We Have a Lot of Work to Do

A rough manuscript of my sermon this Sunday on Luke 17: 11-19.

Sisters and brothers, we have a lot of work to do, that’s for sure. We have a lot of work to do. This past Friday evening, as I was waiting to board a plane home from a conference in Chicago, I felt sick to my stomach upon hearing the words of one of our presidential candidates objectifying women to an unspeakable degree, joking about sexual assault and bragging about how through wealth celebrity and power, he could easily get away with such behavior. My mind pretty quickly went especially to the women and girls of our congregation, about how such words must make you all feel, and also the fathers as well who’ll have to explain this stuff to their kids, to make sure their sons know that such talk is simply not okay. For putting you all in such a horrible position, for putting my own family and friends in such a horrible situation, I was absolutely furious with Donald Trump as I boarded that flight.

Through some really helpful conversations with the woman sitting next to me over the following couple hours, I was reminded that the horrible words on that tape reflect something much bigger than any one candidate or even the state of our politics as a whole. Indeed, no matter which candidate you decide to vote for (I’ve had conversations with great folks in our congregation on both sides of that debate, by the way), no matter which candidate you decide to vote for is less important than the much wider, insidious issue of collective sin at hand: the way our society treats women and girls. Or to put it in even a broader context, the issue of collective sin we must address is our society's seeming complete inability to listen to the concerns of one another, especially the concerns of populations who have historically been marginalized and oppressed. So yes, my sisters and brothers, we have a lot of work to do.

We have a lot of work to do. For you see, right here in America, statistically one in three women will be the victim of some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. Right now, in what we consider the greatest country in the world, one in five women have survived an attempted or completed rape. On our college campuses that number narrows to something closer to one in four. One in three women have been victims of some form of physical violence inflicted by an intimate partner in their lifetime and boys who witness their fathers being violent are ten times more likely to abuse their spouses later in life. The way we treat women and girls in our society is an insidious type of collective sin, to be sure, and it’s the type of collective sin that affects each and every single one of us.

When I think about my own life experiences as a young adult, and particularly my time as a college student, the words used by Mr. Trump are more extreme than most, but they honestly don’t surprise me. I lived for three years in a fraternity house and horrible jokes were made on a regular basis. Women were objectified on a regular basis. And because I had a natural aversion to being politically correct as a young, dumb kid and I’ve always liked being the center of attention, I was definitely a major player in all that dumb talk and I was wrong. And my fraternity brothers and I were known as some of the better guys on campus, right, who may have said dumb things but always treated women with respect. Yet, words do matter… how did our jokes make the vast majority of women of hadn’t been treated with respect sometime in their life feel? Moving right up to the present, how did years of seemingly innocent locker room talk change our perspectives in sinful, insidious, ways? Thanks be for Christ, because the work of reconciliation, the work of always trying to improve how us men hear and honor the perspectives of women will never end. Even though that was all close to a decade ago now, I hear from folks younger than me that things have gotten even worse on our college campuses as well. In short, my sisters and brothers, we have a lot of work to.

Yes, we have a lot of work to do, but luckily, as our gospel message teaches us this Sunday, Christ is there at work with us, present in every part of our lives and the life of our community. Even more amazing is the good news that God most often speaks from the perspective of those we least expect Her to be speaking from. Just look at today’s gospel message… it’s a simple yet profound story. Jesus is traveling through the borderlands between Samaria and the Galilee in route to Jerusalem, when he stops in a small village. Ten folks are suffering from leprosy there, a disease that still afflicts thousands in many parts of the world. And well, our God in Christ does what God does best. Jesus sends the lepers off to the priests and amazingly, all are healed! All are washed clean, liberated from their disease by Christ’s love! Yet even then, it’s only of ten lepers who turns back… it’s only one of the ten who recognizes what God’s up to, and it’s the one people of Jesus’ time would have least expected to know much about God at all… a Samaritan, a despised foreigner! And this, my sisters and brothers, is the incredibly good news that confronts us today. God more often than not speaks to us from the people we’d least expect, the Samaritans of our day, the people we're taught to think don’t matter, the people we're taught by our society to ignore. We have a lot of work to do, but luckily, Christ comes to us in the faces of people we’d least expect to make that work possible.

We have a lot of work to do. How can we listen to those voices as we build and strengthen a community that teaches its children that all women and girls, and all people of color and all folks in the LGBT community and all people of different abilities, need to be cherished, loved and affirmed as children of God? I just heard a story from one parishioner this morning talking about how she’s gotten in trouble at work for begin absent to take care of her sick children. How can we help build a local community where the contributions of mothers and fathers are valued, where parents don’t need to decide between their families and their careers? How can we build a community where our boys grow up knowing that objectification of women and abuse of women and sexual assault of women or anyone else for that matter is not okay? In a few minutes Jim Miller will be talking about one of our congregation’s priorities for the year ahead, to build a spirit of brotherhood and service amongst the men of our congregation. How can we include all those fathers in this important work that God calls us to embark upon? Perhaps all won’t want to show up at a church on Sunday morning, but how else can they contribute to the amazing things God is making happen here? How can we hear from their perspectives?

Sisters and brothers, this has been a hard weekend for our nation, indeed for our wider society. We have a lot of work to do. And thank you all for the work you already do, by the way. Whether you’re filling in this Sunday for our church musician so he can spend time with his family or if your acolyte for the first time or helping to balance our budget or walking with me on Tuesday for equitable funding for our schools, you are part of God’s work here, to build a community where all voices our welcome, all voices are cherished. And thanks be to God for the fact that She especially likes to show up in the very voices and places we’d least expect her to. Thanks be to God for Her promise to show up in our own lives in the times we need it the most, in those hardest and least expected of times. Our God in Christ has promised to show up, to make things happen, to bring us joy, to stand with us in solidarity against the worst of human sin, to bear us in the hard work of preaching the good news of liberation and reconciliation to our community. And thanks be to God for that.

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a Spirit filled church following Jesus Christ in Schenectady, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, he spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with his amazing pup Willy Bear and pretending to know how to sing.

Elijah's Story & God in the Ordinary

Friends, so what follows is the first sermon I preached last Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, New York as their pastor. I pretty much focused on the appointed Hebrew Bible reading for the Sunday, 1 Kings 19: 9 - 18, the story of Elijah on Mount Horeb. I'd love to hear what you think!

God's peace,

Dustin

So one thing I regularly heard at seminary was to not ignore the “hard texts” when preaching… the texts that are either simply too confusing or seems too difficult to draw a good message out of. And given that I’m a relative newbie at this whole pastor thing, I figured I’d follow that advice, I really don’t know any better, and thus I proceeded to spend this whole week entirely puzzled about our reading from the Hebrew Bible this week, the story of God coming to Elijah in a “still, small voice” while he’s hanging out on a mountaintop. On the surface it seems easy… I thought maybe I could talk to you all about the beauty of stillness and silence in these busy, constantly loud, rapidly changing times we find ourselves living in. Or talk about how God comforts us and changes us whenever we need it… something like that. Those messages sound kind of nice… God in the silence, etc., but the problem is, if you read the passage in context with the rest of the wider Elijah story, these nice sounding messages simply aren’t there, and in fact, the whole story doesn’t make much sense at all.

I’ll give you all a quick refresher on the wider Elijah story to show you what I mean… Elijah is one of the real superhero prophets of the Hebrew Bible… he’s a really big deal. He calls down fire from the sky, he conducts the first recorded resurrection in the Bible, when he walks around in the wilderness, God constantly is sending ravens to feed him. He never dies, but instead ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot at the end of his ministry. Outside of Moses he’s the only other guy who shows up at Christ’s transfiguration on top of Mount Tabor. Elijah is a really big deal! He is also a constant thorn in the side of that “evil Ba’al worshiper Queen Jezebel” and her husband King Ahab, the ruler of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who pretty much does whatever Jezebel tells him. Elijah is a really big deal, really powerful, and keeps trying to call the people of Israel back to worshiping the one true God. Not long before today’s story, Elijah accomplishes perhaps his most startling feat… he challenges King Ahab to a “divine duel” on top of Mount Carmel to prove God is well, God, and that Ba’al is merely a human idol.

So now King Ahab really thinks he’s got Elijah whipped. All of the people of Israel, along with four hundred and fifty prophets of Ba’al and four hundred prophets of a goddess named Asherah gather for the big fight on Mount Carmel. And the big test is to see whose god can light a pile of sticks and a sacrificed bull on fire. Sweet contest, huh? Of course, no matter what the prophets of Ba’al do, they scream, dance, start whipping themselves, they can’t get Ba’al to magically light those sticks on fire! And then of course, right in front of everyone in Israel, Elijah builds an altar to God and has a bunch a folks repeatedly drench his pile of sticks and sacrificed bull meat with water. And of course, right after Elijah prays to God, his pile lights up like a well made campfire. So Elijah’s pretty much won, right? The Bible passage even says all the people of Israel fall to the ground and worship God! Elijah’s seemingly completed his mission of convincing everyone to turn away from the human idol Ba’al and turn towards the one true God. And then of course, he puts all of Ba’als’ four hundred and fifty prophets to death, for good measure.

Now nothing about Elijah’s story so far is atypical really, at least in the world of the Bible, right? A righteous prophet calls out the ruling authority, God miraculously wins a contest against false idols, the prophets of the false idols die, and so on, this sort of thing happens all the time, as a narrative at least, it makes sense. But as we start moving forward in the story to today’s passage, that’s when things get a little odd. Elijah is at the pinnacle of his career as a prophet, he’s just won the big game, and by the way, he’s really, really powerful. He can call down fire from the sky. He can end droughts, and oh yeah, he can resurrect the dead. Yet after one measly threat from that evil Ba’al worshipping Queen Jezebel, he gets scared and runs away into the wilderness. It doesn’t really make sense. And then he gets kind of dramatic… he prays for his own death, first of all, and then we eventually get to today’s scene on top of Mount Horeb… also called Mount Sinai, understood at the time as the mountain of God. Elijah seeks out God on a giant, divine, majestic mountain.

And when God does indeed shows up, God sounds kind of confused by Elijah’s actions… God simply says to Elijah, “What are you doing here?” And then Elijah goes into this long rant sort of thing… he says there’s no good prophets left except him (despite the other good prophets mentioned before and after this passage by name), he says no one in Israel will turn back toward God, despite absolutely all of Israel doing just that, at least temporarily, back on Mount Carmel after that “divine showdown” between Ba’al and God I mentioned earlier. God then tells Elijah to stand outside and watch God pass by the mountain, and we all know what happens… God’s not in the fire, or the intense wind, or the massive earthquake, but God does indeed show up in a “still, small voice.” In other words, God doesn’t show up with all this majesty or power, God doesn’t show up in the big sort of way you’d expect, no. God shows up in a plain, old ordinary whisper.

Now despite all this happening, and Elijah indeed experiences God in that still, small voice, the text confirms this, Elijah still doesn’t really change his tune. He doesn’t get out of his funk, at least not immediately… he ends up saying to God the same exact rant he said before all the wind, and earthquakes and fire and the whisper of God. God shows up, he supports Elijah consistently in big ways and simple ways, yet this doesn’t seem to make a huge difference in Elijah’s behavior. Elijah does indeed get back to work eventually, but even then, out of the three tasks God commands of him on Mount Horeb, Elijah is only able to complete one, to anoint his successor prophet, Elisha. God shows up, he supports Elijah consistently in big ways and simple ways, yet this doesn’t seem to make a huge difference in Elijah’s behavior. So wow, what sort of amazing, gospel filled message to share from all that here on my first official Sunday at Messiah?

I was really struggling to be honest, but as I was driving up to go hiking this weekend, heading up to the Adirondack High Peaks, I started thinking to myself, “Well hey Pastor Dustin, your first week on the job, where did you see God show up?” There were countless ways to be sure... But the place I where I saw God the most wasn’t in the big things… the first time I walked into my new office or the first time I got ready to lead worship, it was in the simple, little, ordinary things. As you may know, the pipes leading up to my shower in the parsonage don’t work that good, they’re a bit leaky. They’re less leaky now, because Ray’s come a bunch of times, Bill and Charlie have stopped by too. And the place where God showed up most for this past week? It was in the simple, small, short conversations well had over ripping down some drywall. And similar things… when I had some car problems, I felt so immensely welcomed to town by Keith at Adirondack Auto Tire. The simple things like that.

So what I realized is that the central message of today’s story is that alongside Elijah doing all these intense, miraculous, huge things, and the people only temporarily turn back from worshiping Ba’al, and alongside the powerful winds and earthquakes on the big mountain where God is supposed to live, what I came to realize is that not always, but usually, God does tend to show up in the simple, ordinary things, like that still, small voice. It’s a very simple message… in these simple little things, that’s just more often than not where God shows up… the conversation with our spouse before we go to bed, card games with friends, all these little conversations with folks. Last night when I was coming back from the mountains, and I was looking at this huge, beautiful summer moon. One of my favorite songs came on my iPod I hadn’t heard in a long time, and I just completely broke down, I cried, and I realized I am so blessed.

Now I had just been on a beautiful mountaintop before, I had just seen all these big, beautiful things, and I had experienced God there yeah, but it was while someone’s headlight was glaring in my rearview mirror while I was driving down the interstate, an absolutely ordinary moment, when God chose to most profoundly show up. And we need that as human beings… we need God to not only show up in the occasionally big thing, but more importantly in the everyday, in those ordinary moments. That’s because as human beings we can help but forget how powerful of a presence God has in our lives. And as we know through Christ, God promises to show in all those everyday, ordinary moments, no matter who we are or what we do. And yes, my sisters and brothers, we know through Christ that God keeps promises. Amen.
Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a vibrant congregation ministering with the local community in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his profession time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Drunk with Love: Reading the Song of Songs with Beyoncé

Hey friends- so wow, it's been a while since I've been able to post much here... the second half of my last semester of seminary was pretty nuts, with a whole lot of writing and other assignments to finish, which took up most of my time. Now that I'm graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, and I have a little bit of time on my hands before beginning my first call to ordained ministry in a parish, I figured I'd take some time to not only catch up on the ol' blog, but in fact to give it a bit of a facelift as well. So, what do you think about the new layout? I tried to go for a bit more of a professional, streamlined look.

At any rate, while there was a whole lot of writing over the last few weeks (about 80 pages in assignments), most of the assignments were a whole lot of fun, so I'll be posting them up over the next week or so. What follows though is probably my favorite paper I wrote throughout seminary, a sort-of exegetical take on Song of Songs 5:1, with my favorite international sensation Beyoncé as a conversation partner. I'd love to hear what you think!

Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.

- Song of Songs 5:1 (NRSV)

I read the Song of Songs probably twenty times this past week, in a vain attempt to figure out what to write for this paper. Maybe it’s due to the overwhelming sense of excitement and gratitude I’m feeling as graduation approaches, but wow, no matter how many times I went through it, I just couldn’t come up with anything substantial to say! I wanted to dig deep, I wanted to come up with something profound that might rise above the centuries long debate over whether the Song is an allegory for God’s relationship with humanity or whether it’s simply about two ordinary folks deeply in love with each other. I almost thought about shifting my paper topic to another book of the Bible, but the Song kept calling me back… In a time when so few folks are regularly active in organized faith communities, at least in the American context where I’m called to pastor, the Song proves a uniquely powerful tool for self understanding, dialogue with folks of other faith traditions (or lack thereof) and thus, a level of mutual understanding.

Indeed, for us folks living in a pluralistic world, the Song is perhaps the most accessible book in the Bible… in a literal sense few individuals (outside some Pentecostal settings) see God hanging out here on Earth, regularly witness miraculous healings, or hear a Divine echoing down from heaven. Quite similarly, God’s presence is never explicitly mentioned in the Song. If it wasn’t for the Song’s placement in the wider Jewish and Christian canons, there would be little reason to consider it part of a scriptural genre at all. On the other hand, since the Song is in the Bible, it must have something to say about the Divine, right? Why would it be there otherwise? In this way, the Song of Songs floats above our culture’s false dichotomy of sacred and secular, towards a more holistic understanding of God’s work in the world, an understanding accessible to believers and non-believers alike.

In its ability to move past the false dichotomy of sacred and secular, the Song of Songs proves a uniquely powerful tool for ministry in a pluralistic world. While I understood this point, and it thus seemed important to explore the Song further, I simply couldn’t come up with much else besides identifying it as a really pretty song about romantic love that uses garden imagery to create some decidedly erotic undertones. Up pretty late and frustrated with my lack of progress last night, I decided to start googling terms like “top love songs of all time,” thinking it might be interesting to compare the Song’s image of love to that of contemporary music. I stumbled through songs from a diverse group of popular artists, everything from the Righteous Brothers to Foreigner, The Beatles to Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder to the Dave Matthews Band, but nothing felt like it quite reflected what was going on in the Song of Songs. I eventually decided to read through the Song one more time before going to bed, and finally part of a verse stuck out at me: “eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.”

Drunk with love! Now anyone that’s hip to what’s going on in Top 40 radio right now would recognize a similar phrase! Ever since she dropped a surprise album in late 2013, Beyoncé has been “blowing up the charts” as they say with a number of hit jams, with the song “Drunk in Love” being her most popular. Given Beyoncé’s standing in American society, I assumed “Drunk in Love” would be a perfect dialogue partner for the Song of Songs. Billboard named her the top selling artist of the decade, and at least from my perspective, not since JFK and Jackie has a couple been so held up as an “all-American family” like Beyoncé, her husband Jay-Z and their young daughter Blue Ivy. Furthermore, her performance at the 2013 Superbowl holds the record for being the most tweeted event in history! Perhaps it’s my bias as a millennial and a proud member of the “BeyHive” (as fans frequently call themselves), but right or wrong, what Beyoncé has to say about love, on one level, likely reflects current popular thinking on the subject.

Furthermore, Beyoncé’s latest album is a “visual album” with each song accompanied by a pre-recorded music video. With all this in mind, “Drunk in Love” seemed like it might be a perfect dialogue partner with the strikingly vivid portraits painted by the Song of Songs. Upon careful analysis of the lyrics and accompanying music video however, although its definitely about getting lost in nuptial sexuality, “Drunk in Love” still didn’t feel quite right. The Spirit moves in mysterious ways however, and after deciding to click the YouTube link to another song from Beyoncé’s visual album, “XO,” I found exactly what I was looking for. In “XO,” Beyoncé joyfully dances and plays with friends and strangers, drunk with nuptial love while awash in the strange, neon garden of Coney Island. There’s longing and even a tinge of sadness amidst the joy however… love between mortal beings, no matter how bright, cannot last forever. Beyoncé sings to an unnamed beloved (we can assume that’s Jay-Z) to take her quickly, “before they turn the lights out.” After watching “XO,” I finally got it. In seeing what being “drunk with love” looks like in the post-industrial, digitally networked world I live in I could begin to understand how the concept of being “drunk with love” is so important to the world portrayed in the Song of Songs. In fact, coming from my particular context, being “drunk with love” provides a key exegetical lens for understanding what the Song says about living a life of love with a committed, longterm beloved partner AND living a life of love with God.

Giving its elusive, almost mystical nature, debate over the Song’s “true” meaning has existed since nearly the time of Christ, if not earlier. While Rabbi Aquiba’s argued for the Song’s canonicity based on illustration of God’s love for Israel, Church Fathers like Cyril and Ambrose used the Song of Songs in baptismal liturgies, perhaps borrowing from Saint Paul’s use of the nuptial image to characterize the mystery of Christian initiation in Ephesians 5:25 and II Corinthians 11:2. Origen however took Paul’s typological approach to the mystery of Christian initiation quite further in his commentary, moving toward an allegorical interpretation that considered Christ’s love for the Church as THE meaning of the Song. To put it in a hopefully more intelligible way, while Paul and the early baptismal liturgies would use the Song’s image of a nuptial bond as the type of thing that came closest to characterizing Christ’s love for the Church, Origen and especially later theologians’ allegorical approach considered the Christ/ Church or the Christ/Christian relationship the primary meaning of the text, buried beneath the less important plain meaning of two folks in love. Modern allegorical commentators tend to follow a similar vein, basing their assumptions about the “true” meaning of the Song by “anthologizing” similar words from other Biblical witnesses who describe God’s relationship with Israel/ the Church through the nuptial image.

As Ricœur points out, allegorical interpretations have their problems, especially since other biblical witnesses use the nuptial image quite differently from its use in the Song of Songs. Throughout the Prophets the nuptial image is typically one of the unfaithful wife or of God’s overwhelming love for Israel, neither of which reflect the deep sense of loving mutuality in the Song. Furthermore, as many of the early allegorical interpretations were written by ascetics, they typically needed to empty the Song’s erotic images of any human to human meaning in order to describe mystical love or union with Christ. Unfortunately, the Reformation’s focus on the plain meaning of the text and the Enlightenment’s search for universal truth resulted in equally unsatisfying interpretations. Modern techniques like historical criticism did indeed result in essential work, especially in identifying the author of the Song as likely female, but in other instances deconstructed the text to the point of near meaninglessness for those outside strict academic circles. Such readings have also frequently gotten bogged down in the need to agitate against conservative Christianity’s legalistic claims regarding human sexuality.

I still hold these subversive readings as important, however. The sinfully patriarchal legalism applied by conservative Christian to human sexuality, whether it be in regard to LGBT issues, sex before marriage, or a host of other matters, has gotten in the way of many believers hearing the gospel in recent decades; I myself almost left the Church for such reasons. That said, by relying solely on interpretations that stand above and in judgement of the text, it’s easy to miss how the world painted by the Song of Songs can profoundly shape one’s life of faith. Throughout this semester I’ve been blessed to experience the deep ways the scriptural world helps form our identity by standing in dialogue with the world we experience. Especially as the forces of sexual legalism continue losing ground throughout many regions of our country (Arkansas’ ban on marriage equality was struck down just yesterday in fact), I believe developing an alternative reading from within the Song that avoids the universalistic claims of past allegorical approaches is an important task. Reading the Song of Songs through an internal lens of being “drunk with love” in this way takes precedence over the external readings of recent decades, while not necessarily negating the important contributions of such work.

Speaking about his understanding of the Scriptures through faith, Karl Barth proclaims the following in The Word of God and the Word of Man:

…we may rest assured that in the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments, the theme is, so to speak, the religion of God and never once the religion of the Jews, or Christians, or heathen; that in this respect, as in others, the Bible lifts us out of the old atmosphere of man to the open portals of a new world, the world of God.

In this quote at least, Barth is absolutely correct—the world of our Scriptures is the world of God, a world that through faith shapes how we understand the world of our everyday experience. At the same time however, the world of the Bible, God’s world, tells us it can be understood through the world of our everyday experience. Perhaps the most profound example of this is Paul’s preaching to the Athenians in Acts 17:

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:22-27).

Paul proclaimed to the Athenians that they already possessed an understanding (albeit incomplete) about the world of God through the “unknown god” of their experience. We search for God, reaching for Her in faith through the world of our experience, and in turn apply this experience to the world of the Bible. Hence, a dialectic is created: the Bible interprets and indeed forms the world of our experience, but our experience interprets the world of the Bible in return.

Given this understanding, if we experience our world through the eyes of faith, how could we not understand the Song’s image of nuptial love between two human beings as also saying something about the love of God? If a person of faith has ever experienced mutual, long-term, deeply trusting, committed and at times ecstatic love for another human being, how could she or he not know something of the love God through such a relationship? The world of the Bible teaches us that while made imperfect in sin, we are still created in the image of God: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). How then could the nuptial love of our beloved not be understood as an imperfect image of God’s love? Coming at it from the opposite direction, Christ calls us to love each other in much the same way we’re called to love God:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22: 36 - 40).

Christ teaches us the first of the greatest commandments, to love God with heart, soul and mind, is like the other, to love our fellow humans as ourselves.

I’ll summarize quite simply: in loving our beloved, we love God. In loving God, we cannot help but love our beloved. In being loved by our beloved, we know something of God’s love. These experiences of love are inherently knit together, by love, actually. Are there other ways to know God’s love outside of nuptial love for another human being? Absolutely! Word and sacrament are a couple great examples. Similarly, are there other ways to love God outside of nuptial love for another human being? Absolutely! There are a whole lot of folks to love in other ways out there. Yet in the world of the Bible, a world through which we understand the world of our experience in faith, to know the nuptial love of a beloved is to inherently know something of the love of God. The Song of Songs certainly has something to say then about the love of God, but it’s not buried beneath the text as some sort of esoteric message. The plain sense meaning of the Song is a woman’s nuptial love for her beloved, and the nuptial love she equally experiences in kind. Yet in the world of the Bible, an experience of God’s love is implicitly part of experiencing the nuptial love of two human beings. By placing ourselves in the plain sense world of the Song and hence knowing something of this woman’s experience of nuptial love, we cannot help but know something about God’s love.

Interestingly enough, after a significantly more detailed analysis than my own, Ricœur arrives at quite a similar conclusion:

At last intersection between the poem and myth is also intriguing. One may challenge the theological character of these two texts where God is not named or referred to. To this we can reply that it is the myth of creation as a whole that names God. Did we not refer above to the verse that says that “Yhwh God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone…’”? This divine approbation authorizes us to say that love is innocent before God. But, someone may say, can God be the witness of a declaration for which he is not the intended audience? Perhaps we should answer, in an exploratory vein, that the origin has no need of being distinguished, named, or referred to insofar as it inhabits the creature? Man loves, beginning from God. If so, when rereading in light of Genesis, the Song of Songs becomes a religious text insofar as we can hear in it the word of a silent, unnamed God, who is not discerned owing to the force of attestation of a love caught up in itself.

Humanity loves, beginning from God. Ricœur’s findings have profound meaning for anyone living out a life of faith, to be sure. His work certainly furthered my understanding of the text. At the same time however, his overall method, or at least his rhetorical style, misses an important aspect of the Song of Songs, especially when one reads the text through the lens of being “drunk with love.”

To understand what I mean by such criticism, we must examine the experience of being “drunk with love,” both within the world of the Song of Songs and in the world of our human experience. While I by no means am arguing Beyoncé’s song “XO” and its accompanying music video are equivalent to the Song of Songs in any way (I figured it was pertinent to make that clear), “XO” did help me see what being “drunk with love” looks like in the world of my experience. Beyoncé is immensely joyful, drunk with love amidst the sea of humanity at Coney Island. There’s a light-hearted element to this joy—near the end of the video she’s dancing atop a skeeball game in an old-fashioned arcade, teaching folks somewhat silly moves akin to what usually accompanies the Village People’s “YMCA.” While light-hearted and perhaps even silly, there’s a profound element here as well. Only a few moments later she’s shown signing the “XO” dance in front of a massive audience, taking a bold stand for love. When “drunk with love,” all sorts of regular human distinctions disappear, seemingly conflicting emotions flow seamlessly together only to break apart again in new types of knowledge that move beyond the limits of human verbal expression.

I know I’m overly reliant on the visual story-telling of my globally networked world, and perhaps my constant visual connection to humanity through YouTube, Hulu and Netflix has dulled my ability to see the deep sense of being “drunk with love” in the Song of Songs, but wow, it’s still certainly there! The following words of the lovers as translated by Marcia Falk provide a profound example (with the male lover’s voice in italics):

The sound of my lovercoming from the hillsquickly, like a deerupon the mountains
Now at my windows,walking by the walls,here at the latticeshe calls—
Come with me,my love,come away
For the long wet months are past,the rains have fed the earthand left it bright with blossoms
Birds wing in the low sky,dove and songbird singingin the open air above
Earth nourishing tree and vinegreen fig and tender grape,green and tender fragrance
Come with me,my love,come away

The woman’s deep sense of urgency crashes into the joy and abandon of new spring in the voice of her beloved. The line between beloved and the wider creation blurs together in the man’s mind.

A few verses later in 2:15 we hear, “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards for our vineyards are in blossom.” Is this the chorus speaking, “the daughter’s of Jerusalem,” critiquing the lovers for some sort of unsanctioned love? Perhaps! Could this be the voice of the lovers as they recklessly run through the vineyards of Jerusalem awash in moonlight? Perhaps! Could this be the lovers worrying about getting caught in an act of unsanctioned love but recklessly running through the vineyards of Jerusalem awash in moonlight anyway? Perhaps! The fact of the matter is that the text is not clear about who is speaking, and unless we assume its author or compiler made a mistake or wanted to provide future readers with some secret type of meaning, it seems pertinent to admit that the text simply doesn’t need to make a distinction. When “drunk with love,” lines blur, even at times between “self” and “other,”  while seemingly conflicting thoughts, emotions and experiences crash together, only to reemerge anew.

Being “drunk with love” also indicates a type of love that defies traditional lines of categorization. Grammatically speaking, the word ‘love’ in Song of Songs 5:1 is translated from dod, a rarely used root properly meaning “to boil.” Yet in the same verse the male character calls his beloved both achot or “sister” and kalla, a word usually translated as “bride,” but based off a primitive root that indicates a sense of completion, destruction or consummation. The Song of Song’s sense of a nuptial couple being drunk with a love that is beyond categorization reflects the world of our experience, doesn’t it? All this business about drinking wine with milk and eating honeycomb with honey in the earlier portion of Song 5:1 is sometimes read as an act (or dreamt about act) of oral sex. If one has engaged in that sort of thing with a committed, longterm, beloved partner, could one read Song 5:1 as a description of oral sex? Sure, although the use of garden imagery creates enough mental space to also read it otherwise. Could that same person read it only as a description of oral sex? Absolutely not! When “drunk with love,” different senses of love and acts of love and memories of love mix and meld, embracing each other beyond classification. In the midst of sex with one’s beloved, at least sometimes, memories from many years of friendship, or the beauty and the struggle of building a life and family together flood into one’s mind. Or perhaps the dog wakes up and starts barking outside one’s bedroom door. Is the nuptial couple’s moment of sexual passion over? Maybe, but a sense of desire remains, the beloved embrace other, look into each other’s eyes, shrug it off, and going on loving anyway (and probably fight over who has to get up to let the dog out).

The idea of being “drunk with love” might sound like all sunshine and roses, but it’s not, as Beyoncé’s “XO” helped me explore. “Drunk with love” isn’t the love of Disney or the “happily ever after” situation portrayed in many conservative Christian appeals about God leading one into a blissful marriage with a perfectly special someone. To be “drunk with love” also means to contend with great struggle, fear and loss. Hearing Beyoncé sing the lyrics “oh, baby, take me, before they turn the lights out, before our time has run out,” I couldn’t help but think of what my parents must have experienced as a couple when my mother was dying of lung cancer at a young age. To be “drunk with love,” no matter at what age or in what state of health sometimes means looking into the eyes of your beloved and saying, “I don’t ever want you to die,” yet all the while knowing your time with your beloved, at least in this life, is fleeting. In this way there is an unmistakable sense of urgency to being “drunk with love,” as reflected throughout the Song of Songs, but most poignantly in its final verse: “Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle, or a young stag upon the mountains of spices!” (Song 8:14).

There is another sense of death in being “drunk with love” as well: at least at times, one dies within one’s beloved. As the Song puts it, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3). Remember as well, what the man calls his beloved in Song 5: kalla, while translated as “bride,” its primitive root indicates completion, destruction and consummation. Beyoncé references this quite simply: “You kill me boy, XO.” Sometimes to die within one’s beloved is a joyous experience. Life feels like it has more meaning when “drunk with love,” and when one feels weak, one can lean on the strength of the beloved. One learns and grows in such a relationship, becoming a better person through the experience. Yet at other times, to die within one’s beloved hurts or is downright scary. What if the relationship doesn’t work out after years of commitment? What if one’s beloved feels called to move across the country, many hours away from one’s friends, family and career? As a less drastic and more everyday example, what parts of one’s identity (or at least the full expression thereof) are lost in negotiating the nuptial relationship? I cherish the seven Bob Dylan posters I have hanging up in my room for instance, having started the practice in high school of collecting one at each of his concerts I’ve attended. When I marry my beloved and share a bedroom, she’s already told me we’ll be switching to more “mature” decor, and furthermore that I have no say in the matter. This isn’t the end of the world of course, but it is less than ideal. As I look forward to gazing up at a picture of Great Aunt Blahdeblah and a bunch of flowery chachkas through hopefully many years of nuptial love, a little bit of me dies inside, but just a little bit :).

As both the world of our experience and the world of the Song affirms, no matter how deeply one is “drunk with love,” at times one’s beloved will feel distant. On a simple level, you might be half a world away from your beloved for professional reasons, and she or he can’t understand the darn internet isn’t quite up to American standards. More significant problems can exist in the nuptial relationship however, no matter how much a couple may be “drunk with love.” Perhaps you’re in close proximity physically, but worlds apart on an important life decision. The drunkenness of nuptial love may even feel like it’s dried up, sometimes for months or years even, only to be rekindled by an unexpected event. The world of the Song shows us that despite a nuptial couple being “drunk with love,” distance can creep in, and often frustratingly so: “Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer” (Song 3:1).

In contrast to the deep mutuality of love indicated throughout most of the Song, the woman’s beloved withdraws a second time, this time with seemingly devastating consequences:

I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but did not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer. Making their rounds in the city the sentinels found me; they beat me, they wounded me, they took away my mantle, those sentinels of the walls. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love (Song 5:6-8)

Little else in the Song seems to indicate a neglectful aspect to the male character, but reading from a context when violence against women is one of the most pervasive problems in our society, its proves difficult not to stand in judgement of the text here. The woman may be dreaming in this passage, we can’t be sure, but if we stay within the world of the text itself, there are other possibilities? If this passage were not included in the wider text, on one level, the Song’s image of nuptial love wouldn’t ring true to the world we live in, as there would be no real societal cost… the Song would just end up being a much prettier version of Disney. We give up a lot when we engage in nuptial relationships. Having a family often lowers one’s standard of living, climbing the career ladder is sometimes put on hold—coming from an American context, the United States is sinfully one of only a handful of countries without nationally mandated paid parental leave from work (included both maternal and paternal leave). I immensely dislike the Song’s use of a violent act against the woman as an image, I can’t help but stand in judgement of the text on this one, yet at the same time, from within the imperfect world of the Bible, it serves to make a point—being “drunk with love” often comes with immense societal costs.

As the Song of Songs, the world of our experience and even Beyoncé all indicate, despite the many movements from deep, joyful presence to wrenching distance from one’s beloved and back again, being “drunk with love” is still typically worth it. Amidst this love, emotions, memories and even identities crash together only to explode apart again, making something brilliantly new. There isn’t much else in the capacity of human experience that’s as painful as being “drunk with love,” but there isn’t much else that's as joyful either. Furthermore, there isn’t much else that’s harder to describe, at least in an academic or analytical sort of way. Being “drunk with love” is simply beyond classification, and getting back to Ricœur’s otherwise brilliant analysis, that’s where his problem lies. It’s probably where the weakness of this paper lies too, although I’ve tried to strike the least academic tone and approach possible. The experience of being “drunk with love,” and thus the ancient Song that so perfectly describes it, simply go beyond the realm academic understanding. No degree or ordination, no number of books or knowledge of biblical history can fully advance one’s appreciation for both its profound wisdom and tempestuous power.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the Song then is how it acts as a great equalizing force in the world of the Bible. As I mentioned earlier, the Song of Song floats above divisions of sacred and secular, towards a more holistic understanding of God’s work in the world, an understanding equally accessible to Bible scholars and first time readers, to believers and non-believers alike. Deeply experiencing the world of the Song only requires one thing: to love. In this way, as a person of faith I can approach the most vehement of atheists and say, “Ya know that feeling you got looking into your spouse’s eyes on your wedding day? Ya know that feeling you got in the hospital waiting room when the doctor came in and announced you had a newborn baby girl? Ya know that feeling you got when you made love, couldn’t hold your beloved tighter and couldn’t help but cry? That feeling is pretty much like how I experience the love of my God.” Now that atheist might not agree with the source of your experience, and that’s okay, but by golly, he will know what you mean.

When one does read the Song of Songs through the eyes of faith, one cannot help but know something of God’s “drunken love” for humanity as well. Despite his decidedly allegorical approach, one of my favorite theologians Saint Gregory of Nyssa describes this point quite eloquently:

Once the bridegroom has addressed her spouse, the Song offers the bride’s companions the mystery of the Gospel saying: “Eat, my companions, and drink, be inebriated, my brethren” [Song 5:1]. To the person familiar with the Gospel’s mystic words, there is no difference between this sentence and the words applied to the disciples’ mystic initiation: in both cases it says “Eat and drink” [Mt 26:26-27]. The bride’s exhortation to her friends seems to have more weight than those in the Gospel. If anyone carefully examines both texts, he will find the Song’s words to be in agreement with the Gospel, for the word addressed to the companions is brought to fruition in the Gospel. All inebriation makes the mind overcome with wine go into ecstasy. Therefore, what the Song enjoins as then and always, this food and drink contains a constant change and ecstasy from a worse to a better condition.

When carefully read through the eyes of Christian faith, how could the words “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love” not work on us, making us know of God’s outpouring of immeasurable love? As promised, Christ shows up again and again and again for us in the Eucharist, in His invitation to eat and drink as we pray His prayer that we may taste and see the love of God. And we do, and in that food and drink, as Gregory of Nyssa so beautifully puts it, we come to know “a constant change and ecstasy from a worse to a better condition.”

Now to be fair, despite helping come up with the Nicene Creed and all, ol’ Saint Gregory didn’t get things quite right all the time—he goes on to talk about the Song teaching us to stay away from the “passions of the body” and the like. When we put our world of experience in dialogue with the world of the Bible in faith however, we know that while the “passions of the body” are often destructive, that isn’t always the case. Christ tell us in Matthew 22 that the love of our beloved is like, albeit in an imperfect sense, the love of God. Although we’re a wholly broken creation, Genesis 1:27 proclaims that we’re still created in our God’s image. How then could we not know something of God’s love for us, however imperfect, through the trusting, longterm, committed and at times sexually expressed nuptial love of our beloved? Furthermore, as the world of the Bible works to form our life of faith, we can also move past all the tired, legalistic and overly simplistic arguments (sometimes on both sides) regarding issues like sex before marriage. Is a sexual relationship still most fully expressed within the security and public affirmation of marriage? For all sorts of reasons, both practical and spiritual, and when legally and/ or ecclesiastically possible, absolutely! Is marriage the only deciding factor for a person of faith regarding sex? The image of a committed, mutual, and partnered nuptial love within the Song of Songs provides a significantly more nuanced approach to such an important question.

There are of course plenty of other lessons we can learn about the love of God from the Song of Songs, many significantly more important than how we should lead our sex lives. First of all, while God seriously loves humanity, and indeed all of Her creation, that love need not always be expressed in a serious way! Have you ever been to a zoo? God created the anteater, and the baboon and even the blobfish! Seriously… google the blobfish right now! As God acts and creates and dances in Her mighty and constant works of love, She clearly has a sense of humor at times. Much like Beyoncé signing the “XO” in front of thousands of her fans or the two beloved’s romp through the vineyards however, God’s many acts of love are always profound. God’s love furthermore, isn’t easily defined or categorized. All this business one hears preached from the pulpit so often about God loving us in only the “agape” sense is mere poppycock. As the Song of Songs teaches us (and the Incarnation does too, by the way), God deeply desires and yearns for Her children, reflecting the Greek “eros” sense of love as well. The man refers to his beloved in Song as achot, and in this way the “philia” or familial sense of love is also present. God does indeed promise to walk with us, and in fact to carry us through the many struggles of life, and isn’t there the notion of a loving sister or brother present in such a relationship? Similarly to the experience of being “drunk with love” in the Song of Songs, the love of God is wholly beyond classification.

Finally, the Song of Songs also lets us know what a life of loving God entails… and on one level, it’s not all good news. Loving God comes with great struggle. We sacrifice of ourselves, we sing God’s praises, we hear Her Word and partake in Her Meal, we try throw ourselves into God’s loving arms in moments of great despair and joy alike, but at times, just like the woman in the Song, we still may not feel God’s presence. At other times we might know God loves us, but just like the woman in the Song, God doesn’t seem anywhere to be found. And much like the man’s experience of his beloved’s locked garden (and let’s ignore the obvious sexual allusion of that passage for the time being), we might know God loves us, we might even know exactly where to find Her, but still, we just can’t seem to find our way in. Loving God comes with great cost, it always does, as we die to ourselves each and every day in the waters of baptism. We get hurt, we get lost, we get bruised and broken living a life of love, and we’re not always good at it either. Loving God is never easy, but as we know through a faithful reading of the Song of Songs, sometimes, especially in those very moments when we’re “drunk with love,” romping through the vineyards (or dancing on skeeball machines at Coney Island), loving God is incredibly joyful, and meaningful and beautiful and profound and lighthearted and passionate and frankly, the best damn feeling in the world. XO.

Works Cited

Beyoncé. “XO.” YouTube. http://youtu.be/3xUfCUFPL-8 (accessed May 9, 2014).

Lacocque, André and Paul Ricœur. Thinking biblically: exegetical and hermeneutical studies. 

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Leahey, Andrew. “Beyoncé - Biography.” Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/artist/281569/

beyonce/biography (accessed May 9, 2014).

Nyssa, Gregory of. Commentary on the Song of Songs. trans. Casimir McCambley. Brookline, 

MA: Hellenic College Press, 1987.

Strong’s Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary of the Old Testament. Public domain, in Accordance 

Bible Software, version 8.4, CD-ROM. OakTree Software, 2009.

Dustin is a recent graduate from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and approved candidate for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Wailing at the Western Wall

What follows is a final piece I wrote on my recent ELCA Peace Not Walls leadership training trip to Jordan, Palestine and Israel. The intention of our trip was to prepare for leading future groups of young adults to the Holy Land while also working for a just end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. I've debated for quite a while about whether or not to post this piece, as it's a bit personal and difficult, but in the end I decided that it may be helpful in illustrating the difficult emotions and ambiguities that come with experiencing the Israeli occupation of Palestine first hand. I'd love to hear what you think, and thanks for reading.


Journal Entry | January 15, 2014

I'm now sitting near the Western Wall in Old City Jerusalem and just burst into tears. Let me explain. This place exhibits a profound sense of the sacred... contrary to what I've heard about the Western Wall in the past, most of the folks here don't seem to be mourning the destruction of the Second Temple at all but in fact are celebrating... it's really loud and joyful... Bar Mitzvahs are taking place all around me. The exuberant, celebratory sacredness of this place stands in stark contrast but feels equally sacred to the quiet, profound experience we just had in the Dome of the Rock and the solemness of al-Aqsa Mosque atop the Haram al-Sharif/ Temple Mount. Both the Jewish and Muslim holy sites similarly contrast with the equally sacred manic swarm of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher we visited a few days ago, where its easy to bump into someone penitently praying and kissing a sacred slab of stone only to turn around mess up some tourist's photo, all the while coughing yet strangely also appreciating the massive amount of incense.

All these holy sites prove equally sacred, all in their own unique way that's characteristic of their respective faiths. Yet, I can't help but crying. I can't help but crying because no matter how hard I try to sit and take in this sacred experience, the image of that case of spent bullets in the al-Aqsa Mosque, kept in memorial from when Ariel Sharon entered the Haram al-Sharif and set off the Second Intifada, is still burning in my mind. I can't help but crying because no matter how much my theological training might characterize it differently, I can't help but feel angry at God for passively letting Her children fight, betray and simply ignore one another over this place rather than joyfully sharing the unique sacredness I've experienced at all three faiths' holy sites this week. I feel angry at God for letting many of Her Christian children in America either ignore or actively work against the efforts of their Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers. I feel angry at God for letting some of Her Jewish children mix a rabid form of 19th century nationalism with their faith in a way that leads to the horrific oppression of Palestinians. I feel angry at God for letting a small radical minority of her Muslim children maim and kill in the name of their Creator while also providing a pretext for letting the occupation continue. Could God have revealed Herself in slightly different ways that would not have led to such a tragedy? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty pissed off anyway. And so I cry. I cry and angrily pray and write because I don't know what else to do. Damn glad I wore my sunglasses.

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. Recently approved for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Meeting Bishop Younan and the Gospel of Meaning in Old City Jerusalem

I wrote the following as part of my ELCA Peace Not Walls leadership training trip to Jordan, Palestine and Israel after visiting with Bishop Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land at Lutheran at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Old City, Jerusalem. The intention of our trip was to prepare for leading future groups of young adults to the Holy Land while also working for a just end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. You can find the writings of my fellow pilgrims on our trip blog here. This is somewhat a continuation of another recent post I wrote about Christian pilgrimage, which you can find here. Please provide feedback if you're able! - Dustin

Just got done meeting with Bishop Younan and it was a fantastic experience... He talked about how between now and April is a key moment in the Palestine/ Israel peace process because whether or not Secretary of State Kerry succeeds in negotiating a two-state solution is going to have far reaching consequences. Bishop Younan also talked a bunch about the idea of accompaniment, that instead of the old missionary we should have a relationship of mutuality, where we share and learn from each other. He specifically said in fact, "accompaniment is the strength of the modern church."

Given how much I've learned from our meeting today, from the other ELCJHL folks we've met with (both clergy and young adults), and other groups here as well, Bishop Younan's statement couldn't be more accurate. The strength of the ELCJHL's young adult program for instance is amazing... if young Lutheran adults throughout the West Bank can be brought together regularly for regional conversations despite a myriad of checkpoints, barriers and other difficulties, perhaps there's a model there we in the ELCA could learn from.

Most importantly though was something Bishop Younan said about pilgrimage and what pilgrimage can mean to those folks who come from a secular context (like my own up in New England). Speaking specifically about groups who come from Scandinavian countries and other secular areas, he said "many people in the Lutheran world are seeking pilgrimage and to find God. People are asking why they are living." This statement really pulled on my heart strings. Throughout seminary as I've learned about how the gospel, the good news of God's work in Jesus is supposed to free troubled consciences, redeem one's soul, and stuff like that, such a message has never really hit home. I frankly don't think about my soul very much at all. I remember when I was a kid seeing scary History Channel shows about the end of the world in the year 2000, I was worried about my soul, but I don't think I've thought much about it since. I pretty much just assume my soul will be rejoined with God in some sort of heaven and I'll be fine.

I think most of my clergy or almost-clergy friends feel the same way I do, because I very rarely hear much about souls being redeemed in most Lutheran sermons. I do hear though a lot about how God loves me, no matter what... it seems like we've either unconsciously or semi-consciously arrived at the idea that God's universal love is the gospel, the good news of what God does in Jesus. Now this is an idea that does help me out, sometimes, but not often. And when I talk to folks my age, most of whom aren't religious at all and have a lot of problems with the Church, and tell them that God loves them no matter what, they generally kind of like the idea that I don't think God hates them for living with their significant others or voting for Democrats, but it still doesn't mean much.

What Bishop Younan said about existential meaning, about people asking why they are living, that really got me thinking about how I experience the gospel. When I'm told God forgives my soul, it doesn't mean much. When I'm told God loves me, that means a little something to me, but isn't news that would wake me up on a Sunday morning. There's definitely folks that such ways of framing the gospel mean a lot for, and I'm not saying we should entirely drop such language. But the idea that God is calling us, propelling us into a life of meaning in relationship with Her and Her creation? Hell yeah, that's really good news! The idea that God gives me something to do, the idea that I'm not a random assortment of atoms with little purpose, that's a truly liberating word for me, that's gospel. I also think that's the sort of gospel all folks are looking for, especially us millennials, it's the sort of gospel you definitely experience on pilgrimage to Palestine, and it's definitely the sort of gospel I intend to preach moving into the future.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 5): Hiking Paths and Moments of Transfiguration

What follows is part five of a five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here.

From Zeacliff in early morning fog, August 2012.

It's good to be almost done with this thing... it took me over eight years to hike all of New Hampshire's forty-eight four thousand foot mountains, and at a number of points, it felt like it might take nearly as long to write this essay.  But here am I, sitting in Queens nursing a coffee and looking at a blank screen nearly six months after summitting Mount Carrigain, trying to figure out how to conclude... how to write part five of five.  My general thesis when I started this whole thing, as stated in part one was: "the paths we trod in life simply serve as vehicles through which we realize the growth (or potential for growth) already stirring within and around us," an idea I still agree with.  Another key point I made in part one concerned the presence of God in the mountains: "Unfortunately, while I often marveled at Her handiwork during my mountaintop experiences, God Herself didn't seem to really want to show up... or at least it felt that way."

The path up Bondcliff, August 2012.

While I did find God over my many hikes in the Whites, although as typical, She didn't show up where I expected.  And actually, it shouldn't be all that surprising that God was around in the mountains... think about how much Jesus liked hanging out on them.  The Sermon on the Mount was well, preached from a mount.  On the night of his betrayal, shortly before his death and resurrection, Jesus visits the Mount of Olives.  Perhaps the most amazing story of Christ on the mountaintop however is the The Transfiguration.  Referenced in three of the four canonical gospels (and perhaps referenced in the other), the transfiguration is the story of Jesus taking Peter, James and John up an unnamed mountain and becoming ablaze in a bright light, shining with all the glory of God.  Elijah and Moses then decide to show up as well.  From one perspective, its the moment where God most revels Herself in Christ to humankind.  Predictably humankind however can't handle God in all Her glory... Peter tries to control the situation and asks to make three tents for Elijah, Moses and Jesus so the moment can last longer.  Before Peter really even finishes making his proposition, God proclaims, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”  The disciples fall to the ground, and when they get up, the moment is over... Elijah and Moses are gone and Jesus is back to normal.

What I've realized, is that in a more limited sense, moments of transfiguration happen all the time in the mountains.  They're fleeting and impossible to seek out yes, but they're there, and for me at least, these moments of transfiguration don't come from gazing at the beauty of the forest or far reaching vistas... they take place in momentary and miraculous connection with the Other.  Said in less theological student language, I experience the glory of God in the mountains in moments of deep connection with another human being.  Christ is not only the intermediary between humankind and God, but also between us all... the brief moments when we see Christ in others are the only times when we can truly connect, when we can truly know what another person is all about.  And for me, these moments of transfiguration, these moments when the glory of God even in a limited way shows up in the face of another human being, are most likely to take place while atop the high places of creation.

Atop Bondcliff, August 2012.

Working with Calumet campers at the Mizpah Springs Hut, hiking the Southern Presidentials with a loved one and summiting Mount Isolation with a best friend... there were transfiguration moments on those paths.  Taking a short stroll to the top of Cannon Mountain after my first week of seminary with another close friend, essentially climbing up a waterfall with three folks to bag Moosilauke during one of the best months of my life, conquering the horseshoe of the Northern Presidentials with my brother... there were transfiguration moments on those paths.  And while hiking alone but also while waiting out a late summer storm in the Guyot Shelter with two middle-aged women who couldn't have been more in love and while speaking with an eighty year old man near the summit of Owl's Head who had just bagged his last 4000 footer with his adult son... there were transfiguration moments on those paths.

I had many moments of transfiguration while hiking the many paths and summits of New Hampshire's White Mountains, moments where I saw the glory of God in the face of the Other.  And all these moments of transfiguration helped me realize the growth that was taking place within and all around me.  And because of all these moments of transfiguration, I am truly blessed.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.