Between Epiphanies

A great insight came out of Bible study the other night. I’m still thinking about it. Is the Bible true, or does the Bible tell the truth?

Many well meaning people want to say yes to the first part of the question and leave it at that. Yes, the Bible is true! Anything else?

Now I like simplicity as much as the next person, but here’s the problem with that approach. It focuses attention on the Bible and and reduces truth to mere fact. If a fact is the highest form of truth, faithful living is nothing more than a series of True / False propositions. The Bible; well that’s the grading template. Let’s try a few shall we?

Slavery; True or False?
Homosexuality, True or False?
Evolution, True or False?

You see what I mean? Not always very helpful,is it? This approach to the Bible has led us down an infinite number of dead ends and caused a tremendous amount of human suffering. Going all the way back to Jesus on the cross. This was the Pharisees approach to scripture after all.

Messiah, True or False?

But, what if I say that the Bible tells the truth? Well, for one thing, it frees the Bible from merely being a set of Divine By-Laws. It conveys a truth about living beyond a True/False Quiz. It frees me too. My vocation as a Christian becomes less a lawyer, combing the fine print and searching for loopholes and more a poet explorer, uncovering mystery and wonder. The Biblical narrative becomes a means for me to engage my world. To understand my life story in the context of the story of God.

The Bible tells the Truth, in that the Bible tells the story of God’s relationship with the world. Truth is less fact now and more poetry. Less data and more wisdom. God’s Story is still unfolding in me and around me. It’s not finished yet.

Watched a story about the Philippines on the PBS NewsHour Food for 9 Billlion tonight. With a population of over 100,000,000, the Philippines is struggling to feed its people with dwindling fish supplies which provide the primary source of protein, along with rice, the other staple food.

Making birth control readily available has made a positive impact. In one village the average family has less than 4 children, down from 12 before birth control was available.

In this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the RC Church is pursuing a “scorched earth” policy opposing artificial birth control. The bishop emeritus of the Philippines, which has threatened ex-communication to the President and others who have chosen a different path, says that “if there are more mouths to feed, then produce more food, don’t reduce the number of mouths.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been more disgusted with a response from a religious leader. Birth control is God’s gracious gift to us. A blessing that is too often turned to a curse by the self interested edicts of those who fear losing power and authority.

Will we in the Church ever learn? Doctrine, especially Christian doctrine, is worthless except as the towel to gird the waist of those who are kneeling to wash dirty feet.

I was standing in the darkness under a watery street light with a small groups of onlookers, watching the familiar characters from a familiar story take their places at the manger among the straw. The people playing them were no less familiar to us watching than the characters they were playing. Members of the parish, our friends and neighbors and our children. Angels, wearing donuts of glittering Christmas tree garland on their heads and oak-tag cut out wings on their backs. The church organist wearing on his head one of the blue bath towels I brought from home, clutching the rope tether of an alpaca in one hand and a stick he found in the woods, a makeshift shepherd’s staff, in the other. Beside him is a member of the parish council, dressed in an old choir robe, carrying an empty shoebox wrapped in gold paper and wearing a one-size-fits-all foil crown from Party Depot.

They file in slowly from the shadows along the path from the fellowship hall where they dressed. As they make their way to the lit manger, you can hear the tittering laughter as neighbors, wives, husbands, even grandparents are recognized and exposed for who they are.

‘Look at you!”
“Oh man, I just gotta get a picture of this.”

As they step into the light though, something happens. The transformation is remarkable. That’s Mary, cradling the baby followed by Joseph, carefully stepping through the straw, gently guiding Mary by her elbow to her seat on a hay bale. The little angels are exactly that, hovering close to Mary, intensely interested in the baby, whose bright eyes peer out from the blankets with an irresistible beneficence.

There is something like silence that runs through the onlookers like electricity. I lower my camera for a moment, captured by the scene and startled at the tear the has come to my eye. No one around me says a word, as the characters settle in to their places and look out at us, beaming.

I think it was the vulnerability of the moment that was suddenly heartrending. Familiar people just like us standing there in outlandish costumes proclaiming the presence of God, in all the places where the world is not quite right. Where life has been pieced together from left over parts and has not turned out the way we planned. God standing with people who carry on the best they can in circumstances not of their choosing.

This is what that holy night was all about all along. It wasn’t about the people who sat comfortably in the inn, eating and drinking in front of a roaring fire. It wasn’t about those who had their life together, captains of their own destiny who cavalierly shape the world and the people in it according to their own whims and desires to this very day.

It was about those who are mostly forgotten and overlooked. Who pass through this world invisibly and who bear the world’s grief. It was about those who will be alone, whose heart will ache, who have nowhere else to be on a dark night but out in the barn. Who travel great distances chasing the star of their dreams only to arrive at a stable.

It was about how God continues to enter our lives from the shadows of vulnerabilities and disappointments. Calls us to stand in a little circle of light in the midst of a vast darkness, dressed in a bath towel and carrying a stick we found in the woods, to say that God is still here, where God has always been. Standing with us In the broken places of our lives. In the very places where we need God the most.

On our front door, we’ve hung a string of bells. I ring them every time I take the dog out. The idea is that the dog will learn to ring them too, whenever he needs to go. This was not my idea exactly, though I would love to claim it. The bells are designed for this. Routine conditioning through free associations. The formula behind everything from great art to good manners. So now, it sounds like Christmas morning every time we go out the front door. I feel festive, like a child, full of a loopy anticipation. Out into the open spaces and the freedom limited only by stride and the length of the leash.

I can tell you, the bells work. Every morning after breakfast, Prince runs to the front door, and he rings them. Then he turns to me and waits, expecting one thing to follow from another. He doesn’t know the world is full of plans he doesn’t understand, with lives and concerns larger than his. In that sense, it is a spare and unforgiving reflection both ourchildren and our pets hold up to us in the mirror of their innocence. But because his day revolves around mine like the moon, sometimes invisible, sometimes shining, the grace of that innocence is that my days may start with this small gesture of generosity now. I take up the leash, we ring the bells, and we go.

Those ubiquitous “Support Our Troops” bumper-stickers have been a fixture on a generation of U.S. cars now.  Especially, in the last ten years; Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and those are just the recent highlights.  If I tried to name them all, I’m sure I would leave some out.

“Supporting Our Troops” means different things at different times.  Thankfully, many of our troops will be returning home finally as our involvement in these conflicts winds down.  Unfortunately, studies are showing again that many will not make it all the way back.  Oh, they will be back physically, which is something to be thankful for of course, but emotionally and spiritually, what they have experienced in these wars often keeps our soldiers from fully returning and rejoining their families, communities, and loved ones.  War changes the vet.  And, because of that, the homes, values, and relationships the vet returns to are often not the ones they left. The war experiences of the returning vet can leave them standing outside their community, which has no frame of reference to those war experiences, and may even be frightened and intimidated by them. A tacit wall of silence builds with all the isolation this implies.  So, what does it mean to Support Our Troops under these circumstances?

Dr. Laura Caplan, in her book “When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home Again” has worked with returning vets and has discovered the value of what may be called, “community healers”. Community healers are ordinary people who are willing to listen.  Dr. Caplan has tapped in to the extraordinary potential of ordinary people to tear down that wall of silence.  Helping the returning vets with the last leg of their journey home.

A “community healers” training workshop will be held at Epiphany Lutheran Church of Mount Vernon, 5521 Old Mill Road, Alexandria, VA 22309 on Sunday, September 18, 2011 from 7-9PM.  We are looking for a small group of seven to ten people to start this work.  We will have the Rev. Fred Shilling with us to lead this workshop.  Fred is a chaplain and workshop leader with over 30 years experience and is currently working with Dr. Caplan on this initiative.  A donation of $7 for the workbook and materials is suggested.

Community healers have a unique opportunity to help heal the soul wounds of war.  Indeed, let’s Support Our Troops, and let’s bring them all the way home.

For more information and directions to Epiphany, visit www.epiphanylutheran.org or email me.  pastor@epiphanylutheran.info