The Long Green Season

THIS MONTH'S LESSONS FOCUS on the created world: sabbath, so that we might live in harmony with the created world; physical bodies, with which we experience the created world; creation as the locus of redemption, where the reign of God roots into the earth; and creation as the locus of revelation, where the majesty and mystery of God are made manifest.

In North America we are heading into what is traditionally the hottest part of the summer. The church, meanwhile, is going through the long green season, signifying the growth of the church after the explosion of Pentecost. While we care for the institutions of the church and the souls that make up the church, let us not neglect the earth that bears all of us and our institutions.

What might it mean to read each text with a keen awareness of the ways in which earth, land, and creation appear as characters and setting for the passage? What might it mean to attend to how human characters interact with earth, land, and creation? It may be possible for the church to get beyond the binaries that exalt spirit over body and church over earth/world. It may be that we are able to hear a call to tend the earth as part and parcel of caring for the souls that are on it—not as a competing agenda.

IN MARK 2:27, the Sabbath is God’s gift to humanity, but first it was God’s resting space or place in Genesis 2:2. In resting, God sets a holy example for us that would be elevated to a command (Exodus 20:8; 31:14,16). Deuteronomy is a reiteration of the Torah and chapter 5 nearly duplicates the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20. In Mark, keeping the Sabbath is articulated as divine requirement. It’s almost as if we hadn’t figured out that sabbath was a good gift, good for us, and that we were required by our heavenly parent to take that rest, like a toddler being put down for a nap.

I find it useful when teaching Christians to distinguish between keeping the Sabbath and keeping a sabbath. My translation of our Deuteronomy passage is: “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Holy One your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Holy One your God; you shall not do any work ...” Christian celebration of the resurrection on Sunday is not the same thing as Sabbath-keeping—particularly for those of us who are clergy. The Sabbath is the seventh day; it is not a moveable feast. “Sabbath” and “seven” are forms from the same root word.

The decades I have spent involved with Jewish congregations has helped me with Sabbath-keeping. I find Sabbath is essential to my well-being, as Abraham Heschel argued in his enduring classic The Sabbath. Heschel’s words “The solution of [hu]mankind’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence of it” are more than apt in our technological wonderlands. Even when unplugged, the digital world makes it hard to truly rest. Rest here is the cessation of work, one’s occupation, and more. It is also revelry. To revel in arts and music and nature and love and literature and scripture and prayer—and even naps—this is Sabbath. God’s good gift waits to be discovered anew, even in the busyness of this world.

[ June 10 ]
Get Naked!

Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13 - 5:1; Mark 3:20-35

OUR BODIES ARE every bit God’s good gift as anything else in creation. Somehow it is easier to see river otters, pandas, peonies, redwoods, and shooting stars as the handiwork of an Artisan without peer than our inevitably declining bodies. Like Adam covering his nakedness in Genesis 3, our culture is simultaneously obsessed with and perpetually disappointed in our bodies. Our economy would be bankrupt without the products and services marketed to improve our appearances and slow the ravages of time. Men have slightly more permission to grow old, grey, and look distinguished. While there are few grey-haired women with modeling careers, grey hair is fashionable for the young. Yet among the senior women in national public service, in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s, there are no grey hairs to be seen.

At the same time our culture is suffused with nudity and shame about the human body, particularly in the church. Much of that shame stems from biblical texts, such as today’s Genesis passage, which are rooted in the Iron Age shame-and-honor dynamics of a particular culture and in the traditional interpretation of those texts. (While the word “shame” is not in Genesis 3:10, the fear the man feels is regularly attributed to it.) That sense of shame is magnified with the Greek dichotomy of body and spirit that creeps into the Epistles. One of the postures of womanist biblical interpretation—an African-American feminist biblical interpretive lens—is a deep appreciation of one’s self, particularly one’s body, at all times, celebrating one’s roundness. Anecdotal evidence suggests black women love our bodies at higher rates than other women. There is freedom in looking at your naked body without shame or judgment, critique or comparison.

Taking the Genesis narratives seriously as a way to imagine the world without (before) the brokenness that has been evident in every age enables us to share our spiritual ancestors’ imagination and respond with our own. What if rather than wishing for and cultivating ignorance about our bodies and sexuality—a demonstrably ineffective sex education paradigm—what if we nurtured and cultivated knowledge about our bodies and boundaries, sexuality and consent? What if the only shame attached to our naked bodies was the shame of not fully honoring the integrity and autonomy of another’s body?

[ June 17 ]
Everything Is New

Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34

“NEWLY IMPROVED” used to be an effective marketing lure. But we have figured out that often the only improvements were decreased product size and new packaging. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul proclaims that, because of Christ, “everything has become new.” This is a fitting message for the season that follows Eastertide. The resurrection is a promise of newness, a promise fulfilled. Yet the Easter light shows that the world is very much the way it has always been.

Amid this world that continues in cycles of violence, cruelty, hoarding of resources, and exploitation of the vulnerable, the newness proclaimed in Corinthians is a transformation of a person who is in Christ. What does our newness mean for the unchanging world? Indeed, if we are honest, the world does not look resurrected on Easter Monday, let alone Easter Sunday afternoon. For some, this is evidence that our faith in Jesus is misguided: Look around, nothing has changed! The story of the gospel is that the witnesses to the resurrection were changed and began changing the world around them so that those who were not witnesses came to believe and be changed.

There is a line from a Negro spiritual that says, “I know I’ve been changed.” It can be a real temptation to see ourselves as beyond the concerns of the world and its troubles because our home is with God and we know we have been changed by the gospel. Yet, Jesus sketches out the contours of the reign of God that is rooted in the very earth. Our newness in Christ does not remove us from the brokenness of the world. The images Jesus uses in his teaching are not of a realm in the clouds but of a reality that binds heaven and earth together. Our newness is that we no longer live for ourselves but for Christ, who died for all (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). This is a new thing in the world—prioritizing the needs of others over ourselves because we have been transformed by Christ—if not new and improved, then perhaps newly improved.

[ June 24 ]
God Is More

Job 38:1-11; Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41

GOD IS MORE than we can imagine. The story of Job builds to an epic climax in the whirlwind speech spanning chapters 38-41, including a brief response by Job (40:3-5) before God continues. Job has suffered incalculable losses, including his health, wealth, and the lives of his children, plus a lingering skin disease that disfigures his body. The prevailing theology of the day blamed him, saying that he got what he deserved. That is what Job’s friends argue at him in repeating cycles throughout the book. They try to get Job to repent when he (and the reader) knows he is blameless. Ultimately, both the book of Job and the character Job reject and refute that specific theology, as does God who declares to Job’s friends that they “have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7).

Throughout the book, Job proclaims his innocence loudly, hoping for a hearing from God. (The book is filled with legal terminology. Job wants to sue God whom he knows is ultimately responsible for his sorrow and fully aware of his innocence.) Before they can settle in or out of court, God makes sure Job knows just with whom he is dealing. In a rhetorical barrage of questions to which the answers are “you,” “God,” and “not me,” God offers a résumé. These verses paint a portrait of God as Poet and Philosopher, Sovereign and Shepherd, Creator and Creatrix. God is more than Job or we can imagine.

God’s “more” includes transcending our notions about gender. In one verse, God is a new mother providing boundaries for the sea she birthed out of her own womb (Job 38:8). In another, God is the father of the rain (Job 38:28), while in the very next verse God is the mother of ice and frost. In a world proscribed by binaries, including gender binaries, God is more. It is well past time that our language about God, in and out of church, reflects the plurality of the language in scripture.