A Devotion on Exodus 2:11-14 for Mid Morning Suffrages,

Thursday of the Third Week of Easter.

Given to the the Association of Confessing Lutherans of Ohio at Fairborn,

May 12th, 2011

Moses looked left, and Moses looked right, and then Moses slew the Egyptian in a righteous rage. Yes, Moses hated injustice and oppression, Moses loved righteousness and the Law. Because of this trait God had seen to it that he would be drawn from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter. Moses was the right man for the job.

He looked left and he looked right and there was no one. A curious gaze. Was it just to make sure that no one was watching? Was it a gaze to see if someone else was going to do something about this outrage in front of him? Was an Egyptian coming to stop this madness? Was a Hebrew coming to stand with his brother? Was it a gaze to see if someone was there to help Moses stop this?

But Moses did what those who are passionate about justice, those who love the right are prone to do: Like any activist, he acted. In his blow on the Egyptian, he used all the skills of war and sword that the palace of Pharaoh could teach. It was no wonder that the palace responded as it did. Using Pharaoh’s generosity against Pharaoh never ends well, even today. It is no wonder Moses’ life was going to be sought from him.

And the oppressed? They see the splendrous skills of the artists of war and oppression every day. They have seen many swords. They know swords do not distinguish between Hebrew and Egyptian blood. Another sword in the hand of another prince of Egypt is merely another sword in the hands of another prince of Egypt. Their question is: “Do we need another sword? Are there not enough swords? We will die now at their left hand, we will die then at their right, so what is the difference? If they make us powerful enough to fight with them now, they must deal with us after their victory. Does it not occur to the conquering king that he neither needs or wants catapult operators living close to the walls of the castle once it is his?”

He backed up God’s great plan by 40 years, this Moses. He was the right man now at the end of the first third of his life, his heart was filled with the passions he would need. He knew Egypt’s court better than most. He knew their ways and means and the language, he knew their arts of war. He had seen the plight of the Hebrews. In short: He was not ready.

I found myself at Jim’s* house in September of 2009 and “the vote” as we now euphemistically call it, arose ever so briefly “It is quiet in the desert,” was his response and he spoke them with the kind, knowing, undeserved smile that often graces his face and is shared with friend and foe alike, “There is a lot of peace there. Don’t disturb it. Just let is settle over you.”

Moses entered the desert of Midian with all his faculties of war and fight for righteousness fully intact. He showed it at a well in Midian right away, fighting again for the underdog. Yet, the noise of Moses soon faded and the peace of the desert settled on him like its sand; sand he once thought was good for burying dead Egyptians. He spent the next third of his life there, looking left and looking right and seeing himself alone; a nomad. So, the desert forced him to look deeper and deeper, again and again, but now within and there also he looked left and he looked right and eventually he saw inside no one at all.

The desert in all her peace is a killer as well. She killed the Egyptian inside of Moses and buried him in sand. All the skills of war, all his training in the fine art of palace intrigue and palace politics left him. There was no one on his left as he looked that way within. He looked right and there was no one there any more either. The desert had killed the Hebrew, so used to being the obedient servant, so used to live in the continuous compromise of being a captive minority, as well. He took up being slow of speech in the desert. She has time like she has sand. Moses no longer drew on the language of a prince at court, a man of power and means, nor on the language of the defeated. Those men within were dead. He looked left, he looked right, and there was no one left to speak. All that was left was the desert with billions of grains of sand below and billions of stars above, stars and sand once promised to Abraham.

At the end of the second third of his life, now too old to fight, too old to compromise God comes to visit Moses. Moses has now learned not to look left and not to look right. There will be no one there who will last. Their absence was no longer a cause of grief or anger. Their presence would not have been cause of strength or celebration. Moses will now look up and learn the language of God.

A Cautionary Tale

A Lord in the realm was attacking the castle of the King. It was a struggle for supremacy, rule to the realm, and the right to determine the future of the land and all her citizens. The peasants of the realm were either in the castle, on the side of the lord, or honestly busy growing the very food both sides were relying on.

The emperor over the Kingdom had sent word that he had a lot in common with the Lord, though the King had been with him form many years. This discouraged the peasants who fought on the side of the King. Many left. Emboldened, the Lord made a major push to conquer the castle. This time, he succeeded. A breach was made, the weakened defenses were slowly overcome. The breach was now big enough that the castle's defenses were no longer an impediment to storming the castle.

The Lord sat high in his saddle and commanded his lackeys to strengthen the attack. His final order before he rode toward claiming his prize? "Kill all the trebuchet operators."

You see, when you storm a castle to live and take power there, you are now the new king that will become the target of the next Lord. Those who live by the sword die by it. Those who live by the way of poison will die that way as well. Those who live by political intrigue and subversion will likewise fall by it. The ends, my dear colleagues, and you know who you are, do not justify the means. The means are evil and will destroy even those who helped with the finest of motives. It is not safe to be a trebuchet operator, no matter what side.

Santa Claus and the Liturgical Church

There is something good to be said for living in a liturgical church that values history. I am realistic enough to know that not all of the ELCA is interested in history, I know well that many think history is a waste of time. I am here to suggest that maybe in the case of Christmas and the fat little man who has become a rival symbol of it, valuing history and remembering it in liturgy is a good corrective.

To make my case, let me tell a little story: My daughter was 7 years old and, being a pastor's kid, had grown up in church. For a number of her conscious years, she had celebrated the 6 of December or the Sunday closest to it as a remembrance of St. Nicolas of Myra. You remember him, yes? Patron saints of children, secret givers, butchers, sea farers; attendee at the council of Nicea where history suggest that he walked up the the heretic of the day, Arius, and decked him. An aside: my kids are studying martial arts; is it because they knew of that story and want to be ready for the attack of the heretic? Never mind . . . He was kicked out of the council but readmitted after making a repentant apology. Anyway, the good saint has a place in my heart and is somehow remembered in the liturgy of the church where I am presiding at worship.

My kid and I were at the local IGA, waiting at the cash register. An older man was in line behind us and leaned down toward my daughter asking: "SO, what is Santa going to bring you tomorrow?" My sweet daughter, without hesitation replied: "Santa Claus was an important man in the church, he was a great man and a saint, he loved Jesus very much but he is dead. We give each other gifts at home in honor of Jesus' birthday." In my head I was doing a victory lap around the check out lanes. "The kid gets it!" The old man sputtered, looked in my smile crossed face, and with some annoyance replied: "Well I believe in Santa. Too bad he is not coming to your house."

Kids learn from what adults dare to teach. My kids grew up with Saint Nicolas of Myra as an example of good Christian charity but no more. They know him as mortal, unable to squeeze down chimneys, without nary a reindeer or a home where they would have been prevalent. They know him as a devout and passionate Christian who dared to live the Faith into which they also where baptized. I would submit that that is far more lasting and important than some romantic notion of Norman Rockwell childhood believes that adults sometimes idolize as a cute stage of childhood. History can and should be allowed to help form true Christian faith. The liturgical church has history and a means to make it a catalyst in that faith. Are we church enough to use it?

Thoughts on January 18

This post will be misunderstood. Not just maybe. It will be. I will say what I think anyway:

Back in the 70, while I was in college, a monumental election took place. Well, not really. It was merely Carter vs Ford. I admit, I liked Carter. He seemed different. He was not the standard political type. He was an engineer. He promised to do things different: He was a moral man and his administration was going to reflect just that. In all honesty, it did. Carter deserves his reputation as a moral, honest man.

He made mistakes. Every president does. He had high obstacles. Every president does. He had challenges. Ever president does. He was eventually defeated by Reagan. The reason, to me at least, was that, like a good engineer, Carter wanted to discover and define the problems that faced him so that a solution could be articulated and implemented. He did this in public. That was his mistake. He was defeated by a man who only spoke of his dreams and visions for America, not of her problems and he refused to be sidetracked into pathology. So while Cater wanted to talk about the gravity of the challenge, Reagan wanted to talk about the glory of the victory over the challenge.

Carter went away quietly in 1981. He reemerged as a humanitarian. A quiet champion of the poor at home and abroad. He did it not in word but in word and deed by his work building houses for the poor.

Carter is getting old and age, and the information age with its need for new fodder to rip apart, devour, and spit out, has brought a different Carter. His last book on Israel has brought him much scorn. If only he had kept quiet. Maybe all of us are in danger of becoming caricatures of ourselves if we are left to talk long enough. It certainly seems to be true for pastors who forget to retire and actually sit down.

Our nations heros often died young. John Kennedy comes to mind. How would his image have fared had he lived on and had an extra 30 years to make a nuisance of himself? We will not ever know. His image was and is faithfully kept clean and without blemish by old friends and admirers and a horde of people who stand to profit from it politically.

I wonder about Martin Luther King in this respect as well. He is rightly beloved because he seems to have understood that one could not oppose another human being by making that person less than human and less worthy of dignity and respect than oneself. As much as he knew the pathology of the society, of which he lamented in his personal letters from prison, he rose to speak of visions of a redeemed future on the horizon. Would he have kept that balance had he not been killed? His image and legacy, like JFK's, is carefully maintained and preserved and the question I pose has really no answer.

Many years have past since the 60's. Thanks to kabillion news or commentary channels on cable, the fine art of pathology is flourishing. Not only is G.W. Bush's presidency still being exegeted but so is Clinton's and Reagan's. We live in a large bowl where everyone is screaming about the wrong and outrageous that they see. Would MLK have escaped? Would Reagan, had Alzheimer's not taken his brain, have escaped? Both of their followers have gotten caught inextricably in this maze of screaming about wrong and outrage. Today, sitting down and lamenting the lot of your class, race, profession, geographical enclave, political persuasion, religion, or sexual persuasion are almost mandatory. There is no vision right now, anywhere. There is only tallies of wrongs and harsh reparationist or retributionist remedies, all claiming the right of the victim to define right and wrong as well as the right to define the proper corrective measure. But these corrective measures all lack an important thing: a vision of a redeemed future.

So today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.-- good for us. Will we today speak of wrongs and reparations and fixes or will we speak of the visions and dreams that Acts 2 promised the people of God? Without them, no right will ever be seen as right and no solution to a wrong will ever move us closer to a future that is any more righteous than the present, it would be merely "different."

The people of God must quit complaining and begin to dream again.

The Dreaded Cycle

Kuebler Ross famously said that grief takes the path of anger, denial, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. Any ELCA reader might want to check where on this scale they fit. If you are nowhere on it then, good for you. Yet in a significant portion of the church, how significant we will never know because there is no mechanism to determine that and those who could do not want to, the grief cycle is in progress.

To recapitulate: In late August, the Church Wide Assembly of the ELCA passed a social statement that posed the appropriateness of gay marriage and then proceeded to expand that decision with a number of further resolutions that would open the door to gay, partnered clergy. This day had been long in the making. It was resisted by an odd coalition called CORE. It was driven by a focused faction called LCNA that had raised funds for years and was expertly managed ad advised. It is said that they also had Higgins Road and the Presiding Bishop on their side. Reports are that the latter has said at a Hein Frei lecture that he was hoping the ban on gay clergy would end during his time in office.

The former, Higgins, is easier to call. The news releases are clear: Be mad if you like but look, we are doing such good stuff. A recent news release touted the gracious invitation by a gay pastor to a CORE board member with the implication that the revisionist side is ever so gracious and the conservatives are all reactionary by withholding funds from the ELCA. That withholding will hurt our efforts to wipe out malaria in Africa.

A distraction: Malaria would better be fought by giving the African nations access to DDT again. The UN talked them into not using it. Zimbabwe reintroduced DDT and cut malaria by 90%. It must also be mentioned that the malaria initiative is a UN millennium goal. We merely signed on to it. There will be money but no DDT.

For that matter, the withheld money will not just go into socks or mayonnaise jars. It will go to mission, some defined by Matthew 28, some defined by Luke 4, where the center of ELCA mission- think seems to be. Social ministry is not mission. We have found that out at the congregational level a long time ago.

But here we stand. One side is celebrating a victory and is reported to be scheming, yes that is the right word, to solidify the victory. The conservative side is in the process of making that easy. Most of them have withdrawn from ELCA interaction on national and local levels. They are in but not really of the ELCA. CORE is in the process of making a loose association, a "synod," a network shall we call it, so congregations can ignore the ELCA and their own bishop. How this will work is not entirely clear to me.

The greatest side effect that I see is that the next round of Synodical assemblies will have elections to leadership positions without conservative candidates or votes on the floor. The result is obvious. Even with inept maneuvering synod councils, CWA delegates, and certainly bishops will be left of center. The only question to be answered is: "how far?"

Th wisdom of the spiritual directors of the church has been that one is not equipped to make decisions in the state of grief, which brings me back to Kuebler Ross. Right now most conservatives are in depression. Go to any web discussion site like ALPB and you will note that the number of posts by ELCA conservatives has dropped dramatically. I recognize that a number of them are also working behind the scenery to find ways to organize but on the whole the right side of the house is in grief and right now in the state of depression.

So what will happen when the next CWA has given the opportunity to bargain? Surely that bargaining will not bring a better result for the right. What will acceptance look like? It has been pointed out to me that being in a church body but not participating in it and keeping it at arms length at all times begs the question whether one is actually still in that church body. I myself have likened it to the onset of a divorce. One spouse has moved into the guest room and has made it known that they are done with the marriage. I have seen only one household remain somewhat intact afterwards. Visualize his and hers refrigerators with locks. My friend Scott points out to me that this situation is unstable. For the spiritual good of the congregation one must either accept the situation with all its implications and stay or one must accept that one is no longer of the ELCA and therefore there is only harm in staying.

Policies and manuals are now being written. Their publication will most certainly start another round of outrage. If the ELCA truly wants to bear with one another's burdens one must wonder what"burden" might be put on the revisionist side. Since much of it will have to be out to synod votes that now will no longer contain right side voices it is not likely that there will be any burden bearing going on any time soon.

The Old Testament tells of times when everyone went to their own tents and did as they saw right. Whenever this happened horrible things would follow. We in the ELCA are now in the place where all of us have been intentionally sent to our own tents to do as we see fit. This cannot fail but end up in the same places as it did in times of old. May God hurry the steps of Philistine and judge.

Glad to be left behind at home

It is said that a fox, its foot caught in a trappers snare, will gnaw off its leg to make a break for freedom.

I have broken a promise I made to myself. I had promised that I would not watch the ELCA assembly online. But I have. I am I should say. It is on the other side of the screen. Having watched most of this morning's session, I consider myself fortunate to not be there. Like the fox, I would be gnawing off my leg or arm to get out of the hall.

I know, there will be proud reports made by the organization. I know, nobody will step to the important mics and be down in the mouth. I know, they all will wax eloquently about all sort of stuff. If you were not eloquent, proud of what you have done or well spoken, you like are not asked to take the mic.

Frankly, what I hate is the glitz. I hate the poster boy speeches, you know, the ones that start: "I remember a soldier I was ministering with and . . ." I really hate someone at the mic who gives a greeting but then wants to have the assembly sing a song that goes with her speech and I really get enraged when that same person then presumes to be the conductor of the assembly. But most of all, it is the glitz. This is a sales meeting. Short and simple. I hate it when my synod does this. I hate it when the ELCA reps import this to my synod. And I am really glad I am not in Minnesota to have to sit through a week of it.

We Will Make the Wrong Decision

The great big dance in Minneapolis will begin in a mere 2 hours. Oh the things we will decide. Actually, I don't really think there are as many things as it seems. At least there are not 7 days worth of things to be discussed and hashed out. Much of the assembly, as any church assembly, will be used for non legislative matters. Much will be given to reports. Much will be given to "greetings" from various dignitaries and ministry partners. It happens at every assembly. As a church, we are proud of what we do. As a bishop, like a pastor at annual meeting, Mark Hanson will want to give report to the church that shows that the church- wide expression of the ELCA is efficient and faithful in what it does.

There will also be more worship at this assembly. The bishop has made that known. The delegates or voting members will be invited to worship with one another at preset intervals so that they have the experience of worshipping in peace next to those with whom they disagree, which also entails worshipping with those who are present to organize for the defeat or passage of the ministry proposal before the assembly this week. Therein lies the rub: Worship at assembly in a divided church is precarious business. It might be worship, it might stink to high heaven. Who knows but God what the spirit of the worship is at the moment.

It also does not serve the spirit of worship at the assembly that the various sides have made it clear that whatever the decision might be, they will soldier on to make their side's position dominant. The assembly can worship all she wants. If some, if not most, of her members are of a different spirit the chance for spontaneous conversion of the church are slim. They might be at peace but they will not be of one mind.

And the church, the ELCA in this case, is not worshipping with the assembly if you allow me to say so. Yes, we are praying, but each of us are in the same boat as the assembly. We either have plans to fight or flee, or at least, we have done a careful dance between the positions that will no longer be possible next Sunday and we watch quietly to see how we will pull the rabbit out of the hat this time.

Even worship aside, for practical reasons, we will make a bad decision. You note that I have not predicted which way the lot will fall this week, and, yes, lot is the right description as the outcome might just as well be random. The decision itself is the problem. Neither side has given the indication that they are willing to support or live with a decision that does not go their way. Both side must have, I assume, a strategy to solidify the political victory, should they gain it, or a strategy to win the war in 2011 should they not.

In other words the factions, but more important, the average ELCA member, pastor, or congregation has today an opinion which decision they will or will not support, even if they do not endorse any officially. That means that whatever the decision might be this week, the church, the organization that is about to have a decision making assembly, will not get behind the decision as one people. It is as if a congregation decides that they might want to build a new wing to the house but only a few really want to talk to the architect and many have no intention whatsoever to support the project.

Often, the case arrises that two congregations in similar places and positions have made important decisions. They might have decided to go whole hog with modern worship or they might have decided to do the opposite and go whole hog with high traditional worship. Both congregations succeed. It happens all the time and baffles the experts. The common thread in both cases is the pig. You know, the whole hog, the giver of bacon. Commitment of the whole body to go with this decision without listening, much less rewarding second guessing. In a binary decision, the commitment to the decision after it has been made is more important than the choice itself. (Friedmann, Failure of Nerve)

In the ELCA, in 2009, concerning the matter of gay ordination, dissent is built into every vote and decision we ever take or make. Next Sunday there will not be 100% buy-in, or 90%, or even 70%, probably not even 60%. That makes whatever decision the ELCA makes this week the wrong decision.

Organizations that make the wrong decision are forced to flounder until they die or, in weakened form, finally make a decision that all the membership can sign on to. That time has not come for the ELCA, though numbers suggest that the time will come. For now, we will make the wrong decision.