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Christian (Anti-)Materialism

Christian (Anti)Materialism - [Literate Theology]

‘Tis the season for decking the halls, listening to carols, and trying to manage the expectations and social norms of gift-giving.

In recent years, I’ve noticed increasing discussion on wanting Christmas to be less materialistic and more focused on Jesus, most often applied to gift-giving. One trend is this gifting rhyme: “One thing they want, One thing they need, One thing to Wear, One thing to read.” Another method is that each person receives 3 gifts, representing the ones given by the wise men. Others write of themselves as anti-materialistic and advocate for a “gift-free Christmas,” spending time and money on those in most desperate need.

In a society where citizens are viewed primarily as consumers, the choice to consume less is a laudable defiance of cultural norms. And yet the language of becoming less materialistic or anti-materialism somehow chafes.

I think it chafes because Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. Christmas is about God becoming incarnate. God valued the material world so highly that God became fleshy, substantial, material. Throughout his life, Jesus seems to deeply understand the importance of the material. He understands the necessity of the material category we call food, and he fed people. He understands that a host’s social standing is deeply effected by the material stuff of drink, and he turned water into wine. God in Jesus understood that the material stuff of a having a body matters in one’s ability to be in relationship with humans, and Jesus was resurrected.

One way to orient the birthing moment of Christianity is the moment in which spirit became flesh. The good news of Christianity is that the God of love and blessing and peace came to earth to show us that the values of love and blessing and peace are most visibly manifested when they are embodied. Our values are niceties until we live them. Our values are most powerful when they show up in our material life.

Everything in the gospel texts points me to the conviction that we Christians are called to be more materialistic, called to be better materialists — even as we are called to resist consumerism. So while I’m an advocate for consuming less, in order to do so I think we need take materialism more seriously. We need to become a better materialists.

I’m certain that many who state the desire for less materialistic Christmases are actually aiming for less consumeristic Christmases, but it’s important to accurately name our concern, especially when representing our religion to children or outsiders. If we position Christianity as being against the material world, it can convey that the very worldly concerns of hunger and shelter and wound-tending don’t matter to Christians, when nothing could be further from the truth. If we teach anti-materialism we are too easily teaching contempt for the material world. When such contempt is taught, we should not be surprised by those who profess Christ while lacking compassion or urgency in caring for the poor: the body and its needs are themselves material, and so in that system of thinking, the body and its needs are worthy of contempt.

Perhaps the greatest response to the Christmas story in which God becomes material is to listen deeply to the call to be more materialistic, wildly materialistic, sincerely and passionately and deeply materialistic.

And by deepening our materialism, we must become more seriously anti-consumerism, for the material world becomes far too precious and valuable to simply use and dispose.

In following Jesus, may we follow in his embodied awareness that matter matters. May not only our Christmases but also our lives be distinct in that we passionately and sincerely value the material. May we hear the word “materialistic” not as a curse or insult, but as a blessing, a compliment, and as a call.

May your Christmas season be filled with love, joy, and peace, outpoured in beautiful, delicious, comforting material goodness for you and your loved ones.

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On Prayer & Policy-Making

Prayer & Policy-Making - Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

The divide is growing. In the wake of another mass shooting, the US has entered a now familiar liturgy: people demand changed policies; politicians offer prayers; nothing changes.

This time, rather than placating constituents, the prayers of politicians has been met with backlash. The New York Daily News released a bold cover: “God Isn’t Fixing This.” On twitter, #thoughtsandprayers was trending, with use ranging from a recognition of congress’s inactivity to blatant mockery of prayer practices in general.

Which of course created a backlash against that backlash: Christians defending prayer and speaking against such “prayer shaming.”

Part of what causes my heart to break so deeply in the midst of this conversation is that, across the illusion of the chasm between them, both sides have something beautiful to offer the other side. The Christians are correct in saying we should be praying; the secularists are correct in saying that there should be action.

What made Christianity radical is its anti-theist understanding of prayer, that prayer is never complete until it is followed by action. There are lots of articles and Bible-verse lists about how Jesus prayed: usually alone, often on a mountain or in a desert. But often the sentence about Jesus’s prayer is followed by a sentence about his action. Jesus prays and immediately after, he gathers and teaches. Jesus prays and immediately after walks onto the water to the disciples in a boat. Jesus prays and then raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus prays and then is arrested and goes to the cross.

For Jesus, prayer seems to be the inhale he takes before exhaling into action. He is filled through the inhale prayer so that he may exhale into action through preaching and miracles. For Jesus, prayer and action are so interwoven as to be inseparable; the prayer is not complete until exhaled into action.

We Christians often end our prayers with the words “in the name of Jesus Christ” or “through Jesus Christ.” We pray in and through Jesus. We receive eucharist that metabolizes us in and through the Christ. We receive baptism that has brought us in and through the church, which we also call the body of Christ.

In these ways, we are living members of the Christ to whom we pray in and through; we pray ourselves into being part of Christ, and pray ourselves into becoming part of the answer to the very prayers we speak. Christian theologian Ronald Rolheiser reminds us that “to pray as a Christian demands concrete involvement in trying to bring about what is pleaded for in the prayer.”

For an everyday example: consider someone who prays for healing for a sick neighbor, but never brings a meal or offers to drive to the doctor. She does the inhale of the prayer, but never completes it in the exhale; she prays as a theist and not as a Christian.

The dynamics might be similar in our nation-wide conversation about gun violence and prayer. Non-Christian people are calling Christians to action; they are calling us to exhale our prayers into action. It is not always done tactfully, kindly, or lovingly, but if we are open to their criticism in the way that Christ received death, perhaps we can develop ears to hear how deeply, prophetically Christ-like their call to action is.

Likewise, Christians are calling the country to prayer. We are right to say that it is impossible to exhale indefinitely; we must inhale in order to receive the Spirit that Jesus breathed upon us. In our inhale, we begin to grow in the ability to discern God’s will for humanity. In our inhale, we begin to let go of what our own desire may be for the future of our country. In order to act lovingly, our actions must originate in prayer.

Secular society is calling the church to action; the church is calling secular society to prayer.

Both sides have something beautiful to offer. We should be praying. Prayer is not complete until followed by action.

Each could be a blessing to the other, if we all soften our hearts enough to hear it. It’s risky. A soft heart is a much more easily broken heart. But perhaps broken heartedness is not an inappropriate response to such circumstances.

prayer corner
Where I pray — and then write.
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Gratitude for Hidden Things

Gratitude for Hidden Things - Advent post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

As we transition into the advent season, I find myself full of gratitude and grief for the hidden things — the emotions, experiences, remembrances, and hopes that are invisibly working and growing inside myself.

I am grateful for the rhythms and rituals of the season. Many of my rituals are familiar across the country: a Thanksgiving meal with gathered friends, a trip outside the city to fuss over finding the perfect Christmas tree, crafting perfectly chosen (though less-than-perfectly made) gifts.

These weeks in anticipation of Christmas remind me of how embodied my life is, remind me that my most meaningful experiences are my most physical ones. The texture of a certain sweater; the scent of pine in the living room; the taste of white peppermint mochas in vibrant red cups. The concepts of the holiday season are hidden things — joy, charity, patience, faith. And these virtues only become invisibly manifest in my inner experience through their cultivation expressed in the tangible.

I forget that too quickly.

It’s been strung-together months of having forgotten to remember that my body needs to be inhabited in order for my heart to be warmed. Which underlies a lot of the grief I mentioned earlier; I have been in a season of depression. Depression is another hidden thing, an experience that is real and powerful despite being invisible.

It seems to me that, whereas the warming hidden things are cultivated by embodiment, my depression is cultivated by disembodiment. By overly-indwelling the intellect, by seeking an orienting goal for my vocational pursuits, by getting lost in explorations through possible futures.

I’ve been thinking a lot, this week, about Mary. I find it comforting that Mary must have also felt this tension between gratitude and grief. Even as she felt her fiancee withdraw from the promise of marriage, even as she wondered how she would provide for herself and her child if abandoned, even as she encountered the stigma of a pregnancy out of wedlock, even as her family (I imagine) shamed or shunned her — in the midst of these griefs, God was becoming flesh in her womb, God was becoming flesh from her own flesh.

My body follows the rituals and rhythms. My body is faithful to the actions I associate with advent, in hope that such faithfulness might cultivate some of the hidden virtues and lessen my hidden sorrow.

Though, if my past is any indication of my future, I will likely always have at least some measure of that sorrow with me. But if Mary felt this grief-gratitude tension as I do, then Mary is already with me, even as her womb works in the early stages of the process to bring God with us.

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The Anti-Apocalypse

Sermon: The Anti-Apocalypse - Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

Reflections on Mark 13:1-8, delivered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Episcopal Church.

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There seems to be something hard-wired into humans that makes us want to know what the future holds. We wonder about the future in ways that are small and individual, and in ways that are large, global, and cosmic . Perhaps this morning you wondered if you should bring a raincoat; perhaps you worried if the mountains will regain their snow pack. Perhaps you wonder if you’ll be healed of physical ailment, even if it’s just wondering when you’ll get over a cold. Perhaps you wonder if you’ll get a callback for a job you applied for. Perhaps you worry how the presidential race will end.

In our gospel passage this morning, Jesus addresses the most major of our concerns about the future: Will the world end? What meaning are we to derive from the abundance of wars and violence, such as this week’s attacks in Beirut and Paris? Do hurricanes and climate changes and earthquakes like the recent one in Japan point to the end of the world?

Jesus seems to understand that we’ll take these complex problems and painful catastrophes to be signs of the worst thing possible, signs of the literal end of the world. And Jesus is firm in his answer to our wonderings if these happenings are the end. Jesus says: No. No, wars are not the end; they are the result of earthly rulers, not the will of the Divine Creator of the Universe. No, natural disasters are not a sign of God’s punishment. No, famines are never God’s desire. No, this is not the end of the story.

Rather, Jesus tells us that these problems are early birth pains — the sign of new life; the sign that something new to that is struggling to be born; the sign of the Nation of God struggling to become reality. And perhaps we are to respond to these early birth pains in the same way we would respond to a woman entering labor: by offering comfort and assistance, to the best of our abilities, while anticipating the new life that is to come.

Our presence may not end wars, but we will faithfully witness the suffering as we actively work for peace. Our faith may not end natural disasters, but it will prompt us to respond in tangible ways for those in need. Our hope may not eradicate all famines, but it could feed the empty stomach of the hungry in our midst.

Jesus lists some of the worst possible things that could happen — and is certain that they are not the end of the story. Jesus is certain they are the beginning of a new reality. So keep going. Keep engaging. Keep advocating and interfering and helping and anticipating and responding. When it feels like the end of the world, remember: there is hope.

 

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Living in the Tomb

Sermon: Living in the Tomb - post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

Reflections on John 11:32-44, delivered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Episcopal Church.

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I would have stayed in the tomb.

In the Middle East, it’s hot. Which means decomposition sets in quick, and the stench of that rotting process is heavy in the air. So if I had been four days in a tomb, in the heat — essentially the tomb becomes a warmed oven — I think I would have been too ashamed to come out.

And on top of that, there’s the problem of the bindings. The text describes how “his hands and feet were bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.” In the burial customs of the time, strips of cloth were tightly wound around the body — they bound the jaw closed, the feet together, and the hands to the side of the body. Which means that even after the shock of finding himself alive in his tomb, Lazarus is faced with the problem of exiting the tomb. He cannot walk with his feet bound together. He cannot even crawl with his hands tied to his side. The text doesn’t describe what must have been Lazarus’s struggling exit from the tomb; we can only imagine the movements of rolling and shuffling and squirming that must have taken him from the darkness to the light.

I would have stayed in the tomb. It would be less painful to stay dead than to suffer the humiliation of exiting on my belly and the shame of exposing the community to the stench of my death.

And that’s not to mention life after the tomb. In a culture where the dead are considered unclean, untouchable — where does an undead person go? what does he do? who will be near him, eat with him, care for him?

In commanding “Lazarus, come out!” — rather than going in, gathering up Lazarus in his arms, and carrying him out like a fireman making a rescue — in commanding Lazarus to come out, Jesus is asking a lot of his beloved friend. Jesus asks for Lazarus’s struggle and his exposure. Jesus asks for him to risk living with social stigma. Jesus asks for his full participation.

I would have stayed in the tomb.

Unless, perhaps, it becomes too painful to stay in the tomb any longer. I think we all reach this point, in different ways, at various moments of our life.

Perhaps it’s physical — our body is in pain or we suffer an addiction, and we know we can no longer keep living the way we have been, that our lifestyle habits have become a kind of tomb that we must leave in order to have real life.

Perhaps it’s relational — something about the person I become when I’m with this other person has turned my home into a kind of tomb, has bound me up in some way that I no longer feel like I have agency, and I need to crawl to someone who can unbind me.

Perhaps it’s societal, living in a system that bends toward injustice and it even though it will be really difficult to get out, staying in the tomb, staying with the way things are, is just no longer an option.

Jesus did not prevent his friend from dying. Mary and the Jews have a point: If Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died. So it seems that Jesus did not come to rescue us from going through difficulties.

And on the other side of death, at the tomb, at this scene: Jesus does does not rush into the tomb to deliver Lazarus out like a fireman rushing into a building burning. Rather, Jesus invites Lazarus to participate in his own salvation. Having done what he could do in raising Lazarus to life, Jesus expects Lazarus to do what he could do by making his way out of the tomb.

It’s when each of us is in a place of death — of pain and suffering and stench and shame — it’s when we feel trapped and bound and unable to act — it’s in death that Jesus offers the possibility of new life. Jesus calls to us. He calls to us: Come out! He invites us: Come out! He offers us hope that there is new life waiting to be had. Come out!

Jesus looks at something dead and see it as full of potential for life. Jesus looks at a corpse in a dark tomb and invites a living body into the light. Jesus looks at his beloved one and shows that death does not have to be the end of the story.

Having done what he can do in inviting us to new life, Jesus expects us to do what we can do to in our own movement and struggle out of our tombs.

Come out! Come out!

Lazarus, Come Forth by Salvador Dali (1964)
Lazarus, Come Forth by Salvador Dali (1964)
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Integrative Project Presentation

To Play with a Child Named Sorrow - post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

This Spring, I handed in my final master’s work, called an Integrative Project, titled “To Play with a Child Named Sorrow: Engaging Sin, Grief, and the Self-in-Relation through Myth and Fairy Tale.” I spent 15 months to write and then whittle down to 70 pages, and then whittled further until I had a 10minute presentation. The abstract is below; click through here to see the presentation.

Western theology’s understanding of sin on pride has focused on pride, which has furthered the oppression of women. In the last 50 years, feminist theology has made great strides in explaining how pride (“masculine sin” developed by male theologians) oppresses and has named “feminine sin” (which I term echoism) as diffuseness, a lack of a sense of self, a defining of one’s self by relationship. However, theology has failed to discuss the ways in which these sins interact with one another and how we interpersonally move from sin to grace. In “The Myth of Echo & Narcissus,” we see the ways in which pride harmfully emphasizes the self and how echoism harmfully emphasizes relationship. In “The Tale of the Handless Maiden,” we come to see the transforming process of grief, which frees us to love. This is not simply a balance between pride and echoism; this process is a transformation of human character that comes through an active process of receiving God in the midst of grief. The burden is not on humanity to find a way to manage or balance our sins. Rather, as the tale shows us, characterological change frees us from the constraints of sin (with emphasis on either self or relation) and frees us to love as selves-in-relation.

See the 10-minute presentation here: https://vimeo.com/138362284

"Echo and Narcissus" by John William Waterhouse
“Echo and Narcissus” by John William Waterhouse
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Imago

Imago - post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

A young girl rolls in the cool fountain water some distance from where our feet dabble. She calls over to us: “What does God look like?”

Her mom smiles and whispers to me, “She likes the light and easy questions lately.”

“Mom! What does God look like?” the daughter insists.

“I don’t know, honey.”

“Do you know?” her sincere eyes turn to me.

Well… God looks a little bit like your mom. And God looks a little bit like those ballerinas practicing in the grass. And a little bit like that man playing the saxophone. And a little bit like each person walking by and driving by. God looks a little bit like me. God looks a little bit like you.

I want to say that, but I hesitate, attempting to gauge what the mother’s reaction might be, and before I can resolve to risk it, the mother answers her again: “No one knows. God can’t be seen.”

The mother and I look to the girl, the girl looks down into the rippling water, and the moment is gone — but for the whisper in my head: Everyone who has eyes to see knows just what God looks like.

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Prayer for Graduates

A Prayer for Graduates - post on Literate Theology / Kate Rae Davis

In my last week as a Divinity student at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, the registrar approached me. She explained that the last thing that happens before walking into the graduation ceremony — after the rehearsal and the formal photos and getting into our caps and gowns and lining up in the order in which we’ll walk — the very last thing is a prayer, offered by one of the graduating Divinity students. She asked if I would pray for our graduates this year.

So on a sweltering Saturday in June, at the registrar’s cue I left my place in the ordered lines and stood before my peers. I knew that the other speakers that morning were all on the theme of pilgrimage. This is the prayer I offered.

*          *          *          *          *

At the end of the prayer, I’ll lead us in singing the doxology, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” We’ll sing it two times through. There are a few pronouns in the doxology; feel free to use whichever pronoun you wish, or to simply say “God” instead of pronouns, and in the multiplicity of our choices we will more fully bear the image of God.

The Lord be with you. And also with you.

Let us pray.

Divine One from whom we came, and to whom we go,

It has been such a long journey.
We have walked through valleys of readings.
We have hiked trails of paper-writing.
We have climbed through practicums
and scaled internships
and trekked through so much work to be here.

And now, today. Today we summit. Today we pause. Today we set down our packs,
we tend to our blisters,
we enjoy the view from up on this mountain,
and we rest.

May we enter this rest with freedom to celebrate and freedom to grieve.

May this rest bear witness to the complexities of our circumstances and to the ambivalences of our experiences.

May everything that comes to us during this time of rest this morning be for our healing and for your glory.

As you have always been with us, you are present now, and will always be. Help us to remain present with you and with one another this morning.

Send us now with hearts open to receive your blessings of grief
and your blessings of grace.

Send us now with eyes to see and ears to hear all your gifts as blessings of beauty.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise God/Him/Her all creatures here below,
Praise God/Him/Her above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father/Mother, Son/Child, and Holy Ghost.

*          *          *          *          *

When I started singing, I thought my voice would shake, but it was steadier and stronger than it should have been, given the tears that were forming. People joined quickly, a few scattered voices providing resonant harmony that helped every voice come more alive.The pronouned places were a beautiful jumble, not unlike humanity. At one point I stopped singing and let those I have held in prayer hold me in song, and I wept. As we all sang the amen, I quietly walked back to my place in the queue.

And we walked upstairs, me struggling through my tears to follow the black robe in front of me.

Photo courtesy of Paul Quinlivan, MACP, MATC
Photo courtesy of Paul Quinlivan
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The Slow Regard of Silent Things

First, I wanted to send Patrick Rothfuss’s slim novel The Slow Regard of Silent Things to anyone who has a loved one struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder. I didn’t really realize, until about halfway through, that this would be a primary and accurate way to characterize the main (and only human) figure in the novel.

Auri lives under a city, finding perfect homes for found items. She listens to the silent things. She discerns their character and longing. She intuits the personality of a room to hear if it lacks a bottle or a button. She stops, regularly, to wash her face and hand and feet. Her life is devoted to making everything “just as it should be,” while keeping her own impact and desires as small as possible, save a few luxuries such as soap (of course it would be soap, in one who epitomizes OCD).

What’s shocking about this slim novel is how compelling all this listening and discerning and soap-making is for the reader. Although written in third person, we are pressed so closely against her back that we feel her heart beat against our breast; we lovingly regard the inanimate items as she encounters them. It becomes important to us whether or not there’s a button under a rug or whether a brass gear is content on the mantle. This novel helped me feel what a burden and a gift it is to feel the world so tenderly.

Which made me wonder if there was more going on here than a character study of a psychological disorder, made me wonder if somehow this willfully small girl carries within her the image of God.

I’ve heard, my whole life, of the MMA Champion version of God who takes up space with all His muscles and forcibly bends the cosmos to His will. In Auri, the image-bearer, we glimpse the god who wouldn’t claim a capital “g” for herself, the god who attends to the character of lost and helpless things, the god who sees that some items are more beautiful when broken. The god who, in smallness, is able to mend what is cracked and tend what is askew.

Auri carries the image of the god who works as hidden and quiet as a spirit, the god whose love whispers in slow breathes. She searches in the manner of the god who behaves like a woman searching for a lost coin or a shepherd seeking a lost sheep, restoring all things to their proper places. She lives like the god who is willing to become small, to empty herself and become humble.

 

Rothfuss’s novel is more than a psychological study. It is a parable, a portrait of a god who intimately and quietly loves a broken world.

Illustration by Nathan Taylor, published in the novel.
Illustration by Nathan Taylor, published in the novel.