Knock, Knock: King Comes to Easter

The lamb was on the grill, the green beans were in the pot, and all was bright and cheerful at our house on a very warm Easter afternoon.  

And then, the truly surreal happened.

King, the Jehovah's Witness, showed up on my door step with another one of his well-dressed fellow Witnesses.  They always come in pairs, and he always wants to talk.

Normally, King and friend make the rounds on Saturday mornings, conveniently missing my Jewish partner, who keeps threatening to tell them she's Jehovah's People.  In fact, I was wondering on Holy Saturday if I'd get a visit from him.  When I didn't find a copy of The Watchtower, I figured I was being spared his company. 

I obviously was wrong.   

When my partner saw who was at the door she motioned for me to answer.

"Well, hello!" I said with a smile.

"Hello Susan" said King.

"Happy Easter!!"  (This admittedly was not friendly on my part.  I know that Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Easter, or Christmas, or Birthdays...).

King looked a little pained as he opened his Bible to the Gospel of Luke.

"Well, we don't celebrate that."  He continued thumbing to find the passage he wanted.

"Oh, you don't?  Oh, I'm so sorry."  (No, really, I was sorry.  No Easter... or any celebration that marks life renewed, restored, redeemed seems like a pretty sad way to be.)

Even though King doesn't celebrate Easter, he felt he needed to tell me why I was wrong to be marking the Resurrection on this fine April day.  This was the mission; tell me that Easter is not in the Bible, that Easter bunnies are pagan (true), and that I am horribly misguided about the Kingdom of God, but luckily the Jehovah's Witnesses are there to help correct my heresies.

I am fairly good humored about all this.  My everyday community and the company that I keep are not necessarily people who rejoice in the victory Christ won over death that continues to free people.  And I am pretty good about letting people have their space to believe as they will.  In exchange, I ask that they respect the fact that I do believe in a Triune God whose work continues through me and others.  As such, I saw King's decision to come knocking on my door to tell me that the resurrection isn't true on Easter Day really wrong.  It would have been like Pat Robertson dropping by with some pork to a Muslim household at Ramadan.

Of course, when I share stories of King's visits, I hear from friends about the various and sundry ways they use to scare off Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.  Some claim to answer the door stark naked with battery clamps on their nipples.  Others say they pull out their Roman Catholic Bibles.  Still others remind me that Jehovah's Witnesses have suffered persecution in the past, both here in the United States and Germany under the Third Reich.    Certainly, that was wrong and terrible.  History is rife with stories about minority groups being killed or shoved into a societal corner because they were different.  But past persecution does not excuse King's present day decision to deliberately show up at my house on Easter just so he could tell me that "Jesus didn't tell us to remember the resurrection"? 

Bad form, King!

King and the King of Peace

So, what a day. I was the baking fool doing chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies to pass out with information about PFLAG-Tallahassee at the city's Winter Festival down town. I rode on the gay community center's float with our PFLAG banner. Only a few people were openly hostile to us. Lots more applauded and waved, and there was something very sweet about kids shouting, "Merry Christmas" at a group of LGBT people.
Amidst all the prep for today, I had an interruption courtesy of my regular visitor, King the Jehovah's Witness. King wanted to know if I thought churches taught Scripture. I thought that a very odd question, and I said I think many do. Not true, according to King. And that's when he started telling me about the "myths of Christianity" which included the Holy Trinity and the belief that Mary is the Mother of God.
A brief pause here. I have been thinking quite a bit about Mary in anticipation of hearing the reading of the annunciation that she is going to give birth to a boy who she was to name Jesus. The way the story in Luke reads to me, Gabriel presents himself to this young Jewish teen-ager and says, "Mary, you lucky girl! Have we got an offer for you!!" Once the plan has been presented, the question becomes: what is Mary going to say. One scenario would be that she says, "I'm outta here, ya freak!" Instead, she said, "Here am I" and Mary gives her body in sacrifice and glory to God. And thus begins the most amazing love story of God for us.
Now, back to King. When King suggested that Mary didn't give birth to God, my ears perked up. "How do you figure that?"
OK... that was a mistake because then he refuted the Trinity. In fairness, I told him that we weren't going to be able to agree on this because I do believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
"But it's not in the Bible," says King. I looked at him in disbelief. He explained the word "Trinity" isn't in the Bible. But I insisted the concept of three aspects of God is in the Bible. This led King to crack open the Bible.
This is where the conversation went further awry. In trying to "prove" to me that Jesus was not God, he told me that Jesus never asserted that he was God.
"True enough, but how do you explain the Gospel of John where the Word was made flesh?"
King turned to the evangelist's words on the Word in the bible. King's bible maintains that "In the beginning" was the Word... and the Word was "a god", not "God".
"That's paganism," I told him. I could see this was frustrating for him to hear.
"There were many gods, but there is only one true God." And for King... that's God the Father.
"So, what are saying about Jesus? Are you telling me he was merely a prophet?"
And this is when it got even trippier. Only angels, apparently, are heavenly beings who appear human.
"Are you saying that Jesus was an angel? Oh, I think he was more than an angel, King."
As King insisted that Jesus was not God, I started to laugh. "Oh, man, King you are ruining my Advent if you tell me Jesus isn't God made incarnate through a woman!" King's sidekick, who had been silent up to this point, chuckled at that. King, realizing that I was sincere in my insistence that we weren't going to agree, handed me the magazines and asked that I please read the article on the myths of Christianity... and he would pray for me.
I will pray for me, too, that I learn to not answer the door when King arrives.
Meanwhile, with the fourth candle coming for Advent, I remain reflective on the waiting for the arrival of the light into this very dark world. It is getting brighter!