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Proper 22: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Tree:
Piety v. Covenant 4
Luke 17:5-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Lamentations 1:1-6; Lamentations 3:19-26; Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-9; Psalm 137
If you subscribe to the dogma that the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New, then the selection of readings for this Sunday might make some collective sense.
Jeremiah and the writer of Lamentations were chronicling the disastrous Babylonian conquest of 586 B.C.E., when the people were forced into exile. The Lamentations passages are used in Jewish liturgy to commemorate the destruction of the Temple by the Roman emperor Titus in 70 C.E.. In the Christian liturgical tradition, portions of Lamentations are read during Holy Week. Both interpretations have to do with a spiritual world that is transformed into an alien place overnight. In the Christian year, we are in the season that leads up to Advent, so it is appropriate to begin to look at exile and the promise of deliverance. The hymn, “O Come, O Come Immanuel and Ransom Captive Israel” is a favorite in Protestant churches for the Sundays in Advent, with its imagery of exile, and deliverance promised by the Messiah to come. Luke’s reminder about the power of even the least amount of faith in Jesus, and his continuing theme of service to others, keeps believers on track up to the end of the liturgical year; and of course, the writer of the second letter to Timothy urges continued courage in the struggle to spread the gospel of the Christ.
However, for 21st Century exiles from traditional Christianity, the Elves have truly outdone themselves with non sequiturs for Proper 22.
Luke’s “faith” on the level of a mustard seed that would uproot the mulberry tree and plant it in the ocean is a lame substitute for the much more powerful proverb that faith will move the mountain into the sea. (Mark 11:23). As noted in The Five Gospels, p. 362: “People in the ancient world thought the sky was held up by mountains that serve as pillars at the edge of the world. It is possible that moving mountains originally referred to the ability to change the contours of the world.” Emphasis mine.
Perhaps Luke used a different illustration for the proverb because by 95 C.E., rich, educated, Roman collaborators such as the ones Luke was writing for would have known that the sky was not held up by mountains at the edges of the world. Perhaps they thought those ancestors who invented the metaphor believed it literally. The scene conjured in the mind’s eye as the mulberry tree is hurled into the ocean probably produced a few laughs around the banquet room, as Luke’s guests reclined at dinner, trading intellectual witticisms, discussing the latest philosophical fad, and witnessing to their pious desire to serve rather than to be served.
Reminds me of a certain 21st Century world leader who finds it amusing that 9 million American children have no health insurance. “They have access to the best health care in the world,” he said the other day, with his crooked, ironic grin. “They can go to the emergency room!” Shades of Marie Antoinette, who is believed to have said – in total ignorance of the circumstances of the poor – “Well, if they have no bread, let them eat cake!”
The New Roman Empire – Pax Americana – is brought to you by the Blackwater Mercenaries, founded by Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal, major contributor to the ruling Republican Party, who enjoys “close ties” to Christian evangelical groups, and is a graduate of a Christian evangelical university. In his opening statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform October 2, Mr. Prince praised the dedication of his employees, who put themselves in harm’s way to protect America and America’s people. His carefully nuanced, lawyer-vetted statement contrasts with a hearing held in February of this year, when the wives of the four Blackwater contractors who in 2004 were ambushed, murdered, and their bodies burned and hung from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq, presented appalling testimony about the inner workings of this organization that only wants to serve the cause of freedom:
In the case of Blackwater, the people making critical decisions are
those in corporate America, whose focus is often on cutting costs and
making a profit. . . . Blackwater gets paid for the number of warm
bodies it can put on the ground in certain locations throughout the
world. If some are killed, it replaces them at a moment’s
notice. What Blackwater fails to realize is that the commodity it
trades in is human life. Testimony, February 7,
2007.
Mr. Prince and the economic, social, and political systems that support Blackwater and other outsourced military proxies have sold out to the theology of empire: Piety, War, Victory, Peace. It is a false theology on several levels, but perhaps the most egregious in the web of lies is that Piety, War, Victory leads only to more Piety, War, Victory, and never peace.
Participants in the theology of empire include all branches of the U.S. Government: Executive, Legislative, Judicial; the media; religious organizations; corporations; and individual citizens worldwide, who cannot, will not, dare not, and do not pay attention. These supporters and collaborators of Empire, are the slaves in Luke’s pious example, concentrating on the etiquette of seating and service, dinner and entertainment, instead of the radical abandonment of self-interest taught by Jesus. Luke is right. Such “faith” is truly the size of a mustard seed, and the joke is it doesn’t come close to throwing the mulberry tree into the ocean, let alone changing the contours of this world.
When an interventionist God resides in the Temple and not as the spirit of covenant with justice-compassion in the heart, the result is alienation, powerlessness, and a shallow “belief” in impossibility.
To paraphrase the desolation of true exile in Psalm 137, let us lean our guitars against the wall, and throw ourselves down on the banks of the Potomac River at the watergate amphitheater across from the Pentagon, and weep. How can we possibly preach the Lord’s distributive justice-compassion in a land where proxy wars are fought off-budget by “Christian” soldiers like Erik Prince?
Prophets – such as Habakkuk and the writer of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah himself – not only believed, they knew that God would act in real time to return the people to their land, and restore God’s justice-compassion.
“Do not fret because of the wicked: . . . Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday.” Psalm 37:1-9.
Even in the midst of his unspeakable grief over the loss of Jerusalem, the writer of Lamentations trusts that God will make things right in the end. Remember that Jeremiah redeemed the field at Anathoth, and agreed to hold it until the proper owners returned. [last week’s blog] There is hope: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases . . . the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3:19-26.
That level of trust is an order of magnitude greater than Luke’s “bibbety bobbety boo” that works whether you believe it or not. The kind of faith Jesus actually taught is trust in the power of choosing to participate in God’s Kingdom of distributive justice-compassion, which changes the very contours of the world – or, in 21st century language, shifts the paradigm. The paradigm shift Jesus spoke of most often is the radical abandonment of self-interest individually, collectively, socially, politically, globally.
“Covenant” does not mean passive waiting for Godot. “Covenant” means active partnership in the ongoing work of distributive justice-compassion. “Covenant” means a never-ending reclaiming of spirit from the ease of complicity with the powers that seem to be. The writer of 2 Timothy, believe it or not, holds a clue in the cherry-picked verses for this Sunday: “. . . for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love . . .” (2 Tim. 1:7).
“How Long . . . shall I cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” the prophet complains – and God answers: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time . . . .” Habakkuk 2:2-3.