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)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good people, bad choices

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 Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri, she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well, and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

          Steven Weinburg

_________________________

 

Some people ooze hate and vitriol.

Some people are divisive and violent

Some people live their fear and anger, their racism

As naturally as they breathe

 

You can see the enmity in their eyes

Arrogance, like a foul fog, rolls off of them

 

Their values, beliefs, words, and actions

Are a symphony of malice

 

Jesus had the affrontery to look down from the cross

At his tormentors and murders

And say

 

Forgive them

 

Yet people like Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump,

People like Elon Musk and the rest of the oligarchs

Aren't people I can easily forgive

I struggle to “wish them well.”

 

Honestly, that bothers me only a little

(perhaps it should bother me more)

These people are doing such harm to so many

They are abusing the kind of people on whom Jesus lavished his love

 

Let the little ones come to me

Welcome the stranger

Feed the hungry

 

I see such souls, and I am angry

My anger is not for myself as much as for others

And Jesus (I think) got angry FOR others

Angry at the vulnerable being neglected

The little one’s being harmed

 

The people I really struggle with are the basically good people

(yes, they are good)

The people who would, in fact, help their neighbor, give to the food bank

And be kind and compassionate

 

Who have chosen to support people who are hateful and destructive

Who somehow have no problem voting for a serial adulterer

A person who has committed fraud

A person who is racist

A genuinely bad person

 

Who are willing to embrace leaders, and a movement

Whose values violate their own values

 

WTH?

 

Does charisma blind them?  (Halo effect)

Are they myopic?  Putting so much weight on one issue (like abortion) that they can’t see anything else? 

Are they programmed into toxic patriotism (my country right or wrong)

Is it bad theology that allows them to be manipulated and used?

 

But these people are my greatest challenge.

How to work with them?  Talk to them? 

How does one embrace what is good about them

and not support what seems so very” off”?

 

Most of the time, I try to listen and seek to understand

Sometimes I have to embrace silence

Sometimes I try to correct misinformation or add information

 

I always try to return

To the perspective of the cross

 

Everything looks different from the cross!

 

It is a conundrum

I am not comfortable being silent, which feels like acceptance.

But I want to reconcile and change, not condemn and repel

(some WILL feel judged, and will balk at the attempt to “change their mind”)

 

I want to stay in community with them

I want to radiate the love of Christ

I want to be a good teacher

I want to help people embrace the way of Jesus

 

What do I do with the good people who right now,

Are embracing what (I believe) are bad things?

 

For me, this is the challenge of these times.

Tired of waiting

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“Wait on the Lord,” we are told.  Don’t slide back into anxiety and anger.  Don’t rush ahead in a rush to judgment.  Don’t demand a quick solution…  Don’t assume the worst… do not presume that an answer is forthcoming.   No, wait. Relax. Rest. Don’t feel the situation has to be fixed.  Hold on, and keep your eyes open, and you will eventually BEHOLD what you do not see now.

          Brian McLaren

_____________________________

 

Wait.

Wait?

Wait!

 

For what?

Sometimes I wonder

How long can we wait?

 

We watch the world unravel around us

We see hate in high places

We see immigrants caged worse than animals

 

We see villages in Lebanon destroyed

And politicians taunt prisoners

 

Wait?

While desperate people in detention centers kill themselves?

While the BIPOC community loses the vote, and hope?

While UFC fighting cages go up on the White House lawn?

While our leaders push performative religiosity, but abandon the core principles

Of the religion they push (like a drug)

 

Yes.

Wait

Stop, for a moment

Breathe

Let Sacred surround you, embrace you, fill you

 

Don’t let this world

With its horrors

Squeeze you into its mold

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind

By presence

 

Behold

Behold God

Behold a God who is too big for our minds, and hearts, to contain

 

There is no thought we can have of God

That is too good

Everything good about God is true

 

This God we behold

With awe

 

This God, who if we wait

Will give us new minds

New hearts

New eyes

 

God can help us see people, in a new light

God can help us see God’s presence in creation

God can keep us from rushing in blindly

And flailing madly

 

God can help us choose love

 

If we wait

And Behold

 

“All shall be amen and alleluia

We shall rest and we shall see

We shall see and we shall know

We shall know and we shall love

We shall love and we shall praise.

 

Behold our end which is no end”    St. Augustine

God in Sandals

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Jesus was God in Sandals…

 

If he was indeed God in sandals, then that means he cared about what God cared about, hated what God hated, and loved what God loved.  The incarnation gave God a face.  It gave God literal tears, literal laughter, literal hands, literal feet, a literal heart, and a literal mind.

          Rachel Held Evans

 

__________________________________

 

If Jesus were to show up today

He might wear sandals

 

Or perhaps he would wear Hokas.

Maybe even Florsheim wingtips, although I doubt it

 

I have no clue

But I think I know where Jesus would hang out

And it wouldn’t be at the political rally “Rededicate 250.”

 

He wouldn’t be admiring the newly added gold leaf

On the walls of the Oval Office

 

And he wouldn’t smile beneficently as

Pete Hegseth abuses the gospel and talks about a “holy war.”

 

It is more likely that he would be sharing a sandwich with a homeless dude

In a doorway

 

Trying to comfort immigrant children in Dilley Detention Center

And walking in a Pride parade with his queer brothers and sisters

 

He probably would be totally uncomfortable standing behind

The resolute desk, or sitting in the pew of a White Nationalist Church

But totally at home in a homeless shelter, or a soup kitchen

 

If Jesus was God in sandals

And if Jesus, as GodInUs, the Spirit

is with us still

 

then maybe we need to take another look

at what it means to follow

 

Because I don’t think Jesus is looking for us to

Line up behind the church or the state

 

I think he is looking for us to become so permeated

With love, with his presence

That we start to think, feel, and act

More like him

 

I think he wants us to hang around and value

And love, and help

Sick people and people with mental health issues

Homeless people and helpless people

Straight people and queer people

 

Hurt people

Recovering people

Searching people

Doubtful people

Even angry and fearful people

 

I think he wants us to love

Even our enemies

To give, even if we get nothing back

To serve, without recognition

To live simply (and give away what we don’t really need)

 

I think he wants humility, not arrogance

Non-violence, not missiles and bombs

Truth not deceit

Generosity not greed

 

I think Jesus doesn’t want a fortified palace (ballroom)

For a dictator

Nor a 250 ft arch

 

I think he wants universal healthcare

And housing

And food security

 

Jesus was a radical

He loved with radicality

He taught radical things

And he forgave while nailed to a tree

 

And he calls us to be “ordinary radicals” (Thanks Shane Claibourne)

 

Following Jesus is not about intellectual belief

(Christianity is crazy illogical anyway)

But about embracing love

 

It is not about closing ourselves up to

Others (and of course, sin)

As it is to opening ourselves up to God, to love

And to all those we would rather ignore

It is not so much about prayer and praise

As it is about getting into the mix of the worlds

Hate and pain

 

And loving like crazy

 

Faith (and hope) is lived

A performative mess

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Recently, a flock of religious types and political types

gathered to “rededicate” a nation to “God.”

 

Sounds good, right?

Lofty

Pious

 

Who could possibly be against

One nation under God?

 

One nation! Whose nation?

God, which God?

The Jewish God, the Christian God?

The Muslim God?

 

What about the Buddhists and Hindus

Those who participate in the Baha'i faith

Do they get to be a part of this one nation?

 

Or is it just Christians, ala Franklin Graham, and

God help us

Paula White or Robert Jefress

 

And if Christian, which version?

Because only Nationalistic, Dominion-oriented Christianity

Will be on that stage

The kind that drop bombs in the name of Jesus (Hegseth)

And exclude rather than welcome the stranger.

 

I, as a Presbyterian, would not be welcome

Not that I would welcome the chance.

 

I know our money says, “In God we Trust”

But we don’t

We trust strongmen (yes, men, and they are not really strong) and bombs

And the Stock market

 

And that is not the motto under which our country was born.

Try  E Pluribus Unum: “Out of many, one.”

 

We were not a country built for religious exclusivism

But were a country designed to bring diverse people together

Under some unifying values (not Christian BTW).

The values of freedom and justice

FOR ALL

And all should mean all

 

But just for fun, let say we are a nation under God

That means we should reflect God’s intention for a nation,

Right?

 

What does that mean?

That we are the biggest and meanest?

That we destroy civilizations?

Bomb Kids?

That we are ‘”hot”?

 

In my faith system, God has had a long

And contentious with those nations

That claim to be “God’s People.”

 

In fact, once Jesus showed up the idea that God

had a favored earthly nation

disappeared

 

Sure, God still had a people

But those people who those gathered in love

To praise, worship, pray AND SERVE

 

Jesus was pretty blunt.  My Kingdom is not of this world!!!!!!

Hear that Pete?  Hear that Doug Wilson?

 

But still, even if there WERE a country that belonged to God

What would it look like?

 

Not like the United States of America

Especially not MAGA States of America

 

Its complicated, but if I were to summarize what God wanted

From the people of Judah and Israel

Who were, at one point, supposedly dedicated to God

I would do it this way

 

SEEK JUSTICE AND DEFEND THE VULNERABLE:

God’s country would care for the poor, the vulnerable, the immigrant

It would protect women (not subjugate them)

 

In God’s country, justice would be blind

The Supreme Court would work to create equality and equity

(and not erase Voter Rights and not side with the Oligarchs)

 

SHOW COMPASSION AND KINDNESS

It would not spend most of its money on a Department of War

It would not spend more on guns and missiles than on healthcare

and education, and roads, and food support, and housing

 

It would not be racist

It would not be retributive, a global bully

Fund USAID

(Not funding USAID will mean 14.5- 25 million preventable deaths, many of them children, over the next 10 years.  Those deaths are blood on the hands of our country, because we could easily prevent them.  A side note.  A year of USAID funding was equal to a little over a month of the war in Iran)

 

HAVE HUMILITY

An awareness that life is a gift.  This land we live in is a gift.

That we are servants, not masters

Caretakers not owners

 

Most of all a nation that says it belongs to God ought to actually

LOVE GOD

More than a demented narcissist

More than earthly power

More than wealth

More than anything

 

Loving God means loving creation, not plundering it

Drill baby drill is not consistent with love God

Because this planet is another incarnation of God

 

Loving God means loving all those God created

AS GOD CREATED THEM

 

BIPOC people

LGBTQI+ people

Yes, trans people

People on the spectrum

People with other mental health challenges

People with disabilities

Female people

Male people

White people

Poor people

 

People of all faiths

Even arrogant, domineering, cruel Christians

Get to be loved

 

Maybe if they find love, they will be nicer

Maybe if we all understood we are loved

We would all be nicer

 

I just know that a political rally

Does not make for a country that actually loves God

 

It is merely one particular brand of Christianity (a toxic one at that)

Asserting its domination over the nation

under the guise of “rededication.”

 

On this day, 72 years ago, the SCOTUS (a much better one than we have now it seems)

Declared the segregation of schools unconstitutional.

And 72 years ago, we also changed our motto, out of fear of communism

To “One nation under God.”

 

Now our better angels have been silenced, and we are affirming racism

As a nation (not Godly)

And we are doubling down on a motto that has been weaponized

Against immigrants, LGBTQI+ people and so many others

(also not Godly)

 

On this day, we would do well to ignore the

Performative mess in Washington, DC

And remember the words of Amos

 

I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" -Amos 5:21-25

Enabling the beast

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We all see it

Or rather, we should all see it.

 

That if you enable evil

Even if that enabling is passive, you create a monster.

 

And that monster,

Call it hate, prejudice, greed, racism

A beast,

Often personified in a person, or a movement

 

Becomes uncontrollable

Rending the fabric of morality and decency

Gnawing on the flesh of the vulnerable

Eradicating justice

Gorging itself on precious resources

 

Until the world becomes enmeshed in violence

A place where people are marginalized and minimized

Where cultures are destroyed

Where children lie crushed under the rubble of their school

And Palestinian villages are flattened

And strangers are brutalized, not welcomed

 

And people with empty heads and inflated egos

And no moral compass at all

Plan ballrooms, and dream of arches

And fortified bunkers

 

We reach a point where the cancer

That is killing a culture, a nation

Even a planet

Is beyond cure

 

It will destroy

 

And it will be because

Too many people did not stand up and speak out.

 

This is not new

We have seen many cultures die

Many empires stumble and fall

Crashing to the earth

 

We have seen the world slowly

Practice resurrection

Rebuilding

Restoring

(only to see it happen again)

 

There is a reason Jesus said

Be Yeast.  Be salt.  Be light.

You

Not someone else.  You

 

Be the change you wish to see

Be compassion, welcome, and generosity

Be people who fight for justice

Be love

 

Because if you don’t, who will?

Wise people throughout history have warned us.

 

Albert Einstein famously noted, "The world is not a dangerous place because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

 

Dante Alighieri expressed a similar sentiment in Inferno: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality."

 

Edmund Burke concisely warned, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

 

Martin Luther King Jr. stated, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer highlighted the enabler's dilemma:

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

 

The monster is awake.

The rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem

Seeking incarnation

 

We dare not be silent.

We cannot stand by and do nothing

(even if it seems as if nothing can be done)

 

We cannot watch as a person who does not care

For anyone but himself, slouches along

Playing King Midas and seeking to turn everything gold

 

While Elon dances like a dervish

And greedy souls destroy the planet for profit.

 

May it never be said that

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity”  (Yeats)

 

We cannot let MAGA win.

We cannot let Putin, Trump, and the oligarchs

Shape the world

 

The stock market is not a measure of wellness

Nor is the wealth of the oligarchs a sign of success

 

For underneath such shallow victories

Racism, hate, and greed grow

Fear too

 

We must be salt and yeast

We must be light

Jesus told us that even small acts are important

 

Yes, it may look as if it is all for nothing

As if we are powerless

The cross looked like a defeat, a failure

But it was magnificent

 

So we must do what small things that we can

We must protect our LGBTQI+ friends

We must stand side by side with those beautiful trans people

In our midst

We must feed the hungry,

Welcome the stranger

 

We must vote

 

Because even if we do not win

This time

Even if evil is not impeached or deposed

Now

 

We will have planted a seed,

Sprinkled a little yeast

 

We will have followed

Jesus

 

 

Blessed or Bitter

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All that I’m now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through,

Learning patience – it takes so much patience.

It’s a great education,

But why is the tuition so high?

Why, God, Why?

                     Brian McLaren

_______________________________

 

I wish it were easy

I wish the formulas worked

 

Bad things happen to bad people

Blessings are poured out on the good

 

Love wins

If you just have enough faith, all will be well

 

I wish there were five holy hops to happiness

 

But frankly, it’s a mess

A liar is believed

Cruelty is justified

Injustice and racism (they go together) are endemic

Bad things happen to good people

And blessings flow down on the brutal rich

 

Black and White is BS

Gray is the way

It is

 

I am tired of missiles killing children

Liars being believed

Good people blindly following and supporting bad people

War being made in the name of peace

Evil being perpetrated in the name of God

 

It would be so easy to get bitter

Hate filled

Despondent

 

It would be so easy to stop

And sit

Immobile

In the valley of the shadow of death

 

Frozen

Lamenting

Why, why God, have you forsaken us?

Uncomforted

 

Life is a lumpy, ripped, ragged mess

 

It is so tempting to build naïve theologies

Where all is nice and clean

And logical

To mutter reassuring banalities

 

But life intercedes

And we realize it is beyond our understanding

And we are perplexed

Anxious

Questioning

Why?

 

Have you forgotten us completely,

God,

If you are there?

 

I have no easy answers.

The formulas lie shattered and useless

 

And yet, I am still casting my questions

Into the darkness

 

My God, My God

Why?

 

Hoping, trusting, believing?

That Love is there.

 

Why not now

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One minute you are yelling “No, it can’t be this way!” and then you are whispering, “Why?  Why must it be this way?”  That why – the prayer of lament – is the prayer you offer on the longest night of the year…

 

It acknowledges, “I don’t have an answer, but still dares to hope there is an answer, so it asks.

          Brian McLaren

___________________________

 

I don’t have an answer.

Perhaps there is no good answer.

 

We don’t like that answer, and so we get creative.

 

God knows

God only knows

There is a bigger purpose we can’t see

God is working God’s purposes out as year succeeds to year

 

Maybe

Or maybe not

 

I don’t understand cancer

Or Donald Trump and his wrecking crew

I don’t understand why people can cheer a cruel, hate-filled man

And thus cheer hate and cruelty

 

I don’t understand why God would let bad people flourish

And put their picture on money

And let beautiful, innocent people suffer

 

Why God would allow bombs to fall

And missiles to fly

And people to starve

And children to die

 

Why?

 

Maybe we are just out here,

On this decaying planet on our own

Making bad choices

And wandering toward a bad end

 

Maybe it is about free will (seems like a stupid idea)

 

Why?

Is it ridiculous to hope for an answer?

To believe that someday love will win?

 

Maybe someday, Trump will wake up and feel a momentary pang of compassion

Maybe someday a CEO will suggest that a slight increase in the profit margin

It is not worth the destruction of the planet

And that bigoted white supremacists will call a black man his brother

And mean it

And that ICE officer will look in the mirror and see what he or she has become,

And resign

 

Maybe

 

Why do I still dare hope?

Because I see something sacred in most (I wish I could say all)

People I meet

 

That spark of the divine

It is there!

Because I watch people do random acts of kindness

And march on No King's Day

And give to the food bank

And help their neighbor

 

Because I see love and joy

Blossom in the most unlikely places

 

Sometimes I think it is true

That life sucks, and then you die

 

But sometimes I know better

And simply ask why

Why not now!

 

Today would be a good day

For love to win

Shaking a fist at God

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I aspire to faith

I aspire to confidence

 

I do not want to join the throng that says

There is no God

 

But there are times when my aspiration turns into

Resignation

Perhaps despair

 

There are mornings when I wake up soul-hungry

Wanting nothing more than to curl up

Fetal

 

Wanting nothing more than to raise my fists

And scream at God

 

The disappointment and anger

Hot

Boiling over

 

At the lies, the manipulations

The injustice

At the torrent of evil that flows from people

 

People who, if I am honest, I see as evil

Who, if I am honest, I hate

 

(is it wrong to hate evil?)

 

I rage not because I don’t think God is there

I rage because I believe there is a God willing to be raged at

 

A God who seems to have failed

The poor

The immigrant

The children, buried in rubble in Gaza, and Lebanon, and Iran

The victims of greed and hate

 

I guess it is better to raise my voice to the heavens

Then to sit in stolid silence

Frigid and silent

In the face of evil

 

Better to believe there is a God who cares

Who can heal and reconcile

Who can make them better

Who can make me better

Even if at times that God seems silent.

 

I cannot accept the God of MAGA

The God of the Evangelicals

Who have turned the good news into bad news

 

“God loves me and hates you” is not good news

 

I cannot accept the God who guides missiles to kill children

And destroys civilizations

 

Whose fault is it

That God seems so hidden and distant?

Some would say it is all my fault

I haven’t “surrendered.”

I am too proud

I have too little faith

 

Perhaps

I will not let go of God

But neither will I let go of my questions

I will not allow shallow, unsatisfying answers

To be my opiate

 

So here I sit

Refusing to accept what is happening

Seeking a God I often cannot find

Shaking my fist at heaven, not because I do not believe,  but because I do

Gentleness requires courage

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Violent emotions are not sustainable long-term sources of energy for the struggle. True gentleness is not an absence of anger, but a transformation of anger from the impulse to harm into an unconquerable will to protect and endure.

 

Gentleness is not the willingness to ignore abuse, but a powerful balance that prevents us from being involuntarily triggered and drawn off course. Gentleness is anger brought completely in harness to our highest values. When we are truly gentle, our power cannot be triggered by fate, nor manipulated by others.

 

Gentleness requires more courage than does violence and demands constant training as intense as that for any battle. Gentleness is not a hiding place from life, but a fortress of peace lying beyond the reach of any indignity from fate or foe. To be truly gentle does not mean to leave the struggle for a better world. Gentleness is the art of living in the eye of life’s storms. True gentleness simply means to be in full possession of our own hearts.

                     Jim Rigby

___________________________________

 

They simmer and fester

Deep in the soul

 

The anger, dare I say hate?

Those emotions that are both violent and lead to violence.

 

There is energy there

Fire

And the pressure builds

Until we act out, our emotions making our choices

rather than our brains

 

We are in the territory of demons

What else can we call them

These malign thoughts

This foul presence

 

The feelings are not unfounded.

The greed is real

So are the abuses of power, and the lies

The harm is real

People are oppressed, and freedom is stolen

Children are killed

 

People in power do evil things,

And do not care (do you?)

 

How can we not be mad!  How can we not respond with every fiber of our being?

How can we not resist, violently, angrily!

 

And yet we live in the shadow of the cross

Or perhaps, on this day, the firing squad

 

And the words of Jesus echo:

Forgive them

Today you will be with me in paradise

Mother, behold your son

Behold your mother

 

On that day, in the midst of the pain and brutality

The injustice

There was peace

A peace that was beyond understanding

 

There was gentleness

 

Just as violence emerges from hate

So gentleness emerges from peace,

 

And peace

Comes because the Lord is near (Philippians)

 

It is peace that guards our hearts and our minds

Peace that makes us

Healers

And the carriers of hope

 

There are too many days when I am not peace-filled

Too many days when my soil is roiled

Too many days when what oozes from my soul are not

The fruits of the Spirit

But the produce of the Flesh

 

I don’t want to be like that

I don’t want to be tossed around by the winds of hate

I don’t want to be manipulated by the likes of Donald Trump

 

I want to be gentle, kind, forgiving

A healer

 

I know I cannot ignore evil.

I cannot step back into silent places of safety

But I can be controlled by love

I can let Jesus have possession of my heart

 

And I can be a safe place

In the midst of the storm

 

And that, that

Is what I want to be

 

Haters will Hate

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“I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I've cried a few times, but mostly I'm empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell.”

          Jennifer Niven,

 

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When shall I come and behold the face of God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually,

“Where is your God?” 

          Palm 42

 

Happy are the pushers, for they get on in the world

Happy are the hard-boiled, for they never let life hurt them

Happy are those who complain, for they get their own way in the end

Happy are the blasé, for they never worry about their sin

Happy are the knowledgeable, for they know their way around

Happy are the troublemakers, for they make people take notice of them

          J.B. Phillips

___________________________________________________

 

I am tired

Physically, it can be a challenge

To drag this almost 75-year-old body out of bed

 

Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.

 

Mentally, I’m tired

The complexities of life, which once were fun to juggle

Now seem to crash down upon me

 

Spiritually, I am exhausted

 

Exhausted

 

In the “Dead Poets Society,” the teacher tells his students

Don’t use “avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired; he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose.

 

OK then, I am exhausted and morose.

 

It is debilitating

The spiritual BS that flows like a stream of foul water

From Erica Kirk and Franklin Graham

From Paula White and JD Vance

 

And sometimes, I suspect, from me too

Me too

 

Because I am exhausted and perplexed

And I do not always handle it well

Too often, too often, Lord, I become what I abhor and protest

 

Impatient, angry, strident, empty, and confused

 

But I am tired of the Gospel that is not Gospel

The good news that is truly bad

 

I am tired of the Christian nation that violates Christ

I am tired of those who have doubled down on arrogance rather than humility

Power rather than servanthood

Lies rather than the truth

Violence and killing rather than peacemaking and healing

Hate rather than love

 

I would love to feel as if my soul is watered by flowing streams

But instead, I am soaked

By salty tears

 

I do not know how to move out of my perplexity

Out of my sense that everything is going wrong

And there is nothing I can do.

 

But perhaps perplexity is the point.

Yes, there is nothing I can do

But is there something the Sacred can do?

 

Sometimes I doubt it.

I have every reason to doubt.

Trump is president.  Netanyahu rages uncontrolled.

 

My head and heart tell me to quit

To hide

To be silent

 

Why bother?

 

Why?

Because

 

God

 

Because of the sunrise over the mountain

The smile of a child

The random act of kindness

 

God lives

Love lives

Goodness Lives

 

Call it what you will

(if you can’t call it God, call it something else)

 

But there is something

Dancing in the morning sunlight

 

Something lingering in my soul

That changes my Lament (at least from time to time)

To praise

 

I am not naïve

Haters will hate

Innocents will still die

Bad people will still flourish

Good-hearted people will still be led astray

By liars

 

But I do believe

Even in the midst of my unbelief

That hate will never be

 

The end of the story

 

I believe

That someday, the Kingdom will come

And it is my job

Every day, every single day

 

To live as though it were already here.

How long, O Lord?

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Right now it is achingly clear, heartbreakingly, angrily, clear, that we who believe that God is love and is present, is also a God who is hidden sometimes, sometimes when we are most in need.  The Psalmist cried out, "How long, O Lord, How Long!?

 

How long?

 

Too long. 

 

That seems to be the answer right now.

 

Even Jesus had a "moment."  My Lord, my Lord, why have you forsaken me?"  Why?  Why have you forsaken us?  Why have you allowed creepy, cruel, greedy, uncompassionate, destructive people to rise to power and destroy so much that is good?  Why do you let childish cosplayers blow some of your children out of the water, and blow apart schools full of children, and boast about it?  Why do you let spiritual lightweights lecture a Pope who is literally quoting you? 

 

Why do you let masked thugs throw innocents into concentration camps where they wither away?

 

Why do you let people who would plunder the planet destroy forests and rivers, and violate sacred sites?

 

Why do you let the political bullies like Putin and Netanyahu, and Trump flourish?

 

Why?  Why? Why?

 

I realize, Lord, that you are way more loving than I can ever be.

I realize that you are more patient.

I realize that you see more than I see

I realize that I, too, am a mess who does harmful things, who slides into anger and hate, greed and other destructive things.  And I am thankful that you are patient and loving, forgiving, and restorative.

 

But Lord, I struggle with those who harm and divide, who grab and devour, who rape, and have no regret.  Only a desire for more, more, more.

 

This morning, as I watched the sunrise, I rejoiced, but my joy was blurred by tears

 

Lord, I am perplexed and confused.  I am tired.

I am tired of my own stupidity

I am tired of the stupidity of those around me.

I am tired that we keep choosing poorly.

I am frustrated that you keep loving and forgiving and working to repair and restore

And we keep doing the same things we human creatures have always done

And keep getting what we have always gotten.

 

Pain, destruction, death, injustice, inequity

Hunger, poverty, war.

 

Why?

When?

How Long

How?

 

These are my prayers of desperation

There seems to be no answer

But against all hope

I believe