Beyond belief

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We must distinguish between our beliefs and how we live – our operative faith.  Beliefs are ideas in the head, cognitive expressions, maps of the world, our best conceptualizations of how things are, our credos.  Faith is in the gut and the heart; it is trust in action, a disposition to behave as if something were true…

          Sam Keen, HymnsTo An Unknown God

 

Don’t talk of love, show me.

          Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady

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The Bible says,

The Creeds insist,

I believe

 

A lot of us, it seems,

Believe

We hold in that somewhat vacuous space in our heads

Notions of a God

 

We might be right,

We might be wrong

But we believe

 

And we hold on to those beliefs tightly

Desperately

As the winds of change buffet us,

As the world threatens to suck us into its maw

And consume us

 

Faith, that is a different thing.

Faith moves beyond our desires and fears

Into the kingdom of trust

 

If we believe in God, but do not trust God

We will be fearful hoarders

We will walk through life defending

Grimly hanging on to things past

Traditions

 

And worse

Entrenched biases

Old patterns that do not work

 

Because belief without faith

Leaves us fearful

 

We are afraid of failure or losing

Worried that we did not do enough

Cannot do enough

Do not have enough

 

Life is trying to follow the rules

And looking over our shoulder at

Retributive people

And a vengeful God

 

But if we have faith, if we trust

That God has this

That God has us

 

We are freed

To catch the joy as it flies

To take risks,

To give, and forgive

To welcome

To love

 

We live faith

Faith is what we do

It is living life forward

 

Living as if

The kingdom is near

Already, almost, here

 

Belief without trust is a burden.

Belief, powered by faith and trust

Is Gospel

 

This is the question we must ask

As we wake and face another day

 

Do I have faith?

Do I trust God enough

To live as though Love wins,

Each and every day?

 

Where is God?

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          The God of the people of Palestine…appeared to be weak compared with other gods. He seemed forever to be on the losing end, just like his people.  This God was almost interchangeable with his people; his weakness was shown in theirs, and their defeat was his.  This God was a loser…in short, this God did not appear to be up to the challenge of the various empires.  His people in Palestine were forced to hear the mocking voices of their neighbors who taunted them, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42)

          The revelation the people of Palestine received was the ability to spot God where no one else was able to see him.  When his people were driven as slaves into Babylon, they witnessed him accompanying them… When his people were defeated, he was also present.  The salient feature of this God was that he didn’t run away when his people faced their destiny, but remained with them….

          …defeat in the face of empire was not an ultimate defeat; a new beginning was possible.

 

Believing that there is something more powerful than Empire is an important and necessary step to questioning it.

          Mitri Raheb: Faith in the face of Empire

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Where is God?

Where is your God?

 

Is your god the god of Empire

Found in monuments and massive ballrooms

Found in a rising stock market?

In mansions and megachurches

 

Is your god Empire?

Is your god wealth and power

Does your god abide in the halls of power?

 

Is your god the god of the winners

The powerful

Those who have dominion?

 

Or is your God beyond Empire?

Is your God found in unexpected places?

Showing up in unexpected ways??

 

Where has God been found?

 

In a small band of Semitic people who had

No land, no home?

 

In a group of rescued slaves

vacillating and doubtful?

 

In a land not so flowing

With milk and honey

 

An occupied land,

The battlefield of empires?

 

Yes!

 

Where has God been found?

In a squalling child of poverty

An immigrant king

A “domestic terrorist” hanging on a tree?

 

Yes!

 

Where is God now?

Where, if we look, can God be found?

 

God is not in the White House

Or in the halls of Congress

God is not hanging out at the Supreme Court

 

Nor is God to be found at patriotic rallies, replete with

American flags, loud proclamations of divine favor,

and bad music

 

Nor is God found in the masked forces of empire

lurking in the streets, creating havoc and fear

Nor in the copies of the 10 commandments

hanging on classroom walls

 

God is there in the ravaged streets of Minneapolis

In the woman blowing her whistle

In the man wielding only a cell phone

In massed people singing songs of love

 

God is in the abandoned car with the smashed windshield

And in the detention center

filled with battered brown people

 

God is there in that bewildered child

wondering where her father has gone, what has happened to his mother?

 

God is in the blood stains on the pavement.

 

God is in the field where farmworkers toil

In the kitchen of a restaurant

 

God is found serving meals,

repairing roofs,

and caring for the landscapes of mansions

 

God is found in the slaves of Empire

In the least of these

 

God is not where we expect

God is not who we envision

 

But God is

God does not run

But remains

always

 

Can we not see

The lesson today is love

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… religion didn’t create hate, hate found voice in religion

          John Fugelsang

 

The politics of Jesus and the politics of God are that people should be fed, that people have access to life, that people should be treated equally and justly.

          Rev. James Lawson Jr.

 

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The Word of the Lord

The Word of God for the people of God

The Word of the Lord to us

 

Really?

 

There is a reason Jesus asked the question

“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I say?”

 

Or perhaps the better question is

Why do we take the words of the Bible

And use them in a way that violates the very nature of God

As revealed in Jesus

 

Who is, after all

The Word

 

Why do people hear the words from the Word

“Love thy neighbor.”

And immediately ask if their neighbor is “legal.”

 

Nuke, in the movie Bull Durham, reflecting on baseball, says,

"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.”

 

Jesus, the Word, in reflecting on the jumble of words contained in the Law and the Prophets, said,

“This is a very simple faith.  You love God, you love yourself in a healthy way, and then you go out and love the people around you.  All of them.  Keep it simple.”

 

 

But we human creatures have muddled it up.

 

God says, “Welcome all.”

We say, “You’re welcome, IF.”

 

God says, “It is not about merit, it is about grace.”

We create a merit-based system

 

God says, “Love all.”

We don’t

(well at least I don’t)

 

God says, “I love you.”

We say, “I wonder if I have been good enough for God to love me.”

 

God says, “Feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, house the homeless, welcome, comfort and take care of the stranger (the way I have welcomed, comforted and taken care of you),” and all too many of us, and an entire political party say, “Mass Deportations Now.”

 

God says, “Suffer the little children to come to me.”

Which means “there is a special place for children in  the heart of God, so draw them close, protect, nurture, teach and love them”

 

And we say “I think it is worth some children (maybe a lot of children) so that we can have the Second Amendment.

And we detain five year olds

And take away SNAP funding

And kill USAID, thus killing (so it is estimated) 500,000 children in one year.

 

Death by neglect

 

Instead of saying “God forgive us” as hate, division and violence swirl

We say “They should have obeyed.” 

And we turn people into “domestic terrorists”

 

It seems as if what God asks of us is simple

But not easy

 

Speaking of children…

 

Jesus also said, “Become like little children, or you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

The kingdom will never come,

Until we let God love us, comfort us, feed us, teach us, embrace us

The way the “best parent ever” loves their little child

(That is even hard to imagine, because we have messed parenting up too)

 

And until with the simplicity of a child

We keep it simple

 

And love God, have a healthy love of self, and then o out and love the people around us.  All of them.