Vanity of Vanities: A Sermon on WikiLeaks and Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

I, the Teacher,^* when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.^*
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
   and what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said to myself, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.’ And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.^*
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.


NOTE: This sermon is written for Preaching and Pop Culture, an independent study I designed with Chris Scharen. The topic for this third of three sermons is "WikiLeaks and Open information"

Sermon

Sir Francis Bacon is credited with a famous quote that goes like this: “Knowledge is power.” This innocuous phrase has become a sort of motto for the 21st century. Who could disagree that the more we know about life the better it becomes? For modern people, the purpose of life seems to be two-fold: part one is to accumulate as much wealth as possible, and part two is to glean an equally impressive array of knowledge. In our formal schooling we are tested on knowledge often with standardized information and textbook regurgitation. We are taught by the scientific method and how to debate rationally. The importance of test scores is stressed from the time we learn the alphabet. Success comes to those who prove their knowledge. Those who are able to give the desired answers will get better paying jobs.

All of this occurs for a very good reason in principal. It is good to learn. It is good to read books and learn skills, to gather information and to put it into practice in tangible ways. The proper way to assemble a combustion engine is important as are the rules of punctuation. Yet, this rather self-evident view on the importance of knowledge rams up against today’s reading from Ecclesiastes. If we are honest about the implications, this reading should probably leave us at least a little troubled. It brings up awkward questions. What if this knowledge we have gained doesn’t actually get us anywhere? What if knowledge isn’t actually power but an illusion? To say that knowledge and wisdom are mere chasing after the wind seems a short step away from nihilism.

Ecclesiastes has a very counterintuitive message for we who live in the 21^st century. We live in a WikiLeaks world. With a basic knowledge of the internet and a bit of curiosity everything is at our fingertips. Thirty years ago if you had a question about a famous quotation or a baseball player’s statistics you would need to pore over a library catalogue of many out-of-date reference sources. Today, you can Google an answer in seconds from your computer, your phone or countless other digital, electronic devices that are being developed at a dizzying rate. If knowledge is power, we are a pretty powerful people. Daily newspapers have given way to radios and televisions, which have given way to computers and smart phones, and the future guarantees only more and faster means of accessing the information that we all crave. Knowledge is a rushing river always flowing past us; it is easy these days to feel as if we are swept away.

This is precisely where Ecclesiastes has some surprisingly wisdom. The reality is that we have this knowledge as a tool, not as a life jacket; it can help us but it does not save us. When knowledge is sought as a means of power it is only vanity, but as a tool for the work that God put us on the earth to do it is necessary and good. The author of Ecclesiastes, who calls him or herself Qoholeth, writes, “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.” The message is simple and clear: the more you learn, the more complicated the world becomes. Things no longer look black-and-white; instead everything begins to look many shades of gray. This can be frightening, and yet it can help us to see those who we previously ignored.

Knowledge is one of those strangely wonderful things in life that only matters when it is shared. To horde information benefits nobody. This is the founding principle of an organization like WikiLeaks, which seeks to make secret government documents public on the web. The fact that knowledge is power is evident in the mixed but strong reception that WikiLeaks has received. Opinions have been decidedly vehement on both sides of the issue. Whether you agree or disagree with the idea of complete and open information you cannot deny that the audience is captivated by it. We always want to know what’s going on! On some level, we are still children who keep asking the question, “Why?” though good manners have long taught us it is most proper to stay quiet.

Questions drive us. We ask trivial things like, “Where do you want to eat?” or “What shirt matches these shorts?” And we ask deeply meaningful questions like, “Will you marry me?” or “Would you like to be marked as do not resuscitate?” The questions matter; the answers matter. But what matters more, if Ecclesiastes teaches us only one thing, is that knowledge is not an end to itself. You can learn and learn and learn, but all will be chasing after the wind. Yet, when that knowledge is shared it becomes a gift of unimaginable power.

This is the life of faith in a nutshell. To know Jesus Christ means that we feel the overwhelming need to share that faith with the world. We don’t hold it secret, as if to horde Christ’s power, but we make it known through the gospel. That is what knowledge is about. Nothing is new under the sun, writes Qoholeth. What is new and enlightening is the message of Jesus Christ, given for you. That is life-changing information; it is knowledge finally greater than a mere tool. It is the knowledge of salvation that overcomes the vanity of vanities, and gives us the freedom to find meaning in whatever earthly knowledge we accumulate in the time being.

So, when you feel like you are chasing after the wind you do not need to find meaning in a WikiLeaks document. You don’t need to spend your life poring over library books, Google searches or Facebook posts. Knowledge on its own is the vanity of vanities, but through Christ we are given knowledge of a different kind, knowledge of salvation that frees us to love and serve God and not our own self-serving need to know. So, go forth in the knowledge that you have been saved by Christ, who has risen from the tomb, and that is all you need to know.

Amen.

The Us-Them Problem, part 1...

This post has been a long time coming, but I finally feel the need after my discovery yesterday of the website called "White Whine". This site has picked up the now normal internet tradition of mocking a group of people, perhaps seen most famously in "People of Walmart."  At its best, "White Whine" is funny; at its worst it is depressing. You can say the same about People of Walmart.

Neither, however, offers any alternative. It's one thing to openly mock a group of people--and believe me, I know how much there is to mock about the entitled, middle-upper class white culture in America--but there needs to be some upshot to it, or you know what--people will react how they do to guilt.  They'll become more guilty or more angered. It's law without gospel.

This is the problem I have with racism workshops that tell us that we are racist by default if we are white in America, because we are born into a society saturated by systemic racism. OK, fair enough. But what does that actually tell us about who we are as people of God? We are all sinful. White and black have all fallen short of the glory of God. We oppress each other by our very nature.

To say that white people have power and therefore they are racist strikes me as an argumentum ad lazarum (appeal to poverty). It is a radical shift attempting to restore balance by tearing into the dominant culture. It may in fact be an accurate summation of the situation, but I also find it less than helpful.

Here's a rather pointed problem: Was Jesus racist? He was born into a Jewish culture that had power over the half-Jewish Samaritans. If we're going to claim that Jesus wasn't racist over the Samaritans because it strikes us as blasphemy than maybe we should stop throwing these words around and start searching for an alternative.

So, what do we do about sites like these? What do we do about systemic racism, feminism, sexism and the like? We change the framework for the discussion. We do this not by pointing out that white people are racist for reasons outside of their control or that white people whine about a lot of trivial things. Instead, we preach the story of the rich man as gospel. Rich football players are in financial straits because of high-risk loans because money and power simply do not give meaning. You can spend and spend, or save and save and all that will come of it are more complications. Money is the root of all evil--not just for those who have no money but primarily for those who do have it!

So we have this profound freedom to let ourselves go. Don't whine. Don't hoard. Don't cheat others and yourself to advance yourself in a broken society. Why? Because you will find well-being (which is to say, salvation) in this freedom. Without the good news I fear that their message will always be just another structure ignored by those who have found more advantageous grounds.

You are part of a situation that goes before you and will go on after you. You have created boundaries for your own self-preservation that have hindered those who need you most. You have sinned against your neighbor in thought, word and deed by what you have done and by what you have left undone. You have not loved the Lord, your God.

This is most certainly true. But it is not the end. The world needs gospel.

So here it is: Now, you are forgiven. In fact, you are liberated. You don't have to play by the rules any longer. You don't need to be a feminist to love a woman. You don't need to defeat racism to see beyond colors. You don't need to be gay to love somebody who is gay, bisexual, or straight. Your salvation is certain. Now go act like it.

I intend to follow up on this discussion sometime in the coming weeks with a different approach, and--I hope--a more well-rounded argument.

Drenched

Every year it seems to be the same old stories. Floods here, floods there. If it's not the Red River Valley (though seriously, when is it not the Red River Valley?), it's the Ohio River or Mississippi or the Missouri. It's the Gulf Coast, tsunamis and spills. It's the Glades, it's Pacific islands, it's...

Water is life. And death. We're made up mostly of it. We're drenched in it.

Every religious tradition has its flood story. Every tradition that I know of has water as a symbol near its heart. And this is no doubt because of water's ubiquity. When I look outside today I feel wet. The rainfall may only be a drizzle, but it pierces the skin. It is both a physical need and a powerful metaphor. The uncertainty of the future looms like storm clouds. You might say it's like sitting under a dunk tank. Water is life; it is also death.

When we talk about resurrection, especially in the Easter season, we tend to use the symbol of the open tomb, but I tend to prefer the image of the risen Christ on the shoreline cooking fish for his disciples (John 21). Fish live in the water. Fish breathe through the water. They don't escape it but embrace it. They are at home there. And so are we.

I got some flack for calling the Pacific Northwest "The Drear" in my post last week. So, today I switched it to the "Salmon Lands," but it comes to nearly the same thing. When we look up into the murky, gray sky we tend to feel lost. The clouds, however, bring much more than despair. That murk is bringing with it new life. April showers don't just bring May flowers; they resurrect life from death. Our hope lies in being drenched.

Luther reminds us that we are put to death in baptism and raised as a new creation. To be a new creation is to be a fish. It means to swim in the waters without fear because Christ surrounds us. Christ is, in fact, the very living water in which we move and breathe, and that which we drink in. The waters of destruction only fill in our milieu; they can do not more than turn us about. Pollution may seep into our lives and put our bodies to death, but we are promised that through it all we are drenched. The water is the very environs of our lives.

So rather than the simple "Remember your baptism" that many of us church-goers hear in worship. Let me offer you a stronger alternative. You are a fish. The waters will not get you. And that's good because you are drenched.

Hiking Thoughts for a Dreary Day

Yesterday, I picked up some hiking guides for the Superior Hiking Trail. Having semi-extensively checked out the BWCA hiking trails in the last few summers I decided it's time to move on to the more well-traveled SHT. Already, I have at least one planned trip and probably more (assuming I don't get a call right away).

So, here's my reason for this: I'm really looking for anybody who might want to come along on a trip this summer. I already have the makings of an easier trip in the works, but I'm also looking for a partner or two for a legitimate hike with some elevation change--nothing huge, just something fun for a few days.

Let me know if you have any interest!

Geographical Regions of America

This post is a direct response to Kate's insistence that Ohio is part of the Midwest. Basically, I have found this frequently: people from a place refer to their home region with a term that doesn't make sense. Ohio in the mid-west, really?

OK, this isn't just a rant against Ohio. In fact, I think a lot of regions of the U.S. are mistakenly named. The best regional name includes features of a landscape that are similar and remains something that people can describe. So, as much I may think of Ohio, Kentucky and parts of Indiana as the Ohio River Valley region that doesn't really work either. I doubt a person from Toledo is going to say, "Yeah, I'm Ohio River Valleyan" in the way they'd say "I'm Midwestern."

Also, I want to stay away from terms used negatively about an area. Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania is not, to me, part of the Rust Belt anymore than Utah is part of the Mormon belt. It strikes me suddenly that maybe Ohio's problem is that they can lay claim to too many things.

But anyway, on to the business at hand. For the sake of simplicity, no state is broken up into parts, though clearly many have varying geographical and self-identifying features. This is for ease of description. The following is a list, by geographical region, of the new names for U.S. Regions:

Salmon Lands: Alaska, Washington, and Oregon
Big Sun: Hawaii, California
Desert-land: Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico
The Peaks: Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming
Amber Waves of Grain: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois
Many Lakes: Minnesota and Wisconsin
Hoosier Lands: Indiana
Ozark Country: Missouri, Arkansas
The Cumberland: Kentucky, Tennessee
Coal Zone: Pennsylvania, West Virginia
Millions of Peaches: Georgia
Hurricania: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina
Colonial Land: North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware
Great Lakes: Michigan, Ohio
Heart of the Hudson: New York, New Jersey
The Ivies: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts
Bed-and-Breakfast Land: New Hampshire, Vermont
The Big Lobster: Maine

21st Century Prohibition: Online Poker

Last Friday the FBI shut down several of the biggest online poker sites (at least in the United States) and indicted several of their financial backers. Moreover, the future of the US Chess League (sponsored largely by Pokerstars) is now in serious question as well.

I have a couple of friends who are professional poker players and several more who play frequently and indeed subsidize their income through poker, so I feel the need to make a couple of comments. Firstly, I have an uneasy relationship with professional poker--or any kind of gambling. My problem is that you aren't actually contributing anything to society as a poker pro--there is no end product. Essentially money is trading hands in perpetuity with the more skillful--or immediately lucky--making money off of the less-skilled (why the U.S. capitalist economy hasn't embraced--legalized and taxed--this is beyond me!).

And yet, all the players are willing and there is certainly a good deal of skill and work involved. It does seem a little funny, at the very least, that the government is cracking down on poker financiers at a time when mortgage financiers on Wall Street have taken advantage of others who did not choose to willingly participate in what was essentially a gambling enterprise. So, this strikes me as very similar to prohibition in a 21st century context. There are undoubtedly going to be a lot of lawsuits, and my only prediction is that this is going to get messier before it gets clearer.

Of course, our game in Bockman Hall is still on :-)

Warning: Chess-related content

I haven't posted much chess-related content lately. I've kind of been focused on, you know, graduating and stuff. But I am heading down south (well, as much as one can say that Iowa is south) to play in Okoboji this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to setting aside school and the call process and all that to focus on something different for a couple days.

Here's a recent blitz game I played on ICC that shows I at least have some occasional skills...

Play online chess

I might post a recap come next week. I guess we'll see!

Concord: A Big Ol' Ecumenundrum

 

Published in the Concord, 13 April 2011

A couple of months ago, I asked my friend, Jenny, to write for the Concord because we were in need of an ecumenical voice. Together we mocked the term, disparaging the idea that only our non-ELCA Lutheran students can be considered inter-denominational. My confusion was such that I later turned to my personal expert in all things seminary and life, Krista Lind, for an answer. Surely she would be able to tell me why we haven’t come up with a better term for those brave folks around here who are outside of the Lutheran clique. Sadly, she reported, that Jenny is an ecumenical student simply because nobody has come up with a better term for her.

Have no fear! I thought, I will solve this big ecumenundrum! I descended into the Bockman Conclave for many a month, but I am happy to report that the white smoke is pouring out of the chimney and for once it isn’t from the hookah! After pouring through the Oxford English Dictionary, dwelling in many potential words, and testing a few out on my non-Lutheran friends, I found that one rose above all others.

It was so simple, so unexpected. The reason for my success in this endeavor in which so many before me have failed could only be attributed to their understandable need to think forward. Yes, it was tempting to make a new word—perhaps meterolutheranal, transfordenominational or congremissional. Or there was the possibility of redefining an already existing word—aha! We could call them “misdirected” students! Lastly, there was some hope for acronyms: Students Probing Our Religious Kinks (SPORKs) or Anonymous Protestants, Potential Lutherans, and Evangelical Strangers (APPLES) were obvious candidates.

But in the end, those proved insufficient. What I really needed was some genuine backward thinking. I found it finally in the word: “catholic.” How brilliant! (I hear you saying) Next time, I see Jenny I can tell her that she might consider herself non-denominational, but here at the seminary she is catholic to us—little “c,” of course! And Dr. Hess? Well, she’s a catholic professor who also happens to be Catholic.

Now, you might find yourself saying that this creates the same problem as the dreaded “e” term; surely, Lutherans are also catholic! True, but whereas “ecumenical” refers to a movement toward unity, “catholic” refers to a state of being; it is naming the unity we have as Christians.

Much of this article has been in jest—clearly, calling our students “catholic” would be more a distraction than it is worth—but I do wonder what would happen if we used terminology that named a reality, rather than words designed for movement. Or I guess we could always call them SPORKs.

God's Irrational Existence

A friend and I were having a Facebook debate that turned into a skype debate over an article in the Huffington Post by David Lose, entitled "Is the Bible True?" Dr. Lose essentially makes the case that it is possible to read the Bible not just as historical fact, as fundamentalist Christianity does, or as non-historical moral-ism, as some of liberal Christians do. His point is essentially the same one that Dr. Throntveit brings up time and again: Both sides are asking the wrong question of scripture, namely, "Did it happen?"

Now, this is where my friend comes in. We've had many discussions like this before over these topics. He is an atheist and I'm a seminarian, so it's sort of what we do. But anyway, in this particular case, he found it hard to believe that a Lutheran pastor could, with any integrity, preach from the Bible after admitting that it is propaganda.

When we talked tonight, we were discussing "truth." I argued that, for Christians, historical truth is secondary to our belief that Jesus Christ embodies truth; i.e., truth is not a concept but a person. His stance was that Dr. Lose was trying to hold both historical and moral truth in tension, and that it just wasn't working. Hmm... I thought about that some and realized after the conversation that maybe this isn't an issue with truth. Or rather, maybe truth is the subject of the debate, but the grounds are actually the problem. And the grounds for the discussion is reason.

My friend is going to argue, no matter the question, from a perspective steeped in rationality. He's going to say (I think I can put words in his mouth here) that it is irrational to believe in God, and that the Bible does not stand up to reason. And in this regard, he is actually quite true.

Here's the problem: Christians don't believe by reason. In fact, Christianity distrusts every hint of reason. The very effort of trying to reason Christ is fraught with sin (putting ourselves before God). We believe not because of reason, but because of proclamation: the Word given to us through the Holy Spirit, particularly in the sacraments. And reason plays no part in this. In fact, it may very well be a downright detriment to faith--the old Adam hanging on, tempted to reach for the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Does that mean that Christians can never be rational? About many things, yes we can be. In fact, systematic theology uses primarily reason, but that is only when God's existence is made a matter of faith in the first place. About God's existence, I have a tough time seeing reason playing a role.

I'm sure my friend won't like this reasoning, because, in fact, it isn't reasoning at all. If the grounds for the discussion of God's existence are reason alone, I come weaponless. Philosophers like Alan Plantinga might  try to argue for God's existence on these terms, but I wonder if that isn't a faulty endeavor. Methodists, in line with the Wesleyan quadrilateral, want to hang on to reason as a means of believing in God, but I tend to see that in practice as sensible interpretation rather than philosophical dialectic.

So, is the Bible true? Yes, but only because I believe in God's promises in the first place. It's a wholly irrational viewpoint. But here's the thing: that isn't my concern, because I'm not out to convince but to proclaim. I'm not going to win people to my viewpoint, but "preach Christ: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

30 Things Seminarians Like to Do

1. Refer to their internship experiences... repeatedly.
2. Complain about candidacy committees.
3. Mock Systematics faculty for packaging theology in a box.
4. Mock Mission faculty for their language that sounds good but doesn't actually say anything.
5. Mock Biblical faculty for their insistence that seminary students learn archaic languages.
6. Mock Pastoral Care faculty for their naivety to teach something practical.
7. Mock CYF faculty for their exuberance.
8. Mock CML faculty because nobody knows what they teach.
9. Mock Church History faculty behind their backs and quietly because we're actually quite scared of them.
10. Mock Worship faculty for their attempt to teach a nearly unteachable subject.
11. Mock Preaching faculty for trying to preach to us.
12. Snicker about non-Lutheran students for being "ecumenical."
13. Snicker about Lutheran students for not being "ecumenical."
14. Complain about food, housing, cost of living, poor job prospects, a declining church, an old church, the ELCA in general, seminary politics, loans, and toothaches.
15. Refer to their internship experiences... repeatedly.
16. Ask questions that are not really questions but excuses to air their opinions.
17. Make fun of DL students for being out-of-touch.
18. Make fun of students fresh from undergrad for their lack of worldly knowledge.
19. Drink beer.
20. Brew beer.
21. Drink coffee (if beer is unavailable or socially awkward to drink at the current moment)
22. Act as passive-aggressive as humanly possible.
23. Use made-up words or words that are intended to initiate a response akin to: "What does that word mean?" followed by a rehearsed definition and exhortation on the many uses of said word (best if done in a condescending tone).
24. Refer to their internship experiences... repeatedly.
25. Compare their Teaching Parishes with their home parishes, which are invariably heaven-on-earth.
26. One-up one another.
27. Talk up their love of others and then ignore people hurting in their midst.
28. Giggle at people who have miracle experiences.
29. Make jokes whose punchline is "Vision and Expectations."
30. Refer to their internship experiences... repeatedly.

Is there such a thing as autonomy?

This topic came up in Ethics II yesterday, and I find it a fascinating one actually. Do we really have autonomy? I guess, theologically, this can be a free will discussion, but I don't even want to go there. I understand that on a conscious level we make choices that appear to be autonomous, but are they really? We are so impacted by the myriad people around us--the community that brought us up. It is what Barbara Brown Taylor calls the "Luminous Web." We are connected to one another in complex ways.

John Stuart Mill

Dr. Marga's response to the question was that autonomy is crucial for any discussion of ethics. I'm not so sure. It certainly is required for an individual view of what is ethical, but maybe the idea of an individual ethic is actually a lie. I want to suggest that we can't be individually ethical; instead, the community is the smallest ground for an ethical decision. What is said to be 'good' is only so because of the interplay of individual and community.

My point here is not in the abstract. There is a crucial difference between the ability to choose and the concept of autonomy. You can choose between right and wrong (even if those choices won't determine your salvation; yes, I'm Lutheran), but those choices are not autonomous. You are the product of your community, and the community is impacted by your choice. You are both created and creator.

Talkin' 2 Ourselves: A sermon on Eminem and the imprecatory psalms

Note: This sermon includes material from Eminem's Talkin' 2 Myself, lyrics and recording are available here.

Psalm 55

¹ Give ear to my prayer, O God;
   do not hide yourself from my supplication.
² Attend to me, and answer me;
   I am troubled in my complaint.
I am distraught ³by the noise of the enemy,
   because of the clamour of the wicked.
For they bring^* trouble upon me,
   and in anger they cherish enmity against me.

⁴ My heart is in anguish within me,
   the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
⁵ Fear and trembling come upon me,
   and horror overwhelms me.
⁶ And I say, ‘O that I had wings like a dove!
   I would fly away and be at rest;
⁷ truly, I would flee far away;
   I would lodge in the wilderness;
          Selah
⁸ I would hurry to find a shelter for myself
   from the raging wind and tempest.’

⁹ Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech;
   for I see violence and strife in the city.
¹⁰ Day and night they go around it
   on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it;
¹¹   ruin is in its midst;
oppression and fraud
   do not depart from its market-place.

¹² It is not enemies who taunt me—
   I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—
   I could hide from them.
¹³ But it is you, my equal,
   my companion, my familiar friend,
¹⁴ with whom I kept pleasant company;
   we walked in the house of God with the throng.
¹⁵ Let death come upon them;
   let them go down alive to Sheol;
   for evil is in their homes and in their hearts.

¹⁶ But I call upon God,
   and the Lord will save me.
¹⁷ Evening and morning and at noon
   I utter my complaint and moan,
   and he will hear my voice.
¹⁸ He will redeem me unharmed
   from the battle that I wage,
   for many are arrayed against me.
¹⁹ God, who is enthroned from of old,
          Selah
   will hear, and will humble them—
because they do not change,
   and do not fear God.

²⁰ My companion laid hands on a friend
   and violated a covenant with me^*
21 with speech smoother than butter,
   but with a heart set on war;
with words that were softer than oil,
   but in fact were drawn swords.

²² Cast your burden^* on the Lord,
   and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
   the righteous to be moved.

²³ But you, O God, will cast them down
   into the lowest pit;
the bloodthirsty and treacherous
   shall not live out half their days.
But I will trust in you

 

Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

            There are some parts of scripture that make us uncomfortable (I hope we can all admit that). At the very least, there are parts of scripture that we can never picture ourselves saying, and other scriptures that make us a little embarrassed. Whether it’s the concern about circumcision, the promiscuous language of Song of Songs, the Levitical laws that seem foreign, or the frightening images of Revelation, there are several passages that do legitimately leave us wondering, “Is it ok that that’s in the Bible?”

            I think too often we hush those doubts in our minds, because this is the word of God we’re talking about! We tend to think that to question God’s word is a form of apostasy—after all isn’t this where God is revealed to us? Yet, in his prefaces to the book of James and the book of Revelation, Martin Luther does just that, railing against whether either book has any place in the canon. As Christians, freed by Christ to serve as his body, we have freedom to do just as Luther did; we have the freedom to question. This is not a free pass to throw out what we don’t like, but instead it is an opportunity to ask ‘Why don’t we like it?’ It may in fact be that there are scriptural words that are of no value to us, but we cannot make those determinations unless we first allow them to work in us. Please don’t make the mistake of making judgments on what you haven’t read.

            When scholars categorize the psalms, Psalm 55 fits neatly into the category of an “imprecatory” psalm; in other words, it is a psalm written against the enemy. Already, you may find yourself squirming. ‘Didn’t Jesus say to love our enemies?’ you might be thinking. Yes, he did. So one option is to see that this psalm is saying something that might not agree with what Jesus later says and throw it out. That is basically what the editors of the Lutheran Book of Worship—the green book—did when they didn’t include the imprecatory (or even many of the lament) psalms in their hymnal. There is precedence for ignoring these scriptures, but they are still there and we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t read them. To ignore anger and wrathful feelings is to ignore part of what we naturally feel as human beings. It is, in a real sense, to deny our humanity. The psalm ends on this note: But you, O God, will cast them down into the lowest pit; the bloodthirsty and treacherous shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in you. I think if we’re honest we have felt that way before about somebody. Is it a good way to feel? Maybe not. But the psalms capture the whole spectrum of human emotion, and this is a real human emotion. It’s one that is as present today as it was two or three thousand years ago.

We have no further to look for an example of this than the most “liked” figure on Facebook, a rapper out of Detroit, Michigan who goes by the stage name Eminem. Even before I begin, I feel the need to address the jarring-ness of using Eminem as a primary sermon illustration. The normal method of addressing historical figures in sermon-form is either to lift up a figure as a positive influence, say Gandhi or Mother Theresa, and talk about his or her positive qualities. In this way, you learn how to act more “Christian.” Or, conversely, you may examine a negative character, say Stalin, in order to delve into the depths of human sinfulness. I think the temptation with a character like Eminem is to do exactly what we would do with the imprecatory psalms—either ignore him or disparage him.

Yet, there are over 30 million people who have clicked on the “like” button on Eminem’s Facebook page, 30 million people who resonate with something that Eminem is doing. And what Eminem is doing, I want to suggest, is much the same thing that Psalm 55 is doing. He is speaking poetry out of confusion, anguish and hatred, though he often doesn’t even know who to direct it against. In his 2010 song, Talkin’ 2 Myself, Eminem raps, I almost made a song dissin’ Lil Wayne//It's like I was jealous of him 'cause of the attention he was gettin'//I felt horrible about myself. He goes on to say: I've turned into a hater, I've put up a false bravado. Confession is confession, no matter the form.

Is it appropriate for your kids to be listening to Eminem? Maybe not. But there’s something behind his mass following that is bigger than blind hatred and explicit lyrics. Millions of people are crying the same laments of Psalm 55: It is not enemies who taunt me— I could bear that;it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. Everyone has been let down by a friend and, whether you say it or not, you have felt the same way as this Psalm. Eminem realizes this, and so do his fans—often on a subconscious level—because he is rapping to a generation of individuals who feel lost, alone and betrayed. They know intuitively what it means to be broken. Eminem’s rap is an expression borne out of the struggle to get by, a struggle for the basic needs in life—love, friendship, and meaning.

Again, in Talkin’ 2 Myself, Eminem raps: But instead of feeling sorry for yourself do something about it//Admit you got a problem your brain is clouded you pouted long enough//It isn't them it’s you, you [expletive] baby. The reason we should still read the imprecatory psalms is that they leave us where Eminem does, and they even go one step further. Where Eminem makes it finally about taking responsibility for yourself, the psalmist gives up complete control, saying,

Cast your burden^* on the Lord,
   and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
   the righteous to be moved.

            The final chapter on the Eminem saga remains unwritten, but don’t be surprised if it ends up looking more like that. Don’t be surprised, in short, if all the self-loathing and anger at others leads back to the cross. The reason we recoil against the psalms that cry out in pain, anguish and hatred is because we have that assurance of the cross, but when you doubt it—and you will—Psalm 55 may become for you words that resonate across millennia. There are people out there looking for that assurance and turning to Eminem because he is the only one offering a cogent message; he is the only one they can relate to. He knows their struggles. That is Christian witness, even if it is wrapped up in non-pious rhetoric. To know individuals’ struggles is to be Christ for them.

            The purpose of Psalm 55 is to show the depths of that humanity. Should we throw out Eminem? Well, should we throw out this psalm? Should we—like Thomas Jefferson—begin cutting out parts of the Bible we don’t like? This isn’t the only option. We can get off our high horses, admit that we often aren’t the best examples of Christ-like love, and then we can meet a world that is exactly there—at the intersection of anger and desire, looking for something to give ultimate comfort and ultimate meaning. We are broken and sometimes it feels like we are talkin’ to ourselves, but that is not the final word. The promise we have is that when we cry out in anger there is yet redemption, not just for us individually but for all the broken relationships that have brought us to that point.

            That is the gospel just beyond the lyrics. It is the promise just beyond the psalm. Eminem and the psalmist may not bring us into that country, but they take us to the precipice by admitting what we are, by acknowledging what we feel, and by suggesting that there is something more.