Category: Michael D
Understanding a sigh
Jesus sighed . . .
In Christian tradition, that bit of scripture doesn’t get as much attention or repetition as, “Jesus wept.”
When a parent would sigh it was both a stall tactic for their own well being as well as the audible cue that my behavior or language was found lacking. It acknowledged that they knew that I knew better. It was an expression of both disappointment and motivation that didn’t always mean I was in trouble, but often preceded penance before grace.
A sigh needs context. I think of Bullwinkle’s pal Rocky exclaiming, “Again?” One might sigh to express exhaustion, melancholy, grief, relief, or frustration. And sometimes, a sigh is an expression of awe or wonder. “Look, they got it.” or “I’m proud.” I heard that sigh from my parents: when I stood up to the bully, demonstrated better sportsmanship in high school, did the ethical hard thing, at graduations, at my ordination, and our wedding.
For some it is hard to imagine Jesus as a frustrated leader of disciples that are always looking for him to do most of the work. A Jesus who might experience being “put out” or at his “wits end.” Many only imagine the positive sighing Jesus. But, as I look around our culture and the world right now, it is easy for me to imagine Jesus sighing “at” and “about” the people who claim to follow him in the 21st century. As a collective we are earning that frustrated sigh and eye roll even as individuals we are doing our best to live faith.
As I think about what is happening with the climate it seems like nature (creation) is sighing. Wildfires. Floods. Earthquakes. Extreme temperatures in all four seasons. Tornados where they don’t usually happen. Stronger hurricanes and a longer hurricane season. Rain on the peak of Greenland’s ice sheet. Covid-19 and other diseases, known and once thought defeated, and those yet known. Rising oceans and desalination of the oceans. Drought. Creation strikes back. What’s the penance?
I’m an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and serve in youth ministry in our Region. Our Regional Youth Council met in August via Zoom. It is not what we wanted to do, but it was the responsible decision given Covid’s rising transmission rate in Oklahoma. It is what intentional Christian community requires of us: to think of the other. You know, “neighbor as yourself” and “golden rule” stuff. We spent some time thinking about and talking about these two questions:
- What do you think is the single, most important, life giving characteristic of your church (local and universal)?
- When the church (local and universal) is at its best, what is it doing?
How would you answer those?
RYC members talked of generosity, being a helping hand, and welcoming people. They imagined how we can be better at grace, are non-judgmental and hospitable. My summary of their thoughts: “We are a church that gives without expectation of receiving.” An aside: Is that an evangelism strategy?
Right there in Mark 7, Jesus sighed . . . and said, “be opened.” Just moments before, a woman shamed Jesus to help her daughter. Even Jesus needed a remedial lesson. Be opened. It’s a risk, but who knows what you might see, hear, say, or do when you follow Jesus’ example of living and interacting with people here in the 21st century. That’s hard to do. It has always been hard.
I can hear Jesus sigh . . . at me.
Reading Location
My companion, the Hebrew Bible scholar, asks students to identify their reading location to help them discover the bias (cultural, theological, economic, political, gender) they bring to the biblical text. When I was in seminary it was called understanding the glasses one uses to read the biblical text. The seminary journey was doing the difficult work of deconstructing the perspective you entered seminary with so that you could begin rebuilding, sometime recycling, you beliefs. Claiming absolute objectivity is naive. It is simple self awareness, but our culture is in short supply of self awareness right now. America’s got an abundance of outrage, hypocrisy, and fear right now. We’ve all got zombies we are fighting.
Self awareness has something to do with humility and maturity. That’s different from being “woke.” I don’t consider myself woke, but I know how to navigate woke culture. It is not, “Smile more. Talk less.” as Burr suggests in Hamilton. I probably trigger people with my language from time to time. George Carlin used language and words to get people thinking. If only I was that diligent in my use of language all the time. Then I think I could be “woke.”
So, let’s name it: we all have bias that we carry with us. This isn’t necessarily bad. We all discriminate to one degree or another, brilliantly lampooned in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” But discrimination becomes morally indefensible, evil, when used to build systems to allow one group, or several groups, to keep others in indentured servitude based on race, gender, religion, or creed. America has become a more fickle Nation in my lifetime as the amount of “choices” have grown exponentially. You have the freedom to discriminate, in some instances, and freedom from discrimination in the public arena. How does self government work in that instance? We’ve always struggled with balancing individualism with what it means to be the United States of America. There are some freedoms that are either good for all of us or none of us. That’s a post for another day.
Y2K came and went. But, we have a millennium bug. It seems like each new century has one.
There are religious zealots that want their idea of g*d to reign.
There are political zealots that want their ideological idea of governing to reign.
There are economic zealots for whom they can never have enough or own enough. They don’t care how the world is divided up as long as they get the biggest piece.
We can’t seem to figure out a vaccine yet, so what antibiotic will it be this time?
You’ve probably seen the image above floating around social media the past few years. It is updated often. I thought about this chart while reading two articles in The Atlantic that located me in this adolescent United States of America. Where are you?
All four narratives are also driven by a competition for status that generates fierce anxiety and resentment. They all anoint winners and losers. In Free America, the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America, the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America, the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America, the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating.
How America Fractured Into Four Parts
George Packer, The Atlantic, July/August 2021
As the bobos (creative class) achieved a sort of stranglehold on the economy, the culture, and even our understanding of what a good life is, no wonder society has begun to array itself against them, with the old three-part class structure breaking apart into a confusing welter of micro-groups competing for status and standing in any way they can. So, for instance, the bobos have abundant cultural, political, and economic power; the red one-percenters have economic power, but scant cultural power; the young, educated elites have tons of cultural power and growing political power, but still not much economic power; and the caring class and rural working class, unheard and unseen, have almost no power of any kind at all. Our politics, meanwhile, has become sharper-edged, more identity-based, and more reactionary, in part because politics is the one arena in which the bobos cannot dominate—there aren’t enough of us.
How the Bobos Broke America
David Brooks, The Atlantic, September 2021
The Who asked the right question, “Who are you? I really want to know.”
How are we going to be decent neighbors and worthy of the high ideals of a Nation founded by fallible humans.