Rage and Humility
March 7, 2010; Lent 3
For First Mennonite Church of Denver
copyright 2010, Vernon K. Rempel

Bible reading: Luke 13:1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”'

Repent or Die
This is one of the those Bible stories
 that makes it clear that Jesus wasn't just
  trying to make friends with a smile.
 
He's warning. He tells a scary story. He's angry.
 Now I know he's probably doing the good
  Dance of Anger thing
   and using his anger not to ventilate
    but rather as fuel for constructive change.

It's like people call into the Talk Hour with Jesus.
 And they say "too bad about those people in Siloam,
  Yes, he says, and you
   better repent or you'll die too.

And if you just send in $21.95 you can receive
 my bestseller: Repent or You'll Die Too.

And not just in this story.
 Read where he calls people:
  "you white-washed graves"
   and even says "your throats are like open graves"
    Goes all Poltergeist on them.

Now, there is something truly wonderful in our text:
 "Do you think they're worse sinners than you?"
  Saying, humanity's all in this together,
   and we'll only get out alive
    if we stop, as a good southern preacher might say,
     stop blamin' and start claimin'.

Claiming a life of constructive, clean living,
 dedication to the truth, and so on.

Rage Culture
But back to the anger.
 We seem to be living in a culture of rage.
  Is it worse than other times?
   It is hard to gauge;
    but it's bad, scary, and destructive.

And one of the things that's worrisome about
 Bible passages such as ours today
  is that it is loaded with language that can be taken
   out of context and used as Biblical fuel for the fire:

Repent or perish.
 If it doesn't bear fruit, cut it down!
  There's plenty in the Bible, including the words of Jesus, 
   that have been used to go raging.

Our theme for Lent this year,
 from our Mennonite Church USA liturgical guide,
  is "Holding on and letting go".

Too often, in rage, the letting go means ventilation,
 the unleashing of fury and vitriole.
  And the holding means keeping a tight fist
   around whatever my own perspective happens to be,
    regardless of information or dialogue available.
Ron Rolheiser, OMI (Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate)
 writes brilliantly about this in his article:
  "Respect for Each Other in a Polarized Community"

He writes:
 "A certain degree of polarization exists within every community and this is normal and healthy. However, the bitterness, mean-spirit, and lack of respect that characterizes much of our political, ecclesial, and moral discourse today is not normal and is far from healthy. And we shouldn't delude ourselves in thinking that it is healthy or, worse yet, in the name of truth or justice or God, try to rationalize our lack of respect for those who think differently that we do. We aren't holy warriors, just angry people with a highly selective compassion."

He argues that what is present all around,
 in liberal or conservative or tea bag
  or anarchist behavior includes this list:

hypersensitivity, over-seriousness, paranoia about the other,
 anger, a joylessness, and lacking a sense of humor.

He further notes that conservatives tend to rationalize their
 rage arguing for the gravity of the issues their they're defending.
  Liberals are too compromised to have room for meaningful talk.

Liberals tend to rationalize their rage by saying that
 what they're defending is rationally self-evident;
  liberals tend to have an intellectual disdain:
   why do we even need to talk about this:
    that facts speak for themselves!

A prophet for our time, this man is, I think.
 It is such common coin of speech
  to lament and excoriate what "they"
   whoever "they" are, are doing.

And I have found that it's very hard to get the "they"
 out of my discourse on issues.
  I really want to be better than others,
   know more, have the right approach
    which "they" just don't get.

But isn't that what everybody in the rage culture is doing?
 If so, it's really not going to lead to anything new.
  And yet I find myself kind of addicted to it.
   A little ragin' about "they" is so satisfying
    and makes for very ready social glue.

I was recently on a panel discussion
 the other night at Montview Presbyterian Church
  with Talon Windwalker,
   A Native-American Buddhist gay hospice chaplain.

Back to all those adjectives in a moment.
 But he related a story from the Dalai Lama -
  The Dalai Lama was on an airplane.finding common ground!
   He began to find another man
    so offensive on airplane that he struggled
     to remind himself of their common humanity.

So he started out saying to himself,
 well, we both need to wear clothes.
  And we both like to eat.

But it still wasn't helping, so he tried to go deeper:
 well, we both have eyebrows.....!

Talon told this story while sitting next to a
 Anglo, Christian, Mennonite, straight minister.
  He probably had to find out a bit
   what was our common humanity.
    I could tell he was thinking about it at first.

It can be very difficult to take the "they" out of our speech.
 But it's also a very powerful spiritual discipline, I think,
  when we refuse to demonize or even to "they"
   the other person
    It can be transformative.

In the book Amish Grace, the story of the Amish
 in the wake of the horrible shootings of Amish girls
  at the West Nickel Mines school,

some of the Amish folks are asked how they were able
 to respond without rage and without demonizing
  the shooter's family or even the man with the gun himself.

One of their responses had to do with who is saved.
 They said, we do not say among ourselves who
  is saved and who isn't.

That is up to God.
 It is for us to just do our best to live good lives.

That is an amazing statement.
 The refusal to count oneself as "in"
  even in the matter of salvation.
   The refusal to say "they"
    even in the matter of salvation.

That cuts the ground right out from under an
 "us" and "them" dichotomy,
  constructing the world into evil-doers and patriots
   or thoughtful liberals and mindless conservatives
    or whatever the dichotomy is.

The pathway in this spiritual discipline is
 to act as best we know how,
  with all courage and good intention

and to confess our limitations, and to apologize when we do harm
 and to affirm all glimmerings of goodness
  even in our enemies.

And in so doing, we plunge ourselves constructively as we can,
 but fully, into the shared human drama.
  We all have eyebrows - pretty much, anyway.

Passion
One last note, then: if we refuse to rage, where's the passion.
 One might ask, where is the passion in this, if one can't
  find passion in the rage mode?

I think it emerges from something very different.
 It emerges from being kissed, if you will,
  by a compelling love.

Not from adopting an ideology
 but from experiencing a spirit and community
  and relationship of transforming love.

Once you've been loved like that,
 or, perhaps, as we all continue to experience love like that,
  
as we feel it in our bones, in our guts
 "inna my heart" as the spiritual puts it

we can feel a confidence and abiding joy and deep grounding
 that moves far beyond the twitchy energy of mere ideology.

People with this sort of passion come into our lives
 with a feeling of substance and movement and possibility.
  But they always seem to have time to listen and to learn:

They always come:
 Standing firmly but calmly against harm
 Weeping at tragedy; laughing with fun and joy
 Eager to embrace all forms of the good.

That is a personhood beyond rage,
 That is a spiritual discipline that refuses
  the default mode of raging against "them"
   whoever they may be.

It begins and ends in personal responsibility and transformation.
 And it has the power to inaugurate a new creation.

This then is a truer "holding on and letting go"
 What we hold on to is not our perspective
  but rather the power of the transformation
   that has been wrought in our lives.

And what we let go is a love unleashed into the world
 and when it is let go, it is a might river indeed
  and what evil or harm can prevail against it?

Additional notes:

Well, we're not Jesus. (okay for him to rage, but not us)
 But the fact is, even Jesus isn't Jesus.
  Not in the sense that he's somehow
   superhuman or a different species.

That's common but very bad theology.
 Orthodox theology down through the ages
  has been at pains to argue for Jesus' full humanity.

He's not 50% human and 50% divine.
 He's fully human and fully divine.
  And, by the way, so are we,
   if we live fully into God's intention for our lives.

That's why we can be invited to walk the way of Christ.
 Otherwise, we couldn't.

******

So why do we make the Gospel into a cheap worthiness contest?  After all, we have all  fallen short of the glory (Romans 3:23, 5:12) and all are saved by mercy (Romans 11:32-36).  Even Mary proclaims it of herself (four times!) in her “Magnificat” (Luke 1:47-55). Popes and priests, presidents and politicians are all saved “en Cristo” and by mercy and in our undeserved state.  No exceptions.

From The Great Themes of Paul ---Richard Rohr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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