Hope

     The influences of fear, greed, and power will always be present.  These forces have influenced the most egregious suffering on humanity and the planet itself.  These forces are always at play in politics, even in a perfect democracy like ours...  Sigh... 

     But there is a greater influence that has been and always we will present.  Call it the Spirit, God, our Ground of Being, Higher Power, or simply Love.  This influence has led to more beauty, more freedom, more inclusivity wherever it goes.  This influence is at work no matter who is in charge, even amid horror.  This influence is winning, even though there are times of setbacks usually due to the influence of fear, greed, and power.

     The Jewish people tapped into the greater influence and wrote about their experiences that we can read for ourselves in the Bible.  The Jewish creation myths in the first few chapters of Genesis make this clear: the God moving and working in creation viewed everything as good, and human beings as very good!  This contrasted with other theological perspectives that portrayed “the gods” as beings to be feared, entities that seemed motivated by greed and power just like humans.  This Jewish way of seeing allowed them to move into the world differently.  Yet, just like us, they struggled to welcome and include, limiting the rights of women, orphans, and immigrants, and despising certain other people groups.

     Yet something was at work that influenced these ancestors of our faith into a different way of seeing everything.  I recently saw a Facebook post from the Executive Minister of Evergreen, the region CrossWalk calls home within ABC-USA. It simply states something obvious in the Bible - viewpoints and policies changed, softened over time to become more inclusive, not less.

     Ten to fifteen years after Jesus died, there was a rising Jewish star named Saul who was adamantly opposed to the Jewish sect of Jesus followers.  He was so filled with hatred that he gained authority to hunt them down to arrest them and bring them to “justice” in Jerusalem where he likely hoped some of them would be stoned.  In his view, they were apostate – worthy of the wrath of man mirroring the certain wrath of God to come.  Like many committed Jewish leaders, he had strong opinions about who God loved and who God didn’t.  Non-Jewish people, Samaritans, the uncircumcised, women, people who didn’t conform to dominant sexual identities – these and others were not loved by God as far as Saul was concerned, and therefore he needn’t love them, either.  Apparently, religions themselves – and their adherents – can be overly influenced by fear, greed, and power. Jesus challenged all three of those things, which is why he was killed.  All of that changed for Saul while he was enroute to rustle up some of Jesus’ followers.  He was stopped in his tracks on that road to Damascus by a spiritual experience of a blinding light shining down on him, with a voice self-identifying as Jesus.  Saul was blind in many ways, and it took some time for him to see clearly – maybe for the first time in his life.  Ironically, the once hyper critical legalist became one of the greatest advocates for grace.  Once barely tolerating Gentiles, Saul changed his name to Paul to foster greater trust in them, becoming known as The Apostle to the Gentiles. 

     On one occasion where legalism crept into a new Christian community (fear, greed, and power still loomed), Paul directly spoke into the errant vision that was dividing people and calling into question God’s love for them:

     For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

     And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. – Galatians 3:26-29; 4:6-7 NLT

     This movement of the Spirit toward greater inclusion and love influenced people over and over again.  We now live in a time when we are enjoying the great advances that once seemed impossible.  While it is tragic that we still have a long way to go, let us celebrate how far we’ve come.  There will be setbacks to freedom and inclusion, influenced by fear, greed, and power.  Yet we, as people of faith, join the greater influence of Love that will continue to improve and enhance the world and the people in it – all toward shalom/peace/deep wellbeing for all.

     I want to celebrate the fact that our denomination, American Baptist Churches USA, re-affirmed our commitment to gender equality at their recent Biennial in Puerto Rico.  Rev. Nikita G. McCallister is now the President of ABC-USA until the next Biennial.  That’s awesome. Oh!  And she’s also black – double reason for celebration!  Fear, greed, and power are at play, but the greater influence of Love is winning.

     When I first arrived at CrossWalk, if you were gay, you kept it to yourself, and most likely you did not come to church here.  Now we are known as a safe space for our LGBTQ neighbors!  There will be setbacks in our culture regarding equality, equity, and inclusion due to fear, greed, and power – those forces are real.  But the greater influence is on the side of Love and is winning.

     For many in our country, there is concern about immigration, and a fear that when so many foreigners enter our country, we’re doomed.  I simply don’t see it that way. I have many friends in the community who have come to the United States from south of the border.  Many of these are Executive Directors working to make Napa a stronger, healthy, more vibrant community.  They love their heritage, but they love being in the United States because of the dream it represents.  A more recent person that has become very important to me immigrated to the US at six years old.  Her mother, aunt and uncle, her siblings and cousins all crammed into a two-bedroom apartment to try and make a go of living in the United States.  Her mom and aunt and uncle worked multiple jobs – not just for themselves but so that their kids would have a better life than they would have had in the Philippines.  Diana and her sister graduated from one of the highest ranked public schools in the country in SoCal, and both went on to graduate from college.  She and my son, Noah, met at Pepperdine and remained friends after graduation.  After she returned from teaching in South Korea as a Fulbright scholar for a year, she and Noah reconnected.  One of Diana’s dreams is to use her skills and education to help Filipino immigrants become fully engaged citizens of the United States.  She also hopes to do something to help her community in the Philippines thrive.  Diana is no marauder.  She is a contributor.  While there will always be some who are not well and do not mean well for others, I believe the vast majority of those who come into the US simply see the dream and want a part of it.  The sooner folks who look like me can embrace that – and them – the sooner we can get be rid of the racial divide that persists.  The fear of the unknown other, greed and power are real, powerful forces at work to be sure.  But the greater influence of Love is beckoning us forward to help us become a more perfect Union.  The Spirit invites all the to the table in Love and for the sake of Love.

     We are a people of faith loved into being, loved forward, loved home.  Sometimes the forces of fear, greed, and power will overwhelm us for a moment or season.  But these are not the forces that create life – they destroy it.  We are being called to be co-creators in this life, in this world, in this nation, in this community, in this church, in our relationships, in ourselves, all supported by the Love that will never let us go.

2023 Heart of Christianity: Commencement Address?

What types of things do you write in cards celebrating a High School or college graduate?  Or in a card celebrating a wedding?  Or a pregnancy or birth announcement?  I am quite certain that we all keep things on the positive side, wishing the recipients well as they move forward to a new chapter.

     Deeper into that new chapter, our conversations with these folks change.  We may still be positive and optimistic, but, if the person is even just a bit more than an acquaintance, we will also share more honestly about the reality of life.  There are high points to celebrate – and we should – and yet there are challenges that we will absolutely face as well. Being honest about those things doesn’t make us a Debbie Downer, it actually gives others permission to be real.

     If you’ve spent time with people in their last season of life, there is another shift that takes place.  The sting of the pain experienced between the big dreams at the beginning and the later years is softened for many people.  A perspective born of wisdom that only time can foster often yields a peace despite the ongoing reality of struggle.  If only we could begin with the grounded perspective of age-earned wisdom!

     We see a reflection of this in Jesus’ instructions to the disciples as they are commissioned to go into the towns and villages to carry out the work Jesus had begun.  What we have in Matthew’s text (Matthew 10:1-39) is very likely much more than Jesus told the disciples on that day.  My hunch is that Jesus’ actual words at that moment were more like a High School graduation commencement address: “You’re awesome! You’re capable! You’re cool!  The world is your oyster! You’ve got this!”  There was not much need for more than that. The disciples simply needed to hear from their leader that he thought they could do what he was charging them to do.

     Why then is there so much more instruction, and a lot of it discouraging?

     The Gospel of Matthew is not a collection of newspaper articles chronicling things in real time. Many scholars believe that Matthew’s Gospel wasn’t complete until around 85 CE – 50’ish years after Jesus’ death.  Matthew borrowed heavily from Mark’s Gospel (as did Luke), and tapped a body of work scholars simply call “Q” (shorthand for the German word quelle, which means “source”).  They also added remembrances from their unique body of Jewish Christians.  By the time the final product was finished, these Jesus followers had experienced A LOT of reality.  They also assumed that people who would read this account of Jesus’ life and ministry would already be familiar with the story, which gave them further confidence to add some things to the account to make some key points.  This means that, even though the words Jesus spoke might be in red ink in your Bible, he may not have said it.  This does not mean that the Matthew writers were reckless – they didn’t have Jesus instructing the disciples to enjoy pulled pork sandwiches for lunch.  All the words they put into Jesus’ mouth are accurate reflections of what would eventually happen to many of the disciples over the next decades.  But Jesus likely did not say them at that point in time. The words attributed to him require a knowledge of the history to come. This was written retrospectively, also reflecting the theological perspectives of the Matthean community.

     The speech isn’t a total bust.  On balance, there is a lot of hope in the address.  Perhaps this is because the Matthean community of Jesus followers had been through hell and discovered that God was with them through it all, providing strength and hope all the way, gifting them with the presence of the Spirit to give them confidence in what lies beyond the grave.

     None of us nail the discipleship thing 100% of the time.  We’re human.  Yet we are called to follow. Know that when we do, there will be wonderful times of joy and transformation. Know also that there will be extremely challenging times as well. As my Grandpa Shaw used to say, “that’s just the way it is.”  Remember, though, that the goodness of God will be with you as you Go Be Jesus.  Remember, too, that “You’re awesome! You’re capable! You’re cool!  The world is your oyster! You’ve got this!”  Because despite the horrors that may come when we bring shalom to places that prefer the status quo, the accolades are true.  You’re a child of God, and that means you are inherently very good.

 

Commentary from the SALT Project...

Big Picture:

1) From now until November, the gospel readings will move chronologically through Matthew. This week’s reading is from the second of five major discourses or teaching sessions Jesus delivers in Matthew (likely an echo of the five books of the Torah). This one is sometimes called the “Missionary Discourse,” since it consists of instructions to the disciples as Jesus commissions them to preach and teach and heal in villages throughout the region.

2) Jesus sends the disciples out in a way that underscores their vulnerability: he tells them to bring no money, no bag, no extra clothes, no sandals, no staff (Matthew 10:9-10). This puts them at the mercy of the hospitality — or hostility — of the people they encounter along the way, and in this week’s reading, Jesus both encourages the disciples and warns them that adversity awaits.

Scripture:

1) As we saw last week, Jesus authorizes and commissions the disciples to do the very work he has been doing; in this sense, he is passing the mantle to the church. Accordingly, he sends them with words of encouragement and comfort: Don’t be afraid; God knows you and loves you better than you know and love yourself, and will be with you all the way along. But in the same breath, Jesus candidly spells out what this “encouragement” implies: their coming adventures will require courage. They will encounter opponents, hostility, threats — even persecution. The powers that be, the death-dealing forces in the world, will not quietly step aside. This is work that will require resolve and perseverance: part-timers need not apply. You’ve got to go all in, or not go at all.

2) Following Jesus, in other words, isn’t for the faint of heart. It means giving things up, even precious things, even things we hold dear. The very fact that Jesus is passing the mantle here is a tacit reference to his coming departure, to the fact that he already is on a pilgrimage down into the valley of the shadow of death. Any who follow him, then, must be willing to do likewise, to “take up the cross and follow me” (Matthew 10:38).

3) But what does “taking up the cross” mean in this context? This is the first reference to “the cross” in Matthew, and Jesus uses it as a metaphor for the difficult work of embracing an unconventional life of intense, generous commitment to God’s mission — a willingness, as Jesus sums it up, to “lose their life” in order to “find it” (Matthew 10:39). According to this ideal picture, following Jesus means making God’s mission of love and justice the first priority in our lives, even above family and livelihood (Matthew 10:35-37; 10:9-10). It means being willing to confront and conflict with death-dealing powers, so much so that — even as genuine peacemaking remains the ultimate goal — it may well initially appear as though we “have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 5:9; 10:34).  

4) In brief, discipleship means leaving behind conventional approaches to kinship, career, and social harmony — and that’s not a prospect to be taken lightly. Count the cost before you go. The good news of the Gospel may be for everyone — but discipleship isn’t.

5) That last point — that discipleship isn’t for everyone — may at first be counterintuitive for many Christians today. Isn’t the whole point of Christianity that anyone can become a disciple, and that the goal is to make as many as possible? Well, if Jesus thought so, he had a strange way of showing it. According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus encountered thousands of people during his ministry — but only called something like fourteen to be disciples. Nor did he send out the twelve disciples to recruit and expand their ranks; rather, he expressly sent them out to heal and liberate and proclaim that “the kingdom of God has come near” (Matthew 10:1,7-8). Likewise, Jesus and his entourage moved through the countryside feeding, healing, and teaching the crowds, but not signing them up as disciples. For the overwhelming majority of the people he met, his signature sign-off wasn’t “Follow me,” but rather: “Your faith has made you well,” or “Return home and declare how much God has done for you,” or “Go on your way, and sin no more,” or “Go in peace.” In short, Jesus comes to save many (indeed the whole world!), but as for disciples, he calls only a few.

Takeaways:

1) As Jesus commissions his disciples, he warns them of adversity to come — and such struggles continue today. Death-dealing forces come in many forms, of course, but in American life (and beyond!) a prime example is racism, a hateful injustice that will not go quietly when confronted by forces of love and equity. Peacemaking is the ultimate goal, of course, but every unjust status quo has formidable supporters with vested interests (that’s why it’s the status quo!), and so moving toward genuine peace almost always initially involves conflict. Jesus both acknowledges and normalizes this turmoil, counseling us to expect it — and calling us to trust a caring God of love and justice along the way. Likewise, if we take Hagar’s story to heart, we dare not lose hope — even when despair seems most tempting. In our lowest moments, God comes alongside us with loving-kindness, asking, “What troubles you?”

3) Building another world — a world where all are seen and honored — requires thoroughgoing commitment, and a willingness to stay engaged when things get dicey. Jesus doesn’t mince words on this point: You are embarking on a struggle; you will meet with trouble, and setbacks, and a long journey ahead. But many have gone before us, many “all in” Christians who have helped show the way: Francis of Assisi and Teresa of Avila; Fannie Lou Hamer and Clarence Jordan; Rosa Parks and Oscar Romero; Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Dorothy Day...

4) In a remarkable sermon on the demands of discipleship, the preacher and author Barbara Brown Taylor once argued that, if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us are less like “disciples” and more like “friends of the disciples.” God does raise up genuine disciples in every generation: the well-known saints and the countless others whose names we may or may not ever know, people who actually did and do, in various ways, put God’s mission of love and justice above conventional priorities of kinship and livelihood. The rest of us are something a good deal more humble than “disciples” in this sense. At our best, Taylor contends, we’re “friends of the disciples” — and like friends, we may extol and support disciples where we can; and like friends, we may be inspired (or haunted, or driven) to follow their examples here and there, in fragments or moments or chapters of our lives.

5) But who knows? The Living One Who Sees Us may yet have another adventure in mind for our itinerary. Jesus’ call to “all in” discipleship remains open and vibrant for everyone. On any given day, even words as challenging as these in Matthew may become a summons personally addressed to you, or to me, or to a particular congregation. In ways large and small, there’s no telling what kind of follower of Jesus we may yet become!

 

Matthew 10:1-39 (MSG)

Jesus called twelve of his followers and sent them into the ripe fields. He gave them power to kick out the evil spirits and to tenderly care for the bruised and hurt lives. This is the list of the twelve he sent:

Simon (they called him Peter, or “Rock”),

Andrew, his brother,

James, Zebedee’s son,

John, his brother,

Philip,

Bartholomew,

Thomas,

Matthew, the tax man,

James, son of Alphaeus,

Thaddaeus,

Simon, the Canaanite,

Judas Iscariot (who later turned on him).

Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge:

     “Don’t begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.

     “Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.

     “When you enter a town or village, don’t insist on staying in a luxury inn. Get a modest place with some modest people, and be content there until you leave.

     “When you knock on a door, be courteous in your greeting. If they welcome you, be gentle in your conversation. If they don’t welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way. You can be sure that on Judgment Day they’ll be mighty sorry—but it’s no concern of yours now.

     “Stay alert. This is hazardous work I’m assigning you. You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don’t call attention to yourselves. Be as shrewd as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.

     “Don’t be naive. Some people will question your motives, others will smear your reputation—just because you believe in me. Don’t be upset when they haul you before the civil authorities. Without knowing it, they’ve done you—and me—a favor, given you a platform for preaching the kingdom news! And don’t worry about what you’ll say or how you’ll say it. The right words will be there; the Spirit of your Father will supply the words.

     “When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don’t quit. Don’t cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you’ve run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived.

     “A student doesn’t get a better desk than her teacher. A laborer doesn’t make more money than his boss. Be content—pleased, even—when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, ‘Dungface,’ what can the workers expect?

     “Don’t be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now.

     “Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands.

     “What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.

     “Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I’ll cover for you?

     “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.

     “If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.

 

2023 Heart and Home: Being Christian in an Age of Religious Pluralism

What do Stephen Curry, Thairo Estrada, and Christian McCaffrey have in common?  For starters, they are all great athletes on their respective Bay Area teams.  Next question: who among them is the best?  It’s a ludicrous question, of course, that cannot be adequately answered without clarifying what activity we’re talking about.  Basketball? Baseball? Football? Sports in general? We can quickly recognize that it may not be fair to compare these players to each other since their respective games are played and scored differently.  They all play to win, but they play according to the rules of the game they play.

What do Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed have in common?  They are all founders of four of the largest, enduring religions in the world. Note: Hinduism dwarfs Judaism but has no single founder. Rather, it is a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions.  Who among the four are the best?

The way we are accustomed to think about religion is to declare one the winner, or one as “true”, and the others as false, as “losers”. Borg refers to this as the absolutist understanding of religion.  Christian Fundamentalism and its child Evangelicalism are built on the absolutist understanding of religion, and therefore take very seriously the work of converting people to Christianity as a means of saving people from what they deem as a false religion and the hell from which it stems and to which it leads.

Casual bystanders witnessing this passionate proselytizing pursuit are rejecting this absolutionist perspective in increasing numbers and accelerating speed.  Like Ricky Gervais, they see the surface argument in similar terms as my sports star analogy and throw up their hands – they walk away from both God and religion because the latter doesn’t seem to connect them to the former. They toss the whole thing as rubbish.  Borg refers to this as the Reductionist understanding of religion. Perhaps, then, using the same logic, they should also throw aside all sports since they all play by different rules.

But that’s not fair to Curry, Estrada, and McCaffrey; and certainly not to Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed, either. It’s way too simplistic in its understanding of religions, and far too hasty in its reaction to dismiss them all.

There is another way to understand religions of the world. Borg refers to it as the Sacramental approach.  This perspective recognizes that each of the world’s enduring religions were developed by human beings in response to their experience of the “More” – aka God, the Divine, the Ground of Being.  The purpose of the religions was to connect humanity with the sacred in their time, place, and with their language, stories, worldview and traditions.  Because they were created in their respective contexts, they sound different from each other, and only in the most general respects are they similar. That’s why the Reductionist approach goes too far – or actually not far enough – saying that religions all say the same thing.  They don’t – they are as unique as their origins. Different religions are trying to “win” at mediating the divine within their respective contexts as different sports offer contextualized games with the goal of winning in their particular way.  Rather than seeing religions as in competition with each other, Borg sees them helping each other: “Understanding other religions can enrich our understanding of Christianity and what it means to be Christian. Religious pluralism can help us to see our own tradition better.”

In this “Religion as Sacrament” vein, the enduring religions of the world are viewed as such:

1.     Religions are human creations…

2.     … in response to experiences of the sacred

3.     Religions are “cultural-linguistic traditions”

4.     Enduring religions are “wisdom traditions”

5.     Religions are aesthetic traditions

6.     Religions are communities of practice

7.     Religions are communities of transformation

While the enduring religions of the world are different one to the other, they also share these following attributes in common:

1.     They all affirm the more, the real, the sacred

2.     They all affirm a path of transformation

3.     They all provide practices for the journey

4.     They all extol compassion: life’s primary virtue

5.     They all contain collections of belief/teaching

Some use the example of various paths leading up the same mountain.  Christians who have adopted the absolutist view balk at the analogy, saying that the other religions don’t adequately deal with sin, or don’t even refer much to heaven, therefore they are inferior to Christianity. Borg offers a different version of the analogy, however.  Each path originates from its particular place on the base of the mountain, with all of its contextual influences.  Each path makes its way toward the top of the mountain where the clouds cover the peak.  The path doesn’t take you to heaven, it takes you to the Divine, God, the Greater Other, the Higher Power.  Winning isn’t defined by which formula gets you into heaven.  As sacramental vehicles, success is ushering adherents into the Presence of God.

A normal, natural question in response might be, why bother with religion at all?  Why not just be spiritual and call it good?  Borg suggests that religions still play a crucial role in our spiritual pursuit.  “Religion,” he says, “is to spirituality as institutions of learning are to education.”  Can you learn apart from the institutions?  Sure.  But you’ll likely learn more, faster, with the external forms of religion helping you.  The wisdom, rituals, practices and collections of beliefs serve as vessels of spirituality, mediators of the sacred and the way.  Without them, I believe you will get stuck and miss out on much of what is offered: both in terms of understanding the Divine and the fuller experiences of life.

Another question might be, what about the statements attributed to Jesus that appear to support an exclusive understanding of Christianity as the only legitimate religion?  Borg suggests that we see and hear such words as those communicating truth and devotion.  For Jesus and his early followers, following Jesus was the only way that resonated with them, was the object of their devotion, and was the center of their message of hope.  Borg noted that we may use similar language when referring to our “home” – our dwelling or perhaps the geographical place we live or our country.  We speak with absolute devotion about our “home”, articulating the truths of its splendor to whoever will listen.  But, as Borg notes, loving our home deeply doesn’t make it superior to someone else’s home.  They can love and have their home wherever they are.

There is a beautiful song sung to the tune Finlandia that communicates this reality.  Imagine replacing references to nations, lands, and countries with religion, faith, etc.  Below are the lyrics, and here is the song beautifully sung.

This Is My Song (Finlandia)

This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace, for lands afar & mine
This is my home, the country where my heart is
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine
This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace for their land and for mine

The Dalai Lama was asked by a Christian if she should convert to Buddhism.  He told her, “No. Instead, become a very good Christian.”  Borg recalled a wisdom saying: “If you desire water, you are better off digging one well 60 feet deep than six wells ten feet deep.”  It is good and wise to respect different traditions and religions.  It is also good and wise to go deep with the one that is most “home” – for the overwhelming majority of people in the United States who are already familiar with the Christian tradition, this is a well worth digging into.  You are likely to find a spring that offers living water that will never run dry.

Borg ends his book with this, as part of his answer to why he is a Christian: At the heart of Christianity is the way of the heart – a path that transforms us at the deepest level of our being.  At the heart of Christianity is the heart of God – a passion for our transformation and the transformation of the world. At the heart of Christianity is participating in the passion of God.

I am, and certainly plan to remain, a devoted Christian.  Christianity mediates the sacred well for me and so many others.  With its guide I am ushered into the Loving Presence of the Divine, guided to love and be loved, and compelled to be used by God to be an agent of restoration, renewal, and even resurrection in this very good world we call home.

What about you?  Where is your “home”?  How deep is your well?

2023 The Heart of Christianity: Practice

This week’s focus in Borg’s book is on implementing practices that Jesus taught and modeled as a way of living into the faith. At CrossWalk, we emphasize this a lot, represented in Jesus’ stretching, kneeling in service, gracing those who were experiencing injustice, connecting with God through spiritual disciplines, and being an incarnate presence with others in deep community.  The fruit of all these movements working together is the abundant life Jesus promised.  Following Jesus pays off for everyone (and the planet, too).

  I am following the Lectionary this week, focusing on the calling of Abram and Sarai in Genesis, and Matthew the tax collector in the Gospel of Matthew, followed by a related miracle story.  Excellent and brief commentary on those passages is copied below for your perusal.

     What sticks with me in these stories is the dynamic of the invitation offered and the participation involved to accept such an invitation.  Particularly sticky is Jesus’ comment about coming to heal the sick and not the well.  To me, this raises questions about our self-awareness and arrogance in relation to our capacity to receive and accept the ongoing invitations of the Spirit of God throughout our lives.  How many times have I slipped into the role of the pride-filled onlooker scoffing at others, only to hear that when I am in such a mental space, Jesus really doesn’t have anything for me, because I am self-duped into thinking I am “well”.

     May we all walk in humility to know that we are all works in process, always in need of help to help us live and be well through each stage of life. May we be humble enough to perceive the ongoing invitation extended by God to us for our wellbeing.  May we be humble enough to see such an invitation as pure gift to receive and employ. May we be humble enough to express our gratitude for it at every turn.

 

 

Second Week after Pentecost (Year A): Genesis 12:1-9 and Matthew 9:9-13,18-26

Big Picture:

1) The season of “Ordinary Time” begins this week in earnest — not “ordinary” in the sense of commonplace, but rather in the sense of “ordinal,” or “related to a series.” Think of Ordinary Time as a six-month series, a step-by-step pilgrimage through the story of Jesus’ ministry, with Matthew as our guide (next year it’ll be Mark, and the next, Luke; John gets sprinkled in throughout the three-year cycle).

2) The Christian Year is divided almost in half: about six months of high holidays (Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide), and about six months of Ordinary Time. Like the tides coming in and going out, or a pair of lungs inhaling and exhaling, these two sides of the Christian Year go back and forth, back and forth, the festival seasons of Christmas and Easter giving way to an extended season of everyday life, and then vice versa. And so we begin this week, appropriately enough, with two classic stories, centuries apart, of being called to a life of following God: Abram’s (later “Abraham”) and Matthew’s.

3) The passage from Genesis 12 begins the saga of Abraham, the story that in many ways sets in motion the history of the Jewish people. Genesis 1 - 11 covers the so-called “primeval history,” a collection of ancient accounts and fables gathered from different eras and authors, each with a distinctive mythological style: the first story of creation (“Let there be light!”); the second, quite different story of creation (Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel); the story of Noah’s family, the flood, and the ark (“I have set my bow in the clouds…”); and the story of the Tower of Babel (“because there God confused the language of all the earth”). With this “primeval history” as background, here in Genesis 12, the book’s focus and style markedly shifts: for the next ten chapters, we’ll hear the saga of Abraham and Sarah.

4) Matthew 1 - 8 lays out the stories of Jesus’ birth; his baptism many years later; his temptation in the wilderness; his first major sermon (the so-called “Sermon on the Mount”); and several stories of Jesus healing. Before that major sermon, the initial disciples Jesus calls are fishermen on the shores of the Sea of Galilee — but here in chapter 9, he shifts gears and calls Matthew, a tax collector. Looking ahead, Jesus is on the verge of sending out the twelve disciples to heal and preach (Matthew 10). Matthew is apparently the twelfth disciple recruited into the fold.

5) Finally, Matthew’s early audiences would have been at least loosely familiar with the purity practices recorded in Hebrew scripture: menstruating women were allegedly “unclean” (Leviticus 12:1-8; 15:19-30), as were corpses (Numbers 19:11-13), such that anyone and anything they touched also became “unclean.” And for their part, tax collectors were widely despised as instruments of the Roman imperial occupiers and their collaborators. Indeed, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses “tax collectors” as a shorthand for people lacking in virtue: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46). As we’ll see, Jesus overturns all of these ideas in this week’s story, and bearing them in mind helps highlight the tensions driving the narrative: Is he really eating with tax collectors — and recruiting one to be a disciple? Did that “unclean” woman really just touch him, the Holy Teacher? And did he really just touch a stranger’s corpse?

Scripture:

1) Jesus has been on the move throughout the countryside, and here he comes across Matthew sitting in his “tax booth” (or “toll booth”) (Matthew 9:9). Matthew was likely a kind of customs official, charging a “toll” or “tax” on goods being transported to market; for example, such booths were sometimes set up along roadsides near fishing villages. Tax collectors were widely unpopular, not only because the taxes themselves were onerous, and not only because such funds supported the Roman Empire and its collaborators — but also because tax collectors were often suspected of charging more than required, and pocketing the difference.

2) It’s striking, then, that Jesus would call such an “undesirable” to be his twelfth disciple; it certainly raised eyebrows among some Pharisees, as did Jesus’ custom of eating with “tax collectors and sinners” (Pharisees were a local religious group, in many ways similar to the movement gathering around Jesus, and therefore a key rival in that local context). But it’s also worth thinking about that Jesus’ other disciples — many of whom, after all, were fisherman! — likely didn’t care much for tax collectors! Indeed, the gist of the overall story suggests that by calling Matthew, Jesus is driving home a point intended not only for outside observers, but also for his own followers.

3) And what is that point? In a nutshell, that no-one is disqualified from becoming part of the movement — and indeed that Jesus is most interested in people who need help, just as a physician is most interested in people who are sick. As Matthew has been making clear all along in these opening chapters, Jesus is a healer: he comes not to reward those who are already well, but rather to help us become well in the first place.

4) But not, please note, to “make us well” without our active participation. A woman Jesus meets on the road serves as a definitive, iconic role model: she has been bleeding for twelve years (and so likely has been ostracized for twelve years), and yet she approaches Jesus with a fierce form of hope, saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well” (Matthew 9:21). The underlying word here — translated as “be made well” in the NRSV — is the Greek word, sózó (pronounced “SODE-zo,” rhymes with “ROAD-so”), which can also be translated, “save,” “heal,” “preserve,” or “rescue.” And in pursuit of this salvation, this healing, this rescue, the woman is nothing less than audacious. Not only does she make her way through the entourage of disciples in order to touch Jesus’ garment, she pushes through the words of Leviticus, too, the ancient ideas that not only is she “unclean,” but anything she touches will become “unclean” — including the one whose clothing she reaches out to touch!

5) It’s worth pausing here to let this sink in: a supposedly “unclean” outcast, a woman, boldly touches a Holy Teacher without his permission, apparently desecrating him in the process. The disciples must have been wide-eyed, stunned. Will Jesus be angry? Has he been defiled? Jesus stops, turns around, and confronts the woman…

6) …and without skipping a beat, praises her for her boldness, her daring, her persistence, her faith: “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well” (again, the word is sózó). And this formulation, too, is yet another surprise, since one might well draw the conclusion that Jesus’ power is the reason the woman is healed (Matthew 9:22). But on the contrary, Jesus draws attention not to his power, but to hers. Your faith has made you well…

7) And so Jesus continues on his way to the house of a leader of a local synagogue, a man whose daughter has just died. With a boldness that mirrors the woman’s faith, the man, too, believes that Jesus’ touch can make his daughter “live” (here the underlying word is zaó (pronounced “ZAH-oh”), the same word in “One does not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4)). When he arrives at the house, Jesus disperses the mourners, takes the girl’s corpse by the hand — and she gets up. She lives. Here again, with his actions Jesus dissolves supposed barriers: between “clean” and “unclean” (Numbers 19:11-13), between life and death. Thus the story foreshadows Jesus’ death and resurrection, as well as the broader promised resurrection to come.

8) The idea that “faith” is a kind of audacity is at least as old as the story of Abraham and Sarah, a saga which begins with God’s call to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). At least two things stand out in this ancient story: first, that it begins with God delivering a single, powerful word — “Go” — summoning Abram and Sarai (later Abraham and Sarah) to leave what’s familiar and set out on an adventure. And second, that the purpose of this calling isn’t only for their benefit; it’s ultimately for everyone: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

Takeaways:

1) As Matthew arranges them, these episodes share a common theme: Jesus’ barrier-dissolving, healing, life-giving ministry, an approach to “salvation” that defies conventional categories. Is Jesus more interested in “eternal life” or “life here and now”? Sózó carries both connotations at once, effectively debunking the distinction. God saves the righteous and damns sinners — right? Nope. Jesus comes to save sinners, he says, the outsiders, those who need help and healing. Even tax collectors! For Christians today, this means: Even and especially people you look down on, or distrust, or otherwise disrespect. While we’re counting them out, Jesus is inviting them in.

2) Likewise, just as Jesus dissolves ethnic and sociopolitical barriers between Jews and Gentiles (a major theme in Matthew’s Gospel), he also dissolves barriers of contempt and marginalization within religious communities. For Christians today, then, the task is most definitely not to criticize Jewish practices (thereby ironically falling into the contempt trap all over again!), but rather to identify and root out Christian practices that implicitly or explicitly divide and marginalize, creating “outsiders” and “insiders.”

3) These stories also provide a glimpse of how Jesus thinks about scripture. He engages holy writ not with uncritical obeisance, as if every word in Leviticus or Numbers (or any other book) is to be taken at face value, but rather with wise rabbinical judgment, carefully weighing which passages are most important, which passages help throw light on other passages — and then applying those insights at the right time, in the right place, and in the right way (remember: “love your neighbor as yourself” is from Leviticus, too! (Leviticus 19:18)).

4) “Faith” is framed here as a form of audacity, a mode of barrier-dissolving boldness — and the woman with a hemorrhage is cast as a prime exemplar, a role model no less impressive than the local religious leader. The two make quite a pair: on one hand, a long-suffering outcast; on the other, a consummate insider. And in both cases, an audacious trust Jesus calls “faith,” a pivotal power possessed by each and every human being: “your faith has made you well [sózó]…”

5) Finally, a key hazard to avoid in coming to grips with these stories is the mistaken idea that any apparent absence of a “cure” means afflicted people are to blame for their “lack of faith.” Indeed, the fact that sózó and zaó encompass such a wide range of meanings — from salvation to health to resurrection to thriving to restoration-to-community — should stand as a guardrail against this misinterpretation. Healing comes in many different forms, physical, emotional, social, and otherwise, and we can trust that our most daring, faithful efforts will be met with God’s merciful healing touch, regardless of the form that healing takes in any given case. For that healing, after all, is the good news of the Gospel in these stories: Follow me. Yes, you. I know, I know: I know all about your past; but I’m calling you to a new future. Take heart, my children, reach out, push through, and dare to touch the edge of my cloak — for I am already reaching out to you, and will yet take your hand, both today and in the end. And when I do, I will call on you to stand up, to go (“Go!”), to set out, to embark on an adventure. In a word: to rise.

 

2023 The Heart of Christianity: Sin and Salvation and...

This week’s teaching dovetails nicely with Marcus Borg’s chapter on Sin and Salvation from his book, The Heart of Christianity.  The root meaning behind the word “save” that provides foundation for the word salvation is “to heal”.  To make well. To make whole.  To bring harmony where there was discord.  To bring peace – not simply the absence of conflict but something much deeper – a sense of everything working together for the wellbeing of the whole.  Salvation for an individual would be that a person is deeply well and whole. Salvation for a relationship would mean that the relationship was deeply well and whole. Applied to communities and countries, it would mean that all involved feel the same deep peace and wellbeing, a fairness for all.  Saving the planet would mean that it is well and whole, too, operating in health and harmony.  The salvation sought, I believe, is at the core of every person’s deepest desire.  Deeper than the self-centered goals of the Western world that focus on personal success and accumulation without significant regard for the impact of their pursuit on other people and the planet itself.  I believe God’s invitation to Abraham to begin something new was an attempt to foster a way of relating to ourselves, each other, the planet, and the divine that leads toward that wellbeing.  The single word for that state in Hebrew is “shalom”.  The Christian phrases “eternal life”, salvation, abundant life, and Kingdom of God (among others) refer to the same thing.

     The dominant thinking that people in our culture think of when they hear the words “sin” and “salvation” concern the afterlife: get your sins forgiven by God so that you will be welcomed into heaven. In this view, God is the Forgiver and Heaven Provider.  While this is not entirely wrong, it is so woefully incomplete in its scope that it is nearly false given its paucity.  If we were to write an essay on a test addressing what salvation is about, and our answer was that the whole thing is about dealing with the forgiveness of sins, we would get an “F” on that test, where “F” does not stand for “fantastic” but rather failure because it is such an incomplete understanding.  And yet this is the primary understanding for many people today. No wonder people are leaving the faith at an accelerating rate that has not been seen in our country since its founding!  What a boring story!

     Borg points out that the earliest answer to such a question regarding salvation referred to the Exodus – the people of Israel wanted, needed, and received God’s help in being liberated from their Egyptian slaveholders. God was Israel’s Liberator.  Centuries later, the Jewish people found themselves in exile and longed to return home, which God helped happen in time – another facet of salvation for them.  God was Israel’s Guide.  God as Forgiver was present, for sure, but one among several other understandings as well.

     I believe that God – the “More” than flesh and blood – is firstly known by love and welcome, so the first and very common rendering resonates with me, especially when I have become aware of my attitudes and behaviors that have led to the disturbance of shalom (a good way to think about the definition of sin).  I have also at times in my life felt enslaved to certain thoughts and behaviors that I did not choose or welcome – they were the reality I lived within without my input.  Family systems, popular culture, our political ethos may at times feel like enslavement – no way out. I have experienced God freeing me to varying degrees from the shackles inherent in a variety of systems that constrain us.  I have also felt very much disconnected from my True Self at times over the course of my life when I knew who I saw in the mirror did not reflect who I really am in the depths of my being. I experienced God wooing and nudging me back home to myself.  All these images therefore resonate.

     Jesus Christ is often referred to as Savior by those who follow him.  What was he saving us from?  We can use the framework above and see the relationship to Forgiver, Liberator, and Guide.  But if we look at his life, we may find that he was about saving us in myriad ways.  It is important to note that Roman Emperors used the term “Savior” for themselves, that Rome’s Empire and its way was truly Good News for all those who came under its subjection, and that they saw themselves as the promoters and providers of healing and wellbeing.  When Jesus spoke of Good News, he was not just saying something about God and himself, he was also taking a shot at Rome and its Emperor.  Jesus was a provocateur, wondering where shalom was “off” and offering ways to usher it back more fully.

     So, what did Jesus do and how did it serve to save?

     In the Gospel of John, we see that the salvation Jesus was about was eternal life, abundant life, for all.  Not heaven – though the hope for afterlife and all it meant shows up in John – the life Jesus came to teach and model was one that was life in God as Walter Rauschenbusch would say was his goal. Life in God – Life in the Spirit – yielded all sorts of good fruit individually and corporately.  What he taught and did helped foster the very life made available to us.

     In John’s Gospel remembrance of Jesus, we identify five major movements his incorporated.  He stretched – he was a lifelong learner who at times challenged long-held ways of thinking. Having our paradigms deconstructed and reconstructed is liberating and guides us toward wellbeing – learning is a form of salvation from constricting thoughts and ideas, and Jesus was all about it.  How have you chosen to stretch in the past year?  How will you choose to stretch in the year before you? How might this help foster more shalom for you and all others?

     He kneeled in service to others, offering healing (a literal translation of “saving”), food, touch – all of these met real needs with real hands.  There is something amazing about service – when we serve, the one we serve is sometimes (maybe often) not the greatest beneficiary. The one who serves often walks away feeling more blessed than those they served to bless!  How did you serve others over the past year?  How will you serve others in the coming year? How might such service bring about more of a holistic wellbeing for all involved?

     Jesus also graced people who were severely lacking it because it had been withheld from them.  Grace happened when he intermingled with lepers and healed them, when he gave sight to a man born blind, when he forgave a woman [who was set up in order to get] caught in adultery, and when he invited himself to dinner at Zacchaeus the tax collectors’ house.  While these are individual stories, these encounters pointed to a vision for all people to be treated similarly.  The word for this is justice.  Jesus spoke and taught words that called for justice and how to promote it nonviolently.  To follow Jesus today calls us to offer grace to individuals and justice for people groups who are not treated fairly.  How have you responded to this call to be a conduit of grace and justice? This is an obvious way of bringing shalom into the world.

     Jesus broke away to connect with God regularly.  He undoubtedly spent time in deep reflection and listening – what we call mindfulness and contemplation today. How have you spent time for such things in the past year?  How will you in the year to come?  Such stillness serves to limit the constant distractions that clog our ears, making it challenging at times to hear the still small voice of God which, in one translation, is the sound of silence.  Sometimes the only way we can become whole and well is to first be quiet enough to notice where we aren’t whole and well.

     Jesus spent his public ministry in the incarnate community of faith – people who knew and wanted to foster the Spirit in and between them.  There is salvation in community – from feeling isolated, from being siloed, from hubris, from everything that happens when we try to live solo.  There is a wholeness that is very difficult – if not impossible – to experience apart from community.  NOTE! The United States is built on radical individualism. To be in genuine community may feel incredibly unnerving to many US citizens because it calls us to think “we” more than “me”.

     A final note about wellbeing and wholeness.  All parts of our story are still with us, and everything belongs in our story.  I do not believe that God orchestrates what happens in our lives, so “everything belongs” does not mean that it was predestined or foreordained to happen and therefore we should shut up and deal with it.  Nope.  I don’t believe God controls because God by love, and love does not control. What I mean is that there are parts of our lives that we keep tightly locked away because they are deeply painful.  We ignore and deny their part in our story, pretending that in doing so we are robbing those chapters of their power.  That is a lie.  All the chapters are part of our lives and continue to speak into our lives.  They inform us. They can also serve us toward shalom if we incorporate them carefully and appropriately.  Since all the chapters are in you whether you like it or not – like the Bible itself! – perhaps it is wise to give them their place at the table.  Doing so has helped me see areas of my life where I was really disconnected from wellbeing. But looking is terrifying because we are afraid of what we may see about ourselves.  Yet the Spirit of God is love. The Spirit is a Good Shepherd.  The Spirit is a loving parent who wants to help us heal, to find resolution, to identify lies we’ve embraced about ourselves and live in truth instead.  Facing chapters we want to remain closed requires tremendous courage, and sometimes professional help from therapists. For me, the process has helped me identify lies that told me I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t loveable, that I was not capable, not smart, not talented, not worthy, not forgivable, a failure, a wimp, and on and on.  Looking at the chapters not only requires courage, it takes work to sit with and examine what we’ve taken away from those chapters and determine what is truth and what is fiction.  However difficult, the process serves to make us whole, which means God is with us, because at the end of the day, such shalom is the end and means of all that the Spirit of God is about.

     May you discover anew that God is indeed Forgiver, Liberator, and Guide, as well as hundreds and thousands of other roles all working to lead us individually and collectively toward deep beauty, truth, wellbeing, peace, and love.

 

     What follows is my annual State of Communion, where I give some highlights of what CrossWalk has been up to in our fostering salvation in its fullest sense here in Napa and beyond.

 

 2023 State of Communion

 

Dear CrossWalkers,

     Our goal as a church is to be a catalyst for the wellbeing of everyone and everything, everywhere, starting with those within closest reach.  This is what love invites us to do.  This is what cultivating shalom means – for individuals, families, communities, our city, state, nation, and world. As stewards of creation, it means we also do our part to foster the wellbeing of the planet itself – another expression of shalom.  Our approach is to do our best individually and corporately to follow the model and teaching of Jesus.  The Way he lived life in relationship with God/Abba helped manifest the best of life for all in his time and space.  When we incorporate those same movements – Stretching, Kneeling, Gracing, Connecting, and Incarnating – we usher in the best of life in our time and space.  Here are some of the ways we moved like Jesus since our last Annual Meeting:

We Stretched.

·       Kids. Our Children’s Ministry continued to grow, benefitting from customized curriculum that fits CrossWalk’s progressive ethos and theology.  It takes our Children’s Ministry Director, Lynne Shaw, significant time and talent to create a God-is-Love based offering that kids will enjoy, and parents will approve.  Each week features a faith-related lesson/story, a craft, a snack, and activities all tied together by the same theme which is determined each month.  Thanks to an incredibly generous grant from which we will benefit for 10 years, we were able to hire Emma Matheny as our WeeCare Lead Caregiver. Having a qualified, caring person like Emma makes it a whole lot easier for parents to drop off their kids. A huge shout out goes to retired teacher Renee Pelagi who covered Lynne while she was with me on Sabbatical!  And another huge thanks to the faithful, loving volunteers who invest love and energy into our littler CrossWalkers!  We intend to expand the program very soon to accommodate continued growth and programming needs for older kids.

·       Adults. Because of my Sabbatical last year, the teaching portion of our weekly service was exceptionally broad and diverse!  I received much positive feedback about the variety of speakers and their content – there was something for everyone, I think.  Thank you for being so welcoming and receptive!  When I returned, I took us through a handful of series that I hope were helpful: Why Stay Christian? (informed by Brian McLaren’s book), Becoming Our True Selves (informed by Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity), LOVESTRONG, and The Heart of Christianity(heavily informed by Marcus Borg’s book).   I like weaving together appropriate texts with books that can be read and talked about – I think it increases the stretch factor.  There were non-Sunday opportunities to stretch as well, but I am choosing to make note of them later in this report.

We Kneeled.

·       Food Pantry. Karie Nuccio and Linda Smetzer, along with a handful of other volunteers, have masterfully pivoted again and again to do what we can to offer food to select Napans who may otherwise slip through the cracks of the broader system.  This targeted approach serves folks with dietary restrictions and/or cannot get to the Food Bank due to their unique circumstances.  This pivot was born out of the pandemic when we stopped turning our gym into a grocery store once a month.  Recently, they struck a partnership with the city agencies to load the pantries of folks emerging out of houselessness.  What an incredible way to bless these neighbors!

·       Deborah’s House and Immigrants, Tijuana, MX.  Deborah’s House, a place where women and children find refuge and restoration from domestic violence, is up and running again after pandemic and other challenges temporarily brought it to a halt.  The Global Servants we support, Deliris and Moise Carrion-Joseph not only pastor the women there, but Moise (especially) serves the immigrant community toward rebuilding their lives in Tijuana instead of trying to do so in the United States, which is highly unlikely and far too expensive for most.  We hope to send some CrossWalkers to visit them before our next Annual Meeting. Let me know if you are interested in making the trip!

·       Furaha Community Centre.  Our friends in the Huruma slum outside Nairobi, Kenya continue to do good work.  The good news is that many more churches and individuals have risen to support this school that provides a top-notch education for the poorest of the poor in one of the worst slums in the world.  We originally provided school feeding programs but have switched to helping with projects for their high school facility in recent years, providing tables and chairs for their multipurpose space used for eating, studying, and meeting.

·       CrossWalk Campus. We continue to provide space for a wide range of organizations that are doing important work.  We have partnered with Feeding It Forward, led by David Busby, which captures food that would otherwise be thrown out and repurposes it for our food insecure neighbors.  That partnership has led to a large refrigeration unit behind our sanctuary for their use, funding for the last leg of remodeling in our Gym kitchen (which is underway) and more solar panels to offset their electrical usage.  We are “home” to over 40 distinct recovery groups helping people overcome a wide variety of addictions or support for those related to others in recovery. We are the home of A Place of My Own preschool, which strives to meet part of the growing need in Napa for affordable childcare. Several nonprofits look to us for meeting space for a variety of events that promote all manner of good work in Napa. Our gym is home to schools, clubs, and groups.  We recently invested significant time and resources to renovate the gym locker rooms, bathrooms, and lobby so that we can serve the community more effectively. Funds were generated from an individual donor, two grants from the Napa Valley Community Foundation, and funds we accumulated from rental income.  We saved tens of thousands of dollars thanks to CrossWalkers who handled the bulk of the labor. Thank you, Jim Cannon, Jim DellaSanta, Ed Edwards, Ben Neuman, and Ted Valencia!  By the way, what we do with our facility is already a model for other churches to follow.  What an opportunity for churches to serve – simply by opening their doors.  For CrossWalk, it has become a sustainable win-win-win: groups who need us find space, we gain enough rental income to make it worthwhile, and wellbeing is fostered in the process.

We Graced.

·       The God of Justice Bible Study. This robust group spent eight weeks working through a study to help participants become more fully aware of the importance of justice throughout the Bible.  Why is this under the “Grace” report?  Grace expressed communally is the work of justice.  Huge thanks to Pam Gumns and Emily Vigoda for leading this important group, which could also fit under the “Incarnate” umbrella.

·       Black History Month. We were once again privileged to host Napa’s Black History Month Celebration, which was a standing room only event!  Congratulations to the planning team on such a turnout.  The guest speakers, presenters, and food were all fantastic.  We look forward to hosting once again on Saturday, February 3, 2024!

·       Building Lasting Bridges.  In February, Stephen Corley interviewed Author and Pastor Katie Choy Wong about her book and work regarding anti-racism.  From that, Stephen is now leading a group through the book (along with workbook exercises) and has plans to continue to develop this important aspect of CrossWalk.  Look forward to good things ahead!

·       Earth Care Day Clean Up.  Thank you to those CrossWalkers who skipped church to lend a hand cleaning our “home” at Napa sponsored events/spaces.

We Connected.

·       Sunday Services. We have a rhythm in our services that we mostly stick with so that regulars can benefit from the flow and can confidently tell friends what to expect.  We made a shift to what I refer to as a “karaoke” approach to our worship music starting in December (though we experimented with it before that).  I have been amazed at how well you CrossWalkers have embraced it!  Thank you to Shannon Prutch, Anne Waggoner, Brian Worel and others for using their gifts to lead us in song each week!  If we have devoted CrossWalkers who have musical abilities and want to share their gifts, we are certainly open to it!  Let me know if you are interested or know someone who is. Or if you have drama skills or dance skills – let’s use them! A huge shoutout to CrossWalkers who help us stay awake with their early-morning coffee making that is so welcoming to all who come, and Anne Base for providing 600,000 doughnuts over so many years – all completely healthy. And to our Greeters who make everyone smile and feel welcome. 

·       Mindfulness.  We have incorporated time for mindfulness into our services for many years, which helps us center and be more open to the whisper of the Spirit in our lives. We are blessed to have several capable CrossWalkers to lead us in this part of worship: Pam Gumns, Loren Haas, David Kearney-Brown, Jeni Olsen, Sharon Rogers, and Gordon Waggoner.  Thank you all!  Plus, we are extra fortunate that Dave has been training in this field for many years and is delighted to offer courses at CrossWalk, as he is currently doing featuring material from Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity. Thank you, Dave!

We Incarnated.

·       New Members!  Over the last twelve months we welcomed the following to our membership: Pam Bryant, Elizabeth Campbell, Casey and Zion Curiel, Kim Hester-Williams, Jeanette Hull, Dave Kearney-Brown, Barbara Orsini, Don and Peta Schindle, Reis Tucker-Meade, Emily Vigoda.

·       Baptism!  Congratulate Rachel Alley-Tracey, Norman Prigge, Candace Ramsey, Nicole Timm, and Lori Westphal on their baptism at our Maundy Thursday service which waws held April6, 2023.

·       Sunday Services.  Being the “Body of Christ”, a community committed to embodying the love of God fully is what “incarnate” means in this movement.  This surely takes place on Sundays as we come together in faith.

·       Groups.  Over the last twelve months several groups have been offered that typically hit two or three movements at once.  The God of Justice Bible study and Building Lasting Bridges groups provide stretching and incarnating as they talk about justice (grace for the masses).  My groups typically hit stretching and incarnating, as does Carol Toland’s book study group. 

·       Meals!  While I was away on Sabbatical, you all joined together several times for lunch after our Sunday service – something we want to keep going!  Men’s Breakfast was served for the 6-10 guys each month. Women’s FUEL group enjoys lunch once a month after service.  All of these are opportunities for us to gain and grow friendships over time and are very important for a full life.

Bonus: We Administrated.

·       Leadership.  It took an enormous amount of work to get things ready for my time away on Sabbatical – from myself ahead of time (setting up guest speakers and lots of miscellaneous details), Dar for taking on more responsibility in my absence, and the Board of Stewards for overseeing it all.  I cannot thank you enough for that time away.  It helped me see things that I simply could not while on the job or simply on vacation.  I was the first pastor in this church’s 163-year history to receive such a gift.  I hope is becomes a standard for future pastors as well – the model is once every seven years – a reward, a relief valve, and an opportunity to reset that represents a wise long-term investment in the church.  Thank you, Stewards and Officers and all other behind-the-scenes servants who make CrossWalk tick, and for all of you who were so incredibly supportive of Sabbatical!

·       Officers.  We are seeing transitions happening in our corporate officers.  Ed Edwards was appointed Treasurer by the Board of Stewards in January, following Stephen Corley’s tenure for several years (thank you for your service, Stephen!).  Linda Smetzer has been at the Board of Stewards’ table for many years, and we are finally letting her retire.  Thank you, Linda, for faithfully serving so well for so long – the Church/Board Secretary is an important corporate role that you fulfilled incredibly well. Hayley Russel, while not an officer, resigned from her role at the end of March after many years of service for which we are grateful. New member Elizabeth Tausch has stepped into the role as Interim Financial Secretary – thank you for filling the gap on such short notice, Elizabeth!

·       Property Development.  While I mentioned some facility improvements being made (and didn’t mention others that aren’t nearly as fun to talk about, like plumbing and roof issues), the Board spent significant time over the last two years looking into developing our unused property.  We entertained using it for housing of some sort, or childcare, or a theme park for cats (it already is!).  After much deliberation and discussion with community leaders, contractors, and potential partner organizations, the Board of Stewards in April decided that such a move would jeopardize CrossWalk’s ability to move freely in the future to minister to the community as we see fit.  New construction requires a new use permit which potentially bring many (and some sever) limitations that would hinder our operation. The Stewards believe that such cost is much, much greater than the limited benefits we (and the community) would receive if we built housing or something non-ministry related.  Things can change with time, which could cause the leadership to visit the issue once again, but this is unlikely to occur soon.

     For CrossWalk to be a sustainable exemplar of The Way of Jesus, we need CrossWalkers to be supportive.  How can you let us know your skills and interests so that we can help you develop your life and faith? How might you use all of who you are to help CrossWalk?  How might you help us financially?  Inflation affects CrossWalk.  Can you help us more than you have before to offset our increased expenses?

     Finally!  Please attend our Annual Meeting, Sunday, May 21, 2023 @ 10:00 Service.  Ballot items:

·       Election of Officer Candidates.  Treasurer: Ed Edwards.  Church Secretary: Carol Toland

·       Election of New Steward Candidates: Pam Gumns.  Bob Nations. Sharon Rogers.

·       Adoption of 2023-2024 Proposed Budget: $520,770

     Questions? Attend Town Hall Meeting Sunday, May 7 (Large Conf. Rm.). Email me, Treasurer, Stewards.

I am so grateful to be the Senior Pastor of CrossWalk Community Church. God has partnered with and empowered us to co-create a beautiful expression of “Church” that is a breath of fresh air for many who seek God, and a lifeline for those who gave up on faith because of poor experiences elsewhere.  You are awesome people.  Thank you for blessing my life, my family, this community, and far, far beyond.

 

Toward Shalom, With Shalom, TOGETHER,

 

Pete

2023 The Heart of Christianity: Born Again

Today, as part of The Heart of Christianity series, we look at the phrase “born again” and it’s place in our faith.  Borg notes (The Heart of Christianity, 107), “In the Gospels and in the rest of the New Testament, death and resurrection, dying and rising, are again and again a metaphor for personal transformation, for the psychological-spiritual process at the center of the Christian life.”  Here are just a few examples:

     Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! – 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (The Message)

     I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ.  My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.   – Galatians 2:19-20 (The Message)

     I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. – Romans 8:38-39 (The Message)

     If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate... If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. – 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (The Message)

     Jesus, after telling the curious Nicodemus that we must be born again – or born from above – to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, continued his metaphor to help his “get” what his logic was keeping him from understanding.

     Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.
     "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God." – John 3:5-8 (The Message)

     Paul was transformed.  I think Jesus was, too. And I think it surprised them both when it happened.  They were both smart people, thinking people, and very capable people.  I am sure they offered a helping hand and were ethical, hard-working people.  But I don’t think it was logic or learning or serving that transformed them. I think, in the end, it was love. Expressed in myriad ways, I think love is the only thing that truly transforms us – our hearts, our minds, our calendars, our budgets, our eyes, our ears, our mouths. When we are touched deeply by love, everything changes. The transformation that love brings is a cooperative effort that we can help or hinder, but love is in constant flow. Supportive, guiding, sustaining, nourishing, strengthening us now and forever – as much as we can handle and as much as we will welcome.

     How has love already transformed you over the course of your life? Who was involved? How did you cooperate with love? When have you hindered the transformation love was offering?

2023 The Heart of Christianity: Jesus

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

SALT Commentary…

Big Picture:

1) This is the fifth of the seven weeks of Eastertide. Between now and Pentecost, we’ll continue exploring Jesus’ teachings on faith and intimacy with God.

2) This week’s reading from the Gospel of John includes one of the most famous — and infamous — verses in the New Testament: Jesus’ remark that “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Too often, this sentence is distorted into a dogma of exclusion, as if Jesus is saying, If you’re not Christian, you’re damned. As we’ll see, this is a drastic misunderstanding of what Jesus is actually up to in this story.

3) What’s he up to? He’s trying to reassure his anxious, heartbroken disciples. Why are they anxious and heartbroken? Jesus has just delivered a devastating one-two punch: first, the news that “I am with you only a little longer” and “Where I am going, you cannot come” (John 13:33); and second, that Peter — and by extension, the whole group — will deny and desert him in his imminent hour of need (John 13:38). For the disciples, worse news could scarcely be imagined. They’re stunned, and beginning to panic — and at precisely this moment, this week’s passage begins.

4) The larger context is John’s version of the Last Supper (John 13-17). John doesn’t include the Eucharist in his narrative, instead focusing on how Jesus washes the disciples feet and then delivers the so-called “farewell discourses” — basically his last words of guidance and consolation for his followers as he takes his leave. The broad strokes in this section of John, then, are that Jesus is on his way out, the Holy Spirit is on her way in (as we’ll see in next week’s reading; see John 14:15-26), and the post-Easter church is about to be born, a community that, Jesus insists, will go on to do even “greater works” than he did (John 14:12). Christians tend to valorize Jesus’ time “in the flesh” — but for John, the symphony of salvation continues to crescendo with each movement, and the rise of the Spirited-church-abiding-in-Jesus is an even “greater” phase of God’s redemptive work.

Scripture:

1) The disciples are distraught — and understandably so! Think of it: from their point of view, here is the Messiah, the one they believed would deliver them and the whole world, the one on whom they had pinned all their hopes, all their lives — and now he’s leaving? Not only leaving — now he’s going to suffer, to be humiliated, desecrated, vanquished? And his disgrace — in the end, wouldn’t it result in their disgrace as well? No wonder they’re disoriented, wide-eyed, and afraid. Thomas says out loud what they’re all thinking: “How can we know the way?” (John 14:5).  

2) This context of crisis and desperation is the interpretive key for understanding what happens next. Jesus’ response, so far from a cerebral, scolding lecture on salvation or “who will get to heaven,” is actually an exercise in urgent, poignant pastoral care. He’s assuring his companions that his imminent departure is not abandonment, but rather a move that will make way for an even deeper intimacy. It’s as if he’s saying, On one level, I’m about to leave you — but on a deeper level, we’ll be closer than ever. Don’t worry. Take heart. Trust me — and trust the One who sent me!

3) Thomas asks, “How can we know the way?,” and Philip follows up by asking Jesus to “show us the Father” — as if to say, At least give us some coordinates, so we can find our way to “God’s house” once you’re gone (John 14:5,8,2). Jesus’ response amounts to this: You already know the Way! You know the Way we’ve been traveling, the Truth we’ve been learning, the Life we’ve been living — so just keep going, and when you do, I’ll be right there with you, because I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I’m not merely your guide; I am the Way. So keep going and learning and living toward God, and we’ll be together as you go…

4) Remember, the Gospel of John begins by identifying Jesus with the divine Logos, the life-giving divine Word, Thought, Reason, Pattern (all legitimate translations of the Greek word, logos) underneath and at the heart of everything. For John, by living in and through this Pattern, by walking in and through this Way, we live and walk in communion with the One who, in the beginning, was with God and was God (John 1:1-5).

5) In other words, Jesus insists that even though he’s leaving, his followers’ everyday lives of living out his teachings — especially the new commandment he’s just given, to “love one another as I have loved you” — will be sure signs of their ongoing communion with him. The tone of this teaching, then, isn’t stern admonition; he’s not saying, If you want me to be with you, you’d better follow my instruction (much less, If you want salvation, you’d better be a Christian!). On the contrary, his tone is tender-hearted, since his aim is to console and assure his friends: Don’t worry. Just keep following my instruction, walking in the Way — and I’ll be with you. In fact, our companionship will be even closer than it is now. Today we walk side by side — but in the days to come I will live in you, and you in me. Today, you walk in my footsteps — but in the days to come you will walk, so to speak, ‘in my feet,‘ and I will walk in yours. You will be my body, my hands and feet and word for a world that needs healing and justice and good news. You see? I’m not abandoning you. On the contrary, I will abide in you, and you will abide in me (John 15:4). I will not leave you orphaned! (John 14:18).

6) The upshot of all this — Keep going in the Way, and we’ll be together, closer than ever! — is that Jesus wants to leave his disciples with a profound sense of confidence and equanimity: in a word, “peace” (John 14:27). John writes in Greek, of course, but in the background here is the ancient Hebrew notion of shalom — not just the absence of conflict, but the vibrant presence of personal and communal well-being. My peace I give to you, Jesus says near the end of this chapter, a sentiment he’ll repeat when he appears to the disciples after his passion and resurrection (John 14:27; 20:19,21,26).

Takeaways:

1) At its heart, this is a passage of consolation, of Jesus reassuring dismayed disciples — then and now — that he isn’t abandoning them. He will not leave them orphaned. And he doesn’t interrupt this care and consolation with a jarring aside, a stern pronouncement about excluding other people from salvation (!). No, his remark, “No one comes to the Father except through me” is intended to calm and console his friends, to give them “peace” in the midst of turmoil. He’s saying, Don’t worry: I’m leaving, but we’ll still be together. Just keep going toward God in the Way we’ve been traveling, and I’ll be with you — for I am the Way! I am the Divine Logos! As long as you’re going toward God, you’ll be going “through” and with me…

2) Here’s another way of looking at it: In this story, no one has asked Jesus, “Who gets to go to God? Just your followers? Or others, too?” If that were the question Jesus was responding to, then “No one comes to the Father except through me” would indeed be a doctrine of exclusion about salvation’s scope, as if to say, Only my followers get to go to God. But on the contrary, the question that actually arises in this story, the thing Jesus is actually responding to, is more like this: “We’re going to God, we’ve committed our lives to that journey — but without you, our shepherd, won’t we lose our way?” As a response to THAT question, “No one comes to the Father except through me” is a doctrine of consolation about Jesus’ presence, as if to say, Fear not — for as long as you are going to God, you’ll be with me, walking beside me and in me and “through” me — for I am the Way!

3) What’s more, as we explored last week, Jesus has already warned his followers against exclusionary presumptions: “I have other sheep,” he says, “that do not belong to this fold” (John 10:16). Jesus is indeed with us — and we dare not put limits on who is or isn’t included in that “us.”

4) We often think and speak of the good news of Christ’s advent, his arrival, his coming near — but here we learn of the good news of Christ’s departure, his “going away” (John 14:28). Jesus goes away like a tablet dissolves into water: the tablet is gone, but at the same time its presence pervades the water entirely. His absence, then, also makes way for a new presence of the Spirit, all of which gives rise to the community of the church, the movement that will go on to do even “greater works” (John 14:12). In other words, Jesus leaves in order to make possible an even more intimate communion with us, and with creation as a whole: “I am going away, and I am coming to you” (John 14:28).

5) This theme of mutual indwelling is shot through John’s Gospel, and also through the Bible as a whole. Genesis depicts human life itself as possible only via profound intimacy with God: we live each day precisely to the extent that divine breath is in us (see Genesis 6:3, where God says, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever…”). Likewise, in Galatians, Paul says, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). In Acts, Paul preaches to the Athenians that God is the One “in whom we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). And in John, Jesus abides in the One who sent him, and we abide in Jesus, as deeply, organically related as a branch is to its vine (John 15:5). For John, the ultimate goal is not merely to follow Jesus or obey his commandments, but rather to live in Jesus as he lives in us.

6) In practical terms, what would such mutual indwelling look like? It would look like Jesus, and at the same time it would look like us — that is, it would look like us being true to ourselves, the people God made us to be. In a word, it would look like love: incarnate, tangible, down-to-earth love. And from another angle, it would look like peace: not just any peace, but what Jesus calls “my peace,” the shalom of God, a buzzing, blooming, fruitful community, coming and going, alive with the Spirit, healthy and whole.

2023 The Heart of Christianity: God

Why are you bothering with this whole faith thing?  Seriously – what’s your motivation?

I imagine that your responses are along the lines of learning about God, learning how to be a better person, making a difference in the world, etc.  Awesome.

If you blow the whole faith thing, what is your greatest fear?  If you turned your back on God entirely, what would you be most terrified might happen? Sorry for the clumsy wording – you get my point.

In the fourth chapter of his book, The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg walks the reader through three sets of comparisons: competing Worldviews, dominant Concepts of God, and resulting notions of the Character of God.  Here is a picture of those three sets for your observation:

 Most of you reading this are at least open to the idea that there is “MORE” to life than the particles and force fields that hold everything together in the universe.  I think I can safely assume that.  (For further reading on this subject I recommend Rob Bell’s What We Talk About When We Talk About God).

Assuming we’re on the same page in our pursuit of “MORE” leads us to thinking about God.  How we get our minds around God matters, as Borg notes: It makes a difference how we see the character of God, for how we see the character of God shapes our sense of what faithfulness to God means and thus what the Christian life is about (The Heart of Christianity, 66). 

With this last quote in mind, slowly read through the Concepts of God and The Character of God comparisons and imagine how these different perspectives shape what being “faithful” might mean.

For some of you reading this, your greatest fear if you blow off the whole faith/God thing is that you will pay a very serious price as soon as you die: hell.  Since CrossWalk is a church that seems to attract folks with no significant church background or those looking to recover from a damaging church background, I know this is true for a good number of you.  The reason you have this deeply rooted fear is because you have been operating in the Supernatural Theism way of orienting yourself to a God of requirements and rewards; a God of law.  Walk away from God and you’re screwed.  Forever.  Sucks to be you.  This view of God has been so strongly set in your brain that you experience real anxiety at the thought of challenging that view.  Yep, really sucks to be you – you can’t even question it without fear of burning for eternity.  Better not question anything.  Just keep doing what you’ve been told will keep God pleased and your butt out of hell…

I questioned it at a fairly early age – I was 13 years old.  I grew up in a mainline denomination as opposed to an Evangelical/Fundamental one.  This means that Supernatural Theism ruled the language, but the “turn or burn” rhetoric was absent from our pulpits.  The notion of forgiveness itself bothered me.  I couldn’t understand the whole “Jesus died as a sacrifice for my sins” piece.  I knew the story and the argument, but it just didn’t add up.  I even asked my sister  Ann, who went into a flurry of activity to help me “get it” – at one point she murmured under her breath, this kid is really screwed up…  True – I was not fitting into the Evangelical/Fundamental/Orthodox story even then.  That understanding of grace didn’t seem like grace at all.  It seemed incongruent that a loving God would punish someone forever if they didn’t believe the right thing.

Some people freak out when they hear or think this. They immediately jump to supposed heretical thinking about universalism, and counter with “axe murders and war mongers better not be in heaven”.  Borg has a good response to this: Unconditional grace is not about the afterlife, but the basis of our relationship with God in this life.  Is the basis for our life with God law or grace, requirements and rewards or relationship and transformation?  Grace affirms the latter(Ibid., 67).  Further, Borg connects the dots between hosting a view of Supernatural Theism versus Panentheism and the life it fosters:

What’s at stake in the question of God’s character is our image of the Christian life.  Is Christianity about requirements?  Here’s what you must do to be saved [and stay saved]. Or is Christianity about relationship and transformation?  Here’s the path: follow it.  Both involve imperatives, but one is a threat, the other an invitation (Ibid., 68).

If Supernatural Theism works for you and is making you more Jesus-like, then keep it going.  It is biblical – it’s just not the only biblical way to view God.  It is a way readily understood by our ancient ancestors who lived in a time when sacrifices were a regular component of religious cultic practices.  I can understand that perspective.  I can respect and appreciate the view.  But I do not espouse the view.  It does not resonate with me, and in many ways creates dissonance, is a distraction, and even a roadblock in my relationship with God and my quest to know God and become more aligned with God in my life.

The panentheistic alternative – also biblical – resonates deeply with me.  In that view there is room for wonder, mystery, awe.  As Borg notes, God is not separate, but right here, and more than here.  Expansive, yet deeply personal in God’s intention and interaction in my life.  I can tell you that I have experienced the reality of the presence of God in this approach, even at times when the other view would tell me it would be impossible to enjoy such presence given my state.

For those of you who have been reared in a Supernatural Theistic paradigm, making this shift really hard work.  Keep it up.  It is worth it.  If you cannot live with it, trust me as one you know personally that there is more to learn.  You can still respect what you were raised with and respect those who really resonate with it.  The songs and verses can still play a meaningful role when viewed in context.  But the good news is that there are new songs to sing that speak a different way that brings life and love into our lives and into the world, that raises the bar on behavior away from law and into covenant and love.  It leads to a deep, mature life of response to the love we experience, and helps us to love more fully personally and as proponents of social justice.  It is rich and deep.  A life-pursuit of discovery and growth.

Open and Relational Theology (ORT).  This approach to God has become part of our ecosystem at CrossWalk.  Tom Oord is one of many voices writing and speaking about it – I happen to think he is especially gifted at making academic thought accessible for everyday people who don’t have much experience with the language and style of academia.  Check out his book, Open and Relational Theology for a great, readable overview.  Here are a few claims from ORT:

·       God knows more than any other being.

·       God is the most powerful presence everywhere.

·       God’s PRIMARY characteristic is love, and therefore does not control anyone or anything.

·       God influences but never forces, which means the future is open and unknown - we affect it.

·       God’s character remains constant, but God constantly changes in response to creation.

The implications of ORT principles are far reaching, challenging long-held beliefs that may not have been valid in the first place.  This can be quite unsettling to say the least.  For me, however, the implications are exciting and hopeful because it means our lives actually matter because we really do have choices and power to cooperate with God for the wellbeing of everything and everyone.  This is better than a genie-in-a-bottle God that doesn’t exist anyway, or a Superman God who ends up not saving the day consistently enough to be very super.  How’s this messing with you?

The Heart of Christianity: the Bible

The Bible is foundational for the Christian faith.  Yet many people have left the church because of how the text has been handled, and how earlier Christianity has demanded that the Bible to be understood.  For people who grew up with the earlier Christian view, the Bible is seen as God’s product, so powerfully influenced by the Holy Spirit that it is inerrant (there are no errors) and infallible (it cannot be wrong).  To question this way of thinking about the Bible puts one immediately on thin ice, and may even call one’s faith into question.  According to foundational statements that support both Fundamental and Evangelical Christianity (both are earlier expressions of the faith), you are not a “real” Christian if you don’t see the Bible as God’s product.  And if you’re not a real Christian, you have no real hope.  Better invest in some fire-resistant pajamas for your afterlife experience…

If you’ve been raised in that earlier tradition, messing with the idea of the Bible as God’s product feels like heresy because that’s how you’ve been taught.  This is a terrifying venture.

Millions of people – and that number is growing – have simply walked away from even thinking about the Bible at all because they know enough to know that to see it as God’s product doesn’t make sense.  Yet the Bible is central to the Christian faith – to chuck it essentially destroys the faith, because it is the central text that shapes the faith in the first place.

This chapter of Borg’s book will be helpful for both types of readers, giving you a way to embrace the Bible without checking your brain at the door, and giving you confidence that your hope may not be in jeopardy – in fact, it may be emboldened.

The primary difference between the earlier-and-currently-loudest rendition of Christianity and what is emerging ultimately comes down to determining how the Bible came to be.  The earlier version quickly quotes from Paul’s letter to his protégé, Timothy: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).  This quickly led to people creating the bumper sticker that says, The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.  Essentially, that verse is interpreted as saying that God wrote the Bible, even if human hands were used.  It’s not a good or even correct interpretation, but it’s popular, and has been used to justify a lot of awful treatment of people in the world: slaves, women, the LGBTQ community, people of other faith traditions, and people who don’t agree with this interpretation.

The emerging view of Christianity view the Bible as a human product in response to God, written for their current audience with great care and prayer.  The Spirit of God was surely sought and received, but the scrolls the biblical writers wrote on were filled with their fingerprints: their worldview, their sensibilities, their agenda, everything.  If we think about who God is, we can affirm that God would not want to wipe those fingerprints away, as God uses people as they are, capitalizing on who they are, working in cooperation with people’s total identity to bring redemption into the world.  In this view, the Bible is an historical product of two historical communities: Israel and the early Christian movement.  The truth that it contains is related to the time and place in which it was written.  Some of those truths easily relate to all times.  Others are clearly time-specific, need to be appreciated, yet kept as a relic from the past that no longer speaks directly to our current reality.  When the Bible is approached this way, a lot of the problems disappear.

Within the emerging paradigm, the Bible is still understood to be divinely inspired: the Spirit of God surely moved in the lives of the people who produced the Bible.  Their written response to God’s movement is the Bible we hold.  By extension, this way of viewing the Bible has implications for the sacred texts of faith traditions beyond Judaism and Christianity.  Using the same criteria, we can appreciate what they are communicating in their time and place in history, too.

In the emerging view, the Bible is Sacred Scripture.  Our ancestors declared that what we have were the most important documents to the faith in it’s earliest expressions.  The Bible provides the foundation for our belief, identity, and wisdom for how we think about reality and how to live.  The text is sacred in the sense that it serves to connect us to the divine.  The Bible is no less important in the emerging tradition than the earlier tradition – the primary difference is essentially on who gets the most credit for producing it.

The final major distinction Borg recognizes as it relates to the Bible is that it needs to be appreciated as metaphor, and not necessarily literally.  This might initially freak people out who have been raised with the earlier paradigm, as it might conjure up the idea of the Bible-as-fiction, or worse, Fake News.  Borg notes that modern Western culture identifies truth with factuality, and devalues metaphorical language.  When we ask the question, “Is that story true?” we are usually asking, “Did that actually happen?”  This bias toward factuality blinds us to metaphorical truth – something we all operate and employ quite frequently and comfortably without apology, even while we denounce it. We are hypocrites in this regard, as I would guess the two most memorable teachings of Jesus which communicated great truth were parables.  The parable of the Prodigal Son and the parable of the Good Samaritan are widely known and embraced as communicating great truth about the love God has for people and what love looks like when it’s lived out faithfully.  Yet they are stories.  Not factual events.  They never happened, yet they’ve happened a million times.  Metaphor, as Borg notes, is not to be understood as less-than-factual, but rather more than literal.  Read that again.  Borg further contends that “the more-than-literal meaning of biblical texts has always been most important,” and that “only in the last few centuries has their factuality been emphasized as crucial.”

One of my favorite musicals is Into the Woods, which dovetails multiple children’s fables together into a crazy mish-mashed adventure.  I love it because of the truth it speaks about the human experience.  Great truth is communicated through the lyrics and characters and storyline.  The metaphor is more than factual.

With the understanding of the Bible as historical, sacred, and metaphorical, let’s take a look at a text (Luke 8:22-25, NLT) and see what we can do with it, and what God might do with us.

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and started out. As they sailed across, Jesus settled down for a nap. But soon a fierce storm came down on the lake. The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.
     The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”
When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves. Suddenly the storm stopped and all was calm. Then he asked them, “Where is your faith?”
     The disciples were terrified and amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “When he gives a command, even the wind and waves obey him!”

Debate all you want as to whether this story is literally true.  At the end of the day, however, the metaphorical truth is what will be of actual value.  I am confident that over the millions of times this story has been shared, the application has not been, “So, if you’re ever in a small watercraft in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, and a storm comes on real fast and threatens to capsize you, remember that Jesus calmed the storm.”  I am certain the power of the story has come across something like this: “I felt like the storms of life were going to take me out.  I cried out to God for help.  Somehow, some way, a peace came over me that I cannot explain, and I got through it.  It’s like God gave me calm in the middle of the storm like Jesus did with the disciples.”  For a group of Christians in the first century who may have been consistently hiding from those who threatened to literally kill them, this was particularly comforting and true.  Truth spoken into their historical context.  It was part of the sacred story that helped them understand the nature of God and everything else, shaped their identity, and provided wise counsel to help them move forward in the way of Christ.  This story provided great truth, regardless of whether or not it actually happened literally. 

Here is a helpful tool to help you gain metaphorical truth from a text:

When I hear the story of ______, I see my life with God in this way: _____________.

Let’s  end with a Psalm and a reflection in light of the text we viewed.  Held together, we see that Luke was tying God and Jesus together, to encourage readers to see that thread and have hope.

God visits the earth and waters it.

God turns a desert into pools of water,

a parched land into springs of water.

The river of God is full of water.

God waters the furrows abundantly,

softening the earth with showers,

and blessing its growth.

– Adapted from Psalm 65:9-10

 

Christ sails with us to the other side.

Christ turns a raging storm into calm waters,

a place of terror into amazement.

The sea of Christ is full of possibility.

Christ rebukes the wind,

softening the storm with authority,

and accompanying our way.

So true.

The Heart of Christianity: Faith

The way we think about faith also varies from person to person, but the prevailing way most people in Western culture understand faith is simply believing in God, and believing certain things about God.  There is billboard that states in huge letters, “There is proof that God exists!”  For agnostics and atheists alike, faith and belief are about God’s existence.  Is that how people have always thought about faith?  Addressing primarily Jewish Christians everywhere, the Letter to the Hebrews in the Bible’s New Testament gives us a picture of faith:

By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God's call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
     By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That's how it happened that from one man's dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
     Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them. – Hebrews 11:8-16 (The Message)

The word faith is obviously a critical part of the equation in these verses.  In fact, some refer to the whole eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews as The Hall of Fame of Faith because it lists so many people in Jewish history who were champions when it comes to faith.  Did they understand faith the same way most Western people do today?

In short, the answer is no.  It’s not that we get it totally wrong so much as we don’t appreciate the fullness of the meaning of the word as those who have gone before us.  This is largely due to the massive paradigm shift that took place in the 1600’s whereby the scientific approach to everything bled into theology.  The reason we can be confident that we’re missing out on something is related to the meaning of the word faith over time in the Christian tradition.  In the history of Christianity, there have been four ways to think about faith, each described below.

Faith as Assensus (think “assent”).  The most dominant way most Western people think about faith is that it is an assent to belief in something as true.  Factually true, to be more precise.  Factually true even in the absence of evidence.  As Borg stated, “Faith is what you turn to when knowledge runs out.  Even more strongly, faith is what you need when beliefs and knowledge conflict” (30).  In contemporary culture, the earlier Christian view calls for faith that God created the world just as Genesis portrays, that the Red Sea really was parted, that the sun really did stand still during a battle, that a virgin really did become pregnant, and every other miraculous thing happened just as it reads in the Bible.  Borg points out that there was no conflict between belief and knowledge prior to the scientific revolution, because the conventional wisdom of the day (regarding everything) was totally aligned with theological thinking.  Faith required no effort then as it does now.  The opposite of this kind of faith is doubt and disbelief, which is often viewed and articulated as sin.  Borg contends that this faith-as-belief is relatively impotent because it holds very little transforming power.  This way of faith is one that remains largely in the head – a thinking exercise.  In contrast, the remaining three are relationally understood uses of the term.  What truths do we hold to as “fact”? How about “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; God’s mercies never come to an end – they are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness oh Lord!” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Faith as Fiducia (think “trust”).  Rather than giving assent to a list of beliefs about God, this way of faith is “believing in God as trusting in God”.  Kierkegard described faith as akin to floating in a deep ocean.  Panicking and flailing your arms struggling to stay afloat will get you drowned in a hurry.  But trusting the ocean – that buoyancy is real – and relaxing will find you floating.  Think of the story of Peter walking on water to meet Jesus.  When his trust shifted from the Spirit of God to the choppiness of the waves, he sank.  The Bible depicts God as a rock, a fortress upon which we found our lives.  Jesus invited us to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field to teach about this kind of faith.  The opposite of this is mistrust, which leads to anxiety and worry, which is what motivated Jesus’ birds/lilies analogy.  Jesus taught that little faith, little trust in God led to anxiety.  The hope offered in this mode of faith, then, is a less anxiety-ridden life, which is a free life, free to live and love.  That kind of radical trust offers great transforming power. Trust God in the same way that you trust gravity.  Trust in the flow of God like you do the power of moving water over time – it transforms even the roughest terrain. Trust in the love of God to support justice over time – transforming even the hardest of hearts – painfully slowly at times, but surely.

Faith as Fidelitas (think “fidelity”).  This kind of faith refers to a loyalty to a person, a relationship.  Allegiance and commitment of self at the deepest level are intended here.  The opposite, of course, is infidelity.  Cheating on God – choosing not to be faithful – was an issue the Jewish nation struggled with in the form of idolatry.  The prophets told Israel they were guilty of adultery. Fidelity means much more than “not cheating”, however.  Faith in this way implies a radical centering on God so that to love God means to love what God loves.  Bells might be going off in your head as you recall the greatest and second greatest commandments: love God and love your neighbor with everything you’ve got.  It’s ethical, not just a head trip. Jesus’ eyes were changed. He began seeing “others” as “neighbors” and it changed the trajectory of his life. It also got him into trouble, because not everyone is ready or willing to see “others” unequal.

Faith as Visio: “Vision”.  In this mode, faith is a way of seeing, our vision of the whole, of what is.  Borg nods to theologian Richard Niebuhr in his unpacking three ways of seeing.  A first way of seeing envisions the world as hostile and threatening, which leads to a defensive posture warranting our desire for greater and greater security.  In earlier ways of thinking about Christianity, Godself needs to be feared as one who will “get us” in the end if we don’t get things straightened out.  A second way of seeing has us looking at everything as indifferent and uncaring.  While this does not breed the same level of paranoia as the first, it still makes us walk with a tight grip in order to maintain security.  The third type of vision sees “what is” as life giving and nourishing, even gracious.  Faith involves seeing God as generous which leads to radical trust in God, and a willingness to spend oneself for the sake of a vision bigger than self.  It is an orientation that recognizes and elicits freedom, joy, peace and love.  The Christian tradition itself in all its fullness is a metaphor for God – to live within one is to live hand in hand with the other.

Aside.  Borg points out that Martin Luther’s life changed dramatically because of his faith.  Earlier in his life he committed himself to a life of faith in the assensus kind of way.  In fact, it was after he tried his best to live in assent to beliefs about God and beliefs about rules to follow that he came to the conclusion that there had to be another way than the works of and assensus-type faith.  His transformation led him to see differently, trust God, and be faithful – the last three relational modes of faith. 

Is there value in the mode of faith that calls for assent to certain beliefs?  Borg says yes.  Within the faith tradition, there are some big notions that deserve big affirmations: the reality of God, the centrality of Jesus to the Christian faith, and the centrality of the Bible.  He notes that our heritage who created and affirmed the creeds of old weren’t simply making statements of items of belief, but that they were committing to a person – God.  Their affirmations were statements of loyalty.  For them, to believe was to belove. I would add that believing in love as the primary characteristic of who and what we call God is also worthy of our assent that is helpful in sustaining the other relational facets of faith.  Side note: many place omnipotence as God’s primary characteristic, but as Oord notes in his book, The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, the notion of God being almighty is not founded in the original language of the Bible. Mistranslations have given us the words that connote God’s primary characteristic being all-controlling power.

As I’ve noted throughout, it is very likely that the dominant way you have understood faith is through the assensus vein.  Now that you have learned or been reminded of more ways to think about faith, I hope your appetite for God has been whet as well, that perhaps you’re realizing that you may have sold faith short, that there is more here than we’ve thought before.  Something incredibly rich, life giving, rewarding, inviting, and compelling.

Which aspect of faith do you sense God inviting you to explore more?  Here’s an idea.  Pick one of the ways to develop.  It’s not hard, just reflect on it, pray about it, and ask God to lead you toward it.  Then keep your eyes, ears, mind, heart, and hands open and see what develops.  If you need help, I’d be happy to sort some ideas out.  The point is to develop a robust faith that fosters more divine and less dust…

We conclude this session – as with each session – with a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer (Jim Cotter):

Eternal Spirit,

Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,

Source of all this is and that shall be.

Father and Mother of us all,

Loving God, in whom is heaven.

 

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!

The way of your justice be followed by peoples of the world!

Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!

Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

 

With the bread we need for today, feed us.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.

From trials too great to endure, spare us.

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

 

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love now and forever. Amen.

 

*Note: This is a twelve week series based on Marcus Borg’s seminal book, The Heart of Christianity, with significant input from  the group discussion book, Experiencing the Heart of Christianity by Tim Scorer.

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Easter: New Dawn. New Day. New Life.

Can you remember when...

·      TikTok didn’t exist? Snapchat? Facebook? Myspace?

·      COVID-19 wasn’t in our vocabulary?

·      Working remotely wasn’t viable?

·      Zoom meetings weren’t a thing?

·      Streaming your movies and shows wasn’t an option?

·      When your only way to watch your shows and movies was an arial antenna?

·      TV’s were a new luxury item?

·      Smartphones and tablets didn’t exist?

·      Mobile phones were the size of bricks and only used by wealthy people?

·      Telephones required cords?

·      Telephones didn’t have buttons to push – only a dial?

·      Bottled water only referred to those that sat upon a water cooler?

·      Nobody gave a second thought to drinking from a garden hose?

·      Your home didn’t have a flush toilet?

·      You last saw Elvis?

 

Can you remember when...

·      Very few churches broadcast their services on the radio or TV?

·      Attending church was only possible in person?

·      Most stores were closed on Sunday out of respect for Christian worship?

·      Bibles were actual books people carried instead of on their phones?

·      The only version of the Bible most people knew about was the King James Version?

·      “In God We Trust” and one nation “under God” were not part of our currency or pledge of allegiance?

·      Literally two thirds of the people in our country went to church on Sunday, and you were an outlier if you didn’t?

·      The dominant teaching of the Church was that God created the heavens and earth and everything in it in six literal 24-hour days?

·      The church was known more for its work championing the cause of fairness and safety for women and children than convincing people to believe as a means of guaranteeing heaven?

·      Most religious authorities viewed God as a distant, almighty judge ready to smite the earth?

·      Most human beings believed that the earth is flat?

·      Most human beings believed that the sun revolved around the earth and not the other way around?

·      There were three popes in power?

·      The Church split over whether or not communion bread should contain yeast?

·      The Church confidently declared that some people may suffer eternity in hell?

·      Religious leaders confidently declared there is no such thing as the afterlife for most people?

·      Jesus’ disciples were hiding in fear that they would face a similar fate as Jesus?

·      Jesus’ body could not be found in the tomb Easter morning?

·      Jesus’ followers came out of hiding and boldly began proclaiming the Good News just like Jesus did?

 

     Why was Easter so important to the earliest Jesus followers?  Easter served to validate their hope that there was more than the life of flesh and blood, sourced in the presence of God that so clearly anointed Jesus.  Easter also confirmed that the grace of God was extended to them –followers of the Jesus who was just executed by the joint effort of politics and religion.  Everything before Easter suggested that Jesus was wrong (because he died), and that they were hopeless fools with little-to-no-chance of being welcomed by God.  Their fate seemed sealed. The fact that they experienced Jesus alive in a beyond-flesh-and-blood way communicated to them that he was still being welcomed and empowered (blessed) by God.  As his followers, they felt assured that they would be, too.

     We live at a time and in a place where the overwhelming majority of people believe in God and, at least at funeral services, believe in a welcoming afterlife.  This is new, historically speaking. We live at a time of great transition that will be studied as one of the massive shifts in the Church’s history that happens every 500 years or so.  We’re somewhere in the middle of it, and the transition will outlive us.  People in the United States are leaving the Church in unprecedented numbers.  More shocking is the fact that they are also leaving the Christian faith itself, largely because of the poor reputation of the church being too dogmatic regarding its own positions, and far too critical, unbending, and even harmful regarding social issues deemed important today, like equality, fairness, opportunity and protection for women, children, immigrants, LGBTQ and BIPOC neighbors, plus being out of tune with the majority of the United States citizens regarding gun violence and reproductive rights.  Sprinkle in the covering up of the sexual exploitation of children and adults by clergy, and, well, good grief – what’s not to love here?!  Or maybe it is the Church’s demand that you sign off on a collection of books called the Bible as so heavily handed inspired that you must declare it to be without error and incapable of being wrong. Or the requirement to affirm the Virgin Birth, a six-day creation, a literal hell, and a golden ticket guaranteeing heaven because of the human sacrifice of Jesus that somehow means God forgives you 2,000 years later.   Maybe you have considered leaving the faith, too.  Yet, many people – millions, in fact – find great peace, hope, and strength in the same Church that is off-putting for millions more.  How does that make sense?

     Perhaps we should recognize that we are living in our time and space, with information our predecessors did not.  They did the best they could, and with the best intentions, to understanding what is inherently beyond our full comprehension even if we can experience this Greater Other we call God in many ways.  Maybe instead of walking away from the whole thing because of a binary that some have created is an overreaction.  Maybe we should wonder anew about the wisdom of those whose writing has endured, appreciating their worldview without having to embrace it, and seeking the wisdom they gained from their experience. 

     The truth is that the early followers of Jesus experienced something that was beyond flesh and blood in such a way that it drove out their fear and cowardice; something so powerful that it gave them courage to risk martyrdom, so important that most of them were martyred – not due to their violence, but due to their radical pursuit of shalom and the inclusion it demands.

     Their pursuit was like that of Jesus, who discovered fresh insights from the past that led to him proclaiming Good News that was also, simply, NEWS! – God is primarily known as the source of love. For everyone. For creation itself.  Which changes absolutely everything for those with ears to hear.

     Easter represents a new day for the disciples of old and calls us to embrace new days of discovery today.  What do you really believe?  Why? If the best faith has to offer is a more beautiful, more whole, more rooted, more connected, more unifying, more loving, more hopeful, more open, more gracious, more generous, more peaceful, more joyful, more patient, more kind, more of the qualities everyone wants – for everyone and everything – then isn’t it worth the effort and pursuit?

     I invite you to join me on the journey for the next weeks ahead – and discussion midweek if you can make it.  The study has helped many worldwide and many right here at CrossWalk to gain new insight, and to own and rebuild their faith.  The invitation to go deeper extends from beyond me – may you hear the gentle, respectful wooing of the Spirit of God calling you to discover anew what you may have begun to walk away from.

     The Lord’s Prayer is uttered globally every week, and several times a day by recovery groups in CrossWalk’s rooms.  After learning more and more what Jesus was about, I attempted a paraphrase of that prayer, which I invite you to pray with me now:

 

Our loving, supportive, holy Abba

Who art here and everywhere,

Thy Divine Commonwealth come.

Thy will be done through us.

We are grateful for the gift of food

and work for all to eat their fill.

May we work for a world

where mutual grace and respect abound,

modeled after You.

Strengthen us for the work we’re called to.

Amen. May it be so.

 

 

John 20:1-18 MSG

     Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, "They took the Master from the tomb. We don't know where they've put him."

     Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.

     But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid. They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"

     "They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him." After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn't recognize him.

     Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?"

     She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."

     Jesus said, "Mary."

     Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"

Jesus said, "Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"

     Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: "I saw the Master!" And she told them everything he said to her.

The Choice on Palm Sundays

Palm Sunday gives us a lot to chew on in our time, as it did then.  Jesus’ fans know that he intends to make a dramatic entrance into Jerusalem.  They are poised and ready to lay down their cloaks as a type of red carpet for him, and Jesus had apparently made prior arrangements to ride in on a donkey, which some would recall as a reference to the prophet Zecharaiah’s writing (see 2 Kings 9:13; Zech 9:9).  The crowd borrows from Zechariah shouting their proclamation that God’s chosen leader is arriving to bring peace.  Later that same week, Jesus would hear something quite different: “Crucify him!”  How do we make sense of this?

     The short answer provides a very simple explanation: the audiences were largely different from one another.  The Triumphal Entry crowd was mostly made up of Jesus fans (with others there, too), and the crowd before Pilate was made up of mostly different people (with a few Jesus fans trying not to be “outed”).  It wasn’t that people changed their minds so completely that they wanted Jesus dead after they heralded his arrival.  It’s that the people who wanted him dead probably wanted it before he arrived.  Who were in these different crowds?

     The latter crowd was very likely encouraged to gather by the Jewish leaders who were Sadducees – a branch of ancient Judaism that mostly lived in Jerusalem itself.  It was largely Law-oriented, politically powerful, more affluent, and protective of the status quo they were charged to maintain by Rome.  If they kept the Jewish people peaceful in Jerusalem, Rome allowed them to remain in office with power.  They were also known as ones who did not believe in life after death and took some shots at Jesus around this issue.  When Jesus came into town, disrupting the Temple life by overturning the money-changing tables (a way to seriously rip people off – like currency exchangers who give a poor exchange rate), Jesus made a serious stink.  He was literally challenging economic injustice that was being sanctioned and promoted by representatives of God.  By flipping tables, he was offering a Jubilee of sorts where the books got wiped out and the wealthy were forced to share with the poor whom they abused.  Jesus’ teaching that week further infuriated the Jewish leaders because Jesus was challenging their authority as he offered different interpretations of scripture.  The Jewish leaders, seeing that he had a strong following of people who wanted to see change saw him clearly as an antagonist who would ruin their nation.  They wanted him out, which means they wanted him dead.

     There were others in both crowds – Zealots – who were hoping and praying for God to support their violent overthrow of Rome.  The kind of Messiah they wanted was a Macho Man who would bring lots of bravado and military might to the battlefield.  There were many Jewish people from the region Jesus lived and taught that felt alienated and ripped off by Rome and the Sadducean elite who lined their pockets to stay in power at all costs.  They were confident that since Israel was God’s nation, God would be with them in the fight to save their nation through force.  They were fighting to protect and redeem their land – they were fighting for their faith itself – a holy war with Judaism on the line.  They likely had mixed feelings about Jesus on Palm Sunday.  They perhaps wondered if this guy who was drawing crowds and performing miracles clearly empowered by God would finally call his followers to arms during the Passover celebration – a fitting time for such a feat.  Maybe the donkey was a rouse?  The table flipping perhaps gave them some hope – that was an act of anger for sure. As the week wore on, however, he clearly showed no intention to bring a coup.  Judas Iscariot – the disciple who betrayed Jesus to the Jewish authorities who arrested, indicted, illegally tried and called for his execution – was likely a Zealot who turned on his leader out of deep disappointment.

     There were also Pharisees in the crowd who weren’t happy with the Sadducean leadership but were not willing to take up arms against them or Rome.  Jesus was a Pharisee, ardently followed Jewish Law, but, unlike the Sadducees, believed that there was more beyond the grave (and in this life, too).  As a group, they were not sure what to do with Jesus, who challenged their interpretations of scripture that gave him license to blatantly violate some of the laws they were supposed to uphold.  They may not have wanted to see Jesus killed, but they likely would have been happy to see him fade away.

     Jesus’ followers resonated with Jesus’ message.  They would have chosen to follow him more than they would the leading Pharisees, the loudest Zealots, and the richest Sadducees.  They recognized Jesus as clearly anointed by God, validated by miracles which then supported his authority to offer alternative interpretations of scripture.  This was not a decision without implications, like choosing Dawn dishwashing soap over Ivory or Dial or Palmolive.  To take such a stand was to inherently challenge those who were opposed to Jesus.  There was risk involved and they knew it.  In light of the reality of potentially being excommunicated from the faith community, or worse, getting arrested and beaten by religious authorities, or the very worst, martyrdom, do you suppose they treated their association with Jesus lightly?  Of course not!  With so much on the line, they had to have great confidence in their decision. The rabbis from both the Pharisee and Sadducee camps would have at minimum cautioned them from being lured away from time-honored traditions and interpretations.  The Zealots would have called them wimpy and faithless given their “cowardice” in not being willing to put their lives on the line for the land and people of God’s Chosen. It would have been far easier to simply align with one of the established camps.

     Do you see any parallels from the Jewish characters at Palm Sunday and the following week and Christianity in our time?  Are you aware of very similar dynamics at work today in the Church?

     The differences between various branches of Christianity are too many to address.  Yet I do want to address one issue that is strangely in debate. Like the Zealots of old, there is a branch of Christianity that envisions Jesus more akin to Rambo than Gandhi.  While he may have come in peace, when he comes again, so they believe, he’ll be coming with a very sharp sword.  There will be a lot of bloodshed where people are divided up for slaughter or salvation.  These modern Zealots, of course, will be strumming harps while men, women, and children are slain and the earth itself is destroyed.  No matter – God will make a nice, new shiny one for them in just a matter of six days! This apocalyptic vision of the end times is wildly popular and has basis in the Bible.  It is well known that the Jewish people expected God to bring wrath and justice at any moment, freeing them from Roman tyranny.  The Gospels themselves seem to portray two sides of Jesus – one that looks a lot like Gandhi, and the other, Rambo.  What do we do with this?  How do we reconcile two seemingly different images?

     The ramifications of which image we embrace are massive.  The Rambo branch not only has Jesus wearing all the military gadgetry possible, it also implies that his followers should, too.  And, since they believe that the United States is the world’s greatest Christian nation, then defending it and expanding it with military might is the act of the faithful. To defend and promote the American flag is to be a true Christian.  In this visage, America becomes the New Israel that God will defend to and through the end of time.  This particular branch of Christianity began developing after WWII, but began taking on more extreme positions through the 1970’s and 1980’s, all the way up to now.  They happen to be the loudest voice of non-Catholic Christianity in the United States, and the most powerfully organized and aligned religious body in the United States.  While their strength is waning as people in the United States are leaving churches and Christianity, they still own the largest publishing houses, seminaries, and religious media outlets.  The case they make is, on the face of it, hard to challenge on an emotional level.  Their position is that the Bible is inerrant (has no errors), infallible (it cannot be wrong), and should be read plainly (without the input of non-Christian schools of thought that represent higher criticism).  This means that we can simply read the text and apply it without much effort.  What could go wrong? With this approach, we can embrace a theology where God creates everything at God’s word, male and female are created as distinct, complementary genders never to be confused and therefore narrowly defining marriage, LGBTQ folks are an abomination not to be respected or treated fairly, we’re to take up arms as a matter of faith, and the world is going to be destroyed by God anyway, so no need trying to save it.  Massive implications.

     However, I don’t read the Bible that way. I think the Bible was written by serious, devout, faithful people who wanted to do their best to write what they wrote. I am sure they prayed for guidance and clarity, and I am sure that they sensed God being with them as they took on their project.  I am also sure that more than their fingerprints found their way into their writing.  Their interpretations and hopes and dreams – all informed by their worldview – made its way in, too.  A plain reading of the text doesn’t make much room for that because it is assumed the God essentially guided their quills.  It takes some Olympic level logical gymnastics to deal with inconsistencies and errors, often ending with, “we can’t make sense of it now, but once we’re in heaven it will all make sense.” 

     Is Jesus more like Rambo or Gandhi?  I’m going with Gandhi, who modeled his nonviolent approach to challenging English Imperialism after – can you guess? – Jesus.  What we see at Palm Sunday and through his last week of life is completely consistent with the Prince of Peace that Jesus was.  He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a war horse, a bicycle, not a tank.  Are there passages that wreak of apocalyptic fever that are attributed to him?  Yep.  But I am not sure they are original to Jesus.  If they were, then Jesus didn’t live into them much since he was known for his pacifistic resistance and discouraging violence.  The overwhelming witness of Jesus’ teaching and lifestyle was nonviolence in pursuit of shalom.

     Just like in Jesus’ day, we have a choice to make on the same issue.  Do we really believe that Jesus was the Prince of Peace driven by deep love for all people and creation, or a tough talking, military-ready strongman? Whichever way you decide, there are repercussions.  If you choose the Prince of Peace, know that the largest and loudest non-Catholic voice in the United States challenges you.  It is not an easy stance.  And if Jesus really was the Prince of Peace, how does that affect our personal worldview about violence on an individual level, and on the national front? 

     I wonder if we should view every day as Palm Sunday, an opportunity to welcome and celebrate this one into our world, into our lives, and allowing Jesus to inform the use of our hands and feet, our minds our lips, our calendars, and our pocketbooks.

LOVESTRONG: We Are the Blind Man

The story in John 9 about Jesus healing a man born blind is so much more than a miracle story. This is another story of a character who begins literally blind to Jesus who progressively sees him as a healer, then as a prophet (truth and wisdom teller), and finally as one anointed by God.  The storyline conflict couldn’t have been set up better – a guy born into the epitome of sin and God’s judgment (blindness, as understood in the 1st century) gets healed by a means that required “work” (kneading mud like dough) on the Sabbath (when no work was to be done – one of the Ten Commandments) by an “ordinary sinner” (Jesus) who was not part of the Jewish leadership elite (where it was assumed God’s power for such things resided).  This is a story about what happens when God is clearly moving in unexpected – and unwelcome for some – ways that buck the system.  It’s a story the first disciples resonated with because they lived it out themselves.  Over their time with Jesus, they saw God working more and more in unconventional ways. Their view of him shifted from a magician to a truth and wisdom teller to one the God was clearly working through. Their seeing him differently led them into uncomfortable and painful consequences, starting with being alienated by religious leaders and for most of them martyrdom.

     We humans beings really like control.  It keeps everything in its place.  But how do you control a reality that is beyond our ability to confine, categorize, and predict?  You can’t.  Yet we try our best.  We are experiencing an upheaval in Christianity that has been centuries in the making.  Constantine made Christianity the Empire’s religion and the power immediately challenged the mandate to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. About 1,000 years ago Church leadership began taking the faith into a dark period where corruption continued to run amuck with literally buying God’s forgiveness with cash or military service.  Roughly 500 years ago the Church doubled down on the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture – something Jesus himself would not agree with – and categorically rejected science because it challenged the veracity of the Bible.  A century ago, a new flavor of American Christianity began to build strength with the help of politicians who wanted the Church out of the social conversation.  Fear of the Soviet Union and its atheism drove masses to revivals to “get right with God” in case their death came too soon as nuclear war broke out.  The lure of power and prestige led the leaders of those revivals to neglect horrific cultural issues, relegating Christianity to become little more than an individual, spiritual pursuit.  An entire political party so intertwined itself with this flavor of Christianity that to be one was assumed to be the other. Some of these decisions may have been well-meaning, but that doesn’t mean they were wise or congruent with the transformational faith Jesus taught and modeled. Those decisions are coming home to roost, witnessed in an unprecedented departure from not just church attendance, but Christianity itself.  The response from the faith leaders who have been supported by the system people are leaving? Doubling down on the very precepts and methodology that got them there in the first place.  History repeating itself all over again.

     And what might we expect to happen to those who see things differently and question positions that don’t add up theologically or otherwise?  The same thing that happened to the man born blind and the disciples who witnessed the whole thing: kicked out.

     The good news?  Jesus – the teacher and modeler or the transformative Way of living in the Spirit – sought him out, welcomed him, and invited him to follow.  The Sprit of God still does.  To all those who choose to see and proclaim, carry on.

Mary the Tower

I’ve been waiting for the right time to share this with CrossWalk. First, the message Diana Butler Bass brings to close out the Wild Goose Festival could not be better for a Sunday in March - Women’s History Month. Second, what she brings is so helpful for people trying to get their brains around the Bible, especially those who grew up in traditions that forced compliance with the false idea that the Bible is inerrant and infallible because it was essentially written by God through human hands - none of this three things are true, and this teaching offers a reason why we should take the Bible seriously, but with an open stance. Realize that what she is sharing is relatively new information regarding a text that has been in circulation for nearly 2,000 years! We are still learning about the origins of the text in the Bible. Third, the text of Lazarus being raised from the dead (John 11) shows up next Sunday - so we’re a little early but for good reasons. Fourth, the good reason I’m offering this today and not next week is because I am ill. I’ve got some sort of cold/flu thing with an infection to boot. to hear me teach today would be even more painful than usual! Grab a cuppa and enjoy!

LOVESTRONG: At the Bar

Warning!  The following story may be difficult if you have ever been the victim of a religious zealot who wanted to tell you how wrong you are about your faith – and how right they are. It may be challenging if you have ever experienced discrimination because of your gender. And it may be triggering if you have ever been shamed privately or publicly. The woman you are about to encounter had been treated as an apostate by any and all Jews living on every side of her country, had been mistreated as a woman because women are always mistreated to varying degrees depending on the context, and was shamed by her community, forcing her into isolation. What might Jesus do with such a person? How will he exhibit the weakness of God that is stronger than humanity’s greatest strength?

How do you relate to the woman in this story?

Who might you come across who has experienced the world differently than you? How will you approach such a person? What are typical, destructive approaches? Why are they chosen? What keeps us from following the path laid out by Jesus?

 

 

Commentary...

Lent 3 (Year A): John 4:5-42 and Exodus 17:1-7

Big Picture:

1) This is the third of the six Sundays in Lent. Matthew has been our main guide this year, and we’ll come back to Matthew on Palm Sunday — but as we follow the lectionary over the next three weeks, we’ll explore stories from the Gospel of John.

2) In Jesus’ day, Samaritans were the descendants of generations of intermarriage between (a) Jews left behind during the Babylonian exile and (b) Gentiles the conquering Assyrians settled in Israel. Thus Samaritans shared a common heritage with Jews, but also were quite different: for example, while Samaritans held that the proper place to worship God was Mount Gerizim (see Deut 11:29), Jews held that it was instead the Jerusalem Temple. Imagine Roman Catholics and Protestants in early modern Europe, with their mutual bigotries, suspicions, and appetites for vengeance. Jews and Samaritans were likewise enemies, their similarities only sharpening their contempt. All this would make this week’s story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman surprising to its early audiences, even scandalous — not least because for many Jews, “Samaritan” was a kind of shorthand for both “apostate” and “adversary.”

3) John presents this dialogue as a companion to a parallel exchange that happens soon after between Jesus and the crowds (John 6:25-35). Here, the woman asks Jesus for water; later, in John 6, the crowds ask for bread. Jesus responds to the woman that there is another, more deeply nourishing “living water”; and later, to the crowds, he says there is another, more deeply nourishing “true bread” (4:10; 6:32). Misunderstanding this special water as physical, the woman asks for it, saying, “Sir, give me this water”; likewise misunderstanding, the crowds say, “Sir, give us this bread” (4:15; 6:34). And then, in each story, with an “I am” statement, Jesus declares his identity (4:26; 6:35). In this way, John highlights a basic underlying choreography — encounter, misunderstanding, invitation to deeper insight — as a paradigm for the learning involved in discipleship (from the Latin discipulus, “student”). Through these stories, Jesus calls us, too, to move beyond narrow-minded ideas and adopt wider, deeper forms of trust in God.

4) This is part of a larger pattern in John in which people misunderstand Jesus because they are thinking too literally, prosaically, or conventionally. Think of Nicodemus (“How can anyone be born after growing old?” (John 3:4)), or the crowds who ask for bread (“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52)), or the skeptical hometown crowd (“Isn’t this Jesus, whose parents we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:42)). Prosaic misunderstanding is a recurring motif in John, and accordingly, should function for us as an important cautionary signal: don’t take things too literally! Open your minds to “higher” or “deeper” or more "poetic" insight, forms of thought more fitting for what Jesus himself, in his conversation with Nicodemus, calls “heavenly things” (John 3:12).

5) Just a page or two earlier in John’s story, Jesus launches his public ministry by driving the merchants, animals, and money changers from the Jerusalem Temple, in effect enacting Zechariah’s ancient prophecy: “there shall no longer be traders in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day” (Zech 14:21; John 2:13-22;see SALT’s commentary here). The idea seems to be that the traders are part of a layer of separation between God and humanity that will one day be overcome. Holiness will overflow conventional bounds, and the-temple-as-we-know-it will give way to a more widespread and direct mode of encountering God. This basic theme surfaces again in this week’s story.

Scripture:

1) What’s most striking about the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman isn’t its content — it’s that it’s happening at all. They break two taboos at once: one against a religious teacher speaking with a woman in public, and the other against Jews and Samaritans interacting on such intimate terms (asking to share water, for example). John goes out of his way to call attention to this scandalous dimension of the dialogue — and sure enough, both the woman and the disciples are taken aback (John 4:9,27). Two fault lines of social division — gender and religious/ethnic sectarianism — are brought front and center.

2) From the outset, Jesus’ language signals to his listeners that he has in mind an unconventional meaning for the word “water,” just as he does later for “bread” in John 6:25-35. For here is “water” and “bread” that comes not from the ground or the clouds but from a person, and for those who partake, “hunger” and “thirst” are banished. This is something more than a meal ticket, and indeed something more than physical hunger and thirst. Jesus is talking about a deeper, more profound form of nourishment and wellbeing.

3) By John 6, it comes clear that Jesus is using “eating” as a metaphor for “learning,” for “taking in” and metabolizing the life-giving instruction of the incarnate Logos (see SALT’s commentary on John 6 here). This week’s story highlights two consequences of this instruction, two principal features of the Way of Life Jesus recommends: first, that we subvert and dismantle divisive hierarchies, like the one patriarchal societies create between men and women. And second, that we build bridges over religious and ethnic sectarian divides, like the one between Jews and Samaritans. In a word, the Way of Jesus comes down to this: reconciliation.

4) The conversation itself implicitly exemplifies this barrier-breaking and bridge-building, but it also makes explicit the reconciliation at the heart of the Gospel. The woman challenges Jesus to clarify an ancient dispute: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem” (John 4:20; the Greek word for “you” here is plural, as in, “you Jews”). Jesus proclaims that “the hour is coming” when this religious divide will be overcome, and both Jews and Samaritans will worship God “in spirit and truth” (John 4:21,23). Just as in the cleansing of the Temple, Jesus points toward a new epoch in which holiness will overflow conventional bounds, reconciling ancient enemies.

5) It’s worth remembering that the Gospel of John was written after the Roman armies had destroyed the Jerusalem temple, a period when both Jews and early Christians were struggling to make sense of the world without what they had considered its sacred axis. Rabbinic Judaism eventually refigured “the temple” in the home, and early Christians refigured “the temple” as the body of Jesus, which is also the body of the church.

6) In Exodus, too, the presence of “living water” is a sign of God’s abiding presence with us. In the story of Moses striking the rock, the wandering, anxious Israelites ask a fundamental question, the doubt lurking beneath all other doubts: “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Ex 17:7). The presence of a new spring gives them the courage and consolation they require; and likewise, the “living water” Jesus provides becomes a “spring of water” within us, an ongoing sign that Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us” (John 4:14).

Takeaways:

1) For John, Jesus’ arrival signals the dawn of a new era, a new intimacy with God, a new conception of “the temple” not as a building but as a person “in spirit and truth,” Jesus himself, God’s Word made flesh. The old sacrificial system must end; there's no need for animals and money changers, and no need for competing sacred sites, either. In fact, these aspects of the old system are impediments to the dawning new day.

2) And “the old system,” as it turns out, is made of more than brick and mortar and money and sacrifice. It’s also made of social barriers between men and women, Jews and Samaritans, friends and enemies, insiders and outsiders, “us” and “them.” But Jesus heralds a new era of reconciliation: Take down the barriers!  Bridge the divides! For the hour is coming — and is now here! (John 4:23).

3) What’s driving Jesus in all of this? It’s the ancient passion of the Jewish prophets, a sacred zeal that moves against and beyond the sacrificial system of dead animals and toward an intimate simplicity of prayer, spirit, and truth, unbound by any particular building, mountain, or economic arrangement. 

4) And it’s an ancient passion, too, for the coming of God’s Jubilee, a new exodus from all bondage, a new freedom to abide in God, as God abides in us, in a world drenched with divine presence and glory. These ideas are shot through the prophets: think of Jeremiah’s “temple sermon” (Jer 7), or indeed his prophesied “new covenant” in which God’s law is written on our hearts (Jer 31:33). Think of the devastating critique of sacrifice in Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos (Isa 1:11; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:22), or the famous verse in Micah, contrasting animal sacrifices with justice, kindness, and humility (Micah 6:6-8). In his own way, Jesus picks up this prophetic mantle. At its heart, his mission is about dismantling the barriers that keep us apart from God and neighbor — and in that sense, his mission is finally about reconciliation, mutual indwelling (“Abide in me, as I abide in you” (John 15:4)), and living a just, kind, and humble human life.

 

LOVESTRONG: Mysterious Ways

     Today we will be blessed by three examples of feminine power as we launch into Women’s History Month.

     In the year 486 BCE, Xerxes, son of Darius the Great and grandson of Cyrus the Great became King of the Persian Empire.  Susa, in present day Iran, was his home base.  Three years after he became king – and after a successful military campaign dealing with an uprising in Egypt – Xerxes threw a dinner party for all his buds.  His wife, Vashti, threw her own party for her girlfriends.  Thoroughly drunk on wine or ego or power or all the above, Xerxes started bragging about how beautiful his wife was to all the boys.  At one point he thought it would be neat to show her off so they could see for themselves, so he sent for her.  She refused to come for unknown reasons – a very powerful move.  Still drunk, he summoned his equally drunk advisors about how he should respond to such a public rejection.  Rather than find out if there was a good reason why she could not make an appearance, Xerxes and his “Yes Men” decided to make an example of her so that women everywhere would respect their husbands. She was stripped of her crown and banished from the King’s presence.  Women everywhere certainly got the message, but it probably wasn’t one of increased respect for Xerxes. Yet it probably did engender respect for Vashti.

     Once sobered up, Xerxes began to feel bad about his reaction. But before he got too mushy, his servants recommended that a wide search take place to find him a range of virgins from all over his Empire from which he could select new wives – one might even be suitable for Queen!  Sorrow was replaced by something else, and the search was on.

     Esther, a Jewish woman who lived in the area along with others in the diaspora, was apparently the exact kind of beautiful Xerxes liked. In 479 BCE, she became queen (but chose not to mention her Jewish ancestry).  Her adopted father-and-cousin, Mordecai, stayed close to guide and protect her from a distance.  At one point, he was instrumental in foiling an assassination attempt on Xerxes’ life.  Mordecai was a strongly principled man deeply committed to his Jewish faith.  When an antisemitic man named Haman became Xerxes’ top advisor, demanding to be bowed to wherever he went, Mordecai refused based on his allegiance to God, the only one worthy of such respect.  Such behavior drove Haman nuts – so much so that he went way over the top with a plan to seek revenge.  Instead of simply punishing Mordecai for his insolence, he instead deemed it appropriate to design a pogrom to commit genocide instead.  He even offered to fund it himself, but likely lined his pockets instead.  All Jews were to be killed and their property plundered in the last month of the year.

     Mordecai let Esther know of the plan and begged her to consider pleading with Xerxes on behalf of the Jewish people. Perhaps she was born for such a time as this? Esther immediately jumped at the idea and ran to Xerxes exerting her marital rights for an audience and demanded action. That’s nothing close to the truth.  Recall what happened to Vashti for simply refusing to get paraded around when she was hosting her own event.  Esther was surely aware of it.  More than simply refusing a visit, she would be challenging a decision he authorized.  How likely would Xerxes empathize with her, admit his mistake, and change everything? She was terrified for good reason.  She asked Mordecai for the Jewish people in Susa to join her in a three day fast leading up to her subtle request for an audience with Xerxes.

     In a series of strong moves from a strong woman, Esther put on her royal garb and stood outside Xerxes’ court, hoping he would notice her and welcome her presence.  He did notice her and called her to him, stretching out his scepter for her to touch – a weird way of offering the microphone. He asked her to speak her mind and make her request – anything she wanted, really.  She asked to host a dinner party for him and Haman.  He granted the request and showed up for dinner that night.  Again, he asked what she wanted, and she asked to host him again the following evening.  He granted that request. After dinner, he once again offered to grant whatever she wished.  She told him about what Haman had planned and begged for help.  He did!  One of the first ways he helped was to immediately hang Haman (on gallows created for Mordecai) and kill his sons to insure he couldn’t cause any more harm.

     Unfortunately, the edict was still in play, so Esther again bravely and passionately asked for help to craft a new edict granting the Jews permission to defend themselves against those who planned their demise. Xerxes granted the request, and the Jewish people were saved.  This week marks the Jewish festival of Purim, remembering the story of Esther and lampooning the foolish character Haman.  It is one of the few days that rabbis are encouraged to get thoroughly drunk and act like idiots.  Side note: The Book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that has no reference to God.  Hmmm. What do we make of that? Are we to assume God was not at work?

     During the first week of April, 30 CE, Jesus was in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  One evening a respected Jewish leader and member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus, paid him a visit.  Nicodemus resonated with the Pharisaic tradition as did Jesus, which meant that he was devoted to the keeping of the Law and was also open to the nearness of God’s activity and the hope of life beyond the grave.  He came to get to know Jesus, who was gaining renown.  It was past sundown. The darkness mentioned wasn’t just about the time of day – John’s Gospel is hinting that Nicodemus himself was in the dark.

     The knowledgeable Nicodemus soon found himself out of his depth as Jesus talked about being born again from above, and being responsive to the Spirit of God like sailors would the wind.  To be born again is to live in God.  Looking upon and learning from Jesus brings healing and wellbeing, much like the snake on the staff that Moses lifted in his day.

     Jesus noted that all of what he was doing and saying originated with the love of God for the whole world, for the world’s healing and wellbeing, not judgment and destruction which religion all-to-often trumpets.  It was a lot for Nicodemus to take in.  He left with more questions than answers.  He would come around to understanding eventually, but it took time – as it nearly always does.

     Jesus was offering a fresh take on what it meant to be people of faith.  He was emphasizing a relational dynamic between God and people and planet that was far removed from our lizard brain tendency toward genie-in-the-bottle transactional thinking whereby we follow the rules and God looks out for us.  More crassly, we manipulate the game so that if we do our part, God must do God’s part if God is faithful. In this way we become God ourselves, giving into the second temptation Jesus entertained (and defeated).

    The Way Jesus was espousing is deeply relational and ever responsive, all aimed at transformation on every level.  It is more about being aware of the dynamics at play in ourselves and around us, listening for the still small voice to offer guidance. It doesn’t need to pay much attention to the letter of the Law and it’s keeping because in following the Spirit the Law is fulfilled.  This is where the magic happens.  Imagine if everyone, everywhere, was attuned to the leading of the Spirit of God.  How quickly would wars end, unjust economic structures torn down, inequality and unfairness be eliminated, sustainable approaches to healthy food production embraced, human trafficking stopped (and reparations of some sort made), and substance abuse no longer relevant? Consider any of the world’s ills – would they not be addressed comprehensively if we all followed the same voice?

     A critic may argue that this is impossible, because one person’s interpretation of the Spirit’s leading could be entirely different than another, right? Wouldn’t a Christian slave trader in the 1600’s believe they were doing God’s bidding given the teaching of the Church at that time? Same goes for the slave owner in early American history.  What about the antisemitic advocates of Nazism?  One person’s dreamy vision of God is another person’s nightmare.

     Yet that’s where Jesus’ own parameters come into play.  Jesus’ entire schtick is rooted in the love of God and in the Jewish idea of shalom – wellbeing, harmony, peace – for people and planet.  If love is the guiding force – a love that loves all equally – those attitudes and behaviors that are destructive toward self or others or creation itself would be off the table. Sorry, slave traders, slave holders, Nazis, and every other form of self-centered worldview that benefits itself at the expense of others.  Theologian and author, Tom Oord, in his book, Puriform Love, defines love as “to love is to act intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.”  When we understand that this is God’s nature, Jesus’ ethos, and our invitation, all our greatest hopes for ourselves and everyone and everything else come into view along with a roadmap.

     Following the Spirit of God – flowing with such Wind – is also incredibly freeing.  By the way, are you aware that the Holy Spirit in Hebrew and Greek are feminine words?  How much stronger can you get that the essence of God is feminine! For the love of God, pay attention Southern Baptist Convention – empower women to preach – God has been from the beginning!  This strong, feminine presence enabled Jesus and his followers to pick grain on the Sabbath to deal with their hunger, venture into leper colonies because they needed to be loved, offer grace to prostitutes, restoration to traitorous tax collectors, and friendship with Samaritans and all other foreigners.  The freedom of the Spirit allowed the newly formed Jewish Jesus followers to justifiably abandon the bulk of Jewish Law because, as Jesus noted, loving self and neighbor – in themselves an act of loving God – fulfills the entire Law.  He was essentially saying that love is the point of everything.  He also noted that God’s motive in empowering Jesus was love for the world, not disdain.

     It was my love and hunger for knowing God more deeply that transformed my life as a teenager, as a college student, as a young pastor, and even now as a not-quite-as-young-but-just-as-freakishly-muscular pastor... It has helped me think more deeply about some points of orthodoxy which simply don’t add up and let them go.  It has allowed CrossWalk to become the fluid body that we are, known mostly for our love expressed in service.

     While Jesus and Judaism certainly had much to say about the depths of love, the reality is that such whispers can be heard by everyone, everywhere, regardless of their theological leanings.  Love is deeply universal. Love is at the core of our being.  Even adamant atheists can hear the call of love and respond lovingly, thus somewhat unwittingly and faithfully following the Spirit of God they do not believe in!  The wrong questions revolve around the length of the train of God’s robe in heavenly dwelling places and how many angels can stand on the head of a needle.  The right query is about the nature and calling of love.

     Could it be that the only book in the Bible that does not mention God doesn’t need to because it is filled with God, with love?  What else would motivate Mordecai to caution the King regarding the assassination attempt?  What else would motivate Esther to risk everything in seeking Xerxes’ help?  Why would Esther call for a three day fast if she did not believe that something happens when people are so dedicated to such a mindful practice? Why would Esther risk her life again seeking more help from her disreputable husband? Love is present throughout the story, and it is powerful.  Jesus lived love.  His later disciples would say that God is love.

     You who have a messed-up life right now – what is your next loving move?  Take it.  You who are in conflict with your significant other – what is a loving move you could take?  Take it.  You who are caught up in the tension of our news cycle – what does self-love look like?  Do it.  You who are caught in a cycle of unforgiveness, realizing that carrying such hatred is like eating poison waiting for the object of your hatred to die – what does love instruct you to do? Do it.  You who are worried about the state of our earth – what does love compel you to do?  Do it.  Whatever your challenge, whatever your hope, listen for love and trust its source.  Put on your Nikes and just do it.

     We are living in the Spirit of God like fish live in water.  Ask a fish about water and the fish will ask back, what is water?  Could it be that we are so surrounded by the love of God that holds everything together that we are blind and deaf to it? May we today choose to see, choose to believe, and choose to love.  May we be brave enough to set aside our doubts about the particulars of theology and choose to fully embrace what we know to be the end and means of God – love.  May we celebrate with our Jewish brothers and sisters that Haman’s hatred was defeated by love, that even though his pockets were lined with bribes, there was a power greater than greed that won the day. May we celebrate by raising a festive glass and toast the wonderful news that we don’t have to have all the answers, we don’t have to have it all figured out, so long as we can agree on love and be love to one another. This is our invitation for eternity and for eternal life. Amen. May it be so. Amen.

 

Eternity is not infinity.

It is not a long time.

It does not begin at the end of time.

In its entirety it always was.

In its entirety it will always be.

It is entirely present always.

– Wendell Berry

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