Entangled Prayer - Introduction

I wasn’t sure how to title this series on prayer.  I landed on Entangled: Quantum-Informed Prayer because it is so abundantly clear...  I could have gone with Prayer after we let go of God as Merlin or Genie or Santa...  But I figured that might be too much for those who love those paradigms.

     In his book, Praying with Process Theology, Bruce Epperly offers seven weeks of daily devotional thoughts, affirmations, and prayers that he hopes will teach and foster a robust, thriving spiritual practice for folks who resonate with Open and Relational Theology (Process Theology fits under the umbrella of ORT).  In the first section, Epperly offers some bedrock affirmations to ground our practices:

Affirmations: the world in which we live.

•       Our world is a dynamic, ever-evolving process. Relationship is primary to reality.

•       We live in a world characterized by dynamic interdependence.

•       We live in a universe of experience, and this includes non-humans as well as humans.

•       Value is co-extensive with experience and reality.

•       Every creature has value and deserves ethical consideration, apart from human interests.

•       Creativity and freedom are essential to reality, including the nonhuman world.

•       The future is open, and our actions make a difference in shaping the world to come.

 

Affirmations: God’s nature

•       God is present everywhere and in all things.

•       God experiences everything and God’s ongoing experience of the world is constantly growing in relationship to an evolving universe.

•       Although God influences all things, God’s power is best understood in terms of love rather than coercion or domination.

•       In all things, God works for good – even life’s most challenging situations.

•       God’s power is persuasive and invitational, a call forward, as the source of possibilities and ideals appropriate to every occasion of experience and our whole lifetimes.

•       The future is open for God as well as us.

•       God needs us to be partners in God’s dream of world transformation.

 

Affirmations: our spiritual journeys

•       God is present in our lives as the “still small voice” speaking in our “sighs too deep for words.”

•       Our spiritual practices bring God’s unique and personal visions for our lives and the world to consciousness.

•       When we pray, we align ourselves with Gods’ vision for us and experience greater divine energy/presence.

•       Our prayers, in an interdependent universe, create a field of force that enables God to be more active in our lives and the lives of those for whom we pray.

•       Our prayers create new possibilities for divine and human activities and may influence the nonhuman world in amazing ways.

 

     While you may find yourself easily nodding your head to much of the above, realize that many of the statements above challenge long-held classic Christian beliefs.  The truth is that many Christians today have one foot in ORT and the other in classic Christianity.  Their stated beliefs mirror the tenets challenged by the statements above while their experience simultaneously resonates with those same statements.  In my experience as a human being who has moved through and away from dominant classic Christian beliefs that have reigned supreme for at least 1,000 years, and as a pastor who has led many through the same journey, I can tell you that the deconstruction-reconstruction process is very difficult.  Prayer becomes collateral damage in that process.  If God isn’t “up there” then where am I directing my prayers? If God isn’t omnipotent in the way I’ve been told to believe, what is the value of my prayers?  These questions are the “why” behind this series.  I believe Epperly’s book will be very helpful in moving into a renewed passion for prayer.  My teachings might help, too.  Might...

     It might help to remember that Jesus was a fan of prayer.  He integrated solitude into his rhythm.  He encouraged us to ask, seek, knock – all directed toward God.  His model for prayer: attunement more than atonement. His final prayer: that his followers would be connected – one with God like he was – and that they would continue his work.  We can answer Jesus’ prayer by our decision to grow.  Will you so choose?

 

A Model for Prayer

Our loving, supportive, holy ABBA:

Your presence is here and everywhere!

May your Divine Commonwealth come!

May your 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.

May we foster SHALOM everywhere.

Strengthen us for the work to which we’re called.

Amen. May it be so.

Unexpected: God in the Book of Jonah

What can God do?  How powerful is God? How much does God know? How does God interact with the created world?

     What do we learn about God in the story of Jonah?  Given that the entire purpose of the tale is to hold a mirror to Israel’s face to point out their hateful prejudice toward other human beings as a contradiction of God’s love for everyone, we might just simply say that God is graceful.  That’s a good conclusion all the time. Love is the defining characteristic of God – a higher, deeper, broader, stronger love than we can imagine.  God’s love forces us to grapple with some assumptions about God that appear in Jonah’s tale.

     The story has God telling Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah goes in the opposite direction, toward Tarshish. God then sends a storm to wreck the ship. The sailors repent, losing their cargo, and finally, reluctantly, cast Jonah overboard (a paradox: they were more reverent of the gods than Jonah).  The storm immediately ceased.  Jonah is rescued from the watery grave by a great fish who swallows him at God’s command.

     After Jonah has the opportunity to write a lovely poem inside the pitch-black belly of the fish filled with all sorts of stomach acid and no oxygen – for three nights – God directs the huge dogfish to vomit Jonah out on shore.  Dogfish are well known for vomiting not in the ocean, but onto dry land.  Not really – this is yet another reminder of how purposely ridiculous this story is. God appealed yet again to Jonah to go to Nineveh, which he did.

     After giving the worst sermon ever preached, the Ninevites repent, and God relents. Jonah, of course, gets pissed about God’s grace, focusing anger on a plant’s life and death (an act of God’s direction again) rather than the beauty of God’s grace and Nineveh’s salvation.

     What is this story saying about the character and nature of God? God apparently can change the weather instantly, can call a large fish to find and swallow Jonah and somehow keep the fish’s intestinal track from killing him, and then causing him to vomit him up on queue onto dry land, break the plan to destroy an entire city, cause a plant to grow, call a worm into action, make the sun a little hotter so that the plant withers – all to teach Jonah a lesson.  Yet somehow it was impossible to affect Jonah’s mind enough to do what was asked in the first place.  The stakes were high, too.  The sailors lost their cargo.  The Ninevites’ lives were on the line – all hinging on Jonah.  It sure seems that if God were all powerful, that would include the capacity to make Jonah do his bidding.

     Of course, the book of Jonah is pure fiction and therefore perhaps we shouldn’t get too caught up in the details.  Yet it remains a true story of human nature, and presents us the opportunity to wonder what kind of God the original audience believed in, and invites us to wonder what kind of God we believe in.

     Maui lost Lahaina as hurricane-force winds fanned the flamed from one house and community to the next until nearly everything was wiped out.  We know how wildfire works and know that such fires can cover the length of a football field in seconds. What stubborn Jonah was responsible for such destruction? Who failed to throw him to sea to avert disaster? And what kind of God would allow such destruction in the first place if God had the power to calm the wind at will? Without a doubt, unless you are emotionally dead there certainly must have been times in your life – maybe right now – when you wondered why God didn’t show up to answer your cry for help, to calm the winds of destruction, to stave off cancer or COVID, to keep the economy moving forward, to end racism in a snap, to eliminate slavery of all forms worldwide immediately, and to move the SF Giants into first place with a wide margin over the Dodgers somewhere toward the end of September (no need to be picky about the date so long as there’s no way the Dodgers can catch us – we can be reasonable, right?).

     Recall that the Bible was written over centuries of time by a wide variety of authors living in very different cultures and contexts than our own.  They lived in a primitive time when it was assumed that the gods controlled nearly everything.  And yet in the Bible we see clear tension in God’s character – sometimes willing and able to do literally anything, and at other times not. At times it appears that everything was God’s plan, and at other times God changes God’s mind, even going back on God’s own word.  This reminds us that we are people in process.  Each age has the freedom and responsibility to do their best to understand who God is to the best of their ability. That’s where we are today.  Jonah does not solve the problem.  God is graceful (unless you were among the sailors or their customers or that big fish that got seasick or the plant or the worm that lost its meal and probably died in the blazing sun). How are we to think about all of this?

     I’ve already mentioned that the Bible needs to be taken in context – we need to let it be what it is – a profoundly rich library from hundreds and hundreds of years of history, thousands of years before our time. Some new information has come out, however, that reminds us of something else that is related to the Bible: sometimes our struggle with a text is a problem of our traditional understanding being off from the start.  Much of Western Christian theology was heavily influenced by a Western, Platonic based worldview.  That’s a big problem, especially when considering Hebrew texts which are rooted in the Eastern tradition. We assume that the ancient writers thought about power the same way we do.  They didn’t.  They didn’t think about omnipotence the way we do. Further, no modern theologian or philosopher worth their salt believes that “God” truly has total power to do anything God wants to do – it simply doesn’t hold up to simple logic.  The Jewish creation story does not have God creating out of nothing, either even though that has been drilled into our theologies by tradition.

     Open and relational theology offers an alternative approach that is biblically supported, philosophically sensible, and rings true with our experience.  Rather than God commanding or controlling anything, God works with and in creation to move toward deeper shalom for all.  So, in the Jonah folktale, this would work out as God’s presence being one of multiple factors leading to a potential outcome.  God doesn’t have full control, however, so long as there are other variables in play (and there always are).  The interaction with Jonah is illustrative of this dynamic.  God makes clear what he wants the prophet to do, yet Jonah does the opposite.  God doesn’t override Jonah’s agency.  Rather, as Jonah makes his decisions, God adjusts God’s moves like an ongoing chess game. God doesn’t know what will happen because it hasn’t happened yet. God is one (very significant but not controlling) character in the story.  Jonah and all the others all have their play, too.  What would have happened if the Ninevites refused to repent?  Would God smite them?  Or would God give them a pass since Jonah was so sucky?

     We have decisions to make regarding the character and nature of God.  If you prefer the traditional model where God is in control and in charge, you’re welcome to it.  But the story of Jonah doesn’t fully validate that, does it?  Neither does your lived experience or the history of humanity overall.

Unexpected 2: Jonah's Subversive Message Then and Now

     You are familiar with the story, and perhaps have even ridden a ride taking you through it.  Geppetto is an Italian clock maker who is alone in the world (save his cat and goldfish).  To offset his loneliness for companionship, he crafts a young boy marionette, which he names Pinocchio. Seeing the wishing star appear before he went to bed, he wished that his puppet could be a real boy.  Overnight, his wish was granted by a fairy, who also appointed Mr. Jiminy Cricket as Pinocchio’s present conscience since the boy would be starting from scratch with no bearing about right or wrong. Pinocchio was promised that he could obtain real boyhood if he proved himself to be a good boy, gauged by his ethical behavior.  On his way to school he got sweet-talked by a clever fox who convinced him to join the theater instead of going to school.  It worked out for a minute, but one thing led to another, and Pinocchio found himself with other young lads on Pleasure Island, where all manner of reckless manliness could be enjoyed: smoking cigars, drinking copious amounts of beer, getting into fights, vandalism, and various carnival games.  Unfortunately, Pleasure Island was a trap put in place by owners of a salt mine in need of donkeys.  When the boys drank enough of the beer the villains tainted, they soon turned into jackasses (or were they already?) and shipped to the mine where they would spend the rest of their days.  Pinocchio managed to escape before he was totally jackassed and rushed home only to discover that his “father” had gone to search for him on the sea and was swallowed up by Maestro, the Monstrous Whale.  Pinocchio plunged himself into the sea to rescue his father, managed to get everyone out of the whale’s belly through heroic efforts at the expense of his own life. His selflessness, however, wiped out all the jackassery he had engaged in before, including the lying that caused his nose to grow.  The scales of goodness now tipped in his favor, the wishing star fairy not only brought him back to life but made him a real boy.  It’s a fun animated film, with adult humor thrown in as per usual with Disney films.  The latest version won an Oscar recently, adding some interesting twists from the original.  Without a doubt, this story was inspired by the Bible’s Jonah, where errant behavior landed him in the belly of a whale for three days and nights, eventually being spat up on shore to try again.

     While the literal details of Pinocchio may not be factual, it is a very true story. Geppetto fully entrusted Pinocchio to be a good boy even though the wooden lad didn’t know Schlitz from Shinola.  Bad decision that set up the kid for failure.  The puppet’s deceit not only got him into deeper and deeper trouble, but it affected those he loved as well, landing his wood carving creator in the belly of a whale. We are prone to making decisions based primarily on our unexamined egos. When we do, there is always a price to pay, and it is often high. We don’t know what happens in Pinocchio’s next chapter in the Disney film – does the now flesh and blood boy attend school and live as a good boy? We know Jonah didn’t. He may have gone to Nineveh, but he remained unchanged in his heart.

     In the great American novel, Moby Dick, Captain Ahab commanded the crew of the Pequod to join him on his pursuit of Moby Dick, the very large white whale that took his leg.  His insanity ended up costing the crew their lives and the ship’s oily cargo, save Ishmael, the slave of a sailor who was, like his biblical namesake, forsaken by the father of his ship. But there is much more to the story.  Melville may have been writing a story about the pursuit of a monstrous whale, but between the lines he was actually critiquing the culture in which he lived in the 1800’s: Capitalism was doing a lot of good in the world, but it was also capable of unthinkable evil which included American slavery for the first two and a half centuries of our history on this land, and child labor to this day in other part of the world. He witnessed the power of greed and prejudice that was tearing our country apart. He was fully aware of what was happening in the deep south after reconstruction ended – slavery may have become illegal, but there were many other ways that white people could subjugate black people. We are still paying the price for that today.  Melville couldn’t call it out too directly, however, because of family ties. He wrote an incredibly long book where he could write deeply so that there was much to be read between the lines for those sensitive enough to recognize it, while those who couldn’t or wouldn’t simply enjoyed the story at face value. 

     The Book of Jonah is like that. For those who simply want a crazy folktale with lots of humor along the way, it stands alone.  Yet for those who wonder why the book was written in the first place and study the context, the textual peculiarities, and undertones, there is so much more.  The prejudice held by Jonah is obvious – he goes toward Tarshish because he doesn’t want the people of Nineveh to get any kind of warning because he would rather see them suffer God’s judgment.  He knows that God’s desire to warn them is an act of grace that speaks volumes about the nature of God. Jonah believes God is graceful so much that he refuses to give Ninevites a chance to hear out of his hatred. Paradoxically, the non-Jewish sailors showed more grace and godliness than the supposed holy man from Israel! They all worshipped as hard as they could to no avail and were distraught at killing Jonah. The Ninevites even put their animals in sackcloth and ashes to appease God’s wrath! Note: Please laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of this detail clearly indicating it’s folklore-like genre.  These foreigners who would not consider the God of Israel a threat suddenly become holy – much more so than Jonah who still cannot get over himself (even after a near-death experience).

     Centuries later, Jesus was teaching in the northern part of the country where he grew up. He was renowned for his teaching, healing, and miracles.  But his magic show could be explained away by his critics (religious leaders), so they demanded a clear sign that he was anointed by God.  Jesus said the only sign he would give was the sign of Jonah, who was in the belly of a what for three nights before rising again at the will of God. Similarly, Jesus was alluding to his own experience of death, burial, and resurrection three days later.  Remember that the Gospels were written decades after Jesus’ life and ministry.  For many believers at that time, the resurrection became their “proof positive” that Jesus was anointed (endorsed and empowered) by God.  The Jewish leaders, however, dismissed this “Sign of Jonah” altogether, claiming it to be a fabrication, or covering up what they couldn’t understand.  They didn’t experience the resurrected Christ, and certainly didn’t want to change their lives based on the ramifications thereof.

     History has a way of repeating itself, especially when those who are living fail to give due attention to their own history which always informs the present.  Prophets of old are not to be looked upon like wizards with crystal balls who can foretell the future.  Prophets were and are those who are so familiar with the vision of God, the heartbeat of God, the harmonies of God, the authenticity of God that when they see something that is out of line with the vision, sense that there is a miss-beat, hear something off key, and smell something foul they simply call it to attention. Jonah was a joke of a prophet given his prejudice and hatred, mirroring the prevailing attitudes of the people he represented and served (can it ever be dangerous for leaders and their followers to simply echo each other?). The writers of the story perhaps took this approach because the temperature in the room was too hot to speak directly, like Melville writing about serious issues thinly veiled in his whale of a tale.  What would the writers of Jonah see today?  What would they hope would be considered by a country that claims Christian roots? Given their vision of God, what might they wonder about how we are treating each other in the public square? Women’s rights to their own bodies? The LGBTQ’s freedom to live authentically and love who they love? The treatment of human beings hoping to work for a better future here and abroad? Nuclear threat? Our role in global warming and our reluctance to take it seriously because of money? Our care of the environment to ensure that we don’t ruin it for the generations to come? How about income disparity? Obsession with arms while wanting greater peace? And of course, our ongoing reluctance to own and address America’s greatest sin – the enslavement of others with the blessing of the Church.

     Statistically, American Christianity is Jonah. Publicly, Christians – painted with one wide brush – continues to be viewed not for their desire to live into shalom, but for the disturbance of it.  It is no surprise that we are witnessing more people leaving not just church but the faith than ever before.  Why would someone consider Jonah when the sailors enroute to Tarshish, and the ruler, people, and animals of Nineveh appear to be more aligned with shalom than the one who is supposed to proclaim it?

     As Jesus followers – and as people of faith in general – we are called to live by the vision of shalom.  For everyone and everything. Are we taking any time to wonder what that looks like and compare it to our personal lives, our family systems, our work and friendly relationships, our community governance, our country, and our world?  The presence of God woos us ever forward toward shalom.  Are we paying attention? Do we care?

Unexpected: Jonah's Whale of a Tale

As we begin this series, take time this week to simply become familiar with the story.


Chapter 1: RUNNING FROM GOD

 

    One day long ago, GOD's Word came to Jonah, Amittai's son: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."

     But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from GOD. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish—as far away from GOD as he could get.

     But GOD sent a huge storm at sea, the waves towering.

     The ship was about to break into pieces. The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep. The captain came to him and said, "What's this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we're in trouble and rescue us." Then the sailors said to one another, "Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who's responsible for this disaster."

     So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw.

     Then they grilled him: "Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?"

     He told them, "I'm a Hebrew. I worship GOD, the God of heaven who made sea and land."

     At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, "What on earth have you done!" As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from GOD.

     They said to him, "What are we going to do with you—to get rid of this storm?" By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control.

     Jonah said, "Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It's all my fault. I'm the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you'll get rid of the storm."

     But no. The men tried rowing back to shore. They made no headway. The storm only got worse and worse, wild and raging.

     Then they prayed to GOD, "O GOD! Don't let us drown because of this man's life, and don't blame us for his death. You are GOD. Do what you think is best." They took Jonah and threw him overboard. Immediately the sea was quieted down.

     The sailors were impressed, no longer terrified by the sea, but in awe of GOD. They worshiped GOD, offered a sacrifice, and made vows.

     Then GOD assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish's belly three days and nights.

 

Chapter 2: AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

 

     Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish. He prayed:

"In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to GOD.

     He answered me.

From the belly of the grave I cried, 'Help!'

     You heard my cry.

You threw me into ocean's depths,

     into a watery grave,

With ocean waves, ocean breakers

     crashing over me.

I said, 'I've been thrown away,

     thrown out, out of your sight.

I'll never again lay eyes

     on your Holy Temple.'

Ocean gripped me by the throat.

     The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.

My head was all tangled in seaweed

     at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.

I was as far down as a body can go,

     and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—

Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,

     O GOD, my God!

When my life was slipping away,

      I remembered GOD,

And my prayer got through to you,

     made it all the way to your Holy Temple.

Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,

     walk away from their only true love.

But I'm worshiping you, GOD,

     calling out in thanksgiving!

And I'll do what I promised I'd do!

      Salvation belongs to GOD!"

Then GOD spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.

 

Chapter 3: MAYBE GOD WILL CHANGE HIS MIND

 

     Next, GOD spoke to Jonah a second time: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."

     This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying GOD's orders to the letter.

Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it. Jonah entered the city, went one day's walk and preached, "In forty days Nineveh will be smashed."

     The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.

     When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: "Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!"

     God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn't do.

 

Chapter 4: "I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!"

 

     Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at GOD, "GOD! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!

     "So, GOD, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead!"

     GOD said, "What do you have to be angry about?"

     But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.

     GOD arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.

But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent

a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!"

     Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?"

     Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!"

     GOD said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?" (The Message Translation)

The story of Jonah is not to be read as a literal story of an historical event.  Even though it the central character is noted elsewhere in the Bible, it is unlikely that they are the same person.  It is uncertain when the story came about – somewhere between 800 BCE – 400 BCE, when Israel was quite bitter toward the more powerful nations that subdued them. Scholars are mixed on what genre best characterizes this writing.  Not exactly a folktale, not a parable, not midrash, but rather a little bit of each.  One thing that scholars do agree about: it’s a masterpiece that continues to be relevant today.
What stands out to you in this story – what are you noticing, what would you like more information about, what is striking?

How do you think the original Jewish audience might have received this tale? What do you imagine was the hoped-for outcome in its sharing?

How is this story relevant in our day and age?

How does this story hit home with you? What characters do you resonate with? Have you ever had a moment or a season when you resembled Jonah?

2023 Camp CrossWalk Review

This week we were thrilled to offer Camp CrossWalk for our CrossWalk kids!  Monday through Friday, our younger CrossWalkers had a blast while learning cool songs, hearing great stories, making amazing crafts, eating incredible snacks, and playing super fun games!  Why do we do this?  Simply because we love the kids and want to help them have an incredible life. We believe the way of life taught and modeled by Jesus guides them toward the best life for themselves, all others, and the world itself. Here is a recap of the biblical stories we shared with the kids this week, along with the point we were trying to make.

     Monday we talked about Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15:11-32 (which should be renamed the Prodigal God).  The story is about a son who dishonors his father, himself, and others in the worst ways imaginable.  When he finally hit rock bottom, he realized he would be better off as a servant for his father than where he was. He went back, ready to apologize and ask to be nothing more than a servant. Much to his surprise, however, his father was looking for him, hoping that he would one day return. When the son showed up, the father ran to him, embraced him, cleaned him up, fully restored him to his former status, and threw a party to celebrate.  This is how God is toward us. Always loving. Always welcoming. Always wanting the best for us. Always with us as we move forward to the depths of wellbeing.

     Tuesday we talked about Jesus inviting people to follow him, saying that he would make them fishers of men and women (Mark 1:17-18).  Sounds kinda creepy at first glance, doesn’t it?  Sometimes its portrayed that way – Jesus turning people into his minions to sell his snake oil door to door.  The better way to understand this that we shared with the kids is that Jesus is inviting us to follow him in encouraging people to embrace the way of love in their lives and in the world. What Jesus was saying is what God does all the time, wooing us toward the way of love for ourselves, for others, and for the whole world.  Love is the path that seeks wellbeing for everyone and everything on the planet. God always calls all people and all things toward love, for love.

     Wednesday, we talked about Jesus’ parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). In this story, a man made the fateful decision to walk a perilous journey from Jerusalem down to Jericho alone. This was unwise on his part as that journey was known for high crime rates.  Sure enough, he was mugged, beaten to unconsciousness, and left for dead.  A priest came upon the scene, but instead of helping, he walked on the other side of the road.  A religious man came upon the scene next and avoided the man similarly.  Finally, a deeply loathed man came along who everybody in Jesus’ audience thought was an awful person. But instead of being awful, the man stopped, attended to the beaten man’s wounds, hoisted him onto his donkey, and took him to a hotel where he put him up and paid for his care. The point of the story is that the way of love is active, and everybody can do it.  The story also suggests that religiosity isn’t worth much if it doesn’t love people who clearly need it.  Perhaps you are starting to catch the theme here...

     Thursday we taught about the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10).  Zach was short and had probably heard about it his whole life.  That may have contributed to him choosing a job that made him an outcast – a tax collector. In those days, the Roman Empire would contract with locals to collect taxes from the people.  Tax collectors were notorious for hitting people with bigger tax bills than they owed simply because they could get away with it.  Zacchaeus was loathed by his peers – he was a sell-out to their Roman oppressor and cheated his own countrymen for profit.  People had to deal with him, but they didn’t want to.  When Jesus saw him, he took the way of love, speaking value into him from the start.  Hearing love from another changed Zacchaeus’ life. We never know how our loving attitudes and behaviors might contribute to their wellbeing and restoration.  Love is powerful.

     On Friday, we looked at the story of Jesus walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33), freaking the disciples out, and inviting Peter to come out and join him.  Peter walked on water toward Jesus, but as soon as the disciple’s eyes paid more attention to the wind and waves, he began to sink.  Jesus rescued him, taking him to the boat, saying, essentially that if he had kept his eyes on him – had faith – he wouldn’t have sunk. Did this story literally happen as it is written, or was it fictionalized history to make a statement about the power of faith when faced with fear?  Who cares if it was a literal story – the point is true.

     Lots of good stories here.  So many things to take away.  What’s nudging you?

And I, I Did Not Know...

“And I, I did not know.”  The best part of this story, in my humble opinion.  Jacob was undoubtedly aware that he was running for his life after screwing his brother, Esau, out of his rightful fortune. But he was probably not aware of the deeper currents running in his psyche that influence him to deceive his father, his brother, his mother, and himself so deeply. He did not know about his inner workings – at least not enough to correct course if he cared at all.

     Jacob likely believed that God (or gods) existed as a way of understanding the universe and his place in it.  Yet he was perhaps not aware of how his cosmology affected his spirituality (I thought angels had wings – why take the stairs?). He knew he was experiencing a “thin place”, yet seemingly failed to recognize that everywhere is a “thin place” where the divine can be encountered.  More, he didn’t realize that “thin places” are less about geography and more about mentality - our own capacity to slow down and see what is right before us all the time.

     Jacob’s making a cairn as a marker and reminder of the experience was a good idea, yet he was apparently unaware of his own hubris evident in his statement of “faith” – a transactional agreement that was very human but not very humble.  “I’ll make you my God if you help me win the lottery” and its myriad iterations and variations miss the point of walking humbly with God entirely. This type of faith is control-oriented and isn’t faith at all.  We remain God.

     Jacob was unaware of just who this God was that was being revealed in his vulnerability.  This God was one who came with blessing and encouragement despite Jacob’s character flaws – a constant presence of love and grace wooing Jacob toward the deep wellbeing for him and all of creation represented by that rich Jewish word, shalom.

     How aware are you?  What don’t you know? About yourself – a mix of wheat and weeds that won’t be separated in this life except by your own work through? About your cosmology and its effect on your worldview and spirituality? About your own hubris when it comes to faith? About the character and nature of God as an original blesser and the implications thereof?

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, Reis Tucker-Meade, Anne Waggoner, and Brian Worel 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.

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