what can we learn from the latest climate “scandal”?
December 30, 2009
If you are a climatologist or even a lukewarm environmentalist, you may have heard the echoes of a storm out of Europe a few weeks ago. An online entrepreneur hacked into the University of East Anglia’s prestigious Climate Research Unit. The result? Apparently climatologists and scientific researchers have been revealed for either the height of arrogance or the stupidity of short-sightedness. As the Washington Post reported:
“They appear to exaggerate their public certainty on disputed issues, shade the presentation of information for political effect, tamper with the peer-review process, resist reasonable requests for supporting data and urge the destruction of e-mails to avoid embarrassment. Other scientists in these e-mail chains resist these abuses. But the dominant voices are ideological. The attitude seems to be: Insiders can question, if they don’t go too far. Outsiders who threaten the movement are “idiots.” This attitude is demonstrated not only by private e-mails but also by the public reaction of prominent scientists to those e-mails. They show “scientists at work.” They are “pretty innocuous.” They are “understandable and mostly excusable.” “We are all humans; and humans come with dogma as standard equipment.” This “kind of language and kidding goes on verbally all the time.” Criticism is based merely on “ignorance” and critics have “more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger.” It is the scientific equivalent of discounting Watergate as a “second-rate burglary.”
All of this back-and-forth in the scientific community should probably be an aside for followers of Jesus, because whether one side gains an up on the other in the media, one of the first and primary commissions given to all humans in Genesis is to care for and steward the resources of the earth: that means the environment, the animals and all of the creatures/creations. Yet surely this gives the nay-sayers of global warming and climate change adversaries ammunition for attacks against the scientific evidence of climate change. But even moreso: if this eventually gets into the “public consciousness” it can affect the priority of environmental policy, because Senators and Congressmen - not to mention the President - will feel the scrutiny and pressure of pursuing and spending public resources on something suspect in the eyes of the public that elects them. In fact, it casts such a long shadow on the endeavour of climatologists seeking to understand global warming [since the advent of reliable records in the 1800s, the overall trend goes in one direction: warmer. All 10 of the hottest years on record have come since 1997.] they might find their huge government grants shrinking because of the political fallout. What has happened? Their credibility is in crisis.
What can the Church learn? I’d like to suggest three things we can learn from this “scandal”:
- Integrity matters. It’s as simple as that. Surely - as Ecclesiastes proclaims - there is season for everything – a time to be provocative and a time to be understated - but integrity is never out of season. And if you are pimping your message and if your ideological dogma outweighs the spirituality of the Way, Truth and Life to such an extent that you are willing to sacrifice integrity to garner support or short-circuit community discernment because its “messy” and inefficient or sacrifice the struggle with doubt for shallow certitude…you just might end up sacrificing the most important things that you need in the long haul.
- Discernment matters. Delving deeper into the truth beyond 24-hour-news-cycle media headlines and scandals must take place in the community of Jesus. We have to look deeper and ask the Spirit to empower us beyond of prejudices and to guide us into all truth, in every aspect of truth, including climate change and global warming.
- Grace matters. The truth is we are all fallible and messy people, particularly when we are in community. Mess happens in church, mess happens in community, mess happens in the scientific community. Yet the weight of the glory of the people of God is that we can reach, endure and see beyond the mess via the grace of Christ Jesus so that the Spirit can guide us all into the truth.
Lectio: John 1:1-14
December 25, 2009
At the start of all was the Word.
The Word was with God.
The Word actually was God —
at the start of all and with God.
All things came into existence through the Word.
Apart from the Word not one thing that exists came into being.
Life was in the Word.
This life was light for humankind.
It shines, still shines, in the darkness;
darkness failed to snuff it out.
There was a man sent from God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness,
a witness to the Light,
came so that everyone would believe through him.
Make no mistake:
he wasn’t the Light;
he came only as a witness to the Light.
The Light was the True Light.
Coming into this world of ours
it provides light for all humankind.
He (the Light) was in our world,
and though the world was made through him,
the world didn’t know him, didn’t get him.
He came to what was his own,
and yet his own people didn’t receive him.
But some did.
For those believing in him
he gave an open door
to become children of God.
They are not born
by bloodline or human will or desire.
No, they are God-born.
__________________
For me translation is a form of both meditation and listening. The act of translating forces me to ponder or “listen” to the text in a way that feels very different from sitting with the English for a while. Much like in lectio divina, my habit is to read the text several times before even beginning. After making a start, I linger over each sentence, phrasing and rephrasing it, noticing connections with what goes before and comes after. There is some effort, but it doesn’t feel strained. That is, I’m not struggling to pin it down. That task is a dead end. Language is too subtle and nuanced and fluid to every be mastered. (No matter how good your particular phrasing may be, you can always come up with another that has its own merit.) Rather, I’m trying to sit with the text for a while, let it seep in and find a new voice through me in a language familiar to others. In this process the text speaks to me, and by faith I often take it to be the Lord speaking to me through the text. I don’t see this “voice” as something unusual and mystical; I take it as a very natural outcome of pausing long enough to listen.
What I “heard” most loudly in this reading was the part “the world didn’t know him, didn’t get him.” And what I noticed was how quickly I identified the world as “them,” meaning “someone other than myself.” That’s where I was checked. As long as I automatically align myself with the “good guys,” my ability to ask tough questions of myself, to receive the tough questioning of others, or to receive a loving critique from God is compromised. With the check, however, came an invitation and a desire to know him better, to “get him” better.
“Lord, I want to be one who knows you, who gets you, who walks through your open door into childhood, a state of dependency and trust where I am born and reborn in you.”
lectio: luke 1:39-45
December 18, 2009
Not long after being visited by the angel, Mary made a hurried trip to a village in the hill country of Judea. Once there, she entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, embracing and kissing her. And the moment Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby inside her suddenly moved as if leaping. Elizabeth, for her part, was filled with the Holy Spirit and blurted out loudly:
“God’s hand is on you in a special way! And God’s hand is also on the child you’ll give birth to! I’m so honored to have the mother of my Lord come to see me! The moment your greeting hit my ears, the baby inside me suddenly moved, leaping for joy! You’re blessed for believing that what God spoke to you is going to happen!”
There is a communion among women who are carrying children or have born children that men will never directly experience. Men experience this fellowship obliquely, from the outside rather than inside. We are excluded by gender from the mystery of pregnancy, this profoundly embodied experience of carrying and nurturing life within us and then delivering that life into the world. As I slowly read and reread this small vignette, entering the story as best as I could in my imagination, I experienced several longings that touch on this intimate communion.
I longed first for my own “Elizabeth” to whom I would run in order to share something precious. I know so so many younger people. Most of my life exists among them. Of peers I have a good handful. But what I lack right now is that older, wiser person to whom I would naturally run to share something that I could count on to be understood. But I also longed for something precious to share, something that would produce the same level of joy and excitement in me that these two woman certainly shared.
In a spiritual sense, I guess you could say that I found myself wanting to be pregnant, wanting to have new and tangible life taking root in me, life I could identify and share with at least one other who really “got it,” something I could get excited about.
I also experienced a longing to see with more regularity and greater precision God’s “seed” in others, and not just to see it but also respond to it as enthusiastically as Elizabeth did to Mary — to identify the “fruit of their body.” I still have a strong tendency to leave my thoughts unverbalized. So much goes unsaid that needs to find daylight, so lately I’ve been making regular attempts to tell others what they mean to me and what I see in them that’s good and beautiful and holy. Elizabeth, infused by the Spirit, is an exemplar: “God’s hand is on you in a special way! God’s hand is also on the child you’ll give birth to!” John, too, even while still in utero, is an exemplar, because “he leapt for joy” upon hearing the voice of his Lord’s mother. (The verb used for “leap” is often used of animals frolicking out of sheer exuberance for life.) This tells me he noticed and responded to the presence of God in Mary.
“Lord, let your life come to me in surprising and unexpected ways as it did to both Mary and Elizabeth. Let me share the joy of carrying, nurturing and birthing — even at my own risk — the life you place within me. Give me as well the discernment to notice that same life in others. I want to name it loudly, clearly and with joy after noticing it. Whatever you’ve placed in others that reflects you, no matter how faint, may I learn to see it and bless it. Amen.”
lectio: luke 3:7-18
December 11, 2009
So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ”Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. ”Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And the crowds were questioning him, saying, “Then what shall we do?” And he would answer and say to them, “The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.” And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.” Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.” Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, John answered and said to them all, “As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ”His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people.
luke 3:7-18
verses 10-14 - so often i ask: what do i do, Lord? what i am supposed to do is very practical, not super-hyped, just plain and simple. share food and clothes with those who have none. be honest. don’t oppress. be content. this is what repentance looks like. so often, simplicity is the answer to my own complexity.
verse 15 - echoing the request of abraham joshua heschel: “i asked for wonder!”; i need more expectation and wonder and awe in my life…which probably means i need to become more childlike again and again…
verse 17 – in prayer and ministry, i overuse the imagery of the Holy Spirit coming as a dove…with gentleness and grace and loving adoption. i need more of the fire of the Holy Spirit…burn away the chaff in me O God!
++O Father, make us into children of abraham, make us children of faithfulness. O Lord Jesus, may we abide in you in such simplicity and trust that we bear the fruit of our abiding. O Spirit, come…come and baptize us with fire that we may spread it upon the earth. Amen.++
lectio: luke 3:1-6
December 4, 2009
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
”THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS,
’MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD,
MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.
’EVERY RAVINE WILL BE FILLED,
AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND HILL WILL BE BROUGHT LOW;
THE CROOKED WILL BECOME STRAIGHT,
AND THE ROUGH ROADS SMOOTH;
AND ALL FLESH WILL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD.’”
Luke 3:1-6
verses 1 and 2 - as one trained in the craft of history, i appreciate the context-setting that luke does here, giving us the international, national and local context of those who wield power; and yet in the midst of all these ‘power people’, the word of God comes to john in the wilderness…not in the palaces and temples of power, but the wilderness. the wilderness has often seemed like a dry wasteland and the absence of God to me. but i testify that it has been in the wilderness seasons of my life - when i was athirst and my soul dried up - that is when God has given me his word, like a sudden rainshower…utterly refreshing and life to one in the wilderness; this also reminds me that it is into the wilderness that God – in the exodus – led the former slaves of Egypt to make of them a covenant people, ready to embody His Way…
verse 3 - stunning: ‘preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins;’ it strikes me today that i often rush through these words, assuming so much, because i have heard sermon-after-sermon about them. but today as i re-read them over and over, what strikes me is that john isn’t preaching a repentance [greek: metanoia/"change you mind"] about your sins, but it says change your mind about “the forgiveness of sins”. these people knew they were sinners; they lived in a culture seeped in the teaching of torah and if that wasn’t enough, the pharisees are there to provoke them. but what john offers is a word about forgiveness…and this strikes me as a good word for myself as well: how often am i trying to convince people about the sin in their lives that they all ready know about? i need to begin speaking much more of forgiveness, and practicing it. the significance of forgiveness can be lost on me sometimes, but if preaching forgiveness gets john in trouble with the temple authorities, then it should probably get me in trouble as well; and it reminds me of the situation of the apostle paul: if we are not being accused by the pharisees and temple authorities of our day of having too much grace (like paul was in romans 6) then we probably are not really practicing the radical way of forgiveness and grace; but, like paul, in taking the radical way of Jesus, we will likely need to explain ourselves, because it is not cheap grace nor easy forgiveness, but it is scandalous!
verses 4-6 - again, reflecting what had happened in verse 2, a voice proclaiming - crying out - in the wilderness; the echo of the word of God spoken in dry, lonely places is heard round the world. there will be no obstacle to God coming to redeem and deliver His people…chills run up my spine as i read: “and all flesh will see the salvation of God.” even so, come Lord Jesus.
++Lord Jesus, help us to embrace the way of forgiveness. Help us change our minds concerning the forgiveness of sins, and see that we cannot do it, it is only in You that we may find the deep grace of a delivering God. Let us see Your salvation, O God Most High! Amen.++