Giving up is not all bad

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For Lent this year, I’m just giving up.

          Source Unknown

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Lent is a slow walk with Jesus

Down dusty roads

Through small villages

 

Gathering around tables

Puzzling over parables

Challenged by terrifying teachings

And totally crazy parables that we barely understand

 

Watching the inexplicable

As the lame walk and the blind see

 

Where up is down and out is in

And dead

Is not

 

Stumbling toward Jerusalem

And ground-zero

Where violence, reconciliation

Despair, hope, oppression, and freedom

 

Will come together in a malign

Alchemy

And we will find ourselves on barren ground

At the foot of a cross

 

In these lengthening days

We are called to reflect

Confess, repent, and lament

 

To set aside distractions

And prepare our hearts for holy work.

 

But there are wars and rumors of wars

There are missiles flying and

Children dying

Leaders lying

 

We hear psychopaths invoking Armageddon,

And see Immigrants beaten

Abusers shielded from accountability

Innocence destroyed

Justice denied

 

And we are distracted.

Our best intentions crumble as we doomscroll

And sink further and further into the darkness

 

Losing sight of Jesus as his reality fades

Watching the light disappear into the dark

No longer reflective but anxious

Stuck in lament

 

Unable to take one more step

Toward the garden

Muttering under our breath

 

I give up

 

Which may be the point of Lent

Reaching that place where we sit

And wait

Open and vulnerable

Scared perhaps

 

Until, amazingly

We discover that the darkness cannot

Overcome the light

 

When we once again find ourselves walking

with the One who shows up in those places of

greatest failure and greatest need

 

And says, “Do you love me?

That is all I ask, that you love me.

 

Because I love you and will never abandon you

And implores us

Feed my sheep

 

I am here for you, be there

For others

 

Because that is what this is all about

When we get to the end of the journey, what will matter

 

Is that we have allowed ourselves to be loved

And that we have passed that love along

 

Being love

Loving

 

Everything

Depends on this

Everything

 

Here before we know it

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People sometimes ask me when I became a Christian, and that’s a hard question to answer because I am pretty sure that by the time I asked Jesus into my heart, he’d already been living there for a while.

          Rachel Held Evans

 

“If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you

          John 14:15-17

 

Jesus asks, "Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?".

          Luke 6:46

_____________________________

 

Hey God

Are you out there?

Somewhere?  Anywhere?

Do you sit in heaven (if there is such a place)

And watch with horror as we make a mess of things?

 

And what are you like, anyway?

Are you aloof and on a throne

Ready to judge the quick and the dead?

 

Every Sunday we pray

Come, O Creator God, and be with us

Come to this special place we have made for you

Beautiful with its stained glass and its peaceful elegance

 

Hey Yahweh

Hey Jesus…

 

Perhaps we have missed the point

What is in a name?

Everything.

 

You gave us a name

I am

Or rather, Whatever I am I will be

 

Yes, you are

You incarnated

You expressed yourself and told us who (and what) you are

 

You are

In the mountains we love, the air we breathe

In the rippling roaring springs

In the cry of the eagle

In every living creature

Even us

 

You gave us a name

And you gave us a person

Jesus

 

And in that name, you told us everything

You said, “I save.”

I rescue, redeem, recreate

 

You are the one who comes into the midst of

The world you have made and

The mess we have made

 

You come while leaders lie and steal

When power is abused

And innocents are killed

And the planet is assaulted in the name of greed

 

You gave us one we call Emmanuel

God with us

One who taught us who you are

You are love

 

But wait, there’s more.

You have told us, promised us

That you are also in us

 

You are pneuma hagion

You are holy, sacred wind

 

It has been said that one cannot catch the wind

But this wind is in us

Restless and powerful

Unsettling

 

It roars through our souls

And it too

Is you

 

You live in us, O Creator

You live in us, O savior

You make ourselves at home in our

Vulnerability

 

And you have one desire.

That we let the wind be wind

That we let your moving, rushing, roaring presence

Make us

Another incarnation

 

But Lord, we stifle the Spirit

We quench your holy fire

We check and constrain the wind

 

We say Lord, Lord

And then live for power or money

We say God is love

And then hate

 

We proudly say your name

We claim your presence and favor

But we deny your presence

 

No one would know you are in residence

By the way we talk, think,

And live

 

Don’t give up on us, Lord

Your very name suggests you won’t

But in your name, missiles rain down on children

Killing and maiming

 

In your name lies are spoken

Laws are broken

Injustice is perpetrated

 

In the actions of Presidents,

And Secretaries of War, and Majority leaders

Your presence is denied

Your name violated

 

Me too

Us too

We, too, sometimes fail to do what you say

 

But still, you stay

You are

You are in us to save

You are in us to heal and empower

 

Lord, when we are in the midst of strife and division

When everything seems to be disintegrating

Lord, when we feel so alone

And cry out for your presence

 

Remind us that you are already here.

 

In Silent Agony

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Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world

          Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

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The world screams

The not-so-silent cry of a plundered planet

The wild rants of the rich and powerful

Shrouding silent screams of loneliness and fear

The soft sobbing of the abused, cowering

The whispered fear of children, wondering if today a shooter will come

The anguished pleas of the immigrant being kidnapped by ICE

The revelations of sexually abused young women, heard but not believed

The desperate and angry words of the person caught in poverty and injustice

 

We hear them

The suffering ones

But we do not hear the silent agony of the soul

That deep rending pain

That can only be hinted at

Dropped into the world half-formed 

 

Sometimes we are left speechless

We watch as evil people lie and manipulate

Belittle and bully

We hear fear disguised as patriotism

and prejudice portrayed as justice

We are overwhelmed by the hunger, the empty eyes,

Stunned by the bodies filling the doorways, sidewalks and underpasses

Because there is no room in the inn

 

But we cannot be silent

We must speak with

We must speak for

 

We must join our voices with others

And we must be the voice when all others are silent

We must respond to the silent agony

 

Hearing the words in the silence

Hearing the pain hidden in the hate-filled rants

The loneliness caught in the throat

The hopelessness unuttered

 

We must be a voice

Saying “This stops here”

“That is not the truth”

“There is hope”

“You are forgiven”

“You are loved”

 

Prophets all

We are called to proclaim God

To proclaim love

We are called to speak truth

 

And we are called to change the world

To claim and reclaim

To restore and transform

 

The arc of history may bend toward justice

Toward equity

Toward love

 

But only if we help bend it

You can't go back

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All freedom journeys require an open mind—a mind that is not conditioned by past knowledge and experience, but open to possibility. Questioning opens the doors of our imagination, enabling us to consider alternatives to the status quo. Unless one is capable of imagining another possible reality, one cannot free oneself from bondage.…

 

The compulsion to repeat the past is apparent in the biblical myth of the Exodus. When Moses led the Israelites to freedom, they often yearned to return to Egypt. Though they were miraculously provided for throughout their forty years of wandering in the desert, the Israelites were often nostalgic for the “good old (bad) days” in Egypt:.. “ They missed the predictability and sense of control they felt in Egypt—where everything was known. Though in actuality they were oppressed and enslaved by the Egyptians, the Israelites looked back on their time in Egypt with nostalgia because they could not bear the uncertainty they faced as a free people.

          Estelle Frankel

 

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

          Paul

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We seem to love the prisons we have created for ourselves

Even the tombs we have dug ourselves.

 

We prefer confinement to freedom

Safety to possibility

 

We do not trust the One who sets us free

But instead turn again and again to what enslaves us

The God (s) of our own making

 

Our God (s) are “that about which we are ultimately concerned” (Tillich)

We need only look at the systems we created

Economic, social, and political

To understand which ruler we have chosen.

 

The center of our worship is no longer the church or cathedral

We bow down in front of the corporate monument

We prostrate ourselves before gilded palaces and magnificent ballrooms

And whose image glares down at us

From the façade?

 

We may believe in God

But what gods shape our lives and determine our priorities

 

We are called by One who would set us free

Into uncertainty

We are called to let go of so much

The myth of exceptionalism

 

Or belief that progress is inevitable

The delusion that we can have it all

 

An ever-expanding economy

Universal prosperity

Healthy bodies

A healthy planet

 

We are called forward by a God who wants to lead us

To a new heaven and a new earth

 

But we are slaves

That is who we are

Slaves to an illusory past (that never really existed)

Slaves to the way of domination

Where might makes right a peace comes through coercion

 

Slaves to a belief that life is all about

Winners and losers

And that the one who dies with the most cryptocurrency

Wins

 

Our slavery is revealed

In the abuse of immigrants

The destruction of the planet

The worship of America, the global bully, yay!

The avoidance of uncomfortable truths  

The retreats (thanks, Team USA) into misogyny

The acceptance of the unacceptable, our protection of abusers

 

The wilderness is scary

Leaving slavery is harder than we believed

 

But somewhere out there

In a future we can’t understand

Somewhere out there

Amidst the rocks and thorns

And an infinite horizon

 

There are streams of living water

and the freedom

to live as children of God

to be loved

and to love

Lost and Found

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The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

          Popularly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

 

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.

          Nelson Mandela

 

Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

          Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.

          M. Scott Peck

 

If you want to be great in God’s Kingdom, you must be the servant of all.

          Some guy named Jesus

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Jesus said it

Some very amazing people have lived it

Not perfectly, no

But profoundly

 

We know their names

The great ones like Mandel, Gandhi, MLK Jr

More

The not-so-famous ones, like Alex Pretti, Steve Hayner

(I’d list folk, but you won’t know them)

 

In God’s game plan

Leaders are servants

Their job is to serve

They are to be people for others

 

Maya Angelou said it well,

“A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she cannot be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.”

 

Jesus was a servant leader.

He emptied himself, he humbled himself for the sake of those he loved

(which is everyone)

He gave of himself, expended himself to the point of

Death

 

This tells us a lot about what we call

The Kingdom of God

 

It’s a bad name (sorry, Jesus)

Because we don’t understand it

Kingdoms have Kings

Kingdoms are places where some people dominate

Where they rule over other people

 

In kingdoms, the people at the top get served

By the people on the bottom

That is the earthly equation

 

Yeah, I guess it is fine to talk about a Kingdom

But only if the ruler is the God who is Love

 

But most of us really don’t get it

We cannot conceive; it does not compute

That God is a servant God

 

We say we see God in Jesus

But do we?

Or do we identify God with the powerful ones

The rich ones

 

Are we the disciples of dominion?

Do we have a colonial approach to power

Seeing ourselves as those with the right to conquer,

to occupy, to plunder?

 

How did we get to a place

Where a greedy and predatory leader

Turns the People’s House into a gross and gaudy palace?

 

Where those who are supposed to protect us and fight for justice

Fly around in private jets, chug beer with men who, in the thrill of victory

Reveal toxic masculinity

Where one who is to protect us cosplays authoritarian leadership?

 

How did we get a leader who says

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution".

 

This does not line up with Jesus teachings about power

You know, that inconvenient stuff most of Christianity ignores

 

The first shall be last and the last first

Those who would be first must be the servants of all

Give all you have and give to the poor (you know, those lazy moochers)

 

This does not line up with Jesus on the cross

With “Father, forgive them.”

 

At so many places

In our capitals, in the boardrooms of our corporations

In our churches

 

We have leaders who are predators.

Who see the systems they lead

as there for their own personal pleasure and benefit

 

Who take rather than give,

Who dismantle services for others for their benefit?

Who destroy the planet for profit

 

True leaders serve

Faux leaders abuse

 

And we see it every single day.

 

So what do we do?

We become the conscience of Empire

We become the thorn in the side of the oppressors

We stay faithful to the teachings of Jesus

We advocate for the vulnerable

We seek to help and heal

 

We do what Jesus did.

 

 

Tired of Waiting

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“We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light.  But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!”

― Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

_______________________________________________________________

 

Sometimes I feel like I spend my life

living “in between”

 

Between two worlds?

Between “heaven” and “hell”?

Between ignorance and understanding?

Between the beginning and the end?

 

There is always this tension

between what I know to be true

and what I experience as true

between promise

and actuality

 

I am both/and

I am a child of heaven and have feet mired in the ooze

I am loved by the Sacred, and yet often feel so unlovable

God dwells in me, and yet God often feels so distant

 

In grace I have already “arrived”

And yet the destination seems so far away

 

Perhaps the real spiritual task

for me, for all of us,

Is to realize, become awake to that

our connection to God, or rather God’s connection to us

is always changing, evolving

We move from grace to grace, glory to glory

Stumbling all the way

 

The key to growth, to maturation,

to growing up into Jesus,

is not “trying harder.”

It is (as Isaiah would put it),

“waiting”

 

What does it mean to “wait upon the Lord”?

 

I think it means to hope, to trust, to listen, to hear

to reach up, in the midst of our stumbling journey

and find that the hand we sought

childlike

to lead us on

was there, all along

We are not ready, yet

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“A guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul.' –

              Edna Hong Bread & Wine (day 5)”

 

_______________________________________________________

 

Ah Lent

a time that starts in ashes

and ends in death

 

It is but a momentary suffering

leading to a greater gift

that of release

and life

and hope

 

We enter Lent embracing a journey

that takes us into the valley of death.

We can not find our way to the Garden

any other way

 

A pattern is here

we all can see and grab

 

that sense that all is not ready

we are not ready

to receive

we are not ready

to receive love and hope

 

not because the gift is not ready

but because we have, in the midst of life

gotten immersed in what is not life

or love

or grace

 

We do not act justly

offer mercy, or live as servants of all.

 

Instead, we chase after gods of our own making

And seek dominion rather than sacrifice

Accumulation rather than generosity

 

In Lent, we stop

and listen,

we reflect and go deep within

 

In Lent, we realize there is no room

for spiritual arrogance or smugness

and there is no need

for spiritual despair, no need to abandon hope

 

We realize instead

that the heart opened

receives the gifts

we yearn to receive

 

justice and joy

When your enemy falls

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“Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice”         Proverbs 24:17).

 

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

          I Corinthians

 

“Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more.”

          Clarence Darrow

__________________________________

 

Anyone feeling bad for Amber Glen?

For some, the answer was clear.

No!

 

We don’t like her values; she’s just queer.

 

She should have practiced and shut her mouth

Sung the praises of our great leader

And kept silent about brutality and oppression

 

Anyone worried about the pain and terror inflicted by ICE?

Anyone upset about lies spoken and laws broken?

 

No!

 

Because we won

We owned the libs

We have the power

 

And we like it

We not only like it, we rejoice.

 

We delight in the failure of our enemies

We savor their pain

 

For some it is not that easy.  That is not a path we can thoughtlessly take.

We wonder, what do we do with such hate?

With such a disregard for the humanity of others?

When it is our hate and disregard?

 

It is a disturbing thing to see a profound lack of compassion

An inability to see the “other” as a person

 

When others do it, we are appalled

How could they be so uncaring?

 

Amber Glen, Alex Pretti, Renee Good

Fodder for disdain

The immigrant, snatched from his job,

Just someone who stole a “real” American's job.

 

Go ICE go

I hope you lose

 

But what do we do when we are the ones who delight in the pain of others?

 

When we experience the thrill of “their” defeat.

That ICE agent, on his ass on the Ice

The person who, outed for racism, has lost their job.

 

Sometimes it is us, thirsting for the blood of our enemies

 

Am I wrong?

 

We can deflect.  We can say, “Well, they REALLY deserved what they got

They are villains, not victims (unlike us)

And at some level, that might be true.

 

But is there not something about wishing another ill,

About savoring another’s pain

That is

 

Just wrong?

 

When Jesus saw evil, he wept.

When Jesus experienced evil, he forgave.

 

I am unwilling to give evil a free pass

Some people need to be stopped

They need to fail

I can even desire their defeat

 

But what I do next is important

I can rejoice that justice is done,

That karma has struck

 

Does that mean I can erase the person and

simply not care about them? As a person?

 

How will I think about Donald Trump when justice finally comes?

If he goes down hard, I will be glad that the evil has ended

That justice has come

 

I will think about the immigrants, the young girls violated

The people he fired, the programs he destroyed, and

I will rejoice that he has fallen from power

 

I will dance for joy for the planet

 

But then?

It haunts me, the idea that I will be unable to see him,

And so many others,

As people. Who fear and feel pain.

 

I wonder,

What do I lose,

when I lose compassion and empathy?

When I gleefully relegate those I despise

To hell (or whatever other punishment I can envision)?

 

I can justify such a response, can’t I?

Schadenfreude

Especially when I see it as justice

The triumph of good over evil

 

But still I wonder.  What is lost?

Does a piece of “me” go missing?

I don’t have an answer

God, forgive them

I’m not mad at you

Are you OK?

 

Still I wonder

A culture of violence

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… violence is a culture unto itself; it is not something one dons like a hat when dealing with the “enemy” and then gets set aside at the end of the confrontation.  Once violence enters the arena, it creates a culture that is very difficult to eradicate.  In fact, liberation in the true sense also means liberating the “enemy” from its own violence.  This is why nonviolence is often one of the most powerful tools in any resistance movement.

          Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire

________________________________

 

It has become an estimable thing,

this oppression

 

Masked warriors

crusading against the enemy

the foreigner

those foul, dangerous denizens who lurk

seeking to destroy the very fabric

of our nation

 

Those dark malevolent purveyors of evil

who eat our pets

and speak in strange tongues

who shred our “traditional” values

(the ones we don’t actually live out ourselves)

 

Those enemies of “our God,”

who worship evil gods who demand

our destruction

those barbarians, poised to destroy

all that we hold dear

empire

 

Violence is necessary

isn’t it

to protect and suppress

armed soldiers in the street

a small price to pay

 

It is justifiable then

when, for the sake of freedom

we erase freedom

when we violently suppress

 

smashed car windows

a death or two

children incarcerated

women thrown face down on the ground

are a small price to pay

 

the random acts of violence

become the norm

the way it is

 

It becomes who we are

open carry

ICE

concentration camps

 

We find that we cannot stop

we cannot get enough

violence becomes our fuel

our security

 

There is no end

lost

are the teachings of peace

 

We mistake coercion and control

with peacemaking

(peace through strength)

 

We count the sins of others

and count those sins against them

meting out justice

 

In our culture of violence, we do not hear

turn the other cheek,

go the second mile,

suffer the children,

bless and do not curse

welcome the strange

These words have become strange

amid the cacophony of domination;

They should obey,

They deserved it,

They are bad, dangerous… evil.

 

We are overcome by violence

and no longer seek to overcome evil

with good

 

their violence becomes

our violence

 

Thank you, God

for those who step into the abyss

in between

 

who put their hearts, souls, and minds

on the line

Alex, Renee

Mothers with whistles

Young and old

 

Peacemakers

Protectors

Insisting that love wins

That we can overcome evil with good

 

These are the ones who dwell in the shadow of the cross

the ones who walk where Jesus walked

down the long path

through a fragmented world

to the garden

 

 

 

In the Face of Empire

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When occupied people face the empire, they generally become so overwhelmed by its power that they start to think that the empire will remain forever and that it has eternal power.  Jesus wanted to tell his people that empire would not last, that empires come and go. When empires collapse and depart it is the poor and the weak who remain…The most dangerous thing for the oppressed and occupied is that at some point they lose faith in themselves, in their ability to change the status quo… The oppressed have to begin thinking what seems to be unthinkable.  They have to know and realize that “yes, we can.”

 

Resistance is action not reaction.  Resistance requires faith, so that it can stop being caught up in the vicious cycle of retaliation that favors the powerful and tries to mirror it.  Faith is nothing less than developing a bold vision of a new reality and mobilizing the needed resources to make it happen.

          Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire

___________________________

 

The denizens of power fill the streets, faceless

Armored instruments of oppression

Empire incarnate

 

In the courts, judges bought and sold

distort justice until injustice

flows like a mighty river

 

Victims are victimized yet again

transformed into villains

by their oppressors.

 

In the halls of power, people

who have sold their souls sit

and ponder the imponderable

having lost faith

in love

having abandoned morality

for the sake of convenience

 

At the command of empire

factories spew forth clouds of poison

darkening the sky

until breath is gone

and the planet

gasps for breath

 

Insignificant, marginal

weak

we are overwhelmed

and cede victory

 

What can we do?

Resistance seems futile

counterproductive

violence producing violence

hate producing hate

 

cowed, I sit at my keyboard

fingers stilled

 

There is nothing I can say

nothing I can do

to change the ways things are

 

I am not faithless

but I have no faith

that I, that you, that anyone

has the power to combat a power that seems

unassailable

 

I want to come out fighting

spewing words and hate

carelessly

reactive

 

And yet I know there is no victory

If empire secedes empire

even if it is my empire

 

The promised land is not filled

with the rich and powerful

but by the weak and meek

by the hungry poor

 

who, in love and humility

abandon the ruins of empire

and turn again to the land

 

plowing and planting

hoping for the water of love

to create a harvest

of justice and peace

 

I want to think the unthinkable

that this WILL pass

that I have agency

 

I can change the way things are

I can create a new reality

where dominion is replaced by servanthood

greed by generosity

exclusion by welcome

fear by assurance

hate by love

 

Yes, I can

Yes, we can

 

 

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

______________________________________

 

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

__________________

 

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.

 

______________________________

 

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.  

The fire of love

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In the bitter cold

The looming darkness

A fire burns

Flames licking at the tamarack

Reducing it to ashes

 

That is the thing about fire.

It changes

That which it touches

It sears and smelts

 

We draw near the fire, lingering,

But dare not draw too close

We need it, desire it, fear it

 

That which warms and illuminates

Also destroys

 

I think, in the warming cold,

Of Moses, feet frozen to the ground,

Watching the bush that burns, but

Is not consumed

 

That fire drew him in

Irresistible

Transformative

Into the presence of the One who is

undefinable

Into dialogue with Sacred

 

Fire of God

Flickering off the dry branches

Dancing on the heads of dry people

Not devouring, reducing,

 

But inspiring

 

I think too of those fires raging

In dark streets, harbingers of destruction

Signs of violence 

Destroying

 

Fires raging in human souls,

Consuming

Burning away not the dross

But the essence of who we are

 

pushing us away from presence

with the heat of hate and fear

 

May I burn Lord

Not with the fire of hate

Destroying all around me

But with the fire of love

Holy Fire, Angel Fire

 

Fire of God

Fill my ordinary being

With your extraordinary love

 

That through me the flame of

Your love will burn in the darkness

 

May the flame dance within me, proclaiming your presence

May love rage within my soul

Drawing others close so you can touch them

The flames flickering out

 

Setting them on fire

With your love

 

Creating a backfire of love

That extinguishes the fire of hate

Prayers from the dark side

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Lamentation prayer is when we sit and speak out to God and one another—stunned, sad, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of human events. It might actually be the most honest form of prayer. It takes great trust and patience … so I think it is actually profound prayer, but most of us have not been told that we could, or even should, “complain” to God. I suspect we must complain like Job, Judith, and Jeremiah, or we do not even know what to pray for, or how to pray. Or we do not suffer the necessary pain of this world, the necessary sadness of being human. 

          Rohr

_____________________________________

 

It is more than sorrow and pain

This cry that rises out of my soul

More than grief and regret

 

It is born in all of those rays of darkness

That gather and surround me like fetid fog

Smothering me with a darkness

That presses my soul until

I cry out in

Lament

 

It rises out of a perichoresis dance of foulness

replacing indwelling love

with fear and hate,

anger and resentment,

sorrow, grief, and regret

 

demanding an incarnation

forming into words

that want to be released into the universe

so they might be heard by someone, anyone

heard by God.

 

Sometimes it feels awkward

This lament

 

It seems more prudent to give God the silent treatment.

Who wants to look bad to God (as if)?

Who wants to have it out with the Holy?

 

But there are those, our ancestors in the faith,

Who have taught us better

 

If they felt God had been neglectful, abusive, or an absentee parent

They complained

If they felt oppressed by others

They asked God to release holy hell on their enemies

In the midst of an unjust world, they cried for justice

In their pain, they cried for comfort

 

When they felt guilt and shame,

They asked for forgiveness

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

 

They pleaded with God for rescue

And came to God in penitence.

It can’t be just one or the other

 

This was not a sign of faithlessness.

Instead, their laments were proof that they took God's promises seriously.

 

Where to start, O Beloved

It is overwhelming

Really

The evil in this world

 

It is overwhelming

The scope of my failure to reflect your image

 

Do I start with the pain and grief of seeing

Renee Good and Alex Pretti

Shot

Like Kristi Noem’s dog

 

Not precious souls,

Merely nuisances to be removed

 

Do I cry out over the brutality of ICE

As they violently seek to take the strangers

From our mist?

Do I anguish over the poor and hungry,

The forgotten people?

Or express my grief over a nation

Dying from the inside out?

 

I have my own regrets.

Words spoken and written

People harmed or neglected

 

I have that hard knot of hate

That grows in my soul

My desire for retribution

My inability to forgive, or give

 

I am angry, sad, hurting, questioning, doubting, and regretful

How do I express that?

How do I send it winging toward heaven?

 

Lord, hear my prayer.

Hear my words of joy as the sun paints the sky

Hear my expressions of wonder as the mountain

Snuggles under a layer of new snow

 

Hear my words of petition for others, and for myself

Hear my pleas for help as I face another Sunday

When I am somehow supposed to reflect your truth.

 

But I know my prayer is incomplete without lament

I know I need to sit and speak to You.

Sit, stunned, saddened, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of the world.

Sit with all my feelings, all

And then offer them to you

 

An act of faith, really

Lament is my way of saying that I believe you care

That I believe you are love

That I believe you keep your promises

 

And you promise to be with me, always.

 

Lament is my way of saying that you, too

Were on the streets of Minneapolis

And that Renee and Alex were not alone

 

That you are with Liam Conejo Ramos

And all the other children, brutalized

Detained  and deported

 

The lambs of God

 

I believe that as my lament rises

You come down

And meet it with love and power

Forgiving, healing, protecting, comforting, teaching, loving… (there are too many words)

 

So that you, and I, and all your people

Might move

From lament to hope