucifixion. That day on the Jewish calendar translated to March 25 on the Gregorian calendar. They could therefore derive the date of Easter. Instead, the Church chose to celebrate Easter with the cosmos. Therefore, it is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.

Calendars were not commonplace. Rome Chariot Repair and Insurance by Sparta did not give one out each year. So, if your birthday was celebrated at all, i.e. you were wealthy, it was likely celebrated roughly around the time you were born in the Roman and Greek cultures. In Jewish culture, therefore, birthday celebrations were considered pagan customs.

Philosophers and historians did come up with a process to determine the birthday of important people after their deaths because they thought that the day of your birth was also the day of your conception. From that date they determined the date of your birth. If Jesus was crucified on March 25, then he had been conceived on March 25. It followed that Jesus was born nine months later, December 25. Thus, my dear Nicodemus, we can state positively, if it weren’t for Easter, the event making Jesus’ life significant and his death on the cross the Friday preceding, March 25, there would be no Christmas, not on December 25 nor any other day.

This means that the event which has dominated our culture for so many years is truly subordinate to the event the world would rather forget. Though God’s promises to God’s people have never failed, though God’s steadfastness has never flagged, and though God’s love and mercy continues, humanity chose to rise up against God in the cataclysmic insurrection against Godself, that time of denial and rejection, where God is killed. Yet, in the mercy of God, God overcame the power of sin and death and is raised up from the dead, opening the way to everlasting life.

And so, the people of God come at this Christmas time to tell the story of faith again. The story is told through the lens of the crucifixion and resurrection, that is Easter, with pomp and pageantry, prayers and proclamation from the past, that is, tradition, in the words of the “living faith of the dead”. The body of Christ is again laid in the manger, the eating place, and we, like the shepherds of old come to “see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

And arriving, we do not witness a doll in the creche, but the body of Christ, the bread and wine on the eating place, the altar. And when we have told of all the things we have been told about the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are able to altar ourselves and, by that altering, be altered. Being altered, we return to our callings, glorifying and praising God for all we have heard and seen as it has been told to us.

In these days when the Church continues to ask whether it is relevant in the world, let us enter into this Christmas season asking ourselves whether our tradition enlivens us or just makes more work? Do we feel empowered at the end of the Christmas season or just exhausted? Are we living in a world of vibrant tradition or a traditionalism that leaves us empty? Do we believe that, without Christmas, Easter would not be possible, or, without Easter, Christmas could not happen? Is there a tradition you cherish that you need to research in order to make it richer? What are the words we, like Mary, need to ponder in our hearts?

Okay, friends who are still with me, I don’t know about you, but I was somewhat daunted by Peter’s discourse. I had planned on asking what the tradition behind Danish Christmas plates was and which plate Peter liked better, the Bing & Grondahl plates or the Royal Copenhagen plates? And, who made the first chocolate covered cherry? Is it true that chocolate covered cherries make you cheery? How big was the bowl full of jelly? I was waiting for, “And I heard him exclaim as he rode out of sight, ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.’”

Still, there is something to be said for Christ is alive and living among us. See him in the eating place—given for all people for the forgiveness of sin. This year, may you be filled with wonder in the history and the mystery of the savior Jesus, the risen Christ.

Merry Christmas, tonight and for twelve more days,

Your pal,

Nicodemus,

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

LIVES INTERRUPTED

Well, they’re gone. There were some hard feelings at the end, but they are all gone. At the end, there were no hugs, no cheery, “Come and visit us some time,” and I haven’t gotten any thank you notes from anyone. The bags of mini-Pay Day and Salted Peanut bars I was leaving for Santa are decimated, and although there is much evidence of my family eviscerating each of the wrappers, I will never know who the particular culprits were. It’s a small price to pay for the peace I am enjoying, but a piece of candy would taste good right now. I suppose I will have to settle for some challah or just a little piece of kringle—maybe two pieces would be better—almond or pe- pe- pe- pecan would do nicely. Yes, I think I can settle for that.

Speaking of having to settle for something other than what you had planned, this week’s text for Sunday morning (Luke 1:26-38) is a doozy. Imagine what it might be like to think that your life is all planned out only to discover some stranger standing near you saying, “Greetings, favored one…you have found favor with God…you will…bear a son…the power of the Most High will overshadow you…the child…will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” Really? Can you imagine? Betrothed to Joseph, Mary is now told that her entire life is going to be changed. On the one hand, at this end of time, it sounds like a profound honor, but let’s think about this for a moment.

The title, “The Most High”, can be a synonym for God, but it can also indicate the highest political or military personage in the area, or even Caesar himself. Further, Son of God is what Caesar Augustus is calling himself.

And let’s just take a moment to consider what it means to be favored. Favored could mean comely or “a real knock out.” It could be, “I’ll get you my pretty,” from the witch or “Hey beautiful, followed by a wolf whistle” when walking by the construction site. These words might be really frightening. Is this a “come on” line from a cultural power source? Is there a choice that Mary can really make here? Or, is this one of those command performances of a sex trafficker?

In the course of the conversation, the intimation is that Elizabeth is too old to bear children and Mary is too young to know a man. What kind of proposition is this? Yet, when Mary learns that Elizabeth is already pregnant, Mary gives in. Still, the words, “Nothing will be impossible with God,” carries a veiled double entendre. There could be a veiled threat depending on whether you hear these words with a capital G or a lower-case g.

It is in of the uncertainty of the world—of wielded political power and desire to live faithfully—that the words of Mary come to us. “Here I am, a servant (slave) of the lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” Is this a resigned capitulation? Or, are these words an extraordinary statement of faithfulness?

What we know is that Mary immediately leaves to be with Elizabeth in those precarious times. It is not until she encounters Elizabeth and hears E’s greeting that Mary is able to discern the intent of the angelic greeting. It is not until then that Mary is able to feel free of political demands. It is not until then that Mary is able to sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

In this fourth Sunday of Advent, let’s not jump too quickly to the script of promised life-plan interrupted. Take a few moments to walk with Mary. Hear the potential threat. Feel the discomfort of the encounter. Take time to appreciate the kind of courage this young woman possesses to stand before the stranger and accept the disruption of her life-plan. Then consider how that disruption for her disrupts our life-plan. For, within Mary’s words and action here, she becomes the Theotokos, God Bearer, for the world and makes of us God bearers too.

“Greetings, favored ones. God finds favor with you. Overshadowed by the spirit of the Most High, you are invited to bear, in this pregnant moment, God’s Word of hope and promise to the world.” Will you accept the interruption this will make in your life-plans? Can you say with Mary, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be for me according to your word”?

It’s time to think about Christmas Eve now. Maybe I need to sample a little Challah left over from Chanukkah, or some pe- pe- pe- pecan kringle set aside for Christmas Eve. What do you think?

Your pal,

Nicodemus,

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

Oh, SNAP! (John 1:6-8, 19-24, Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11)

Let’s talk.

Oh, SNAP!

Have you ever wondered where that expression came from? I am here to tell you.

Around Thanksgiving time, I let my family know that I got a new mouse pad. I was talking about the close-cell foam square for the mouse on my computer. They heard place to inhabit. I told them that the pad included a sailboat and a lighthouse. I was talking about the tactile picture. They heard places to inhabit.

When everyone and my brothers showed up at the door, I was thinking the weekend; they were thinking winter quarters. When I first heard everyone at the door, I thought family. They meant family reunion, to the fifth and sixth, maybe the seventh generation. When I told them that I was cooking, I thought Thanksgiving dinner. They thought short order cook at all hours of the day and night. When I asked about a cracker stuffing, I was speaking of the turkey. They heard food eating contest. It’s time to talk about hospitality and being a good guest. (SNAP!)

(Oh, SNAP!) I was initially excited to be with my family and overjoyed to have adequate space for everyone. It has been a long time. You know, with COVID, nobody was going anywhere, and so usual mouse transit was greatly curtailed. Whoever happened to be in any one place tended to stay in that place. (Sounds like physics, doesn’t it?) (SNAP!) But now that the masks are off and people are moving around, my family is on the move also. Hence the popular populous movement at Thanksgiving. I thought it would be fun to play host to them all, after all, I have been welcomed in their homes, but I was unprepared for the events as they were revealed.

As I said, I was excited as my family came through the door, but then Auntie Pain-in-the… arrived with my cousins (we’ve never been close) and their kits and their kits and their kits. Grandma and Grandpa came next, and great grandma and grandpa, and great-great grandma and grandpa. The rest of my aunts and uncles trundled themselves over the threshold and then there was my own family with the kits and grand-kits and great-grand-kits. Soon my lodging space was so overcrowded that emergency housing was needed. (SNAP!) We tried to be inconspicuous, but the shelving in the cupboard where the peanut butter is kept got to be too much of a temptation for some of the more adventurous. (SNAP!) Suddenly it seemed there was family everywhere.

Peter (not the disciple) has been pretty understanding, but the peanut butter-thing initiated reprisals. Ever since then, he has been quietly moving some of the more raucous members of my family into the backyard where an owl seems to be lingering on his/her/their journey to wherever owls go for the winter. They(?) seem to be particularly plump, and Peter is not saying anything about it.

Well, it has now been 21 days since everyone arrived and you know what that means. Mice do it like bunnies only more quickly. What started out to be a weekend has turned into a population bomb of nightmarish proportions (SNAP!), and so I have tried to be gentle when I tell der folken that it is time to be moving on (SNAP!).

 I understand that hospitality is something that everyone tries to do with grace and aplomb, but Dear Abby, when is enough, enough? (SNAP!) I prepared lunches for them all to eat on their way home, but they thought it was time for a picnic and devoured everything and then shredded the napkins to make beds to sleep off their full bellies. I don’t know who raided the coffee filter supply.

Finally, I have been forced to act more aggressively. I have put out the spring-loaded wooden eviction pallets (SNAP!) but that hasn’t really made an impression on them. Thanksgiving was one thing, but Christmas is fast arriving, and I cannot even fathom the number of presents I will have to procure. By New Year there will be two new generations of relatives to deal with! Oh, (SNAP! SNAP-SNAP-SNAP) If something doesn’t happen soon, I will be evicted with everybody else (SNAP!) and with extreme prejudice. (Now there is a P word I really do not want to experience under any circumstance, let alone the extreme variety.) (SNAP!)

Gracious hospitality is one thing, but don’t you think that guests need to be gracious too? Shouldn’t guests know when it is time to move on?

I feel like I should sign this, “Unprepared and impatient in Baraboo”.

 

Nickey is a little beside himself these days, and so I thought I might add a few words for him.

Advent is a time of preparation and waiting. We hear, “Prepare the way. Make straight the highway. Cry out in the wilderness. Bear witness to the one who is coming who is greater.”

It is not enough to want to be hospitable in the world today. Hospitality needs a plan; it requires preparation. Especially in these wilderness days, we need to be voices of welcome with enough to feed and comfortably house. We need to make space at the table for those God sends us. We need to recognize them and give them a voice in the conversations that determine what happens in the future. And then, we need to find ways for each of them to participate in the mission and ministry we share.

Further, we need to know our personal boundaries and our limitations. No one of us is able to care for the whole world. Only God can do that, and, at that, we continue to know God as Father (Creator, or maybe Divine progenitor), Son (Jesus, God’s word revealed in the person of Jesus), and Holy Spirit (that ineffable, invisible, love, mercy, and forgiveness which empowers and vivifies us giving hope). But in our Lutheran understanding of who God is, we state God’s prepared plan for humanity as, “Through the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God intends that all should be saved.”

We do not know whether all people will be saved, but that is not our concern. Our concern is to treat those whom we meet as if they are saved. There are times when I would like to make exceptions, but that is not my place.

Nickey wanted to be the host with the most, but he was not adequately prepared for the enormity of his welcome. Unfortunately, fifteen (SNAP!), sixteen of his relatives have entered the great food chain in my yard. (Disclaimer: No mice were tortured, poisoned, nor died from any other form of slow death during the writing of this article, but our sojourning owl remains very happy.)

In this advent season,

·       Prepare (find an issue that concerns you and research it)

·       Make straight the highway (propose ways of resolution to your issue)

·       Cry out in the wilderness (be an advocate for those affected by your issue)

·       Bear witness (testify, point, to the One who makes us one).

God’s blessings in this Advent time,

Peter, not the biblical disciple but a disciple just the same

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It’s good news week

Someone’s dropped a bomb somewhere

Contaminating atmosphere

And blackening the sky

It’s good news week

Someone’s found a way to give

The rotting dead a will to live

Go on and never die.

 

Have you heard the news?

What did it say?

Who’s won that race?

What’s the weather like today?

 

It’s good news week…

(Songwriter: Jonathan King © Jonjo Music Co Ltd, sung by: Hedgehoppers Anonymous 1965)

Buck, you guys, might say, “man”, but I’m a mouse, and so I claim the sobriquet of the male dominant nominative ejaculation of mice. So, I say, Buck, I had a heck of a time finding this first song on the internet. All my life, I had thought the name of the group was Head Choppers Anonymous. Now I discover it is Hedgehoppers Anonymous.

Somehow the good news sounded better to me when it was Head Choppers, but then, that might have more to say about my twisted sense of humor. What’s a hedge hopper anyways?

Each year the Church begins the Advent season with an apocalyptic reading telling us that the world is about to end. There will be various cataclysmic events after which the world will self-destruct: “Heaven and earth will all pass away, but [Jesus’] words will not pass away.”

The question of the day is: What are Jesus’ words that will not pass away?

Amid the sun being darkened, and the moon not giving off its light, when the stars are falling from the skies, when the powers and the heaven are being shaken, when the son of man comes in glory with his angels, what are the words that will not pass away? Are they words of judgment? Are they words of love? Are they words of death and dying or of life?

Look to the fig tree. Find its tender branches and budding leaves leading to a growing season. Nature telegraphs the future much like holding onto the elbow of someone leading a blind person anticipates the direction the leader is turning (or so I’ve been told). Personally, I find tails to be quite reliable.

The lesson of the fig tree teaches us to be observant. Take note of the world. Engage in the world. Participating in those pregnant moments that portend the places of lifegiving constancy is possible even when polluting sacrilege seduces the world to cry out in despair. “Good news week” will not be satirical.

Especially in these days of climate change, the Ukrainian fight for its national individuation, the expulsion of the Armenian Christians from their homeland in Nagnoro-Karabakh, Israel and the devastations witnessed there and in Gaza, and the little mentioned war in Sudan, these apocalyptic words in Mark 13:24-37 loom large. Is this the beginning of the birth pangs of doom? Is the world about to end?

When we witness the migration to the borders of our country of large numbers of people who seek a better life away from oppressive social conditions where they live and who then face inadequate means to welcome them and to provide a place for them, or even the willingness to recognize them as human beings out of fear of losing national white privilege, is this a sign of the end of all things?

When the wealthiest percentage of the world gets immeasurably wealthier and the poor find ever deepening poverty, as the middle class shrinks in the disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest…When political partisanship polarizes social intercourse to the extent that polite conversation is no longer possible…When families no longer associate with one another because of political allegiances…Is that the death knell of social order and American democracy?

When the number of countries who are able to create atomic weaponry continues to grow and the push of a button could initiate a nuclear holocaust…When religious intolerance and other mechanisms create clearer boundaries between us and them and further dehumanize them…Is that the line of demarcation that marks the end of the world?

How much devastation is necessary for us to witness before pundits can pronounce with certainty the long-anticipated demise of God’s purpose for the world?

What are the words of Jesus that will not pass away?

For the words we long to hear, we must first look further in the book of Mark. The time of the sun darkening and the moon not giving off light, when the stars are falling from the heavens, these are known in the time of the crucifixion. These words of paralyzing, cosmological, multiverse collapse do not portend a prophetic Pompeii-esque Pele pyre of permanent purge and world disappearing, but the on covering, revealing hope of something new. These events point to the words of next week, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.”

In modern parlance, apocalypse speaks of world-ending destruction, but, in biblical parlance, apocalypse is the uncovering, the unveiling, the revelation of God’s work in the world. This is why the last book of the Bible is Revelation, not Revelations. Each revelation reveals God’s continued involvement in history and God’s work of saving God’s people through a process of reconciled relationship. The apocalypse of John, or the unveiling of God’s purpose for the world that John reports, ends with a new Jerusalem with the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Jesus’ words for us are “Do not be afraid.” Amid the horrifying works of the world Jesus comes and says, “Peace be with you.” Amid the greed of the world and the need to hold onto stuff, Jesus says, “after living up to the commandments, sell all that you have and give it to the poor.” Let go of the stuff; trust in the Love of God.

Know, really know, that that the power of death that engenders fear and trepidation, war and the rumors of war, hate and discrimination, isolation and dehumanization of others, and the fear of the changing unknown, that Christ has destroyed death and walks with you whether or not you know his presence, like the constancy of the life cycle of the fig tree, the constancy that promises new life. Whether you observe the changes of the fig tree, the fig tree continues to do what it does.

It is said that Martin Luther, when asked what he would do if he learned that the world were going to end tomorrow, said that he would plant a tree. Maybe he meant a fig tree. Maybe he meant the Revelation tree of healing. Maybe he referenced the tree from which we all receive life—the cross.

We may not know the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will return, but the fig tree teaches us the constancy of living that continues to produce the sweet fruit of sustenance and delight. Yes, learn the lesson of the fig tree, and know, when the events of fear and destruction surround you, “[Jesus] is near [you], at the very gates [of your borders, your communities, your yards, your homes, your hearts]. In a world where bombs are dropping everywhere, contaminating atmosphere and blackening the skies, where the rotting dead continue to determine the will of nations for revenge, Jesus is the one who teaches us to “live in love and Christ loved us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5).

It’s good news week. The catastrophes of the world may continue to surround and frighten, but Jesus has conquered death so that we no longer need to fear death. “Do not be afraid.” Live! Christ is with you!

Your pal, 

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

PATRON PROMOTES WEALTHY WHILE PRONOUNCING PENALTIES AND DEEPER POVERTY FOR THE POOR

Have you thought about how you hear things? For instance, when I am in the house comfortably ensconced in my perfected cozy nook, and the lawn mowers start, I listen to the hum of the motor and sometimes let it lull me to sleep. BUT, if I am out in the yard or perambulating through the prairie, maybe penetrating the perimeter of a hay field and hear that hum of a mower, I get very nervous and hide in the nearest hole or plaster myself in the nearest hedgerow against a fence post. It may be the same sound, but where I am determines how I hear it.

This week’s reading from Matthew 25:14-30 has that difference contained in it. Today we might say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and mean it as praise. We might say “Come into the joy of your master,” and use it as a welcome to worship. (This phrase has really been used at some congregations Peter [not the disciple] has attended.)  At this end of time these platitudes may sound affirming or maybe just innocuous, but, when Matthew is recounting these words, they were as scary as hearing the mower in the middle of a hay field.

You know that the Church has experienced perilous persecutions in various time periods. When Matthew is writing his Gospel account, Rome was conducting one of those periods of persecution. Christians were being sent to the coliseum, tortured, and killed for being purveyors of Jesus’ words to the people. Rome, however, provided people the possibility to preclude being sent to the coliseum or undergoing other torture and death. They were given the opportunity to recant their faith and return to pagan practices of proclaiming the emperor as god. When a person recanted, they heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.” Can you hear the difference?

This week we hear of events which preceded a man’s journey. He entrusted his property into the paws of honored dependents. He gave one dependent $3,000,000; to another he gave $1,300,000; and to a third he gave $630,000. (These figures are all approximate and subject to change depending on inflationary trends.) The patron was gone a long, but indeterminate, period of time. In due course, he returned pressuring them to make an accounting.

The stage is set. The protagonists are poised for prodigious revelation. The question looms, “What is faithful living?” In the context of the world, making money, showing profits, kissing up to power appear to be faithful plays. Thus, they proffer in effect, “Sir, you entrusted me with more money than I ever imagined possible, and I doubled it for you. To accomplish this, I surrendered my ethics; I extorted funds and property from the people; and I gambled it on stock market futures, all for the privilege of being one of your preferred people.” The second makes the same statement.

As a reward, they hear those words of praise, “Well done, my sycophantic pup. Penetrate the joy of your master.” (O.K. I have taken some poetic privilege with the protagonists’ parlance, but it is for a point.) This is the world where the rich and entitled get richer and more entitled while the poor have what little dignity they have stripped away, and their poverty only gets abjectly deeper.

Now, the third person is encountered, and we begin to feel the pinch. Remember when we heard Jesus say, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor and to God the things that are God’s?” Remember when Jesus challenged the Sadducees telling them that they didn’t know what they were talking about, that “[God] is not God of the dead, but of the living?” And don’t forget Jesus’ response to the question of the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all of your [true self], and with all of your mind. …You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

These previous encounters inform the present situation. They empower the third dependent to speak truth to power—“I  knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow. I refuse to be part of the theft and extortion you encourage. Permit me to present to you your property.” (Again, I have taken poetic privilege to make the point.)

He expresses a different faithfulness, a faithfulness that adheres to Torah with the admonition against making interest, against gaining at the expense of others, a faithfulness of ethical living. In short, he refuses to part with his faith for the service of wealth and prominence. For this pledge, putting God in the position of occupying the most prominent place in his life, he is excoriated and punished; he is pitched out into the place of outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This poignant place of punishment presents a conundrum for us. No one wants to be excommunicated. No one seeks shunning. Once in outer darkness, however, we find it is the very place of God’s creation plan. In the place of weeping, we find God’s blessing. Where there is gnashing of teeth, we hear the cry of oppression and God’s liberating word.

In the midst of Passion Week, in that time between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (city of peace) and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday, we witness Jesus speaking words of truth while others are plotting to pitch him out, to crucify him, to employ their preference for the worship of power and pain. Jesus stands against this world of plunder, pillage  and power inviting us into a place of potential, promised peace. This peace is not the Pax Romana (peace of Rome) enforced by fear and bloodshed, not the city of peace (Jerusalem) that kills the prophets, but the peace that surpasses all understanding in the kingdom of heaven.

Here, in the perpetual presence of Christ Jesus, the poor in spirit are known as a blessing, those who mourn know laughter, the naked are clothed, the sick and imprisoned are visited, the hungry are fed with the bread of Life, the thirsty partake of the potable potion of pardon and hope-filled promise. (O.K., I know that I am getting a little ahead of myself here, but the danger promoted by pericopes (Bible clippings) is that we forget that each reading (lection) is part of a whole; it is not “an island entire unto itself.”)

As precarious as our lives become, as scary as the outer darkness may be, let me tell you it’s not that bad. I’ve been muddling around in it for my entire life and aside from that inauspicious and problematic incident with the farmer’s wife (more particularly the carving knife she was holding at the time), it’s been pretty good. After all, it has provided the venue for me to pen this epistle to you. For those who are weeping, may you be a consolation. For those who are gnashing their teeth, may you be an advocate for liberation. Like the prairie, the hayfield, and the hedgerow in which I grew up and matured; the outer darkness is the patch from which we will rise, more compassionate, more understanding of our partners in pain, and more passionate in the privilege of promoting God’s salvific plan for our planet.

Your pal,

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

PRETENTIOUSNESS PROMOTES PIETISM DISAPPROVAL AND REPRIMANDS OF PERFIDY

It seems to me that these words in Matthew 23:1-12 are as particularly significant for us today as they were 1900+ years ago. There appear to be any number of people who are demonstrating a propensity for the reprimand, “Do as I say, not as I do.” We hear from pundits, pastors, and politicians that God’s way of democracy and equal rights of all people is part of God’s plan for the world and then witness our rights as voters being more restricted every day. We hear from the pulpits of our churches that God loves us all, that Jesus died for our sins, that grace abounds while witnessing practices that vilify and condemn the lives of God’s children. 

Out of fear, 2SLGBTQIA+ people are disparaged. Books and magazines that might help our young people understand that they are not the spawn of Satan, but God’s children, are banned from the shelves of our libraries. Even while proclaiming the grace of God, many identifying as Christian practice programs of hate and discrimination.

Many politicians speak of living in a world where “all are created with inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, and then inflict Jim Crow-like laws that withhold the means for those who live on the margins from ever sharing in the great American aspiration. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which includes support of not only Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) but also considers treatment of gender, religious affiliation, native language, and physical and cognitive abilities who consistently fall behind, is so threatening to many in government, that our institutions of learning are denied adequate funding and are held hostage until they drop DEI programming. And because this form of domestic terrorism is part of our legislative process, no one speaks very loudly to oppose it.

It is time to call pastors, politicians, and one another to accountability. And so, it is with my mighty mouse squeak that I, Nicodemus, pontiki Ekklesias, echo these words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew. “Listen to those who sit on seats of authority, but do not do as they do.”

As Peter (not the disciple) says, “God does not love God’s people because of who they are, what they wear, who their parents are, or what they do. God loves

God’s people because God made them!” He continues to assure all people, “God loves us because we are God’s! God loves us enough to die for us. God destroys death and rises from the cosmic battle, victorious. Alive IN a relationship of vibrant, living God-love, we are assured that God loves us and will bring us to Godself when our pilgrimage on earth is ended. God has created us in God’s own image. The perfection of God is not some Hellenistic, able-bodied, nonproportional parody of the human form, nor is it limited to some Nordic Aryan blond, blue-eyed, white-skinned body. Each of us reflects God’s image.

“God’s perfection is witnessed in the many faceted perfection of ALL of God’s creation.” It is time to stop lording it over others while protecting the wealthiest among us and those pretentious power prevaricators who populate politics. It is time to begin the work of serving today rather than focusing on condemning those persons of power, pietism, and politics in Matthew so many years ago.

God loves you! Yes, you! Live like you know that you are loved.

That’s all the squeaking roar this mouse has today.

Living in the freedom Christ gives,

Your pal,

Nicodemus

Editor, Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse

PERSEVERANCE, PERHAPS PERSISTENCE, LEADS TO PROPER DISCIPLESHIP

HAPPY REFORMATION DAY 506!!!

Yes, for 506 years the Lutheran Church has been living into what it has become today.

But wait!

There is more reforming to do and with some perseverance, Lutherans will faithfully continue to reform and transform themselves into Christ’s needed presence for the sake of our neighbor today, tomorrow, and well, tomorrow.

 

This focus on tomorrow builds on nothing less than the hope we know in the liberating resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ act of conquering death, thus opening the way to everlasting life in the presence of God, has freed us all to faithfully serve our neighbor without needing to be concerned about whether God loves us. We have been freed from seeking worthiness in the sight of God to live a life outside of our self-consuming preeminence.

In this week’s text, John 8:31-36, Jesus speaks to a number of Jewish people who have come to believe in him, and he encourages them to persevere in the word, of him. For the sake of English economy, we usually read this passage as saying, “in my Word,” but the literal Greek might have something to offer us on this Reformation Day.

We know that the name of God, that is, Yhwh, the tetragrammaton, is not to be spoken in proper Jewish parlance. Earlier in the book of John, this practice of not saying God’s name is presented as “Logos”, “the Word” when John says, “In the beginning was the Word.” To believe “in the Word” is to believe “in God”. To believe “in Jesus” who is the son of God is to believe “in the Word.”

The use of the Logos, the Word, takes on the stature of Jesus’ more famous “I am” statements, also in John. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life”; “I am the gate”; “I am the good shepherd”; “I am the resurrection and the life”; “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” These statements echo the original “I am” statement from Exodus. There, when Moses asks God to tell him whom he should tell others has sent him, from the burning bush, the voice of God says to tell the Israelites that “I AM” has sent you.

As these “I am” statements point to the divine nature of Jesus, so John points to Jesus’ divinity using “the Word.” “If you persevere/persist/continue/remain in the Word, of me, you are truly my disciples. And you will know the Truth (here truth is also an appositive for Jesus, cf. above), and the Truth will make you free.” (v. 31, my translation)

All of this seems very involved, but, if we are to penetrate Luther’s revelation, then even I, a lowly pontiki ekklesias (church mouse), am compelled to point to the power of what it might mean to persevere “in the Word, of me.” “Persevere” carries a sense of place. The place is “in the Word”. Just as I live in my little mouse house, Jesus encourages us to persevere “in the Word, of me”. “In” seems like such a little word for such a big concept, but once we have believed “in” God, we find that it is preferable to remain “in” that presence.

Rather than being a psychological commitment, persevering “in the Word” demands a lifestyle change. Much like while dieting, one can lose weight in the short run by making a radical shift in one’s eating habits, keeping that weight off requires a new lifestyle that transforms your relationship with food. Likewise, because it is so easy to become one of the profligate prodigals, we are told to “persevere in the Word, of me”, truly becoming “disciples” of Jesus. Discipleship, therefore, causes us to live into a covenant relationship of promise. It is a lifestyle that is life-long.

On this Reformation Day, it is important to pay special attention to this “in” word. It is not only found in the Reformation Gospel passage; we also encounter it whenever saying the creed: I (or we) believe “in God”…; I (or we) believe “in Jesus Christ”…; I (or we) believe “in the Holy Spirit”…. While persevering “in the Word,” we find ourselves believing “in” the encompassing love of God’s presence, “in” the body of Christ, “in” the midst of God’s own creation.

Now we need only recognize where we live; and stay there. There are times when it feels more like running along a tight rope with the vision of what it might look like when we get to the other side, but perilous in the present place. There are also times when that sense of place is like being held in the embrace of family. True discipleship is known “in” that place where it is God’s vision that directs us, where God’s word of hope for all people empowers us, where God’s elbow leads us “in” deeper relationship with God and one another.

Oh, I could go on, but I think that you can figure out why being made free does not depend on being Abraham’s descendants, but on knowing what it means to be a child of God “IN” the Word which speaks us into being today and tomorrow. May you always know the freedom of living “IN”.

Your pal,

Nicodemus, pontiki ekklesias

POTENTATE PAYMENTS PRECIPITATE PARLANCE CONCERNING THEOPHANIC IMPRINTS AND FEALTY PROPRIETIES

or

PRINCE OF PEACE ANTICIPATES ENTRAPMENT WHILE PANHANDLING FOR PENNIES IN TEMPLE COMPOUND

Quoting Old Ben Franklin, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes”. I would like to emend this with the help of church historian Dr. Robert Handy, “What is certain in life is death, taxes, and graffiti,” and then further emend Handy’s observation by adding “coinage”. Whether you engage in procuring the ever-elusive bitcoins or hedge against inflation with the purchase of gold, all of you have your lives shaped by the iconic prospectives of currency. (There are times when it is so nice to be a mouse!) From the days of “Let George do it,” referring to giving a dollar for Pullman porter privileges on the train, to paying for priceless family moments, captured with photographic precision with your Pentax, or maybe just your phone, iconography is a major preoccupation in the world today.

In writing of missives to one another, iconography intrudes. It is difficult to go through a day without seeing an emoji conveying hyperbolic states of attitudes because apparently punctuation is no longer adequate (place emoji here). And can there be a Hallmark moment without some depiction? And don’t get me started on trademarks. (place emoji here)

All of this is to say that we live in a world of images that have the potential of becoming Idolatrous, distracting us from the fact that we are created in the image of God. Before artists started shaping images out of clay, painting images on cave walls and canvases, and revealing the inner-stone image, God shaped us in God’s own image and declared it good.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes or not?” (Matthew 22:15-22) Taxes represent the social contract we have with the governing bodies that lend order to our lives. These taxes may be oppressive. They may support agendas we do not approve. There may be expenditures on projects or people we deem underserving, and there may be graft amid the procedures of procurement, but taxes remain the financial backbone of a social contract we have with one another. Taxes fund many of the social structures on which we depend: municipal governance; school; streets; sewage treatment; maintenance of parks, recreation, and green spaces; water sampling and purification processes; garbage pick-up; building codes; legislation for lifting the rights of all people; our personal, local, state, and national protection. This social contract is good as long as the citizenry complies with the expectations of the governing body.

This, of course, is not addressing the issue that the disciples of the pharisees and Herodians were asking. Is it proper to pay taxes which are above that prescribed in Torah, the law that God has laid down for the governance of God’s own people? Is paying taxes to a government placing that government in the place of God? If one pays the tax to the empire (government), then must one also pay the tax to the temple? Is the tax paid to the temple (i.e., benevolence or mission support) actually giving to God what is God’s, or is it just the administration of Godly work? In the midst of all this giving, is there a difference between giving our lives to God and living a Godly life?

Both and … are posed to Jesus in the courtyard of the temple and are for our consideration today. (See Nickey’s Corner re Matthew 16:13-28. It feels so good to footnote myself.) There were life and death, political implications pending on that 1^st century day, but the question continues to plague us. Somehow, we need to determine under whose rule we will live. In paying taxes do we regard the governing body of our day as being the ultimate purveyor of our political reality or is there a greater justice to strive for?

Borrowing from Paul Tillich, is government or God our “ground of being”? With a more Buddhist lens, “Where do we find our center?” Then, if our “ground of being”, that centered place, reveals a greater justice to strive for, what does that justice look like? How will we go about the work of reaching that more just place? Can that place of justice be attained without a government requiring taxes?

In the world of icons, which icon will we depend on?

Will we depend on the imprint of famous dead people with their various claims?

or

Will we depend on the diverse, living body of God’s own corpus revealed in the places where weeping and gnashing of teeth against oppression and injustice surround us daily?

More importantly in today’s world, will the icon of the flag or of the cross be our “ground of being”, our center?

As a blind mouse, I find most of this dependence on pictures overwhelming. I find the dependence on image to be part of what Rod Michalko claims as “sighted people proving to other sighted people that they are sighted.” It seems to be a strange insecurity of the sighted.

(And what do you think, did Jesus give the denarius back, or did he keep it?)

“Whose picture is it?” You tell me.

(Personally, hearing God’s word for God’s people is much safer than striving to see God. Seeing God is deadly, as deadly as the cross itself, while hearing God’s voice is the foundation of relationship.)

And, just as an aside, as famous as Patrick Henry was, have you ever wondered why he never made it to our currency?

When Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” was he making a claim for no laws, God’s law alone, no British rule, or a change in the governing body he wished to live under?

Your Pal,

Nicodemus, Pontiki Ekklesias*

 

*Church Mouse