Mrs. Dowling Jesus

Read this! John 2:13-22

  Growing up, I encountered two kinds of authority figures, two kinds of teachers. And yes, they’re synonymous. I guess the people I consider bosses are also folks who know stuff and can give you grades. So, one teacher-boss-authority person was the kind you’d roll your eyes at when they told you to push your chairs in at the lunch table, the one you’d giggle about with your friends in a tight circle on the playground: this teacher’s ill-fitting wig, that teacher’s too-short pleated Dockers pants, that one time a bee flew up her skirt and she wriggled and danced and hollered like a little girl.  

And then there was this other kind. The pastory seminary prof who’s an expert in Hebrew, or the fiction professor in your reckless MFA days. This kind of teacher commanded your respect just in the way that he returned your stories with helpful yet critical notes in the margins, or made you parse Hebrew verbs again and again until they stuck to your brain like velcro. These teachers were quiet. They were patient. They were kid magnets and got you to do your best work. They were the folks you were terrified to disappoint. They were the Mr. Miyagis, the Yodas, the Professor McGonagalls.  She might give you your first C- in AP Calculus, but if it came down to it, she’d be standing right by your side, helping you fight off the dementors or lift crashed x-wing fighters out of the swamp.

These are the quiet authorities, the ones who didn’t have to give you detention or make you write lines or assign you extra homework in order for you to shape up. Just one disappointed look from Mrs. Dowling, my fifth grade teacher, and I was a puddle on the floor, a wreckage of shame and guilt, and ready to make it up to her, to do my best so as not to disappoint her again. 

I strove to show how much I loved and respected her by doing my very best - from memorizing my state capitals to studying for the spelling bee - I wanted to do all the things for Mrs. Dowling. And I don’t think this was simply out of fear. I think it’s because I knew she loved me. I couldn’t disappoint her because I knew that she really cared about me. She’d let me run home when I forgot my lunchbox, and let me spend my summer days “helping” her set up her classroom, and she didn’t rat me out during the lice outbreak of 1989. She had high expectations, and enough grace to match.

I like to think of Jesus this way. The one who held his authority quietly, who demanded respect, not because he could rain down asteroids from the sky, but because one disappointed look from him would crush you, would make you want to try again and do better, make you want to prove to him that you could be better. And then even as you tried and tried, he’d still be there, saying, “Jenn, calm down, I forgave you the first time!” 

But I’d still want to recite my times tables even faster for Him. Thirty years since I’ve been in the fifth grade and I still can’t seem to shake the Mrs. Dowling complex, still can’t seem to shake the shame-Jesus — even though there’s no such thing. And I guess there is reason for this. I mean, if I saw Jesus in the Temple, overturning the tables and knocking over the stacks of bird cages, I think I might mess my pants. I think I might duck and cover and wait until the rage had passed. It’d be like watching Mrs. Dowling rip up our trapper keepers and Lisa Frank unicorn folders, and break all our number two pencils into tiny pieces, it’d be that horrifying. I mean, those folks just got told.

But, on the other hand, if I think think of the blonde, wavy-haired, blue-eyed, meek and mild Jesus, he’s just kind of weak sauce. He’s sort of vapid and impotent. He’s static. The one frozen in oil pastels and iridescent watercolors. I mean, we love him, we hang pictures of that Jesus on our walls and invite him to our barbecues, but he’d never teach us long division, or how to diagram sentences, or save the galaxy from the forces of evil.

When we read the Gospels, we tend to rush past the exasperated Jesus. The annoyed Jesus. The frustrated and impatient Jesus. We don’t get very many images of a God who’s angry. And if we do, we write that God off as “the God of the Old Testament” not the God of now - as if there were two Gods, or as if God suffered from a split personality disorder. It used to be that that kind of god freaked me out. That god was primal, simple, and frightening. 

That god was the one you’d make live sacrifices to, or wear hair shirts for, or hang virgins from cliffs in order to appease their wrath, not a real God. 

That is, until I visited the Kali Temple in Kolkata, India. 

If you’re not familiar with her, Kali is one of the most terrifying deities in the whole Hindu pantheon. She is depicted with her tongue hanging out, with a ring of men’s heads strung like pearls around her neck, and in one hand, she holds a bowl of blood, she holds a guy’s head in another, a bloody sword in another, and - just to make sure you’re paying attention -  the sign of peace with her fourth hand. To top it all off, she is standing on top of a defeated man - usually depicted as the god Shiva.  Kali is a god you don’t want to mess with. She is terrifying and is all about getting vengeance. People sacrifice goats to her - the purer and blacker the goat, the better. 

Why on earth would anyone worship this deity? 

Is it simply out of fear? Is this just another way of looking at the god who wants us to be ashamed?

I don’t think so. When I watched Kali’s devotees entering and leaving the temple, they didn’t look particularly scared. They looked…peaceful. At rest. And they all looked poor, bedraggled, world-worn, but self-assured. Noticed.

For these Hindus, Kali is the god who is powerful for those who have no power. She is the god who stands up against injustice. All for the sake of the little guy, for the widow who has been abandoned by her family, for the child born with a disability, for the beggar who wanders the streets all night. People don’t worship her out of fear. They worship her because she is there to save them from the powers and the corruption and the world that has beaten them down.  She’s there to kick some ass and take some names.

She is there to destroy the powerful because they have exploited the weak. 

And I think Jesus is tracking a little bit of Kali in the upended tables temper tantrum story that we’ve read about today. Like Mrs. Dowling if she ever got wind that we were teasing Bethany during recess, I think Jesus is ransacking the temple for the sake of the little guy, for the ones who get swindled out of their savings for the sake of the temple tax and to “pay” for the forgiveness of their sins. Jesus is there to demand justice for the poor folks who have walked miles and miles out of religious devotion only to give their life savings away to some guys in purple cloaks waving incense and smearing blood over the altar. ‘Cause that’s what’s going on here. In the Temple System, the poor only get forgiveness through the offering of a sacrifice. And these sacrifices cost money, more money, perhaps, than these folks have. More money, perhaps, lining the pockets of the already rich Temple Tax Collectors. 

Jesus is angry because the poor are being swindled. And they’re being swindled in the name of God.  

And I think this is awesome. Way to go Jesus! Stand up for the little guy! Way to stick it to the man! Way to tear down those corrupt cages of consumerism and capitalism and bought “democracy.” I love being a Christian because my God is the God of justice for the poor and disenfranchised.  You get ‘em, Jesus! 

Until…I try to put myself in the story...

Because the folks sitting at the dove booth and selling the unblemished rams and exchanging the coins and collecting the Temple tax - they’re all just cogs in the system. They have been swept up by the whole thing, and for the sake of their own survival they have been dragged along by the current. They’re just the middle class, trying to do the best they can in a system they didn’t make.

They thought they were doing the right thing. They thought they were fulfilling God’s commands, in the most practical, sensible way. You needed the moneychangers to exchange the Roman coins with the picture of Nero on them for temple coins that did not claim that Nero was the “Son of God.” You needed the marketers to offer unblemished animals — people were coming from far and wide to offer sacrifices, and they couldn’t bring their animals with them - at least not and keep them “unblemished.” They were doing their part to keep the system going. And the system is good, they thought. It’s important. It’s worth our life savings. I mean, what else is there? Sure, they have been exploiting the weak. But not in huge, obvious ways. But in ways of quiet passivity.  Just by participating in the system, they supported the system.

I think maybe, what gets me about this passage is that it’s telling us that we’re all a part of keeping the shame-Jesus going. We’re all making small compromises that we think no one will notice, but when they add up, we’ve turned God’s temple into a marketplace. We’ve convinced others that they have to do or be or think something other than who they are in order to belong. We justify our choices in the name of convenience or finances or some sort of artificial morality.

One day you see that Walmart has apples for half the price of your local farmer, so you buy those. Another day you’re so hungry and your blood sugar is so low you’re shaking, so you stop at McDonald’s.  The clothes on the Macy’s clearance rack are cheaper than the Goodwill, so why not buy from there? Your baby falls asleep in his carseat, so you leave the engine running, air conditioner on, even after you’ve reached your destination. You need to save for retirement, so you put your money in a general 401k, and try not to worry about what large war weapons corporation is benefitting from your investment. You’re in a hurry, so you take your car instead of just walk. You forget your manners in the drive-thru. You bump up the thermostat instead of grabbing a sweater. You refuse to give the guy on the street a dollar because you might not approve of how he’s going to spend it.

You think the next guy is going to tip the barrista or hold the door open or write the letter to the senator. The other guy is going to reduce their carbon footprint and avoid single use plastics and learn about anti-racism and protest in the streets.

See, I’m the guy exchanging the Roman coins for the Temple coins. I’m the one who buys the dove to sacrifice on the altar for the forgiveness of sins and continues to support a broken system. I’m the one who thinks, “If we can just get a few more butts in the pews, we could keep this broken system going long enough for me to make it to retirement.”  I’m the one who is too hard on myself for not single-handedly overturning that same broken system that I didn’t start and am actually relatively helpless to change. So instead, I beat myself up for a weakness that I’ve been given and for a lack of whatever I’d need to deserve to be here, to live in a house, to drive a car, to let my kids overindulge in Doritos and violent video game screen time. 

It’s my table that Jesus is overturning. The table of my participation in a corrupt system, in a broken system where my abundance means someone else’s scarcity, sure. But also the tables of expectation, of perfectionism, and a lack of a false kind of strength that makes me think that I can single-handedly fix all those broken things. 

A God of vengeance is great — until we figure out that we aren’t the victims. We’re the ones Kali is trying to protect the weak from. We are part of a system, we’ve been swept up by the commercialism and the fear and the consumerism and we’re just treading water, trying to survive. We can be a part of something, and it can not be our fault, and it can be our responsibility to be a part of changing it, all at the same time.

I love what Jesus does, when the temple authorities question him. “Who do you think you are?” they ask. Give us a sign, prove to us that you have a right to do these things, to cause such a ruckus, to overturn this paradigm that we’ve set up for ourselves. “Give us a sign,” they demand. And Jesus doesn’t, really. He throws it back on them. He puts the responsibility for change back on them. “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will build it back up,” he says. 

You do it. Tear it all down. Tear down everything you thought you needed. Tear down your role in the system, tear down the lies that you’ve bought in to, tear down your participation in the oppression of the poor. Tear down all the things you think you need. Tear down your self doubt and the unfair sights you set for yourself. Tear down your shame-Jesus and your flowy acrylic peace Jesus. 

And then, he says, “I’ll rebuild it.”

“I’ll rebuild you.”

By overturning the tables and whipping the sheep out of the Temple, Jesus is pulling a tiny thread from the system. And this tiny thread is the beginning of the unravelling of the whole thing. This is a major paradigm shift. This is a radical step outside of anything these folks have ever known or imagined. 

And it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying because we don’t really know what should be built in its place. We don’t know what the Temple 2.0 is going to look like. We don’t know where, or if, we’ll fit in to this new system. And it’s terrifying that my participation in this old system has disappointed Jesus. That he’s going to look at me with that look. The look like when I forgot my homework, or my essay was rushed and too short, or I’m struggling in calculus so I just stop trying.

But maybe that look is just a remnant of shame-Jesus, the Jesus in my head, the Jesus that doesn’t even really exist. Maybe Jesus just wants to fight off the dementors with me - both in solidarity with the victims of this corrupt life thing, but also in solidarity with me, with you, we who are too hard on ourselves and have this ridiculous idea that if we just fix it, if we just expect perfection, we won't be weak, we’ll correct the corruption, we’ll hold back the shame-Jesus, and then we won’t need real-Jesus. 

But what are we going to do now? Will we tear down our old systems of oppression and dominance and achievement and manipulation and let Jesus build us up again? That means we will have to give up the peaceful pastel Jesus, and we’ll have to let go of of the shame Jesus. Neither of those Jesuses are going to work. Because they’re not really Jesus. We’ll have to find Mrs. Dowling. She can show us how to love us enough not to let us stay where we are. We’ll have to find the Jesus who does both, the Jesus who tears us down and builds us back up.

Do we dare shift our paradigm so completely that we knock down everything we thought we wanted and achieved and earned, and then wait those terrifying three days to see what Jesus builds back again? Do we shift our paradigm so completely that we let both pastel Jesus evaporate and shame-Jesus disintegrate, let them both dissolve into the ooze of the false expectations of ourselves and perfectionism and depths of guilt for things we really can’t control all that much? Let’s look for the Mrs. Dowling Jesus — the one who both made us tuck in our shirts and caught us passing notes, and gave us pizza party Fridays when we aced our times tables. Maybe if we do that, if we let real-Jesus, not shame-Jesus, turn over the tables, we'll find room to breathe, we’ll find grace for the day, and maybe even a little bit of justice for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized.

Let’s let Jesus overturn our tables. 

Then let’s wait and see how we get rebuilt. There will be room and enough for all of us.

I bet it’ll be amazing.

Thanks be to God.

The Mess We Choose

Mark 8:31-38

 I’ve been meeting with this couple every two weeks or so for the last year. They’re getting married in April, and they wanted to do some “premarital counseling” before the wedding. Now there are a thousand reasons why I am a terrible person to walk with them on this journey. But also, at least according to my therapist, there are at least a few reasons why I might be just the right person. So we’ve been meeting via Zoom, and it has been an absolute honor to be invited as a witness into their lives. I doubt I’m all that helpful, but I try to tell stories, I listen hard, I reflect back, and I encourage them to lean in, to show up, to keep going, just keep going. Sometimes, lots of times, we end up talking about things we’ve talked about before. And sometimes, they get a little bit frustrated that they can’t just solve their problems in concrete, sensible ways and then move on with their relationship. 

So one day I told them the truth: “Look guys,” I said, “Marriage is a mess. You’re never going to figure it all out. You’re never going to ‘arrive’; there’s no riding off into the sunset, no orchestral ending credits, no ‘happily ever after’, no matter how many fairy tales you’ve heard. Marriage is just a choice. It’s saying, ‘You’re the mess I choose. For the rest of my life, I choose you.’” 

It reminds me of this video I ran into on Facebook this week. It’s Disney characters in couples therapy. It’s really funny to me. There’s Ariel and Eric, Belle and the Beast, Snow White and the Prince, Aurora and Prince Phillip. They’re full grown adults now, with greying hair, a few laugh lines, and have put on a bit of post-fairytale weight, but they’re still wearing their dresses and bows and princely uniforms, which is quite amusing. They show them arguing with each other in front of their counselor about little annoyances like loading the dishes in the dishwasher, putting the toilet seat down, their quirky and repetitive habits, and how their romance has fizzled over the years. Some of it, I admit, is a bit inappropriate, but the overall point is both hilarious and poignant: There is no such thing as happily ever after, not even for Disney princesses with big hair and disproportionate physical features. They go through the horrible thing that makes it a good story, whatever that happens to be, and then they finally get what they want, and then the real work begins. 

Or reading for today is Peter’s “the honeymoon’s over” moment. This comes off of such an invigorating experience for him.

Just a few verses before he falls flat on his ass in our reading today, he gets the first question brilliantly right. Peter passes the big pop quiz. Lightning strikes, he’s won the Powerball, he’s pulled all cherries, and somehow out of sheer luck, he gets the BINGO. Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”  And Peter pulls an answer out of his rear and gets it right, “You are the Messiah.”

So, Peter thinks, “why not try again? I’m doing so well. I’m being so right. I’ve got this. I’ve said, ‘I do.’ It’s smooth sailing from here.”

This is a crucial turning point in Mark’s Gospel. 

Jesus goes from saying, “Shhh! Don’t tell anyone that I’m the Messiah!” -- this persistent Messianic Secret for the last seven chapters -- to proclaiming who he is quite openly, announcing that the Son of Man will have to suffer and die and be raised again. It’s a paradigm shift in Mark’s Gospel.  It’s the truth about who Jesus is and what his ministry is all about. Jesus came to suffer and die. There’s no walking happily ever after into the sunset -- at least not yet, at least not right now. The messiah is going to come, the messiah is here, right in front of you, and that’s not going to immediately turn everything around. The proclamation of eternal love and the magic true love’s kiss might eventually defeat the powers of evil, but first they’re going to bring even more heartache and more suffering and more evil witches out of the enchanted woods. And that’s hard for Peter -- and for us -- to hear. 

Peter goes from being the straight-A teacher’s pet to Satan himself. It’s a radical and difficult turning point for these disciples. The secret’s out: not that God has come to fix everything and make everything perfect and hunky dory and make things happily ever after. Nope. The answer is in the suffering. In the struggle. In the questioning and the doubting. The Messiah has come, not to conquer lands and sit on a king’s throne, but to be tortured, to die, to sit in the darkness for a bit. Things are about to get messy, and they’re going to get even messier. Reserve your therapist now, gather up your copays, you’re going to need it. 

This doesn’t end with a white picket fence, a golden retriever, 2.5 kids and a ranch in the suburbs.

And Peter says, “No!  This can’t be true!  The fairytale that I have set up for myself, the one we’ve always been taught, the perfect stories of a knight in shining armor riding in to defeat the dragon and save the day must be true. You’re the prince, Jesus. You’re the Messiah. You’re the one we’ve been waiting for to free us from the evil sorcerer and his fire breathing dragon!”

And Jesus tells him, “Get behind me, Satan!” 

Peter has gotten it so wrong. He failed the test. He’s defined his faith on a false storyline.

That’s not the way. The true way through is dark and messy and painful. But that’s the way. The way is uncertain and hazy and scary. But that’s the way. No amount of magical songs or fairy godmothers or talking mice is going to make this a happily ever after. There’s good coming, but like any marriage, it’s a messy good.

The real story of the Gospel is that it’s going to hurt. It’s going to require some sacrifice. Just as it is inherent in any long-term partnership, inherent in the Good News is a kind of death. 

There’s no getting around it. Once you give your life to something, to someone, to anything, that’s it, you’re forever changed. You’re never the person you once were. Even if you end up stepping away from the partnership. The true story of the Gospel is that Jesus is going to suffer and die. The true story of the Gospel is that it’s a journey of struggle and trying and failing and doubting and hoping and trying again. Sounds a lot like my own partnership, actually.

So the big problem, though, with how we’ve lived out this story, is that we romanticize this suffering. We hold on to suffering as a badge of honor, as a definition of true devotion, and even as an excuse to keep our most vulnerable stuck in their oppressive situations. How many women have been told by their spiritual leaders to stay in their abusive marriages? How many struggling, hungry, poor folks have been lifted up and honored because of their humility and acceptance? They’re the “salt of the earth” after all. How many people have pursued pain, or gone without what we really need, or made unnecessary sacrifices because we think that’s how we can experience spiritual awakening? How many have suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in the name of Jesus only to be labelled “saints” after the fact? 

The answer is, too many. Far too many.

There’s this really interesting meme going around the social media lately, most recently highlighted by blogger and personal motivator Glennon Doyle. It’s this idea of “choose your hard.” She says, “For me: Pretending was the wrong kind of hard. Divorce was the right kind of hard. For me: Drinking was the wrong kind of hard. Sobriety is the right kind of hard. For me: Directness is the right kind of hard. Empathy is the right kind of hard. Speaking up is the right kind of hard. Being a fully human public woman is hard as hell but it’s the right kind of hard. It’s all effing hard. So maybe it’s just about deciding on the right kind of hard. What’s your right kind of hard?” And I’m really moved by this sentiment. It makes a lot of sense to me. It’s all hard, this life thing is hard, this gospel stuff is hard, the way of Jesus is hard, so what’s the right kind of hard? How can we choose our hard? 

But then, as it usually does, this idea got amplified by people of privilege. “Obesity is hard” they said. “Working out is hard.” Choose your hard. As if there's a "better" kind of hard and you're choosing the wrong hard. “Poverty is hard” “Working hard is hard” Choose your hard. Ignorance is hard. Education is hard. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard. As if these kinds of hard are totally and completely our choice. As if one’s “hard” is just a matter of will and not a matter of racial privilege, socioeconomic status, mental capacity, physical and psychological health, and a whole host of other factors that are not completely in our control. 

So it’s that same kind of thing as “take up your cross.” 

“Take up your cross”, “choose the hard”, are really important words for us to hear if we are people of privilege, if we have the means to carry and the means to choose, and if it’s for the sake of the gospel, not for our sakes, not for the sake of our personal edification, not if we’re trying to win the award for being the most humble or being the best at suffering the most. 

These words of Jesus are for Peter and for the disciples and for those of us who have the capacity to choose, for those of us who have the agency to make decisions, for those of us who have the freedom to do without. Jesus doesn’t tell the blind man to take up his cross, but he does tell the rich young man to give up everything he has and follow him. Somehow, our society has made it acceptable for the rich young man to keep his wealth because he’s earned it, and for the blind man to suck it up, stop complaining, be grateful for the crumbs tossed on the side of the road, and to “carry his cross.” He tells Peter, who has walked with him all this way, who has seen all these miracles, witnessed all these healings, heard all these teachings, and gotten a couple of answers right, to take up his cross. The road ahead leads to suffering and death. But there will be life after three days. But first, Peter, the hard stuff. He’s one of the lucky ones. He gets to choose his hard. 

And we’re lucky, too. We get to choose our hard. We get to choose the struggle that we are going to take on for the sake of the Gospel. Because that's the key phrase here - for the sake of the Gospel. For the sake of the Good News. For the sake of freeing the captive and rescuing the oppressed and healing the broken and feeding the hungry and in that way, maybe even saving our own souls in the process. That’s the thing about suffering. It’s inevitable. It’s here. It will always be here. But we shouldn’t embrace it just because it’s there. We should choose the kind of suffering that will actually, you know, maybe, relieve some suffering. Jesus chose to walk the road to Jerusalem, but Jesus tried NOT to choose his cross. He asked God to take it away from him, but he accepted it, eventually, because it was who he is. Deep in his innermost self, this hard that he chose made him more…him. Exactly when he is denying himself he is, actually, finding himself, living in to his true self, being the most Jesus he can be. It’s God being the most God that God can be. 

So choose your hard. YOUR hard is going to be messy and difficult and hopefully you’re going to deny yourself for the sake of the other, hopefully for the sake of someone who doesn’t get to have that choice. But in that denial, you’ll find yourself. You’ll find the right kind of hard. There’s no riding off into the sunset, there’s no prince to kiss you awake or dwarves to do your dishes, there’s just the right kind of hard. It’s the mess we choose.

Thanks be to God.