Pastor, I know you are busy...

About every fourth or fifth email I receive and about half of every phone conversation I have, I hear something like, “I know you are busy, but…” I cannot speak for every pastor but I believe that this modified story from the spirituality of the desert story might speak for many clergy - including myself:

There was a student who went to a teacher and asked for a word. The teacher shared a word with the student who went back home. The next day the student forgot what the teacher had said, so the student returned to the teacher.

“I am sorry teacher, but I have forgotten what you said yesterday. Can you share a word with me?”

The teacher spent a little more time with the student this second time, and then the student went back home.

A week later, the student returned and said, “Teacher, I am so sorry to bother you and I have asked now two times, but I have forgotten and would you share a word?”

The teacher sat all day with the student before the student returned home.

After two weeks, the student returned to the teacher. The student felt ashamed and was embarrassed to ask the teacher, yet one more time, “I know you are busy, and I know that I have taken a lot of your time already, but I have forgotten what you said. Could you remind me again?”

At this point the teacher took the table lamp that was to his right and asked the student to pass him a candle that was on the entry table. The teacher lit the candle, handed it to the student, and asked the student for a second candle from the entry table. The teacher lit the second candle, handed it to the student who was asked to retrieve a third and then a fourth candle.

The teacher lifted the lamp up and looed at the student who was now holding four lit candles. The teacher said, “Is the lamp diminished because it gave some of its light to the four candles?”

The student understood and said, “No.”

Never again did the student hesitate to visit the teacher and both of their homes became full of light.

How Can We Fulfill a Law We Break?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says,

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Then, if you know the rest of the story, Jesus goes on to break all sorts of laws (healing on the Sabbath, claiming to be divine, turning tables over in the Temple, ignoring his mother’s requests, etc.). How can someone say they came to fulfill the law while simultaneously break it?

To obey the law means actions are directed by an outside or external things that forces compliance. For instance, if I do not pay my taxes the government will fine me. There is force that is outside or external to me that I am really responding to. If the external force was not present, then there is a likelihood that I would not obey the law. This is also why I all slow down when I drive by a police officer, but will speed up once I feel I am “at a safe distance.”

Fulfilling the law is different. Fulfilling the law comes by indirectly obeying the law.

Take the above examples, if I were to pay my taxes out of my internal delight, I am not paying them out of fear that I will be punished by some outside force. Rather, when I pay my taxes out of a personal choice, I am fulfilling the law, but not considering (thinking about the consequences) the law. If I were a person who loves to go the speed limit because I think don’t want to rush or if I think that driving slower is just more pleasurable, then I will not go over the speed limit. I am indirectly following the law.

Sometimes what looks like obeying the law, is really fulfillment of the law. And sometimes what looks like breaking the law is also fulfilling the law.

Jesus fulfilled the law, even as he breaks them.

For instance, not working on the Sabbath was a law. There was punishment if you did not obey the law. But this law was put into place in order to keep people from being abused and overworked. It was a law meant to protect people from being treated as objects. So when Jesus healed on the sabbath, yes he broke the law but in doing so the law was fulfilled. The law was intended to humanize people but was used to objectify people. As Jesus humanizes those he healed on the Sabbath, he broke the popular interpretation of the law, but fulfilled the law in full.

As you can see, It is much easier to obey than it is to fulfill the law. Because sometimes obeying the law means breaking it, and breaking the law often comes with consequences. The question Jesus poses to us is do we desire to fulfill the law or only obey it?

Rev. Dr. Maria Dixon Hall giving voice to feelings held by right/left at #UMCGC

The Rev. Dr. Maria Dixon Hall is an associate professor of organizational communication/Non-Profit studies at SMU in Dallas, Texas. She is a progressive and has a history that is longer than me. She is a Deacon, African American, professor, and theologian that gives me pause to think on a number of things. She has given voice to feelings that many people I have visited with at General Conference 2016 have stated. 

While Rev. Dixon Hall is a progressive and speaks from that position, I can tell you that I have heard conservatives and other progressives at the conference say similar things. Progressives have said to me, I am with the cause but these demonstrations nudge me away from the cause. Conservatives have said to me, the more I see these types of disruptive demonstrations the more I distance myself from the cause.

And so as a white, heterosexual male I have hesitated to share these personal feelings, however, I can only say "Amen" to the good Rev. Dixon Hall.

Read the whole thing here: Progressives Playing with Fire: Mad Methodists, Berners, & the Myth of Prophetic Arson

What is the power of prayer?

Matthew 6:5-6 has Jesus saying the following:

 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.'

The usual talk that I have heard around this text is often centered around pubic/private prayer, and this is a fine conversation topic. One of the things that I would want to highlight is just how subversive this is to economics. 

That is right. Economics. 

In the days of Jesus, pious Jewish people would give offerings to God through an animal or grain sacrifice. These sacrifices were not things that you could bring form home to offer up. These sacrifices had to meet a set of criteria to be acceptable and so you would buy your sacrifice on site there at the temple. This purchase had a "temple tax" attached to it so that with every purchase you got the sacrifice but also paid the temple. The temple had a monopoly, and monopolies are susceptible to corruption and abuse. This is part of the reason Jesus turns the tables over in the temple - as a critique of the exploitation of the monopoly.

http://www.azquotes.com/quote/714284

And so you may be able to see that when Jesus calls for private prayer, it is not just a critique of prayer for "show" but a subversive act of protest to the economic system of temple prayer. If we stopped paying the temple taxes in order to have the right sacrifice or the right person or the right "words" then the monopoly falls. 

The same was true for Martin Luther and his critique of the practices of indulgences (money paid to the church in order to receive favor/forgiveness/blessing). The Church had a monopoly on the sale of indulgences and fell prey to the corruption of being a monopoly. 

Prayer has been and will be a tool for justice and action. Or as Gandhi said, “Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.” 

This is in part what I understand to be the power of prayer. When understood and applied it can undercut entire economic systems. Bring a temple structure to her knees or spark a Reformation.