Rogue Reverend

The Wikingdom of God (a sermon)

Tao Te Ching

~translated (or perpetrated) by Ron Hogan

If you toss compliments around freely,
people will waste your time
trying to impress you.
If you give things too much value,
you’re going to get ripped off.
If you try to please people,
you’ll just make them pissed.

The Master leads
by clearing the crap
out of people’s heads
and opening their hearts.
He lowers their aspirations
and makes them suck in their guts.

He shows you how to forget
what you know and what you want,
so nobody can push you around.
If you think you’ve got the answers,
he’ll mess with your head.

Stop doing stuff all the time,
and watch what happens.

Mark 9:30-37

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been listening to a lot of TED talks, Technology, Entertainment and Design, these 18 minute (or so) talks about interesting things. My favorite for a while has been about the economics of open source.

But before I tell you about the talk, I thought I’d better explain open source:

From Wikipedia: “Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software’s source code.” In other words, software code is provided to any developer to modify or write code off of, not for money, but generally just for good will. Then the software is generally offered to the world free.

Microsoft Office is not open source. In fact, they work really hard to NOT be open source. They pay developers to write their software, they hire those people, pay benefits, taxes, insurance, vacation time, all that stuff. Open Office, an open source product similar to Microsoft Office (which, by the way, works with Microsoft Office) is worked on by non-employees, bugs are fixed by a person here or there, most people just like the idea that they are working on something meaningful, and the product is free. There are other examples of open source: Wikipedia, for example. Or music sites where you can download music for free. Google books is another example of open source. You see where this is leading? And now there’s open source movement in politics, business, ethics, media, education, the arts. What’s an example of Open Source art? Collage, of course.

Now on to the Ted talk: Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In his Ted talk, he talks about the new open source economics.

Yochai posits first that we have had an information economy for a hundred and fifty years, since the newspaper first made its rounds. But to receive technology, you had to have an influx of capital, then the paper was printed, then paid for. He says, “Those who were producing information had to have a way of raising money to pay,” meaning they were market based.

Then another thing happened. Benkler continues:

Around June 2002, the world of supercomputers had a bombshell. The Japanese had for the first time created the fastest supercomputer — the NEC Earth Simulator… IBM Gene Blue has just edged ahead of the NEC Earth Simulator. All of this completely ignores the fact that throughout this period, there’s another supercomputer running in the world — SETI@Home — four and a half million users around the world, contributing their leftover computer cycles, whenever their computer isn’t working, by running a screen saver, and together sharing their resources to create a massive supercomputer that NASA harnesses to analyze the data coming from radio telescopes.

Benkler interprets this:

What this picture suggests to us is that we’ve got a radical change in the way information production and exchange is capitalized. Not that it’s become less capital intensive that there’s less money that’s required—but that the ownership of this capital, the way the capitalization happens, is radically distributed.

It’s open source!

Benkler goes on:

The story that most people know is the story of free or open-source software. This is market share of Apache Web server — one of the critical applications in Web-based communications. In 1995, two groups of people said, “Wow, this is really important, the Web! We need a much better Web server!” One was a motley collection of volunteers who just decided, you know, we really need this, we should write one, and what are we going to do with what — well, we’re gonna share it! And other people will be able to develop it. The other was Microsoft.

Now, if I told you that 10 years later, the motley crew of people who didn’t control anything that they produced acquired 20 percent of the market and was the red line, it would be amazing! Right? But in fact, of course, the story is it’s the 70 percent, including the major e-commerce site — 70 percent of a critical application on which web based communications and applications work is produced in this form in direct competition with Microsoft, not in a side issue — in a central strategic decision to try to capture a component of the net.

Benkler finishes here:

So essentially what we’re seeing is the emergence of a fourth transactional framework. It used to be that there were two primary dimensions along which you could divide things. They could be market based, or non-market based; they could be decentralized, or centralized. The price system was a market-based and decentralized system. If things worked better because you actually had somebody organizing them, you had firms if you wanted to be in the market — or you had governments or sometimes larger non-profits in the non-market. It was too expensive to have decentralized social production, to have decentralized action in society — that was not about society itself. It was in fact economic.

But what we’re seeing now is the emergence of this fourth system of social sharing and exchange. Not that it’s the first time that we do nice things to each other, or for each other, as social beings. We do it all the time. It’s that it’s the first time that it’s having major economic impact. What characterizes them is decentralized authority. You don’t have to ask permission, as you do in a property-based system. May I do this? It’s open for anyone to create and innovate and share, if they want to, by themselves or with others, because property is one mechanism of coordination. But it’s not the only one.

This is where it starts, “You have a belief: stuff will flow out of connected human beings.”

What if the Kingdom of God is Open Source?

Oh, my God, I think my head might implode.

What would it mean, if the Kingdom of God is actually the Wikingdom of God?

If the Kingdom of God, the manifestation of the Church in THIS age is actually the Wiki-ngdom of God, what changes? How do we reframe it?

First, it’s a radical departure from hierarchies. Decentralization is key. (Could this mean no denominations?)

Second, it is open for anyone to create and innovate and share, if they want to. (Could this mean that we’d be more inclusive, less dogmatic?)

Third, we share in the capitalization of it. We fund it. But we don’t gain monetarily like we would if we were to capitalize it. (Could this mean that we let go of property?)

Fourth, we have no control over it. (and we give up the illusion of control, too)

Fifth, we do our part and let the Spirit go from there.

The biggest argument to me about the nature of who Jesus was is this: he came to turn the world upside down. The world’s understanding of how things work and how things are, and how things are best.

And his disciples, walking with him, were dolt-ish about the whole thing.

I can just envision this scene. The disciples are chatting together, and Jesus walks up and they all get quiet. “Whatcha’ talking about?” Jesus asks. “Nuthin.” The disciples shift nervously. Finally, they confess, “We’re drawing straws for who is going to be first in heaven.”

He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

The Kingdom is not what we suppose.

Learning to Perform Miracles, A Sermon

John 6:1-24

I have a favorite novel called Lamb and subtitled, “The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.” Written by Christopher Moore, it is the story of Jesus from age 6 seen through the eyes of his best friend. In the book, Jesus is resistant to the idea that he is the Messiah, and decides to go in search of the Magi who visited at his birth to see if they can explain his Messianic nature.

You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don’t. Trust me, I was there. I know.

The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Just the tail end and the hind legs were visible on the outside; the head and forelegs were halfway down the hatch. He was six, like me, and his beard had not come in fully, so he didn’t look much like the pictures you’ve seen of him. His eyes were like dark honey, and they smiled at me out of a mop of blue-black curls that framed his face. There was a light older than Moses in those eyes.

“Unclean! Unclean!” I screamed, pointing at the boy, so my mother would see that I knew the Law, but she ignored me, as did all the other mothers who were filling their jars at the well.

The boy took the lizard from his mouth and handed it to his younger brother, who sat beside him in the sand. The younger boy played with the lizard for a while, teasing it unitl it reared its little head as if to bite, then he picked up a rock and mashed the creature’s head. Bewildered, he pushed the dead lizard around in the sand, and once assured that it wasn’t going anywhere on its own, he picked it up and handed it back to his older brother.

Into his mouth when the lizard, and before I could accuse, out it came again, squirming and alive and ready to bite once again. He handed it back to his younger brother, who smote it mightily with the rock, starting or ending the whole process again.

I watched the lizard die three more times before I said, “I want to do that too.”

The Savior removed the lizard from his mouth and said, “Which part?”

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Homosexuality: A Sermon

I’m doing a series at church on Romans. Last Sunday, I preached on Romans 1:18-32. Normally, I put the text up on this site. However, I am not writing a manuscript for this series. I’m preaching off the cuff. So, instead, I’m putting up the recording of the sermon.

The sermon opens with me say, “Homosexuality. I’m for it.” First I recap the bad news about our treatment of homosexuals. Then I remind everyone that 1) we can’t make Paul say what we want him to say (ever), and 2) Paul would have no concept of homosexuality as we know it now, as a way of being (as opposed to an act). The Romans passage, I maintain, is not really about homosexuality at all, but, according to Tyler Wigg Stevenson, about hyper-sexuality. And that hyper-sexuality is not cured by more sex. Then there’s good news!

Go listen! Lia Scholl, sermon on Romans 1

What the Bible Means to Me

Following my second sermon in a series on Romans yesterday, one of my church members asked me a question. I can’t get the exact wording, but the question was something like this:

Why do you preach from the Bible? Do you really think that we should use it as our baseline for understanding why we do what we do? Can’t we, just as easily, use reality and preach from there?

My answer is probably way too involved for a brief conversation following church. I decided to post it here.

I have an interesting relationship to the Bible. First, I absolutely love it. I want to read it, study it in the original language, preach from it, orientate my life to it. Second, I could know God without it. You get that? It reveals to me how THOSE people related to God. It reveals some about God’s nature. But it’s certainly not all of it. Nor does it explain the context in which I live today. So, while I love it, I am also cognizant of it’s limitations.

As I see it, the Bible is the story of a people (actually, two peoples) trying to understand their relationship with God. In the Hebrew Bible, we start with cosmic beginnings then to the particulars of the patriarchs and matriarchs, wanting to follow God, and all the while, being VERY human. Wow. Isn’t that my story?

Then with the gospels, it’s the teachings. The little phrases that Jesus says, that challenge me every day. “Love your enemies.” “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?”“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” Every day and in every way, the life and teachings of Jesus challenge me to move out of my boundaries.

But I have a different relationship with the Epistles. Especially Paul’s Epistles. Let me see if I can explain this…

Consider Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It’s a wonderful letter written to a specific group of people during a specific time. MLK writes in the style of Paul, and there are some very moving parts to his letter. There are some things that have relevance to my life.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Definitely a statement that has universal implications. However, some things are not so relevant.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

The specificity of this statement has very little to do with me, with my life in Richmond, 46 years after the letter was written. Imagine, we take Paul’s letter, written nearly 2000 years ago, and try to make each one of his statements universal. I don’t believe that they are universally applicable.

So, what does the Bible mean to me? I like this quote (I think it’s from Marcus Borg), “The Bible isn’t true, but it’s real.” I think I know God (not wholly, really). I know God through people, through nature, through my experience. The Bible helps me, especially in this Judeo-Christian context in which I live, to orient my life to this One who I follow: God shown most fully through Christ.

Too Much or Too Little?

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

It’s been an eventful week in the news. Revolution in Iran. The Metro crash in DC. A North Korean ship with a warhead in the Pacific Ocean, headed toward Hawaii. South Carolina’s Governor Sanford having an affair and running off to Argentina. Ed McMahon dead. Farrah Faucett dead. Michael Jackson dead.

As I mentioned, I’m a social media freak. I like facebook, twitter, I blog, read blogs, it’s really hard to get me away from my computer. And the news this week has been dominated by big issues, but the news has been dominated even more about the way people are talking about the things going on. From Sanford’s email love letters being released and read on the evening news, to everyone on Twitter changing their profile pictures to a green tint to support revolution in Iran, to the video of Neda, the young woman killed in a protest (even though she wasn’t protesting) by a single gunshot, a gruesome video that won’t leave my memory. Then the pounding that television and news outlets got after Michael Jackson’s death that left all of them scrambling for verification of untrue rumors. Rumors of other celebrity deaths.

And then the death of the King of Pop. You know, for a couple of hours, they were saying that Michael Jackson’s death might have killed the internet. Servers all over the world were running slow because of people searching for information on his death, and on his life, too, I suppose. The news outlets made hours of programming about it, it dominated the airways.

A friend of mine tweeted (that, for those of you who don’t twitter, is a 140-character (or less) statement about what you’re thinking) with a poll, “Michael Jackson: freak or child molester?” I don’t know about all that, but I do know that Michael Jackson was a product of his environment. He was a product of consumerism. And that’s just it…he was a product. The expectations of our culture made him who he was. And even in his death, we are still both overjoyed and shocked at what we made.

Our culture is driven by this consumerism. Even people fighting for the basic right to live in safety is dulled by our consumeristic drive. Michael Jackson trumps Iran.

You know the Bible says a lot about consumption, don’t you? If we took out everything that the Bible says about economics and the treatment of the poor (especially the widows and the orphans) we’d have very little Bible left. And while we spend hours, days, months, and years arguing the rightness and wrongness of other Bible verses (should we dance? should we allow people who love one another to continue loving one another? should we drink alcohol?) there’s no doubt that we spend very little time on economics and the treatment of the poor.

And our passage today is really about consumption, more than anything else. Let me give you a little background from on our passage:

1. It’s a letter written to the church in Corinth, who Paul has a very close relationship to. In fact, he’s sort of the father of their faith.
2. The church in Corinth is a socially and ethnically diverse congregation, and is pretty unified.
3. Paul is taking a collection from the Church in Corinth for the “saints in Jerusalem,” or the “poor in Jerusalem.”
4. The final sentence in the passage, “As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little,” is a direct quote from Exodus, when the Hebrew people were complaining about not having enough food, and God began providing manna for them.
5. This passage is centered around the term “grace,” or charis, even though our translation doesn’t make that clear. Verse 7 and 9. Charis is understood to be given by God to people, in the midst of affliction and poverty. It’s given abundantly. God’s grace is powerful and moves the recipients to a reflection of God’s abundance so that they respond profusely by doing good works toward others.

Let’s look at the passage again.

For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has–not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.”

I spent a little time this week thinking about my own consumption. I watched as I spent more and more money. I thought about how to not buy branded stuff (do you realize that you can’t do that? Even buying local is branded these days, by Farm Bureau, with their big signs on the highways.

I thought about giving away my stuff. Keeping it moving. But, honestly, I couldn’t see why anyone would want the stuff I have to give away!

I’m going to make an assumption. American is still the richest country in the world.

So here’s a question: Are the richest people in the world be inclined to be giving?

And is Paul talking just about money?

Paul says, “the gift is acceptable according to what one has.”

What do we have? We have freedom. We have wealth. We have water. We have food. We have security. We have the rule of law. We have the right to self-rule.

But doesn’t it also mean that those who live in poverty, in fear, in insecurity, in hunger, in thirst, that they should share what they have? They have culture, and religion, and God, in some way, and persecution, and injustice, and sickness. Should not they also share so that we would not have too little?

You know, I look back on the life of Michael Jackson, and what I see is someone who had great expectations put upon him for his music. But also very low expectations for his behavior. He had a ton of money, but very little responsibility. He was treated like a child, and he remained a child for his fifty years.

We have been given grace from God. Remember, charis is understood to be given by God to people, in the midst of affliction and poverty. It’s given abundantly. God’s grace is powerful and moves the recipients to a reflection of God’s abundance so that they respond profusely by doing good works toward others.

So the task that I’ll leave you with this week is to think, think hard about your relationship to money. Does having more make you want more? Or does having more leave you open-handed, giving so that those who have little will not have too little? Think about your relationship to other things that you have in excess: your time, freedom, health, security. Can you spend time giving so that others can have a little more time?

Gandhi said, “As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it.  If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you.  Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you, or when it seems to interfere with that which is more greatly desired.”

A young man came to the ashram where Gandhi was and said, “I want to join the ashram, but I can’t give up my books.” Gandhi said, “Then don’t give up your books. When something comes along that’s better than books, then you’ll give them up.”

It is, in other words, find something that you love, more than money, more than freedom, more than time, more than security. Isn’t that they point?