Elaine, Look to the Cookie!

(please allow me to repeat myself from 9/2008)
A few years ago, the Center for Science in the Public Interest ran an article in their Nutrition Action Newsletter about the nutrional value of ... Girl Scout cookies. They covered the cookies rather thoroughly, exploring the fat, transfats, sodium, and everything else found in cookies ranging from Thin Mints to those delicious Peanut Butter Tagalongs. The CSPI does this kind of research on popular foods with every issue of the N.A. Newsletter, so they weren't 'singling out' Girl Scouts per se, they just were focusing on the cookies this time around.

Still, the results were a little disconcerting-- especially if you are one of those who can't resist the sales pitch of sweet little neighbor children, offering a smile and handing you a ledger sheet to fill in, while their moms waving joyfully from the sidewalk. I know that I'm the kind of person who can refuse junk food and sweets at the grocery store, but once the food in our house, I'm going to eat it. Girl Scouts selling cookies take away my wall of resistance. And the CSPI showed me why that was not such a good thing. (NOTE: I seem to recall that GS cookies have improved their nutritional content over time, so please don't read this as the last word on the subject.)

What was interesting-- and even more disconcerting-- was the reaction from the public over the N.A. Newsletter's research. Letters to the journal accused the CSPI of picking on sweet and innocent little girls, who were just trying to support their participation Girl Scouts, by depicting them as merchants of death. Other letters were not quite that diplomatic. Importantly, very few of the letters actually addressed the science of the report- whether or not the cookies actually did contain the nutrional contents that the CSPI said they did. Instead, they focused on how the report would reflect on the image of a cherished and admirable institution.

I think there is a lot to learn from the public reaction to the CSPI report. There are times that we react strongly to something, not because we agree or disagree with the truth of the matter, but because we are trying to protect an image that we cherish. So, for example, people who don't understand the first thing about the science of carbon dating might reject it in principle, not because they can disprove it, but because the notion that the earth might be billions of years old does not fit within their cherished image of creation.

I think the same might be true with people's devotion to Left Behind Theology. If anyone has ever read Barbara Rossing's book, The Rapture Exposed, or Bruce Metzger's Breaking the Code, they would encounter very strong and reasonable arguments against the biblical and theological premises of Left Behind Theology. The 'science' against it, so to speak, is there. Left Behind Theology is simply bad theology built on flimsy scriptural foundations. And yet, so many people assume it is the Christian perspective of the end times. Why is that?

As Jerry Seinfeld once famously said, "Elaine, Look to the cookie!"*

I think the reason that Tim LaHaye's books (those curious hybrids of fiction and supposed non-fiction) outsell Barbara Rossing's books by such a huge margin, has nothing to do with the cogency of their arguments and biblical interpretations. We cherish the idea that, if the world goes awry, we get to survive- much like the letter writers to the CSPI cherished the image of Girl Scouts. And if we have to ignore the facts in order to protect the image, so be it.


* Jerry's cookie was half vanilla and half chocolate, a happy ebony-and-ivory co-existence that led him to sermonize a bit on human community. Shortly thereafter he got an upset stomach, saying, "I think it was the cookie."

Birds, Orcas, and Other Stuff

A friend and I have vastly different reactions to the song, "God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale" which we sing occasionally in worship. She hates it; I like it - both for the same reason. As she puts it, "That song doesn't actually say anything. It just asks questions." To which I respond, "Yes!"

The question, to be precise, is phrased with the words, "How can the creature say ...?" I would even prefer to the questions to be phrased, "Can the creature say ...?"

My question resists the spirit of the times. We think we can say anything, that we can name anything, that we can describe anything. After all, we're nominalists, whether intentionally or not. We imagine that words are just words and that we know enough of them to capture anything that we encounter and to describe it well enough.

Not so, according to the Scriptures. In the second creation story, God brought each of the animals - created out of the same dirt that yielded Adam (the 'groundling') and whatever Adam named it, that is what it was. In that case, humanity was indeed invested with the power of naming. Naming, in fact, seems to be a way of exerting power or controlling (see the New Testament stories where Jesus evokes the name of a demon before casting it out.) But, humanity is not so empowered in every case. In Exodus 3, there is an intriguing conversation between the God who calls and Moses, who was called. Moses asks, "What is your name?" to which God answers, "I am who I am." It is a fabulous non-answer. Moses doesn't know what he is asking. Perhaps other gods can be named and invoked and called into action by human tongue, but not this God. This God is the calling God, the naming God, the one who is in charge - not Moses. There are limits to human naming.

I suspect that the limits to human naming go beyond our encounters with the divine. We certainly are empowered to name. But, perhaps 'naming' is a gift that is given to us, not an ability that we own inherently. Perhaps, in some cases that are not the divine essence, but inspired by the divine nonetheless, we encounter our limits of naming.

After recently hearing some experts trying to say what, exactly, the "occupy wall street" movement is all about and where it is going, I began to wonder: Is it the arrogance of our age to imagine that we can name the meaning and trajectory of a movement, while it is still moving? Perhaps we should just say - at least for now - "It is what it is." And leave it at that.

The god of Kingdom

The god of Kingdom

Any time I read a parable in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) I have begun asking myself, "When is a parable about a king not a 'kingdom parable'?" 

I was set on this path years ago when I heard Ched Myers declare out loud that the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30, every capitalist's favorite parable) was not a "kingdom parable." That is, it is not a parable about how the Kingdom of God operates, if we interpret that to mean that the "master" in this parable would be a figure of God. "How could he be a figure of God," Ched wondered, "if the Master is described as 'a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you did not scatter seed.'?" In fact, God is described quite the opposite in story after story, psalm after psalm, letter after letter, and even in parables such as the rapacious scattering of seed in the Parable of the Sower. In the end, Ched declared that the one who did not invest his 'talent' (a unit of money, not a special ability), was the one who was acting faithfully, because he was refusing to play along with a 'Master' whose way of life was oppressive. 

I have that same kind of reaction to the Parable of the Wedding Feast, in Matthew 22:1-14. Every person of faith and good will bristles when hearing this parable and its king’s harsh overreactions to his people and particularly the hideous treatment of the guest who is ill-dressed. Of course, commentators – who seem to be bent on making parables safe for consumer digestion – will offer a billion reasons why the king in this story is acting rightly. “The king’s people killed his messengers! They refused his hospitality! And that guy was not just underdressed, he was showing dishonor to the king by showing up that way!” There will even be a “Middle East expert” somewhere along the lines who has found a parchment that might have been written by someone who matters saying that wedding apparel might have been a much bigger deal than any of us dares to imagine these days. Maybe.

Phew! As unstable as that argument is, it’s good enough for us. As long as the people who get the king’s harsh treatment deserve it, we’re safe because God is still the loving God we imagine, albeit with a slight tendency to ‘go postal’ on folks who dis God’s honor.

Well, I’m not buying it and here are my reasons why.

1.     The king in this story responds to rejection with violence (way, way over-the-top violence). In Matthew’s gospel, the kingdom of God is about overcoming evil with good. (See chapters 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount.)

2.     The king in this story is most interested in seeing his banquet hall filled with guests. We think that is a good thing – since we’ve bought into a marketing definition of evangelism and called it good – but Jesus accuses the religious leadership in Jerusalem of being very zealous in reaching out and making disciples, even if they disciple them for perdition. We notice that the king’s son – whose wedding is ostensibly the occasion for this feast – never seems to show up.

3.     The king in this story calls the man who is ill-dressed “friend.” Aw, that sounds nice and godly, doesn’t it? Until we read the next story and we see how perniciously the religious leaders address Jesus as a wise and truthful teacher, all the while they are setting him up for his death.

4.     The king’s messengers are ignored, then mistreated and killed. We immediately imagine that this must be the history of the prophets at work here. We may be right, but we should also remember that the history of the prophets was part of the religious leadership’s own story. They imagined themselves as part of this tradition, and they believed that God’s way of dealing with rejection was with violence.

5.     In the previous parable, Jesus tells of a vineyard owner – also often considered to be a God-figure – whose messengers were killed. Jesus ends by asking the religious leaders, “What will the owner of the vineyard do?” They reply, “He will kill those evil people evilly and give his vineyard to those who will produce!” And Jesus DOES NOT SAY, “You’re right! Ding! Ding!” Instead, Jesus says, “Have you never read the Scriptures?” And Jesus goes on to describe a stone that was rejected. It returned to be the chief cornerstone. That is, God’s response to rejection is not violence, but resurrection.

But, you may protest, the parable must be a “kingdom parable” because it begins with the words, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king …”

Well, it does and it doesn’t. The verb here is not a ‘subjunctive’ verb, which is typically translated ‘may be ….’ It is an aorist (past tense) passive verb and is probably best translated something like, “The kingdom of heaven has been compared to ….” For all of the reasons that 8^th grade literature students are told not to use the passive voice, Matthew very deliberately does use the passive voice. Jesus is not owning this view of the kingdom of heaven. He’s throwing it out there as what is said – and I’d say it is the view that is said specifically by the religious leadership with whom he is in a pitched argument in these chapters of Matthew.

Jesus is not offering his own view of the kingdom of heaven here; he is critiquing the way that others describe the kingdom of heaven. Why, they even try to limit God’s grace by claiming, “Many are called, but few are chosen”! How does that square with the God whose covenant with Abram is established so that, in him, ALL NATIONS will be blessed? What kind of king is this, anway?

Ah, there’s a good question. What kind of king strikes back against rejection with vicious violence? What kind of king offers a banquet which his subjects loathe to attend? What kind of king seems more interested in the appearance of support (by a crowded banquet hall) than in the persons who were invited in the first place?

There’s an answer to that question, which every 1^st century Jew in Jerusalem and Galilee knew well. Herod is just that kind of king. The power of the Roman Empire instilled just that kind of repugnance, even when it was displayed with flash – like a beautifully ornate temple or a lavish religious feast. When we hear ‘king’ we assume the parable is about God. When Matthew’s audience heard ‘king,’ don’t you think their first impulse was to think Herod or the other kings of that region who were kept in power by the violence of Rome? At least for them they didn’t have to explain away the violence and impunity of the story – that was exactly what they had grown to expect from kings of the Herod variety. And that is what this parable describes.

When is a parable about a king not a ‘kingdom parable’? When the king in question is a vicious, violent Herod-like ruler who only knows the language of coercion in response to rejection. Like this one.