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