House Arrest

On my office file cabinet I have a magnet that scolds, “You’ve been bad. Go to your office!”

Of course this echoes what some of us heard as children, “You’ve been bad. Go to your room!” The isolation, the confinement, and the implied restrictions served as punishment to dissuade us from bad behavior. In more recent times it was called a “time out.”

In the olden days, when I was growing up, it meant no television, no telephone, no play, and for some, no dinner—this in the days when there was only one TV and one phone in the house, and no devices on which to play games or watch something in your room. Do we mistake our present isolation as a kind of punishment?

This is how those most privileged among us might experience the “stay-at-home” confinement of our worldwide pandemic. A slight inconvenience, but a nagging reminder of the dangers of our footloose-and-fancy-free days when we could do just about anything we wanted.

It reminds me of when I was once shushed by a favored aunt as a little boy. Me, trying to be the best-little-boy-in-the-world, an offender?! How could this be?

Now, don’t get me wrong. As an introvert, I appreciate time alone or time with a few. As a spiritual person, I know I am not alone, but surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses before God. As a reader, I enjoy hearing from all kinds of people. As a writer, I am gratified to have people read my stuff. Even this post I feared would sound like whining!

But I’m writing this because I know I am not the only one who feels discombobulated by the necessity of social distancing, limited physical contact, and fearful interactions. When I go to buy our groceries, I feel as if I’m on a risky venture. When I don my mask and sometimes gloves, I feel like I’m getting ready for a walk in space.  

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the prison drama series, Orange Is the New Black, because I find the idea of imprisonment depressing. The earlier prison drama series, Oz, also didn’t appeal to me, despite its erotic male content.

Long ago I had a dream in which I found myself in prison, cut off from all those people I cared about and cared about me. I thought, well, with so much time on my hands, I could get a lot of reading done! But, in the dream, I was too depressed to pick up a book.

Maybe all this reminds me of my years in the closet as a gay youth. Maybe it’s reminiscent of the limitations of an early adolescent political conservatism that was transformed by education and compassion and maturity. Undoubtedly it smacks of the confining Christian fundamentalism that held me down and held me back from truly enjoying the world and even enjoying myself until I was in college.

The apostle Paul had his own fundamentalism to overcome, one that prompted his initial persecution of liberalizing Christians. And he purportedly produced one of his finest epistles while under house arrest in Rome: Ephesians. Concerned with the partisanship within the early church, he eloquently argued that now, in following Jesus, Christians were one, overcoming any “dividing wall of hostility.” 

I pray those who believe in a fair and just representative democracy may share such a vision of unity in our present state of house arrest.

  

Related posts:

“Where Is Everybody?”

The Pandemic’s Monastic Opportunity

I will be leading a virtual, at-home retreat open to the public for Columbia Seminary’s Spiritual Formation Program with Zoom sessions September 17-19, 2020 entitled 

An Open Receptive Place: Henri Nouwen’s Spirituality. 

You are invited! The site’s dates include “reading weeks” beginning August 31^st in which you are invited to comment on the texts for the retreat and a final day “Sabbath” for rest and reflection on September 20^th.

Donations to this blog ministry may be given safely by clicking here and scrolling down to the donate link below its description or by mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.

The Empty Closet

Jerusalem passageway, 1981 -crg

Approaching Easter, I found myself in a kind of Holy Saturday malaise—you know, that dreary interim when Jesus is in the tomb, and all is lost. I read again the narratives around the empty tomb, the resurrection stories, one Gospel each day. I wanted to encounter the risen Christ. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

Then it occurred to me that I was looking for a literal resurrection, like Thomas demanding to see the prints of the nails in Jesus' hands and feel the wound in his side. In truth, the stories that most appeal to me are the mystical ones, like the Emmaus disciples experiencing Jesus in the kerygma of “opening scriptures” and the sacrament of breaking bread.

The literal miracle I was overlooking was what came out of that empty tomb: a new faith and spiritual community that would attract much of humanity and change the world; a fresh understanding of God and, to take it personally, a fresh understanding of myself. “God brought us to life with Christ,” in the words of Ephesians 2:5 (NJB). I recognized the resurrection of Jesus in countless others, thanks to his passion and compassion.

Coming out of the closet helped me better grasp resurrection. I know how differently life and God and the world are experienced when free of confinement, restriction, and hiddenness. Everything is new and seen/felt/heard/smelled/tasted as if for the first time. It’s wonderful and terrifying, uplifting and burdensome. It calls for an entirely different way of being, acting, speaking, and loving.

It entails both freedom and responsibility. Its heights and depths make one soar and sink at the same time. It helps one focus and broaden all at once. Suddenly, when first coming out, I was in the “rapids” of my life excursion, exhilarating and frightening, both limiting and opening possibilities, tearing me away from safer shores and hurling me toward the unknown. “Thar be dragons thar,” I feared.

In my 1998 book Coming Out as Sacrament, I used “coming out” as a hermeneutic for biblical interpretation. One reviewer groused about my introducing yet another hermeneutic, or lens, through which to view scripture, but I believe “the more the merrier,” the greater the opportunity for diverse populations to understand and apply the spiritual wisdom of the Bible to their own lives and the lives of their communities.

I boldly asserted that the Bible was God’s coming out story.  After all, in Christian tradition, self-revelation is how we know God. From the burning bush to Jesus of Nazareth to the Holy Spirit, all awareness and knowledge of God comes at divine initiative. I suggested God came out of the closet of heaven to dwell with us and even dwell within us.

The empty tomb may be viewed as a kind of empty closet. “Do not hold on to me!” Jesus told the weeping Mary in another one of those mystical resurrection stories. “Do not hold onto me!” each of us says to peers and colleagues as Jesus calls us from confining beliefs, practices, prejudices, perspectives, and expectations.

Jesus goes before us into Galilee, or any region or culture or community or vocation or workplace or movement in which we live and move and have our being, if only we have eyes to see and hearts to feel. With his dearly beloved Lazarus, he challenges us, “Come out!”

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by reader donations. To support this blog: https://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!

Copyright © 2019 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Three Prayers for Lent

O God,

I lack a certain courage :

to risk abandoning all my closets

to fulfill life’s dreams,

giving up securities, pretensions,

presumptions, indulgences,

fears—especially fears—

to be all you claim I am,

to be all you call me to be,

to be all you hope for me.

I dawdle at the starting line,

telling myself I’ll begin tomorrow.

Or, part way through the race,

I decide, I deserve a break today,

and find it difficult to limit that break

to time enough to rest and restore myself

to run again.

Dear God,

Jesus fought the good fight,

finished his race,

and kept faith with his dreams

of your commonwealth.

Why do you give me this model, God?

It’s like comparing my body to Olympic athletes,

or my ministry to Mother Teresa’s,

or my sacrifice to martyred saints in Central America!

I can’t give it all, can I, Lord?

I can’t sacrifice all for the commonwealth of God, can I?

“Seek first God’s kingdom…,

and all these things shall be yours as well.”

Jesus, is this true?

Did you have all you needed

as you gave everything to finish the race?

It’s so easy to say prayers, God,

so difficult to translate ours words to actions.

Your Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We nailed him,

we suffocated him,

we buried him,

in part because we were so damned jealous

that he did something we couldn’t :

he lived out his prayer life.

When he prayed “Thy kingdom come”

he meant it,

he preached it,

he lived as its citizen

and became its King.

We mocked him

by making his throne a cross

because we thought he mocked us,

making it seem so easy to be your children, God.

Though tempted as we are,

he, in prayer and fasting,

waited on your word,

refused to tempt your love,

and worshiped only you.

O God,

forgive me for not waiting,

forgive me for tempting you,

forgive my worship of idols.

Teach me to listen for your word,

trust in your love,

and worship in spirit and in truth.

Remind me that Jesus is not an only child,

nor your kingdom’s only citizen.

May I live up to my inheritance as your child

and as a citizen of your commonwealth,

through Jesus Christ, who leads my way.

Amen.

Dear Jesus,

sometimes we expect too much sanctuary

within the church.

We want a womb,

a warm, retreat experience,

not harsh reality

of needy people

and petty politics,

ecclesiastical or societal,

which may lead to a tomb

as it did for you.

But the kingdom of heaven lay beyond

your forty-day prayer retreat in the wilderness, Jesus.

The commonwealth of God lay within

your interactions with the world that followed.

The commonwealth you preached, Jesus,

is in our midst

as healing occurs among us.

And healing comes

as you, the Christ, are in the world,

not in retreat,

nor entombed

either by calcified doctrines

or grave doubt.

You taught that for us to pray,

for us to find healing for ourselves,

is not enough.

“Faith without works is dead.”

Faith without work is death.

Dear Jesus,

Keep me from resting in peace,

a self-satisfied smile on my face,

while others hunger for my touch

as a member of your Body,

the Body of Christ,

healer of this world.

Amen.

These are prayers Day 20, Day 41, and Day 46 from my book Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men, Their Families and Friends, published by Westminster/John Knox Press in 1991. Each prayer was broken into phrases not out of poetic pretensions but to slow the reader. I often refer to God’s “kingdom” as a “commonwealth” in which everything is shared, including our common spiritual wealth. The only change I’ve made is substituting “Olympic athletes” in the first prayer for the name of a well-known body builder of the time, and this, contrasted with the reference to Mother Teresa, demonstrates the longevity of compassion over other accomplishments. The second prayer’s mention of suffocation refers to how victims of crucifixion die: their bodies eventually sag from exhaustion and cut off the flow of air to the lungs. The final lines of the second prayer’s first section refer to Jesus’ three temptations in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). The photo is a shadow on our deck I noticed days ago during my morning prayers.

As with all of my writings, you are welcome to use these for non-profit purposes with attribution of author and context.

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by reader donations. To support this blog: http://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!

Copyright © 1991 and 2019 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.

Redeemed from the Pit

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

We were in Chile this time last year, visiting wineries, trekking the Andes, biking Santiago, and walking the shore. But the emotional highlight of the trip—one that brought tears to my eyes—was the rescuing of the miners trapped two months beneath the surface of the earth. Their families, wives and lovers had set up camp near the opening of the mine in solidarity, creating a community to welcome them home. Chile mobilized to save the thirty-three, bringing in experts in drilling, survival, psychology, health, and encouragement to see them through their ordeal. National flags flew everywhere in support of the effort, reminiscent of the U.S. after 9/11.

One morning I turned on the news minutes after the initial breakthrough of the shaft that would serve as an exit for the trapped men, and waited with the world as miners were brought up out of the mine one by one over the following two days. Our B&B was next to an elementary school, and each time a miner was brought up we could hear the children shout for joy and sing the national anthem. When the last miner was brought up, our hosts took us upstairs to their apartment and flung wide their windows overlooking the Santiago rooftops so we could hear the church bells ringing across the city in celebration. As one NPR commentator said later, the elation the world shared was akin to Americans landing on the moon, adding, in that week, we were all Chileans.

In a way, the miners served for me as a metaphor for Chile itself, emerging in recent years from the Pit of a dictatorship that severely restricted the people. We saw evidence of this newfound freedom in the experimentation and openness of architectural design in Santiago and the increase of public art in the city and parks after a period of utilitarian design and official distrust of artists.

Over and over again, in my heart, I heard the Psalmist proclaim:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

      and all that is within me

      bless God’s holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul…

who redeems your life from the Pit

      who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy…

The Lord works vindication and justice

      for all who are oppressed.  (Psalm 103)

My reading for the trip were several books by James Baldwin, an iconic gay African-American writer. In The Fire Next Time, he described, using different words, how difficult it is for the privileged to understand what it means to be in the Psalmist’s Pit, what it means to be oppressed. In 1960, Baldwin advises his nephew, “There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them…with love. … If the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers [and sisters] to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it.”

Our trip coincided with International Coming Out Day, October 11, in which LGBT people and their allies are encouraged to self-identify, to paraphrase Baldwin’s words, forcing others to see us as we really are, forcing others to see their own homophobia and begin to change it. I could not help but imagine how wonderful it would be if the world mobilized its leaders and experts to come to the aid of those in the Pit of the closet, proudly flying rainbow flags in solidarity, and that, for every person who came out, families would eagerly embrace them, school children would shout and sing with joy, churches would ring their bells, the media would positively report it, and the world would rejoice!

Coming up:

Wilmington, Delaware, Oct. 9: Chris will preach on the parable of “The Wedding Banquet” during the 10 am worship at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church, 1801 North Jefferson Street 19802 and offer “A Brief History of Marriage” for the noon adult class that follows. The day’s theme is same-gender marriage.

Rockville, Maryland, Oct. 23: Chris will speak at the Rockville United Church, 355 Linthicum St. 20851 at the 9:30 am morning class on “Claim the God in You as a Progressive Christian” and his sermon title during the 10:45 worship will be “Jesus Was Not a Literalist.” Lunch follows with a question-and-answer period with Chris.