Now why is it that when mass destruction and untold human suffering fit their agenda, the fundamentalists preach it as “God’s Wrath”, but when it doesn’t it is but “signs of the end times”? I have spent the last few days experiencing these tremors and even had a night of both tornado warnings and an earthquake within a couple of hours of each other. Hey, you have to be made of tough stuff to live here in the Sooner State.

Still, why does the “reddest of the red states” get a break? Why is God’s wrath not pressing down on us like Pat Robertson said about both 9-11 and Katrina? It would be difficult to argue that it is because we aren’t hard enough on gay people. We have Sally Kern , we have all kinds of anti-gay legislation (some in defiance of Supreme Court rulings) and we have a culture that generates events like this and this. So, we should be fine with Pat Robertson’s god. Our abortion laws are among the toughest in the country, so that should put us in the Robertson/Falwell god’s good graces. And it can’t be because we’re too liberal, our name comes from the Choctaw language and combines the words okla humma, meaning “red people”. We seem determined to prove it as a political statement too.

So what is it? Is it just a matter of convenience? When the storms hit or the earth shakes in a place where your narrative easily fits then it is God’s wrath, but when it doesn’t then the pretty innocuous “end times” label comes out? Or, even though I don’t share the fundamentalist theology, can we see something else? I mean, what if they are right? What if this is God’s wrath? What could God be mad about in Oklahoma?

Several thousand years ago the prophet Isaiah said these words to Israel:

Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken:

I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me…

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord;

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?

Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.

New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—

I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me,

I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;

cease to do evil, learn to do good;

seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

(Isaiah 1:2 and 11-17 NRSV)

Jesus, who quoted from Isaiah in his first sermon (according to Luke), tells his disciples this:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him,

then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

All the nations will be gathered before him,

and he will separate people one from another

as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,

and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand,

‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you

from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food,

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,

I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing,

I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry

and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you,

or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick

or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you,

just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,

you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand,

You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire

prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food,

I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,

sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer,

‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty

or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’

Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you,

just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

(Matthew 25: 31-46 NRSV)

Oklahoma ranks as the 4th hungriest state in the nation, and this was in 2010. While this has changed some, we still rank near the top of a list no one wants to claim. While we know that poverty correlates tightly with education, we continue to cut education while still seeking to lower taxes and play musical chairs with our remaining education dollars to the detriment of students.

We continue to seek draconian immigration laws which would have amazingly far reaching consequences and would prey upon the immigrant community (legal or otherwise) all in the name of being tough on immigration.

Oklahoma continues to feed a private and public prison system that is filled to capacity, locks up more women per capita than any other state, and whose overall incarceration rate ranks third among the 50 states.

Oklahoma, like most of the country, continues to be OK if you have the money, but a harder place to live in if you don’t. And the economic disparity continues to grow, with many unable to climb out of economic holes. Debt and affordable credit make the “Oklahoma dream” (much less the American one) a more and more distant possibility for many.

Food, housing and the crunch of living paycheck-to-paycheck is a terrible combination here in this state. At the end of 2010, more than 779,000 Oklahomans were on food stamps. More than 30 percent of the state’s children were receiving food stamps last December. The growth in Medicaid enrollment is similar – a 43 percent increase since 2002. Currently more than 885,000 Oklahomans receive some Medicaid services. Meanwhile these services get cut. Worst of all, more and more children are growing up on poverty, which typically means more issues down the road.

Again I want to say that I am not a believer in the fundamentalist version of God. But if I were, why would I think that God’s wrath is be visited upon us because of either homosexuality, which the Bible supposedly mentions about 7 or so times, or abortion, which is ambiguously connected to scripture at all, instead of how we treat the marginalized among us – what the Bible refers to as “widows and orphans”? The Bible mentions the “widows and orphans” or the “poor” dozens and dozens of times – ALWAYS with the stipulation that God wishes us to care for such as these. Jesus NEVER mentions homosexuality, but he calls out our treatment of the “least of these” as the very essence of how we will be judged.

So, if God is behind “a whole lotta’ shakin’ goin’ on”, we might reconsider why. It may not be for the reasons you think. If God is going to be pissed about something, I think that our tradition is pretty clear about what will be the subject of God’s wrath. It ain’t the AIDS ministry or the couple who have been together for 25 years (but happen to be of the same gender). It ain’t the single mother on welfare or the child in poverty. It ain’t the ACLU or the Planned Parenthood office. It ain’t even the prostitute or the panhandler or the meth addict. It is the halls of Congress where cuts are made for ideological dogma…the corporate board rooms where CEOs pull down vast wealth while they ship jobs overseas…the churches where a message is preached that your personal salvation and prosperity are the points of a life of faith, instead of your hard work and sacrifice in loving your neighbor as yourself…your participation in the building of the Kingdom of God.

Ask the average Oklahoman, “Who is Elizabeth Warren?” and you will get a blank stare.   Ask anyone else in the country and you will get a lively conversation.  Born in Oklahoma City and raised in Norman, Elizabeth Warren grew up on what she calls “the ragged edge of the middle class.”  A state debate champion and brilliant student, Elizabeth Warren ended up teaching at Harvard, chairing the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and was the principle architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  She would have chaired it but Republicans threatened to filibuster her nomination. Now she is running for the storied senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts—and already leads her opponent, Scott Brown, in most polls.  Did I say she was from Oklahoma?

I first read about Elizabeth Warren on the front page of the New York Times, then in a Times editorial.  Later I picked up a copy of Newsweek and there she was on the cover.   Now I can’t turn on a cable show without seeing her, listening to her, or being amazed by her meteoric rise to national prominence.  That is, except in Oklahoma.  Go ahead, google “Oklahoma media coverage of Elizabeth Warren” and see what you come up with.  You guessed it—zip, zero, nada.

Bill Moyers recently accepted my invitation to come to Oklahoma City University to meet with students, deliver a lecture to over 2,000 people, and share stories from his amazing life.  Did you know that he was the principle architect of the Peace Corp and its first deputy director, the youngest press secretary in American history for Lyndon Johnson, and the winner of 30 Emmy awards for producing some of the most remarkable documentaries ever seen on public television?  Did you know that he was born in Hugo Oklahoma?

Guess how much Oklahoma Media coverage Bill Moyers got?  Only the Gazette and the City Sentinel ran a story.  Not a single other media outlet showed up to cover the homecoming of one of Oklahoma’s most remarkable sons.  Moyers was the principle architect of LBJ’s “Great Society” before spending on the Vietnam War eroded and finally ended this effort to end poverty and racial injustice in the turbulent 60’s.  Moyers wrote most of Johnson’s speeches and will one day write his definitive biography.  Did I say he was from Oklahoma?

After living here for 27 years, (I was born in Oklahoma City), I know what the local media means when it talks about the “Oklahoma spirit” or “hometown heroes” or asks, “Is This a Great State or What?”  It means only if you are not a liberal.  It means only if you fit in that very small box containing the “non-peculiar” Oklahomans:  conservative, Christian, Republican lovers of country music and one of our football teams.  Otherwise, you don’t exist.  You have become an invisible Okie.

All of this brings to mind the words of Jesus that “a prophet is not without honor except in his own country, and in his own house.”  Elizabeth Warren and Bill Moyers are native Oklahomans who have earned the respect and admiration of countless Americans, but those lives have essentially been censored by the Oklahoma gatekeepers of the status quo.   Around here, if you were born in Oklahoma and grew up to be a famous athlete, or Miss America, or even a U.S. senator who doesn’t know the difference between climate and weather, you will be in the news constantly.   But if the majority of us disagree with your politics or your religion, we have a way of erasing your Oklahoma roots.  We just don’t cover that story.  Elizabeth who?

OK, now I’m just sad.  I have been confused, befuddled and even outraged at the discourse, reactions and behavior of people in the political and social square, but now it is just sadness.  It began with “You lie!” shouted from the house chamber during a presidential speech, but the town hall meetings put that to shame and since it seems like we’ve been on a non-stop race from both sides of the aisle to see who can be more superficial, rude and just plain mean.  And I have stayed relatively quiet because I think that people have a right to be angry, there are things about which we should all be angry.  Yes, we should deal with it more professionally (or at least maturely) but it is an understandable level of fear…the politicians and media feed it, and we ring the bell so quickly that Pavlov is smiling from beyond the grave. But there is something else at work here.  There is something beyond the hyperbole and political grandstanding that cannot go by unchallenged.  There are philosophies that need to be exposed, countered and contended with.  For, as former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.”

In the last GOP debate, Congressman Ron Paul did what he always does.  He stated his opinions clearly and with great passion and dedication to his Libertarian ideals, some of which I agree with.  He is not someone I would ever want to be President, but I at least admire his integrity.  He believes in a philosophy wholeheartedly, not just when it is convenient or politically expedient.  That is a rare thing.  I happen to disagree with his philosophy, but I respect him for that nonetheless.

That being said, his philosophical and political agenda leads us to a certain place, one that most people don’t want to talk about.  The recent debate exposed one of those logical conclusions (finally addressed by the media) and gave us this debate about health care and our obligation to one another.  Congressman Paul’s was asked a hypothetical question.  What should we as a country do about a healthy 30 year old man (good job, good living) who does not buy insurance (based on his overall health, the high cost and a normal 30 year old’s still strong sense of invincibility) but who then contracts a catastrophic disease or who has a horrible accident?  What happens to that person?

His answer was that we need to get beyond this idea that we have to take care of everyone.  He made a choice and he must live with the consequences.  “That’s what freedom is all about”, Paul stated with a shrug, “taking your own risks.”  He talked about a time before Medicare when the “churches took care of people” who needed that kind of help.  They “never turned anyone away”, he said. “We have given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves, assume responsibility for ourselves … that’s the reason the cost is so high.”

Now look, Paul has a point.  Yes, insurance and the way that we have done Medicare has caused our medical costs to go way up.  We have built our health insurance system on the same concepts and models as property insurance, which is ridiculous.  So, he is right about that.  But those are political details that should be debated.  The other participants were ready to do that, but no one wanted to touch the crowd yelling, “Let him die”.  I also think that Paul is right in saying that perhaps the Churches should be more involved.  The Christian tradition was based on the healing of the sick, and we don’t do as much of that anymore.  But there’s two little pieces of information that must be presented, because his basic premise is, I think, absolutely wrong.

1. Nothing operates independently.  The number of people who lacked health insurance last year climbed to 49.9 million, up from 49 million in 2009, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.  That is related to the downturn in the economy, the lack of decent paying jobs and the overall impact of the rich getting much richer while the poor flounder or fall.  The disparity in wealth in this country is matched only by China and many African dictatorships.  This means that there is a super-rich section (the top 1% of people in this country control 33.8% of the wealth) and a large percentage of people for whom there will never be the same levels of opportunity.  Saying that we should just all take care of ourselves assumes that we all have the same ability to do so.  This is another version of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and it must be debunked.  Are there lazy people? Yes, in all economic categories.  But the vast majority of people I know (again from all economic backgrounds) work hard and are willing to do what it takes to get to their goals.  It simply isn’t a level playing field.  If you need evidence, see here, here or here.  So even if the churches were supposed to take over the care of the uninsured, the numbers would be staggering.  With church numbers on the decline, and more and more people heading to “house churches”, this might be an interesting hurdle.

2. These are the same sorts of economic scenarios that were in existence at the time of Jesus.  Why did Jesus heal the sick and eat with the outcasts?  Why did he turn over the moneychangers’ tables in the temple?  Because he was making a statement about the kingdom that existed and contrasting it with the Kingdom of God.  It wasn’t because he thought that the houses of worship should be hospitals, but because society had it’s priorities out of whack.  Yes, the church should help to heal the sick and care for the injured, but we shouldn’t keep rescuing the drowning people from the river without also going upstream to see who is throwing them in in the first place!

The church begin as a primary healer of the general populace because it was needed.  Because it was a question of justice.  The real issue, believe it or not, isn’t money, it is equality.  Money is power in our society, as in so many others, and if you don’t have it it’s more than your pocketbook that stays empty.  It is your voice, your presence, your participation in the very society in which you live.  And when that happens, you becomes part of a system that says that we should all just “take care of ourselves” but meanwhile enables some to care more deeply for themselves than others.  And that sort of inequality – which always comes if not actively legislated, regulated and orchestrated away – is the downfall of society.  It is the moral decay that we should cry out against.  This is why Jesus told the people who everyone else lambasted as “sinners” to go and sin no more while he chastised endlessly the supposedly “holy” ones of his era.  He knew what was the real moral decay and ours is no different.  Hollywood may be one thing, but Wall Street is quite another.

Adam Smith, a Scotsman and widely considered to be the father of modern economics and capitalism wrote this in The Wealth of Nations in 1776: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”  I am not anti-capitalist because I am a Marxist or a Communist.  I am anti-capitalist because of what Capitalism has come to represent – a mean-spirited, hyper-individualistic, ultra-competitive ideology that counts profit over people and encourages in us precisely the thing that will tear us apart, the notion that we do not need one another.  In principle I have no issue with someone making more money than I do.  What I have issue with is that wealth determining their position in society or encouraging them to think that they either did this all by themselves or that they count more than I do because of their material value.

Another thing occurred in the same week as this GOP debate, and it got as much coverage.  A young man came over a hill on his motorcycle only to have a car pull out in front of him.  He laid the bike down to avoid a direct collision, but that ended up with him trapped underneath the car with a broken leg and arm and his motorcycle on fire.  A group of bystanders came to the rescue and lifted the car off of the young man, pulling him to safety.  They were praised for their courage in daring the flames and rescuing this young man.  Why is that philosophy praised while the philosophy that we should care for one another at the level of healthcare chastised?  This young man made his own decisions…he chose to get on that motorcycle, an inherently dangerous activity.  Why not let him die?  Because this is not our human spirit.  Our instinct is to help one another, because this is the essence of what we were created to be.  Unfortunately many people, often in the name of Christianity, want to redirect that instinct to be one of selfishness or “leave me alone” or tribalism…the very thing that Jesus tells us is the basest, easiest form of love.  Why should I praise you for philia love?  Even the tax collectors do that!  I call you to agape love…love of the stranger, the outcast, the “other”.

I guess when it comes right down to it, that I really don’t have a problem with people professing the “let him die” philosophy.  I just have a problem with them doing it and then calling themselves Christians.  You cannot follow both Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ.  It simply is not possible.  Just as you cannot serve both God and money.  This is why Jesus taught us to not be so preoccupied with getting, so we can respond to God’s giving.  But this is more than just a Christian truth, it is a human truth.  We don’t have to speculate on what happens when we create a society comprised of people who are only in it for themselves.  I like to have Darwinism stay a biological theory, I don’t need it as a social one.  I need more “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

And, for the record, if I’m trapped underneath a burning vehicle…please pull me out.  I promise to do the same for you.

The brief spate of summer storms that hit central Oklahoma recently gave us all a brief respite from the relentless heat but they also knocked down many a fence and power pole and readjusted our church’s steeple. As you can see from the picture, it now leans – to the right if you are standing in the front of the church, and to the left from the back parking lot. Now, most people in this city would say that there is only one direction for Mayflower’s steeple to lean, if it must lean, and that would be the view you get from the back parking lot. We are known a liberal bunch, or the “Devil’s concubines” depending on the couth of the speaker.

In the process of getting the steeple “righted”, I have had a few congregants petition me to just keep it this way. After all, we consider even ourselves to be a church that is a bit askew. And I’m beginning to agree with them. One of the ways that we have forgotten to be church in the way that the ecclesia functioned in the first century CE is that we are far from counter-cultural. We are culture. Just look at the presidential debates and ask yourself one question. Who would stand a better chance of getting elected? A person who professes Christianity but cheats on his spouse and engages in insider trading or a Muslim who has been married faithfully for 35 years and lives an honest life? I contend that despite what many Fundamentalists insist, we live in a culture soaked in Christianity…but it is Christianity as cultural marker, not as transformational effort. The “Christianity” we see on display more often than not looks just like the “Jersey Shore”, Reality TV, pop culture that we see all around us as well. They are often indistinguishable from one another, except than one professes the love and compassion of Christ while never delivering on the promise and the other simply acts with complete self-interest and no promise at all.

When our cultural norm celebrates violence as redemptive, money, power and fame as the pinnacle of existence and encourages at every turn the rejection of any who do not believe just as you do, maybe we could stand being a little askew. For when you look around I would contend that the only kind of love that is demonstrated at all is the kind that, in ancient Greek, is called philia. We translate this word as love in the Bible, just as we translate the Greek words eros, storgy, and agape, even though they reflect very different ideas. Philia is “brotherly love” (like in Philadelphia) or love of your own…love of the tribe…love of those who are like you. Jesus makes a reference to this in Matthew 5, the “Sermon on the Mount”. He says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” In other words, if you practice philia to the best of your ability…if it becomes your primary focus, your central and most important feature in your life…if you do it better than anyone else in the world…who cares?

What is Jesus’ answer? “You must therefore set no bounds to your love, just as your heavenly Father sets none to his.” Or, as it is more commonly translated, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” There’s nothing wrong, of course, with loving your family or tribe or people. But the aspiration is for something higher than that. And the counter-cultural agenda begs the question: What might the world look like if we didn’t stop with loving those only like us as the highest ideal, but instead reached for a love that has no qualifiers, that doesn’t demand something in return, that is…as a friend of mine says…love without exceptions?

Maybe we need to reconsider our alignment. Maybe the steeple is a good metaphor. If straight means a world full of very conditional, low-pressure and scarce love, maybe being a bit askew is the exact thing we need.

Having fashioned many versions of a prayer for the people of Norway, only a Prayer of Confession sounds right…

God of All People,

For a world so scarred by intolerance,
in which race or creed, nation or religion, gender or sexuality is a reason for hatred
and where communities are torn apart,
we seek your mercy.

For a world that is devastated by violence,
in which innocent lives are shattered
particularly in your name, Holy One,
we cry out for your mercy.

For a world in which families are grieving,
for those who didn’t come home, for children whose innocence is lost, for all kinds of pain,
For wounded communities who will always remember,
we long for your mercy.

Forgive us our sins of idolatry, pride and arrogance, Holy One,
and move us closer to a world where justice, peace and non-violence
are indisputably linked together as a new Holy Trinity for our time and place.

This we ask in the name of the Prince of Peace, our teacher and Lord who told us that we should love our enemies, turn the other cheek and forgive with endless compassion…for these are the signs of the Kingdom of God.

Amen