Imagos Dei

This week's scripture readings in Numbers had some troubling accounts. The earth swallowed up some dissenters, there was fire from heaven, God threatened to disown and/or destroy the Israelites several times. As I was reading one of these more "angry" passages this week, I remembered something from a book that I read this summer. 

The book is Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God by Lauren Winner. Early on in the book she offers “A Short Note on Gender and Language for God,” where Winner challenges the reader to use either non-gendered or female pronouns for God - even for a short time - arguing that the he/him pronouns influence our picture of God and overly connect God to the masculine. The biblical foundation for the feminine God can be found when God compares Godself to a mother, a laboring woman, a hen and a midwife and there are plenty of non-gendered self identifiers: a rock, a bird, cloth, flame and a gate, to name a few. She issues a warning with the she/her challenge - that we shouldn't just use feminine pronouns when God seems nurturing and masculine pronouns when God seems warlike. Replace them all and see how it feels; how does it shape the way we imagine God.

As I was thinking about this in respect to the Numbers reading, I thought it might be nice to listen to an audio version of the Bible read by a woman. So I searched for one. There are no complete audio Bibles read by women. I couldn't believe it! There is an app called Courage for Life that has a large portion of the Bible available in female voices, but they haven't done Numbers yet. Another project by a woman named Shirley Banks is trying to crowd source a female voiced audio book version of the Bible. There are only 12 completed books on her website. 

Since I couldn't hear the book of Numbers read in a female voice, I thought it might help to pick a modern image of God from one of the many film portrayals and think of that actor/actress speaking every time God comes on the scene. When I googled film portrayals of God, I found pictures of Octavia Spencer, Alanis Morrisette, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, George Burns, and even Will Farrell. I was also reminded of the Oracle in the film the Matrix portrayed by Gloria Foster. I watched a few clips of these different expressions of God and then went back to the text.

It was surprisingly helpful to read God's voice as a woman. Especially a grandma. It reminded me of my own Grandma Billie, my mom's grandmother who would somewhat playfully swat my backside and say "help your mother" when I needed a little prodding to do the right thing. I realized that the angry male voice was terrifying to me, but the angry old female voice was somewhat comforting and had more of a right to be angry. 

Just try it with the following passage. Imagine your favorite grandma - maybe your own or maybe a TV or film grandma - a feisty one works best for this text. Got her in mind? Ok, now read these verses:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather before me seventy men who are recognized as elders and leaders of Israel. Bring them to the Tabernacle to stand there with you. I will come down and talk to you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone.
 “And say to the people, ‘Purify yourselves, for tomorrow you will have meat to eat. You were whining, and the Lord heard you when you cried, “Oh, for some meat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. And it won’t be for just a day or two, or for five or ten or even twenty. You will eat it for a whole month until you gag and are sick of it. For you have rejected the Lord, who is here among you, and you have whined to him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”
But Moses responded to the Lord, “There are 600,000 foot soldiers here with me, and yet you say, ‘I will give them meat for a whole month!’ Even if we butchered all our flocks and herds, would that satisfy them? Even if we caught all the fish in the sea, would that be enough?”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Has my arm lost its power? Now you will see whether or not my word comes true!”

In my journey to find the best on screen portrayals of God, I came upon clips from a show I had never heard of: Joan of Arcadia. After asking around, several friends said that they thoroughly enjoyed it. It ran for 45 episodes back in the early 2000s and during its run, God appears to Joan as a Little Girl, Old Lady, Dog Walker, Cute Guy, Goth Kid, Twin Girl, Chess Player, Mime, Naval Officer, Housewife, Businessman, Homeless Man, Sidewalk Vendor, Mascot, Street Guitarist, Balloon Sculptor, Majorette, Rich Woman, Loner Loser Kid, Bad Stand-Up Comedian, and an East Indian Sunglasses Salesman - just to name a few!

I watched a few clips and most of the first episode online, and I felt comforted and challenged by this idea of God appearing to this teenage girl in all of these normal people. After watching this montage put to music, I found myself wondering how each of these Imago Dei's voices I could hear speaking scripture to me. And how many times I miss God speaking to me because God comes to me in unexpected ways. 

In the beginning, God said these words to Godself, "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us." Every person we meet, every person who has ever lived, has been made in God's Image. But more than that, it is only when we learn to hear God in every voice together - the unison of all of the images and all of the metaphors - the fullness of God! that we begin to get a glimpse of who God really is. And a glimpse is all we get, even with all of creation singing its chorus together.

So I will keep listening with different voices as I read through the Bible this year. Maybe today, I will hear the voice of my friend's little girl, and tomorrow the voice of Vito, the karaoke singing senior citizen who lives in my building. A chorus of voices in unison speaking truth to me. All of it helping me to enter the Presence and helping me to be present to those Imagos Dei I encounter each day.

Food for the World

This week as I was reading through Leviticus, it struck me how much God was talking about washing. In a keyword search for the following words: bathe, wash, and clean, Leviticus was by far the front runner in the use of these words. So I guess that was on my mind when I went to prepare dinner on Friday.

I cook lunch and dinner for around 150 people every Friday in our commercial kitchen here at JPUSA with a team of about 3-4 others. Some of the tasks require more skill than others, and some tasks are downright tedious. One of the most tedious tasks is washing potatoes.
I volunteered to wash them this time around since I had escaped this task the last time. 

Everyone else was busy with other prep, so I was alone with 40 lbs of potatoes at the sink. As I started to wash, I was reminded of the Leviticus accounts of cleaning. I asked God to help me make any connections that the Spirit was trying to show me.

Why are you washing these potatoes? The question came to me. I am washing them so that they can be clean. That was the simple answer. I am constantly thinking of movies and TV connections, so the scene of Dorothy and her friends getting washed up to be presented to the Wizard came to mind. They went through an elaborate cleaning and beautifying process to be presentable to this Great and Powerful being they were trying to reach. I liked that picture, but it seemed incomplete and the metaphor totally broke down because the Wizard turns out to be a fraud and is demanding, etc.

So, I kept scrubbing potatoes and listening to the Spirit and the question came to me again: Why are you washing these potatoes? The simple answer came to me: so that they can be eaten. Did you know that the skin of the potato has the most nutrients? Leaving the skin on makes the potatoes much more nourishing. This reminded me of Jesus's words in John 6:51, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

For the life of the world. This is the reason that God is making for Godself a people in the wilderness - so that they would be an example to the world of how to come near to God. God was cleansing and setting apart a people that would act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. 

This is still why people are called to be God's own. So that we can be food for the world. We are being cleaned and set apart so that we can bring the nourishment of God to those who have yet to experience it. 

On their website, the organization Bread for the World states their purpose as this: "As followers of Christ, we seek to express and embody God’s reconciling love at all times and in all places. Throughout the Scriptures, God speaks of our purpose to rebuild, restore and renew all that is broken (Isaiah 61). We work to end the brokenness of hunger and poverty in our communities, in our country, and around the world. We partner in God’s work to remove the barriers that impede the flourishing God intended for all people."

In order for Jesus to become the living bread, He had to die. And He told us that we have to die too. Over and over again. In all four gospels, we find the words, "whoever loses their life will find it." The synoptic gospels all have the words, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." We are called to die daily to identify with Jesus. 

This death isn't for our own sake. Just as Jesus died willingly to become the living bread and the cleansing blood for us, He calls us to do the same so that we can spread this "good infection" (as C.S. Lewis calls it) to the rest of the world. 

In his daily devotional, Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen writes, "When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words 'This is the Body of Christ,' we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world."

This is why resurrection is so important. Not just to signify that we will live forever in heaven someday with God, but that we can die each day and be reborn each morning with new mercies given to us by our faithful, steadfast God. In the book of John, just before Jesus tells His disciples that they have to give up their life in order to find it, He says these words, "unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it will only be a seed. If it dies, it will give much grain."A seed dies, produces fruit that has usually many seeds in it, and then those seeds can die and produce more fruit and the cycle goes on and on. 

Several years ago, Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia created a video to promote railway safety called "Dumb Ways to Die." It became a viral hit and produced a spin-off game that is now in its third iteration. As Christians, we should be all playing a game every day called "Good Ways to Die." Let me explain. If we are to take up our cross daily, that means to find ways to die each day. Some of these include denying our self by giving preferential treatment to others or by fasting. Another way was reinforced in our sermon at Uptown Church yesterday: forgive! We can die to our need to be understood. We die to the sinful ways of life that are destroying us. 

Mother Teresa has a beautiful poem that illustrates these good ways to die:

“Deliver me, O Jesus:
From the desire of being esteemed
From the desire of being loved
From the desire of being honored
From the desire of being praised
From the desire of being preferred to others
From the desire of being consulted
From the desire of being approved
From the desire of being popular.

Deliver me, O Jesus:

From the fear of being humiliated
From the fear of being despised
From the fear of being rebuked
From the fear of being slandered
From the fear of being forgotten
From the fear of being wronged
From the fear of being treated unfairly
From the fear of being suspected

And, Jesus, grant me the grace
To desire that others might be more loved than I
That others might be more esteemed than I
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I decrease
That others may be chosen and I set aside
That others may be preferred to me in everything
That others may become holier than I, provided that I, too, become as holy as I can.”

God isn't calling us to be doormats, God is calling us to live a life hidden with Christ in God's presence. We can suffer these deaths because we know who we are and Whose we are. We read in Colossians 3: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." This secure position and right relationship give us the ability to die in these ways so that God can be revealed to the world. 

In Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech the night before he died, he said these words, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life - longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will." 

In order to follow Jesus, we have to be willing to die in order to become food for the world. We have to say to God as He said, "not my will, but Your will be done."

Little Drummer Boy

This past Sunday, we were privileged to be at the Bloomington Catholic Worker in Bloomington, Indiana. Matt prepared a wonderful worship service for us to share which included several of the lectionary readings for the week. He read them each twice slowly with silence in between the readings. I invite you to read them in the same way:
 

Micah 6:6-8
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

 

1 Corinthians 1:26-31
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 

 

Matthew 5:1-12
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

 

As I sat in silence, the image and the song of the Little Drummer Boy came vividly to mind. I have always loved this song and I can't ever sing through it without crying. I was reminded of the TV special that was on when I was a kid. It was TERRIFYING! It begins with the "little drummer boy" playing with his animal friends in the desert. The narrator tells us several times through the 30-minute special that he hates people, all people. Within minutes, the boy is kidnapped by two men who want to use him and his performing animals to make money. We are told in a flashback that his farm was burned down and he escaped while his parents perished - which is the reason he hates people. 

 I think it was the wording in Micah that made the connection for me. The asking how to come before the Lord and what to bring made me think of that one with "no gift to bring that's fit to give our king." 

Then as we moved on to the 1 Corinthians passage, I already had this picture and so it was reinforced with the weak, low and despised being chosen. Also, the "not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth" phrase resonated with this little drummer boy image - especially the one in the TV special. 

As I listened to the Beatitudes, those beautiful familiar blessings, they also had new meaning in the context of this simple children's song. I hadn't seen the TV special in years, but I had a vague memory of the boy being poor, orphaned and kidnapped. He was poor in spirit and mourning and meek and hungering for things to be made right. 

Since I hadn't seen it in decades, I decided to watch it when I got home. It was definitely just as scary as I remembered it and also didn't really stand the test of time in respect to how some of the Middle Eastern characters are portrayed, but there were a few pleasant surprises. The transformation of the main character who learns to give up his hate in the presence of his Savior for one. But the most surprising was the last sentence in the show as the music swells and the "camera" pulls back from the manger scene to the star overhead: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."