The Tender Time

From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that He is near, at the very gates. (Mark 13.28-29)

The Most Impossible Ways

The other night Walt and I fell asleep to a local channel that airs “The 700 Club” each morning. When we awoke to the pseudo-news program hosted by far-right zealot and doomsayer, Pat Robertson, my first impulse was to grab the remote and punch in random numbers; anything would be less toxic. But his opening froze me solid. “It looks like Israel’s set to launch air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities,” he said—or something to that effect. I stared at video cobbled from file footage and nebulous sound bites (with nary a word from high-ranking Israeli, Iranian, US, or European officials), while an ominous voiceover indicated Israeli bombers were queued up, ready to go at any moment. Visions of World War III erupted in my head as I raced for the American networks, BBC, and France’s Canal 5: not a whisper about imminent Israeli air strikes anywhere, not even in the news crawls. “What a boogey man!” I sighed, feeling like a dunce. But was I?

It’s no secret that Israel has plans in place to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities, nor that its penchant for self-serving acts of aggression has become a constant source of regional grief and worldwide angst. Robertson’s sky-is-falling scenario wasn’t beyond the pale. It just wasn’t true—yet. That it starred two loose cannons (Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu) on opposing sides of humanity’s longest-running race war certainly leant it credibility. Once again, threatening disaster confirmed we live in perilous times, when monomaniacal powers and people exhibit no concern about shipping the rest of us to Hell in a hand basket for the sake of their obsessions.

A nearly identical atmosphere hung thick with jitters and gloomy prospects hovers above Mark 13. It's there that Jesus warns the disciples not to be alarmed by global instability and religious hysteria, but to remain watchful in their work for the Kingdom’s sake. We’ve heard this a lot lately: “I will return. Be ready.” Though theories abound regarding the Second Coming, the essence of His message is lost on no one. We approach each moment as if it’s our last before The Big Moment. And while slating this passage as Sunday's Gospel seems a bizarre choice to kick off Advent's anticipation of Christ's birth, its overtones of wakefulness couldn’t be timelier. In an age when the worst of all possible worlds seems all too possible, Advent reassures us that God reaches us in the most impossible ways.

A Longer View

Scholars call Mark 13 (and its mirror passages in Matthew 24 and Luke 21) “The Little Apocalypse,” citing it as a miniature precursor to The Revelation’s epic nightmare. An innocent—rather sweet—comment prompts its litany of dark predictions. A disciple, perhaps visiting Jerusalem for the first time, looks at its magnificent Temple and architecture and says, “Wow!” To which Jesus replies: “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (v2) After the group leaves the city to relax on Mt. Olivet, Peter, James, John, and Andrew—the first disciples—ask Jesus privately, “When will Jerusalem be destroyed? Will there be signs that it’s soon to happen?” Before we get to His response, we should note their lack of curiosity about why or how the city will fall infers widespread assumption it’s only a matter of time. (As it turns out, the Romans raze the Temple and much of the city in 70 CE.) Thus, Jesus’s answer in verses 3-23 is a short-range forecast not to be misconstrued as end-time prophecy. Regarding Jerusalem's demise, He tells the disciples to expect an upsurge in religious chicanery, warfare, earthquakes, and famines. They will be unjustly tried, persecuted, and hated because of Him. When these events start to materialize, Jesus says, “Head for the hills, because it’s going to get crazier by the minute.” Bogus messiahs will pop up everywhere, performing signs and wonders that might even fool them. “Be alert. You've been warned.” He says. (v23)

Then Jesus offers the disciples a longer view—and the pending chaos He just described sounds like a picnic. “After that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken,” He says. (v24-25) The Son of Man will come in the clouds, dispatching angels “to gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heaven.” (v26) Jesus cautions, “When you see these things, know that He is near" (v29), adding in verse 32 that only God knows the day or hour when they’ll transpire. He closes in verse 37: “And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Watching, Waiting, and Ready

Realizing Jesus gave them more information than they need—but not much they can actually use—might lead the disciples to think, “Thanks for nothing.” On further reflection, however, they’d find the inconspicuous gem tucked inside His end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it preview. In verse 28, He advises, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.” And that’s where this highly problematic text's Advent message coalesces.

Advent is the tender time, when bleak realities of our wintry world give way to revived hope and first signs of renewal. What we perceive as grim likelihoods and inevitabilities are simply the dying gasps of an overlong season. Whatever happens in the world at large and in our own lives will happen. We accept that by admitting very little of what affects us rests in our control. Yet none of it possesses sufficient power to halt time. Without fail, fragile rigidity brought on by anxieties pass with their passing. Sooner than we imagine, persistent fatalism yields to resurgent faith. As we reacquaint ourselves with the organic flow of God’s calendar, we rediscover how supple and resilient we truly are.

The Christ Child appears at the height of global chaos, when new technologies give rise to corruptive wealth, militaristic overkill, unprecedented oppression, and fabricated myth. The Incarnate God enters the worst of all possible worlds at the least likely moment to reach us in the most impossible ways. Nobody sees it coming, yet there it is, and very soon it's apparent the harshest human condition cannot prevail against the tenderness of divine spring. It occurs so suddenly we’ll miss it if we’re not watching, waiting, and ready to receive it when it comes. That's what Advent wants us to remember most of all.

O God, we come to another Advent, praying You’ll steer our attention from the bleak winter pounding at our doors so we may rediscover the tenderness blossoming within. We watch, wait, and stand ready for You to rid us of fearful rigidity. Make us supple and resilient once again. Amen.

Advent teaches us the bleakest circumstances can’t prevent the resurgent tenderness of divine spring.

Postscript: Advent at S-F

As in previous years, Straight-Friendly will observe Advent by resuming daily posts on Monday—most being reposts of earlier reflections (and labeled as such). Sunday and occasional midweek posts will be new. Whether revisiting a familiar entry or exploring a fresh one, I trust you’ll drop by often and enrich this tender time we share with your personal thoughts and invaluable insights. Praying a blessed, tender Advent for one and all, I can think of no finer jump-start to the season than R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the Word As We Know It”.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs. Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height, down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine...fine...

Always, In All Circumstances

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5.16-18)

Continuing a tradition begun last year, Straight-Friendly celebrates Thanksgiving in song—with an emphasis on giving thanks when we may not feel like it, when true gratitude may set us apart, and when the complexity of life frays our connection to thankfulness as an act of faith.

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

“Take a Little Time,” Andraé Crouch

“Now Thank We All Our God,” Lincoln Minister School Chamber Choir

“Gratitude,” Nichole Nordeman

“In Everything (Give Him Thanks),” The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

“Jubilate Deo,” The University of Utah Singers

(Rather than translate “Jubilate Deo,” I’ll let these charming you fellows do it.)

“Thanksgiving Song,” Mary Chapin Carpenter

“For All You’ve Done,” Hillsong

“Simple Gifts,” Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss

Prayer of Thanks, Rabbi Lazer Brody

“Be Grateful,” John Legend & Roots, featuring Jennifer Hudson

Always, and ever, I thank God for all of you!

Richness as a Reflex

The righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” (Matthew 25.37-39)

For thus says the Lord GOD: I Myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out… They shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture. (Ezekiel 34.11, 14)

The Issue of Lives

The Occupy Movement has taken a ribbing from TV pundits and late-night comedians. Yet—other than those pathetically enslaved by neoconservative, me-myself-and-I doctrines—no public sector has cried out against its ingenious strategy to change the economic conversation from tax policy to social justice. Pitching their tents on financial centers' doorsteps forced us to face the ugly realities of thousands done in by soulless graft. With dispossessed, unemployed, and other beleaguered citizens tucked away in outlying tent cities, welfare motels, and overcrowded shelters, the nation’s wealthiest percentile felt no shame in whining about potential tax increases. They tried to divert accusations of greed by posing as “job creators”—thus, deserving special protections in order to fix a crisis they contributed to and profited from.

By voluntarily existing as economic refugees, Occupy activists awakened public consciousness to the issue of lives, not dollars; morals, not money; people, not power. A society that coddles the mightiest at the expense of the weakest invites crippling instability and certain decline. A nation that subjects many to hardship while succoring a few denies its greatness. Leaders who tout freedom to justify socioeconomic inequities are neither freedom and justice’s guardians nor equality’s champions. (All they are is living proof there’s more to patriotism than pinning a flag to one’s lapel.)

Participation in a just society begins by denouncing the right to choose who is and isn’t worth attention, or when it’s right and wrong to come to another’s aid. Such choices are pre-decided for the community’s welfare and stability. Attention must be paid to everyone who needs it. The time to help the less fortunate is all the time. The Occupy Movement confronts Americans with their civic duty to oppose favoritism that undermines national stability and the common good. In the final public discourse before His arrest (Matthew 25.31-46; Sunday’s Gospel), Jesus charges us with the same responsibilities, for the same reasons. But He raises the stakes by stressing that failure to honor His principles exposes us to grave personal risk from which we can never recover. His gist boils down to this: the issue is lives. Morals. People.

Rich Enough to Care

Since arriving in Jerusalem for Passover, Jesus hasn’t stopped talking about His imminent departure and telling stories about people entrusted with great wealth and responsibility. Most of His followers get it by now. More perceptive disciples may even gather the theological implications, understanding Jesus’s Messianic role centers on establishing God’s kingdom and entrusting it to us. In case they missed this in His parables, however, Jesus uses His last preaching opportunity to paint a dramatic vision of how it will work.

When the Son of Man comes as Earth’s Supreme King, Jesus says He’ll gather the nations and, like a shepherd does with sheep and goats, divide the people into two groups. He’ll commend the sheep, saying they fed Him, gave Him drink, welcomed Him, clothed Him, cared for Him when He was sick, and visited Him in prison. Those He praises are befuddled. “When did we do that?” they ask. The King replies, “Just as you did it to the least member of My family, you did it to Me.” (v39) He turns to the goats and says they failed on all counts. “What do you mean?” they protest. “We saw You never wanted for a thing!” The King answers, “But you ignored the least. So you ignored Me.” The story ends with both groups in shock. One can’t believe it’s rewarded with eternal life; the other can’t believe it’s sentenced to eternal punishment.

I always get a kick out of the sheep’s consternation. Their response explains why the King honors them so highly. It’s as if they ask, “What’s the big deal? We had it, they needed it, and so we gave it away, knowing there’s more where that came from.” What made them rich enough to care was not caring about riches. By calling them “sheep,” Jesus evokes Judaic respect for their virtues: faith in the shepherd, obedience, humility, and so on. Most of all, sheep exemplify community. The tiniest threat to the littlest lamb endangers the entire flock. When pasture is plentiful, all are fed. Otherwise, all suffer, because the flock’s stability relies on its ability to share. In contrast, goats are fiercely territorial, acquisitive creatures that lock horns the instant they sense one of their own encroaching on their space. (That’s why we associate gentleness with lambs and brutishness with goats.)

Stability and Growth

In Sunday’s reading from Ezekiel 34, we’re once again reminded God is our Shepherd. “I Myself will search for My sheep, and will seek them out,” God says in verse 11, vowing we will “lie down in good grazing land” and “feed on rich pasture.” (v14) God goes on to say in verse 16, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” The prophecy gets us to the essence of what Jesus wants us to see. It’s not ours to decide who merits our attention and when we should reach out to the least. Instead, we’re asked to choose how we regard the riches of God’s provision. We can either turn God’s goodness into a crippling burden or use its richness as a reflex. Either we obsess about hanging on to what we’ve got or we intuitively give it away, knowing there’s more where that came from.

Offering compassion, hospitality, and concern to those in need demands tremendous discipline and, often, staggering emotional sacrifice. But it costs us nothing. And in the end, it prospers communities we serve and us with enduring stability and growth. It should come so naturally we do it without thinking or talking about it. That’s difference between the sheep's “What did we do?” and the goats' “Look what we did!” Jesus teaches that true goodness isn’t defined by its doers’ abilities, but by its recipients’ inabilities. The least capable among us gain our highest attention because their needs are greatest. It’s that simple. And if that upsets and surprises us, Jesus tells us we’re in for a really upsetting surprise.

Free us, O Shepherd, from selfishness and insecurities and competitive streaks that endanger our communities and ignore Your commands. You’ve provided more than we need, enabling us to give it away without hesitation, knowing Your goodness is inexhaustible. Instill that truth so deep inside our being that it becomes instinctive. May we be counted worthy in Your sight. Amen.

The richness of God’s goodness to us enables us to give it away without hesitation or thought, knowing there’s always more where that came from.

Let's Go Up

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122.1)

Till Every Exile Comes Home

What gracious Facebook friends I have! Besides linking posts on Straight-Friendly’s group page, I also put them on my personal page, dropping them on family and friends. Every time I post a link, I hear a lot of them groan, “Here he goes with that stuff!” Yet, other than a couple tightly wound Christians, not one has charged me with overstepping. In fact, I’m often surprised and moved by positive responses from people I considered unlikely to show any support. Ever the optimist, I imagine those who’ve not said anything pro or con view the links favorably. Meanwhile, the realist in me argues that many dislike what I do and are too polite to complain. The truth, I guess, lay in the middle. Most probably breeze by my stuff as I do much of theirs, because Facebook is the Land of the Unhidden Agenda, where any and everyone can say what’s on their minds and keep saying it until they’re tired of saying it—usually long after people tire of hearing it. Whether or not my FB friends look kindly on what I say and do there, it’s a smart bet they’re over it by now, many of them wishing I’d give it up and move on. Sometimes I wish I would, too. But I can’t.

When God’s Spirit and Word spoke healing to my heart, it broke anew for multitudes of LGBT and straight believers unjustly ostracized by foul doctrines of fear, shame, and rejection. Assurance that nothing can separate us from God’s love won’t let me quit saying so till every exile comes home. Compared to the task facing those of us who hear the Spirit call the Church to renew its first love—the Gospel of grace, equality, and inclusion—I know my efforts don’t carry a flea’s weight. Yet having so little to offer compels me to do all I can in the biggest way. With regrets to those who are weary with me, I suspect this obsession is with me for life, gaining insistence the closer we get to a day when Christians of every gender, ethnicity, orientation, class, and persuasion are joyfully, freely welcomed by all members of Christ’s Body.

Can—will—that day arrive? Along with believing there’s no good reason why it can’t, I find no use in excuses for why it won’t. Or so says my optimist. It never saw a mountain it couldn’t scale once faith in God’s power and trust in God’s purpose entered the picture. Oddly enough, my realist, who generally sides with logic and skepticism, doesn’t disagree. It does, however, stop short of buying the dream without caveats. Reviving the Apostles’ doctrine of Christ’s acceptance relies on us forsaking prejudices and myths that wormed their way into our traditions, fractured our unity, and corroded our witness. That’s a tall order.

Belittling a Few to Mass-Market Belonging

Since many who govern Christian lives obtained and hold power by preaching fear of rejection, we can’t imagine they’ll champion equality and inclusion. Early in the Christian movement, it became clear the leader with the biggest draw held the most clout. Not a few figured out that barring select groups was the quickest, surest way to pack the house with would-be insiders. For centuries, those charged with advancing the Gospel have built huge, slavishly devoted followings by fueling an intrinsically covetous desire to have what others can’t get. Twisting Scripture every which way—or, if that failed, inventing exclusionary “theologies” from whole cloth—they present the Church as a members-only organization, not the let-everyone-come organism Jesus brought to life with His blood. As a consumer strategy, belittling a few to mass-market belonging couldn’t be more effective; its replication in every ad touting status or getting ahead verifies that. One thing’s certain: it inflates many prelates and pastors’ self-importance and makes a lot of them very rich—every one of them fully aware that hawking the Gospel to endorse exclusion negates Its truth and cheapens the price Christ paid to substantiate It. Exclusion is the most subversive, dangerous doctrine ever visited upon Christ's Church.

You’d expect the shameful history of religious wars, public strife, and private torment brought on by Christian exclusion would cause every leader in every faith community to demand it cease, regardless if they care or even understand that true discipleship is defined and measured by Christ’s command to love God and others without restraint. But here’s the rub. Nullifying doctrines of inequality and exclusion cancels all power to leverage fear of rejection as a control mechanism and campaign tactic, which many in authority can’t afford to do.

Humanly Impossible

Suppose churches literally became what Jesus indicates they should be: safe harbors where none is rejected and all are equally entitled to God’s grace. How would that work? It’s humanly impossible. Despite the New Testament’s outlay of church governance, only a lunatic would try to hold such an unmanageably diverse and needy crowd together. With nothing to fear, what’s not to lose? Without sinners to keep out, there’s nothing to keep saints in. If Jesus means what He says in John 6.37 (“Whoever comes to Me I will never drive away”), and if the Spirit and the Church actually say what Revelation 22.17 says (“Let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”), we’re looking at a managerial nightmare. Not that there will be much to manage. Nobody joins a club that lets anybody in.

My realist urges me not to lose sight of the scarred history, ingrained traditions, and nagging insecurities that plague the priestly caste at the summit of the mountain that my optimist hopes to conquer. Waiting for an invite like the one in Revelation wastes precious time. That offer has stood since Christ stepped out of the tomb. It will forever stand. There’s no excuse for stalling in the valley, starving for community and nurture until those at the top send invitations barreling down the hill. If that’s what it takes to press our way toward inclusion, we ain’t going anywhere for a while, because what we’re waiting on ain’t coming any time soon.

Those occupying the mountain may rule it to their liking. But they don’t own it and can’t stop us from climbing it. So why keep murmuring about high officials and lofty communities too terrified of falling to budge? They don’t have to come to us—and we need to stop wishing they would. What they do or don’t do to end the Church’s long night of exclusion has no impact on us. God gives all exiled believers a fear-free, outrageously joyful answer to their dilemma. It’s not a demand or denial. It’s a decision, delivered on wings of a song that says, “Let’s go up.”

Going to Meet God

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”

Most of us raised in church grew up singing one or another version of Psalm 122.1. Composers have set its lyric in every style and genre—from toe-tapping, let’s-get-our-praise-on versions that emphasize the “glad” end of the sentence to richly sacred hymns that evoke the privilege of entering God’s house. Psalm 122 is the third in a 15-song suite (120-134) known as “The Songs of Ascent,” sung by ancient Jews while climbing Jerusalem’s Temple Mount (a.k.a. “Mt. Zion”) for festival services. These songs surpass others that extol Temple worship. They’re informed with a sense of community and stubborn hope. They span an enormous range of emotions, referring to the best and worst of Israel’s experience. As worshipers look up to the Temple, they repeatedly describe a God Who watches over them. Their joy mounts as they sing; reciting how far they’ve come makes vivid where they’re going. It’s bigger than going to church out of obligation (like many part-time Christians do at Christmas and Easter). They’re going to meet God, every song drawing nearer to God’s dwelling.

A fascinating aspect of The Songs of Ascents surfaces with four (122, 124, 131, and 133) composed by the Temple’s visionary, David, and a fifth (127) by its builder, Solomon. Yet these songs are written like the rest: in the voice of a commoner marveling at God’s goodness and power. Israel’s two greatest kings join the procession—not out of noblesse oblige or politically savvy solidarity. Implicit in their point of view one finds an electrifying confession of faith. This is God’s mountain, God’s house, and they, along with every pilgrim, are God’s people. They own these truths without presumption of owning what belongs to God. Canny recognition of what’s theirs and what’s God’s frees them from inequities and fears that shatter community and sanction prejudice.

David and Solomon leave their palatial heights to ascend Mt. Zion with their people. They surrender authority as Israel’s anointed leaders to honor Who’s really in charge. And while Israel habitually backslides into exclusionary policies, both kings consistently take a hands-off approach regarding elitism. God’s awesome reality in their own lives—made real by keen awareness they’re undeserving of divine favor—stays before them. In Psalm 131.1-2, David writes, “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me.”

The Spirit of Ascent

This is the spirit of ascent: the mightiest man in Israel admitting he’s not big enough to take the reins from God. Weighty matters exceed his knowledge and authority. Much of what happens around him is unmanageable. What God demands is humanly impossible. Yet David doesn’t grab for control to retain to power and position. He’s so smart about where his authority ends and God’s begins that he celebrates his limits. And when the call goes out—“Let’s go up to God’s house”—he’s thrilled. It’s a little thing. But he does it in a big way.

When we answer the call to go up, we bear in mind our ascent is about meeting God where God dwells. We concede our limitations while doing what we little can in a big way. With that comes a lamentable concession that not every church is a house of God. Many don’t nurture organisms where faith thrives and all are invited to take the living water as a gift. They’re merely clubhouses—organizations whose members define themselves by what they’re not instead of Whose they are. They’re founded on covetous desire to have what those who don’t fit the accepted profile can’t. They preach and practice belittlement to conjure a false sense of belonging, status, and getting ahead. Thus, we have to free ourselves of the idea that boycotting worship because expertly marketed clubs won’t admit us proves anything. Our ascent bypasses such places without a glance. They’re not where we want to be, nor should be. Not being welcome is our first indication they can’t provide what we need. We’re climbing God’s mountain to meet God. Jesus promises never to drive us away. The Spirit and the true Body of Christ says, “Come.” We must own these truths.

A New Normal

In every Christian exile there’s a profound longing for a safe home where none is belittled and all belong. Those we find will, in many cases, be nothing like those we left. Our trek isn’t intended to return us to clubhouses that mock God’s sovereignty and our making. Our ascent leads to homes that defy the norm in obedience to a new normal. Once we start filling up authentic houses of God, members-only mentality will self-destruct. Fear of rejection will lose its luster, and physical, emotional, and spiritual violence born of exclusion will cease. For that to go, however, we must let go fantasies that homes where we’re not wanted or appreciated will suddenly change their ways. Mistaking magical thinking for faith-bred optimism can be as paralyzing and unproductive as stubborn denial.

Though it seems those occupying the summit hold the power and write the rules, nothing could be further from the truth. The power resides in us. The only rules that merit attention are laid out in God’s Word. They’re not hidden in obscure passages or legalistic fine print, either. They’re writ large in Old Testament commands to welcome the stranger and embodied in Christ’s life and teachings. God’s Spirit beckons us to God’s house. Let’s respond gladly. Let’s go up.

You call us to Your mountain, to meet You in Your house, O God. Forgive our reluctance to climb. Make us glad as we go up and lead us safely home. Amen.

There’s no excuse for stalling in the valley, expecting an invitation to come rolling down from those who occupy the top of the hill. Power to go up and meet God resides in us.

Assuming Risks

The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. (Matthew 25.16-18)

Mutually Beneficial Outcomes

Business that took me to San Diego last week offered an opportunity to visit with our financial advisor, his wife, and their two-year-old son. Before their recent move to the West Coast, Walt and I counted them among our favorite couples to spend unhurried evenings with, and the chance to see how they’re doing in their new place—if only for an hour or so—gave us too much important stuff to talk about to discuss money. As it is, my financial conversations with Byron are typically brief for two reasons. My head isn’t wired for money matters; it shuts down the instant the charts and graphs come out. More important, we have total faith he has our best interests at heart. Because he knows and cares for us, and wants to please us, he treats our assets like his own.

Our discussions usually begin by him saying, “Here’s what I’m doing with our money,” and end with me saying, “If it works for you, it works for us.” In between, he’s legally obliged to disclose risks we assume if we take his advice. Given his faithfulness as our friend and advisor, precautionary measures seemed silly at first. Then he explained why they're important to him. “You stand to lose money—which is never pleasant, but can always be remedied. I stand to lose your friendship, trust, and respect. That can’t be fixed. If the law didn’t require it, I’d still go over what’s at risk to assure you I’ve weighed the options to make the wisest decision—for both of us.” The explanation beautifully summarizes the investment dynamic Jesus describes in Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 25.14-30). His story of a man who entrusts large sums to three servants is all about assuming risk, weighing options, and wise decisions—and how honoring the master’s faith yields mutually beneficial outcomes for two of the three servants.

No Growth Without Risk

Matthew buries the parable’s lead by not telling us much about the master’s character until the third servant scrambles to justify not generating gains with what he’s given. “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed,” he says. “So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” (v24-25) These days, when we’re inundated with exposés of Ponzi schemers, robber barons, and Wall Street flim-flam artists, we immediately suspect this guy’s working some kind of angle. We’re suddenly very wary when he hands one servant five talents, another two, and a third a single talent before departing on a trip. (Scholars estimate one talent equaled 15 times an average worker’s annual income. Jesus is talking a lot of cash here.) We shudder as the first two rush off to wheel and deal with his money—and we’re relieved they’re able to double it. Imagining their fate if things went wrong, the third servant’s decision to bury his talent doesn’t look so foolish after all. With the least to gamble, he’s got the most to lose.

So why does the master call him “wicked and foolish” (v26) and those who take big chances “good and trustworthy” (v21)? Why does he reward their risky behavior by giving them more, while taking back what he gave the other servant, saying he should have known not to play it safe? (To add insult to injury, he hands the talent to the first servant, who risked more than the others combined.) Why does he invite the first two to “enter the joy of your master,” yet banish the third to “outer darkness” (v30)? If he’s as greedy and conniving as we’re led to think, avoiding his wrath at all costs is the smartest thing a servant can do, as it witnesses true loyalty and respect.

The master doesn’t see it like we do, because he’s not the predator we presume him to be. He’s a brilliant venture capitalist in the business of funding risk. He reaps where he doesn’t sow and gathers where he doesn’t scatter seed in return for providing the seed and ground it grows in. Expecting those he entrusts with wealth to assume risks to create more wealth, it’s his right to demand they weigh the options and make wise decisions that benefit him and them. What the third servant views as harshness is really sound management. The master empowers his people to take risks, and those who know and understand him don’t hesitate do so. They’re less concerned with results than honoring his trust. As a canny investor, he’s aware that markets and harvests fluctuate. He knows taking risks invites potential disappointment and frustration. Yet it’s nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, as there can be no growth without risk. The first two get that. The third earns his master’s ire by lacking will to grow. Poor grasp of his master’s plan and fear of punishment witness not a shred of faith in the one he serves. It’s true: he’s wicked and lazy and deserves to be fired on the spot.

Them That’s Got Shall Get

According to Matthew, this is Jesus’s final parable before He’s arrested. In light of its timing, then, we ascertain Jesus refers to Himself as the demanding master who endows his servants to manage his investments while He’s away. He cautions us we’ll be judged and rewarded in scale with what we’ve done with what we’re given, which is by no means a negligible sum regardless how our talents compare to others’. The only commentary Jesus inserts into the story surfaces in the master’s fury with the risk-averse servant—and it’s a stunner: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” (v29) Jesus wants us to recognize the value of what we possess and He expects us to risk all we have to create greater wealth from the wealth He’s entrusted to us. Burying it where no one can find it may seem smart. But it’s a wicked, lazy approach that reveals not a shred of understanding or trust in Christ.

I’m also convinced the parable contains less overt messages that we need to hear. While faith is our most precious and holy possession, we’re foolish to imagine it needs our protection. What’s more—and you may want to fasten your seatbelt for this—fearing God’s wrath does neither God nor us a service. Indeed, Jesus says what comes of being afraid of God’s punishment is the surest way to experience it. We are not called to spiritual stasis. We’re called to grow. That demands courage to assume risks, weigh options, and make wise decisions. In 2 Timothy 1.7 Paul writes, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” Burying our talents for fear of losing them puts us at greater risk than any chance we’ll ever take to grow the power, love, and self-discipline God entrusted to us. Jesus couldn’t be more explicit in warning us risk-averse cowardice leads to an unhappy ending. And it’s no surprise we should find this so surprising. As Billie Holiday put it, “Them that’s got shall get; them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible says, and it still is news.”

Lord, You know better than anyone we’re surrounded by third servants frozen with fear of Your wrath. Assuming risks to generate growth is anathema to them. Reignite the power, love, and self-discipline You placed in us so that we’ll reject fear and honor Your trust. For Your sake and ours, strengthen our will to grow. Amen.

Safeguarding our talents may seem like a wise strategy, but it ends up putting us at greater risk than using what God has given us to generate more growth.

Protect Your Light

Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. (Matthew 25.1-4)

Too Many Variables

Regardless what scenario their creators dream up, apocalyptic movies always include a scene that beefs up the pathos. It usually ends what film teachers call “the second act.” The characters are established. Chaos has laid waste to most of the landscape and extras. The hero’s crew has gathered everything they need to survive. Uncertain when the crisis will end, they use resources sparingly. They find a safe hideaway and hunker down, awaiting the climactic confrontation that—sure enough—explodes in Act Three. For now, they’re grateful for calm before the storm. Then someone shows up, begging them to share their shelter and supplies.

As is our nature, compassion comes quicker for strangers. When they’re former friends and neighbors, shared history complicates the issue. After ignoring early signs of looming disaster, they hear the answer they dread: “There’s not enough to share. Sorry, you’re on your own.” But simply saying that triggers a change of heart and hero relents. We enter the final act, our restored faith in humanity promising a happy ending—even though we don’t believe it for a second. There are too many variables in play to risk survival on heedless latecomers. In the real world, the hero’s “you-made-your-bed-sleep-in-it” reflex would kick in. Of course, since reality rarely intrudes on apocalyptic movie logic, we let it slide and gear up for the big finale. Not so in the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 25.1-13 (Sunday’s Gospel). Realism flows through His bridesmaids’ tale like an icy stream rushing toward tragedy—which is precisely where half the wedding party lands.

A Horror Story

Artificial light spoils our ability to react to the story in the same manner of those who actually hear it. The darkest night we’ll ever know would look like dusk to ancient eyes. In Jesus’s time, darkness is deadly. After nightfall, you don’t venture beyond your village walls unless you’ve got a reliable lamp to light your way. That’s why so many of Jesus’s parables in Matthew end with a terrifying shocker: the careless character(s) is thrown into “outer darkness”—i.e., run out of town in the middle of the night—“where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” It’s also why anyone expecting night travelers stands ready to go out to them the instant their lamps are sighted.

The ancients put great stock in hospitality and protocols because keeping them keeps danger at bay. In fact, many of our customs—leaving a porch light on, for instance, or wedding and funeral processions—evolve from a pre-modern compulsion to ensure safe travel for one’s friends and family. No matter how close they are when watchmen first spot them, it’s never so close to shrug one’s duty to meet them. Should their light fail and darkness swallow them, death and harm are merely a step away. The host, attendant, or servant unprepared to bring them light justifiably earns the traveler’s contempt, often at a great price. And all of this—fear of the dark, personal risk, inhospitality, thoughtless irresponsibility, and tragic consequences—figure into Jesus’s tale, which sounds to His listeners more like a Stephen King novel than a fable.

A bridegroom assembles a party of 10 maidens to usher him into town when he arrives. Five of them understand what’s required of them, while the other five apparently don’t. Jesus calls the prepared maidens “wise,” and the unprepared ones “foolish.” A new wrinkle spotlights their idiocy. On hearing the groom is delayed, they don’t use the extra time to fix things. Instead, they nap with the wise maidens. At midnight, the watchmen wake them. The groom is coming. The wise maids fire up their lamps. The foolish ones beg them for oil. Sadly, they haven’t any to spare. “Find a dealer to sell you some,” they say. And while the foolish maids run around town, the wise ones go into the night to meet the groom. Without asking about the missing maidens, he takes them into the wedding banquet and shuts the door. When the foolish maids show up, he disowns them. “I don’t know you,” he insists. Jesus closes with an ominous moral: “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (v13)

Ours to Keep

That’s it? No gruesome violence, no big “Boo!” to scare us out of our socks? How is this a horror story? What makes it tragic? So what if they didn’t get into the banquet? There’ll be others. We might think so, but Jesus’s listeners don’t have to be told there will not be other parties. The foolish maidens prove themselves unworthy of so much as a welcome. Selfishness, carelessness, laziness—call it what you will; all of them fit—renders them invisible. They’ve no right to ask anyone for anything. Worst of all, there will be no one to venture into the night and guarantee their safe travel. They are no longer known. Jesus doesn’t describe their panicked screams when reality jumps out at them. His listeners can already hear them, and they’re chilled to the bone.

Like all the parables, this one gets interpreted every conceivable way. Some think the oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and take it to mean believers who ignore the Spirit’s guidance invite foolish risks. Some read it as a warning to stay ready for death or the Second Coming. Some take it as another of Jesus’s lessons urging His followers to own responsibility for the flock after He’s gone. Yet in all of these, one truth cannot be ignored. We possess light. And with that comes the privilege of bringing it to night travelers. It makes no difference whether they travel with their own lamps, or how close they may be. Duty compels us to go out, meet them, and bring them safely home. Napping when we should be getting our act together is foolish—and faithless. In the end, we pay for our indifference. It’s a fate we can avoid by protecting our light at all costs. Once it’s ours, it’s ours to keep—and ours to bring. Be wise. Protect your light.

Open our hearts to our neighbors’ needs, O God, and make us ready to meet them. Amen.

We possess light. It’s ours to keep, and ours to bring.

No Place Like Home

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God. (Psalm 90.1-2)

Get Up Everybody and Sing

Was I really 20 when Sister Sledge released “We Are Family”? It’s one of those tunes you feel like you’ve known your entire life. Even after you Google it and learn it was released in 1979—despite reminding yourself it’s a disco hit that, at the very earliest, wouldn’t have run the charts until the late 70s—you’re apt to scratch your head. How can that be? As far as disco tunes go, “We Are Family” was remarkably tame; the beat and the music laid back and the four Sledge sisters stepped forward to sing:

We are family

I got all my sisters and me

We are family

Get up everybody and sing!

Their song celebrated their family, not the human family or the “circle of life” or other grandiose concepts so big they get away from us before the singing ends. If you remember the lyrics (and I’ll bet you do), rerun them in your head. It’s about them. The image of family unity they presented was worth singing about. It touched us on a primal level, reminding us family, by nature, should foster togetherness and accord. “We’re like birds of a feather,” they sang. “We're giving love in a family dose.” In some ways their song counterbalanced Carly Simon’s hit, “The Way I Always Heard It Should Be,” which portrayed misgivings about the whole marriage-and-children thing based on her own family’s dysfunction. When Kim, Debbie, Joni, and Kathy Sledge rejoiced, “We are family!” they told the world, “This family idea works!” No wonder their song spoke to us in a timeless fashion.

Alive and Together

Millennia before “We Are Family,” Moses also composed a timeless hit about family, Psalm 90. “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations,” he sings in the first verse, going on to praise God’s faithfulness and the enduring nature of God’s people in the midst of constant change. And Moses immediately announces that this realization touches a primal nerve by predating our existence: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God,” verse 2 observes, as the poem goes on to contemplate the brevity of life and how each of us fits in the ongoing epic of familial longevity. “We’re like grass,” Moses says. “We sprout in the morning. By evening, we wither away.” Yet his metaphor for transience doesn’t dismay him in the least. Thrumming beneath his adoration of the eternal God, one senses undiluted family joy of being alive and together. Moses says, “Look at us, tiny blades of grass closely rooted beside each other, growing and thriving!”

Moses is the last Bible hero we’d expect to write a song that rhapsodizes God’s faithfulness, and rejoices about family and rootedness. He’s the Old Testament’s poster foster child. He’s born into a loving family of Hebrew slaves, only to be ripped from its bosom before he can walk and grows up as an Egyptian prince. That he’s not related to Pharaoh’s family by blood is apparent from his first glance in a mirror. We don’t know if anyone ever told Moses how he came to live in the palace. Yet it must be disconcerting for a privileged child to recognize a closer familial resemblance to his slave nurse (and true mother) than those claiming to be his elders and siblings.

The identity crisis that surfaces in a persistent stammer and lifelong insecurity surely begins there. Just when he’s poised to come into his own, a desperate attempt to reclaim his ethnic roots makes him a fugitive. Wanted for killing an Egyptian who abuses a Hebrew slave, Moses flees to the outback, where he’s adopted again—giving him three families in all before starting his own. Then, once he settles into life as a husband and father, God sends him back into the mess he managed to escape. The Hebrew slaves distrust him. His Egyptian family can’t believe the gall to demand freedom for captives that form the backbone of their economy. And whom does God assign to compensate for Moses’s inadequacies? His blood brother, Aaron—a stranger with no cause to help Moses! None of this sounds like the way Moses (or anyone swept up in his saga) “heard it should be,” let alone something to sing about. Nor does it get better as the story goes.

Securing the slaves’ freedom tasks Moses with leading thousands of legitimately anxious people he’s never met in search of a Promised Land. He has no map or timetable. For 40 years, he pushes them to keep moving. Two generations are born and two generations buried in the wild. By the end, impermanence is all that most of them know. Yet along the way, Moses teaches them his song about God’s faithfulness and human frailty and rootedness—a song about family. Despite every reason why it shouldn’t, the song resonates. It’s a big hit, an instant classic, they sing over and over. It survives Moses. It survives them. It’s a song we sing and generations after us will, too. God is our dwelling place. We’re rooted in God. For the brief time we’re alive, we grow up together in God. We flourish, fade, and a new generation takes root to replace us. We are family.

One Roof

We can regard “God is our dwelling place” as poetic metaphor and leave it at that. But in doing so, we drain Moses’s song of its power to make the metaphor real. If God truly is our Home—if, as Paul testifies in Acts 17.28, “we live and move and have our being” in God—what does that say about us? It seems fairly obvious. As people of God, we share one Roof with all people of God. Sheer size of our family precludes knowing most of them personally, and diversity of backgrounds alone advises against assuming we should like, agree with, and relate to every member of the family. Merely by the millions of ways we come to God, we can rid ourselves of expecting we’ll blend into some kind of homogenized, harmonious “Brady Bunch” dwelling in a spacious, suburban comfort. Residing in God makes for overcrowded, tumultuous conditions. We are, by nature, a family on the move. Impermanence is all we know. New infants are born into our family and beloved elders pass on. Our only sustenance comes from God. We have no map or timetable. It should neither amaze nor alarm us to encounter family members with radically different notions about where we’re going or how we’ll get there. It’s no surprise when far removed relations adamantly refute our claim as kin. We’ve done it; why shouldn’t they?

Yet for all our jostling and anxiety and skepticism, the constant transitions and uncertainties of our pilgrim lifestyle, we celebrate our common roots in God. We rejoice in the gift of growing side-by-side, alive and together, flourishing as individuals under one roof. “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart,” Moses’s song prays (v12), concluding with an entreaty that summarizes what dwelling in God is ultimately about: “Let Your work be manifest to your servants, and Your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!” (v16-17) The work we do and legacy we leave behind are most important. It makes us anxious to concede many we find so disagreeable, and vice versa, are kin with whom we share a common dwelling. That’s not the way we always heard it should be. Nonetheless, that’s the way it is. We are family. Puts a new spin on “No place like home,” doesn’t it?

O God, as You’ve always been and forever will be, You are our dwelling place. Endow us with courage to overlook differences so we may celebrate our common roots in You. Prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands. Amen.

With God as our dwelling place, we share one roof with all God’s people. Sure, our Home is overcrowded and our family stays on the move. Yet we’re closely rooted, alive and together.

Postscript: “We Are Family”

Just in case you couldn’t recall all the words…