Tag Archives: Culture

Being Squeamish

Eastertide

May 13, 2019

Scripture Reading: Acts 11:1-18

‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” But a second time the voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” –Acts 11:5-9

My work unit had a tradition of going to lunch together to celebrate each person’s birthday and the celebrant picked the restaurant. On one of these occasions a very popular seafood restaurant was selected. Along with seafood it offered the full array of commonly popular “American” food like steak and chicken. One of our staff was originally from Indonesia. His eyes lite brightly as he saw squid on the menu. One of his favorite foods, it rarely was available in landlocked Oklahoma. When it arrived, the steak eating guy seated next to him asked to trade places with someone at the end of the table as he could not stomach watching someone eat squid. We did the seating shuffle, and all was well. I think of that incident when I read stories like the one from Acts recorded above. We forget how very much we are controlled by the culture in which we were raised. In a worst-case scenario we presume our culture is the only right culture. Our co-worker who needed to move did not think less of the squid eater, he was dealing with his cultural bias in the best way possible without encroaching on his friend’s preferences. I have seen a similar reaction to someone watching another eat a very rare steak.

Our world is getting small. I am surrounded by many Asia and Middle Eastern restaurants and routinely frequent them. I am not sure how authentic the food is in all of them because they do not have ready access to some ingredients and local choices usually drive what is served.

The scripture is not about eating or culture. It is about the acceptance of all God’s children by all God’s children. Jesus called it being one.

Prayer: Lord, teach us to respect each other as we learn to love all others. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Law and Culture

Eastertide
May 8, 2017

Scripture Reading: Acts 7:54-60

When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. –Acts 7:54-57

I am currently reading Will Willimon’s book Who Lynched Willie Earle? In general, it delves into how the church deals with racism in our world today. It specifically develops the story of a local minister in 1947 preaching about the killing of a black man by a mob. Willie Earle was in jail accused of robbery and murder. Before any trial, he was dragged from his cell and killed. All accused of participating in his murder were acquitted.

Reading this book might have impacted the way I reacted to reading the lectionary scripture from Acts this week. It does not include the whole story. If you need a refresher course on the stoning of Stephen, you will want to read all of Acts 7. Most of the chapter is essentially a sermon Stephen preached to his faith brothers and sisters, which they deemed to be blasphemy.

Sometimes it is helpful to look back in history to gives us the fortitude to look at our present and determine what we want to do about it regarding the future. Hindsight is often clearer than what we see right in front of us or perhaps what we do not choose to see. We could critique Stephen’s style. He might have lived a little longer had he not been so in their faces, but would they have even listened to him at all? I could write about his outraged neighbors who so quickly rendered justice through what was legal behavior at the time. The murder of Willie Earle was illegal according to the law books but that did not matter. Culture is often stronger than statute. Therein, lies the problem.

As we in the USA struggle to be a representative democracy, we must own what our government is doing in our name. It is time we struggled with what kind of a people we want to be, what kind of a country we want to have, and engage in the process of making our representatives accountable for both their actions and their inactions. To accomplish that we must account for our own responsibility as citizens charged with providing for the Common Good.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we turn away from our responsibilities as citizens. Open our hearts and minds to seeing ways to define the Common Good and then to find the means of providing it. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the new Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Family of God

Harmony_Day_(5475651018)Living in the Spirit
October 11, 2015

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:17-31

Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’

 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’ –Mark 10:27-31

Do we worship a god whom we truly believe is capable of all things when we have wars abounding throughout the world, children starving, sex trafficking, the rich getting richer and the incomes of the middle class shrinking? I fear what we may give lip service to is not demonstrated in our ways of being. As we open our hearts and minds to the leadership of God, we will live into God’s omnipotence. When we see all people as our family—brothers and sisters—when we know they are all safe and nourished, we will begin to have a glimmer of God’s perspective.

It is hard to ferret out what is culture and what is theology. We have lots of examples of that in the gospels where ritually washed hands was a sign of piety and plucking and eating wheat while walking through a field on the Sabbath was a sin. Paul struggled mightily with the issues of cultural differences when he introduced the gentiles to Christ crucified. How do we reflect Christ in our lives?

I first supervised social workers in the early 1970’s when the miniskirt was popular. The state eventually issued a dress code which did not set well with some of my staff. I, frankly, did not care if they wore miniskirts or not but what I did care about was how what they wore impacted their relationship with the person they were serving. Wearing a miniskirt to an elderly person’s home was probably a major distraction as was wearing a miniskirt to work with a teenaged boy. I doubt that most of our young mothers on public assistance paid any attention to it.

There are thousands of refugees pouring out of the Middle East and Africa bringing with them rich traditions passed to them from earlier generations that are different from ours. They are our brothers and sisters whom we are called to love.

Prayer: God of all, as we meld together the ways differing among our culture and other cultures, let sources of diversity become opportunities for understanding and growth for all of us on the road to the Kingdom of God. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Loving Across Cultures

LoveThyNeighborAsThyselfLiving in the Spirit
July 8, 2015

Scripture Reading: Psalm 24

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
   And who shall stand in his holy place?
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
   who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
   and do not swear deceitfully.
They will receive blessing from the Lord,
   and vindication from the God of their salvation.
Such is the company of those who seek him,
   who seek the face of the God of Jacob. –Psalm 24:3-6

I have been struck recently by how much I am more a creator of the culture around me than I am of the Kingdom of God. This reality appears most often in an ingrained sense of entitlement that I take for granted as a white, middle class citizen of the United States. I mistake clean hands for obeying the letter of the law and a pure heart for my dedication to liberal agendas of society. I recycle when it is convenient for me, buy free trade coffee, probably as much because it taste better than it is the right thing to do. But I pay little attention to where my clothing was made or whether a child working 16 hour-days made them.

Self-righteousness comes in many forms and is insidious. We in the US practice it from all sides, liberal and conservation. Somehow we think our worth is established by our measuring one against the other as if God loves one more and one less because of what we believe. I cannot find that in the Bible anywhere. God’s love is unconditional and more importantly universal. The plumb line of righteousness is our love for God and one another.

There is nothing innately wrong with culture. Society is dependent on norms being established to make the flow of life less complicated. What is crucial is understanding the beauty of the many cultures across our earth and being attentive to those things within our culture, which are detrimental to our ability to love one another across cultures as God love us.

Prayer: Lord, make me aware of how my way of being impacts the way of being of others and when those impacts are detrimental to my loving the other, enable me to love like you do. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

Understanding Culture

Street PeopleEpiphany
Celebration of God
Manifested in the World
January 29, 2015

 Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.

 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists’, and that ‘there is no God but one.’ Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.  — 1 Corinthians 8:1-6

Well, we have apparently walked into the middle of a discourse between Paul and the Corinthians and we do not know what was said before our scripture started. Commentators have speculated that an issue had arisen about Christians eating meat offered to idols and Paul is trying to answer their concerns. The single quote marks are an attempt of newer translations to note quotes from the Corinthians.

We have probably all been engaged in these kinds of discussions. My guess, for one like Paul who saw the bigger picture, slowing down to deal with this level of intricacy was hard. Dealing with the doubts and distractions of our fellow Christians, however, may be very important. Paul  said To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. (1Corinthians 9:22) Thus the question about eating meat offered to idols was a no brainer to Paul, but to the Corinthians who were new in the faith, the eating of meat offered to idols was a big deal.

As we move out into the world of people whose cultures we do not share or know, we must take the time to be sensitive to their perspectives. Where I am sitting on the outskirts of the intercity those cultures includes the homeless, the mentally ill, and people in poverty. I have much knowledge to learn.

Prayer: Lord, open my eyes to see and my heart to understand perspectives that are alien to me but are the way of life of many of your children living on the streets in my home community. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

The Name of God

        Living in the Spirit
Light a Candle for ChildrenGod's name
      September 30, 2014 

Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. —Exodus 20:7

I guess I was taught it as a child, but for a long time this verse meant that I was not to use God’s name as a swear word. While I still believe that to be wise counsel, I now think this verse has much deeper and broader meaning and that the NRSV’s interpretation, wrongful use, gets to the heart of my transition in understanding. For example, I do not think it is appropriate for candidates for office to use God’s name as sort of a reference. One’s life and actions should speak for themselves. I also cringe when I see God’s name or Jesus’ being used as part of a sales pitch. In both instances I become immediately skeptical of the candidate or business.

I wonder though, if the misuse of God’s name goes even deeper than that. Is this verse also saying that we need to be very careful about assigning theological interpretations of ways of being and doing to God that are more from our cultures than they are from God? For example, the way we deal with our children is an amalgamation of how our parents were raised and their parents were raised, the events happening in the world at the time, communication styles, and dozens of other factors. I grew up being afraid of Russians, whatever they were, and routinely having drills at school where we would sit under our desks with our heads down to protect us from nuclear bombs. While there was some overkill in those actions, they did address the fears of this world in the years following World War II. Had my parents or my church tied such actions to God, we would most likely still be doing them.

We who call ourselves Christian are called to the difficult task of ferreting out what is of God and what is not. I may oversimplify this process, but I believe that the primary test that must be applied is asking the question: does this pass the test of love? I believe that if we use this as our foundation for life we will much more easily learn what is really important and what is not. So in our culture today, how do we deal with the threat of terrorism, changing sexual mores, or the value of people? What do we need to teach our children about living and being in our world today that is true to God in this time and this place?

 Oklahoma Fact: In 2010 in the US, 78.4% of people identified themselves as Christian.*

Prayer: God, help us discern what is of you and what is not. Help us reflect your love to our children and to the children of our world. Amen.

*http://religions.pewforum.org/reports#

 

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.