The Successful, Short, Sinner/Saint Son of Abraham

Bless me, Blogger, for I have sinned. It has been sixteen days since my last blog post. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to come up with stuff to write about on a consistent basis. That's a problem for me, since I desperately want to be known as a writer.

I think I figured that out about myself pretty early on. My first creative writing assignment (at least the one I canonize as first in my memory) was a short story, a wildly meta fantasy in which the protagonist (whose name was, most likely, "Dave"--or perhaps "Danny," which as a kid I considered an objectively better name than "Dave" and thus a better name for myself) was soooo much smarter than his peers that he kept being advanced into later grades. Eventually his precociousness took him to high school where he could no longer reach the handle to his locker, and he returned to school among the hoi polloi of his age-appropriate class. Poor Dave/Daniel: the one thing he lacked on his rocket to success was a growth spurt.

I was as proud of that story as I was of my presumed advanced intelligence. I wrote songs, short stories, book reviews--you name it--all before adolescence. Even as I shifted my self-concept to "musician," I kept writing. I was proud of the essays I wrote for my college applications, proud of the essays I wrote in my literature class to stave off failure, proud of the one-liners I'd come up with on the fly to defy my teacher and entertain my French class. I bragged about my wit and mastery of language during a parent-teacher conference, to which my eighth-grade Basic English teacher responded, "Well, I suppose you have to be clever when you're small."

Ouch. In the narrative arc of the hero's journey, this moment might be considered my passage through the first threshold, "which is crossed in such a way that it appears to be death."

That's really the way it works, though, isn't it? Our fantasies about ourselves (which likely have some base in reality) clash with the more common perceptions of us among our peers: "I am smart," despite the fact that I had not qualified for advanced English and was stuck in a remedial English course with an insensitive teacher; "I am known as witty," despite the more immediately obvious designator for me as "small."

Today, for the purposes of feeding this blog and my own ego, I find myself identifying with another short but otherwise impressive fellow, Zacchaeus. A tax collector in first-century Palestine, he gets nine verses in Luke's Gospel--not enough to really know him; just enough to get a sense of him. But we get quite a sense of him, because in meeting Zacchaeus we once again encounter Jesus.

Jesus always drew a crowd, and Luke 19 is no different. Everyone in Jericho wanted to get a good look at him, including Zacchaeus. We learn two things about Zac right off the bat:

1. He's the chief tax collector.
2. He's rich.

So in matters of wealth and accomplishment, he's a big deal. Bully for him. But we very quickly learn one more detail:

3. He's short--so short "he could not see over the crowd."

I imagine the citizens of Jericho begrudgingly paying their taxes to Zac and then consoling themselves by ridiculing him for being tiny. Zac has, conceivably, a Napoleon complex, aggressively and myopically chasing success as a way of compensating for being small. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that Napoleon had a Zacchaeus complex. Maybe I have a Zacchaeus complex. Maybe all of us "fun-size" (to borrow a term from my friends the Heuertzes) humor the taller among us with reaches that exceed our grasp.

Anyway, Zac didn't get rich and accomplished by giving up, so he climbs a tree, at which point Jesus sees him and invites himself over to Zac's house for dinner. This audacious act by Jericho's newest big thing must frustrate the townspeople. Wee Zac comes out on top again. To quote the band Midnight Oil: "The rich get richer, the poor get the picture. The bombs never hit you when you're down so low." So for the sake of posterity Zac's neighbors give us another description of who Zac is:

4. He's a lowdown sinner.

But Jesus knows there's more to Zac than what his neighbors think; there's even more to Zac than what Zac thinks. In a move that nobody saw coming, Zac offers restitution for his unjust (though not illegal) practices in collecting taxes, in keeping with the commands of Torah. Beyond that, he publicly pledges half his wealth to the poor folks in Jericho, again honoring the spirit of Torah. This is so out of keeping with who Zac knows himself to be, who the townspeople know Zac to be, that it can only be thought of as a miracle. But in the eyes of Jesus, this miraculous Zac has simply returned to normal, because Jesus knows a fifth thing about Zac:

5. He's a child of Abraham.

Zac is a child of Abraham just like all his neighbors, which means he is a beneficiary of the promises of God, a member of a covenant community that, according to God its head, takes care of the poor and treats one another justly. The children of Abraham, the scriptures tell us, love God and love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus tells us that these two rules sum up all of Torah. So this is who Zac is, who his neighbors are--or, more accurately, who they would be if they lived like they were born to live.

Jesus doesn't demand that we be something other than what we are--he didn't lay hands on Zac and make him tall; he didn't take his ill-gotten gains from him by force or expel him from the covenant community for violating usury laws in Torah. Jesus called it as he saw it, and he saw more clearly than anyone what needed to happen and indeed what had happened for Zac:

6. He's saved.

Today, then, as Advent begins, let us wait together with joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who will deliver us from the prisons of our reputations and the cells of our self-concepts, and restore us to our original identity as children of a loving God--with all that entails for us, and all that demands of us.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Innovation, Outering & Equilibrium

Any innovation threatens the equilibrium of existing organization. In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so that they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses. When one is found, it is assigned to a group for neutralizing and immunizing treatment. . . . No new idea ever starts from within a big operation. It must assail the organization from outside, through some small but competing organization. In the same way, the outering or extension of our bodies and senses in a "new invention" compels the whole of our bodies and senses to shift into new positions in order to maintain equilibrium. A new "closure" is effected in all our organs and senses, both private and public, by any new invention. Sight and sound assume new postures, as do all the other faculties. (Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media)

I could, I suppose, draw comparisons between this observation by McLuhan about the politics of innovation and Jesus' observation that "only in their own towns, among their relatives and in their own homes are prophets without honor" (Mark 6:4 TNIV)--but given my recent effusion over McLuhan here and elsewhere, that would probably cause some people to worry that I'd joined a cult. Here, actually, I'd like to argue that what McLuhan sees as a pitiable reaction against innovation is actually a constructive approach.

If sustainability is a reasonable goal for organisms and institutions, which I think it is, then equilibrium--a steady stability that fosters harmony and even predictability--is a reasonable value. That value is of course held in tension with what I think is also a reasonable value: innovation--the impulse to change our circumstances for the better. Sustainability implies an ongoing flourishing even as the environment we inhabit changes, which almost demands innovation even as it seeks equilibrium.

So then, what do we do when innovation and equilibrium, as competing values, clash? We can do a couple of things:

1. We can cordon off the innovative impulse, setting up the lab McLuhan suggests as a way of filtering potential changes until they are rendered reasonably innocuous--not to mention isolating the innovators who might otherwise get their peers riled up about the need to change something right away.

2. We can send innovators away, either temporarily or permanently, so that their tinkering with the status quo doesn't mess anything up.

It's worth noting that both of these are options for the innovator as well. Sarah Palin, supposedly, has left government in order to change government from the outside. Barack Obama, presumably, has charged any number of people in his administration to change the financial and industrial infrastructures of U.S. society. In both cases, the desired outcome is equilibrium, the promotion of the general welfare and the securing of blessings of liberty. Equilibrium + innovation = sustainability.

Most of innovation, at least in media as defined by McLuhan, exists in this notion of "outering," whereby we deputize wheels for the functions of our feet, television for the function of our eyes, newspapers for the functions of our ears and, he foreshadows, the Internet for the functions of our central nervous system. We are actively outsourcing our intellects and sense perception; we are persistently employing external hard drives for all our information. We are actively outering.

The hidden notion in McLuhan's comment above is that we find being acted upon easier to manage than acting ourselves. It's better, for an example from my industry, publishing, to wait for Amazon or Google to force the issue of digital publishing than to actively and unilaterally pursue a digital publishing program. But we are always, arguably, "innering" as well--observing our changing environment, reflecting on its significance for us, calculating an appropriate response that will lead us not into perplexity but deliver us to equilibrium. So, like seemingly everything these days, we're not talking about things but processes: even equilibrium is not static by dynamic.

Suffering for Sufjan

I've bought two ringtones in my life. One was as cool a sappy ringtone as I could think of to alert me to incoming calls from my wife: "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. (Her ringtone for me, by contrast, is the lilting voice of Lionel Richie asking "Hello--is it me you're looking for?") The other, I'm proud to say, is from an obscure song by Sufjan Stevens, which is tagged to announce incoming calls from everybody else.

My fondness-bordering-on-fanatical-obsession for Sufjan is well documented here and elsewhere. But I happened on this ringtone by happy accident--searching with my wife for ringtones based on Beatles songs. Sufjan contributed a quirky recording of Ringo Starr's "What Goes On" to a collection of underground artists giving tribute to the fortieth anniversary of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album. Lined up against the original, a straight-up Colonel Parker Memphis-rock standard, Sufjan's cover is virtually unrecognizable--which is pretty impressive, to be honest.

So yesterday I took the afternoon off to accommodate a whole host of errands, the first of which was donating blood, for which I was richly rewarded with cookies, Diet Coke, a pint of ice cream, two travel mugs, a thermos, a travel case and, presumably, a partridge in a pear tree. My cell phone (which was supposed to be turned off, incidentally) started ringing, and my phlebotomist and all her phlebotomizing friends and clients started laughing.

Apparently Sufjan is an acquired taste. I felt just a little like Peter the disciple of Jesus in the courtyard of the temple as Jesus stood accused inside, or Peter the apostle among the circumcision group as Paul the apostle advocated for the uncircumcised: suddenly I had to decide if I would defend my conviction that Sufjan is among the greatest musicians of our generation, or if I would join the mocking chorus and salvage my reputation at Sufjan's expense.

I leaped to Sufjan's defense, I'm simultaneously proud and embarrassed to say. I did so as much to reinforce my carefully cultivated reputation as a musical savant as I did to introduce this new audience to the joy of Sufjan. But at least I stood up for something; that's never a given.

I wonder occasionally how I would have done in the courtyard of the temple had a little girl accused me of fraternizing with Jesus. I wonder less often how I would have done if my friend the advocate of the Gentiles were being derided by the circumcision group in my presence. But they're both legitimate exercises, I think: who I'm willing to suffer for is a good indicator of who I can legitimately call my friend. I'm reminded of a song by Mark Heard:

What kind of a friend could pull a knife
When it's him or you and his kids need shoes?
What kind of a friend would do you in
When the bomb goes off and the shelter's his?
What kind of friends do friends become
When the musical chairs get down to one?
What kind of friend could I become?
What kind of friend am I?

(WWJWMTTHTL) Where Would Jesus Want Me to Take Him to Lunch?

I have a new phone which is also my new day-planner, because hey, I'm no Luddite. But I am a bit slow on the uptake. In my first week with the new phone I very nearly broke my Bluetooth (the yellow ones are just fine, thanks) and apparently did break the Internet. Sorry about that.

I'm all up and running now, but I'm still getting used to one of the phone's features: when you type something (anything, really), it offers to complete the word for you. Microsoft Word has a similar function, but we who work in the publishing industry usually disable such options because we so regularly spell such arcane and high-falutin' words. I've chosen to keep the feature on my PDA phone. but like I say, I'm still getting used to it.

Anyway, today I made an appointment to have lunch with my friend and coworker Jeff. I started keying my appointment into my PDA phone, somewhat disinterstedly I will freely admit, and then realized that my lunch with Jeff had become "lunch with Jesus." Well that can't be right.

I mean, no disrespect, Jeff, but I think it would be a different lunch entirely. I don't know where I would take him; the default restaurant of choice at my office is a barbecue pork joint (Uncle Bub's--no trip to Westmont, Illinois, is complete without a visit), but Jesus was Jewish, so pork seems inappropriate.

And then I remembered an ad campaign from a few years back when Christian environmentalists asked the question "What would Jesus Drive?" They were cashing in (a little late, I'm afraid) on the cultural renaissance of the nineteenth-century pious question "What would Jesus do?" made famous in the novel In His Steps and soon surely to make an appearance on VH1's undoubtedly planned "I Love the 90s." But it's a legitimate question: what would Jesus drive? And if it's not a Hyundai Elantra GT tracking an admittedly unsatisfactory number of miles per gallon, how could I comfortably buckle Jesus into the passenger seat to get us to lunch?

Of course there are restaurants within walking distance of my office, but most of them are national chains, and I get the impression from some of my friends who are concerned with economic justice that taking Jesus to a chain restaurant would be tantamount to cooking him up a pork sandwich on the grill of a Hummer H3. And then of course we'd have to walk right past the homeless guy with the bicycle camped out in the parking lot of the grocery store, and I can just picture Jesus talking about Samaritans and kids feeding five thousand people with a little bread and a few fish.

So I erased Jesus and keyed in the word "Jeff." And we're going to the pork place. Pray for me.

Incarnation . . . Immanuel

Jesus is our childhood's pattern;
day by day, like us he grew;
he was little, weak, and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew;
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.
--Cecil Frances Alexander “Once in Royal David’s City,” verse 3

We all live off his generous bounty,
gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This endless knowing and understanding—
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day.
--John 1:16-18, The Message

And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that chlid so dear and gentle
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.
--Cecil Frances Alexander “Once in Royal David’s City,” verse 4

The Gospel According to Mary, Part Two: The Hero's Journey

I'm not so classy as to actually keep current with the Advent calendar, so you'll notice that I missed the first Sunday of Advent with my post about the gospel according to Mary. Better late than never, I suppose. Today's post introduces the concept of the hero's journey and begins to explore how Mary's experience rivals the great epics of history. Read with care . . .

* * *

The hero’s journey is a mythic template made popular by Joseph Campbell in his book from the mid-twentieth century The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell’s analysis of classical myth structures was influential during the writing of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings, and served as a veritable style guide for George Lucas as he wrote the epic Star Wars. But Campbell’s research reaches not only forward but far backward; the hero’s journey can be consistently applied with only minor adjustments to all sorts of myths from all sorts of cultures. It can even be seen in the stories of major characters in the Bible. Campbell had the sheer moxie to apply the hero’s journey to Jesus Christ; I’m inclined to do the same with his mother.

The hero’s journey involves several stages broadly interpreted:

v Normal life is interrupted by
v a herald, whose call to adventure is met by
v refusal of the call, which elicits
v supernatural aid. Our hero then must pass through
v the first threshold, which is crossed in such a way that it
v appears to be death. Our hero must then
v endure trials before encountering
v the divine ruler of the world in
v the shadow of death, which must be endured. Our hero is then given
v the ultimate boon, and
v ordered to return.
v Life is now free but different.

The Gospels begin before Mary is pregnant; we meet Mary before we meet her Son. We learn of Jesus’ dedication at the temple not from the eight-day-old Jesus but from his mother, and we learn from her that Simeon and Anna called Jesus Messiah. We also learn from her that Simeon prophesied pain for her; her hero’s journey didn’t end with Jesus’ birth. She has a much bigger story to tell—a hero’s journey to fulfill.

The case for Mary’s heroic journey begins in her meager origins. She describes her life as a “humble state” (Luke 1:48). She is about to embark on a very normal married life among the peasant class of a kingdom under occupation when she is visited by a herald angel. “You are highly favored!” the angel cries. “The Lord is with you!”

Mary is “greatly troubled,” unable to fathom the possibility that she will carry to term, will raise as her child, “the Son of God.” But the herald reassures her, granting her the supernatural aid of the Holy Spirit and reminding her that “nothing is impossible with God.” Mary concedes and embarks on her first of many trials: the crossing of the first threshold.

The pregnancy of an unwed woman is still scandalous today, but not nearly so much as in first-century Palestine. Her betrothed receives a vision so that, rather than abandon her, he chooses to join her fellowship. She is given the support and the blessing of loved ones and strangers until her child’s birth, when she and her family must flee the wrath of an evil king. Our hero and her child escape the king’s killing spree and are presumed dead as they pass the first threshold, crossing alive into Egypt and entering into a long journey fraught with peril.