If you aren’t disturbed, you aren’t awake!
That was the prophetic bumper sticker I read almost every Friday morning as I pulled into Cutters Coffee shop in Lacey for my usual session of the Priest in is: You can ask me anything.
Cutters had become my office away from my office. I had talked to the owner who was a former youth minister: would he mind if once a week I came in, camped out for 2-3 hours, met parishioners there for coffee and allowed customers to dialog with me about anything they wanted on a weekly basis.
I noticed him right away: what’s more, he sure made of a point to NOT notice me.
Although, every so often I’d get the sense that he was looking at me. He was a young man. And I knew he was carrying something. Something big. Something heavy. And I knew. I just knew...
He was there almost every Friday. and so was that prophetic bumper sticker in the parking lot. And so it went for many Fridays: I’d work away, have meetings with parishioners, conversations with other customers, praying for people, having folx stop by with questions and he was there too working and definitely NOT noticing me.
I don’t know how long this went on until finally one Friday... he walked up and took his stand at my table: I don’t believe in God. His voice was quiet but oh, was he angry. I could see his hand trembling a little. God is... violent and controlling. It’s a delusion made for the weak. His eyes were boring into me as he stood at my table. I waited and listened and looked him in the eye for a long time. Oh, my Word, was he ever upset.
He just stood there. Why don’t you sit, I said. Tell me about this God you don’t believe in because chances are I don’t believe in him either.
His eyes opened wide, and he sat down in a heap across from me.
I don’t remember where he started his story but over the course of months, Tim shared how he grew up in a church where they were only ones going to heaven. Hell was vivid. He had nightmares about the apocalypse and being left behind. When he met the woman of his dreams, a Mormon, his family disowned him. Hers did the same. They married had a baby and when that baby died of SIDS, no one in either comforted them--they had gotten what they deserved.
God for Tim looked like the master in our parable today.
Please note that nowhere in this story NOWHERE IN THIS PARABLE does Jesus say this is God.
It is our limited minds that paints God into such boxes and seeks to manipulate and create such idolatry. The genius of this parable is that Jesus is pushing his listeners to recognize and be disturbed: if you aren’t disturbed, then you aren’t awake!
Please remember the context of Jesus’s upbringing: he is a poor peasant living in an occupied land controlled by a cruel and unrelenting empire. Usuary that is interest was an absolute taboo for his people. To even mention it, would have told his listeners that this overlord was beyond obscene: he was anathema.
This is a parable that can’t even be told today. Not out there in the empire. It couldn’t be told to Tim—not properly anyway. Far easier and more effective to say this is what God is looks like. God looks like the winner of some stupid survivor of the fittest reality TV show. That’s the God being portrayed by too many of our siblings in Christ right now. It is why I sat in the coffee shop week after week hoping and praying that I could erase toxic theology and spiritual abuse one person, one conversation, one cup of coffee at a time maybe just a little.
Tim you see, would have NEVER EVER have walked into St Ben’s or Ascension for that matter. Why would he? He was a spiritual abuse survivor. Tim shared with me how science had set him free, how the atheist, Christopher Hitchens had set him free.
I shared that I too had read Hitchens. What?! He said. Seriously?
What did I think?
Dogmatic-- as angry certain and lacking of imagination as any evangelical preacher.
He nodded and silently took that in. He told me how learning science filled him with curiosity. I believe in evolution he said as if to shock me.
I told him I had a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species at my church office. But I preferred evolutionary theories of speciel cooperation and diversity over theories of the survival of the fittest. I could tell I was causing Tim cognitive distortion. I was glad.
He gave me a wry smile and then shared that he and his wife had just recently had a baby— They named him Darwin.
Today’s parable is the one I don’t want to hear, read, learn, mark and inwardly digest.
However, that is precisely what we are called to do and what we prayed.
God help us ALL to do just that.
For we can bury our talent in our little jewel box here believing that God is the cruel overlord. Why then take risks? If that is what we believe, if that is the God, we adore then I am ready to practice some recalcitrant atheism. Furthermore, if we are prepared to bury ourselves here with our one little talent, I will ask that, we all go and find where it is in the Gospels that Jesus goes to sit and wait.
When you figure out where Jesus just goes to sit and wait, ponder that carefully. Ask yourself: is that really what we want to do?
This parable needs to ignite a fire underneath us.
God help us that too many adore a god that looks like the cruel overlord in our parable. Let us just name that one of the biggest problems in our world right now is toxic theology. From our own country’s deep political divide, to the holy land war, to racism and homophobia—the common thread of all of it is toxic theology and a God that looks like a cruel master.
The answer is not a cessation of belief or religion, but rather the answer is a return to our rootedness and our ancestors, a return to love, mystery and sanity— a return to questions and conversation and presence and practice and gathering.
God calls us to bear spiritual fruits not to be religious nuts!
We become like the God we adore. Jesus knew this and lived it to his dying breath. We become like the God we adore.
What kind of God do we want to adore? And how can we help to change the public discourse and erase the toxic theology in our little corner of the world?
Can we have conversations in coffee shops and other places that help others heal or open their hearts just a crack—even if they never step through our doors? Can we admit this is the image of God KILLING us right now. As surely as it cruelly executed Jesus 2000 years ago.
This is the prophetic and cruel parable that nails us every single time.
If you are not disturbed, then you aren’t awake.
That prophetic bumper stickered car with wife and baby Darwin—that holy family found their way into St Ben’s parking lot... eventually.
This parable is our kick us in the butt mission statement. Calling us to take risks-- to get out there. Green Bridge Coffee from now on Fridays for my office hours instead of Manwaring. Have a cuppa with me there.
The priest is in. You can ask me anything.
Amen.