The Path Jesus Chose

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It is easy to get hooked into talking about the evil I see happening around me

It feels important to point it out.  After all, we have a huge number of people who have decided to trust people who lie and twist the facts, who push hate in the name of supremacy (and even Jesus), and who carefully nurture fear.

 

We have a government that is extremist, controlling, and determined to grab all the money and power it can, no matter what the cost is to truth, freedom, compassion, and love.

 

And there is a side of me that wants to call out what I see as violating God. 

And there is a lot of that.  A frightening amount.

 

But I keep remembering that Jesus chose the path to the cross.

The path of love and non-violence.  And while he called people out, mostly those who were being oppressive in the name of God, he did not, for the most part, attack.

 

Instead he loved.  The dialogued.  He provided an alternative way of thinking, seeing, and yes, living. 

 

Paul picked up on this when he said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  A high calling.  I feel that all too often I am indeed overcome by the evil that flows like a never-ending stream.  And I respond in kind.

 

So how do we fight evil?  Perhaps we fight it by constantly putting out there what it looks like not to be evil.  What does it look like to be good?

 

To me, we have to be for those things that value each human being as a child of God

We have to be for those things that give all people a chance to live out their full potential.

We have to be for those things, then, that create equity, equality, justice, and people.

We have to be for those things that comfort the afflicted and set the prisoner free.

 

Being for those things is not always safe

It is not always beneficial to us.  Sometimes there is a cost.

But no cost we can pay would be higher than the cost paid by Jesus.

“No greater love is there than this, than to lay down one's life for one's friends.

 

And so we are called to love those around us, our neighbors

And who is our neighbor (remember the parable of the Good Samaritan)

 

Everyone

 

So I have to be for the immigrant.  The person born LGBTQI+.  The person who is poor, mentally ill, and aged.  To those who are vulnerable in any way.  I even have to be for those who have been programmed to believe that might makes right, and the one who dies with the most money wins.

 

So how does this work?

When I read that the administration that is has decided to dismantle all programs that monitor climate change, I have to respond by reminding people that creation is sacred.   It is the incarnation of Sacred, and that by encouraging people to support anything that protects our planet.

 

When a choice is made to arrest immigrants and put them in concentration camps, I have to keep bringing up the command of God to welcome the stranger.

 

I need to know WHY I am against what ICE is doing, and why I am against us supporting wars, and why I am against racism, and why I am against cutting programs that help the vulnerable.  I am against those things because they are a violation of the Sacred.

 

They are against the way God showed us in Jesus.

 

The trick is to do that by advocating for good, fighting for good, without slipping into hate.  It is OK, I think, to be angry, but not to get pulled into the endless cycle of enmity and violence.

 

I encourage us all to really think about what Jesus taught

I want us all to remember how Jesus lived and died

 

Jesus is an example of how we all should live

He embodies the values we all should have

We cannot abandon the way of good in our attempt to get rid of what is not good.

 

I know this sounds foolish.  But then the cross was foolish.

 

I am not saying I can do it, but I am saying I want to try

Because we know that if we fight fire with fire, everything is consumed

 

My beloved English Professor at Whitman, Thomas Howell, once said to us (this was in the early 70s, so think Vietnam, Civil Rights, et. al) 

 

“When civilization is working at cross-purposes with human nature (which he saw as good, we are created in the image of God after all), you have real problems.  Your generation knows this.  What remains to be seen is if you can keep your tempers long enough to do something about it.”

 

God, grant me patience and compassion.

Grant me the strength not to rely on the power of the system, the power of money, the power of power,

But to rely on the power of love

No matter how hard

No matter what it costs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting back to "Yes"

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All I am now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through

Learning this patience – it takes so much patience

It’s a great education

But why is the tuition so High?

Why God, why?

          Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality

_____________________________________________

 

 

I watch as people like "Dr" Oz and RFJ Jr. spew inaccuracies.  While people like MarkWayne and Mr Mortgage Guy take over critical services they know nothing about.  I listen to tRump and JD and Rubio lie.  I suffer while Huckabee spews Zionist nonsense.  I read the comments of the MAGA faithful as they talk about "true American culture" (white, European-based) and about immigrant "trash."

 

I see America kill kids by shooting missiles at them, or denying them healthcare and food via funding (USAID).  I see us support genocide and apartheid.

 

I watch us dismantle systems that reveal the truth about what we are doing to the planet, like the Oceanic Observatories Initiative, to save 48 million a year, while we spend a billion a day blowing up things in Iraq (and losing).

 

I see our current government destroy the agencies that serve people while bankrolling the agencies that control and abuse people. 

 

I see all the ugliness that permeates our country from the top (Trump) to the bottom (the MAGA faithful on FB, Threads, and Truth Social).

 

And I hate it.

 

Brian McClaren talks about the fact that sometimes we end up in what he calls the “season of perplexity.”  Times when there is “no winning.  There are no solutions, answers, or consolations in sight…”

 

This may be such a time.

The words for perplexity are when, no, and why

 

When will it end?

No, this is not right!  No.  You should not allow this to happen, O Sacred One.  No, this person should not flourish.  What the…..

 

Sometimes we pray with Meister Eckhart, “God save me from god.”

 

Why?  I do not understand.  OK, perhaps I understand that some of these people who are causing this are those who, in order to gain the world, have lost their souls, who are no longer who they were created to be: people, children of God, creatures reflecting God’s image.  Trump.  JD Vance.  Lutnick.  Musk. So many of the MAGA leadership.  They know what they are doing is wrong.  They don’t care (IMHO).

 

There are those who have just been seduced by power and wealth and are being used by the evil ones.  Poor MarkWayne.  He doesn’t have a clue (IMHO, it's all just how I see it).

 

There are those who may actually believe the garbage they are spewing.  RFK Jr., maybe.

 

There are those who are misled, misinformed, ignorant, programmed, acculturated.  All those White Nationalist Christians programmed by intense White Nationalist preachers who have left the Gospel of Jesus far, far behind.  Those who watch FOX, and OAN, and all the others.

 

There are those who for whatever reason, perhaps fear, choose to see what they want to see.  That the butt naked Emperor has clothes, that Trump is strong, sane, mentally with it, effective, and the greatest President ever, like never before.

 

All I know is that it sucks the life out of me.  The joy out of everything.

 

I am tired of “no”

I want to get back to “yes”

 

I want to be in that place where, in the midst of the fury, doubt and feelings of abandonment, I sense that God is, and reach the point where even in the midst of it all,

I catch glimpses of sacred, of love

 

And so this morning, and every morning, I say the words from a 15^th century prayer book.

 

God be in my head, and in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;

God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;

God be in my heart, and in my thinking;

God be at mine end, and at my departing.

 

God, be

 

 

 

Interupt injustice

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Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.

          Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

____________________________

 

I am sick of injustice.

If the creator wants anything for the created

It is justice

 

Love would be nice too.

And peace

We all want world peace

 

But there is no peace without justice

And justice is loved lived out

Institutionalized

Systemized

 

Justice is evasive

Perhaps rare

 

It is when all things are equal

When everyone is treated the same way

When things are fair,

morally right, and have spiritual integrity

 

It is complicated

Very

 

Aristotle more than two thousand years ago

Said that justice is the principle that

"equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally.”

 

Well crap

 

Apparently adjustments have to be made

Because some people have privilege

And some people have been systematically oppressed

 

And justice is not just about creating rules

That contain, control, and perhaps protect

It is not just about creating consequences for those who behave

Poorly

 

But it can also be distributive and restorative

Correcting wrongs

Adjusting for privilege, or the lack of privilege

 

Justice is about interrupting injustice

It is a society, a culture,

Looking at prejudice, oppression, and worse

And saying “this stops here.”

 

But interrupting injustice is a tricky thing

It must be done with care

 

Yes, we need to create relief for those who have suffered injustice

But we must do so without creating a new version of injustice

 

We so easily slide into a justice that is retributive

That seeks not just to relieve, but to punish

Then the oppressor becomes the oppressed and the oppressed the oppressor

And we have gained little (except a switch in roles)

 

True justice heals

It restores

It reconciles

Justice is embodied in the peaceable kingdom of God

Justice heals systems

It also heals souls, and relationships

 

True justice changes the rules,

It changes systems

But above all it changes people

 

Until the vision of Isaiah becomes more than a dream.

With Martin Luther King Jr., we must all have a dream

 

The dream of a world where,

 

“The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

the calf and the lion will feed[b] together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11)

 

May we be the ones who faithfully and arduously

Interrupt injustice

So that justice

May roll like a river

And righteousness like an everlasting stream (Amos)