a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle MA
Sunday March 21st, 2004
Opening Words: "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are; your reputation is merely what others think you are." --John Wooden
[extemporaneous thanks to the Skyloom Dancers....]
This is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s the annual return of the “Big Dance” -- the NCAA college basketball tournament, or “March Madness” as it is sometimes called -- an opportunity to watch some of the most exciting basketball played anywhere, by both Men’s and Women’s teams....in an intense, single-elimination format that always seems to produce more than its fair share of dramatic, buzzer-beating finishes, and exhilarating human drama, and unexpected triumphs and defeats....all in the space of three long weekends. For a basketball fan in particular, there’s nothing quite like it...especially for those of us of a theological bent. Last night the DePaul Blue Demons were easily eliminated by the Huskies of U Conn (as in the University of Connecticut, not the Canadian territory), but at least both Duke and Wake Forest will be advancing to next week’s Sweet Sixteen, which means that it’s still theoretically possible for the Blue Devils and the Demon Deacons to meet in the championship game in San Antonio on April 5th: now wouldn’t that be a match-up made in heaven? (Not that I had it that way on MY bracket; I was expecting Stanford to go all the way this year, but they lost last night to Alabama after nearly sending the game into overtime at the buzzer, which was almost as painful as seeing my precious Gonzaga get blown out of Key Arena by a team like Nevada).
But I honestly think that the most emotionally intense game played yesterday was the Wilmington Lady Quakers’ comeback victory over the previously undefeated Bowdin Polar Bears, 59-53, in the Women’s Division III championship game. This was one of those great games where you just wish that both teams could go home winners, and I kinda like to think that maybe in this particular instance, they both did. My daughter was a Division III college athlete, so I know firsthand that there are no scholarships in Division III; these kids truly do play “for the love of the game,” and thus exemplify the advertisements that have been running throughout the tournament, which conclude with the tag: “There are over 360,000 NCAA student athletes, and just about all of us will be going pro in something other than sports.” But they still practice and compete as hard as they can; they still “play their hearts out,” and “leave it all out on the floor.” They still know what it means to be a part of a team, working together over the course of a season to achieve the shared goal of winning a championship.
When we first started thinking about and planning this particular Sunday service several months ago now, the theme was originally going to be “Peace.” But as the time grew closer, and I had a chance to watch the dancers rehearse together, and work out their choreography and adapt it to this space, this other theme of “teamwork” came to mind. Teamwork is a concept I have always associated with competition, first with sports and then by analogy with business, or even war. But teamwork is also obviously about cooperation, and ultimately about performance; and teams not only work, they also play. As a kid growing up, I played on lots of teams. I was told that TEAM was an acronym for “Together Everyone Achieves More” and also that There is no “I” in “Team.” But no one ever bothered to mention the more basic definition of “two or more animals (typically horses or mules, but also often oxen and even dogs) yoked together to the same vehicle or plow,” and driven (naturally) by a “teamster.” Being part of a team certainly empowers its members to accomplish more together than any one of them could alone. But there is also a price to be paid with respect to a loss of individuality and personal freedom (sometimes expressed in the sentiment “unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes”); which is just a colorful way of saying that the same yoke that allows a team to pull together also binds them together in such a way that unless they move together, they are incapable of moving at all.
In this age of the automobile, and the internal combustion engine which makes autonomous mobility possible, teams of draft animals are not really a big part of our daily experience any more. Instead, as I mentioned earlier, we tend to associate teams with both sports and the workplace -- where the emphasis on competition sometimes obscures the more basic sense of cooperation essential to effective teamwork. In this context, members of teams sometimes compete with one another as well as with their “external” opponents -- for promotions and raises, for glory and “playing time.” Sometimes this competition becomes so intense that it destroys the integrity of the team itself, so that no one wins and everybody loses. The real success of a team is measured, not by its momentary victories, but by its ability to continue to work together smoothly over time, while adapting itself effectively to changing circumstances.
This cooperation need not always be so rigid as that of two oxen yoked together. So long as the skills of the teammates compliment and support one another, almost any combination is possible. For example, the most basic kind of a team is a simple partnership -- two individuals working together toward a shared goal. Like a marriage. Have you ever thought about the fact that every marriage is the same, yet no two marriages are alike? Or maybe it’s the other way around.... This paradox has been on my mind a lot lately, especially now that same-sex marriage has jumped to the front burner and boiled over as a potential wedge issue in the upcoming Presidential election. Within the structure of the institution of marriage, each couple has the freedom to work out the nuances of their own unique partnership, to form a team. And this publicly sanctioned privacy is what makes marriage sacred.
There’s a passage from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea that I often like to read at weddings because it expresses this insight so articulately. Lindbergh wrote that “a good relationship has a pattern like a dance, and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate, but also gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back -- it does not matter which, because they know that they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined....”
As a minister, helping people create this kind of partnership in their marriage is part of my job. But as you may have already figured out, as a human being my real passion is not dancing, but basketball. Five players, one ball, and an equal number of opponents standing between you and your goal...and the most complicated part is that you can’t just walk up and put the ball in the basket, because the basket is ten feet off the ground and walking with the ball is not allowed. And so you have to learn how to play as a team -- how to share the ball and communicate with your teammates in order to outwit your opponents and prevent them from preventing you from doing what you want to do more often than they are able to do it themselves. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? But it’s really very simple. The only game more simple is soccer, where the goal is still at ground level, and the only real rule is that you can’t use your hands.
But simply because something appears to be simple doesn’t meant that it is easy. Because the challenge is not in the task. The challenge is learning to work as a team, as the tasks themselves grow increasingly more difficult and more complicated. I’ve already covered all the basics, but let’s just go over them one more time so that we can all see how they fit together. Teamwork is about learning to play together. Or about performing together in a cooperative way in order to achieve a shared goal. The key concepts here are “shared,” “cooperative,” and “together,” and the one essential element which makes all these things possible is good communication. Communication allows a group to identify the goals, and to articulate plans for achieving them which every member of the team understands and can agree to. It allows the team to share information about how things are going, and to make adjustments, to offer encouragement, to interact.
In time, good communication also creates something we sometimes call “chemistry” -- a shared knowledge of one’s self and one’s teammates -- your skills, your role, and the skills and roles of everyone else as well, grounded in shared experience and mutual trust, and which allows teammates to anticipate what the others on the team are going to do, sometimes even before they seem to know themselves.
And the catalyst of this chemistry is leadership: the ability to make the people around you better, through teaching and planning, organization, motivation, analysis and correction. Leadership is a complicated topic -- one worthy, no doubt, of at least one sermon all its own. But the great irony of leadership is that leaders typically end up limiting their own individual performance in order to improve the overall performance of the group. A good coach can lead a winning team, yet never score a single point...nor even touch the ball for that matter, except maybe to hand it to the players at the beginning of practice, and pick it up again when practice is over. And at the same time, talented players can sometimes try to “take over” a game to the detriment of a team’s overall performance, essentially taking their teammates out of the game through their own misguided attempts to dominate their opponents single-handedly.
I’ve seen it happen more times than I care to recall. It’s a common fault, and the more talented a player is, the more stubbornly they cling to it. Jr. High School boys are the worst. You get the ball, and the first thing you do is put your head down and dribble as hard as you can with your strong hand toward the basket. It used to work every time in the driveway, but now instead of one-on-one you are going one-on-five, so the next thing you know you find yourself cut-off at the baseline and surrounded by your opponents, at which point you either fire up a wild shot somewhere in the direction of the basket (whether or not you can actually see it), or else finally get it in your head to try to pass the ball to one of your teammates, all of whom are circling around you like vultures, waving their arms and shouting out your name in the hope of getting a chance to do exactly the same thing themselves once they get their hands on the ball. And, of course, the worst thing that can happen at this point is that the ball goes through the basket -- because that will simply encourage you to try it again the next time you touch the ball.
But the point I want to make, metaphorically speaking of course, is that we all start out this way....trying to do it all ourselves, assuming no one else can do it as well as we can, reluctant to trust anyone else, blind to our own shortcomings and harshly critical of the perceived failures of others. But if we are lucky, we will fail often enough early enough to realize that there’s a better way. And we will start to watch the more experienced players, and the more successful teams; we will listen to what they have to teach us, learn from our mistakes, and in time discover what it truly means to be a part of a team ourselves, working together cooperatively in mutual trust and true partnership with others in order to achieve our common goals. And at this point we discover the REAL miracle of teamwork -- that by letting go of our desire to do it all ourselves, we acquire the freedom to do what we do best, in cooperation with others whose talents compliment our own. And thus together, as a team, we each are allowed to become more completely who we are.
READING: from Hoops Nation: a guided to America’s best pickup basketball by Chris Ballard.
Why You Should Always Pick the Old Guy Instead of the Young Guy When Choosing Teams
* More shots for you!
* Almost always a better passer and team player than younger guys.
* Might have a mean pet shot.
* Won’t hinder your triple-double quest by stealing any rebounds.
* You can blame him for any defensive lapses the team encounters.
* He’ll use up his full complement of twenty-five fouls.
* You’ll always have a trailer on the break.
* He could be an influential businessman who will hire you someday.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Sunday, March 7, 2004
EQUITY
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, MA
Sunday March 7th, 2004
OPENING WORDS: “Not to give to those in need what to you is superfluous is akin to fraud.” -- St. Augustine
READING: Deuteronomy 15: 7-11 [12-18]
If you type the word “equity” into an internet search engine like Google or Yahoo, the first “hit” you will undoubtedly come across will be the web page for the British trade union for actors and other performing artists of that same name. But if you look over to the side of your screen, at the so-called “sponsored links,” what you will find will be a long list of solicitation after solicitation for home equity loans and credit lines. This is how “equity” is most commonly understood and used in ordinary conversation: the equity in our homes, or perhaps “equities” in which we invested the form of common stock, “shares” of some commercial enterprise which we own “corporately” in the company of other investors. And just as an aside, I learned the other day (from a very credible source), that there is now over a billion dollars worth of real estate equity here in the Town of Carlisle. A billion dollars is a lot of money, by any measure...and of course, because I live in a church-owned parsonage, I don’t actually share in any of it. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not invested in this community, or that I don’t have an interest in what goes on here, sharing in the ups and downs of the fortunes of my neighbors and fellow creatures.
The word “equity” itself comes from the Latin word “æques” meaning “equal” (and which should not be confused with the similar sounding “equus” meaning “horse”). If you look it up in any half-way decent unabridged etymological dictionary, you will basically find some combination of the same small handful of definitions, all of which build in slightly different directions on this original root meaning. In its most basic sense, “equity” means “fairness,” and “equitable” is essentially a synonym for “fair” or “even-handed.” More precisely, equity refers to the legal principle of impartiality, which asserts that every individual has the same right to be fairly heard, and to stand equally with all others before the law -- that we are all entitled to our day in court.
Then comes the financial sense that we’ve been talking about already -- the value of Property (most typically, but not exclusively, Real Estate) minus the amount owed against it...in other words, the part you own “free and fair,” without encumbrance, and which you have a right to redeem in a reasonable time even in the event of foreclosure by a creditor.
Finally, and perhaps most specifically, “Equity” refers to a system of legal rules and doctrines which resorts to general principles of fairness and justice, at times even superseding existing statutes or the common law, whenever established law proves inadequate for just settlement and an equitable resolution of a problem or conflict. In other words, Equity law is basically carte blanc for all those so-called “activist judges,” who are empowered by centuries of British and American legal tradition to root out injustice whenever it comes before them, by relying upon their own best judgment, and a fundamental spirit of fairness and equity .
Now all this leads me to the real question that I want to look at today, which is How do we go about creating “equity” in a Society? -- the kind of community which not only embraces basic principles of fairness and impartiality, but also one in which everyone gets a fairly even-handed opportunity to “buy in” and enjoy an equitable share of its underlying “value.” This is obviously a very complicated topic, and certainly not one which we are going to be able to exhaust in just a few minutes preaching on a Sunday morning. But it’s also a problem that should deeply concern each and every one of us, since it directly affects the quality of both the local and the world community in which we live. Theologians and Social Ethicists in particular sometimes talk about this problem in terms of Economic or “distributive” Justice -- how do we fairly divide up the wealth of a society, so that everyone receives an equitable share?
Not necessarily an equal share, since that would probably be impossible even if it were desirable. But an EQUITABLE share -- a fair share -- whatever that may be. Enough, perhaps, to keep body and soul together. Or maybe enough to assure every individual of life, and liberty, and perhaps even a little happiness...or at least the opportunity to pursue it. Economic justice is about more than merely an equitable distribution of wealth. Ultimately, it’s about relationships -- about benefits and privileges, rights, duties and responsibilities, and how they are shared within a society. Who owes what to whom and why? What kind of obligations do those whom God has smiled upon owe the less-fortunate, and what must the latter do to collect?
Ideas about what is fair and equitable vary from place to place and over time, and even for a single individual over the course of a lifetime. A young child will scream “That’s Not Fair!” whenever they don’t get their way, but as we grow older we come to realize that life isn’t always fair even though we wish it were...and that sometimes we can’t get what we want, or even what we need, no matter how hard we try. Perhaps our ideas about what we “really need” also change over time, as we come to understand our own needs and the needs of others better and more completely. Food, Clothing, Shelter, Education, Health Care, the opportunity to earn an honest living (as contrasted with the opportunity to “make a killing”).
Think about it for a moment: what might you personally add to or subtract from this list? What about transportation, for example: the freedom to move efficiently and affordably from place to place? What about the opportunity to fall in love and form a family...with someone of a different religion? With someone from a different race? With someone the same sex as yourself? As Americans, we tend to be uniquely militant about defending our own perceived “rights” and “freedoms,” but we can sometimes become a little short-sighted when it comes to acknowledging the accompanying duties and responsibilities, or defending the rights of others....especially when they are asserting the right to be different than us.
But the principle of equity insists that all individuals be treated impartially and even-handedly. There should NEVER be two standards of fairness: one for people like us, and another for people different than us. If anything, society should go out of its way to protect those who are incapable of protecting themselves: the widows, the orphans, the strangers. This understanding of equity goes all the way back to the Bible, to the ancient legal codes of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I’ve always been fascinated by the attempts of certain individuals to read these books “literally,” as a set of divinely-inspired rules and regulations appropriate to governing contemporary behavior. Because more often than not, they aren’t actually interpreting these Scriptures literally at all -- instead, they read them through the filters of their own prejudice, finding support for things they already believe and naively ignoring or misinterpreting what they find disagreeable or don’t understand. And because they read them out of context, they often overlook the more basic, undergirding ethical principles which still give these texts contemporary relevance, despite the fact that they were originally written for a society which no longer exists and which was very different from our own.
Not always, of course. There are still people who “get it” -- some of them very conservative people theologically -- but who understand that just because the Bible talks about slavery (a lot), it doesn’t mean that we have a God-given right to own slaves, or that we should execute adulterers and disobedient children by publicly pelting them to death with heavy stones just because that’s what someone said you ought to do 3000 years ago. In order to truly understand what these texts are all about, you need to read them anthropologically -- you need to understand them accurately in their original context, discern the underlying ethical principles which give them their coherence, and then apply those principles meaningfully to contemporary times. And it’s a very difficult process, because no matter how excellent a scholar one may be, it is impossible not to bring SOME level of contemporary bias to the task. And yet, properly handled, this can be an important tool of discernment in its own right. The things that seem the most strange and unusual are the ones we should be most attentive to. And those that feel the most familiar likewise those which should be approached most skeptically and suspiciously.
There are times (not many, but a few) when I kinda wish that I were a preacher in an honest-to-God Bible-believing church, so that I could have the liberty to go line by line through a passage like the one I read earlier from the Book of Deuteronomy, and really “open the Scripture” to all of you without being afraid of starting a riot. (Of course, if this really were an honest-to-God Bible-Believing church, I would probably cause a riot anyway, just because of the nature of my exegesis). Because even though that particular passage may seem like a relatively straight-forward exhortation to give generously to one’s less-fortunate neighbors, it comes in the midst of a series of similarly prescriptive passages concerning kosher dietary laws, the practice of tithing, the notion of the so-called “sabbatical year,” (a kind of mini-jubilee or “sabbath” every seventh year, at which time creditors forgave the outstanding debts of their neighbors), and finally the equitable treatment of someone who has sold themselves to you as a slave.
And when you examine these passages side by side and in their historical and cultural context, you start to realize that these “laws” are not really about doing nice things for your neighbors out of the goodness of your heart or because it pleases God; they involve instead a systematic redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor FOR THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY ITSELF, a community which includes both rich and poor, all of whom face changing fortunes, all of whom are God’s people. It’s not about charity, or doing good works. It is an investment in what is sometimes called “Social Capital” -- strengthening the relationships which bind us together as neighbors, and allow us to depend on one another in times of crisis.
Of course, here in America in the 21st century, we do things exactly the opposite -- we encumber our children and our children’s children with massive amounts of debt in order to put more money in the pockets of the wealthiest 1% of the population, while at the same time jeopardizing the retirement and health care benefits of an entire generation. And I know there are many who dismiss this kind of talk as partisan political rhetoric, but if you just take a step back from it for a moment and try to look at the situation dispassionately, I think you’ll see that there are fundamental questions of equity and social justice at issue here, and that they concern us all, regardless of our political sentiments.
I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit. I believe in free enterprise, and a market economy -- I believe that incentives are important, and that economic growth, increased productivity, and the creation of wealth are all good things. But I also believe in environmental regulation, in living wages, in health and safety standards, and a society that looks first to protect the lives and livelihoods of its most vulnerable members, rather than subsidizing the extravagant lifestyles of its most affluent. Who really needs meaningful financial incentives more desperately: middle-aged corporate executives like Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski, or the 17-year-old inner-city High School drop-out, who is convinced by his entire life experience that there will never be a place at the table for him, simply because of the color of his skin? And even if they all end up in prison, as so many young African American males do these days, do you really think that there’s even the slightest chance that he will find himself eating at the same table as Dennis and Kenny-boy?
A good rant is healthy every now and again; it gets the blood flowing, and inspires the heart to reach out once more into the community, and help to do God’s work in the world. And I just want to say, here at the end of the hour, that I’m very proud of the work that this congregation does in the area of Social Action. Through our on-going partnership with Habitat, through our support of the Open Pantry and the House of Hope, the Bartlett School, the Sharing Foundation, and the various other programs and community agencies we reach out to and are involved with, we help to make small but significant improvements in the lives of hundreds of our “neighbors and fellow creatures” every year; and I know that there are many individuals in this church who do even more in their private lives, and are an inspiration and a good example to us all. Yet as important as this work is, the problems are even bigger. Private Charities and faith-based organizations simply can’t do it all; society as a whole needs to be reminded to make enough room for everyone in the boat, so that we all can float with the rising tide, rather than leaving some of us behind to sink beneath the waves and drown.
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, MA
Sunday March 7th, 2004
OPENING WORDS: “Not to give to those in need what to you is superfluous is akin to fraud.” -- St. Augustine
READING: Deuteronomy 15: 7-11 [12-18]
If you type the word “equity” into an internet search engine like Google or Yahoo, the first “hit” you will undoubtedly come across will be the web page for the British trade union for actors and other performing artists of that same name. But if you look over to the side of your screen, at the so-called “sponsored links,” what you will find will be a long list of solicitation after solicitation for home equity loans and credit lines. This is how “equity” is most commonly understood and used in ordinary conversation: the equity in our homes, or perhaps “equities” in which we invested the form of common stock, “shares” of some commercial enterprise which we own “corporately” in the company of other investors. And just as an aside, I learned the other day (from a very credible source), that there is now over a billion dollars worth of real estate equity here in the Town of Carlisle. A billion dollars is a lot of money, by any measure...and of course, because I live in a church-owned parsonage, I don’t actually share in any of it. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not invested in this community, or that I don’t have an interest in what goes on here, sharing in the ups and downs of the fortunes of my neighbors and fellow creatures.
The word “equity” itself comes from the Latin word “æques” meaning “equal” (and which should not be confused with the similar sounding “equus” meaning “horse”). If you look it up in any half-way decent unabridged etymological dictionary, you will basically find some combination of the same small handful of definitions, all of which build in slightly different directions on this original root meaning. In its most basic sense, “equity” means “fairness,” and “equitable” is essentially a synonym for “fair” or “even-handed.” More precisely, equity refers to the legal principle of impartiality, which asserts that every individual has the same right to be fairly heard, and to stand equally with all others before the law -- that we are all entitled to our day in court.
Then comes the financial sense that we’ve been talking about already -- the value of Property (most typically, but not exclusively, Real Estate) minus the amount owed against it...in other words, the part you own “free and fair,” without encumbrance, and which you have a right to redeem in a reasonable time even in the event of foreclosure by a creditor.
Finally, and perhaps most specifically, “Equity” refers to a system of legal rules and doctrines which resorts to general principles of fairness and justice, at times even superseding existing statutes or the common law, whenever established law proves inadequate for just settlement and an equitable resolution of a problem or conflict. In other words, Equity law is basically carte blanc for all those so-called “activist judges,” who are empowered by centuries of British and American legal tradition to root out injustice whenever it comes before them, by relying upon their own best judgment, and a fundamental spirit of fairness and equity .
Now all this leads me to the real question that I want to look at today, which is How do we go about creating “equity” in a Society? -- the kind of community which not only embraces basic principles of fairness and impartiality, but also one in which everyone gets a fairly even-handed opportunity to “buy in” and enjoy an equitable share of its underlying “value.” This is obviously a very complicated topic, and certainly not one which we are going to be able to exhaust in just a few minutes preaching on a Sunday morning. But it’s also a problem that should deeply concern each and every one of us, since it directly affects the quality of both the local and the world community in which we live. Theologians and Social Ethicists in particular sometimes talk about this problem in terms of Economic or “distributive” Justice -- how do we fairly divide up the wealth of a society, so that everyone receives an equitable share?
Not necessarily an equal share, since that would probably be impossible even if it were desirable. But an EQUITABLE share -- a fair share -- whatever that may be. Enough, perhaps, to keep body and soul together. Or maybe enough to assure every individual of life, and liberty, and perhaps even a little happiness...or at least the opportunity to pursue it. Economic justice is about more than merely an equitable distribution of wealth. Ultimately, it’s about relationships -- about benefits and privileges, rights, duties and responsibilities, and how they are shared within a society. Who owes what to whom and why? What kind of obligations do those whom God has smiled upon owe the less-fortunate, and what must the latter do to collect?
Ideas about what is fair and equitable vary from place to place and over time, and even for a single individual over the course of a lifetime. A young child will scream “That’s Not Fair!” whenever they don’t get their way, but as we grow older we come to realize that life isn’t always fair even though we wish it were...and that sometimes we can’t get what we want, or even what we need, no matter how hard we try. Perhaps our ideas about what we “really need” also change over time, as we come to understand our own needs and the needs of others better and more completely. Food, Clothing, Shelter, Education, Health Care, the opportunity to earn an honest living (as contrasted with the opportunity to “make a killing”).
Think about it for a moment: what might you personally add to or subtract from this list? What about transportation, for example: the freedom to move efficiently and affordably from place to place? What about the opportunity to fall in love and form a family...with someone of a different religion? With someone from a different race? With someone the same sex as yourself? As Americans, we tend to be uniquely militant about defending our own perceived “rights” and “freedoms,” but we can sometimes become a little short-sighted when it comes to acknowledging the accompanying duties and responsibilities, or defending the rights of others....especially when they are asserting the right to be different than us.
But the principle of equity insists that all individuals be treated impartially and even-handedly. There should NEVER be two standards of fairness: one for people like us, and another for people different than us. If anything, society should go out of its way to protect those who are incapable of protecting themselves: the widows, the orphans, the strangers. This understanding of equity goes all the way back to the Bible, to the ancient legal codes of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I’ve always been fascinated by the attempts of certain individuals to read these books “literally,” as a set of divinely-inspired rules and regulations appropriate to governing contemporary behavior. Because more often than not, they aren’t actually interpreting these Scriptures literally at all -- instead, they read them through the filters of their own prejudice, finding support for things they already believe and naively ignoring or misinterpreting what they find disagreeable or don’t understand. And because they read them out of context, they often overlook the more basic, undergirding ethical principles which still give these texts contemporary relevance, despite the fact that they were originally written for a society which no longer exists and which was very different from our own.
Not always, of course. There are still people who “get it” -- some of them very conservative people theologically -- but who understand that just because the Bible talks about slavery (a lot), it doesn’t mean that we have a God-given right to own slaves, or that we should execute adulterers and disobedient children by publicly pelting them to death with heavy stones just because that’s what someone said you ought to do 3000 years ago. In order to truly understand what these texts are all about, you need to read them anthropologically -- you need to understand them accurately in their original context, discern the underlying ethical principles which give them their coherence, and then apply those principles meaningfully to contemporary times. And it’s a very difficult process, because no matter how excellent a scholar one may be, it is impossible not to bring SOME level of contemporary bias to the task. And yet, properly handled, this can be an important tool of discernment in its own right. The things that seem the most strange and unusual are the ones we should be most attentive to. And those that feel the most familiar likewise those which should be approached most skeptically and suspiciously.
There are times (not many, but a few) when I kinda wish that I were a preacher in an honest-to-God Bible-believing church, so that I could have the liberty to go line by line through a passage like the one I read earlier from the Book of Deuteronomy, and really “open the Scripture” to all of you without being afraid of starting a riot. (Of course, if this really were an honest-to-God Bible-Believing church, I would probably cause a riot anyway, just because of the nature of my exegesis). Because even though that particular passage may seem like a relatively straight-forward exhortation to give generously to one’s less-fortunate neighbors, it comes in the midst of a series of similarly prescriptive passages concerning kosher dietary laws, the practice of tithing, the notion of the so-called “sabbatical year,” (a kind of mini-jubilee or “sabbath” every seventh year, at which time creditors forgave the outstanding debts of their neighbors), and finally the equitable treatment of someone who has sold themselves to you as a slave.
And when you examine these passages side by side and in their historical and cultural context, you start to realize that these “laws” are not really about doing nice things for your neighbors out of the goodness of your heart or because it pleases God; they involve instead a systematic redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor FOR THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY ITSELF, a community which includes both rich and poor, all of whom face changing fortunes, all of whom are God’s people. It’s not about charity, or doing good works. It is an investment in what is sometimes called “Social Capital” -- strengthening the relationships which bind us together as neighbors, and allow us to depend on one another in times of crisis.
Of course, here in America in the 21st century, we do things exactly the opposite -- we encumber our children and our children’s children with massive amounts of debt in order to put more money in the pockets of the wealthiest 1% of the population, while at the same time jeopardizing the retirement and health care benefits of an entire generation. And I know there are many who dismiss this kind of talk as partisan political rhetoric, but if you just take a step back from it for a moment and try to look at the situation dispassionately, I think you’ll see that there are fundamental questions of equity and social justice at issue here, and that they concern us all, regardless of our political sentiments.
I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit. I believe in free enterprise, and a market economy -- I believe that incentives are important, and that economic growth, increased productivity, and the creation of wealth are all good things. But I also believe in environmental regulation, in living wages, in health and safety standards, and a society that looks first to protect the lives and livelihoods of its most vulnerable members, rather than subsidizing the extravagant lifestyles of its most affluent. Who really needs meaningful financial incentives more desperately: middle-aged corporate executives like Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski, or the 17-year-old inner-city High School drop-out, who is convinced by his entire life experience that there will never be a place at the table for him, simply because of the color of his skin? And even if they all end up in prison, as so many young African American males do these days, do you really think that there’s even the slightest chance that he will find himself eating at the same table as Dennis and Kenny-boy?
A good rant is healthy every now and again; it gets the blood flowing, and inspires the heart to reach out once more into the community, and help to do God’s work in the world. And I just want to say, here at the end of the hour, that I’m very proud of the work that this congregation does in the area of Social Action. Through our on-going partnership with Habitat, through our support of the Open Pantry and the House of Hope, the Bartlett School, the Sharing Foundation, and the various other programs and community agencies we reach out to and are involved with, we help to make small but significant improvements in the lives of hundreds of our “neighbors and fellow creatures” every year; and I know that there are many individuals in this church who do even more in their private lives, and are an inspiration and a good example to us all. Yet as important as this work is, the problems are even bigger. Private Charities and faith-based organizations simply can’t do it all; society as a whole needs to be reminded to make enough room for everyone in the boat, so that we all can float with the rising tide, rather than leaving some of us behind to sink beneath the waves and drown.
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