Lemony Snicket, Martin Luther and Madonna: Truth is Truth is Truth

If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald. – Lemony Snicket

Blessings at times come to us through our labors and at times without our labors, but never because of our labors, for God always gives them because of His undeserved mercy. – Martin Luther

Based on some of the reactions I received when I posted the Lemony Snicket quote on my Facebook page, I imagine many of those who read this will cringe a bit at the proposition that success is not always contingent on hard work, and that hard work does not always breed success.  If the latter were the case, African women would be the richest people on the planet, but alas they are not (yes, I stole that from a friend’s Facebook post).  The Lemony Snicket quote originated in an online post from the character Lemony Snicket/author Daniel Handler entitled, “Thirteen Observations made by LemonySnicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance.”  He makes several keen observations in relation to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  Much of the post resonated with me, particularly the quotation above.  I tend to be an intuitive thinker, so sometimes it takes me awhile to digest an idea or thought.  In relation to the quotation something about it seemed to “line up” with ideas I already owned and believed.  It wasn’t until I heard the second quote from Luther that it occurred to me why.  Luther essentially says something very similar to Handler (though 500 years earlier), while simultaneously recognizing the Divine source/principal behind why this is the case, the reason why being grace.  This of course means that both express, in varied measure, something of Divine truth.  To draw this out a bit, a bit of scripture may be helpful.  Some of the core of the truth of both of these quotations can be found in Jesus’ Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in the beginning of Matthew 20.

In the parable a vineyard owner hires workers for his vineyard very early in the morning and agrees to pay them a days wage for a days work.  Later in the morning he decides he needs more workers and so hires more agreeing to pay them fairly.  He does the same at about noon, 3, and 5.  At the end of the day all the workers, those hired at 5 and those hired first thing in the morning, are paid a full day’s wage, which of course raises the hackles of those who had actually worked all day.  When presented with the protests of unfairness, the vineyard owner replies, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (NIV)  Jesus begins this parable by suggesting that what follows is a metaphor for the Kingdom of heaven, and ends the story by suggesting that in the story we see a dramatic rendering of the free and gracious application of the landowner’s (God the Father’s) generosity.  Many will grasp onto the spiritual application of this and it’s relation to salvation, but many miss the principals in play in the here and now.  God has the freedom to bless whomever God wants to bless through whatever means God chooses.  If God chooses to bless the lazy with “success” (however you might choose to define it) that is entirely God’s prerogative.  If God chooses to bless hard work, that’s God’s prerogative.  One of the truths being fleshed out in the story is that blessings are always from God. No matter how much sweat equity we’ve invested into any given project, we cannot claim the fruit of that labor.  The fruit is always God’s to give.

Now this is no argument against hard work, or for inaction while awaiting a blessing from God.  In fact all of this is a merely the infrastructural support for the point I really want to touch on, which is that both the Lemony Snicket quote and the Martin Luther quote reference the same Biblical truth; perhaps one more intentionally than the other (Handler describes himself as a Secular Humanist), but the viewpoint of any author, or speaker doesn’t change the truth of what they convey.  Neither the person speaking or writing, nor the intent of the person speaking or writing ever changes the truth of what is said or written.  The point, to quote the great theologian Madonna, is that “truth is where you find it.” 

Because of (what I believe to be) the accuracy of this truism, truth isn’t always easily recognizable.  It’s often dressed shabbily, and associates with those of ill repute.  I believe we would benefit greatly if we were able to develop the ability to recognize truth in whatever form it presents itself.  Not only would we benefit personally, particularly if that recognition lead to meaningful, Christ-like action, but we would benefit those around us as we were able to recognize God at work in the culture at large and come join in that Divine labor.  Perhaps a good place to start is to take that song, movie, book, television show, or viral video back to scripture to find out where it resonates, and what it shares in common as a first instinct.  You might be surprised at where you might find God already at work in the culture around us.

9/11 and the Dangers of Conflation

Conflation: the process or result of fusing items into one entity.

10 years... September 11 I think will always be a scar that aches a bit, with the ache asserting itself more aggressively when that date rolls around every year. The round numbered anniversaries of course tend to be occasions to more consciously rub that ache and remember what that day means to us. This is one of those years. Christians living in the US remember along with everyone else. We were no less affected by the violence because of our faith, and struggled to make sense of the senselessness of it all just like all of our neighbors. Our anguish, fear and even our injuries and deaths were no different than those of our fellow Americans who don’t count themselves as followers of Christ. While we all experienced the attacks as Americans, those of us who identify ourselves with Christ also experienced the attacks as Christians, meaning both identities experienced the trauma simultaneously. I would suggest this experience and our response to it reveals a tension that exists between these two identities which plays itself out in our experiences of both our common communities and our communities of faith. I would suggest our attempts to resolve this tension between our Christian identity and our American identity can sometimes carry us to places which are dangerous to both our faith and our nation. It’s this danger, which also plays itself out in the shadow of this anniversary, that I think I’d like to briefly survey here.

I want to acknowledge up front that there are a lot of sacred cows in play here, and the probability of divergent takes and visions are a given, particularly given the brevity of this format. This will in no way be an even remotely exhaustive, comprehensive, or thorough exploration. It’s just a few thoughts on this tension played out in 500-600 words or so. That being said, I want to begin on the civic side of this tension and acknowledge the Biblical ideas and principles that found their way into much of the mythic narrative of our founding and into many of our founding documents. We are a nation born partially out of the frustration with the sectarian persecutions and wars which took place in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. This “new” land presented people of marginalized faith practices with economic and religious opportunities not accessible to them in their old home. Even as the Enlightenment pushed the theological heart of these nascent ideas toward the margins of public discourse in the 18th century, the country’s founding generation still leaned on the existing religious, philosophical and linguistic framework as they constructed the governing bodies and institutions of this country. Many were men and women of faith themselves. Many were not. But most kept to some form of faith, which was part of our collective national heritage to that point.

It’s because of this framework, and the founders’ choices to work within it that Jefferson is able to write, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Jefferson is building on a Christian theological foundation, asserting that all are created equal because of a common Divine Creator who values all equally, while simultaneously tweaking those constructs to reflect contemporary Enlightenment thinking, citing, “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” just a few lines prior as the core foundation upon which his Declaration of Independence was being built. The point here is that this nation was built on a unique foundation of faith which was already morphing before the Constitution was even written. The nation was built on a civic faith in these ideals which was not necessarily a theologically “orthodox” faith. Christianity here was politically engaged toward a civil end, much as it has been throughout its history to both noble and ignoble ends, from Constantine to Jim Crow.

In contrast, the Christian experience, both individually and collectively, particularly as it is described in the New Testament, seems to be markedly unlike this civic faith. In fact both Jesus and Paul seem to acknowledge the tension in loyalties that exists within one choosing to follow after Christ, with both counseling their listeners and readers to show respect for and demonstrate appropriate loyalty to those in positions of civic authority and the political institutions they represent, Jesus in Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20 and Paul in Romans 13. However, these same readers and listeners are also instructed to actively resist immoral and corrupt cultural practices, replacing them with moral and just ones, which will of course have subversive political implications and thus reveals the tension I spoke of in the opening paragraph. This tension seems to be assumed in the Bible. It seems to be a subset of the larger tension between the Kingdom Jesus speaks of and every political establishment that demonstrates little or no interest in that kingdom.

The difficulty we as Americans face is that our political establishment does have some vestigial and perhaps even some active interest in the principles and actions that characterize Jesus’ Kingdom. I would suggest however that this seeming slackening of that tension is more apparent than it is real. Anecdotally, if this were not the case the reigning general consensus among Evangelicals regarding the state of our culture and government would probably not include the words “hell” or “hand basket.” So where does this leave us? I would suggest that Biblically speaking, this tension between the Christian and their government, even if that government takes a welcoming stance toward them, is a good thing and that some of the confusion we often feel and experience, which often makes it way into our liturgies around civic holidays and remembrances such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day and 9/11, has its roots in our attempts to resolve or work out this tension. We are right to want to recognize the faith of our country’s founders. We are right to recognize the unique role the ideas that rose from that faith have played in our national and political institutions. But we do a disservice to both our faith and our nation when we merge the two into one entity, and then merge both into one personal identity. Without the tension we lose the ability to speak prophetically to those in power. We become more easily co-opted by those in power as a means to accomplish the ends of this kingdom. And most dangerous of all we begin to lose our identity and the unique identity of Jesus’ Kingdom. This is dangerous then not only to us, but also for our nation in that it loses the unique Christian voice that in many ways serves as its conscience. Attempting to resolve this tension allows it to be quieted and silenced. Something to keep in mind as we struggle to live with both identities…