Sermon: Joshua 3:7-17, Matthew 23:1-12
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Oct. 30, 2011
When I was a kid growing up in small town America in the 40’s we used to have pickup baseball games in the big yard across the street from my house. It was a big deal as to who got to bat first and we would compete to see who got to. We didn’t realize at the time that it was more prestigious to bat third or even fourth, the cleanup spot. Those are the positions the Miguel Cabreras and the Albert Pujols of the world bat. Actually, I don’t think it was so much about the prestige of being first as it was the idea that if you batted first in the lineup you would get to bat more often. Little boys are competitive, big boys are competitive and many girls are competitive, as well. That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s just that sometimes the competitiveness is self-defeating, especially when you are actually competing against the members of your own team to see who is best in a sport that is a team sport, like baseball. Sometimes we can forget that we need the other members of the team in order to win.
Much is made of how many games a pitcher wins in one season, like Justin Verlander this season, who won 24, but Justin wouldn’t have won a single game if his team didn’t get at least one run for him. Well, they say for that reason maybe the ERA, the earned run average, is a better evaluation of a pitcher’s performance. Yes, but the ERA depends partly on how well the other members of your team play on defense behind you.
This meandering does relate to today’s Gospel, in case you’re wondering. Jesus is once again castigating the Pharisees for their arrogance. Now the Pharisees were not bad people. They were law-abiding to the point of ridiculousness. They had performed and were performing an important role for the Jewish nation. Their emphasis on the law of Moses provided the people with a clear and proud identity in opposition to the other nations around them, especially their Roman conquerors. But… they tended to take themselves too seriously, believing their press clippings,as it were, and looking down on the other members of society who were perhaps not so well educated in the law or so law-abiding. They didn’t see themselves as team players, who needed the other people. That’s why Jesus keeps stressing, as he does in today’s Gospel, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
I believe the true team players are the ones who step up and do what they are called to do without having to bask in the glory or live to see the results of their efforts. Moses was one such. Today’s reading from the Book of Joshua is a continuation of last Sunday’s reading from the Book of Deuteronomy. Last Sunday God takes Moses to a high mountain; He does that a lot. He shows him the Promised Land that had been the goal of the 40 years’ journey in the desert. Because Moses had doubted God at one point he was not to be allowed to enter the Promised Land, but he sees it all. Then he dies, having fulfilled the work he was called to do. It is Joshua his lieutenant who will get the glory. In today’s reading they cross the Jordan into Canaan. Soon Joshua will fit the battle of Jericho and the walls come tumbling down. Joshua takes them home.
Isn’t it interesting that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, the great leader, for a time, of the American Civil Rights Movement, used the Moses imagery in his final speech. On April 3, 1968, in Memphis Tenn. He spoke the following words:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountain top and I don’t mind. Like anybody I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
He was assassinated the next day and the gauntlet was passed to others. Many other people were involved, had given and would give their lives. He stepped forward at a time when he was needed and rather reluctantly, just as Moses had asked out when God called him. In both cases the movements went on to achieve their goals, at least partially. Dr. King did not get to see the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting acts, just as Moses did not see the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. They stepped up, did their part, and moved on, as team players do. Oh, there are monuments to them. Michelangelo chiseled a famous statue of Moses which you can see in a church in Rome. And a new monument has been erected in Washington D.C. to Dr. King. But the real monuments are the cause of freedom and equality which they championed, the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
The question for us: are we ready and willing to step up and do our part to forward the Kingdom? Are we team players, not needing to bat first and get the glory, knowing that HE accomplishes so much more if WE work together.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
The Many Faces of Love
Sermon: Matthew 22:34-46
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Oct. 23, 2011
In the Gospel reading Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment in the law. We should thank that Pharisees for asking the question because it provided the stage for this great teaching. I believe it is Jesus’s greatest teaching, encapsulating everything else He taught and lived. He answered “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.” He is quick to add “and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Okay, let’s go through this passage with a fine tooth comb. I used to think this was a brand new teaching by Jesus, but it is not. These two commandments are found in the Hebrew Scriptures, which we Christians call the Old Testament. The first, love of God, is found in Deuteronomy and the second, love of neighbor, is found in Leviticus. The wording in Deuteronomy is slightly different. It says Love God with “all your might.” In Matthew it reads “with all your mind.” I personally like “might” over “mind.” It implies that we love God with all our resources: money, power and energy. Whereas “mind” kind of implies just thinking love.
So, if these commandments are not new, what’s the big deal?
There are several big deals, really big deals. One big deal is that Jesus tied the two separate commandments together, coming as they did from separate books. He taught that you show your love of God by how you love your neighbor. In another place He asked “how can someone say they love God, whom they do not see and hate their neighbor, whom they see every day?”
Another big deal is the answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” The Old Testament meaning is that neighbor is my own people. Those writers of the Torah, the first five books, were talking about love of fellow Hebrews. Yes, we take for granted that parents, if they are at all normal, will love their children and the other members of their own family. The God that Moses represented was trying to get them to love their fellow Hebrews, those outside their own family, but still members of their own tribe. The aspect of God presented in the Old Testament is a god championing the Hebrews and helping them prevail against their enemies. The big deal about Jesus’ teaching is that He broadened the interpretation of neighbor, actually universalized it. When asked by a seeker “Who is my neighbor?” He told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans were the hated and avoided-at-all cost neighbors of the Jews, considered half-breeds and apostates from the true religion. So if Samaritans are my neighbor then everybody is. That’s the big deal; everybody is, no matter what their color, what language they speak, what religion they practice, or their sexual orientation. Everybody is. Sure, the people next door with whom we have so much in common that we even share child-rearing, those are our easy-to-love neighbors. But the people on the other side of the house, where we have the high fence, the ones who are so different? We hardly know them at all, but we know for sure we don’t approve of their life-style. They’re our neighbors, too, and we are commanded to love them. This is not just a suggestion; it is a commandment. That commandment is not just about the people next door, of course; it is about the whole world.
Now let’s look at that second commandment again. It say “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Which means we are commanded to love
ourselves. One way to look at that is that we first have to love ourselves before we are able to love anyone else. Another way to look at it is that by loving others we are able to arrive at a deeper love of ourselves.
A woman at the healing service this past Wednesday asked if it was wrong to pray for oneself. Holy Cow! I think that many Christians, myself included, have felt they are being selfish by looking out for their own needs. That can’t be true, unless we are the only ones we look out for. The commandment is we are to love both ourselves and others. That means we have to care for ourselves; otherwise we are no good for anybody else. One of the ways we care for ourselves is by caring for others. At least some of them will care back, will love back. Unless we love ourselves, we will not have the strength to practice tough love, that kind of love which motivates us to draw lines in the sand and to say no when it is clearly in our own best interest and that of the loved one in question to not do what they demand.
And finally, the love that Christ commands does not mean necessarily liking the neighbor, although sometimes when we do for or care for another or maybe just pray for them they somehow become more likable.
During the American League Baseball Playoffs, those who were following the Tigers on TV with great hope undoubtedly noticed this commercial. I know I did. In a light sort of way it exemplifies what I have been trying to say. There are a series of little scenes: oh, a guy has a good deed done for him; then at the market he steps back and let’s a young mother with a shopping cart full of groceries and a child in tow go ahead of him; then that young woman is later out in her yard raking leaves when she sees her older neighbor struggling with her leaves and goes over and helps her; this is witnessed by a man who goes to his office and cleans up a mess on the floor of the coffee room; this is witnessed by the secretary who would usually have to do that and she goes out and does a good deed for someone else. That chain reaction would change the world.
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Oct. 23, 2011
In the Gospel reading Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment in the law. We should thank that Pharisees for asking the question because it provided the stage for this great teaching. I believe it is Jesus’s greatest teaching, encapsulating everything else He taught and lived. He answered “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.” He is quick to add “and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Okay, let’s go through this passage with a fine tooth comb. I used to think this was a brand new teaching by Jesus, but it is not. These two commandments are found in the Hebrew Scriptures, which we Christians call the Old Testament. The first, love of God, is found in Deuteronomy and the second, love of neighbor, is found in Leviticus. The wording in Deuteronomy is slightly different. It says Love God with “all your might.” In Matthew it reads “with all your mind.” I personally like “might” over “mind.” It implies that we love God with all our resources: money, power and energy. Whereas “mind” kind of implies just thinking love.
So, if these commandments are not new, what’s the big deal?
There are several big deals, really big deals. One big deal is that Jesus tied the two separate commandments together, coming as they did from separate books. He taught that you show your love of God by how you love your neighbor. In another place He asked “how can someone say they love God, whom they do not see and hate their neighbor, whom they see every day?”
Another big deal is the answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” The Old Testament meaning is that neighbor is my own people. Those writers of the Torah, the first five books, were talking about love of fellow Hebrews. Yes, we take for granted that parents, if they are at all normal, will love their children and the other members of their own family. The God that Moses represented was trying to get them to love their fellow Hebrews, those outside their own family, but still members of their own tribe. The aspect of God presented in the Old Testament is a god championing the Hebrews and helping them prevail against their enemies. The big deal about Jesus’ teaching is that He broadened the interpretation of neighbor, actually universalized it. When asked by a seeker “Who is my neighbor?” He told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans were the hated and avoided-at-all cost neighbors of the Jews, considered half-breeds and apostates from the true religion. So if Samaritans are my neighbor then everybody is. That’s the big deal; everybody is, no matter what their color, what language they speak, what religion they practice, or their sexual orientation. Everybody is. Sure, the people next door with whom we have so much in common that we even share child-rearing, those are our easy-to-love neighbors. But the people on the other side of the house, where we have the high fence, the ones who are so different? We hardly know them at all, but we know for sure we don’t approve of their life-style. They’re our neighbors, too, and we are commanded to love them. This is not just a suggestion; it is a commandment. That commandment is not just about the people next door, of course; it is about the whole world.
Now let’s look at that second commandment again. It say “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Which means we are commanded to love
ourselves. One way to look at that is that we first have to love ourselves before we are able to love anyone else. Another way to look at it is that by loving others we are able to arrive at a deeper love of ourselves.
A woman at the healing service this past Wednesday asked if it was wrong to pray for oneself. Holy Cow! I think that many Christians, myself included, have felt they are being selfish by looking out for their own needs. That can’t be true, unless we are the only ones we look out for. The commandment is we are to love both ourselves and others. That means we have to care for ourselves; otherwise we are no good for anybody else. One of the ways we care for ourselves is by caring for others. At least some of them will care back, will love back. Unless we love ourselves, we will not have the strength to practice tough love, that kind of love which motivates us to draw lines in the sand and to say no when it is clearly in our own best interest and that of the loved one in question to not do what they demand.
And finally, the love that Christ commands does not mean necessarily liking the neighbor, although sometimes when we do for or care for another or maybe just pray for them they somehow become more likable.
During the American League Baseball Playoffs, those who were following the Tigers on TV with great hope undoubtedly noticed this commercial. I know I did. In a light sort of way it exemplifies what I have been trying to say. There are a series of little scenes: oh, a guy has a good deed done for him; then at the market he steps back and let’s a young mother with a shopping cart full of groceries and a child in tow go ahead of him; then that young woman is later out in her yard raking leaves when she sees her older neighbor struggling with her leaves and goes over and helps her; this is witnessed by a man who goes to his office and cleans up a mess on the floor of the coffee room; this is witnessed by the secretary who would usually have to do that and she goes out and does a good deed for someone else. That chain reaction would change the world.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Locating the Big Guy
Sermon: Exodus 33:12-23
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Oct. 16, 2011
This Old Testament episode involving God and Moses may seem a little odd to us from our vantage of perhaps 3000 years later. I don’t think the issue is much different, though, from what many of us face today. That issue is locating God.
Moses on Mt. Sinai is just trying to get a look at God. He’s been doing his bidding for quite a while. It’s not been easy to be the go between God and this unruly bunch of malcontents. God keeps telling him he knows him by name and all that good stuff. Moses says in effect, that’s all very fine, but you never let me see you. You talk to me out of burning bushes, behind boulders and down from the clouds, but what do you look like? God says, okay, you can see me but I have to protect you from the full frontal effect. My full brightness would melt your retinas, even kill you. So, God shows Him only his backside. Pretty illusive, I would say.
For many people down through the ages God has seemed very illusive, even absent. Where are you, God, when I need you?
I want to read you an account of this very experience. It was sent to me by my cousin Dan.
Father John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy. “Some twelve years ago I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session. That was the day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his long flaxen hair which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts, but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under S, S for strange…very strange. Tommy turned out to be the ‘atheist in residence’ in my course. He constantly objected to, smirked at or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father/God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew. When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam he asked in a cynical tone, Do you think I’ll ever find God? I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. No, I said emphatically. Why not? I thought that was the product you were pushing. I let him get five steps from the classroom door. Then I called out, Tommy! I don’t think you will find Him, but I’m absolutely certain He will find you. He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.
Then a sad report came. I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out he came to see me. When he walked into my office his body was very badly wasted and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy, but his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. Tommy, I thought about you so often. I heard you were sick, I blurted out. Oh, yes very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks. Can you talk about it, Tom? I asked. Sure, what would you like to know? What’s it like to be only 24 and dying? Well, it could be worse, he said, like being 50 and having no values or ideals, like being 50 and thinking that booze, seducing women and making money are the real biggies in life. I began to look in my mental file under S, where I had filed Tommy as strange. It seems everybody I try to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me. What I really came to see you about, Tom said, is something you said to me on the last day of class. I asked if you thought I would ever find God. You said no, which surprised me, but you said He will find you. I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me it was malignant that’s when I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying and then you quit. Well one day I woke up and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may or may not be, I just quit. I decided I just didn’t really care about God, about an afterlife or anything like that. I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and thought about something else you had said. ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.’ But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without telling those you loved that you had loved them. So I began with the hardest one, my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. Dad? Yes, what, he said without lowering the newspaper. Dad, I would like to talk to you. Well, talk. I mean it’s really important. The newspaper came down three slow inches. What is it? Dad I love you. I just wanted you to know that. Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him. The newspaper fluttered to the floor and then he did two things I never remember him doing before. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears. To feel him hug me and to hear him say he loved me. It was easier with my mother and little brother. We cried, too, and we hugged each other and started saying real nice things, things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I’m only sorry about one thing, that I waited so long. Here I was opening up to all the people I had actually been close to.
Then one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop. C’mon. Jump through. C’mon. I’ll give you three days, three weeks. Apparently God does things in His own way, at His own hour. But the important thing was that He was there. You were right. He found me after I stopped looking for Him.
Tommy, I practically gasped. I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make Him a private possession, a problem solver or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know the Apostle John said that. He said that God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living in God and God is living in Him.
Tom, could I ask you a favor. You know when I had you in class you were a real pain but you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you’ve just told me. If I told them the same thing, it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell it. Ooh I’m ready for you, but I don’t know if I am ready for your class. In a few days Tom called, though, and said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So, we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment far more important. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever imagined. Before he died we talked one last time. I’m not going to make it to your class. Would you tell them for me, tell the whole world for me.
Where is God located? Maybe not on the mountain. Maybe not in the crisis when we think He should rescue us. Maybe not even in church. He resides in the hearts of those who love, and have the courage to say it and act on it.
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Oct. 16, 2011
This Old Testament episode involving God and Moses may seem a little odd to us from our vantage of perhaps 3000 years later. I don’t think the issue is much different, though, from what many of us face today. That issue is locating God.
Moses on Mt. Sinai is just trying to get a look at God. He’s been doing his bidding for quite a while. It’s not been easy to be the go between God and this unruly bunch of malcontents. God keeps telling him he knows him by name and all that good stuff. Moses says in effect, that’s all very fine, but you never let me see you. You talk to me out of burning bushes, behind boulders and down from the clouds, but what do you look like? God says, okay, you can see me but I have to protect you from the full frontal effect. My full brightness would melt your retinas, even kill you. So, God shows Him only his backside. Pretty illusive, I would say.
For many people down through the ages God has seemed very illusive, even absent. Where are you, God, when I need you?
I want to read you an account of this very experience. It was sent to me by my cousin Dan.
Father John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy. “Some twelve years ago I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session. That was the day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his long flaxen hair which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts, but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under S, S for strange…very strange. Tommy turned out to be the ‘atheist in residence’ in my course. He constantly objected to, smirked at or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father/God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew. When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam he asked in a cynical tone, Do you think I’ll ever find God? I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. No, I said emphatically. Why not? I thought that was the product you were pushing. I let him get five steps from the classroom door. Then I called out, Tommy! I don’t think you will find Him, but I’m absolutely certain He will find you. He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.
Then a sad report came. I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out he came to see me. When he walked into my office his body was very badly wasted and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy, but his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. Tommy, I thought about you so often. I heard you were sick, I blurted out. Oh, yes very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks. Can you talk about it, Tom? I asked. Sure, what would you like to know? What’s it like to be only 24 and dying? Well, it could be worse, he said, like being 50 and having no values or ideals, like being 50 and thinking that booze, seducing women and making money are the real biggies in life. I began to look in my mental file under S, where I had filed Tommy as strange. It seems everybody I try to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me. What I really came to see you about, Tom said, is something you said to me on the last day of class. I asked if you thought I would ever find God. You said no, which surprised me, but you said He will find you. I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me it was malignant that’s when I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying and then you quit. Well one day I woke up and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may or may not be, I just quit. I decided I just didn’t really care about God, about an afterlife or anything like that. I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and thought about something else you had said. ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.’ But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without telling those you loved that you had loved them. So I began with the hardest one, my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. Dad? Yes, what, he said without lowering the newspaper. Dad, I would like to talk to you. Well, talk. I mean it’s really important. The newspaper came down three slow inches. What is it? Dad I love you. I just wanted you to know that. Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him. The newspaper fluttered to the floor and then he did two things I never remember him doing before. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears. To feel him hug me and to hear him say he loved me. It was easier with my mother and little brother. We cried, too, and we hugged each other and started saying real nice things, things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I’m only sorry about one thing, that I waited so long. Here I was opening up to all the people I had actually been close to.
Then one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop. C’mon. Jump through. C’mon. I’ll give you three days, three weeks. Apparently God does things in His own way, at His own hour. But the important thing was that He was there. You were right. He found me after I stopped looking for Him.
Tommy, I practically gasped. I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make Him a private possession, a problem solver or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know the Apostle John said that. He said that God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living in God and God is living in Him.
Tom, could I ask you a favor. You know when I had you in class you were a real pain but you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you’ve just told me. If I told them the same thing, it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell it. Ooh I’m ready for you, but I don’t know if I am ready for your class. In a few days Tom called, though, and said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So, we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment far more important. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever imagined. Before he died we talked one last time. I’m not going to make it to your class. Would you tell them for me, tell the whole world for me.
Where is God located? Maybe not on the mountain. Maybe not in the crisis when we think He should rescue us. Maybe not even in church. He resides in the hearts of those who love, and have the courage to say it and act on it.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
A Franciscan World - An Opinion Piece
Looking around for a leader I am. Who in the world will lead us out of this mess? It’s a mess created by human greed and fear. There’s an economic meltdown threatening again across the world. The first was led by the greed of our U.S. financial executives and when it looked like we had evaded that meltdown a new one appeared caused by the debt problems of the poorer countries in the European Union. The richer member countries of the Euro Zone are now trying to decide if they will bail out the poorer ones in order to save what has been a successful economic partnership.
Lest we think we Americans are not tied to our European brothers and sisters, take a look at what Europe’s problems have done to our stock market.
Meanwhile back home, while the world burns our Neros in Congress play the fiddle of gridlock. At a fairly young age I learned that when your expenses were greater than your income, you do two things: cut your expenses AND increase your income. Both things need to be done in order to eventually balance the budget.
In times of crisis like this fear often takes over, replacing sound reasoning. But times of crises are also times of opportunity. There are signs that manufacturing jobs are coming back. Government intervention into the automobile industry appears to have helped.
Fear coming out of crisis often leads to blaming and scapegoating. An example would be the harsh measures being taken in some states against illegal immigrants, as if they are the cause of our economic woes. A large number of them have lived in this country for many years, raised children who are citizens and contributed to the economy like everyone else. How ironic that seasonal illegals are being blamed for taking jobs from citizens, jobs that most citizens are unwilling to work at or do very poorly, like stoop farm labor.
A great economic leveling is occurring in the world fueled by many factors, not least of which is electronic communication. It will not be possible much longer for rich nations to dominate poor nations and draw from them the resources which fuel the rich nations’ standard of living. The rich or First World Nations, the United States being the most prominent example, will not have the military and corporate resources to impose their will. Already the U.S. Pentagon budget is being cut as part of the austerity measures in Washington. Many, if not most, of the large corporations are multi-national, owned by interests from all over the world. Already a Second World Country, China, is the second most powerful economy in the world. Third world countries, such as Chile, formerly written off as hopelessly impoverished are moving into First World ranks.
What this means, I believe, is that our standard of living will decrease as others, in the past less fortunate, will increase. We have been living in a bubble of affluence, which cannot be maintained indefinitely. Here we have a choice. We can enter this new world gracefully, accepting the belt tightening, getting by on a little less, raising our own produce, settling for a more fuel efficient transportation, turning the thermostat down AND seeing more of our fellow human travelers sharing the good life, while not resenting that our tax monies are spent on roads that everyone drives on and schools that other peoples’ children are educated in OR we can fight the changes fear and scapegoating, continuing to support out-of-control wars and hating those different from ourselves.
This is a time of opportunity. Two popular revolutions are going on, one well developed, the other in its infancy. The Arab Spring uprisings in various countries of North Africa and the Near East is the first. It has led to the overthrow of two repressive governments with a third possibly to follow. With some help from divine providence what follows in those countries will be an improvement over the past with a greater opportunity for human freedom and ingenuity. The other possible revolution is being signaled by the series of anti-Wall Street demonstrations in various cities around the country. It remains to be seen how powerful this movement can become. Hopefully, it will lead to progressive change and not contribute to further deadlock in Washington.
So where will we find the one to lead us out of this mess? I think I have found our leader. He is not a politician or a king. He is not a business man or a general. He is not a professor or a scientist. In fact, he is not alive. He lived in thirteenth century Italy. His name is Francis from Assisi in the Province of Umbria. It is the example of his life that will lead us.
Francis, the son of a successful business man, spent his youth in harmless revelry and fruitless attempts to win military glory. His conscience was pricked by his contacts with beggars and lepers and he decided to embrace a life devoted to Lady Poverty. Against his father’s vehement opposition he gave away everything he had, put on a beggars garb and devoted his life to the poor. Followers flocked to him, a pope approved a religious order inspired by him and lead by him for awhile. The Franciscans became the largest religious order in the Catholic Church. No one, to my knowledge, has been able to follow perfectly in his footsteps, but generations have been inspired by his life.
Francis is our leader. His birthday was this week. We don’t have to give up everything to follow him. But the voluntary giving up of a certain lifestyle in order to share with those who have less is the solution to the mess we are in.
Francis had a great love of nature and preached to the animals when humans would not listen. The animals understood. But that is the topic for another opinion piece on the environment at another time.
Lest we think we Americans are not tied to our European brothers and sisters, take a look at what Europe’s problems have done to our stock market.
Meanwhile back home, while the world burns our Neros in Congress play the fiddle of gridlock. At a fairly young age I learned that when your expenses were greater than your income, you do two things: cut your expenses AND increase your income. Both things need to be done in order to eventually balance the budget.
In times of crisis like this fear often takes over, replacing sound reasoning. But times of crises are also times of opportunity. There are signs that manufacturing jobs are coming back. Government intervention into the automobile industry appears to have helped.
Fear coming out of crisis often leads to blaming and scapegoating. An example would be the harsh measures being taken in some states against illegal immigrants, as if they are the cause of our economic woes. A large number of them have lived in this country for many years, raised children who are citizens and contributed to the economy like everyone else. How ironic that seasonal illegals are being blamed for taking jobs from citizens, jobs that most citizens are unwilling to work at or do very poorly, like stoop farm labor.
A great economic leveling is occurring in the world fueled by many factors, not least of which is electronic communication. It will not be possible much longer for rich nations to dominate poor nations and draw from them the resources which fuel the rich nations’ standard of living. The rich or First World Nations, the United States being the most prominent example, will not have the military and corporate resources to impose their will. Already the U.S. Pentagon budget is being cut as part of the austerity measures in Washington. Many, if not most, of the large corporations are multi-national, owned by interests from all over the world. Already a Second World Country, China, is the second most powerful economy in the world. Third world countries, such as Chile, formerly written off as hopelessly impoverished are moving into First World ranks.
What this means, I believe, is that our standard of living will decrease as others, in the past less fortunate, will increase. We have been living in a bubble of affluence, which cannot be maintained indefinitely. Here we have a choice. We can enter this new world gracefully, accepting the belt tightening, getting by on a little less, raising our own produce, settling for a more fuel efficient transportation, turning the thermostat down AND seeing more of our fellow human travelers sharing the good life, while not resenting that our tax monies are spent on roads that everyone drives on and schools that other peoples’ children are educated in OR we can fight the changes fear and scapegoating, continuing to support out-of-control wars and hating those different from ourselves.
This is a time of opportunity. Two popular revolutions are going on, one well developed, the other in its infancy. The Arab Spring uprisings in various countries of North Africa and the Near East is the first. It has led to the overthrow of two repressive governments with a third possibly to follow. With some help from divine providence what follows in those countries will be an improvement over the past with a greater opportunity for human freedom and ingenuity. The other possible revolution is being signaled by the series of anti-Wall Street demonstrations in various cities around the country. It remains to be seen how powerful this movement can become. Hopefully, it will lead to progressive change and not contribute to further deadlock in Washington.
So where will we find the one to lead us out of this mess? I think I have found our leader. He is not a politician or a king. He is not a business man or a general. He is not a professor or a scientist. In fact, he is not alive. He lived in thirteenth century Italy. His name is Francis from Assisi in the Province of Umbria. It is the example of his life that will lead us.
Francis, the son of a successful business man, spent his youth in harmless revelry and fruitless attempts to win military glory. His conscience was pricked by his contacts with beggars and lepers and he decided to embrace a life devoted to Lady Poverty. Against his father’s vehement opposition he gave away everything he had, put on a beggars garb and devoted his life to the poor. Followers flocked to him, a pope approved a religious order inspired by him and lead by him for awhile. The Franciscans became the largest religious order in the Catholic Church. No one, to my knowledge, has been able to follow perfectly in his footsteps, but generations have been inspired by his life.
Francis is our leader. His birthday was this week. We don’t have to give up everything to follow him. But the voluntary giving up of a certain lifestyle in order to share with those who have less is the solution to the mess we are in.
Francis had a great love of nature and preached to the animals when humans would not listen. The animals understood. But that is the topic for another opinion piece on the environment at another time.
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