+Z’ev

OK… I’m off (well, I will be after I pick up the car, pack and nap). I’m off to Hamilton and thence to Toronto to spend the local pride celebration with my Brodie.

Blogging will be sporadic at both Sarx and +Z’ev.

Pictures will be forthcoming.

Today’s assigned readings.

1 Samuel 2:12-26, Acts 2:1-21, Luke 20:27-40

Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs - in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.
Acts 2:7b-11

Curious, don’t you think, to get the story of the Sons of Eli in the same batch of readings as the story of Pentecost?

I’ve known good and bad clergy in 3 different religions now… and in 3 different Christian denominations. I’ll let you define “good” and “bad” clergy any way you want. I’m sure you can also come up with both sets of stories, no matter what your road has been. I want to tell stories about clergy (men and women) who like “sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord”. It’s fun to tell those stories - in an addictive, and vindictive way: like all gossip. But these stories about Eli’s sons have been interwoven with the story of Samuel growing up as if the writer wanted us to see that the good and the bad happen concurrently, and in odd, unexpected places. Sometimes they happen in the same place at the same time.

And a Gospel story of cynical questions… such as one might start to ask, having met scoundrels. I can tell those stories, too: both my own and those of others. How, having met a scoundrel, the faith I was trying hard to practice made no sense any more and I became cynical. If deity (pick one) would allow crap like this, then this whole religion makes no sense.

And then these stories get handed to us by the Lectionary committee of ECUSA along with the story of Pentecost.

And can we do to these three stories what the redactors did to the stories of Samuel and Eli’s sons? Can we follow the pattern set out and weave them together to make new sense?

In Eastern hymnody, Pentecost is seen in contrast to the Tower of Babel. As God divided the tongues at Babel, now divided tongues of fire bring the unity of the Gospel. Allah Ad-Darr, God the Distressor, is also Allah Al-Jami’e, God the Gatherer. The Hebrew scriptures and also the Koran are filled with images of an all-powerful deity before which mortals have but one choice: submission to his will. The story from Samuel even implies that God sent the scoundrels seemingly not caring about the harm they did to others or to their faith.

Most of us still believe in that deity when things go bad.

But within the Christian tradition humanity is also a real player in this. We have free will. Suddenly bad - or good - clergy have nothing at all to do with a sovereign, manipulative deity. Point of fact a “sovereign, manipulative deity” seems more likely to have scoundrels for clergy. A God whose being and name really is love: not so much. So it’s not a question of God “allowing” for or causing the scoundrels. It’s a question about us here - why do humans end up acting in ways that harm others and dishonour God? Our cynical questions are answered with a mirror.

In all other aspects of my life, I make choices. I would be offended if God set things up - especially if s/he set things up for me to fail. But when a clergy woman or man acts bad, clearly it’s God’s fault?

Most of us still believe in that deity when things go bad because it’s easier to blame him than face up to our problems as humans trying to live together.

And that’s where these tongues of fire come in: uniting everyone (who wants to play along!) in singing of God’s deeds of power. But it’s not a unity of uniformity. It’s a huge diversity: and it just gets bigger. Just now they are Jews all gathered in Jerusalem for the festival. But soon - about the time this story was written down, in fact - the Church will not be just Jews but Gentiles as well: Romans, Greeks and Barbarians. And soon Irish and English and Americans and Africans and Australians… everyone. Protestants, Catholics, East and West, Jew and Greek, Slave, Free, Male Female…

The temptation is to see each story divided, a discrete entity. So also with our lives. But the story is all of us - God’s story being told. In the end, if we look at all of the stories together it’s good. I know “crossing the streams” is generally considered a bad thing but the story goes on - from past to present and future. It doesn’t stop just because the book is closed.