Welcome

Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Thursday, October 10, 2024

the hostile identity

Once upon a time

In a country not that far away

A prophet came

Perhaps more than a prophet

Perhaps a God carrier

Perhaps Emmanuel, God with us

 

He came to a people

Who saw themselves as “God’s people”

Separate from others

From those unclean

 

It’s God and us against the world

And he promoted a new way

Yes, a way of change

 

A way in which one is washed clean

In the waters of repentance

 

He asked people to rethink everything

Including their hostility to the other

Their sense of separateness

 

He asked them to shift the way they treated those

Who were “not them” but were “other”

Not with hostility or resistance

But with kindness, generosity, empathy, and love (Luke 3)

 

This One helped people become new creations

And created a new way

A way of welcome, inclusion, and healing

 

And a tattered lot of misfits followed Him

And then

Those following him became “the church”

 

Which sadly,

instead of transforming the world, conformed with the world

and reclaimed the old formula

 

We are God’s people

God is hostile toward all who are not “us”

It is God and us against the world

 

And so our faith became marked by hostility

By confrontation

And exclusion

 

And hostility became hate

Hate led to many forms of violence

Spiritual

Emotional

Spiritual

 

This is not new

This is not the way of Jesus

 

This is exactly what Jesus has asked us to leave behind

The old way of separateness

And privilege

The old way of “us” and “them

 

Jesus calls us to solidarity

And reconciliation

To welcome and kindness

To generosity

 

We cannot baptize hate and bias

We cannot embrace control and coercion

Retribution and punishment

 

We must move instead from an oppositional identity (Brian McLaren)

To a benevolent, compassionate identity

 

Where we see ourselves not as different but as the same

Not as above but as equal

Not as separate, but as with

Not as against, but as “for”

 

This is not weakness

This is not compromise

This is difficult

So difficult that so very few have done it!

 

I want to have a compassionate identity

I don’t want to be the kind of follower

who is hostile

who sees others as enemies

who feels a need to dominate and control

 

I don’t want to embrace hate and violence

The way of lies and manipulation

And pretend it is the way of Jesus

 

I don’t want, in insecurity and fear

to hide behind hate

and pretend it is righteousness

 

I just want to follow

the way of fierce love

I want to follow Jesus


Monday, October 7, 2024

Today I go Down

John [the Baptist] defines the essential meaning [of Baptism] himself: he proclaims not a baptism of conformity, but a baptism of repentance, which means the radical, far-reaching rethinking of everything.

              Brian McLaren

_______________________________________________

 

It lies in front of me.

Not sparkling nor clean, but muddied

By the chaos of dirty human bodies

Wading into its murky depths,

By the filth of dirty feet and soiled souls

 

He stands

This prophet, crying “Prepare”

Prepare the way for the Lord

 

And he calls me into the water.

 

Down I go

Down into that brown gloomy river

Down until I am completely buried

Like a body in a tomb

 

Down, breathless, and sightless

Until I burst forth

Into the bright hot sun

 

I have been called to leave everything behind

My old identity

My old ideologies

My old comforts and my old distresses

My successes and my failures

My privilege, pride, and ego

 

It is like a new birth.

The end of so much, the beginning of so much more

 

It is not easy to leave behind

Those things we have fused to, those identities we have crafted

Who makes us who we are?

 

It is painful to leave privilege behind

And safety

And power

 

But all those must remain, there in that watery grave

Or we cannot rise

 

For this new birth is radical

It is a reversal of everything.

 

What was good becomes bad,

What was sketchy and unacceptable becomes good

 

It is good to be poor

Good to be meek

Good to be humble, and kind

Good to serve others

Good to suffer, perchance to die

 

It is not that I am called to embrace a new identity

As much as to lay down all the old identities that have always defined me

White

Professional

Democrat, Liberal, American

Winner (and loser too)

 

The good the bad the ugly

It all must be washed off as I immerse myself in Christ

Living now inside Christ

Looking with his eyes,

Feeling with his heart

 

For it is as I die to my old identities

That I am freed (now being “in” Christ)

To rise with Christ

 

A ferocious death giving birth

To fierce love

And the possibility of restoration, reconciliation

And a new life


Monday, September 30, 2024

Fundamentalism

I want to be a fundamentalist

Oh, don’t get me wrong

I don’t want to be a doctrinal fundamentalist

I don’t to be someone who cannot look beyond the words on paper fundamentalist.

 

I want to be a lifestyle fundamentalist  

A person who imitates Jesus

 

It is not an original idea.

Francis of Assisi, Thomas a‘ Kempis

Had it long before me

 

I should have figured it out long ago

When Jesus said “Come and follow me”

He really meant it

 

When he said “I am the way”

He really meant it.

 

Be like me

This is the way to live.

 

But it is so hard

I mean all that stuff about

Selling all I have and giving it to the poor

(shouldn’t they work harder?)

Welcoming the stranger

(aren’t they dangerous, and coming to steal what is mine?)

Praying for those who persecute me

(they aren’t praying for me, at least not praying good things for me)

 

All that stuff about

Turning the other check

(I need that gun to protect myself)

Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked

(there just isn’t enough to go around, right?)

 

I have my excuses

Why following is dangerous, foolish, ineffective

I mean sure Jesus said all that

But that seems too weak and naïve for a world like this!!

 

But Sacred Love is not interested in my excuses

Yes, the cross is an ending for a fool

Yes, this way is dangerous

And costly

And illogical, going against everything my culture has taught me

About success, winning, safety, and privilege

 

But fundamentally

It is the way

 

And if I ignore it

If we all ignore it

 

Well, we see how that works.

As suffering immigrants are demonized and deported

And the poor are neglected

And children are shot at school

And the rich just get richer

And candidates appeal to us using hate

 

So fundamentally Jesus

I want to be yours

And I want to follow you

And walk your way

 

And I will suck at it!

And I will stumble, maybe even fall.

 

But I pray, Jesus, that I can persist

And be your person,

fundamentally