Fear Is The Path To The Dark Side

Epiphany is one of my favorite Christian holidays.  It's also one of those words that sounds like something only a sesquipedalian would love.  But the truth is that without "epiphany" you'd have to spend a lot of time describing a certain kind of thought and feeling.  It's a revelation, a new thought, a moment when something becomes clear.  But it's not a gradual thing, not slow, dim realization.  It's a eureka moment.  A lightening bolt from on high.  It's a light bulb flashing to life above your head.

The Christian holiday of the same name is when we celebrate all those sudden, unexpected realizations in the story of Jesus—all the epiphanies that Jesus, son of Mary was and is much, much more than his humble beginnings would seem to indicate.

While Epiphany celebrates all of those revelations, we usually focus on the arrival of the Magi with their three gifts and their intention to give the newborn King of the Jews homage.  Nothing quite says, "This toddler is a Very Important Person" than having foreign dignitaries show up on your doorstep with lavish gifts and promises of fealty and service!

The political setting for the story always reminds me of Star Wars.  I can't help drawing parallels between Caesar and Palpatine, between Herod and Vader.  Imagine if you will that the Galactic Empire is not the only empire out there in that far, far away galaxy.  Imagine that an ancient enemy of the Old Republic still borders the Empire.

Now, imagine that this bordering empire has their own group of Force sensitives.  An order with the same political and religious clout as the Jedi—or the Sith.

Furthermore, imagine that a small delegation of that order suddenly drop out of hyperspace within sight of the Death Star.  They dock and ask for an audience with Lord Darth Vader—and when they get it, they say that they have sensed a disturbance in the Force indicating the birth of the Chosen One, the true King of Naboo.  And then they ask Vader where they can find the child so they can promise their political support to him.

Can you imagine?

So Vader accesses all the old information—ancient Jedi prophecies concerning the birth of the Chosen One—and tells the delegation which system the Chosen One is supposed to be from.  And then Vader asks them to come back and tell him where they find the Chosen One, so he can swear his service to the child, too.

The delegation goes and finds the child.  They lavish expensive gifts on him and pay him homage.  Then, warned in a vision, they avoid any "Imperial entanglements" on the way home.  Warned in another vision, those responsible for the welfare of Luke and Leia spirit them away—Luke to Tatooine, of course, and Leia to Alderaan.

When the delegation doesn't return to the Death Star, Vader does what any dread Lord of the Sith would do when faced with such a threat to their power.  He takes a Star Destroyer full of Imperial Stormtroopers to the star system in question and he kills every male child under the age of two.  Problem solved.

Ok, so, this is where the metaphor breaks down.  Luke Skywalker is no Jesus Christ.  Although, in the end, Luke defeats the Emperor through non-violence if you think about it.

Speaking of non-violence, let me share a little epiphany I had about, well, Epiphany.  The Magi had a great deal of wealth with them.  And the country was full people who'd been taxed into the ground—and then when they couldn't pay, their land, their homes would be taken away.  What I'm trying to say is that, warned in a vision that Herod was an evil bastard, the Magi probably could have raised an army and started a war.

But that's not what God wanted.  God wanted them to avoid a conflict with Herod and simply go home by another way.

And I think that says something important about both God and Jesus.  Don't you?

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
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The scripture lessons for January 4th—Epiphany Sunday—are:

Isaiah 60:1-6

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
   and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
   and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
   and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Lift up your eyes and look around;
   they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from far away,
   and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms.
Then you shall see and be radiant;
   your heart shall thrill and rejoice,
because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,
   the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
A multitude of camels shall cover you,
   the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
   all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
   and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.

Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14

Give the ruler your justice, O God,
   and your righteousness to a ruler's heir.
May the ruler judge your people with righteousness,
   and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
   and the hills, in righteousness.
May the ruler defend the cause of the poor of the people,
   give deliverance to the needy,
   and crush the oppressor.
May the ruler live while the sun endures,
   and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
May the ruler be like rain that falls on the mown grass,
   like showers that water the earth.
In the ruler's days may righteousness flourish
   and peace abound, until the moon is no more.
May the monarchs of Tarshish and of the isles
   render the ruler tribute,
may the monarchs  of Sheba and Seba bring gifts.
May all monarchs fall down before the ruler,
   all nations give the ruler service.
For the ruler delivers the needy when they call,
   the poor and those who have no helper.
The ruler has pity on the weak and the needy,
   and saves the lives of the needy.
From oppression and violence the ruler redeems their life;
   and precious is their blood in the ruler's sight.

Ephesians 3:1-12

This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— for surely you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given to me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God's grace that was given to me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
   are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
   who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

More Christmas Power for Santa!

My father is Santa Clause.  My mother tried to hide it from us when my brother and I were children, but it's true.  Why else would the tags on our Christmas gifts from Santa be in her handwriting?

But my father is Santa.  Everyone recognizes him.  Even in the middle of the summer, when he's working part time at the Aquarium, small children approach him with wide eyes and ask him "What are you doing here?"  He tells them that the reindeer like to come down to visit with the penguins—after all, penguins are from the southern hemisphere!  Even adults recognize my father as Santa Clause.  I once saw a photograph of my father posted by a friend of a friend of a friend (of a friend, maybe) on Facebook.  Somebody had whipped out their phone and taken a surreptitious pic of him at a gas station because they were so amused to see Santa pumping gas!

Don't get me wrong, I know that he's not the only one out there.  But it's also more than a simple physical resemblance.  There is a very real, "Yes, Virginia," sense in which my father is Santa Clause.

I think maybe a big part of it is that he believes in magic.  "Look into the eyes of a child who believes--truly believes," he'll challenge you, "and try to tell me that magic doesn't exist!"

Magic.  Magic is one of those sticking points between geekdom and certain branches of Christianity.  Certain, loud branches.  And of course the louder those branches yell, the more they drive away my geek brothers and sisters.  Which is a shame on so many levels.

So what are those branches yelling about?  Well, it all comes out of a conservative, literalist interpretation of the Bible.  There are several places in the Hebrew scriptures that prohibit divination, speaking with spirits, and casting spells.  As I understand it, the Hebrew word used in the rules literally means "to whisper," but modern English translations either use the word "necromancy" or simply "magic."

But what was the purpose of those rules?  The purpose was to distinguish Judaism from other religions in the area, religions that regularly made use of divinations, conversing with spirits, and/or spellcasting.  Everyone believed in all of those things, but in order to be Jewish, you didn't make use of them.

Then, of course, there's the New Testament passage concerning Simon the Magician.  In that time and place magicians were kind of like snake oil salesmen—they made their living performing deeds of power.  The same kinds of deeds that made Jesus famous, except, of course that Jesus (and his disciples) did those things for free. Simon witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit.  He was so impressed that he approached Philip and offered to pay him to lay on hands and impart the Holy Spirit!  Philip told him "no," admonishing that Simon was looking at it all wrong.  Money isn't the proper motivation!

Conservative, literalist Christians look at those passages and read the word "magic" and conclude that they must abhor anything that even makes a passing reference to magic or—God forbid—portrays magic as a good thing.  These are the people who see Dungeons & Dragons as demonic and Harry Potter as "of the Satan."  Personally, I think that's taking it a little too far, even if I did lean toward a more literal interpretation of scripture!

I don't see any harm in D&D or Harry Potter, clearly.  I certainly don't think that playing the cleric is the same thing as worshiping Baal or that admiring Harry's moral fiber will seduce me away from the Christian faith.

What it comes down to is that Call Lightening and Accio are no more real than a Tribble.  They aren't magic to me.  I think it was Doug Henning who differentiated between the illusion—the trick—and that moment of pure amazement that comes just before you try to figure out "How did he do that?"  That moment of pure amazement—that's magic.

Or the look in the eyes of a child who truly believes in Santa as they talk with my father.  That's magic, too.

I find that Christmas still holds that kind of magic for me—not so much Santa (sorry, Dad) but rather the holy parts of the holiday.  The story of the Incarnation, the birth of the Messiah, gives me that kind of amazement.  I still get the shivers when I hear Linus VanPelt tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about.  I find that I still have a pure, childlike love in my heart when I hear The Ghost of Christmas Present singing that wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.

Merry Christmas,
Be good to each other,
RevJosh
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Simply A True Myth

In an earlier post I talked a little bit about a reoccurring theme that pops up in many hero journeys—the idea that an ordinary or even unvalued character turns out to be the most important person in the story.  I talked about how it's a great place for everyone who's ever known rejection to relate to the hero and feel some of that same importance for themselves.  And let's face it, who among us has never known rejection?  Who doesn't want to be the Chosen One every once in a while?

Harry Potter living with the Dursleys.  Scrawny young Arthur as a Page known as "Wart."  Garian hidden away on Faldor's farm and raised by "Aunt Pol."  Luke Skywalker growing up on a moisture farm on Tatooine—I mean really, that's as close to an actual dirt farmer as you can get, right?

There's something that kind of rings hollow about the geek version of that theme, though.  The idea is that maybe the little ol' ostracized geek is actually vitally important because Harry was abused and look at him, he's the Chosen One!  But when push comes to shove, most of us aren't actually holding our breath for an owl to deliver our invitation into the wider wizarding world.  (Those of us who are actually so mentally ill and delusional as to have lost our grip on reality are actually very few and far-between—but that's a post for another day, perhaps.)


What I'm trying to say is that if this aspect of the hero journey is all that we have to lift ourselves up, we're in trouble.  Yes, it's awesome to watch Harry go from the Boy Who Lived Under the Stairs to the most important wizard in the world.  But it doesn't mean that I'm important.

Unless it turns out that I'm actually a powerful wizard.



Nope.

But check this out:  Once upon a time there was a little boy who loved to read.  In fact, he may very well grown up to be the most well-read man in human history.  He placed a great deal of value in mythology--in hero journeys.  And then, one day, a couple of friends took him on a long walk and convinced him that Christianity is the world's most important myth because it actually happened.

And that's how C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity.

The point I'm trying to make is that when I read the scripture and see that God sends an angel to the epitome of normal and unimportant—a young lady named Mary—it's actually very important.  Not just to the story, but to humanity.

You see, God could surely have saved humanity from on high, and all on God's own.  But God chose to involve Mary.  God chose to become human in the person of Jesus.

God chose to involve us in our own salvation.

And that doesn't just mean Jesus.  It doesn't just mean Mary.  It means that we all can and should be involved.

What I'm trying to say is that every one of us—even little ol' ostracized geeks—really are important.  We can't just sit around and wait for God to save us.  Apparently God doesn't save us without our own involvement.

Everything we do is important.  Because every choice we make either makes the world a little bit better, or a little bit worse.

It really is just that simple.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
121614

The scripture lessons for December 21st—The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B—are:
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16—Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26—Romans 16:25-27—Luke 1:26-38

The Temple of Nerull

I think that one of the keys to my geek theology is a sense of conversation:  Christianity may have some things to say to geek culture, but geek culture also has some things to say to Christianity.

I try to uplift the fun positive things that they say to each other as well as the challenging things.  And if I'm honest with myself, I've been thinking about what I'm doing in that duality—the uplifting & the challenging.  Or to put it in church language, the pastoral and the prophetic.

The geek perspective on Isaiah 40:3-5 feels like it's on the challenging / prophetic side.

A voice cries out:

‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

   make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 

Every valley shall be lifted up,

   and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

   and the rough places a plain. 

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

   and all people shall see it together,

   for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ 

As a geek, when I read that I can't help but think of a stereotypical Dungeons & Dragons campaign.  The kind that starts with one psychotic death-worshiping cultist in the background, spouting rhetoric from a street corner and ends with the band of intrepid heroes making an all-out assault on their evil subterranean temple.

And it makes me wonder—is that how people see Christians like me?  Is that the prophetic word that geekdom has for Christians?  That ours is a hollow rhetoric barely masking a greater evil?

It's not that great a stretch, I suppose.  One need only look to the Branch Davidians or Heaven's Gate to see where Messianic expectations start looking like barely disguised evil.

There is a prophetic word here for Christianity, but believe it or not, I think that the message is that we've failed at evangelism.

No, really.

I know that the word "Evangelical" has come to be synonymous with a brand of Christianity that's particularly concerned with your salvation.  Which, if we're all honest with ourselves, comes off as simply judgmental to a large portion of the population.  And if judgmental at best and barely disguised evil at worst is the message Christianity is bringing across then we've failed.  Miserably.

Because the message Isaiah is brining us here, is one of hope.  He's speaking to a trampled, ostracized, conquered people.  I started off giving you just Isaiah 40:3-5 to make a point, but a more natural place to start might be with the beginning of the chapter:

Comfort, O comfort my people,
   says your God. 
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
   and cry to her
that she has served her term,
   that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
   double for all her sins. 

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord...

The idea that the Lord is coming isn't supposed to be about judgement in this case—it's more like last week's urge, need for someone to come and fix our broken world.  It's actually a promise that the Lord will come and that when it happens that trampled, ostracized, conquered people will be restored.

Centuries later, when that same people were trampled and conquered by the Romans and kept underfoot with the collusion of their own secular and religious authorities, a man named John came walking up out of the wilderness.  He was a wild man, very much like a street-corner preacher in a sandwich board, with one key difference.

People were listening.

We're talking about a time and a place where a trampled and conquered people yearned, no needed, the Lord to come and save them.  And so people were looking at John and wondering if he was the one who would save them.  Some were even saying that John was actually the prophet, Elijah, resurrected and come to save them from the Romans.

John was clearly a threat.

And so the authorities came and asked John directly, "Who do you think you are?"

And John said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness."  If poetry is saying the most you can with the fewest words, John was definitely a poet.  With that one sentence John managed to say two important things.  "I don't claim to be the Messiah who will come to overthrow the Romans," is the first thing.  The second thing is, "But He is coming.  You can count on that."

Yeah, that's right.  John was kind of awesome.  He said what was in his heart, despite the fact that it might make him dangerously unpopular in certain circles.  And you know what?  There's a word for someone who loves something against judgement.  So I'm gonna go ahead and say it:  John was kind of a geek.

More than that, though, the fact that the heart of what it means to be a geek has to do with rejection means that we have a unique ability to know what it's like to feel trampled and conquered.

And so, for me, this message of hope is especially powerful.

And that's why, if the rest of geek culture hasn't received the same message, I say that Christians like me have failed.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
120214

The scripture lessons for December 7th—Second Sunday in Advent Year B—are:
Isaiah 40:1-11—Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13—2 Peter 3:8-15a—Mark 1:1-8

Sworn to Protect a World...

This Sunday marks the beginning of the Christian year—the beginning of Advent.  For some people, it marks the beginning of the Christmas Season.  For others, that began the moment Santa Clause rode his float down 6th Avenue.  Or is when he makes the turn onto West 24th?  You get the point though—in many families you don't even consider putting out the Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving.  Of course, with advertisements for Black Friday sales and the way seasonal sections of grocery and department stores work, we've been seeing Christmas creeping in for months already.

For the record, when it comes to the church year, Advent and Christmas are not the same thing.  The Christmas Season actually begins on Christmas Day and runs up until Epiphany on January 6th.  For those of you counting, yes, that's 12 days!

So...  if Advent isn't all about "Away In A Manger" and "Go Tell It On The Mountain," what is it about?

Advent is more like, "Come, oh come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here..."  Advent is all about seeing all the stuff that's wrong with the world and yearning—no, needing—for someone to fix it.

Advent is like the words of the prophet Isaiah, speaking directly to God:

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
   so that the mountains would quake at your presence —
as when fire kindles brushwood
   and the fire causes water to boil —
to make your name known to your adversaries,
   so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

This is a familiar theme for geeks.  An oppressive monarch.  An evil empire.  A downtrodden people eager for a hero to come and save them—it's the starting point for nearly every hero journey I can think of, from the Chronicles of Narnia, to The Lord of the Rings, to Star Wars...  In fact, it's so familiar that it's tempting to blow right past it as I consider those words from Isaiah.

Because I don't know about you, but while I resonate strongly with the great desire for the ills of the world to be rectified when I read those words from Isaiah I find myself...  hesitant.  I mean, do we really want God to tear open the heavens, make landfall, and hit the ground running?

The truth is that just a fraction of that kind of power freaks the average human being out.  The Marvel Universe has always had a handle on this:  Spider-Man is a menace.  The Mutant Registration Act.  The whole Civil War storyline.  Superheroes have amazing powers that they use to save the world—and the world is terrified.

Sometimes that fear is legit (can you say Onslaught, boys and girls?), but more frequently it's unfounded.  Your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man feels his great responsibility.  The X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them.

And then, sometimes, the fear is less about danger and more about disrupting the status quo.  The gut-instinct fear reaction to the existence of girls who can walk through walls is less about protecting yourself than it is about protecting your stuff.  And it's less about protecting your stuff than it is about your mind balking at how her existence changes everything.  Never mind that she's a person, right?  Her parents are Carmen and Theresa.  She's Jewish and her grandfather Samuel was held in a Nazi concentration camp.  She has a name, Katherine Ann Pryde.

But most people call her "Kitty."

The point I'm trying to make is that we seem to be all to willing to cry out "help me!" as long as the people who answer the call are just like us.  We're all too willing to ask God to tear open the heavens and come down to earth until Jesus turns the tables on us—literally and figuratively.

The point I'm trying to make is that if we want to the world to change, we can't let that fear stop us.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
112514

The scripture lessons for November 30th—First Sunday in Advent Year B—are:
Isaiah 64:1-9—Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19—1 Corinthians 1:3-9—Mark 13:24-37

But I am the Chosen One!

In an earlier post a made a quick reference to Harry Potter, "...that kid forced to live in the closet under the stairs by his wicked aunt and uncle after the horrific murder of his parents who turns out to be The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One..." and made an even quicker reference to something that is at the heart of what it is to be a geek—namely being ostracized and rejected.  I think maybe that's one of the appeals of one of the stereotypical hero journeys, the kind where the little guy, the underdog, the powerless one forced to the margins of society turns out to be the one who's actually important.  In other words, we geeks can instantly relate to Harry being whaled on by Dudley Dursley and we all—well, I was going to say we all secretly wish for an owl to deliver us an invitation attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but I think most of us are actually out in the open on that one.  That's the other piece of being a geek—openly loving things that might get us pushed to the margins ourselves.

Jesus tells a story about the end of days, when we shall all be judged and separated out into two groups—the in crowd and the outsiders.  Only he used the metaphor of sheep and goats.  Of course, that's probably because he was talking to people in First Century Palestine.  But you get the point.  They guy in charge, a character Jesus calls "The Son of Man" comes to earth and separates us all out into two groups.  One group will be "in" and the other "out."  So the most important part of the story is learning what the measuring stick is that will decide whether you're in or out.

And in the story, the measuring stick is how the people treated the Son of Man during their lives.  The people who fed the Son of Man when he was hungry, gave him something to drink when he was thirsty, welcomed him when he was a stranger, clothed him when he was naked, took care of him when he was sick, and visited him in prison get to be part of the in crowd.  Everyone who refused to do those things is tossed out in the cold and dark.

Which all makes sense.  Except that both the "in" folk and the "out" folk are thoroughly confused.  "When did we do that?"  So the Son of Man explains, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."

Do you see what Jesus is doing there?  He's taking the marginalized people—the little guy, the underdog, the powerless ones—and he's saying that they are the most important!  It feels pretty good, doesn't it?  After all, who doesn't like Harry Potter?  Who doesn't want to be the Chosen One?

But here's the thing:  as is frequently the case, this story carries both hope and a challenge.  It's pretty easy to see the challenge that this story has for the privileged upper classes who's mantra of "I worked hard for this!" not only keeps them from feeding the hungry and taking care of the sick but also subtly implies that the sick and the hungry simply aren't working hard enough.  But there's a challenge here for the marginalized—and yes, I'm looking at us, fellow geeks.

You see, in my experience groups of marginalized people have a tendency to get hyper-focused on their own oppression.  The gay and lesbian community sometimes gets so caught up in their own struggles that they fail to support the struggles of trans folk—let alone other kinds of genderqueer people, for example.  Some furry communities get so marginalized that they become completely xenophobic, for another.

So the challenge for geeks (and the queer community and furries and whomever) in this story from Jesus is to recognize the Son of Man in each other, not just their own people.

What it comes down to is simply what I tell you every week.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
111814

The scripture lessons for November 23rd—Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A—are:
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24—Psalm 100—Ephesians 1:15-23—Matthew 25:31-46

For another blog entry that relates well to Matthew 25:31-46, click here!

Talent Tree

It has been a long hard road to get here—and I recognize that my journey is far from over—but the house is finally sold.  Our things have been successfully stored, no thanks to Merlin, by the way.  I finally have some time to spare for blogging again, so here we go!

I've been pondering the Parable of the Talents, and even I am almost surprised at how well it can be framed in geeky language.  If you're a language geek, you might be interested in the etymology of the word, "talent."  Originally, the word referred to a unit of money, so when Jesus begins a story with the setup, "...a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability," what he's talking about is silver.  In fact, when Jesus was speaking a talent of silver was about 130 pounds.  Can you imagine the kind of wealth the man in the story was tossing around?  A hundred and thirty, two hundred and sixty, six hundred and fifty pounds of silver!!  In any case, it was the parable of the talents—and its most common interpretation—that changed the meaning of the word "talent" from a unit of measurement to today's meaning of a natural ability or aptitude.  How cool is that?

The other thing that immediately popped into my head, of course, was the rpg version of "talents."  Those special, heroic abilities that you earn for your character through gameplay.  A new talent is a goal worth working for when you're gaming.  And for a good gamer, choosing a new talent is usually a carefully considered process.

That's when it hit me that the Parable of the Talents could be retold in gamer terms:

When the word ends and we have to answer for the way we've lived our lives, it'll be kind of like the end of a tabletop gaming session.  The GM decided to give out new Talents based on the quality of the RP and the combat skill of each of the players.  The GM gave the Rogue five talents, the Warrior received two, and the Mage received one.

And then the players all went home until it was time for the next week's session.

And the GM asked each of the players in turn what they decided to do with their talents?  The Rogue had done of a lot research, not only into how each Rogue talent interacts with each other, but also into how they might interact with each of the other party members.  The result was beautiful example of min-maxing for the sake of the party.  The Warrior decided to focus on her own damage output, linking together her Talents in a clever way that would allow her to solo foes greater than her level.  But the Mage hadn't chosen a new talent.  He was afraid of choosing the wrong one and came to the table unprepared.  And the GM was ticked and took away the Mage's one Talent and gave it to the Rogue.  "You can't play tonight.  Go home."

 The Parable of the Talents, you see, is kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The Mage would have been better off picking anything rather than coming to the table empty-handed.  But he was so afraid of making the GM angry by picking the wrong thing that he did nothing.  And that made the GM more angry than anything else could have!  It's better to be prepared poorly than completely unprepared.

What does it mean to be prepared though?  What Talents should we chose?  I believe that we can never go wrong choosing those Talents that align with the Rule of Love. Or put another way...

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
111114

The scripture lessons for November 16th—Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A—are:
Judges 4:1-7—Psalm 123—1 Thessalonians 5:1-11—Matthew 25:14-30

Uhhhhh... Hockety? Pockety?

I freely admit that The Geek Shall Inherit has already had its ups and downs.  Or rather its stops and starts.  I'm actually really happy with the epiphany I had, well, around Epiphany—it has been a great experience holding myself to weekly posts and to following the Revised Common Lectionary.  It's my dearest hope that I'll continue posting throughout the whole three year cycle that the lectionary follows before re-evaluating what I'm doing here.

Unfortunately, life sometimes gets in the way, and this is one of those times.  I am in the process of selling my house and the time has come for me to be packing and cleaning and doing yard work in preparation for the final appraisal of the house and—God willing and the creek don't rise—a closing date.  Not to mention moving out!

While I am accomplishing these things, the blog will be on a hiatus.  Unless the Spirit hits me especially hard, of course!

In the meantime, if you see Merlin wandering about, send him my way.  No matter how many times I sing Higitus Figitus, I just can't get a whole room into one suitcase...

I'll be back.
Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
052714

The Force will be with you, always.

I didn't set out to write two Obi-Wan Kenobi posts in a row, but I couldn't help but see the similarities between Luke Skywalker's experience of his beloved mentor and Jesus's promises in this week's portion of The Farewell Discourse:

[Jesus said:] "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever.  This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 

"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

The spirit of truth that lives within Luke Skywalker is The Force.  As Obi-Wan defines it, "It's an energy field created by all living things.  It surrounds us and penetrates us.  It binds the galaxy together."  And his promise to Luke?  "Remember, the Force will be with you, always."  The Advocate that Jesus promises will be with us forever is the Holy Spirit.  It is just as difficult to define or describe, but much like the Force, you know it when you feel it...

Now, Obi-Wan didn't promise not to leave Luke orphaned—but he did it anyway.  Let's face it, by the time Obi-Wan is struck down by Darth Vader (as I discussed in the previous post), Luke has experienced the death of way too many parental figures.  His mother died in child-birth, his father—as far as he knew, anyway—killed by Darth Vader.  He was raised by his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, who were killed by Imperial Stormtroopers masquerading as Sandpeople.  Old "Ben" Kenobi was Luke's last parental figure until he, too, was killed.   But Obi-Wan doesn't leave him orphaned.  His voice comes to Luke in key moments.  In others, Luke experiences Obi-Wan's full-bodied apparition.  He sends Luke to a new teacher—although I have never seen Yoda as a father figure for Luke.  Obi-Wan's ghost and Luke even have an extended heart-to-heart talk!  In fact, that talk feels to me like the first time Luke speaks with one of his elders on an equal footing—as an adult.

Now don't get me wrong, Obi-Wan Kenobi isn't meant to be Jesus any more than Darth Vader is meant to be Herod Antipas or Emperor Palpatine is meant to be Augustus or Titus.  But there are some strong parallels there, don't you think?

The Force will be with you, always.
Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh

The scripture lessons for May 25th—The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A—are:
Acts 17:22-31—Psalm 66:8-20—1 Peter 3:13-22—John 14:15-21

You can't win, Darth.

There aren't many martyrs in geek culture.  There are plenty of Christ figures, like the ones I wrote about here and here, but that's a slightly different thing.  There's an intentionality about the death of a Christ figure that isn't quite there with a martyr.  Being martyred is something that just happens to you.  It's a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing.  Or maybe it's fate.  Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote in a sermon that it's what happens "...when people get so wrapped up in living God’s life that they forget to protect themselves."

Consider the martyrdom of Stephen.  When things started going badly he was "filled with the Holy Spirit" and saw a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of the Glory of God before he was dragged off to be killed.  Then, when they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he died.

The closest geek culture reference I can think of is the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope.  He doesn't see visions of God, but he clearly has a strong belief that death is not the end.  "You can't win, Darth," he asserts, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."  It's not a perfect example, though.  Perhaps you could argue that this encounter between master and student was fated—but I still get the feeling that Obi-wan separated himself out from the others in order to seek Darth Vader out.  And as Barbara Brown Taylor also wrote about martyrdom, "I do not think you can seek it anymore than you can avoid it."

So why don't there seem to be any true martyrs in geek culture?  Well, I suspect that it's because of something I once identified as a great strength in geek culture.  As is frequently true, great strengths can also be weaknesses.  We can tell some truly epic stories by externalizing forces that we in the "real world" are forced to deal with internally.  If unbridled hatred or consumption become zombies, you don't end up with a Stephen preaching against the ways unbridled hatred and consumption are embedded in the social order.  You don't have the social order reacting violently to Stephen's preaching and stoning him to death.  You don't, in other words, end up with a martyr.  Instead of Stephen, you have Rick Grimes—and he either gets eaten by zombies, or he doesn't.

I believe that a lot of geek culture has to do with fantasizing about having control and power in a world where we have very little of either.  It's about wanting to be able to kill the zombie instead of getting kicked around by the unbridled hatred and consumption that is embedded in the current social order.  Just look at one of the most popular fantasy heroes of all time—that kid forced to live in the closet under the stairs by his wicked aunt and uncle after the horrific murder of his parents who turns out to be The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One—Harry Potter.  What geek hasn't felt downtrodden at some point or another in their lives?  Who hasn't secretly wanted to be The Chosen One?

Perhaps this is one place where Christianity has something important to say to geek culture.  The Christian tradition has redefined "winning."  We recognize martyrs as particularly faithful and good.  We see people like Stephen, who never raised a hand to defend himself and even prayed that God forgive the people who were in the process of killing him, not as a miserable failure, not as a loser, but as holy.  We believe that the last will be first and the first will be last.  We recognize ourselves as rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight.

You don't need to be the most powerful wizard in all of history to be The Chosen One.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
051314

The scripture lessons for May 18th—The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A—are:
Acts 7:55-60—Psalm 31:1-5,15-16—1 Peter 2:2-10—John 11:1-45

Why Do I Feel So Weakened?

Last week I was ill.  I don't know what I had, but it was preceded by exhaustion, moved into feeling absolutely gross for about 24 hours, and ended with yet more exhaustion.  I was worn out.  I felt like Mumm-ra after a battle with the Thundercats—little, shriveled up, and wanting nothing more than to lie down and hide from the world for a while.  So that's what I did.

Actual photo of Rev. Josh last week.

As I began doing the research for this week's sermon, I was surprised to see Kathryn Matthews Huey in one of my favorite theological resources for sermon writing—the United Church of Christ's "Sermon Seeds"—focusing on the lesson from Acts.  Mostly because it was so short that I can simply quote it here:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.  And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

~Acts 2:42-47

Kathryn Matthews Huey rightly points out that churches are still doing those first three things—devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching.  Fellowship.  Communion... or potlucks.  And prayer.  (I'm not even going to touch selling their positions and holding all things in common and making sure that nobody was in need—I suspect that's a different post for another time.)

What she says is missing is a sense of awe:

The "wonders and signs" may be passing us by, without our taking notice. One of the tasks of the preacher is to remind us, to turn our attention so that we might indeed stop in the midst of all that activity and take notice of the wonders and signs before us. Every church, in its own way, experiences wonders both large and small that merit our time and attention. But so often, the many activities of our life as a congregation get added to our busy calendars as more and more stress, rather than as something different, something qualitatively different from "ordinary daily activities": they are ministries. Do they feed us, or drain us? These early Christians, clearly, were fed by the things they did and the way they lived.

~Kathryn Matthews Huey

And then she goes on to point out that taking a break and refocusing—taking notice—can be a spiritual practice.  She even once served a church that took a break in January, abstaining from all meeting and activities that weren't for prayer, learning, or worship!

Which actually brings me back to Mumm-ra, believe it or not!  I've found him on top ten villain lists and in YouTube tribute videos.  And really, he wasn't any more deeper a character than Cobra Commander or more successful at defeating the heroes than Skeletor.  I honestly believe that his popularity stems from that sense of awe that Kathryn Matthews Huey is talking about.

There was something special about watching his sarcophagus open, seemingly of it's own accord, and see that little, shriveled up creature emerge and intone the invocation, "Ancient Spirits of Evil, transform this decayed form into MUMM-RA THE EVERLIVING!!"  There was something awe-full about watching him go through a Hulk-like transformation, cackling like a madman the whole time.

And we would cheer for the heroes to defeat Mumm-ra's powerful incarnation.  And they would.  And he would return to the depths of his pyramid, where he would shrivel and decay.  And he would back slowly into his sarcophagus, which would close of it's own accord.  And we knew that tomorrow afternoon that sarcophagus would open and he would emerge once more and intone that invocation...

The good news, of course, is that we don't need Ancient Spirits of Evil to experience that kind of awe.  Start a daily prayer practice.  Go to church on Sunday, or a synagogue on Saturday, or whatever weekly practice your Path espouses.  Observe a Sabbath.  Or at the very least, lie down and hide from the world for a while when you're ill!

Be good to each other,
even yourselves!
Rev. Josh
050614

The scripture lessons for May 6th—The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A—are:
Acts 2:42-47—Psalm 23—1 Peter 2:19-25—John 11:1-45

It's a spoof of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

This Sunday is one of those times that I step away from the Lectionary and do something a little different, because I like to observe Holy Hilarity Sunday the week after Easter.  According to The Joyful Noiseletter:

Many American churches are resurrecting an old Easter custom begun by the Greeks in the early centuries of Christianity-"Holy Humor Sunday" celebrations of Jesus' resurrection on the Sunday after Easter. 

For centuries in Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant countries, the week following Easter Sunday, including "Bright Sunday" (the Sunday after Easter), was observed by the faithful as "days of joy and laughter" with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. 

Churchgoers and pastors played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, told jokes, sang, and danced. 

The custom was rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead. "Risus paschalis - the Easter laugh," the early theologians called it.

I myself am all for it!  Well, maybe not drenching each other with water.  It's been a cold spring around here and my robe and suit are dry-clean only and...  Well, anyway, you get the point.  It's absolutely appropriate to get a little silly after all the seriousness of Lent.  Besides, the Bible is chock full of jokes and puns!

That part wasn't a joke.  The Bible really is one of the punniest pieces of literature around.  It's just that unless you read ancient forms of Hebrew and Greek that are no longer spoken, you'll just have to take my word for it.  Kind of like that early scene from The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon points at a board full of physics equations and says, "That part right there?  That's just a joke..."  I have it on good authority that it really is a joke of some sort—but I can't read it!

Adam, for example, is a pun on the word for mud, adamah.  It's kind of like if I made sculpted a ceramic man and named him "Clay."  Or take Paul's letter to Philemon.  In that letter, Paul talks about how he meets this runaway slave named "Onesimus," converts him to Christianity, and then sends him back to his Christian master, Philemon, along with the letter which is meant to convince Philemon to receive Onesimus as a beloved brother.  Part of the argument is, "Once he was useless to you, but now he is useful to both you and me..."  Get it?  No?  It's a spoof of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation!  No, wait...  that's Sheldon's joke equation.  The pun is that in Greek "Onesimus" means "useful."  Literally!

There are others, but I won't pull them out for you today.  Just keep in mind that it's not only ok to tell jokes or even laugh in church—it's actually divine!

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
042214

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved to read.  His parents, I think, were pleased that he loved to read!  Nevertheless, they would say things like "You don't need a book in restaurant, leave it in the car."  They insisted that he should try playing various sports, none of which he was particularly good at.  And they enrolled him in piano lessons, which he wasn't bad at.

Once day, the boy's piano teacher asked him what he was reading, and he told her that he was rereading The Chronicles of Narnia.  The boy explained that he had read it once before, when he was much younger, too young to understand everything he had read and so he was reading it again.  And his piano teacher looked at him and said,

"That story is about the Gospel you know."

The boy was confused.

"Think about it, Aslan sacrifices himself...  comes back to life..."

It hit the boy like a bolt from heaven.  The Chronicles of Narnia had many layers of meaning, some obvious, some more hidden...  and God was in one of those layers.

I am quite sure that The Chronicles of Narnia were among the first fantasy novels I ever read as a boy, and so I have no problem citing them as one of the reasons I became the huge geek that I am today.  But I'm even more sure that my deep interest in the ways theology and popular culture interact with each other in general—and the Geek theology of this project, specifically—can be traced to that brilliant epiphany brought to me by my piano teacher all those years ago.

While there a plethora of Christ figures to explore in fantasy, science fiction, and even horror—for the Easter story, Aslan is still my favorite:

The rising of the sun had made everything look so different — all colours and shadows were changed— that for a moment they didn't see the important thing.  Then they did.  The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no more Aslan.

In one of his many letters, Lewis refers to the Stone Table as Narnia's version of the tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were written.  But I can't help interrupting the narrative here to point out that there's another allusion here.  When Jesus breathed his last, the curtain in the temple that separates the Tabernacle—the place where the Glory of God resided in a very real sense—split from top to bottom.  It tore in two pieces.  From end to end.  And where is the Glory of God then, one wonders...

"Who's done it?" cried Susan.  "What does it mean?  Is it magic?"
"Yes!" said a great voice behind their backs.  "It is more magic."  They looked round.  There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"Oh, Aslan!" cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad.
"Aren't you dead then, dear Aslan?" said Lucy.
"Not now," said Aslan.
"You're not — not a —?" asked Susan in a shaky voice.  She couldn't bring herself to say the word ghost.  Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead.  The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her.
"Do I look it?" he said.
"Oh, you're real, you're real!  Oh Aslan!" cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses."

When the girls calm down, Susan asks Aslan what it all means.  But I'm not going to give you Aslan's answer here—that quote is easy to find and it even made it into the resurrection scene in the Walden Media film.  The point of theology is, indeed, to make meaning.  But sometimes in our struggle to make meaning we forget to pay attention to how we feel.  And Lewis painted a brilliant picture of how the Resurrection—and therefore Easter—should make us feel!

"Oh children," said the Lion, "I feel my strength coming back to me.  Oh, children, catch me if you can!"  He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail.  Then me made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table.  Laughing, though she didn't know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him.  Aslan leaped again.  A mad chase began.  Round and round the hill-top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge an beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs.  It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind.  And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun, the girls no longer felt the least tired or hungry or thirsty.
"And now," said Aslan presently, "to business.  I feel I am going to roar.  You had better put your fingers in your ears."

Happy Easter!
Be good to each other,
Have a good romp,
Rev. Josh
041514

The scripture lessons for April 6th—The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A—are:
Acts 10:34-43—Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24—Colossians 3:1-4—John 11:1-45

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy.  "It's you.  We shan't meet you there.  And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name.  You must learn to know me by that name.  This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Into Every Generation, There Is A Chosen One...

Although creating Christ figures is considered a literary technique, there have been innumerable examples in all kinds of story-telling including video games, graphic novels and comic books, movies and television.  But as I consider the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, the one that springs most easily to mind is none other than Buffy Anne Summers, aka Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Again, I'm going to assume that if you haven't hunted down the 1992 film or the juggernaut of a television series, you probably have no intention of doing so now.  But just in case, this is your half-hearted spoiler alert!

I believe that Buffy was intended to be a Christ figure from the very beginning of the television series.  After all, what else do you call a unique person with special powers specifically intended for overcoming evil, who is the subject of prophesies and ancient texts, who's existence is meant to be the bane of all things demonic?  But even if she doesn't strike you that way from the beginning, the finale of the 5th Season,"The Gift," wherein Buffy intentionally sacrifices herself to save the world, and the opening of the 6th Season, "Bargaining, Part One," which depicts her subsequent resurrection should get you there!

So what kind of a Christ figure is Buffy?  Well, first of all, there are lots of prophesies and ancient texts and about the Slayer and therefore many, many expectations—many of which Buffy completely ignores or outright defies.

"The Slayer does not walk in this world."
"I walk.  I talk.  I shop.  I sneeze.  I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back..."

And the way she does that reminds me of Jesus.  Buffy is constantly hearing about what the Slayer is supposed to be like and what the Slayer is supposed to do and how the Slayer is supposed to behave.  And her responses are always, underneath the delightful snark, "Well I am the Slayer and this is who I am..."  If you substitute the word "Messiah" for "Slayer" who does that remind you of?

And part of who Buffy proclaims herself to be, despite all her impressive powers, is human.  Part of that is trying to fit into high school, some of it is proclaiming things like "I walk.  I talk.  I shop.  I sneeze..."  But part if it is also in the way the responsibility of being the Slayer weighs so heavily on her shoulders.

"Do you think I chose to be like this?  Do you have any idea how lonely it is?  How dangerous?  I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or... God, even studying!  But I have to save the world.  Again."

There's something in that heaviness and the resolute nature with which Buffy carries it that reminds me of Jesus setting his face towards Jerusalem.  Like in last week's Gospel lesson when Jesus says, "Let's go to Judea again." And the disciples reply, "Teacher, the people there were just now trying to stone you, are you really going to go back there now?"  But they do go back there.  They go back there and Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.  So human and so powerful!

And both of those things, battling expectations with the reality of who Jesus really is and carrying the weight of his responsibilities in very human, resolute ways,  remind me of the lesson for this Sunday—Palm Sunday.

The Messiah is supposed to be a king, an earthly and powerful king cut from the same cloth as King David!  By this point in the story there are many people who are (rightly) convinced that Jesus is the Messiah.  And so when he enters Jerusalem, one might expect him to ride in on a valiant steed with an army at his back to drive the Romans out once and for all!  But Jesus is the Messiah and he chooses to show them just what kind of a Messiah he is—the kind that rides on a lowly donkey surrounded by a bunch of his friends.

On the other hand, according to Matthew, even this act of defying expectations is a part of Jesus's responsibility, "This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 'Tell the daughter of Zion, / Look, your king is coming to you, / humble, and mounted on a donkey, / and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'"  Of course, according to Matthew what happens next is a very Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of moment, where he goes into the Temple and absolutely cleans house!

But perhaps most powerfully, I hear an echo of Jesus marching inexorably to the cross and leaving behind his final teachings in the last words Buffy speaks in "The Gift."

"Dawn, listen to me.  Listen.  I love you.  I will always love you.  This is the work I have to do.  Tell Giles that ... tell Giles that I figured it out.  And ... and I'm okay.  And give my love to my friends.  You have to take care of them now.  You have to take care of each other.  You have to be strong.  Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it.  Be brave.  Live.  For me."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
040814

The scripture lessons for April 13th—Palm Sunday Year A—are:
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29—Matthew 21:1-11

From Draugr to Zombies

Every good geek knows that seeking the power to overcome death is a bad, bad idea.  Nothing says corruption and evil like seeking immortality or commanding a legion of walking corpses!  From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to Warcraft's Litch King, to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, to generic hordes of undead—we all know that death magic is nothing but bad, evil, bad!

I'm going to assume that if you haven't read the Harry Potter books or seen the films by now you probably aren't going to—but just in case I'm wrong, this is your half-baked spoiler alert!

The story of how Tom Riddle secured his own immortality as he rose to power and took on the name Lord Voldemort is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  He learned of the process from a professor during his time at Hogwarts:

"Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body.  Then, even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged.  But, of course, existence in such a form... few would want it, Tom, very few.  Death would be preferable." 

"How do you split your soul?" 

"Well, you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole.  Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature." 

"But how do you do it?" 

"By an act of evil—the supreme act of evil.  By committing murder.  Killing rips the soul apart.  The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: he would encase the torn portion—"

 As Hermione points out:

...the more I've read about them, the more horrible they seem, and the less I can believe that he actually made six.  It warns in this book how unstable you make the rest of your soul by ripping it, and that’s just by making one Horcrux!

Oh, and for those of you who have been counting, that was early enough that Hermione didn't know that he had, in fact, created seven! 

So if seeking power over death is a horrible, corrupting, evil thing to do, what's the deal with the passage from Ezekiel for Sunday?

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.  He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?"  I answered, "O Lord God, you know."  Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord." 

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.  I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.  Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."  I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Uh...  that sounds like death magic.  It sounds like Ezekiel just raised an army—no, a horde!—of undead minions!  That can't be good, can it?

Of course it wouldn't be good for Ezekiel to raise an unnatural horde of undead!  Luckily that's not what's happening here.  For one thing, there's an interesting linguistic thing happening here that simply doesn't translate into English.  In the Hebrew (in the Greek, too, for that matter) the words for "wind," "breath," and "spirit" are all the same word.  So we aren't talking about a soul-less horde of undead, but rather a full resurrection.  Even World of Warcraft differentiates between undeath and resurrection!  Besides, the opening of the passage, "The hand of the Lord came up on me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord..." probably means that Ezekiel is having a vision—a dream. I'd argue that this interpretation of what's happening there is supported by what comes next:

Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel.  They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.'  Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel...

It's a metaphor, people!

That's not to say that resurrection in itself is only a metaphor—like C.S. Lewis I have come to believe that the Jesus story, Resurrection included, is a powerful myth with the unlikely benefit of having actually happened.  But maybe that's another post for another day.  When I consider resurrection and what it all means to me, I find myself turning to Martin Bell's The Way Of The Wolf: The Gospel In New Images.  When he writes about the Resurrection, Bell claims that there was nothing very "spectacular or remarkable" about it:

God revealed himself to be the same God who created the heavens and the earth and called his creation good...  God raised Jesus from the dead to the end that we should be clear—once and for all—that there is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable.

This is an important revelation for all kinds of lovely and challenging reasons, but for the purpose of this post it means this—we don't have to be afraid of dying.  And as Bell points out elsewhere:

You must never fear dying, my little friend, because fear of dying leads one to all sorts of futile and demonic attempts to preserve life.  And life simply cannot be preserved.

In the end, isn't that what stories of zombies and vampires and litches are trying to tell us?  Wasn't that, ultimately, the root of Tom Riddle's sin?  He tore off pieces of his soul and named his evil army the "Death Eaters" because he was afraid of dying.  And fear of dying leads one to all sorts of futile and demonic attempts to preserve life.

And life simply cannot be preserved.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
040114

The scripture lessons for April 6th—The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A—are:
Ezekiel 37:1-14—Psalm 130—Romans 8:6-11—John 11:1-45

You know, I've never seen a sunrise... at least not the way you see them.

The Gospel lesson for Sunday is the story known simply as "The Man Born Blind."  Basically, what happens is this—Jesus miraculously heals the sight of a man who had been blind from birth on the Sabbath.  Now keep in mind that healing was work and it was forbidden to do work on the Sabbath—even God didn't work on the Sabbath!  It didn't take long for the man to end up in front of the religious authorities, who asked him how he came to be healed.  And he told them exactly what Jesus had done.  Some of them said that Jesus must not be from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.  But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided.  So they asked the blind man, "What do you say about him?  It was your eyes he opened."  He said, "He is a prophet."

But that's not the fun part.  There's a whole lot of disbelief going around.  They actually call in the man's parents to ask them if their son is, in fact, really their son.  And when they say "Yup, that's him, alright," the authorities as them how he cam to be able to see!  And his parents said what most parents would say in their position "He's a grown man, ask him!"

So the authorities haul the poor man back to them and he verbally owns them!  They started in on him:

"Give glory to God!  We know that this man is a sinner."

"I do not know whether he is a sinner.  One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

"What did he do to you?  How did he open your eyes?" 

"I have told you already, and you would not listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you also want to become his disciples?" 

"You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.  We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." 

"Here is an astonishing thing!  You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.  We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.  Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

That's the point where the authorities call him names and kick him out—a sure sign that they just lost the debate!  Later Jesus points out that the blind man sees the world better than the religious authorities do, so who's really blind in this story, hm?

That delicious irony—combined with the awesome cleverness of the man born blind—can't help but remind me of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  (Non-trekkies may recognize him as that guy from Reading Rainbow.  Trekkies might be interested in Geordi's page in this Star Trek wiki.)

La Forge was also born blind, but he had the advantage of living in the 24th century and so he was fitted with a VISOR (Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement) which allows him to see in the infrared and ultraviolet ranges—and beyond.  He's also very intelligent, and by the end of the series he'd risen to the rank of lieutenant commander and was the chief engineer of the Enterprise.

I don't know firsthand what it's like to be blind, but I absolutely adore the story of the man born blind talking circles around his "betters."  And I've always loved the way Lt Cdr La Forge was the blind man who could see so much more than his compatriots—not to mention the way LeVar Burton managed to play a man who could see so much more than his compatriots while wearing a costume that cut off 80% of his vision!

We would all do well to remember the words of Jesus, "If you were blind, you would not have sin.  But now that you say, 'We see', your sin remains."

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
032514

The scripture lessons for March 30th—The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A—are:
1 Samuel 16:1-13—Psalm 23—Ephesians 5:8-14—John 9:1-41

In praise of your efforts thus far...

The Gospel lesson for this Sunday may not be the most well known event in the life of Jesus, but it might be one of my favorite minor miracles—not to mention one of the longest recorded conversations of Jesus in the whole Bible!

Basically, the story is this: Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.  It was about noon.  And his disciples had gone off in search of food, leaving him there by himself with no means of drawing water from the well.

Now keep in mind that the Samaritans practiced a religion very similar to Judaism with a shared history—and they hated each other.  That's why Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan—to the minds of most good Jews, there was no such thing.   Keep in mind also that the Jewish purity laws have some strict rule regarding when and how a man can be in contact with a woman.  So it is absolutely strange when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."  And she says so!

But Jesus replies, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."  The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.  Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"

Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

What Jesus is describing does sound like magic, doesn't it?  It sounds like the Fairy's Fountains from the classic video game franchise, The Legend of Zelda.


The Fairy's Fountains are beautiful, serene sanctuaries—safe places of healing.

But best of all, if you have an empty bottle, you can catch a fairy and keep it with you.  If Link falls in battle, the fairy automatically revives him!


Ok, so it's not water that makes you never thirsty again, but it's still pretty handy!

Of course, Jesus was using water as a metaphor for a spiritual reality.  I'm pretty sure that poor woman will have to continue hauling water from that well every day.  But he revealed something much more important to her that day, and through her testimony, many more came to believe.

The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." 

...Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done."  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days.  And many more believed because of his word.  They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

Pretty cool huh?  But what makes it especially awesome is that thing I asked you to keep in mind—these were Samaritans, hated to the point of complete physical avoidance.  And Jesus is there teaching them about their salvation as well as the salvation of the Jews.

And on that note...
Be good to each other,
Rev Josh
031814

The scripture lessons for March 23rd—The Third Sunday of Lent Year A—are:
Exodus 17:1-7—Psalm 95—Romans 5:1-11—John 4:5-42

In War, Victory. In Peace, Vigilance. In Death, Sacrifice.

One of the things I love most about fantasy and science fiction and horror is those genres's ability to externalize forces that we in the "real world" are forced to deal with internally.  Zombies represent unrestricted consumption (Day of the Dead) or unbridled hatred (28 Days Later). The fear of losing our livelihoods to advances in technology become robots who want us dead (The Terminator, I, Robot). But I think my favorite example is from the fantasy setting of Dragon Age: Origins, where the Darkspawn are—quite simply—evil.

(I should pause here and give you a spoiler alert.  Later in the post I'm going to reveal an aspect of the Dragon Age world that isn't revealed in-game until just before the climax.  Don't worry, I'll put up another spoiler alert when the time comes...)

 I'll get back to Dragon Age: Origins in a moment.   But first a moment back in the "real world."  The Gospel lesson for Sunday is all about abstract, difficult to understand concepts like grace and being "born again."  And in the lesson, poor Nicodemus hears Jesus literally, "How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" So Jesus is forced to explain that it's a metaphor—he's talking about a spiritual rebirth, here.  Sometimes I hear Christians talk about being born again as if it were something you can accomplish yourself—as if it were something you could just set out to do.  Personally, I'm with Scott Black Johnston on this point:

"It is ironic that many Christians treat the question, 'Are you born again?' as if it involves making a decision for God.  Yet babies do not decide to be born…  Instead, God is the primary player in this passage."

This being born again thing, this spiritual transformation that Jesus is trying to describe to Nicodemus, is difficult to wrap your mind around.  But with Jesus the point is always how we relate to God, neighbor, and self—and the answer is always "love."   The transformation happens when you realize that you've won the spiritual lottery—that despite the fact that none of us really deserves it, God loves us anyway.  And when we let that fact transform us, we end up being good to each other.  Or as Jesus puts it, you can "...see the kingdom of God..."

Like I said, that's all really esoteric and difficult to wrap your mind around.  Which is why it's so refreshing to immerse yourself in a world like that of Dragon Age: Origins.  Darkspawn are the physical manifestation of the evil, or corruption, that occurred when a group of mages tried to get into heaven.  There is no gray area—Darkspawn are evil.  Period.  End of sentence.

And when you're talking about being born again, or transformed, you're talking about a literal transformation.  There is an order of knights dedicated to fighting the Darkspawn known as The Gray Wardens.  The Wardens are known for ignoring a person's gender, social status, race and even criminal background when they're recruiting (kind of sounds like grace, doesn't it?) because the only requirement is a willingness to attempt a transformative ritual known as The Joining.  The result is a literal, physical transformation that gives the Warden powers necessary for defeating the Darkspawn and their Archdemon leader at the price of becoming somewhat corrupted themselves.

In the end, it turns out that defeating the Archdemon requires a Warden because of that taint:  when an Archdemon is slain, its spirit jumps into the nearest available Darkspawn.  Because Darkspawn are soulless, the Archdemon can avoid being destroyed in this way.  A Warden, however, has a soul.  So if a Warden is nearest to the Archdemon when it dies, it is drawn to the corruption and both its spirit and the Warden are destroyed.

Every time I get to that point in the game, I can't help thinking, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

But as much fun as it is to slaughter Darkspawn, I have to return to the real world.  Luckily I know in my heart that God loves me, despite all my failings.  I try to let this transform me every day—even though I know that I have about as much choice in the matter as I did in being born.

God loves you,
Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
031114

The scripture lessons for March 16th—The Second Sunday of Lent Year A—are:
Genesis 12:1-4a—Psalm 121—Romans 4:1-5, 13-17—John 3:1-17