Tuesday in Lent 5

There is nothing like spending some time with a group of monks or nuns to dispel illusions about life in community. Or continuing involvement with a local congregation, especially in committee meetings. It is neither a simple nor an easy thing to incarnate the dual command to love God and neighbor when faced with the very limited and human nature of oneself and one's neighbor.

Today we have some passages that touch upon living in community.

Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.’ (Mark 9:50)

I like the salty part juxtaposed with being at peace with one another. Had Jesus gone quite round the bend?

No, I suspect he knew very well what he was saying. Being at peace with each other does not, and should not, necessitate losing our saltiness, our distinct flavor and style and perspective. Being at peace, in other words, is not about all being the same--which presupposed all being bland, flavorless, and generally useless. That or all being in the image of one person, who thus becomes our idol.

We are called to have salt, each of us in ourselves, AND to be at peace.

It would be easier to have salt and not be at peace or to be at peace and not have salt. Jesus calls us to both. This suggests we must not settle for either / or.

Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; rather, be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults. (1 Corinthians 14:20)

Let all things be done for building up. (1 Corinthians 14:26b)

While we are admonished to be childlike with respect to evil--not mimicking the wickedness of the "sophisticated"--we are nonetheless commanded to be adults.

There is so much infantilization in the church that one wonders how this verse even survived in our Bibles!

Consider how much behavior by clergy and laity together is constellated around an unspoken conspiracy designed to keep grown human beings in states of dependency! Instead of assuming both our responsibilities and our power as the baptized people of God we wind up waiting for some authority figure to tell us what to do, or help us out of our dilemmas and dithering, or rescue us, or do it for us. How flipping pathetic is that?

I see this at work in congregations and dioceses between priests or bishops. There is an anxiety about what will happen to us when we don't have "big daddy" to "lead us" (a euphemism for "tell us what to do").

[I chose the masculine imagery because it fits better with the authoritarian mindset that gets expecially anxious.]

What? A gathering of faithful adults will fall into chaos without an authority figure? I thought God was our authority and all the other alleged authorities had been thoroughly relativized (if not done away with) in the Christ event.

Are we not all temples of the Holy Spirit and both individually and collectively given that Spirit to guide us into all truth? Last time I checked the Great Commission did NOT end with "Lo, I am with the clergy always, even unto the end of the age."

So let's do what humans are meant to do: grow up! Let us grow up in Christ. Let us act like responsible adults.

Let us not conspire to give our responsibility, autonomy, and agency over into the hands of others, especially to the clergy.

And let us not allow clergy to try to take them from us, for to do so blasphemes against God's intentions for each of God's children.

We, if we are healthy parents, want our children to grow up and be whole and wholly functioning persons. God surely does not desire any less.

I think we will find that growing up and acting like it will transform our congregations into far healthier communities of faith. It will also help us coordinate all the gifts and powers that God gives us to work together instead of being stunted, thwarted, starved, diverted, and misused in endless power plays.

We are, after all, reminded to "let all things be done for building up."


Yesterday's collect:
Be gracious to your people, we entreat you, O Lord, that they, repenting day by day of the things that displease you, may be more and more filled with love of you and of your commandments; and, being supported by your grace in this life, may come to the full enjoyment of eternal life in your everlasting kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today's:
Almighty God, through the incarnate Word you have caused us to be born anew of an imperishable and eternal seed: Look with compassion upon those who are being prepared for Holy Baptism, and grant that they may be built as living stones into a spiritual temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
--the BB