Column on DOMA ruling: on SCOTUS and Church

Just this week, the Supreme Court handed down two long-=awaited cases dealing with gay marriage. Before I became a minister, I taught judicial process, so I am well positioned to look at issues of law and Christian ethics in regard to its decisions. Our eldest daughter came to visit this week, and I recalled with her my consternation at President Clinton’s craven political calculation to sign the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and his recent discovery that he should not have singed it.

Some of our readers may be a bit confused how the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment, directed toward states, could be used as a gloss on the fifth Amendment, dealing with the national government. Ever since 1954 when the Court struck down state-imposed school segregation in the District of Columbia, the Court ruled tha the liberty portion of the due process clause of the 5^th amendment was made more clear and precise by the wording of the 14^th Amendment.

Justice Kennedy has made a long personal journey himself. he signed on to the :anti-sodomy” decision in the eighties, but authored its repudiation I at the start of the new century. It is striking how often the word, dignity, appears in his decision. Part of equal protection analysis is determining if a law’s distinction is based on the creation of a ‘suspect” class of citizens. Kennedy over and over refers to the bigotry and bias inherent in the DOMA law. Equal protection means that government needs a reason to separate classes of people, especially if they are a minority class who has been subject to invidious discrimination. To him, we cannot admit two standards, two classes of marriage, or we run afoul of the sense of the words on the court’s edifice, equal justice under law. For years, the court has ruled marriage to be a fundamental conern for the liberty, the private decision for a couple. Now it has been extended to more of our citizens.

Some in the church will see the case as preaching the gospel to the church, and others decry it as an intrusion into matters of private morality and an attempt to dictate a new morality apart from religion to our citizens. For forty years, my own denomination, the PCUSA, has struggled with the issue in varying ways, in a see-saw of tolerance and prohibitions. Part of the struggle has been one of Biblical interpretation. Some pull the relatively few comments against same-sex relations and seek to make a principle from them. Some have moved a long way on the issue. Jim Wallis, the religious evangelical but  political liberal, has moved a long way a the issue and has come to the point where he sees people of good will able to take up either side of the issue. He is troubled by the wholesale rejection of the young of the judgmental, hypocritical, and negative morality of so many church leaders.

For me the Supreme Court decision has something to teach the church about ethics as a consistent approach. It calls the church toward a responsible view of sexual ethics across the board for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. Both are called to the same ethic of love with an aspiration toward fidelity and the knowledge that chaste behavior is rarely fully practiced. it calls us to a high definition and support of the remarkable pledge of marriage to be faithful to one’s partner for a lifetime. It calls us to treat all people with dignity, as they deserve as reflections of God’s image and the face of Jesus Christ. Marriage is a sacred public bond to announce a private and intimate circumstance. May marriages live fully and well for both church and sta

Devotional thoughts Week of June 30

Sunday June 30-Ps. 77 In the night, the psalmist seeks the Lord, but “my soul refused to be comforted.” Sometimes prayer is a great comfort. sometimes the circumstance or the mood is so extreme that it feels wrong to even try to seek comfort. At times, we may not want comfort and prefer the familiarity of a trouble, as it starts to seem part of our life.

Monday-Ira Kent Groff wrties.”A rabbi friend tells me that the burning bush was not the real miracle, but rather that Moses "turned aside to see" (Exodus 3:3-4). The Hebrew word for "turn" is shuv (often translated moralistically as "repent"): simple turning creates spiritual awareness. That's why twentieth-century Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill says, "Prayer means turning to Reality"--because Reality includes the mundane and the sacred. Real prayer begins with simple turning to what is, opening to awareness, then seeing more than meets the eye.”

Tuesday-why are we determined to fix people? Surely part of it is a sincere desire to heal. Part of it may be a way of calming our own inner critic. Part of it may be an element of wanting to control even the attitudes, let alone the behavior, of another, Is it not based on the idea that our decision for them is superior to one they make for themselves?

Wednesday-Rev. Ralph Mitchell reminded me of the myth of Tantalus recently (yes origin of tantalize). When we want something and it seems just out of our grasp, or it recedes from us, we are understandably frustrated. When is it better ot reach for th elow-hanging fruit, and when is it better to keep striving for something a bit out of reach? Do we settle to easily, or do we succeed more in torturing ourselves with what turns into coveting?

Thursday-I always enjoyed the 4th of July. I always try to read the Declaration of Independence, but I usually skip fast through the bill of particulars. toward the end, it speaks of pledging lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, to the cause of liberty. We are not so quick to pledge the same to the faith. What festival of faith deserves fireworks the most, do you think?

Friday-We have our VBS potluck today. I like the idea of the parents and grandparents getting to share some food together with the workers and the children. I always wonder about the utility of VBS, if it is reaching unchurched children or merely emphasizing what they are expose to already. It is a good idea to share hospitality in a program that emphasizes being a neighbor. What are your best ways of extending hospitality? How do you extend hospitality toward the presence of God?

Saturday-I was asked to scout out some 12 step groups for family members dealing with “co-dependence.” Sure enough, we have a number of groups across the river. it has the sense of enabling someone in their addictions, almost to give us an excuse ot be the rescuer or the martyr, so we depend on their weakness as a demonstration of our “strength and virtue.

OT Notes 2 Kings 2

1) This is a great place to talk about legacy. I remember a scene from Family ties when the father talks to Alex about not wanting to work with his father. So many people feel guilty about not wanting to stay with the family firm or to depart from the plans parents have for them.Sometimes the mantle does not fit us, and sometimes it is a perfect fit without an alteration needed.

2) we could talk about public legacy, in church or country. I think of Springsteen's "the flag flies over the courthouse/means certain things are set in stone/ who we are/and what we'll do...and what we won't.

3) One could talk about afterlife, as Elijah doesn't seem to die as much as be transported. Stories built up around him. some thought he had to return at the end of days. Recall that he appears at the Transfiguration with Jesus.

4) Why does Elisha want a double portion of charisma? did he feel un equal to the task/ Was he power-hungry?

5) why does Elijah perform a reverse movement at the Jordan, as the entry to the Promised Land also went on a dried riverbed?

6) What do the priests know and how do they know it?

7) How would you use this accounbt to address the grieiving?

8) One could also use this story to talk about either boundaries, liminal places, or crossing the border moments in lfe.

10) Notice her ethe heavenly hosts ar enot an avenging army but more of a processional guard into a new realm for elijah.

11) Do you find the motif effective of going from place ot place?

12) Elisha's name is similar to Joashua, god saves/helps/delivers

Sermon Notes on Demons and silence Lk. 8 I kings 19

June 23 Lk. 8, I  Kings 19

I like the idea this morning about talking with you about: silence, When people are in sync, silence speaks of easy comfort and no pressures.. Silence can be also a deadening sign of a relationship going south. We cherish the silence of a cold winter morning, but are chilled by the silence of the grave.

In a region of the north Jesus encounters a demon-possessed person. I would like to highlight a few points. If you read this as a man afflicted by some sort of evil force,so be it. I have certainly seen the toll addiction takes when it overtakes a person’s will and reason.I assume that a demon-possessed person would be what we would call mentally ill. In our time, we are not much better than the people of the Gerasenes as we have made a decision to let the mentally ill  not receive the help they need for a generation since we closed the major large facilities. So many of the homeless are also mentally ill.In terms of our gospel reading, it is a living death, or a deadly life.

Notice that he lives in the tombs. The evil that has possessed him has robbed him of life.

When I was starting to work on this, I received a letter from a mother whose son committed suicide at 17 as he was in solitary confinement. I am not arguing prison policy but want to use him as an example that he was doubly imprisoned by his mental illness and the bars of solitary confinement. In family systems approaches, we refer to a member of the family as the identified patient. it is as if a lot of the troubles fall on that person, and the family continues to go on, with the understanding that the IP is the troubled one.My sense is that this demon-possessed man was the identified patient for an entire community. All of thier fears and problems were foisted on this man as a symbol as he lived in the silent tombs.

I love the political sarcasm of the name of the demon, Legion. OK the poor guy is beset with many (around 5,000 soldiers in a legion), just as Israel is beset by human demons called the Roman Legion.(they lived with Legion, but they want Jesus to leave). Unable to speak about their political plight, the raving man is left to live among the dead. The early readers of the gospel must have gotten a kick of demons asking to go into unclean poigs and go tumbling into the sea.

Let‘s pay attention that the people want Jesus to leave. My guess is that they had projected a lot of their own troubles on to the demon-possessed man. Scapegoats have been with us for millennia. (Girard) (Lovejoy grave here is a monument to a martyr, and its looming disrepair is a symbol of decline as well)

In our time we seek God in natural beauty, and many seek God in the energy and bombast of the visual and the aural of a contemporary worship service.I am pleased for that, but we have other options. Elijah was looking for God in the theophany of the mountain of the 10 Commandments. Instead, the God who defeated the priests of Baal just a chapter before is present in a still, small voice, or perhaps more accurately, sheer silence.What did Elijah find in that silence: a presence, a sense of security, of hope, of an enveloping love and warmth? In our spiritual lives, we do well to learn to quiet the demons of our unquiet souls. we do well to find some peace and quiet to give the divine whispers a chance to enter our awareness.

Devotional Points June 23 Week

Sunday June 23-We have dual psalms this morning, as they are pretty clearly connected. A line in Ps 43 that speaks for me is the question, “why are you downcast o my soul?” Soul in Hebrew is nephesh, and it means to me me the inmost self, one’s whole being, more than an isolated spiritual element. Sometimes, being downcast is a matter of circumstance, but the sense may rise up unbidden, for no apparent reason at all. To know that I have a conversation partner in prayer helps me to get through those downcast spells.

Monday-We participated in a fundraising trivia contest.I like the idea of them for fundraisers. So often our spiritual lives get clouded with trivia. We have to work hard to learn to bear down and seek the essence.When do your prayers seem trivial? When does emotional life get swamped with trivia? When is it fun to have a mind filled with trivia, and when is it deleterious to thought?>

Tuesday-Micah 4:4 inspired the founders of our nation. they saw one of the outcomes of their struggle as a promise toward human security beyond oppressive designs.Adams quotes it in a letter, for instance. What would be your model of peace and security? How would you put it in 21st century terms? What would be a way of speaking of one’s spiritual life with similar metaphors?

Wednesday-When do we know we spend “good money after bad?’ At some point we make a decision to pull the plug on a money pit: a house, a project, a need.When do we keep pouring energy into a project, even a church, and find it is still dying, or seek signs of renewal? When is it more gracious to pull the plug? On the other hand, we are the church of the resurrection, so even death has no finality for us.

Thursday-In one of the Yale Reflections pieces, I noticed an article by John Collins on biblical interpretation. he writes of the breakdown of reading the Bible in one way alone. “The situation poses an obvious danger of disintegration...the breakdown of consensus can be salutary, as it forces us to look again at assumptions we had taken for granted.” (p.6 Spring 2008). I like how we have moved toward a variety of approaches for the Bible speaking to us today. it has certainly informed my preaching for the better, to read the bible more like a literary reader.

Friday-levels of communication certainly are a feature of our interaction., my sense is that women usually work on multiple levels more easily than males. That is not always to the good, as one can seek complexity where none is intended, or we think we know the motives for a statement better than we are capable. I wonder if we could look at our prayers as having multiple levels of meaning and intent?

Saturday-recipes are being featured on-line, so I think the cookbook is not long for this world.Some folks read the Bible as a recipe book, but I doubt that is its purpose. Some seek foolproof recipes for spiritual development, but I doubt that those are of much avail either.Instead, the ingredients are the raw material of human nature and action, and that is necessarily messy and uncertain. I am always captured by the notion that we discover ourselves in the passages of the bible, more than discovering five steps toward financial health.

A Reverie Around Father's Day

I took study leave at Yale Divinity School last week, and didn’t get a column in last week. I was  working on a prayer-poem for Father’s Day at church, but this one started to percolate unbidden. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania in a working class community. My father was killed in a ship explosion before I was three, so I watched the other fathers. Some of this comes from the memories of others, especially Pete Hamill and Connie Schultz, but I wanted to share it.

My Dad said he

graduated from the school of hard knocks.

His poor man’s university

was the thick Sunday paper.

He worked his way up

through the classes the union offered.

He studied late at night,

a beer on the counter.

“Get yourself an education.

You won’t have to work like this.”

He read the picture books

when we were little.

I never really noticed

that he stopped reading to us

when we could read the big words

quicker than he could.

He wanted us

to make a little something for ourselves,

to do better than they had done.

When we started to do just that,

he was caught between pride and envy

One by one, the black lung

sucked the air from the fathers’ lungs.

They couldn’t even have a catch soon.

So they spent too much time

in the dank, dark bars, and

their hearts grew as sour as Iron City beer.

They would still manage to corral us to a ball game.

Even so, it was they who cut the grass

and changed the oil, the plugs and points.

After all, they always drove the family car.

Somehow the sidewalk was magically clear

in time for the early paper boy to walk up easily.

When I was maybe five,

we went to the bakery after church.

He let me be big and do the ordering.

One day, a raven-haired beauty was behind the counter.

I prayed she would wait on me.

Instead, a familiar hair-netted crone

asked me what I would like.

I said, “I want her to wait on me.”

Everyone laughed, and I blushed fiercely.

We got our order, and he put his meaty paw

on my shoulder, “I would have prayed for the same thing.”

One torpid night he teased me about

giving me a five to go out with friends.

“Do girls really like that damned long hair?”

Late that night I

got up to get some water,

after draining too many beers

and striking out with too many girls.

There he was leaning on the counter

in the soft kitchen light,

touching my college books as if

they were sacramental treasures.

He flipped through the pages

with exquisite care

the way he handled his best tools

He noticed me there,

blushed and asked me:

“You mean one person read all of this stuff

and wrote all of this by himself?

I almost forget how to hold the pen

to make a out a grocery list with your mother.”

I made a weak mild joke

about it being some boring old textbook.

He shook his head.

“How could one person know so much?”

I need to show this

to the guys at the bar,

or the plant.

Especially I need to

show it to Smitty.

He wanted to write

when we were kids.

He got beat up ’cause of it.

None of Smitty’s kids went to school.

“Wait ‘til he sees this.”

“Do you think you could do this?”

Yeah, Dad, in time, I could.

My God, he replied.

Week of June 16 devotional points

Sunday June 16-Ps.51  I have not forgotten it is father’s day, as I asked for my present from our daughters long in advance. It is with some shame that I note that the psalm for today is a penitential one over sin. Lord knows that fathers are imperfect creatures, but this seems over the top to me. So, I will shift gears. Please consider forgiving your father for imperfections. Fathers, consider forgiving the disappointments of children. After all, we are all human beings, all imperfect, all in need of forgiveness.

Monday-I got to see an old friend at Yale. Inevitable, it seems we go back to common memories. It’s striking how much we forget, recall, and slightly alter over time.Who are some of your oldest friends? Who are some that you send the christmas letter to, but that you rarely see. Why is that? what permits friendship to continue over the years, and what are its primary obstacles? Have you been able to re-ignite a friendship that seemed lost? One of the better things I have done is to tell lost friends how much they meant to me voer the years of absence.

Tuesday- Our class at Yale was what I hoped. we used a variety of art forms to illustrate a religious idea. So often Christian devotional literature seems sappy to me, so I get more rleigious influence from a secular piece that moves me in a religious direction. What works of art o are meaningful to you? Are they overtly or more covertly religious for you? Do you have osme sort of spiriutal shrine or center in your home, or even your heart?

Wednesday-I saw a lot of art this week. One painting has stayed with me, the Veteran, by eakins. It was painted around 20 years after the civil War, and it is a portrait of a handsome, now middle aged man, with the scars of war on his face. His haunted eyes bespeak emotional scars. You look closer and see a medal of honor on his lapel. Compare it to Homer’s the Veteran In a New Field.

Thursday-Last week, exactly, I saw one of the oldest printed Bibles by Gutenberg and the frist book printed in English.It came off his printing press fairly early. I love the idea that a bible was among the early printed works. It was a revolution to put it in the hands of everyday people. What do you think that the new media will offer in the way of religious growth and change?

Friday-Absence works in strange ways. We miss someone terribly, or we easily forget about someone in the spate of introductions and new places to explore. With our unseen God how do we react to a visual absence? How do we respond when God seems distant in our dry prayers? How and when does God seem closer to you? When do we prefer god to seem absent?

Saturday-It was pouring one day during my stay in Yale, so lunch became an issue. Being a semi-glutton, I am rarely ever hungry, but no lunch meant real hunger pangs. How rarely do I hunger so for the presence of God. Maybe it’s OK, as I picture God always in the scene, always involved in the activity of creation, of life. Maybe it is not, as it shows the surface nature of my relationship with God, so i have to make analogies of human yearning and realize how insincere and weak my feelings toward God often are.