Hope is complicated

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What’s the right thing to do?  What does this earth require of us if we want to live on it

          Wendell Berry

 

I don’t want your hope.  I don’t want you to be hopeful.  I want you to panic… and act as if the house is on fire because it is.

          Greta Thunberg

 

“Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute,” (Psalm 82:3).

 

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and please the widow’s cause,” (Isaiah 1:17).

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The world is burning

lightening like Devil forks rain down from the sky

igniting

forests gasping for water

 

people gather

not to worship or pray

but to scream rage and listen to rage

word salad

lies

promises of power and retribution

drop like pebbles

into empty hearts

heavy

leaving bent people

 

bullets fly

desperation and hopelessness

free floating anger

displaced

misplaced

as politicians duck and children die

 

some stand aside

and watch

powerful enough, rich enough

detached

content

powerful people don’t want regime change

rich people don’t want equity

the privileged don’t care about justice

 

and in this burning, dangerous world

sliding into chaos and destruction

we stand

 

hoping

 

Why?

Because God has this?

Because love wins?

Because someday, one day it will all be over

and we will walk streets of gold?

 

some dare to hope because they are shielded by privilege

some do not dare hope for anything

on this side of death

so look beyond

 

But is it that simple?

That God is in control,?

That resolution lies on “the other side”?

 

Hope is complicated (Brian McLaren, Life after Doom p. 73ff)

Hope cannot simply be “hope-ium… palliative care to the oppressed

between now and their death.” (p. 75)

 

Hope is not an anesthetic.

Hope is something we live.

 

It is fighting for justice and equity

feeding the hungry

giving water to the thirsty

It is resisting empire

and building community

 

It is the antithesis

of complacency

and despair

 

It is believing that we must do

what we can do

and that we can do

something

 

because we are Sacred Children

and in each of us

the Spirit has pitched a tent

and we are filled

to overflowing

 

Hope is seeing that the world is good

It is seeing God in the mountains

it is seeing God in the person next to us

it is believing that we can do small things

that matter

 

It is believing (as Brian McLaren puts it)

“We are really, really f@(ked  and at the same time that

life is really, really good”  p. 77

 

So today

I am going to have hope

and I am going to plot good

and then I am going to go to bed

and get up

and do it again!

 

(even if nothing changes)

 

 

 

Words of the Prophets

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The prophets spoke

cried out

screamed

 

as tyrants schemed

and empire flourished

and justice was denied

 

as inequity, inequity,

and the abuse of power became the norm

 

this must stop!

this is what the Lord requires of you

 

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah)

 

The prophets spoke

feeling the pain of the poor

seeing the neglect of the vulnerable

watching as the rich and power

treated the immigrants with disrespect

 

this must stop

 

“Woe to those who devise iniquity, and work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and take them by violence, also houses and seize them. So they oppress… “  (Micah)

 

The prophet spoke

and their words

echoed over empty cities

and broken walls

 

their words were blown aimlessly

through the ruins of palaces and sanctuaries

 

sometimes it is too late

sometimes the people will not listen

the people wanting power

the people comfortable in their affluence

the people blinded by resentment and fear

 

they do not listen

they do not hear

 

and they choose their doom

and it comes

inexorably

 

death

 

sometimes, it seems

things have to die to be born again

sometimes the new

can only be built out of the rubble of the old

 

So in this time

when tyrants are given immunity

criminals are protected

justice is denied

prejudice is promoted

violence is ignored

hate is nurtured

 

the words of the prophets echo

amongst the crumbling edifices of a failing state

and God insists

that God will not be mocked

 

We are reminded that we can cry Lord, Lord

and not do the will of God

That we can claim faith and deny it

 

In the days of the prophets

the very structures that were to promote God’s presence

denied God’s presence

The halls of Justice were the places where justice was denied

The halls of power abused and manipulated

 

In the days of the prophets

God was denied and the people suffered

 

The days of the prophets

are here

Belief Examined

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Faith is not belief unexamined

But belief born of deep thought…

 

Religion is not the captive of automated hearts

set to march in silent obedience

nor the museum of final thoughts

beyond which no questions are asked

 

it is the forum of the wise and wondrous,

the company of the healed and healers

the school of human imagination,

the blessed community of the Spirit

Gathered in the clear light of the open mind

          Steven Charleston,  Spirit Wheel, Broadleaf Books, p. 211

___________________________

 

There are those moments

when sadness falls like a winter night

shrouding joy

blurring the space between precious souls

 

We sit, companionably

siblings

in a comfortable space forged by a lifetime

 

and yet there is a disturbance rippling

born of ideologies disparate

that odd rippling that comes when certainty meets questioning

 

that comes when final thoughts are nestled

and questions no longer rise

to the lips

 

where assumptions are held

assumptions about God and faith

assumptions about the other

 

my questioning soul meets the certainty

of one who is settled in her place

rooted

not just in the land, but also in

the communities that exist in this slow space

nestled in the mountains

 

but my questing mind which challenges everything

forgets to challenge

its own conclusions

and I assume much

and my assumptions shatter the ties that bind

 

Clinging precariously to my sense of rightness

and my hurt and resentment too

officiously opining

I challenge their certainty and replace it

with my own

 

openness lost

paradise lost

 

until my certainty circles around

and confronts me

and my heart is broken

open

 

and one estranged becomes

again

one loved and valued

 

now and always

and in the rubble of that liminal space

understanding grows

and the old wineskins crack and break

and new wineskins are created to contain

 

love, and compassion, and

we find each other

Hope

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…God is [one] “who maketh the dead alive and calleth into being the things that are not.”  The spell of the dogma of hopelessness – ex nihilo nihil fit – is broken where the One who raises the dead is recognized to be God… In love, hope brings all things into the light of the promises of God.

          Jugen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

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the words are blurred

and cannot be read

tired eyes and a tired heart

cannot comprehend the fragile words of hope

 

ancient prophets may throw words of hope

into the air

casually, as if they were nothing

commonplace

 

But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,

I wait for God my Savior;

my God will hear me.

 

But for me, the words do not come

my voice is silent

 

Ah Micah!

 

did you not see the great devastation?

the cities ground into dust beneath the feet of the invaders?

 

did you not see corrupt leaders

lead your beloved country into captivity?

 

How?

How?!

could you look at

the greed and graft, the abandonment of good

the failure to “do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly”

and not despair?

 

How did you know

that unto us a child would be born

and live

and die

and live again?

 

how did you know that God

is the one who makes the dead alive

and calls into being that which is not?

 

Was it the sun rising in the east?

Was it the beauty of a summer sky?

Was it a still small voice, echoing in your soul?

Was it a faint murmuring in your heart?

 

It is not an easy task

bringing all things into the light of the promises of God

when we live with the “cross of the present”

and peer into the future

through the pall of authoritarianism, greed

global warming

racism, hate,

 

how, as we see our world

led by enmity and falsehood

and spiraling into chaos

and violence

can we still say  “I watch in hope?”

 

and live into the possibilities

 

Ah, Love

The Love which takes all pain upon itself

Ah Love

Hell is hopelessness

Do not let us enter the gates

 

Set our feet on another path

may we catch a glimmer of newness

so that we might walk through

another day

 

Oh God of the Exodus

and the resurrection

the one who makes all things new

 

God of the wanderer

of the lost

be with us this day

Just enough

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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

          Jonathan Swift

 

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You will know the Sacred Children

by the way, they love

 

You will know you are in the company of the transformed

because distinctions will disappear

There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

 

How did we ever get trapped into “Us and Them”

Why do we let the prophets of hate and division

separate us, one from another?

 

We are trapped, it seems, in the narratives of division

Domination: Us over them

Revolution: Us overthrowing Them

Assimilation: Us absorbing Them

Purification:  Us eliminating them

Competition:  Us competing with Them (for resources we deem inadequate)

 Victimization:  Us oppressed by Them

Isolation:  Us apart from Them (let’s build a wall!!)

          Thanks to Brian McLaren for this list.  Why did Jesus Moses, the Buddha and

Mohammed Cross the Road?

 

There is no longer Jew or Greek

Slave or free

Male and Female

In or Out

Righteous and Sinner

White or BIPOC

 

No longer

We are one

Drawn together by Love, to love

 

We are called not to be apart

but to be together so that

“all nations on earth will be BLESSED by you”

 

Not dominated

Not destroyed

Not used

Not abused

Not “corrected” and controlled

 

but BLESSED!

 

We are to be instruments of blessing

Not because we are better

Smarter

Wiser

More powerful

 

But because we are filled with Love

and that love spills over and is poured out

 

Love as yeast

permeating, changing, transforming

everyone

everything

 

until there is no longer an “Us” and “Them”

Just one people

The People of Love

 

Blessing each other

Giving and receiving

Returning to original blessing

Finding a way back to the Garden

 

 

This thing called Grace

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“One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.”

― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

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“I must try harder”

“I must do better”

“I have tried to live a good life”

“I hope I have been a good enough person to go to heaven”

 

So the litany goes on

And soon becomes

 

“you must try harder”

“You must do better”

 

Which soon becomes

 

“I am better”

You need to turn or burn

 

A so those who seek to follow

The compassionate, accepting and inclusive one

Become rigid and judgmental, and tired

 

and something critical is lost

grace

the heart of faith is lost

compassion

 

O Beloved One

May we rest our weary souls

May we be held secure in your love…

Like children

 

And may we

With the innocence and comfort of children

who know they are loved and safe

 

Open our hearts in love to those around us

No longer fearful

But welcoming

 

No longer angry

But compassionate

 

O beloved one

Help us reflect your parentage

And refuse to be seduced by power and wealth

Refuse to be drawn in by lies

Refuse to diminish and minimize others

Because of their social status, the color of their skin, their beliefs, their language,

their politics

 

Help us reflect your parentage and feed the hungry, seek justice for the oppressed

Help us reflect your parentage and clothe the naked

And treat others in ways that lift them up

 

Help us as those who are loved, lavishly

Forgiven lavishly

Gifted lavishly

 

To pass it on

 

This thing called grace

 

The curse of certainty

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… hopelessness can assume two forms.  It can be presumption, praesumptio, and it can be despair, desperato.  Both are forms of the sin against hope.  Presumption is premature self-will anticipation of the fulfillment of what we hope for from God.  Despair is the premature arbitrary anticipation of the non-fulfillment of what we hope for from God.

          Jurgen Moltmann

_______________________________

 

They are everywhere

Those confident and certain ones

Who ask for, and believe they have

By default

God’s blessing

 

God Bless America!

MAGA!

 

They know what they want.

And with the power of will

And God’s blessing, they willfully create the future

They hope for

 

A future when they win

Dominate

Control

Where all their resentments can be satisfied

And all their fear vanquished.

 

They presume God is on their side

And they act accordingly

Without constraint

Without compassion

 

God is our God

We are God’s people

We count

They don’t

 

Power is divinely given

and cannot, therefore, be abused

 

Thus we have the emergence

of a fascist movement

Thus we have overt manipulation (when possible)

of all systems, economic, political, and judicial

 

Presumption

 

And then there are so many

of the rest of us

caught up in hopelessness and despair

all too certain

that God is going to be a no-show

 

That God, as so often happened in history

will simply not help bring into reality

equity

equality

justice

compassion

 

Despair

resignation

withdrawal

faded hope

 

We anticipate that we will lose

and we become caught up in

fight and flight

or, more likely, freeze

 

During COVID my church sought to move

from “lament to hope”

now we are seeking to “live into hope”

but it feels like we are sliding backward from hope to lament

 

How do we actually reclaim hope?

We cannot, certainly, have hope for the wrong things

those things defined by human will

We cannot have an unrealistic hope

so idealistic that it will not, perhaps, ever be

a hope that is perfectionistic and unobtainable

 

how often do we see progress rejected

and things that are good denied

because they are not “enough”

 

What we need to hope for is a world

in which those things that are Love

That are God

rule

 

Where the hungry are fed

the naked clothed

the oppressed set free

the thirsty given water to drink

 

These are possibilities (are they not)

and hope is constantly moving toward what is possible

Hope (Moltmann says)

is not striving “after things that have “no place”

but after things that have “no place YET”

 

But we have the belief

that they can

and yes,

they will

 

We have faith in the one

who make all things new

 

Right now hope is hard

the presumptive have the rest of us despairing

 

So it comes down to this

do we believe that God will simply let whatever

the presumptive human will determines happen?

Do we believe, based upon not just this moment, but also the past

 

prematurely

that what we hope for will be denied

 

or do we dare believe that somehow, in some way, at some time

God will make things new?

 

Tonight, for me

the answer is too close to call

 

But I want to,

I really do,

live into hope

How do we flourish?

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Thinking this morning about domination-style faith systems

I am in Salt Lake City

Right across the street from the Temple

For a national meeting (General Assembly) of my denomination,

The Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA)

Which is decidedly NOT in the domination mold

 

I remember the mothership of the PCUSA

A very nice, although not huge building in Louisville, Kentucky

And I compare that to the center of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

 

This could be the Capital of a nation!

It stretches for 5 or 6 city blocks. Large blocks

Filled with large impressive buildings

Amazing landscaping

 

I am wandering around on a Sunday morning

And am watching the men in their black pants and white shirts

Headed (I assume) for the Tabernacle

Women too

But mostly men

 

And I am thinking back to yesterday, as I rode the train in from the airport

The car was filled with young people, all headed to some sort of youth meeting

(college age I think)

We had a delightful conversation with a delightful young woman

Who was friendly, polite, articulate, warm, engaging

Everything you would want in a young adult

 

And totally on fire for her church

 

I am only “around” Mormonism

It is not a huge presence where I live, a stone's throw from Idaho

Where it is a huge presence

But it is around

 

And I think about its emphasis

On family

On the high demands it places on its people

To participate in the life of the church

 

I think about its very hierarchical structure

And about the control the church exerts over its families

And the control the parents exert over their children

 

And I contrast that to the approach I see in most Presbyterian churches

And families

Sure, there are authoritarians in our denomination

I have met a few

 

But over the years we have evolved into a system

That is egalitarian

We have the ministry of all believers

We have families where children have a voice

And we have

For good or ill

Pretty low expectations

 

We don’t exert a lot of control

We teach independence

We encourage our children to think, to question

And challenge

 

I am mostly OK with this

But I think about our churches

 

In my generation (I am 73, raised in the 50’s early 60s)

Church attendance was expected

The son of a doctor whose own father was a Mennonite minister

Being in Sunday School and Worship was not an option

 

I loved Sunday School

And your group (as I got older) was fun

And the leaders (my parents included) compassionate

And helpful

 

But now?

I wonder?

There are so many other things happening on Sunday morning

From sports to 4H (yes, really)

To family outings

 

My children are now the parents.

And they, if not antagonistic to ‘church”

Are not involved

 

They are wonderful human beings,

Raising wonderful human beings

 

But they are not part of the church

And they are not involving their children in the church

They are spiritual (I think)

But church is not a thing

 

And this is where we are at in the more “progressive” denominations

 

It makes me wonder

I remember the old scripture quote

We used to hear so often

 

Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray (Proverbs 22:6)

 

I don’t want to be part of an authoritarian system

I don’t want to be coercive

I don’t want to exert tight control using power, authority

And yes, fear

 

I don’t want a system where people are told not to think

Not to challenge

To simply believe and obey

I don’t want a religion that demonizes education

 

I know the damage such systems can do

I see the trauma

I watch people as they leave such systems

and go through a process of deconstruction

 

But I wish we had more young families participating

More young voices singing, shouting, laughing

In our sanctuaries

 

How does one make that happen?

Without coercion and control?

 

I would like to think if our faith is genuine

If we have spiritual energy

If the Holy Spirit is running loose

And Jesus in unbound

And the power is present

 

I would like to think that if our worship

Helped people experience, remember the sacred presence

And gave them energy, and love, and hope

 

I would like to think that if we were finding ways

To do life a different way

If we were living out our faith

Loving, caring, forgiving, including

 

That if we were feeding the hungry,

Clothing the naked,

Housing those without homes,

Protecting those who are oppressed,

Fighting injustice,

Welcoming all in the love of Christ,

 

That would do it!

 

We have certainly tried.

But here we are,

A struggling denomination.

 

900 and some people

Sheltering in the shadow of mighty edifices

Watching the faithful obey

Seeing the impact of obedience

 

And seeking our own way forward

Our last meeting the theme was “From Lament to Hope”

This time the theme is “Live into Hope”

 

Are we living into hope?

 

How do we do that?

I hope we figure it out.

I hope we “catch fire”

 

I hope for the sake of my tiny congregation

(for which I have been temporary supply for 17 years)

And my tiny Presbytery (Eastern Oregon)

And my ever smaller but beloved denomination (PCUSA)

 

That we can figure out

How to create energy and excitement

How to create followers of Jesus

How to make people who reflect the image of God

Our God of Love

 

I hope we can do that.

Without buying into the domination paradigm

But instead live out the servant paradigm

And call people through lament

(not away from lament, we always need lament)

Into hope

 

Into a faith

That helps make the Kin-dom of God real,

 

Here

Right now!

In this faltering and failing world

In this divided and angry country

 

I really do want to

Live into Hope

Blessed are the Mournful

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Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. —Matthew 5:4

 

"... Jesus is describing the state of those who weep, who have something to mourn about. They feel the pain of the world. Jesus is saying that those who can grieve, those who can cry, are those who will understand.

 

...In this Beatitude, Jesus praises the weeping class, those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to extract themselves from it. Weeping over our sin and the sin of the world is an entirely different mode than self-hatred or hatred of others. The “weeping mode” allows us to carry the tragic side, to bear the pain of the world without looking for perpetrators or victims. Instead, we recognize the sad reality in which both sides are trapped. Tears from God are always for everybody, for our universal exile from home. “It is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted” (Jeremiah 31:15). "

_____________________________

 

Don’t cry!

Real men don’t cry!

There’s no crying in baseball!

 

Tears are for the weak

Some believe

For those who are not strong

 

Bullies don’t cry!

Winners don’t (usually) cry

Only the oppressed

Only the losers

 

Yet Jesus wept

He wept in public

He wept over human loss (John 11)

He wept over the spiritual blindness of a nation (Luke 19)

 

It takes strength to weep

for it takes strength to touch the pain of the world

It takes more strength to take on another’s pain

Then it does to ignore it

 

It takes more strength to forgive

Then it does to reject, deride, or punish

 

It takes more strength to work with those

Who are addicted

Mentally wounded

Stuck in old patterns

Immersed in poverty

 

Than it does to hang around with

the rich

the comfortable

the winners

 

Jesus wept

And for us?

This is a time for weeping

To join servant Jesus in embracing and weeping

For the pain of the world

 

We need to weep

When lies are spoken (and believed)

When bullies tyrannize and gloat

When addiction wins

And wars rage

 

We need to weep

When illness strikes

And children die

 

When bombs fall and bullets fly

 

And weep too

When racism flourishes

And the poor are demonized and abandoned

 

It takes strength

To look the world in the face

To see it as it is

To allow ourselves to be bowed by the sin of the world

 

It takes strength to look at ourselves

and see ourselves as we really are

and embrace our own sin

our own anger, and hate, greed and bias

 

It takes strength to weep

And this is a time to be strong

 

For only in the strength of our tears

Will the world be redeemed

 

__________________________

 

He was despised and rejected by others;

    a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity,

and as one from whom others hide their faces[b]

    he was despised, and we held him of no account.

 

Surely he has borne our infirmities

    and carried our diseases,

yet we accounted him stricken,

    struck down by God, and afflicted.

 

But he was wounded for our transgressions,

    crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

    and by his bruises we are healed.

                                  Isaiah 53

Stories of God

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They are just stories

The Garden of Eden

Cain and Able

Noah and the flood

The Tower of Babel

 

And yet

As the very human writers of the Bible

Spin their tales

An ever-clearer picture of what Sacred is like

Emerges, slowly

 

From a primitive God who punishes

And wipes the slate clean

To a God who works through human creatures

To bring forth a better society

 

I love the story of the Tower of Babel

Where human ambition meets God’s love of equity and equality

Where God

“refuses to support a pyramid economy

With a few at the top and the masses at the bottom” (Brian McLaren)

 

I love how from the beginning

God reveals God’s self as One who prefers

Equity over privilege

Equality over dominance

Peace over violence

Justice over injustice

 

From those early stories

Through the times of the prophets

To that revelation of God’s nature

That is Jesus

 

We see the thread of God challenging the human status quo

God, repeatedly disrupting the way things are,

To create a new thing

Something better

 

We see a God who opposes oppressors,

Lifts up the oppressed and the poor

Sides with the humble

Advocates for the vulnerable

For the orphan and the widow

The leper and the sinner

 

Nothing has changed

God is still the God of the small

The vulnerable

The excluded

 

God is still One who challenges the status quo

And refuses to accept our pyramid economy

Which creates obscene wealth and homelessness

 

And yet

Too many of us want to hang on to the status quo

We want a world in which some people (us) dominate

And other people (them) are controlled and used

 

We want to exclude those who make us uncomfortable

Because they are a different color

Speak a different language

Hold to a different Creed

 

Because they are queer

Or, in some other way

Don’t fit into our definition of acceptable

 

O God

We want to follow

But we are in over our heads

Our sin, as the Psalmist says,

Is ever before us

 

In that person we have judged and excluded

Or sought to control (for our convenience)

In that choice we have made to support the status quo

To walk the path of dominance

 

Help us O Holy One

Help us to rethink everything

Help us to see people in a different way

Help us to live life in a different way

 

Transform us

So we can help to transform the world

And join you

“in the good and beautiful things you are doing

To write a better story” (McLaren, Seeking Aliveness, p. 39)

 

 

 

Grief

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Grief, the feeling of loss has 1,000 dimensions in this time of doom, grief for the simplicity of the old life before doom moved in.  Grief for the old normal when we assumed our economy was innocent, benevolent, and sustainable. Grief for the loss of our confidence in politicians, institutions, technology, or even democracy being able to protect us. Grief for the paradises paved up to put up parking lots. Grief for beautiful creatures becoming endangered, or extinct.  Grief for the loss of wild and green places. Grief for our children because of the unstable climate we’re leaving them. Grief for what we could have done but didn’t. And grief for all the beauty that will be desecrated between this point and the endpoint…  So much grief.

          Brian McLaren

________________________________________

 

I wake up each morning and I grieve

It is like a bitter pill caught in my throat

A sad memory

Playing in an endless loop in my brain

 

It is an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach

And aching in my bones

 

It is a hole in my heart

A chasm in my soul

 

I wake each morning and I grieve

The disappointments

The mistakes

My own failures and sin

 

I wake each morning and I grieve

The loss of innocence, and comfort

The loss of joy

I grieve the easy, careless days of childhood

The time when I could honestly say

“I am proud to be an American”

 

I grieve the loss of dreams

Now buried in the hate and fear that surround me

And in the detritus of my own failure

 

I need my grief

It is a cry of the heart

It is a whisper of resistance

 

It is my unwillingness to accept the way things are

 

I wake each morning and I grieve

and lifting my eyes unto the hill

seek to live hope

This is the day

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This is the day when things change for the better

When the healing begins

When hope returns like a long-lost friend.

 

This is the day when peace breaks out

When people start coming to a reasonable compromise

When common sense and the common good

Finally get their chance to be heard

 

This is the day when the breakthrough happens

When old hearts become young again

When laughter can be heard once more

 

Of all the days when miracles can start to happen

When love can start to grow

When your life can be touched by a great blessing

Why not now, why not here, why not this day?

          Steven Charleston

__________________________________________

 

Can this be the day?

When things change?

When hope rises?

 

How does that happen, in times like these?

How does that happen as hate rises

And anger and resentment fuels violence

And greedy souls abandon people for profit.

 

How does it happen?

My soul screams the question

 

And then the One who dwells in me

And the One in whom I dwell

Whispers

 

Open to Love

Allow love in

Let it fill you to overflowing

 

And then leak Love

 

And even if the world around you

Is chaos

There will be love

And peace

And joy

And hope

 

In your soul

 

“Though outwardly we are wasting away,

 Yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day”

 

Miracles happen all around us – sometimes

But the biggest miracles happen

Within

 

The world may not change much

People will still vote for the unworthy

The rich will still get richer, and the poor will get poorer

Cancer will still show up

An uninvited guest

 

But we will be changed

And our relationship to chaos, changed

And our perspective, changed

And our responses, changed

 

And this will be the day

Here and now

eschatology

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Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.

          Jurgen Moltmann

__________________________

 

The Christian Faith

Is hope

 

But hope for what?

One wonders

 

There is that all-pervasive hope

Of resurrection

Of rescue

That has congealed around a fear of eternal torment

 

This is a hopeless hope

That leads us to creep through life

Afraid

 

Afraid of failing

Afraid of others

Afraid of God

Afraid of everything

 

We slink along, looking over our shoulders

Regretful

Peering forward

Fretful

Trying not to offend the Sacred

Trying to please God

 

We are not free but burdened

By creeds and rituals and rules

We are not open but closed

To change

We are not welcoming but protective

Excluding equaling safety

We are not loving but hateful

 

Hoping that at the end of this dysfunctional journey

There will be rest at last

Safety at last

 

Is it not instructive that when Jesus came

He blew apart the system?

 

That he came with a new way of thinking about God

A new way of looking at other people

A new way of doing life?

 

We have separated eschatology

The final destiny of this world

The final destiny of our individual souls

From “this side of the end” (Moltmann)

 

This world is hopeless

We are hopeless

The only hope is somehow outside of history

On the other side of “the end”

 

But our hope is not just about some existence

Beyond this life

Some world beyond this world

 

It is about NOW

It is about being “forward looking and forward moving”,

and

“therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.”

 

It’s about more

More grace

More life

More inclusion

More generosity

More love

 

How have so many gotten it so wrong

And made it about less

 

The Nature of God

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… Despotic theology.. leads directly to despotic theocracy.  Tyrannical Gods breed tyrannical humans, and vice versa.

          Richard Kearney quoted by Brian McLaren

_____________________________

 

Our God

Is

 

But what is God like?

 

It’s confusing, really

 

We say God is great

We say God is good

We say God is love (and loving)

 

But we also say God is demanding

At times angry

Wrathful

 

We say God is over all

And then we claim God as our own

 

We claim that God tells us how to live

And we have our lists

Of what is good, and what is bad

What is righteous and what is sin

 

Which soon becomes a list of who is righteous

And who is sin

 

But is our God, God?

 

The cynical suggest God is simply

A figment of our imaginations

An extension of our egos

 

They suggest that we do not reflect who God is

But that our God reflects who we are

 

And that God is merely our excuse

Our justification

 

For our desire, our need

To control

To dominate

To punish

 

Which comes first?

A cruel God, or cruel people?

 

Is God a jerk?

Or have we created a God in our own flawed image?

Does God transform who we are

Or reflect who we are?

 

God is

But if Jesus is an indication

Then God is

Inconvenient

Disruptive

Challenging

 

If Jesus is any indication

Then God is

Forgiving

Kind

Loving

Restorative

Healing

 

God is

But we do not allow God to be

God

 

And so we hate

And judge, and oppress

And minimize and marginalize

 

And go to war

 

We crucify God with our fear and hate

We bury God in our constructs

In our ideologies and creeds, our rituals and rules

 

We need a resurrection

 

We need to have God show up in our lives

Incarnate

Present

 

We need to have God show up

And disrupt our lives

And change our priorities

 

And transform us

Into people

Who forgive and restore

Who give, generously

Who welcome unreservedly

Who fight for justice and equity

 

Who love radically

 

For that is who God is

 

Christ in us. Or, are we "in Christ"?

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Sometimes we think about Christ dwelling in us

It’s a nice thought

The idea of the sacred camping out in our souls!

 

The secret is this !!!

Christ in us

 

But more often than not Paul (and others)

Talk about us being in Christ

 

It’s an interesting dichotomy

Is it more a matter of the transcendent being imminent,

or is it a matter of us participating in

becoming one with

something massively bigger than ourselves?

 

There is a danger in the first concept

Jesus and me!!

Jesus in me

Jesus is mine

It’s all about me!

 

I know we don’t have to go there

But we do!

 

We hear it all the time.

“It could have been awful, but it turned out good!  That’s MY God.”

Yep, God came in and took care of things for me!!

 

There is truth in the reality that the Sacred makes a difference.

But I struggle with the idea

That Sacred chooses to help one person and abandon another

Faith seems to have nothing to do with it.

 

Good faithful people have horrible things happen to them

Awful people flourish.

 

Is it a private collaboration?

 

Or think about the phrase that is often uttered

Sometimes shouted

“God Bless America”

 

God bless US

God bless ME

There is something wrong here.

 

Something that takes us (thank you Brian McLaren)

Into the world of US

It’s us (God and us) against the world!

 

God is in us

With us

For us

And therefore we are protected, blessed, empowered

 

And you?

Not so much

Not if you aren’t one of US

 

How soon we forget it is not about US

Not about our wisdom or righteousness

Not about our creeds

 

It is about Jesus

Who is in ALL, and over ALL

 

And so perhaps it is better to think of Being in Jesus

To see ourselves as participating in something greater

To have our own little (teeny, tiny) selves broken open

Expanded

 

We are part of a whole

All creation

All people

 

We are in Christ

And thus we not only participate in Christ

But in one another

 

It is like a spiritual “big bang”

Where our souls go “boom”

And newness happens

And reality expands outward

And just keeps getting bigger and bigger

 

World without end

Amen

 

I love the idea of being “in Christ”

More than the idea of being “in Christianity”

Or “in Islam” or “in Judaism”

Or

 

(thanks again to Brian McLaren in Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road)

 

Yes Christ comes to me

But comes not to merely camp out in my soul

But to break open my soul

 

So that I am open not only to God,

But to all those around me

 

McLaren quotes a Jewish friend who was reflecting on the current situation between Israel and the Palestinians.  He believed that Jesus came to the Jews and that the church was born among Jews.  But that some, in wisdom, understood that Jesus came to blow apart the walls that divide, and thus the faith moved out of the confines of Judaism. 

 

But the key lines in this Jew’s missive were these:  “Jesus as a Jew came as a reformer, as one challenging who “Us” had become.  So that’s why we need Jesus today.  I mean we Jews need Jesus.  Not to become Christians but to become better Jews”

 

I think we need to be in Jesus

To be better Christians too

 

We’ve got too much “me”

Too much “us” in our faith

 

This faith pushes us out of our safe little rooms

Out of our armed encampments

Into the world

 

The Spirit, like wind and fire

Drives us out

To intermingle with all

Welcome all

Work with all

Love all

 

Do I believe Christ is in me?

Yes

But more, I believe I am in Christ

That the Sacred presence I experience connects me

Irrevocably,

To all others

 

And that I must move beyond a concept of “US”

That denies that Jesus is

Over all and through all and in all

 

So help us

God