MItch Revisited

This is a repeat from February 2016.

Lent according to Mitch

 His name is Mitch. He is married and working on a dairy farm near Indianapolis. We were introduced by another student. They knew each other from their summers as leaders at Boy Scout Camp. I baptized him at the Episcopal Center @ UGA early in his time as a student.

 Each year after Mitch's baptism he became more and more important to the student community as a leader and in a more meaningful way, as a prophet.

 He always asked really good questions. He always wanted things not to just make sense but for the end result of any decision to be just and fair.

 Mitch taught me how to "do Lent."

 You may already know that I'm not inclined to work too hard on giving things up for Lent. I've so seldom found "a thing" that once given up didn't return into my life and in a few cases trivialize all that my Lenten discipline had intended. Every time I've given up a food or confection -- coffee and chocolate come to mind -- I've binged on those same items as soon as the egg hunts are started.

 For me Lent is better used to grow into more prayer, more study, more of those things that help me in my life of faith. So I take on things for Lent that are most often churchy and that require a continued commitment once the forty days are over.

 What I learned from Mitch was that my Lenten disciplines could -- perhaps should -- help make the world a better place. At the very least I should learn something from them.

 The lessons I learned from Mitch started the Lent he decided to go bare-footed. Yes in the dead of a fairly intense and lingering winter Mitch took his shoes off. He made some reasonable adjustments, one was to leave a pair of shoes at his work place so that he could continue his employment. They would have fired him otherwise.

 He made a concession to the group on those few occasions when we decided to meet together at a restaurant or bar. That is from where the name Theolatte´ came. We would meet at an Athens coffeeshop and discuss our spiritual lives and the issues of the days. I gave him a pair of flip flops that he could carry in his book bag so he could enter when the sign said, "No shirt? No shoes? No service."

 We learned so much as a community from Mitch's bare feet. Especially when we saw one of Athens' homeless in the same state, not by choice.

 The next year Mitch kept all his garbage to himself. If a food item came in a bag or a disposable container he carried that refuse with him for the rest of the forty days. Thank goodness he learned how to minimize his exposure especially to the waste generated by fast food restaurants and super markets.

 Think of how many ketchup packets are thrown away unopened! By the end of the season he had learned to avoid many places and customs we as quintessential consumers never second guessed. 

Mitch's Lent was for Mitch and because he did not hide his efforts, was for us as well. We learned so much from his bare feet and stuffed sack. Can our Lenten disciplines teach us as much?"

Hymn of Reversal or Repentance?

I've been looking for songs in Luke.  The one's I found so far have been about Jesus and how his "first advent" has changed the world's fortunes.  Mary's in the middle of her Magnificat sings 

He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,and has exalted the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich He has sent away empty.

You can feel things changing.  Mary sings from the perspective of a faithful Hebrew maiden and she credits God having done great things.  Her confidence grows from this recognition.

She is how we come to see Jesus as joined to this eternal purpose of God for reconciliation and justice.

Simeon's song turns this fortune forward and by celebrating his own "departure" out off waiting and hoping and yearning identifies for us the saving vision and new light that enlightens the nations and glorifies Israel.

Lord, you now have set your servant free

to go in peace as you have promised;

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,

whom you have prepared for all the world to see:

A Light to enlighten the nations,

and the glory of your people Israel.

Simeon is how we come to see Jesus as joined to this desire of God for redemption and blessing.

And now in his "Sermon on the Plain" almost singing we hear Jesus speak of blessings and woes, of good fortune and trouble,  of consequences and outcomes.

Unlike Matthew's "Sermon on the Mount" Luke's version is balanced in indicating how God's work of reconciliation and judgement, of redemption and blessing will impact the world that Jesus now inhabits.   Blessings for the poor, hungry, weeping and persecuted are layered against warnings for the rich, full, the laughing and the well regarded.

Jesus sermon feels like a hymn of reversal.  But there is much more to this than a simple flipping of tables.  The reversal will undo temple authority, social stigma, ethnic purity standards and the very definition of righteousness.

Before we presume ourselves to be the poor ones, as did many to whom Jesus preached that day let's leave ourselves open to possibilities other than getting even with the Romans.  Think tax collectors like Levi becoming disciples, elite widows like Joanna who visit his tomb, or centurions of great faith.

Maybe reversal isn't the best way to characterize this change of fortune.  If we are to have part in God's setting things right our part will look more like trust, more like repentance, more like following in faith.

The Seraphim's Song

Christians are trinitarians.  It is a given.  It is necessary.  It is creedal.

It has taken up so much of our lives in praise and prayer that even our baptismal covenant is built on our belief that God is three in one.  The historic language is to say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We can modernize these titles but must always be careful to leave something metaphorical, something analogical,  with nuance and range if we are to say things trinitarian in the twenty-first century.

As good as it is to be "made in the image of God," our thoughts about the eternal are not eternal thoughts.* Lots of heresies ancient and modern have occured because of how we push our language too far and say too much without a respect for our finitude, our limitations as human beings.

One way to speak about God that invokes a trinitarian appreciation comes from song in Isaiah.  It's the song sung by seraphim in the temple as the man Isaiah is being called to a life of prophecy.  Seraphim -- plural for שְׂרָפִ֨ -- are fantastic creatures both ethereal and terrifying.  The word comes to hebrew use from more ancient cultures especially those who used snakes for their venom to produce hallucinations and the like.

It makes sense as long as we allow the moment to be somewhat mythical.  Especially if we hear their song:

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; 
the whole earth is full of his glory."

While they are dashing about with their six wings flying and hiding their faces and their feet, it's fiery serpents who sing this song.  

For centuries Hebrew monotheists and then Christian trinitarians have sung it and are still singing it to say how magnificent and omnipresent God is.  Built into Isaiah's story is a permission for modern thinkers to be imprecise because our many wings are hiding so much and yet just as gloriously we can hope to be praising God.  

We have adopted the phrase "holy, holy, holy" as trinitarians and in so doing have not forced a precision or exactness into our conversations about God.  Instead we sing it and can if need be imagine just as fantastically as did Isaiah a sense of God's presence.  Thanks be to God for those flying fiery serpents and their song.