While trying to write a sermon with Project Runway in the background, I’m realizing that Tim Gunn has fantastic pastoral skills. Seriously. He is critical yet honest. He can decrease the tension and anxiety in a room. He works with people to get their best. And he’s also willing to, in a phrase, let go and let God. It is pure genius to watch.
And he’s got a killer wardrobe to boot. My jealously, it grows in leaps and bounds.
I’ve come to the conclusion that guest preaching, or preaching at a place you haven’t visited for a few months, is like being the fourth out of five comedians in a set. There is a danger that I’ll do nothing but look into the audience, find that one table that the previous three comedians saw, and pick on it in the same exact fashion.
If you’ve ever been to a bad comedy set, you will know exactly what I mean. Here’s hoping no one in the previous month stole my hook.
I’ll admit that I’m not the most biblically literate person out there. Sure, I’ve read the entire bible serveral times and I’ve picked apart several books, but when it comes to the memorization of storylines and plot points, the devil is in the details. My lack of being able to memorize details is legendary. My wife is a wonderful singer and can pick up a tune easily and quickly. I’m the complete opposite. There are songs that are in my all-time top ten, songs that I have listened to a thousand times, that I could not sing right now if someone asked me to. It’s pitiful really. Route memorization sometimes works for me but when it comes to learning-through-exposure, I’m a failure. If I want to learn something, I need to study it or experience it in multiple forms of media. And that’s probably why I never can remember correctly how David, in 1 Samuel, kills Goliath. I always forget how he dies.
My internship church has spent the summer preaching through the semi-continous lectionary series. This season, the focus is on David, with a little Saul and Solomon thrown in for good measure. I’ll be preaching during the next two Sundays, covering Solomon’s dedication at the temple and a bit from Song of Songs. Besides preaching, I’ll also be leading a bible study on the specific passage that we are covering. Not wanting to be ill-prepared, I decided to review the entire David-Solomon story line which is why I found myself re-reading David’s fight with Goliath. It was our lectionary reading for June 24.
1 Samuel 17:[1a, 4-11, 19-23] 32-49; NRSV
(1) Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; they were gathered at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim. (4) And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. (5) He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. (6) He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. (7) The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron; and his shield-bearer went before him.
(8) He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. (9) If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.” (10) And the Philistine said, “Today I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man, that we may fight together.” (11) When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
(19) Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. (20) David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper, took the provisions, and went as Jesse had commanded him. He came to the encampment as the army was going forth to the battle line, shouting the war cry. (21) Israel and the Philistines drew up for battle, army against army. (22) David left the things in charge of the keeper of the baggage, ran to the ranks, and went and greeted his brothers. (23) As he talked with them, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines, and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him.
(32) David said to Saul, “Let no one’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
(33) Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
(34) But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, (35) I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. (36) Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”
(37) David said, “The LORD, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” So Saul said to David, “Go, and may the LORD be with you!”
(38) Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. (39) David strapped Saul’s sword over the armor, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.” So David removed them. (40) Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.
(41) The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. (42) When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. (43) The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. (44) The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.”
(45) But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. (46) This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, (47) and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’S and he will give you into our hand.”
(48) When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. (49) David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.
It is a lovely reading, isn’t it? As I glance over it, I see a Goliath, huge and warlike, and a king and army that are afraid to face this super weapon. Every day, they do. They form up in defiance of the enemy but they never engage. It is a cold war of intimidation. A young boy/man arrives to visit his brothers. He sees this super weapon and decides, for love of his people and his God, to engage it. He is confident that he can win. When King Saul tries to dress him in armor, the young man removes it. He cannot fight in what he is not use to. He instead dresses in the armor that he has always worn – the armor of a faithful shepherd. This young man walks into the fight, smack talks his enemy, and wins. He slings a stone into the forehead of this super weapon. The simple stone, in a simple sling, fells the armor behemoth. The enemy collapses, his face hitting the ground. He is presumed dead. It is a great story and it is an incomplete story.
To complete the story, one needs to read the parts that are missing. What we discover is that the political innocence and selflessness of David is tempered by the reality that he is a young man full of political ambition. After David first hears Goliath speak, he also hears the rumor that has spread throughout the ranks of the army: “The Israelites said, ‘Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. The king will greatly enrich the man who kills him, and will give him his daughter and make his family free in Israel.'” (1 Samuel 17:25). The anointed the future king of Israel (see 1 Samuel 16) spends several verses trying to confirm this rumor. He wants the reward – and the promises that such a reward would bring to his family and himself. He is not merely a young man, innocent, and bravely defending his people and his God. He is a young man with political ambition, hopes, thoughts, and the utmost confidence in his own ability to be joined into Saul’s household. If the plot points are in the right order, it might be that David, after being the lyre player in Saul’s household for a bit, decides that there is glory there that he wants a part of. Whatever the truth, the reality is that we see a young man who is not selfless in how I would define it. Rather, we see a politically ambitious young man seeing an avenue for advancement. David, foreshadowing his later career, jumps at the chance, confident that he will succeed where others dare not to trend.
Besides David’s political ambition, this lectionary reading hides how Goliath dies. In 1 Samuel 17:51, the reader is told: “then David ran and stood over the Philistine; he grasped his sword, drew it out of its sheath, and killed him; then he cut off his head with it.” David prevailed in combat and, like all players of Mortal Kombat will recognize, David decided to “FINISH HIM.” David removes Goliath’s head from his shoulders. Is the lack of this detail in the lectionary reading important? I think so. For modern readers in the United States, I wonder if our experience with war being a long-range affair – guns, missiles, ICBMs – and all these battles occurring in distant lands – we identify with the sling more than the sword. But the sling serves as a weapon of distance – a weapon that leaves its heaver (in the modern eye) untarnished by blood and gore. It is a “clean” weapon. It is unlike the sword. It does not seem personal. And, above all, it keeps David’s hands clean, sanitized, and pure.
I forgot that David personally kills Goliath with a sword because I usually envision the battle with Goliath like this:
It is the story told in clip art, church newsletters, Sunday schools, and confirmation classes. I rarely see the battle like this:
So why is that? Why is David sanitized, not only in our lectionary reading, but also in our churches? Is this a bleed through problem – where our own vision of Jesus, as one of the house of David, ends up forcing us to see David through more culturally pure eyes? Does Jesus, the one with no sin, end up cleaning David – even if we read David and Bathsheba during worship? Is our obsession with purity and hygiene influencing our lectionary and reading of scripture? These are all questions that I think I have an answer to – there is a tendency to white wash religion. And I think that this is normal, natural, and an intrinsically human thing to do. Even for left-leaning theologians, scripture tends to be made gritty in a non-dirty way. If, for example, we claim that Christ has a radical sense of welcome to others, there is still a tendency, I think, to claim grittiness without actually getting dirty. I’m not sure how exactly to word that but I feel, as a church, we can sometimes claim to be incarnational but only to a degree. We allow Christ to be human but only so much. Christ is handled as a demi-god, but not like the demi-gods of Greece with human problems, emotions, desires and fears. He is instead a demi-GOD – a being where our vision of the purity of the Creator clears any blemishes from his being. We, in some ways, ignore the creedal claim that Jesus Christ was truly human. In the quest to define what it means to be truly human, we purify Christ and see to purify ourselves and others. And when we can’t, or when we forget that we live with biases that actually endorse and encourage purity divisions within communities, even those who are left-leaning end up sanitizing our own religious history. We reframe David to be innocent and pure through out culture’s eyes and we forget, like I always seem to, that there is blood on his hands. And for a church that eats body and drinks blood every Sunday, that just seems like a very weird thing to do.
Okay, okay, okay – I really, REALLY, planned on going to church today. Really. I woke up early, showered, fed the animals, blogged, read the NY Times, and everything. I was ready to go. But it seems Oliver had other ideas. He fussed. He wanted to be fed a million times. He wanted to be walked, held by mom, held by dad, and then sat in the Rock ‘n Play and stared at the window. He wanted it all.
But he didn’t want to help us get out of the house on time.
Instead, we went to my old neighborhood, ten blocks north, and tried a place for brunch. And while there, I decided to be a little churchy and worked on my sermon for next week. You can keep the seminarianzilla out of church but you can’t keep the church (and delicious maple-covered pancakes) out of the seminarianzilla.
What the. Considering how many comic book loving Lutherans I know, you would think that there would be more than four of us but I guess not. I’m slightly disappointed. I would think that our tradition of having religious wars in the name of the faith would inspire at least a few superhero lutherans. And don’t get me started on the fact that there isn’t a Lutheran in the regular Marvel Universe, only in the NU verse. Come on! Though I don’t mind that Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s friend, is Luthearn. With a name like Olsen, he kind of had to be.
Though I’m curious about The Little Mermaid. She first appeared in 1977, was killed off-page by 1991, shows up as a supposed evil twin in 1993, and vanishes after that. She was also a Lutheran-Atlantean combination. I want to know how that works.
I don’t know but this op-ed from this weekend’s New York Times thinks so. It’s an interesting premise, laying open Luther’s cultural legacy in Germany. I’m not sure I agree with it but it’s a different point of view.
On Sunday, we took Oliver to church for the very first time. Oliver, mom, dad, and grandpa (who was visiting from out of town) met at Trinity Lutheran Church, Long Island City to worship with our congregation and introduce Oliver to church for the first time. And he was a hit. People loved him, gathered around him, gawked at him, and he was the center of attention during his first day at church. And he took it like a champ. He flirted with the pretty ladies, cried when he wanted to be walked around, and he did what he wanted to do. Basically, he acted like he did at home. The place didn’t freak him out in the slightest.
We arrived at Trinity, magically, before the service started. Now, I say that our arrival was magical because, with our move into Manhattan last year, it now takes us close to an hour and a half to commute to church on Sunday morning. Yet, it seems our little guy is a good luck charm because we didn’t wait longer than a few minutes for our trains on Sunday. Oliver woke up as we walked into the Nave and became the star of the show. The old ladies gravitated to him like moths to a flame. Everyone seemed to notice how much hair he had. And, of course, my lack of hair was pointed out as well. I hope Oliver keeps his hair as long as possible – and doesn’t start losing it when he is finishing up high school like I did.
The service started and he feasted. Oliver wasn’t going to let some sharing of the peace get in the way of his third breakfast. After that, he flirted with the pretty women behind us (because he has good taste), and he ended up in my arms so I could take him up for his first children’s sermon. Now, since I didn’t grow up in the church, the “children’s sermon” is a strange beast for me. The few young children, and their parents, wander up to sit on the stairs before the altar and face the congregation. Oliver was a little fussy as we sat on the stairs; he kept trying to worm himself away. He cried a little, grunted, fussed, and did not pay attention at all to the sermon that the pastor prepared. I know he is only 3 weeks old but, come on kid, show a little respect! At the end of the little sermon, as we bowed our heads in prayer, he emptied his bowels on my lap. And he cried. Now, he was wearing his diaper and everything was caught but no one told me that you would know when your baby pooped. I thought it would be the smell that would signal his need for a new diaper but, oh no, that is second. His bowel movements are a force of nature. They are also hilarious. Trying to keep a straight face through the “amen” was one of the hardest parts of my fatherhood experience so far.
The children’s sermon, in general, is an odd beast. I understand why it is there. Children should be seen, and treated, as equal members of the congregation. They are part of the body of Christ. In the baptismal covenant and the covenant of creation, they are not less than adults or teenagers. The cross is for them too. And I get that the Children’s sermon is all about highlighting that reality. But it is just strange. It never really seems, in my limited exposure to them, to actually be viewed as an integrated part of the service. The actual moment seems to do the exact opposite of what it is trying to do. It interupts rather than includes. But that could be an experience that I’m feeling because I’m not use to it being included in services. When I returned to the church, there was no children’s sermon at Trinity because there were no children in the congregation. When I started my field education, the children’s sermon was changed into something else entirely. I don’t experience it as a congregation solidifying event. So as I sat up there, the alienness of the entire concept of the Children’s sermon was highlighted for me. There’s got to be a good way to handle the Children’s sermon – I just haven’t seen it yet.
But there is more to being a dad in worship besides just the children’s sermon. I experienced the entire spectrum of the child experience. I was the dad who walked around in the back of the church because his kid was fussy. I experienced walking out of the service and into the dank dungeons of the bathrooms to use a changing table twice during the service. I experienced coming in, and out, of the service, at different points. I was distracted the entire service because of Oliver – and that is a new experience for me. In many ways, the most challenging part of having a kid for me is being distracted by his presence. This isn’t a bad thing – I actually love having him in my life. But I’m not use to handling this kind of distraction in my life. My tradition of hyper focusing for a few hours on a service, or writing a sermon, or building a website, no longer works because there is a kid sleeping next to me who might wake up and need to be fed. He might need his diaper changed. He might need a binkie. He might just need to be held. I’m always slightly turned on, ready to reach out, and meet his need, even if I hesitate sometimes, trying to see if his crying will stop on its own. There’s a part of my brain and focus that is permanently devoted to his presence and, how I’ve previously wired myself, I can’t seem to take care of him and take care of what I’d like to do at the same time. This is different than multi-tasking I think. Or at least different from what I understand multi-tasking to be.
I’m glad I’m having these experiences, including being a church member rather than a leader, because, in less than a month, I’ll be a full-time intern and Sundays will be a work day. Oliver won’t be around all that much and I’ll have other responsibilities to take care of. I won’t have the experience of trying to worship as a parent. Instead, I’ll try to experience what it is like to lead worship as a parent with a kid in the congregation. That will open up an entire new can of worms that I’m excited to find out.
No matter how much I feel uneasy about the analysis tagged along with this image, I do like the image itself.
A friend of mine noticed that my blog is all baby, all the time now. She’s right. In fact, all I really want to do is talk about Oliver. I mean, this guy is fantastic. He’s already made it to almost three weeks, he is gaining weight, and he’s actually alert and looking around! I feel like bragging all the time and becoming that dad who can only talk about his kids. Watch out world, I’m gonna be ridiculous.
But, alas, I can’t be only a daddy-blogger. Mommy bloggers have that area of the internet sewed up and the title says Seminarianzilla not Dadzilla (though Oliver might be allowed to call me that in the future). And you’d might be surprised to learn that the world of religion and faith doesn’t stop just because I have an awesome newborn. Last week, Ross Routhat posted a response to Diana Butler Bass. Is he just copying me or is he doing what I do and just see what his facebook friends post on their newsfeeds? Either way, lets take a look at this latest article in the battle over “Liberal” Christianity.
I’ve been sitting on this blog post for over a week now. I wrote several drafts of this post offering my analysis of the back-and-forth between Douthat and Butler but nothing that I wrote seemed worth sharing. In many ways, my analysis always ended up focusing on definitions because that’s what I see Butler and Douthat indirectly arguing about in their articles. Both are arguing about a vibrancy that they see in Christianity and that they believe will be picked up and propagated by my generation. Any question about “survival” instantly points its giant finger at “the young people” who are growing up and, sadly, I am in the vanguard of that group. Both argue a set perspective on how Christianity can “survive” by being relevant (or anti-relevant) to future generations and both assume that where they witness vibrancy (and I’m assuming that they find this vibrancy life giving in their own lives) is where the church will survive. And…yes…I see their point. However, their argument about what will survive is like reading science or historical fiction; although the setting is not in the present, the substance of the story is grounded in the here and now. So any argument about Christianity’s survival is really about today and both folks are arguing that a form of Christianity framed in a certain set of definitions will be that which survives. And what are those definitions? That’s what I find interesting and I think they both would have stronger arguments if they laid that out on the line. Sure, they only have short opinion pieces so there’s only so much to do but without those definitions, what I see is a lot of talking around the issues rather than engaging with them at their core. And if they both decided to engage those definitions, they might have realized that “liberal” Christianity is a terrible phrase and completely improperly used in the present day. Rather than continue that, state definitions and assumptions in the beginning and I hope that salvation and Christ will show up there. Sadly, I didn’t see much of that in these articles.
That’s what gets me about all of this. There’s a talking around definitions rather than nailing down specifically what those definitions are. And if we’re going to argue about Christianity and make Christ not necessary to that argument, well, I’m just not really following that. That doesn’t mean I don’t think their argument needs to be made – it probably does and their arguments can be paralleled throughout Christian history – but there’s nothing compelling about that argument for my life right now. Instead of arguing as if the definitions are known and set it stone, I’d like to argue over the definitions themselves. I’d like to struggle with the propositions proposed by the Church over the years. I’d like to take the frameworks that spoke to prior generations and engage them with the present day and my life. And I’d like to engage in that way because I think those definitions are not just intellectual assets but, rather, are all encompassing, directional, practical, and define how it is I will live my life. And I wish both Douthat and Butler would play and live there because then I would find myself willing to dwell with them there.
