Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Characterizing God(dess)

9/21/2015

In the BCP's prescribed psalms for today, God is depicted as a jealous and vengeful God. In Psalm 105, the Egyptians didn't listen to God's command to let the people of Israel go, so God unleashed plagues on them, including death upon their firstborns. Then, in Psalm 106, the people of Israel "intermingled with the heathen and learned their pagan ways," and thus "they were polluted by their actions and went whoring in their evil deeds." Consequently, "the wrath of the Lord was kindled against his (sic) people, and those who hated them ruled over them."

In other words, people didn't act in accordance with God's will, so God threw magnificent tantrums.

As I revise the Psalter into a Thean prayer book, I find I can't abide by this manner of characterizing God. When I imagine God, I imagine her acting like a compassionate, patient, wise, peaceful grown-up--not like a child or a cult leader.

I don't want a fickle God. I want a God who's bigger than that. I want a God who shows her might in her gentleness and care; I want a God who forgives without demanding punishment first. I want a God who gets righteously angry at oppression and enslavement--realities that any loving individual ought to be angry about--and at the same time, I want her primary motivation to be love for all her creatures, who are (in equal measure) her incarnation.

As I reweave the psalms for Thean use, justice for the poor and oppressed will appear, but I hope to eliminate tantrums--particularly death-dealing ones. My Goddess is a Goddess of life, and I want to convey that, one psalm at a time.

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Spirit Whispers: The power of story

8/17/2014

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The following is the text of a homily I preached this morning at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish in Tempe, Arizona.

I’d like you to pause for a moment and think about your favorite book. Think about the title, the story, and the characters. Think about the actual copy or copies of the book that you’ve read, and where you were when you last read it. By a show of hands, how many of you have read your favorite book half a dozen times or more?

I reread one of my favorite books this week. My copy of Lawrence Thornton’s Imagining Argentina has yellowing paper, a splitting spine, and some of the most compelling characters I’ve ever met in words. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read and recommended Imagining Argentina to others. It’s a hard book to read, but the vision of hope it presents is powerful precisely because the heart of the book is so difficult. I find that lots of books and stories are great to sink my teeth into, but then there are those precious books whose stories sink into me, and my life is different—more thoughtful, more considered, more virtuous—for it.

When Fr. Gil announced several months ago that I would be preaching on August 17, I looked up the lessons of the day and practically jumped for joy. The stories of the Bible we hear today from the Old Testament and the gospel are two of my favorite stories from scripture.

Fast forward to earlier this week, when I read an e-mail containing a message from our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She wrote to ask the entire Episcopal Church to make today, August 17, a day of prayer for those in Iraq.

It would be pretty hard not to pay attention to all the stories of what’s going on internationally these days. The Gaza Strip has been a focal point of terror between Palestine and Israel. Iraq is in the news for its highly visible genocide of Christians, among others. Thousands of militants who believe war is the only way to end war are ending the lives of innocent people, while they simultaneously inspire the uprising of new war-mongerers on every side. The desire to maintain the purity of one’s own land is the driving force behind much of this violence and prejudice. Even in our country, young unarmed men and women are being shot and killed by those who only seem to see that these young people are on the wrong side of the American color divide. Children are being detained like prisoners on our borders, in limbo between a land they cannot thrive in and a land that treats them as chaff among amber waves of grain.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t slept well for weeks. These stories echo painfully in my heart. They force me to acknowledge that that simmering hatred becomes a blazing rage in manifold ways each day among people both far away and here at home, people who claim to be driven by the call of the law, or the call of God—people like me.

On this day of prayer for those innocents who are dying in Iraq, I see in today’s lessons stories that are less interesting than urgent, more deep than obvious.

The story of Joseph is an epic--we first meet him as a boy, Jacob's son. His many older brothers, in a fit of collective jealousy, throw him into a well, leaving him for dead. Then they change their minds, pull him out of the well, and sell him into slavery instead, figuring they ought to get something out of him. Joseph ends up in Egypt and endures prison and other grave hardships, with no hope but God's promise to help him. Eventually he becomes Pharaoh's most trusted advisor. When we encounter him in today's lesson, his brothers have just arrived, desperate for mercy from Pharaoh’s advisor in the midst of famine. They don’t know that the powerful man before them is their brother. As Joseph prepares to reveal his identity to his brothers, he sends everyone else away. In the end, all of Egypt, even the Pharaoh's household, hears his cries when he is alone with his brothers for the first time in years.

Next, in the gospel story, we hear about a Canaanite woman, a foreign woman, who comes to Jesus begging healing for her daughter who is possessed by a demon. At first Jesus ignores her, as if she weren’t even there. Then his disciples get antsy and ask him to send her away. To appease his friends, he gives her an excuse. She persists. He gives another excuse; she persists again, but this time she refers to him as master of the story that they’re creating through their dialogue, and it’s at that point where the story turns.

The difficulty with these stories for me comes when I try to put myself in them. I'm not powerful Pharaoh. I’m not wise, faithful Joseph. I’m not the woman begging on her knees for her daughter's life, and I’m certainly not Jesus.

When I put myself in these stories, the characters that resemble me most are the jealous, grudging brothers and the possessive, anxious disciples. I live a comfortable, privileged life. I don't easily relinquish my comfort, particularly for someone I don't like or whom I have no direct connection to. With all the horrors I read about in the news, whether in Gaza or in Iraq or in the United States, I perceive the selfishness of my fellow humans keenly, because it is that same selfishness on a grand scale that I practice on a micro-scale. I see in middle-eastern war-mongerers, as well as white-skinned insiders screaming at and threatening brown-skinned outsiders, unholy icons of the many ways in which my heart is hard and impenetrable. I cry over what I read in the news and in these scriptures, because I know how hard my heart is to break open, and I know it can't be any easier to break open any of theirs.

But here's the thing: Joseph's brothers, who sent Joseph to his doom, watched as God's grace broke through their evil deeds. God’s grace revealed not only their brother who had saved all of Egypt and surrounding lands from famine, but revealed their brother who loved them more than ever.

And then there’s the foreign woman from the gospel. By calling Jesus “Master,” she forces him to pay attention to her. Not only does he pay attention to her, but his understanding of what it means to be Lord is subverted by her. Through this woman’s unflagging persistence in the face of blatant rejection and humiliation, Jesus—God’s own chosen one-- perceives that his power as Lord is not just for the sake of “his people,” but for all who call on him for saving help. Through this foreign woman, God's grace breaks through the walls Jesus and his people had built against this woman, this outsider.

If God can accomplish mighty, gracious deeds through possessive, jealous, rebellious hearts like those of Joseph’s brothers, and if God's grace can break through the walls that Jesus' disciples and even Jesus put up to guard their selfish interests--then perhaps God's grace can break through right here in our midst.

What if the stories of war-mongerers and privileged insiders were subverted by stories more persistent and enduring than theirs? What if they were to see that they are indeed called by God--not called to hate and shut out strangers, but rather to love and to welcome and uplift them? I wonder, if we each take a moment to remember again our favorite books and stories, what we might discover about ourselves from them. What do we find most compelling? Do we embrace the bravery and outrageous kindness and selflessness that we encounter in our most beloved, imperfect characters?

What if we were to embrace Joseph’s love of those who had utterly betrayed him? What if you and I embraced Jesus’ humility in accepting that we, as citizens of the most powerful nation on earth, are accountable to more than just the people we call our own? What if we listened not to our own wisdom, but the wisdom that inspires us to become who we are called to be? Maybe the Word of God, Holy Sophia, would become incarnate in us as it did in Mary when she made her bold, unwavering, all-embracing “Yes.”

Perhaps, if each of us said yes to the wisdom in the stories that are most precious and compelling to us, we, like Mary, would become God-bearers in the world. Perhaps then, beginning with you and me, God’s peace would spread to all lands and peoples, and then perhaps the peoples of the world, both here and elsewhere, would come at last to dwell in the everlasting peace of God.

Amen.

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Spirit Whispers: Israel or Palestine?

7/21/2014

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Does God take sides?
Does God cheer for Israel's victories,
or cheer for Israel's losses?
Does God pump his fist when Palestine succeeds,
or weep when Palestine stumbles?
Is God on the sidelines of Gaza, rooting for his team to win?

If God were mere man
perhaps the Gaza Strip would be one great football field
and God's whole life would rise and fall
according to the victory of his team.

The Christians say
God became flesh and dwelt among us
They say God became mere man.

They also say the God-Man's great victory was accepting death on a cross
that others might live.

But if Israel and Palestine's men keep taking one another's lives
in God's name
who will be left to bear his cross?

Perhaps the Second Coming
that the Christians await with bated breath
(as smart phones offer updates about their team)
will be another Incarnation,
a child born in the midst of blood and turmoil and rage.

Maybe the Second Coming
will be
a child born of love spilling over
between a child of Israel and a child of Palestine
Maybe, instead of a cross
there will be a stand
silent and gentle and unwavering
Palestinian hand in Israeli hand
the fruit of their living bodies
God's own child, swelling the mother's belly:
an invitation to end life no more.

What will it take for the beloved children of God
to perceive that the people they murder
are the beloved children of God
to understand that the people they hate
are their sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers
and daughters and sons?

What will it take for Jews
and Muslims
and Christians
and other religious people
and anti-religious people
to
quit
taking
sides
to say
"It is done"?

Will it take a new Yeshua?
A new martyr?
A new cross?

Will it take a wise mother among many wise mothers
who learned long ago that only love can yield a victory?
Will it take a woman among many women
who has seen the futility of this fight all her life
to rise up and teach the foolish men what they refuse to learn?

God, how long before you touch the hearts
of the children who think you take sides?

How long before you assure them that they are equally,
infinitely loved?

How long before they cease their fire
and offer open arms of
sorrow, repentance, forgiveness?

What do you mean
to whisper that
this assurance
this peace
this love
this transformation of the hardest of hearts in Gaza
begins
with my own heart?

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Spirit Whispers: Peace

7/15/2014

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Last night this news alert came to my e-mail from the N.Y. Times: Israel’s Security Cabinet Accepts Egyptian Cease-fire Proposal.

The war over God-given land rights that's been taking place between Israel and Palestine since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 continues to escalate. I woke up this morning to another headline: a young Palestinian was murdered after three young Israelis sought a victim to avenge the murder of three young Israelis who went missing last month, whose bodies were discovered a couple of weeks ago.

I received an e-mail from a local synagogue yesterday asking for help in the form of protein bars for special teams of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Do I support the murder that springs forth from this terror-filled war by helping the soldiers? Do I support murder if I don't help the soldiers? As I scroll through the social network feeds of my Jewish and Muslim friends, I see anger and shame at the failure on both sides to seek peace. I see two controversial Facebook groups, "Israel Loves Palestine" and "Palestine Loves Israel," decrying the hatred and violence.

How long will the fight over this holy land continue? How long will bloodshed reign? How long will terror beget terror?

I am aware that this is not my fight, that I am a privileged, white, Christian American who has little reason to fear for her safety on the basis of borders or religion. But it is my fight, because we are all human, and all the world is the household of God.

Did you read the story about the 16-year old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was kidnapped and murdered about a week and a half ago by a gang of Israeli young men and boys?

It's this picture of what happened afterward that stands out for me:

Photo: facebook.com/unify

Over four hundred Israeli mothers came to offer condolences to Mohammed Abu Khdeir's family.

Perhaps it will be women who end this horrific fight. Perhaps it will be women who illumine the way to kindness that knows no boundaries, compassion that transcends religious ties, and self-emptying, hatred-deflating love that witnesses to God's embrace of all creation.

May peace come swiftly--in Palestine, in Israel, and in my own stony heart.

What in me needs to change so that my religion and my nation's borders do not threaten the lives and joy of others? What in me needs to change so that I might become a bright beacon of God's enveloping peace?

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Living Lent: Homily, Lent III

3/24/2014

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Many weeks ago I was invited by the vicar of St. Augustine's Church to give a homily at both Sunday liturgies for the third Sunday of Lent. Yesterday was the third Sunday of Lent, and these are the words that I shared with my fellow parishioners.

Lent III Lessons: Genesis 44:1-17 , Psalm 95, Romans 8:1-10, John 5:25-29

"From the wilderness the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as God commanded. And they camped, but there was no water for the people to drink." This is what we hear from the book of Exodus. God's people had been journeying for a long time. They were hopeful and excited about their newfound freedom from slavery in Egypt. But in the midst of their journey, tired and weary from walking, they found themselves in a place that had no water to quench their thirst. When they got upset about it, Moses got upset at them for being upset. And then God finally relented and gave the people a spring of water. The scripture writer notes throughout the story that God's people persisted in doubt.

There's something strange about this. Why would God bring God's beloved people out of slavery and then leave them out to dry, literally? They're in the wilderness, a place unknown to them, and they're thirsting. Thirst is no insignificant thing. Thirst, if left unquenched long enough, could lead to death. Thirst is such a fearful experience that there are psalms dedicated to it: in Psalm 42 we pray, "As the deer that pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for God," and in Psalm 63 we pray "My soul is thirsting for you, O God, like a dry, weary land without water."

For the people of Israel, a dry land was an unfruitful land. A dry people was a dying people.

And here we are, on the third Sunday of Lent, not quite halfway through our journey in the Lenten wilderness, and we find ourselves parched. My guess is that you, like I, have given up something for Lent (in my case, being the overachiever that I am, I gave up four things). If you're like me, your Lenten fasting leaves you yearning, sometimes bitterly, sometimes desperately, for the familiar comforts you gave up on Ash Wednesday.

This Sunday's lessons are all about water and thirst, and they may be the most important ones we hear during Lent. We think of Lent as a time to honor Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the cross by making sacrifices of our own, and Lent is that, but Lent also has something far more difficult to teach us.

The harder lesson of Lent is difficult to perceive when our fasting is overshadowed by our certainty that relief is coming. Unlike our voluntary Lenten fasting, for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, there was no timeline or guarantee of reaching an oasis. Their journey out of slavery in Egypt meant leaving behind all their known sources of refreshment, period. It meant taking the extraordinary risk that they might involuntarily and without warning have to abstain from water--an abstinence that, if prolonged, even for a few days, would have the power to claim their lives.

By leaving Egypt, they weren't just taking their lives out of the hands of Pharaoh; by seeking freedom, they were submitting their lives to the mercy of their God, their sole protector from the dangers of the wilderness. As they found themselves stopping to camp in a place with no water, they were terrified. They were so sick with parched mouths and deep thirst that they were no longer sure that the God in whom they had put all their trust would be willing or able to save them from death. They had already journeyed too far from Egypt to go back. Their lives hung by a thread, and they could no longer save themselves. Only God could. And that scared them.

Centuries later, when Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman, he was offering her God's new covenant: the promise that as long as she sought this new living water, rather than seeking water from the source she had always turned to, she would never have to fear dying from thirst the way the Israelites had feared dying from thirst in the wilderness.

The lesson from John's gospel isn't merely a story about the Samaritan woman. It's a story about us. We have been offered this same living water by God in our baptism, and yet what do we do? We build up storehouses of comfort around ourselves in order to make sure that we never have to rely on anyone but ourselves. Our lives get so cluttered by the comforts we take for granted that when we tear away some of those comforts during Lent, we feel a deep, uncomfortable emptiness. We taste a morsel of the same bitter fear that haunted God's people in the wilderness, and we can't wait to get back to the way things were. In the end, we would rather drink from the well that we've always known than trust in some guy who doesn't even know to bring his own bucket. We might give up what we cling to for a few weeks, but who among us is willing to let our comforts go indefinitely? If I let my sources of comfort die, I risk dying, too.

I'd like to suggest that we ask ourselves what we left behind in order to enter this Lenten wilderness, and whether we're willing to leave behind all the rest. Do we dare to empty ourselves of everything we cling to until all we have left is our aching thirst for God and the trust that God won't let us die? Perhaps, as we enter the second half of Lent, we can risk losing it all--every thing we think we need to be happy, all our enslaving attachments, every shackle of our obsessions--and move forward to the unknown, unguaranteed future. And maybe then, as we go forward bearing nothing but our thirst and radical trust in the face of terrifying dryness, God will lift up for us a spring of living water, and we'll be able to rise from our knees to unfettered, quenching, resurrected freedom.

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Characterizing God(dess)

Spirit Whispers: The power of story

Spirit Whispers: Israel or Palestine?

Spirit Whispers: Peace

Living Lent: Homily, Lent III

Rev. M. Kate Allen

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