samson nights

I have this idea for a stand up sermon. I've had it ever since, one day 3 years ago, I read this passage from Judges 16 - where Samson is captive of the Philistines and he "entertains" them. Entertains is the NRSV translation - other translations hint at mocking, or making sport, or playing. The Way the NRSV translates verse 25 "And he performed for them." gave me the image seen above. I wanted a Lenny Bruce figure with a Jackie Mason delivery. You'd think after all that there'd be a Borscht Belt schtick in scripture somewhere. Why not here.
When I told Jami about my idea and read her what I'd written in the margin of my Bible "Hello Ladies and uncircumcised Philistines" she interrupted me and said, "don't go there." But I can't get this out of my head. I've illustrated something above with words. A sketch of how this thing could go. And I admit, as I told my friend Bob, that this is probably like the Aristocrats - in the movie a joke comedians improvise and tell each other - here I proffer a sermon only ministers who know each other could tell - to expand on and improvise on as they will.
Samson:"You read the Bible and it really is a library: you got your wisdom section; your historical novels; your self help; your doomsday scenarios - heroes, villains, lovers; mythic figures alongside  the all too human.
But where do you go for stand up? It's right here folks. Because when you think about it, I'm a funny guy - and this is a funny moment- in that Freudian "jokes as covert violence" kind of way.
"Hold on there, " you say - "We're a high class room. We're Philistines!"
Hold that thought.
A number of years ago I made use of the jawbone of an ass. People were like, "Why don't you just use the one you already Have?"
I just looked at them - had they never dwelt on the inherent grace of a donkey's mandible before?
I was speechless. I always try to get along with people - though there was that one time ... and that other time. There was one time I was doing a wedding. My own, I think! When I think of the blood, the screams, the fire - and that was only the rehearsal!
Back then I had a lot of hair. Long wavy locks. Women wanted me. Men wanted me. I wanted me!
Whoa.
I swear it all disappeared over night. I get up with alarm to go to work; I look in the mirror and I'm a cue ball. Oh no - not me. But it was off to the salt mines. I lasted a week.
That one jaw bone of an ass - I never found it again. Now I use the one God gave me and it works just fine."

luke 1:20 silence's sounding

Zechariah loses his speech - that is, his speech is taken away from him. When I was young, I heard this story as a miracle of punishment. Like Darth Vader saying, "I find your lack of faith disappointing." But it's not funny. Not the kind of humorousness we encounter when we or someone has laryngitis. We know that's temporary - and we take it with humor and annoyance. Zechariah doesn't know when this enforced silence will be over? Nine months, maybe.

Of course loss of speech symbolizes a loss of status. Luke's word here  for silence is the single occurrence of that word in the New Testament. It occurs once in the Greek Old Testament Luke would have used. In Numbers 30 verse 4 - a passage that says a father's silence ratifies any vow his daughter might make - like a vow to marry who she wants to, perhaps. It's easy enough in this passage to see that Zechariah's silence is what gives Elizabeth the privilege of naming the baby John.

More than Zechariah's speech has been taken away - his prerogative as The decider, The speaker - to some extent, I don't know how much, his role. His role is not so much taken away as altered. He will later, as we see in this chapter, second Elizabeth's decision and fulfill the command of God's messenger, Gabriel. His silence has taught him something - how to listen to God, and how to listen to someone else - even someone who society has defined as having a lower status.

Had Zechariah ever listened to others before? His response to the angelic creature is to argue, "Well that's all well and good, but let me set you straight on the facts: we're old - old people don't have children." And maybe he's also asserting sotto voce, "I don't have my prayers answered."

 Gabriel has just told him his and Elizabeth's prayers are answered. "Where is your faith," as in another context Jesus asked his disciples. As if faith might wander off. Here Zechariah can ponder how faith might have wandered off from God - perhaps onto something else, no matter. Faith that is not located on God has a way of disappointing.

All this Zechariah could not have learned if he had not been silenced. Speaking for God, and this is a hazard for us pastors but also for anyone who is passionate about faith, we wander into the territory of "speaking as God". I might also say, having listened to various pundits this election season, that a lot of people are in the habit of speaking as God. On talk radio there's a relentless pounding, violent bloviations hitting without respite or reflection. Their goal perhaps: to take away speech while exercising speaking in such a way that no one has time or strength to reflect.

Silence gives us opportunity to reflect. Opportunity for others to speak. Even as I say we need to experience silence, practice silence, I am aware that whole groups of people have had silence forced upon them: people in the minority, people who are too young - or too old, people who are timid.

One of the things I practice as a chaplain is when visiting someone to introduce myself and be silent. Most people are uncomfortable with silence - and the temptation as the visitor is justify a visit, to relieve the anxiety you feel, or think they feel, to just start speaking. I've found if I don't, what happens is that this person speaks, and left to themselves with my silence, they might chance to speak of something deep that was lying in them, needing to be expressed. People have a hard time expressing themselves. To talk to another human being about themselves is a healing thing. And it is a gift of silence.

When Zechariah speaks again it is from a heart blooming in praise: "God has remembered his holy covenant. The oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days."  He goes on to reiterate Gabriel's promise - this will be a special child who will prepare the way for the Messiah and the deliverance of Israel.

I don't extol silence over speech or vice versa. I only hope to show the pressing need for silence in our lives. How can we know if we speak too much or speak amiss? How else can we find relief from the noise of advertising - the visual and verbal assaults of others - the human noise external and internal that crowds out response from us - and crowds out the voice of God.

God speaks in our silence. God's speech catches us off guard. We expect one thing and another thing comes about. Jonah expected Ninevah to be destroyed - but God shows his loving kindness even for enemies. The apostles expected the gentiles to be excluded, but God treated them like they were already included. And that seems to be consistent: whatever we think is off limits - God pushes the limits; whoever we think can't speak - God finds a way to give them voice; whenever our own efforts and wisdom slack - God shows a way.

Our silence gives us a chance to hear, to listen. Perhaps we can hear the sounds of nature and live in those sounds. Perhaps we can hear a mother's grief and live in that grief. Perhaps we can hear our own voice - discover it within us amid the clamor of parents and teachers and others we've internalized from the beginning. Perhaps we can even hear God say that our prayers have been heard.

Advent begins today. We begin the church year with a long wait. We play a slow quiet movement. It is good for us to begin this way - as the hymn says, "let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand." Christ our God and King is coming - but not yet.

Consciously use silence this Advent. Ask, "What was it like to be Zechariah - present without speech - unable to speak of the angelic vision - unable to speak for himself?" What is it like to be a Trappist - taking a vow of silence? Is it like holding your breath underwater - holding your speech under waves of anxiety? Think when watching the news or reading the paper: Whose voice is taken away? Whose silence is not being spoken for? Explore how silence is part of prayer - cry to God and perhaps listen for God's cry back? What did God say?  Explore its mysteries while walking in the crowded city - as well as hiking in the forest.

John Cage wrote a piece of music: 4'33" where the performer sits down at the piano and doesn't play a note. It's not a joke. The point is this: the audience is also part of the performance: the demands of listening require skill as much as playing the instrument. And in the music, rests, where no note is played, are as vital as the notes we hear. Music is filled with the unheard. Cage's piece underlines this. It's possible to be a virtuoso of silence, of the unheard, of the rest. Life is not only the sounds. Just like prayer is not a monologue.

TS Eliot in Ash Wednesday writes: "Where will the word be found / where will the word resound/ not here/ there is not enough silence."  If we start in Advent looking - perhaps by Ash Wednesday we'll have found.

credo

I came across this fragment of a creed I was working on a few years ago. I think about replacing the perfectly serviceable creed in my PIF (that little form for employment we Presbyterians use to disclose the surface facts of what kind of minister we might be - think computer dating: "loves Calvin and Barth" for "likes long walks and listens to Sinatra". 

Here goes: 

I believe Jesus meets us along life's way - that Emaus is a metaphor for life - and that Jesus is discovered in the life symbolized by the sacraments. He is the sacrament par excellence - that is, as the living word, he brings to speech the covenant centered creation of the triune God.

As God Jesus reveals the life of the Father Son and Spirit among humanity in creation. In his love, teaching, ministry, acts and word, he displays the emptying of the abundance at the heart of God.

In his death he demonstrates what people are in their fears and limitations and what God is in God's courage, love and forgiveness. He suffered death for all and brought death into the life of the Trinity where death was transformed from and end without possibility into an event containing both grief and hope. 

...

[here my manuscript leaves off. I really have to ponder how I might revise what I've written and complete it. I'd like to think it's a bit more adventurous than the kind of boilerplate I'm using now. But it wouldn't be the first time that someone pointed out how standard it still is.]

a poster for the prometheus movie

The emblem of inerrancy

 a mediation about death - I'm having many of these lately. I think, "I'm going to lay off thinking about death for a while." But then something happens and I'm reminded that most things in life are simply diversions to keep our minds off the fact that we're going to die. Happy Holidays.

Sometimes I write something so profound and playful, so redolent of word play and insight, so much a river flowing from my unconscious, that I can't stand myself.

letting death bury itself

Matthew and Luke record Jesus replying to a disciple's hesitancy with the remark" let the dead bury their own". This abrupt phrase has a tone of bitterness in it. Something I might say after hearing a litany of excuses - offers of help that are immediately rescinded: I'd help but not now; I'd lift a hand but I'm in the same boat as you. We all have this way of expressing sympathy that is at once a giving alongside a removing. If you think of our symbolic commerce, that we have a symbolic commerce - if you thought to symbolize the commerce of emotions like we symbolize the commerce of money, using quantitative graphs and statistics, such an accumulation of giving and taking back might create a graph of a downward curve, or whatever graph might be interpreted as a depression. Perhaps that's how it feels - like that Sam Phillip's song "help is coming one day late." I listened to that song a number of times during a pastoral internship in Birmingham. It's like the punchline to a joke, a dry dark joke. My dad was a master of this type of joke - a joke that takes on the shade of life. Like the end of the movie All That Jazz: an upbeat Broadway chorus chanting "bye bye my life, good bye". I feel more often now the tug of death in life. The feeling of being brought down to earth. My dad telling me, "sometimes you have to let your dreams die" coupled with deaths of friends and relatives becoming too frequent. Not just physical deaths but, as with my dad, the deaths of dreams, the deaths of careers, the deaths of friendships. All has a way of tugging back into the past. The past where perhaps things seemed more alive. "Life was back there," I might say. "Did I misplace it among some boxes; lose it at a rest stop; inadvertently loan it out to someone?" Freud in his book, On Jokes, remarks that jokes operate from the unconscious. Jokes are connected to the death drive while trying to squeeze some kernel of truth frosted with laughter into our conversations. "Let the dead bury the dead" has a joke-like quality - a bit of wit that recognizes the letdown, the reality check, that thrives among our intentions. What wonderful intentions I have - and the people I know have marvelous intentions. I don't know that I've ever met or heard anyone voicing bad intentions. If we could quiz Iago he might aver that his intentions were actually toward the good (on second thought, no - only in the sense of false advertising - or perhaps it's here where irony seeps into  my musings). History is ironic that way; we are ironic that way. I think of Twain, who is recognized as a giant of American humor - how that humor became more pessimistic over time. Zizek compares that wry humor, such as exhibited by Groucho Marx, as an expression of the super ego. People who posit the super ego as "the moral function" of the self - a kind of helper to the ego in its battle with the id (and I've heard people say this) have no idea how Freud and later Lacan characterize this process. The super ego manufactures that catch 22 inside each of us - Enjoy! along side the Well you've blown it this time! we hear inside our heads (as well as advertised on screen and polemicised from pulpits). Twain, Groucho, they'd see the humor in the dead burying themselves. Freud and Lacan would see how this statement symbolizes how the dead threaten to bury us: Lacan calls it the narcissism of the lost cause. No one quite has a lost cause like our lost cause - no one has lost like we've lost. No one has a past like mine. And if we look through photographs we might see grand pa and great grand pa and all their ancestors and if we listen we hear them screaming up through our marrow: "Avenge me" "Improve on me" "Remember me" - all those messages we received as children. Messages wrapped up in love from people we love - but inherited in us like a heart disease or cancer: these messages take an important place in our lives. Too often they give us a reason to hate, to be jealous, to be stingy. Sometimes we need to see how our lives are encumbered by the dead, by yesterday, as it were, and "let the dead bury their own dead."  Let go of the past; let go of disappointment, and live right now. Just you and the person you promise to help.

Resilience

Sitting in my friend, Bob's, office, we talked about management fads over time - TQM, sigma 6, quality circles, etc; this all was tied into his broaching of some slogan with "resilience" in it. I shot back, yes if you're going to show any imagination you'll need resilience for when they knock you down.

The upshot was I began piecing together an artist book. I didn't realize it at first, but I printed out some of my favorite images: Man Ray's Prayer; Ralph Gibson's Leda; along with two musical images, one depicting Charlotte Moorman and the other a photo by Sara Saudkova;  and a Francesca Woodman image, which I couldn't find the title for. Before I knew it I was cobbling them together, adding some pen and ink drawings, as well as a screed, plus a bit of found text. It all came together in an erratic and haphazard manner with a modicum of artlessness - which I enjoy. Here it is, documented in my blog. Enjoy!

everything's a painting

Attempts today at photographing the transit of Venus issued in other creations - so that I was pleased, having attempted, even though faltering through limitations. I don't seem to be a technician. An eye, perhaps - like some picture by Redon or Guston.  Like the Tom Waits' song EyeBall Kid.
I did stop over an draw on a dry erase board. Before I knew it, I'd a figure reminiscent of the John the Baptist from Gruenewald's Isenheim altarpiece. I show a detail here, because I'd begun developing a sermon idea along with it. A perfect Deleuzean rhizome effect: connecting one thing to another without editing.

art and theology workshop

This last week, I lead an art and theology workshop in Manchester, TN. My friend, Michael, asked me to come and give a talk, a presentation, and lead a group of people in an adult vacation bible school in how art and theology relate in the life of the church. So I said OK and prepared. I arranged a slide show of 36 slides for three days each. Each set of slides would chronicle the development of Christian iconography: for instance, how Christ goes from beardless to bearded; how a graffito such as "Alexamanos worships his god" with a donkey-headed figure on a cross spans a tradition that culminates in Serrano's Piss Christ - the Cross as scandal. In all these things the participants were very enthusiastic. Lots of good questions and discussion.

At the end of the evening, I gave an assignment and handed out supplies. The next day they set about continuing to work on the exercises. I didn't want to break the energy in the room, so I canceled the second set of slides and lecture.

The third day I included a bit of slide lecture, mostly dealing with worship space - how artist's like James Turrell and other installation artists change the way we see light in space: light becomes very physical rather than incidental. I also rolled out my 30 ft by 36 in drawing "Time's Arrow". This work is so cumbersome to transport or display, I realize that opportunities to show it are limited. It is a free associated, journalistic collage of words and images relating to events of my life in the last year.  It's a very rich drawing of dense imagery and association that I will keep working on for some time, as space affords.

My philosophy for these art and theology workshops is laid out in the Pentecost sermon preceding this post. Life diverges from plan (as it did here) and creativity helps us negotiate and enjoy those divergences. Life is composed of divergence - in fact Romans 8 gives warrant for seeing those divergences as opportunities to create alongside God.

pentecost sermon

I am fascinated by making things. Watching our house being built has brought back memories. I enjoy watching the process. Siding is torn off the old part, trenches are dug for the footings. The concrete is poured. Walls go up - pretty soon the roof is being added - rooms are defined and I can walk around in the space, as if it were already finished. But it's not. I take photos each day, and already it's a pretty nifty gif - like the house is assembling itself.
I remember my dad working on radios and TVs. Soldering wires, resisters and capacitors, testing vacuum tubes. This was some time ago- and kids aren't always welcome looking over their parent's shoulders asking questions. But I found the pattern of the wires fascinating - and later when I saw his notes, filled with schematics - I enjoyed drawing those straight lines and right angles and circles and squares.
And I love drawing and painting. Each one is a new thing - sometimes like I've never done it before. But every one starts with a line that starts at some point. And I may have something in mind or not. Not having anything in mind is no excuse for not making something. I always discover something.
Another thing I've noticed is that if I do have a grand plan, at some point it must be abandoned. Beautiful things that show up too soon must be painted over. Even when a plan does work, the result is often stilted and unsatisfying. I told a friend, who's a musician, that there needs to be a good struggle, some sense that I've pushed against the grain, for real satisfaction. He said he'd tried that in his  practice and it'd helped. I was surprised; I wasn't giving advice.
But I have to say, the myth of the talented individual who is gifted with some genius or such and naturally overcomes hurdles that vex everyday people is wrong. What I do is difficult and not something I could put aside and come back to in 6 months and pick right up. Every creating human works hard to get the results they do: practicing, taking apart and putting back together, adjusting the angles, beveling the edges, measuring and squaring up. Whether building a house, dancing, hitting a baseball - repetition and analysis are the key.
When I was young I believed this myth about myself. I'd coasted along on talent as it were, but I hit a wall. I was afraid to make a mark on a page. I was leery of criticism. But the most critical voice was inside of me. I'm averse to change - and making a mark on a white page is change. Change threatens to bring criticism. This is the allure of conservatism - at least part way: to be sheltered from critique. The threat of the unknown. To stand astride the stream of history and yell, "stop." In order to make a mark on the page though, I had to jump right in, turn off the internal critic, and go. I did not allow myself to erase. I forced myself to use the lines I made as I made them.
I now say that art is managing accidents and failures. But that's too severe a way to put it. Those are the words of my internal critic. What accidents and failures are are changes in the plan. Plans are easy to fall in love with. They look perfect - like an architect's rendering or a NASA animation. But they are sterile. The voice must fill the room; the ink must blemish the page, the ground must be broken - and when that happens the plan changes. The work is always deviating from the plan. No one goes to a concert to look at a score - but the voices and instruments are sure to vary from the score - and we can either criticize or express wonder at the inventiveness of the ensemble: because it's the music made that is beautiful.
But the world is full of plans and planning. Plans are easy to obsess over. The plan is certainty par excellence. I can't help but think of a civil war example: McClellan gathers troops and supplies and holds back; Grant and Sherman plunge forward thinking only about where they're going.
God is reckless like that: plays with dinosaurs for 100 million years; places sentient life on a tiny planet on an obscure spiral arm of a galaxy. What's he thinking? Paul says it all makes sense. In this passage in Romans 8 he echoes the creation story of Genesis. He begins with Christ made in the image of sinful humanity and ends with the spirit hovering over the abyss between speech and meaning - the Fall in reverse, sort of. At this very point where speech fails, Paul then says that all things will work out - he's not being sentimental or falsely consoling. He says things work towards the Good - capital G (not merely tasty but fulfilled) because they participate in the love that love's God and originates from God.
How do we participate in this? Because the import of this text is not that we're passive witnesses to creation - like an audience in a theater - but are actually brought on stage. We don't just witness Jesus suffering, but we suffer with him. This text has many "with" verbs like that: we travail together with the spirit, and the spirit groans with us, even as creation groans with us; the spirit bears witness with us, and we are adopted as brothers and sisters with Christ. When Paul writes we are in the spirit - he might as well be saying that we're in the river - not standing on the shore yelling stop.
And right in the middle of creation with all its futility and groaning and waiting with expectation is prayer. Not just isolated individuals praying, but all of us praying together with the spirit. And not just words that come to mind but the meanings behind the words that slip through into the abyss. What we meant to say but what was heard a different way. It's the remainder that the practice subtracts from the plan that slips into the abyss of groanings beyond speech. We planned a family but it didn't work; we planned a mission but something else happened; I had planned to go to college but I had to give up my dreams. All of these subtractions fall into the abyss and where the spirit hovers, interceding, praying with us - that we can go on toward the Good.
And we go forward by loving what we have. Love the lines you make; love the song you sing; love the house you build; love the homework you study. I must say that last one really works. We can love because God loves us and has not left us alone but is with us. Not viewing from a distance but really with us. He came and lived like one of us: a man who stubbed his toe and forgot where he put his good hammer. The early church was mocked for affirming this - such weakness was thought to be beneath a god. Zeus would never cry. Jesus was not the kind of god the emperor thought of himself as. Jesus left the comfort zone of god and man. He showed us what valuing humanity over possessions or laws or ego could be like - that it was doable. Not without consequences.
And even more incredible, Paul, who could have lived a comfortable life, preferred these consequences. The crucifixion, death and resurrection of  the messiah opened up a new world. As he says here, human comfort is predicated on the fear of death. The fear of death is about sticking to the plan. And there is no love in it.
Finally love the church you're in. No one is a christian by themselves. God calls us all together, as different as we can be, into congregations. Paul's letters are addressed to congregations. Even Phileman includes greetings to all in his household - hardly a private thing this faith.
Each church witnesses to the world God's creative act and how people are called to create with the triune God. Our church here, Oakhurst, has had a long witness to the creating love of God. Plans and processes have wrung out remainders into the abyss and these are gathered up by the spirit into our prayers and issue in the love of our practice. We practice every Sunday in the way we worship. We practice in our committees and in our events. We practice in our community and in our presbytery. In the songs we sing, the  sacraments we celebrate; in visiting shut ins and hospitals. In this loving practice we know the Good that God is birthing in creation.

work in progress - at stopping point

Conveying a 36inch by 10 yard drawing is problematic: displaying either online, here, or in a show (where to find a wall or enough uninterrupted space). I wanted to push myself some regarding size and used a series of associations to generate content. I also wanted to expand the kinds of media I used - as well as taking some chances: acrylic paint, graphite, ink (water based and permanent, black, bluish, greenish), paint sticks, pastels, oil pastels.  I've cut this drawing up into 9 sections (figuratively) to present it here: top to bottom is actually left to right.