Hills and Valleys

For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. ~Baruch 5:1-9

Building roads is hard work.  Building roads over valleys and hills and mountains is harder.    You have to blow up that mountain, level that hill, and make a raised highway through that valley.   It's hard work.  In the old days, it was dangerous work as well.  Before explosives, it was so hard that God had to do it because we couldn't.

Bringing the mountains low is not an easy thing to do.   Neither is crossing a mountain without it having been made low.   I'm a little strange in that I believe that when Jesus said the time is coming and is now here when the Kingdom of God shall appear on the earth, he didn't mean blow the whole thing up and start over.  I think he meant right here, right now, usher in the kingdom of God.   We have to get ready to be able to do it, that's what Church is for, and we have to do it in the world in which we live right now because that's the Gospel.

It's actually happening.

 Luke 3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"  

 And the harbinger's mother is old and barren when she becomes pregnant, and meets her young cousin, the Messiah's mother, who starts talking about her unborn child.   

He has mercy on those who fear him *
    in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

I'm pretty sure this is class warfare.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

Yep.

    and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he has sent away empty.

In plain English (translated from Aramaic to Greek to plain English)

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

This is the Kingdom of God.  It works better if we all work together to fill the hungry with good things, so the rich don't necessarily have to go away empty, but that doesn't always work out.  Right here, right now, this is actually happening... so we should do what we're told and get to it.  God is going to make this happen... and he's doing it, right now, through us. 

Rock Paper Scissors

Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV)

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10'Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income." 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.'

I found myself telling my coworker the other day that I was awesome.    I had a customer call the office about a house he was buying that day that he thought he'd already gotten insurance on.  He hadn't.  We didn't even know he was buying a house.   Fifteen minutes later, he had insurance, the bank had a binder, and, from what I heard, his closing went smoothly.    That morning, I was pretty awesome at my job.   Several days later, however, in a moment of complete and total idiocy, I did rock, paper, scissor (No lizard or Spock) to see who would take the phone customer and who would take the one in the lobby at (not with) a coworker.   Naturally, instead of seeing through this moment of total insanity to my good-natured awesomeness, our customer took offense and left.   Even revved the engine on his truck.   He came back, and told the personal lines manager (that person I had informed of my awesomeness not too long before) what had happened.  

I have a thousand excuses for that situation.   The only one that makes any sense at all being that it was the stupidest thing I've done in a long time.  Oh, I was overwhelmed and exasperated and trying to figure out how we were going to do everything all at once and I was at that point where you can either laugh or cry, but that guy did not deserve that.  

Would I have walked out in that situation?  Probably not, I probably would have laughed my butt off.   I'm a little different, though, as we have already established, and not at all normal.   I also found myself making excuses.  He was high strung.  The receptionist made it worse.  The customer had terrible timing.   Just about everything but I was having one of the most unprofessional moments of my adult life. 

I imagine the pharisee in the parable was having the same kind of day.   He found himself at the temple and instead of coming up with something meaningful to say to God he started declaring his own...awesomeness.   "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income."  How precious!  If you never do anything wrong, why do you fast twice a week?  We're all suspicious of this guy having a body in his basement or the first century equivalent of a tax shelter in a Swiss bank account but he probably wasn't anything more evil than the rest of us.    Probably doing his best, coming along nicely even, and then he gets a little too confident.   Doesn't even realize that if it wasn't for the grace of God and even a little help from other people that he might have been a thief, a rogue or a tax collector. 

Then he prays to God about how grateful he is that he's not somebody else.  He plays rock paper scissors in the temple.  He does something really really stupid.   We need to slow down sometimes when we get good at our jobs, or start doing really well, or get comfortable in the way we approach worship and shake things up a bit.  Evaluate why we're doing well, why we're getting good at our jobs, and realize it's not because other people are losers and we're winners.   It's not even because God likes us and not someone else. Not at all.

I don't really have much of a point past that.   I don't know why some people win and some people lose.  I know the reason I'm good at my job---which I'm not doing incredibly stupid things---is because I've been fortunate enough to have good bosses who helped me learn to care about what I'm doing by making me realize that it does matter.  It mattered when I was clearing dishes from tables at the Sage Room at age 17 and it mattered when I was working at McDonald's in college.  What we does matter, whether it's big or small.   I didn't learn that on my own.  I had good people showing me how the smallest thing can turn someone's day around ---for good or ill--- and that anything from taking out the garbage to writing an insurance policy can done for the glory of God for the sake of the Kingdom.

Even if sometimes we talk to ourselves more than God in our prayers.

A heart of flesh

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.Ezekiel 36:26

I saw a post from a new friend of mine today on facebook that made me think about what my life was like before I was baptized.   I was a teenager.  (that sucked)  I had been a solitary practitioner of Christianity for about five years at the time and being baptized was the first step in learning how to be part of a community vs pretending to fit in just to blend in.   I should explain that I was there at the church in the first place because a friend of mine had threatened to pick me up in my pajamas if I didn't show up on my own.  I should also probably explain that I had started serving as an acolyte before I was baptized because the interim priest had no idea I came from an unchurched background and didn't think to ask.   I should also probably explain that by the time Jerry Rankin brought it to my attention that I needed to do this I'd been taking communion for months.  

And upon finding out I hadn't been baptized, that I wasn't actually Patty's kid (my friend's mother who is now my friend too), and that my parents were not members of the church, Fr. Jerry asked me to do something I found rather unpleasant.   He asked me to get their permission to be baptized, either there or somewhere else, and to abstain from serving at the alter and taking communion until I did so.   I didn't know it then, but that was the first thing in a long list of things that I would find unpleasant but see the value in during my life as a Christian.

I conned my parents into it rather easily.   They were, at first horrified I wasn't going to be immersed, and suggested I go to their church.  I countered that they didn't have one.  I told them I would go with them on Wednesday nights after they picked one out provided they came with me on Sunday morning.   I never set foot in "their" church.  They ended up liking Fr. Jerry and my mother got baptized with me.   It was about three months between the time I got found out and the time I was baptized.   I found the whole process rather strange.  I didn't feel like it was a big deal while it was actually happening.   It was anticlimactic   Church often is.  I was nervous the night before, I felt like someone who had waited too long to marry their boyfriend.  Snicker all you want---but I had been a believer for years and years--I had a healthy spiritual life.   I loved Christ and I knew that he loved me.    I didn't need that priest to tell me how to pray, or so I thought, because I already knew.  Jesus and I were tight.  We are tight.  I didn't know back then how much I needed the beloved community.

I was sixteen years old.   I had taken a class before the event.  I had been a believer for five years.   I also had no idea what I was getting into.  I don't think anyone does.   The Episcopal Church may not have introduced me to God, God did that on his own in a very real and tangible way years before, but the Episcopal Church taught me how to love him.   I learned, through liturgy, how to put prayer into my every day life.  Not just rambling on and on like a schizophrenic (who knows?) to the Almighty but how to actually pray.  To the point where those prayers and creeds and songs are probably going to be the last thing to leave if I lose my crackers.    I learned, from relationship with other people, just how wide a circle God's love draws around the human race.  How much God loves everything he has made and has pronounced it good because of the lovely horrible wonderful awful group of people called The Church.

I'm not the first person who experienced something like this.   It came up in the gospels today

.   Mark 10:35 (NRSV) James and John, the sons of Zeb'edee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 36 And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" 37 And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38 But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" 39 They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

I don't think that conversation turned out exactly as they had planned.   I thought I was joining a church, I was joining the Body of Christ. I thought I was going to finished after I did this.   This is it, right?  You get doused with water, make a few vows, and it's over, done, you're good, you're perfect, you're fit for heaven and you've got a ticket to ride the train to glory, right?  Wrong.   This is the beginning, it's hard work, it'll cost you tears, and fears, and change your life in ways you don't care for at the time.  It will bring people into your life that you're afraid to associate it with.  It will bring people into your life you would have never have had the clout to associate with.  It will make you laugh, make you cry, make you tremble inside, make you do things you didn't know you could do and most of all, most of all, it make you more you.   Who would James and John have been if they hadn't met a certain wandering Rabbi and kept following him?  Who would we be if they hadn't had the big brass ones to ask the question they asked?    Who indeed?

It isn't something to be entered into lightly.   Think about it, long and hard, but know that you don't know what you're getting into.  You don't know.  Six months old or sixty, you don't know.   That's okay.   We'll be there for you.

Mongrel Army

All this talk about immigration and "ground zero mosques" has got me thinking about what it means to be an American. It came to a 'head' so to speak Friday at my work. I had a guy with a very elaborate tattoo on his arm come in to pay his bills. He seemed very nice and he was paying his bills early. Then I noticed the swastika tattoo on his arm. I try to hide my disgust and then, God help me, I noticed he had five points on his driving record that didn't look like they should be there. I called the company and discovered they think he still has an expired driver's license (unverifiable driving record). I take a picture of his license and tell him his insurance will be a lot cheaper in September.

Let me explain something here: I frickin' hate Nazis. I'm un-fond of racists of all stripes but I frickin' hate Nazis. I hate the original Nazis and I hate the neo-Nazis even more. People who voluntarily associate with them end up on list of people who need their ass kicked real quick. It's bordering on irrational how much I hate Nazis. Having one sit at my desk makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Actually, I wouldn't mind so much if it hit them. I think the problem I have is that they expect me not to mind that they hate Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, and Roman Catholics because I'm white and a Protestant. If they think I might mind, they just expect me not to speak up about it because they aren't actively killing people, they're just open to the possibility.

I could have let that issue with the guy's insurance policy pass. I could have ignored it. I was, after all, just uploading a payment, right? I found myself helping the guy out anyway. Both my religions got in the way of me just doing what I wanted to do and being nasty.

Wait? Both your religions?

You probably have two as well. My sacred religion is Christianity. My civil religion consists of the rituals observed and the obligations imposed by the fact that I am an American citizen. Saluting the flag, standing for the star spangled banner, not letting the flag touch the earth, those are all rituals that are part of our civil religion. Respecting that piece of white trash's right to think like a racist pig without being rude to him when he hadn't actually antagonized me that day was my obligation as an American citizen. (Obviously, that bit about doing good to your enemies is the form a certain Jew's voice took shape in my inner monologue.)

Let me explain: I am a white anglo-saxon protestant. I am a WASP, in popular speak. I also happen to be a Democrat. I'm an Episcopalian and a Christian. I tend to lean a bit left of center politically and I qualify as a wacky mystic religiously speaking. I'm an unmarried female and I own a house and a car. I like being all these things. Living in this country under our constitution guarantees me the right to have and be all these things without interference from the government because this is America and I'm an American citizen. If I want to continue to be a member of all these groups, I have to recognize that everyone else has the same privileges I do. In other words, if I want to be free, that neo-Nazi has to be free too. He's an American and so am I, and if he loses his rights I am diminished by it. The reason I support his right to be a racist prick is the same reason he makes me sick.

In the United States, no matter what else we are, we're all Americans. Black, white, hispanic, asian, pacific islander or indian, we're all Americans. Christians, Jews, Pagans, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists, we're all Americans. We fight amongst ourselves and we all have our obnoxious cliques and gangs but we are a Nation. We all have the right to be a member of whatever minority we choose to belong to and we all have the responsibility to defend the rights of others to be members of whatever minority they choose to be a member of. Why? Because we've spent the last two hundred years fighting and trying like hell to live up our creed. That all men are created equal, and that we (men meaning humankind) have a right to pursue happiness. We've spilled the blood of our brothers for it, we've spilled blood overseas to keep people from taking it from us, and we've had countless thieves try and swindle us into giving it up voluntarily. People who try and divide us. People who stand up in the streets and try and tell us that another American is THE OTHER. The one who's trying to steal our jobs and push us down when they are the ones trying to push us down.

I watched an old video yesterday that I think someone put together in the fifties. I say they put it together in the fifties because the screaming man in the video kept saying the word Negro and he was wearing a hat. The Hungarian American narrator started talking about our 'mongrel army' that helped put down Hitler's "master race". I like that term: mongrel army.

We're strong as a mongrel army.
People hate us for a lot of reasons. They hate us for our 'decadence' and they hate us because they need someone to hate. They hate us because we're sometimes rude and arrogant and we think we know better. They hate us mostly because we have the courage to be mongrel nation on our good days. They hate us because we allow churches and mosques and temples to be built and we don't have hidden cameras in them reporting what's being said within the walls to the government. They hate us because we have the freedom to not be religious at all. They hate us because women walk around unchaperoned with their faces unveiled. They hate us because we allow women to cover their heads and their faces if they choose to.

They hate us because we are free.

We missed a grand opportunity when people started protesting a mosque in downtown Manhattan. The American people do not gain anything from this debate. The people who gain something from this debate are the jihadists who are going to use it to convince American youth that their own country hates them and fear mongering Republicans who are going to get the scared WASP votes out of it. Please note that I am not picking on Republicans who are not using this for political gain, just the ones who associate with a certain news network that recently dropped $1million on the Republican party and keeps covering this the way they have been. They want your votes and they're willing to steal our freedom to get it.

Tell them no. Speak up. Don't pretend it doesn't effect you because it does. If you want to be free, the people you don't like have to be free too. It isn't about whether you like them or their faith or creed, it's about being an American. It's about being a people comprised of many peoples.