Proper 11, Tuesday, Year 1 - St Macrina

1 Samuel 25:1-22

I have mentioned before that for this two-year lectionary cycle I am studying with the King James Version. This evening I was reading along, following a typically awful Old Testament-style story of betrayal and bloodshed in 1 Samuel (the chapter which begins, by the way, with the death of Samuel...even though there are five more chapters to go, plus 2nd Samuel) but was taken aback when I got to the last verse of the lesson where David is praying to God for assistance in avenging an insult by slaughtering a bunch of innocent people, vowing by morning to have killed "any that pisseth against the wall."

Come again? LOL.

Curious, I turned to the other translations on my shelf (the NRSV, the NIV and the NKJV), all of which instead simply (and preferably...) refer to "men" or "males."

I Googled the phrase, and while admitting it's not like I spent hours of research on this, it does appear that in fact the King James has the more literal rendering of a Hebrew idiom for "men." (The phrase "that pisseth against the wall" appears in the KJV a second time in 1 Samuel 25, and in four verses of 1 & 2 Kings.)

But what really blew my mind was a video that came up of a Baptist pastor citing these verses to insist that God wants men to pee standing up. I won't link to it, you can find it yourself, if you're of a mind.

He relates a story about visiting Germany and seeing signs over toilets asking men not to pee standing up, and, explaining that his wife is German, he asked her, "Is this a joke?" and she apparently said, "No man in Germany pees standing up." "That's where we're headed in this country," says Pastor Steven L. Anderson.

Where to start?

I lived in Switzerland for a year and have visited Germany a couple of times. I lived in a university dorm in Zurich and, yes, there were signs over the toilets in the restrooms saying that peeing standing up was verboten. Now, this isn't because Switzerland has been taken over by anti-Christian feminist zealots, it's because, well, some men have really terrible aim, and no one likes to have to wipe someone else's pee off a toilet seat before using it. Duh. It's called etiquette.

But the idea that there is some sort of Teutonic cultural prohibition against urinating in a vertical position on principle is ridiculous. Any public restroom -- especially in train stations, etc -- will have urinals. In fact, in Switzerland, where the German dialects are sprinkled with French words, the common name for a men's restroom is a pissoir, where there's not a toilet in sight, and not even individual urinals, but just one long porcelain wall (!!!) with a drain at the bottom.

Moreover, "Sitzpinkler" -- which literally means "one who sits to pee" -- is a very common German derogatory word for a less-than-manly man, specifically one who can't stand up for himself.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with poor St Macrina, whose feast unhappily coincides this year with this particular lesson, and who deserves a better post.

Pastor Anderson goes on to caution his listeners against judging him for using bad language by arguing that this word "pisseth" comes directly from the mouth of God, via the Bible. He rails against other translations, including the New King James, for rendering the euphemism as "males" instead of keeping the word-for-word idiom, and cites this as evidence of the extent to which anti-Christian feminizing political correctness has infested even the church itself, in what basically amounts to a xenophobic, sexist, homophobic rant where a holy concept of "masculinity" can be so narrowly defined as to require certain orthodox, patriotic postures for peeing.

I lament that this is the sort of sermon that gets regularly posted to YouTube, and this is what has the potential to go viral. When I think of the hundreds or even thousands of thoughtful sermons that must be given in all kinds of churches every Sunday, to think this is the sort of pathetic nonsense that will form or reaffirm some people's ideas about Christianity and the Bible, I am filled with anger and despair.

The Straight Talk Express

Am I Buying a Car or a Senator?

I am currently researching automobiles, in gleeful anticipation of a far-from-certain improvement in my income next month. I'm thinking about the Honda Civic Coupe. (Yeah, yeah, I know...the Hybrid would be lovely but waaaayyyy out of my price range; even the Coupe is pretty wildly optimistic, but one can dream.)

However, I did feel obligated to share with you this description on the Honda website of the Coupe's design: "A wide stance and exceptional body rigidity help provide a solid and sporty ride."

Heh.

Is that a $600 Check in Your Mailbox or are You Just Happy to See Me?

I am officially stimulated.

Most of you are probably thinking, "You just got your check TODAY?" Well, yes. The IRS distributed the checks according to the last two digits of the taxpayer's social security number. My last digits are 98. Could have been worse, I suppose.

My dear friend "Anonymous" was looking in vain (though, not very hard) for some instance where I disagreed with Barack Obama; this is one. In fact, back in January I said the only politician on the right side of the government's "economic stimulus" bill was...Mike Huckabee. I am still upset that we're going to borrow billions of dollars from China (ummm...that we have to pay back, with interest) to send people a paltry $600.

Granted, right at this moment I'm pretty relieved to have $600 more in my checking account, but it irks me that this isn't actually a tax refund, it's essentially a cash advance on a credit card that George Bush and the Congress took out in my name.

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Following up on Bp. Robinson's visit to the UK during the Lambeth Conference from which he is being excluded on account of some other bishops' discomfort with homosexuality, the Vicar of St. Mary's, Putney -- where Robinson preached this past Sunday -- wrote one of his predictably acidic and hilarious columns for The Guardian about the event.

Money quote: "How on earth does Gene Robinson cope with the disgusting abuse to which he is subjected most days – the protester who interrupted his sermon in my church on Sunday being a pretty mild example? Day after day, buckets of spiritual shit are thrown at him, sometimes by fellow bishops, and he just keeps going."

Wow, I am loving the phrase I emboldened there (to use a favorite word of the President's). It's vulgar, sure, but so, so, so accurate. Absolutely the right metaphor for the situation.

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It's To Wong Foo meets Priscilla meets The Last Debate: fellow blogger and JustOut columnist SMB and I are teaming up to cover Hermiston, Oregon's first ever Gay Pride event. Okay, well, no SMB will cover it, I'm just driving and along for the thrill of it. It's the weekend of August 1-2; stay tuned for another exciting Road Trip Live Blogging Event (this time without cats, I'm afraid.)

The Doomsday Vagina

From this week's Hal Lindsey Report:

"[Jesus] said, 'I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I prepare a place for you, I will come that you may be with me where I am.' [John 14:2b-3] I believe that that could happen to anyone. I call it The Great Snatch."