Their Eyes Were Watching God

There are so many good books and so many great authors I have never heard of. One of those was Zora Neale Hurston and I recently read her work of fiction,Their Eyes Were Watching God. I saw her book mentioned in a NY Times book column about Karen Russell who wrote Swamplandia which takes place in Florida. The interviewer asked her to suggest other influential Florida authors and she named Zora Neale Hurston at the top of her list. Hurston was born in 1891 in Alabama. Her parents were former slaves. Her father was a pastor and later mayor of Eatonville, FL which serves as the setting for her novel. Interestingly, Eatonville was an all-black town. Hurston's story takes place in the early 1900's, a time of segregation, virulent racism and ever present Jim Crow laws. Many stories about blacks in the South at this time, whether told by blacks or whites, define the black experience by the white experience. The black man or woman is who he or she is in relation to what the white experience allows them to be. Hurston's book does not do this. The few mentions of the white race in her book are matter of fact. Most of the white people in her book are decent people with the exception of the white slaveholder who raped Janie's grandmother and Janie's mother was conceived of that forced union. This was on the eve of Sherman's march in the South. Hurston tells Janie's story. In the telling, Janie becomes conscious of herself as a free black woman. Black in a white world which does not define her or keep her from living a full and free life and a woman in a man's world where she learns how to express herself on more or less equal terms. Writing in the black dialect of the time, Hurston shows Janie developing a sharp mind that appreciates the beauty of her existence as a black woman. Hurston's works did not sell well at the time. She did not write what white publishers wanted to print and male, black authors criticized her work for being indifferent to the racism of white culture. She died in 1960 in a county home in Fort Pierce, FL after suffering a stroke.She was buried nearby in an unmarked grave. The last ten years of her life were hard and she worked at low paying jobs to make ends meet. In 1975, her work was "discovered" when Alice Walker wrote about her in MS magazine. Today, her several books are in print again as well as a biography. (I discovered our local college English professor, Dr Griffin, did his doctoral dissertation on her only a few years ago!). Hurston's work is enriched with Biblical images and a message that life can be rich and fulfilling if you see the opportunities that are there for you and act upon them.

The Pope Retires

I have been wondering how people view the Pope's retirement. Yes, the Pope retired in case you have not seen the news in the past month. The Pope is the top leader of the Roman Catholic Church. When he retires it is big news because Popes never retire. They serve til they die. Then, a college of very colorfully clothed Cardinals select the next Pope in a mysterious way no one, except Cardinals, seem to know. Never mind the way the Pope is selected, most of us are still wondering what a Cardinal is. I am not a Roman Catholic although I have great respect for the Roman Catholic Church and admire many things about it. I am also puzzled by it. My church tradition is quite modest next to it. The whole splendid spectacle of the Roman Catholic Church getting down to selecting another leader is an enigma to me. And I assume to most people, Catholic or not. For many non-churched folk it is a throwback and a curiosity but not one to waste much time on. It looks like a bunch of old men electing another old man to run a church. What does a Pope do anyway? Does he affect our personal histories, say the way Obama and Boehner do when they can't agree on what's best for our country? Really, what difference does a new Pope make to me?

Most of us know him as the Head of the Roman Catholic Church who rides around in a Popemobile and every once in a while appears on a balcony at St. Peter's in Rome and waves to the crowds. He lives in a cathedral. Beyond that we are stumped. We know he has something  important to do with the authority and order of the Roman.Catholic Church. And Popes have done that for a long, long time, since the time of Jesus or soon after many Catholics would say. For those of us who are part of the Church and care about it's future, picking a new Pope is an important moment in history. It raises all kinds of questions about Church order and authority. For the Pope is synonymous with authority. He is the personal incarnation of the Truth that the Church serves as witness to. That's why he cannot just retire, Popes are not like you and me. You don't get to choose to not be Pope. It's like God has chosen you to be his main representative on earth. For the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is the supreme guardian and interpreter of Biblical Truth and the Tradition that supports it. That's not a job to be taken lightly. It is often said that for Roman Catholics the Pope is the authority and for Protestants the Scriptures are. We naturally feel we have the upper hand here. No one person trumps Scripture, God's Word. But, that's too simplistic. Roman Catholic theology holds that Scripture is God's Word to us, too, and it is the most important thing about the Church. But it must be interpreted - and the Church has the job of interpreting and the Pope is the final authority. Our final authority, as Protestants, is the Holy Spirit who inspired and speaks through the Scriptures to His church. Of course, the Pope believes that too but the difference is he is the final and absolute arbiter of Scriptural Truth. This is a pretty handy doctrine to have available when the Scripture is hard to understand or to apply... well, the Pope says... ok, that settles it then! But, of course it doesn't and many Roman Catholics disagree with the Pope on lots of issues. And he is still their Pope. How do you disagree with someone who is infallible? For us Protestants this opens a whole can of worms. Having been a Protestant pastor for many years, I've met many popes in the Protestant church. I've met many pastors who think they are the pope of their church. Surprisingly, you don't even have to be a pastor to think of yourself as pope! The tricky thing in our non - popedom, is to figure out where the authority lies in the church. Sometimes it lies with the pastor, or the biggest giver, or the one who has been in the church longest, or the local tradition, you know, "the way we've always done things here". I find many Protestants bowing their heads to Scripture as their authority for faith and practice - but  acting as if each individual Christian is his or her own authority. It's whats called a sticky wicket. I've been in church fights where each side claims Biblical authority: "The Bible says..." Each side falling back on the final authority of Scripture's interpretation which, interestingly, is exactly their interpretation. This public demonstration of how the Roman Catholic Church views authority in the Church is a good time to ask ourselves how we view authority in the church. It's a good question. What is authoritative in our postmodern times? We act like the gospel is authoritative within our small church enclaves but what sort of truth claim does it have in the wider world? We appreciate the bond "we share in Christ", but who do we believe that Christ is? What effect does He have on our lives outside church? How is Christ our authority? How is Christ's authority fleshed out in our churches?

The Bible is on TV this week

The Bible is on tv tomorrow night. Sunday nights used to be church nights for Christians. TV was a temptation to avoid and to show you did you went to church Sunday night. This was before the days of dvrs so The Wonderful World of Disney could not even be recorded for later viewing. You sacrficed your viewing pleasures for the Sunday night service. And you were proud of it! Now you can stay home Sundays - Sunday night services are a thing of the past anyway! And you can watch the Bible on TV. It's on the history channel even though it's not exactly Biblical history - come on, it's TV! You don't really think you can believe everything you see on TV, do you? There was a certain "dramatic license" taken the producers said. The husband - wife team ( Mark Burnett and Roma Downey) that produced the show are TV veterans. He has produced shows like Survivor and she has starred in Touched By An Angel. Pontius Pilate's wife makes it in several scenes  even though she only says one line in the real Bible. Paul is "relatively" overlooked because there is "no romance" there. Josesph doesn't rate a mention while David recites Psalm 23 as he slings his stones at Goliath. David has been on TV a lot. His life is much more Hollywood friendly than Paul's. But, how can you show much about the Bible when you only have ten hours. Ten hours! That's how long this series is! It takes that long to get through Leviticus which I bet isn't in the Bible, the TV show, either. So the producers had to be really selective about what they showed. If you are interested, you can order a copy of a follow up Bible - no, not a real Bible - but a novelisation that was written to accompany the show. The producers sound sincere and hope the show brings more interest to the Bible. They say they felt called to do it - Christianspeak for they felt God wanted this done. That is supposed to justify their decision to do it. Pastor Rick Warren thinks its great, too. And there are all sorts of resources to use with groups after you watch the show. Geesh, what ever happened to real Bible studies that used real Bibles?

The Bible is a long, complexly woven story. It takes a long time to read. It is hard to understand without some serious attempt at study. It needs some cultural and historical contextualizing. It even helps to have a trained teacher/leader. That's why most people don't attempt it. It can feel overwhelming. It doesn't lend itself to TV which dumbs down stories so you can easily pick out the bad guys and good guys in about 42 minutes. The text of the Bible is richly layered. The writers knew their Bibles and freely used images in one book borrowed from other books in the Bible. They were not writing down stories that could be serialized on TV; they were writing The Story as a witness to God's loving action toward humankind. The older interpreters of the Bible used the term sensus plenior to speak about the deeper sense - a deeper level of interpretation, a fuller sense of what the text meant beyond the simple meaning. It is getting at the mystery of what the Holy Spirit wrought there. It's not like the mysteries made for TV. The Bible is not made for TV. Malcolm Muggeridge, the British social critic, who was often on British TV and even produced his own shows strongly criticized the attempts to adapt the Bible to TV. Precisely, because TV is all about image and shaping, and editing  truth to sell that image. TV by its very nature does not tell the truth. After all, why is anything on TV? Not out of any great desire to get the truth out to people. It's on the tube so people will watch and buy what the advertisers are selling. If no one watches, the show won't be on very long. Hence, the decision to give the wife of Pontius Pilate more air time than the apostle Paul!

So what will people learn about the Bible from watching this show? Will it be true? Will they be entertained? Will they say, that was a good show, and plan to watch the next episode? What will they do when the episodes are over? Now that they know what the Bible says?

Favorite Things

Watching the Oscars last Sunday got me thinking about favorite things:
Favorite story/play/movie/music.... Les Miserables

Favorite places... Homer, AK, Portland OR and the OR coast, Skaneateles, NY

Favorite "wild" places... Kodiak, AK; Okefenoke Natl Wildlife Refuge, No. FL; Denali Natl Park, AK; Watkins Glen St Pk, NY; Redwoods Natl and St Parks, No CA

Favorite book stores: Powell's in Portland; Title Wave in Anchorage, AK

Favorite authors: Anne Tyler, Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, Eugene Peterson, Anne Lamott (whats with all the Anne's?), Philip Yancey, Tim Egan, Graham Greene, Virginia Stem Owens, David James Duncan ....

Favorite Classics: Brothers Karamazov, Count of Monte Cristo, Les Miserables, Tolstoy's "short" stories....

Favorite Biblical authors: F.D. Bruner, Gordon Fee, Fred Craddock, William Willimon, Stanley Hauerwas, John Goldingay, Karl Barth, N.T.Wright, Elizabeth Achtemeier, Kenneth Bailey ...

Favorite restaurants: Spenard Road House, Snow City Cafe and Middle Way Cafe in Anchorage AK; any one of many in Homer, AK; Dougs Fish Fry, Skaneateles, NY; Burgerville in the NW, In and Out Burgers in CA; Five Brothers in FL; Panera Bread, all over; Tim Hortons in Canada and WNY.....

Favorite coffee: Kaladi Bros in AK; K-Bay in Homer, AK, Harborside in Kodiak, AK; Stumptown coffee in the NW;

Whats on the nightstand right now? Francona by Terry Francona and Dan Shaughnessy, The Comedians by Graham Greene, Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Favorite movies of the past year: Les Miserables, Argo, Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Anna Karenina, Flight, Skyfall, Hobbit, (I have not seen Lincoln but I'm sure it will be on the list of favorites).

Favorite TV shows: Downton Abbey, The Good Wife, Person of Interest, Parenthood,

Favorite books of the past year: Caring for Mother by Virginia Stem Owens, Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, Sacred Hunger and Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, The Halftime Walk of Billy Lynn by Ben Franklin, God's Hotel by Vi Sweet, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harld Frey by Rachel Joyce, Faith of Cranes by Hank Rentorf, The Cutting Season by Attica Locke, Zeitoun by David Eggers, Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen Carter, Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Wynne, Half a Yellow Sun by C.N. Adiche, Short Night of the Shadow Catcher by Tim Egan, Summoned From the Margin by Lamin Sanneh (2013), Farewell Fred Voodoo by Amy Wilentz (2013), Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (2013), The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan Katz (2013).

Spring Training

Pitchers and Catchers report to camp on Tuesday. Of course, some veterans have been working out at camp already. There was a good article in the NY Times this week about fans waiting at the Yankee's camp in Tampa - some lining up at 3am - for a Derek Jeter sighting and maybe - an autograph. So, as they say, hope springs eternal at Spring training camps. Every team is tied at 0-0. Every team has a shot at the playoffs, theoretically. We suspect some teams have a better shot than others. But there are always surprises like the Orioles of last season. There are unseen injuries like Jeter's postseason broken ankle. There are power outages in the superstars we thought we could depend on like A-Rod's production dropoff at the end of last year. There may be suspensions coming as the Miami PED story plays out. So, as they say, that's why we play the game. Are the Yankees finally too old? Jeter, Rivera, Texiera, A-Rod are all right around 40. But, other than A-Rod, who is out until at least the allstar break, they are in good shape. Who has helped themselves out in the offseason? Toronto picked up Dickey, the Angels got Hamilton, Altanta took the Upton brothers. Baltimore and Oakland did not do much but they may not have needed to. Seattle beefed up the middle of their line-up and secured King Felix for the longterm but the rest of their pitching staff is shaky. They may have been helped the most by the addition of Houston to the AL West. They will not finish last this year. Will Detroit contend again? Are the Royals ready to fulfill their potential? Will Washington with Strasburg pitching all year be in the World Series? Can the Red Sox come back from the Valentine fiasco?  Come Tuesday our questions will begin to be answered. We will be watching and waiting and cheering.

Haiti missions

I've been reading about Haiti lately. It's a place with a fascinating history. It was one of the wealthiest colonies in the West and it was built totally on slave labor. Then, the slaves rebelled and overthrew their French masters. It was the first Black led republic in the world. Their revolution came soon after our own American revolution but it was not as successful as ours. A Black led country of former revolutionaries made other slave supported economies, such as America's, uneasy. The French exacted onerous financial debt payments from the Haitians for their "lost labor" (threatening a blockade - with American help- if they did not pay). Now that Haiti was free no one wanted to trade with her. Her people were exploited by a series of dictators. So, historically, Haiti has been seen as dysfunctional and poor. Her people have been seen as resilient and friendly and even happy despite their misery. Perhaps more than any other country, Haiti has been the recipient of years of mission outreach. There are probably more mission organizations and other aid groups per capita in Haiti than any other country. People want to help the Haitian people.

I went on a short term missions trip several years ago (see previous blog post). I was amazed at all the mission groups in Haiti doing good work. I had that impression so many of us who visit Haiti do: they have a vibrant faith in the midst of such dire poverty. I came back grateful to have spent a bit of time in Haiti. I felt like my faith was strengthened. A few years later I returned with a group going to the Dominican Republic where we rebuilt a church destroyed by a hurricane (common occurrence it seems on the isle shared by the DR and Haiti) in a community of Haitians who work sugar cane in the DR. We had a dentist along who spent the days we were there extracting teeth from people who had never seen a dentist and whose teeth were rotted from eating raw cane (it helps stave off hunger pains). Most of us mixed concrete, made blocks, and built a small concrete structure to be used as a church and school. Once again, upon returning home, I had a sense of doing something good, of helping people who could not have done it themselves. We stayed at a church in La Romana and worshiped with the people. Although most of us did not speak Spanish, we could enter into their joy as they worshiped. We slept in huge dorm room on cots and paid the women of the church to cook us breakfast and dinner.

I've maintained an interest in Haiti, reading books, supporting Haiti missions, and trying to learn all I can about the country and the people (I even took on the task of learning Creole through a correspondence school but I was a poor student!). Thus, my interest was piqued while reading a new book by Jonathan Katz called The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left a Disaster Behind. You get the point of the book from the title. Katz was in Haiti when the earthquake struck in 2010. His residence was flattened. He was covering Haiti for AP. He writes about the impact of short term missions trips to Haiti which he calls the template for how many Americans experience Haiti firsthand. "First, shock at the deprivation; then uplift by the spirit of the people; finally, after the construction of a breeze - block school or a delivery of Bibles, exultation in a new closeness and humanity through faith." That summed up my mission trip feelings pretty well.

But he goes on, "Many (short termers) emphasize that one of their primary goals is to teach Haitians self-reliance." It is true we hoped that by leaving some tools, some clothes, some money behind they would be able to do what we did by themselves. Katz points out, "Ironically, the Haitians not only tended to harbor a faith more fervent and deeply tested than that of the missionaries, but also self -reliance beyond anything the visitors were likely to imagine. They were, after all, still alive in a country that spent 180 times less on healthcare per person than the United States, offered 83 percent fewer people adequate sanitation, and offered almost none of the basic highway, plumbing, or building infrastructure of the United States. They didn't need survival techniques, introduction to the New Testament, or even a new breeze - block school ... but they took what they could get in the hope that the relationships would eventually yield more... what distinguished the missionaries from other foreigners was their zeal, and the assuredness that they could bring hope and salvation to a blighted land through faith and good works."

Haiti is not the way it seems. If we spend just a short time there it only serves to reinforce our preconceived ideas. One of those ideas is that no one has jobs. In fact, even the leaders who are trying to "rebuild a better Haiti" after the quake operate under the assumption that Haitians don't work or don't want to work. The current thinking is that they need more garment factories there to provide jobs even thought the garment factories do not pay a living wage and no benefits. Haitians want a job which means to them - reliable and sufficient income (Katz, 142). Pre - quake Haiti was reported to have an unemployment rate of 40 to 70 percent. But most Haitians work all day, every day, selling juice, selling food, clothing, phone cards, baby clothes, and washing cars. All those acts depend on a long chain of supply and distribution. Haiti does not lack jobs or people willing to work. What Haiti lacks are life supporting jobs. The World Bank's definition of extreme poverty is living on $1.25 a day. Haiti's minimum wage is $1.75 a day. Most Haitians live on $2 a day or less. But when Target is selling children's clothing as cheap as $8 a t-shirt, Haitian garment workers are not going to be paid a living wage. A 2011 survey of 27 Haitian garment factories showed not one was in compliance in the categories of Benefits, Safety, Health Services, Hours or First Aid. Most did not even have a place or soap to wash hands. Most had no emergency exits and some even had them locked during the day. Most did not pay minimum wage. Of course, there were no unions. Joseph A. Banks which has a plant in Haiti sells $500 men's suits which it claims are "imported suits" in it's catalog. And they are - the Haitian woman who sews the sleeves on the suits makes enough for a cup of rice a day, a taptap ride to work, and helps out her quake injured boyfriend and her son. Meanwhile, she sleeps on the streets until she pays down the loan she took out for rent on her house destroyed in the quake.

Worship

Lamin Sanneh's book Summoned from the Margin: Homecoming of an African will become a much discussed book among American Evangelicals, I hope. Sanneh teaches World Christianity at Yale. One of his concerns is that American Evangelicals are not aware enough of World Christianity so the lens through which they view World Christianity is too limited to Western Christianity. He cites the numbers showing how Western - centered Christianity was in 1900 when it accounted for 82% of all the Christians in the world. Today, about 35% of the world's Christian live in the North Atlantic region. The Church is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world and has been for some time. Sanneh says our mental map of World Christianity is very different from the physical map. In America and Europe the "new gods of secular materialism have been provoked into staging something of a comeback, with churches turning into cultural and entertainment monuments."

"Jesus did not speak English."
Islam has a sacred language. The Koran is written in Arabic. There are translations but they are all unofficial. The official language of study and worship is Arabic. Even if you don't know Arabic, that's the language of the Mosque. The truth of God's Word only comes in Arabic. Christianity has no sacred language. We believe God's Word speaks the same way in any local language. The Incarnation is a foundational belief of Christianity. It says that God became real flesh and blood human in Jesus Christ. So God's Word is fleshed out in our indigenous languages, too. God can speak to us in the KJV or the NIV or The Message as well as any translation. That's a very good thing. God came down to our size to reveal Himself to us. But, we shouldn't misunderstand that. It does not mean God is our size. That God is one of us. The danger of the Incarnation is that we will domesticate Jesus. He becomes our pal. Worship becomes mostly about us and how Jesus makes us feel (listen to our worship choruses). Preaching becomes the central focus of worship. "How am I being fed" becomes a major criterion for choosing a church home. Sanneh writes, "Preaching is for us; worship is only for God." We believe that God accommodated Himself to us when He became human and that's a good thing. But He is still God, the Holy LORD of the universe. Do we get that sense in much of our Protestant Evangelical worship today? Can we still worship if the sermon did not feed us, or if the music was not to our liking? Is there anything else in our worship services besides the sermon or the music? What scriptures are read, what prayers are prayed, what creeds are said, how often is the Lord's Supper observed, what is done to engage us in the worship of God? Do we go to church to worship or do we go to be entertained, to be fed, to feel good afterward?