Our Scriptures are quite clear about this—that God is never impressed with prayers when actions are not informed by them. Nor does God spare us from the consequences of our deeds which always, in the end, matter more than the words we pray. —Bishop Mariann Budde, homily, A Service of Prayer for the Nation
Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev considers how the Hebrew prophets warned against idolatry, cautioning against the pursuit of power and control instead of trust in the living presence of God:
The prophets saw that idolatry and dominating power are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Both are attempts to exert excessive control: to control God in one case and dominate other people in the other…. Idolatry is a flight from both God and relationship with God’s Creation.
The biblical prophets called out the many false idols that people grab hold of in attempts to feel substantial, secure, and in control. These idols include power, wealth, fame, beauty, knowledge, and possessions. For the prophets, these idols were a double abomination. First, people inevitably resort to multiple forms of oppression—lies, manipulation, bribery, forced labor, theft, murder—in pursuit of these idols. Second, bowing down to these false deities ultimately distances people from Living Presence (God) and from life itself.
Over two millennia ago, these biblical prophets envisioned a different world, a world pressing to be born. In place of imperial culture, the prophets articulated another way of living in God’s Creation. Countering extraction, force, and separation, the prophets lifted up trust, right relationship, and becoming. In prophetic understanding, these three qualities embodied the way of faithfulness to Living Presence, the way of aliveness.
Trust in life itself is essential to aliveness. The prophets repeatedly admonished the people for trusting in wealth and influence, for seeking security in power and possessions—trusting in extraction. Instead, they called people to trust Living Presence by trusting the gift of life, the God-given gift of unfolding, unexpected, ever-creating life. Rather than seeking more things, the prophets called for seeking the more in life. Rather than seeking to be in maximal control of life, the prophets called people to participate in the fullness of life. This is the response to the desire to extract: receive and appreciate the more within life itself.
In Creation as it truly is—a world that consists of multiple layers of interdependent relationships—the call of life is to live in right relationship, not to maximize control. Undue control deadens relationships…. For the prophets, full participation in life cannot be derived from oppressive relationships in which one party exerts undue control over another or extracts in a way that diminishes the other. Fullness flows only from relationships in which all parties have age-appropriate agency. Fullness in relationship emerges from the flourishing nurtured within mutually beneficial relationships. The entry ticket to every relationship is vulnerability to hurt, rejection, and loss. A truly rich life requires that we embrace this vulnerability, that we properly manage our desire for control—that we trust life.
Come to Me and Rest. I am all about you, to bless and restore. Breathe Me in with each breath. The way just ahead of you is very steep. Slow down and cling tightly to My hand. I am teaching you a difficult lesson, learned only by hardship.
Lift up empty hands of faith to receive My precious Presence. Light, Life, Joy, and Peace flow freely through this gift. When your focus turns away from Me, you grasp for other things. You drop the glowing gift of My Presence as you reach for lifeless ashes. Return to Me; regain My Presence.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 11:28-29
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
1st Timothy 2:8 NLT
8 In every place of worship, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy.
In The Tears of Things, Richard Rohr identifies the elusive nature of prophetic leadership:
The normal power systems of our world worship themselves and not God. For that reason, prophets almost never hold official positions, like that of king, priest, or elder. However, neither do they dismiss the proper roles that rulers and priests play in maintaining the basic order of society. A good example is when Jesus on several occasions, after healing people completely outside the temple system, still tells them to follow its rules (see Luke 17:14; Matthew 8:4). Elsewhere he critiques religious leaders loudly and publicly, but in the end, he does not set up an antagonism. He does not cash in on another group’s failure, as I would be tempted to do. Everything finally belongs.
Throughout history, we have waited for the charismatic prophet and the institutional leader to come together in the same person, but it happens only rarely, as with King David after he submitted to the prophet Nathan. Later in history, we saw more leaders who managed to perform both roles at once: individuals like Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury; Queen Elizabeth of Hungary; Mother Katharine Drexel of Philadelphia; and Óscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, all of whom were institutional people who nevertheless operated in a critical distance from their church role to be faithful to their own call. In our time, Pope Francis is an amazing and most rare example of one who can operate as both high priest and high prophet (not without his critics, however).
Often, prophets emerge from the rank and file, paying the dues of their group so they can later critique it and not be seen as outsiders. They have shown themselves not to be iconoclasts, but legitimate reformers from within. They are in fact “exciters” of the critical mass, always wise beyond their years and living by higher values that are foreign to their contemporaries. They seem to lead just by living their lives and do not need any honorific titles or initials after their names.
There are plenty of prophets among us now in every church and society, and it is vitally important that we listen to them, support them, and protect them. Often, they are not formally aligned with religion, yet they are deeply influenced by its deepest values, like the “heroes” CNN celebrates each year, or those who work tirelessly for women’s rights, children’s rights, and human rights without much notice or reward. I deliberately do not begin to name them specifically, because there are so many of them. Like the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, they
Do not cry out or shout aloud, or make their voice heard in the streets; But faithfully they bring true justice refusing to be wavered or crushed, until true justice is established on earth. —Isaiah 42:2–4
The Idol of Mission: Calling vs. Treasure
After a miraculous conversion, Paul was called by God to carry the message of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire well beyond the Jewish community where the earliest Christians emerged. This calling would occupy the remainder of Paul’s life as he tenaciously and faithfully took the gospel from city to city. He proclaimed the good news, taught converts, planted churches, and raised up leaders to take his place before moving on. Along the way, he faced unimaginable difficulties including beatings, imprisonment, and shipwrecks, and through it all Paul refers to himself as a “servant of Christ Jesus.” When in prison he calls himself a “prisoner for Christ Jesus.”
Paul strove to see others come to know Christ. He said, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do this all for the sake of the gospel.” Paul was a man on a mission. The mission of Christ dominated his life, but it did not define his life.A careful reading of Paul’s letters reveals something remarkable—everything in the Apostle’s life, including God’s mission, took a backseat to his paramount goal: God himself. While in prison and unable to accomplish more for God, Paul wrote to the church in Philippi saying, “I count everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”
Paul valued his personal connection with Christ above all else, which is why he found joy even while in chains. When Paul expresses his deepest desire for others, it is not that they would do more for God or transform the world for Christ and his kingdom, as good as such service may be. Instead, he prays that they might know God’s immeasurable love in Christ.Paul, the most celebrated missionary in history, understood that his calling was not the same as his treasure. His calling was to be a missionary. His treasure was Christ himself.
Lord Jesus Christ, fill us, we pray, with your light and life, that we may reveal your wondrous glory. Grant that your love may so fill our lives that we may count nothing too small to do for you, nothing too much to give and nothing too hard to bear. Amen.
In an essay for ONEING: The Path of the Prophet, Mirabai Starr describes grief as the thread which draws together the work of prophets and mystics:
Our religious conditioning has carved a gulf between the prophet and the mystic, just as we have between action and contemplation and between transcendence and immanence. It’s easy to buy into the illusion that these two spiritual orientations are fundamentally and mutually exclusive. But you can, of course, be both a prophet and a mystic. You can be, and probably are, a prophet-mystic.
Fr. Richard Rohr has often declared that the most important word in the title of the organization he founded, the Center for Action and Contemplation, is “and.” We are activists and contemplatives. We are prophets and mystics. We access momentary nondual states, especially in silence, and we carry the fruits we harvest in such moments back into the world to nourish ourselves and feed the hungry.
The key to living as a prophet-mystic is showing up for what is, no matter how heartbreaking or laborious, how fraught with seemingly intractable conflict and how tempting it might be to meditate or pray our way out of the pain. Contemplative practices train us to befriend reality, to become intimate with all things by offering them our complete attention. In this way, the prophet and the mystic occupy the same broken-open space. The nexus is grief. The mystic has tasted the grace of direct experience of the sacred and then seemingly lost the connection. She feels the pain of separation from the divine and longs for union. The prophet has perceived the brokenness of the world and is incapable of unseeing it. He feels the pain of injustice and cannot help but protest. But the mystic cannot jump to union without spending time in the emptiness of longing. The prophet must sit in helplessness before stepping up and speaking out.
Many years ago, my friend [Fr.] William Hart McNichols (quoting the wild woman theologian Adrienne von Speyr) told me that “the prophets are inconsolable.” I will never forget that. At the time, I still harbored a dualistic sense of political versus spiritual and fancied myself more a contemplative than an activist, even though I grew up in a family that was passionately engaged in protesting the Vietnam War. In our secular Jewish family, the Berrigan brothers, radical Catholic priests dedicated to peace and justice, were revered as heroes, on the same level as Abraham Joshua Heschel or Angela Davis. While I was never at home in the political arena, with its absolute judgments of right and wrong and fixed delineations between victims and perpetrators, I was proud of my parents’ social conscience. But it all felt somewhat disconnected from the heart. Then, years later, Fr. Bill built that bridge for me. The prophets, like the mystics, responded from the holy ground of the broken heart.
Learning from the Mystics: St. Teresa of Avila
Quote of the Week: “Our intellects, no matter how sharp, can no more grasp this than they can comprehend God. It is said, though, that he created us in his own image. If this is true (which it is), there is no point wearing ourselves out trying to fathom the great beauty of this castle (our soul) with our mere minds. Even though the castle (the soul) is a created thing, there is a vast difference between Creator and creature, so the fact that they soul is made in God’s image means that it is impossible for us to understand her sublime dignity and loveliness.”- From Interior Castle, 1.21Reflection
This quote brought me to misty-eyed tears the first time I read it. Never before had a piece brought me to tears. Theology had never done it, but St. Teresa’s word here in her spiritual classic, Interior Castle, did so in the first two pages. Systematic theology is good and fine, however, to talk about the interior life in such poetic terms is not exactly the domain of theology. In the 1200s there was a split that happened as Aristotle was rediscovered in the academic world. Many began to study “scholastic theology” in the universities, while the monasteries studied “monastic theology.”
Monastic theology is understood as being more poetic, imaginal, symbolic, etc. St. Teresa of Avila’s magnum opus, Interior Castle, is monastic theology. Often, Christian theology is built upon the brokenness of humanity. However, St. Teresa of Avila starts off Interior Castle with a strong statement of the infinite beauty, worth and dignity of the human person. This is the launchpad, this is the starting point, this is where she chooses to establish humanity… as being in the image of God. For St. Teresa of Avila and many others, to begin anywhere else than being the Image of God is to lay the wrong foundation.
Prayer Beloved, grant us that we might have the proper starting point. Help us to rest in as well as begin from the reality that we are made in Your image. Allow this truth to speak to our deepest parts, to remind us of our own infinite beauty, worth and dignity as well as that of other people. May this be the starting point of our every moment and action. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen and amen.
Life Overview of St. Teresa of Avila: Who is She: St. Teresa of Avila Where: Born in Avila, Spain. Died in Salamanca, Spain. When: 1515-1582AD Why She is Important: She was a member of the Carmelite order, and sought to help reform the Catholic church of her day along with St. John of the Cross. Most Known For: St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle was considered a classic relatively quickly. Using the local imagery of castles, she wrote about spiritual marriage with God as “mansions/rooms” within the human soul in which the innermost “mansion/room” is where the Lord already sits enthroned. Notable Works to Check Out: Interior Castle | The Way of Perfection | The Book of My Life
The Idol of Mission: Effectiveness is Not Faithfulness
As modern, post-enlightenment, Industrial Age, capitalist people we tend to celebrate values like efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. Fortunes can be made by shaving a few minutes or pennies from a manufacturing process or market strategy. I’m writing this at an airport as I wait to board a Southwest Airlines flight—a company that has thrived on being efficient. Southwest was a tiny startup airline in the 1970s that disrupted the entire industry with the “10-minute turn.” Realizing planes only make money when they are in the air, Southwest cut the time on the ground to unload and reload a plane to just 10 minutes. The profits quickly followed.
Our culture rewards effectiveness.The same celebration of effectiveness can be seen in the modern church, but this has a dark side. When missional effectiveness becomes paramount, we can mistakingly equate effectiveness with faithfulness. We can fool ourselves into believing God is pleased with us simply because we are accomplishing measurable things in his name. (ABC’s) A remarkable story in the Old Testament reveals the dangers of confusing effectiveness and faithfulness.When God’s people were in the wilderness without food or water they complained to Moses. Turning to the Lord for a solution, Moses was commanded to speak to a rock and water would flow from it for the people to drink, but Moses disobeyed God’s command. Rather than speaking to the rock, he struck it twice with his staff. The Lord punished Moses severely for his irreverence and disobedience by forbidding him from entering the Promised Land. Instead, Moses died within sight of it.
The story appears straightforward, except for what happened when Moses disobeyed—the water flowed abundantly from the rock! He still performed a miracle, or, more accurately, God still performed a miracle through an unfaithful leader. From a human point of view, Moses’ ministry was incredibly effective, full of power, and praised by the people, but from God’s point of view, Moses was a failure—his ministry at the waters of Meribah was rejected.Moses shows us that it is entirely possible to be effective but unfaithful.
Likewise, Jesus’ ministry was perceived to be utterly ineffective as he hung on the cross, was rejected by his people, and was humiliated, but we know it was his ultimate act of faithfulness to the Father. We must be careful not to confuse effectiveness with faithfulness because doing so may cause us to praise what God condemns and reject what God affirms.
DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 7:21–23 NUMBERS 20:10–13 WEEKLY PRAYER Ignatius Loyola (1495–1556) Lord Jesus Christ, fill us, we pray, with your light and life, that we may reveal your wondrous glory. Grant that your love may so fill our lives that we may count nothing too small to do for you, nothing too much to give and nothing too hard to bear. Amen.
In his forthcoming book The Tears of Things, Father Richard Rohr challenges the stereotypical Christian understanding of a prophet:
When we picture a prophet of the Old Testament—and there are many of them, more than thirty, including seven women—most of us imagine an angry, wild-haired person ranting and raving at the people of Israel for their many sins or predicting future doom. Some of the prophets did just that, but my years of study, conversation, and contemplation have shown me that this prevailing image is not the truest or most important reality of their work, calling, or messages. [1]
Rohr explores the path that prophets revealed in Scripture:
Until we move on from that common stereotype, we won’t recognize the prophets as truth speakers who have walked a journey to where truth has led them. This journey leads the prophets to an immense sadness, shared with God, about the human situation. Unless we allow Scripture to reveal this developmental understanding, we can’t get there. We just look for isolated verses that fit our needs, and most of the isolated statements in the first half of every prophet’s life are angry.
The prophets rage against sin as if they were above or better than it—then move into solidarity with it. Please understand that sin is not as much malice as woundedness. Sin is suffering. Sin is sadness. Many of us have learned this truth from studying addictions, where it’s become more clear that sin deserves pity, not judgment.
Sin is also the personal experience of the tragic absurdity of reality. It leads us to compassion. We must have compassion for the self, for how incapable we are of love, of mercy, of forgiveness. Our love is not infinite like God’s love. It’s measured—and usually measured out according to deservedness. But that’s not how YHWH treats ancient Israel, which was always unfaithful to the covenant. God is forever faithful. That’s the only consistent pattern.
Eventually, the prophet stops standing above, apart from, or superior to reality and enters into solidarity with human suffering and human sinfulness. Jesus does this throughout his life by touching lepers and eating with sinners. He goes out of his way to bless those who are hurting. But we don’t know how to do that as long as we place ourselves higher than another, believing we’re not sinners or fellow sufferers. [2]
My favorite thing about the prophetic books of the Bible is that they show a whole series of people in evolution of their understanding of God. Like most of us, the prophets started not only with judgmentalism and anger but also with a superiority complex of placing themselves above others. Then, in various ways, that outlook falls apart over the course of their writings. They move from that anger and judgmentalism to a reordered awareness in which they become more like God: more patient like God, more forgiving like God, more loving like God. [3]
The Role of the Prophets
In The Tears of Things Richard Rohr offers a history of Israel’s prophets and the unique role they played:
The prophets called Israel many times to return to the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai. After leading the people out of Egyptian slavery, God supplied the law, including the Ten Commandments, that was meant to govern and shape their lives in the Promised Land. They were to refrain from lying, stealing, committing adultery, and so on.
This was Morality 101, the basic order without which a society cannot maintain itself. But the people usually fell short, often disastrously so. They substituted purity codes and performance for the spirit of that law. They forgot not only what they had promised but also how much and how deeply YHWH cared for them. There was a deep need, then and now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and to justice. Someone who would warn them, critique them, and reveal God’s heart to them. We call them prophets, and every religion needs them.
For hundreds of pivotal years—starting around 1300 BCE and continuing through the eras of Israel’s kingdom, exile, and conquest—prophets like Samuel, Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel performed this utterly important task. Besides being truth tellers, they were radical change agents, messengers of divine revelation, teachers of a moral alternative, and deconstructors of every prevailing order. Both Isaiah 21 and Ezekiel 3 describe a prophet as a “sentry” or a “watcher,” whose job is to hold Israel maddeningly honest, and to stop them from relying on arms, money, lies, and power to keep themselves safe and in control.
In this way, they introduced a completely novel role into ancient religion: an officially licensed critic, a devil’s advocate who names and exposes their own group’s shadow side! Few cultures, if any, develop such a counterintuitive role. By nature, civilization is intent on success and building and has little time for self-critique. We disparage the other team and work ceaselessly to prove loyalty to our own.
The same dynamics operate today, with those in power or trying to gain power more interested in protecting their own interests and positions than in seeking justice. We must be eternally conscious of this fact:For the untransformed self, religion is the most dangerous temptation of all. Our egos, when they are validated by religion, are given full permission to enslave, segregate, demean, defraud, and inflate—because all bases are covered with pre-ascribed virtue and a supposed hatred of evil. This is what the prophets expose in their wholesale assault on temple worship, priestly classes, self-serving commandments, and intergenerational wealth. “Be very careful here!” they keep shouting. The prophets know that religion is the best and that religion also risks being the worst. We love to choose sides and declare ourselves sinless and pure and orthodox (“right”), with little evidence that it is true. This is always a surprise to everyone except the prophets.
The Idol of Mission: Beware the Lie of Missionalism
Click Here for Audio I’ve already quoted Tim Keller a number of times in this series on idolatry, but it’s worth repeating his very helpful definition. He said, “An idol is usually a very good thing that we make into an ultimate thing.” That certainly applies to the church’s favorite idol—the mission of God. The goodness of God’s mission in the world is beyond argument. The reconciliation of all things to him through the cross is a beautiful and inspiring message, and that he invites us to participate in this work is stunning.
The mission of God is a very, very good thing.But it is not the ultimate thing. It too can be twisted into an idol that we value more than God himself. Sadly, in our efforts to elevate the goodness and importance of God’s mission, we can unknowingly turn it into a false god that comes to define our lives and value. It’s especially tempting to those within Christian communities who long for significance. The best way to be affirmed in many churches is to devote yourself to Christ’s mission. After all, achieving great things for God is much easier to see and celebrate than developing a deep life with him. If a Christian community celebrates accomplishments more than character, it’s a pretty good indication that Christ’s mission has come to replace Christ himself.
Gordon MacDonald coined a term for this temptation. He calls it “missionalism.” It is “the belief that the worth of one’s life is determined by the achievement of a grand objective.” He continues:“Missionalism starts slowly and gains a foothold in the leader’s attitude. Before long the mission controls almost everything: time, relationships, health, spiritual depth, ethics, and convictions. In advanced stages, missionalism means doing whatever it takes to solve the problem. In its worst iteration, the end always justifies the means. The family goes; health is sacrificed; integrity is jeopardized; God-connection is limited.”
Ultimately, missionalism is rooted in the lie that your worth is proportional to your impact. It’s a lie that the church often celebrates, but our Lord never does. Remember, when Jesus was baptized by John, the voice of God the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). At this point in his life, Jesus hadn’t yet preached a sermon, he hadn’t called a disciple, he hadn’t performed a miracle, or overcome temptation in the wilderness. He hadn’t confronted the Pharisees or endured the cross. In fact, he had not yet accomplished anything we might label “missional.” And yet, he still had the Father’s love and approval. It’s a reminder that while God’s mission is important, abiding in the love of God himself is ultimate.
WEEKLY PRAYERIgnatius Loyola (1495–1556) Lord Jesus Christ, fill us, we pray, with your light and life, that we may reveal your wondrous glory. Grant that your love may so fill our lives that we may count nothing too small to do for you, nothing too much to give and nothing too hard to bear. Amen.
Father Richard critiques how, even within Christianity, we doubt the healing power of the gospel:
When religion is not about healing, it really doesn’t have much to offer people in this life. Many have called it “carrot on the stick” theology or, as my friend Brian McLaren says, we made the gospel largely into “an evacuation plan for the next world.” If we don’t understand the need and desire for healing, then salvation (salus, or healing) becomes a matter of hoping for some delayed gratification. We desperately need healing for groups, institutions, marriages, the wounds of war, violence, racism, and the endless social problems in which we are drowning today. But we won’t know how to heal if we don’t learn the skills at ground zero: the individual human heart.
For much of its history following CE 313 when Christianity became the imperial religion of the Roman Empire, the church’s concern was not healing, but rather maintaining social and church order: the doling out of graces and indulgences (as if that were possible); granting dispensations, annulments, and absolutions, along with the appropriate penalties; keeping people in first marriages at all costs, instead of seeing marriage itself as an arena for growth, forgiveness, and transformation for wife, husband, children, and the whole extended family, and beyond. In general, we tried to resolve issues of the soul and the Spirit by juridical means, which seldom works.
We’ve largely lost the very word healing in mainline Christian churches. Around the time I entered into ministry, there was a resurgence in the notion of healing prayer and healing services. Many Catholics thought, “Well, this must come from the Protestants; we’re not into healing!” And of course, they were right! Many Catholics didn’t expect to really become healed people in an inner or outer way. As priests, we felt our job was to absolve sin rather than help people to grow and heal. “Get rid of the contaminating element,” as it were, rather than “Learn what you can about yourself and God because of this conflict, pain, or suffering.” Those are two very different paths. In the four Gospels, Jesus did two things over and over again: he preached and he healed. We did a lot of preaching, but not too much healing. We didn’t know how.
I’m convinced that if preaching doesn’t effect some level of healing or transformation in the listener, then it’s not even the gospel being preached. Healing is the simplest criterion of preaching the word that I can imagine. The truth heals and expands us in its very hearing: “The truth will make you free” (John 8:32). It allows and presses us to reconfigure the world with plenty of room for gentleness and peace for ourselves, and for those around us. Only whole people can imagine or call forth a more whole world.
One of the things I struggle with is the need for approval. I am confident that this malady affects many of us. This is especially true for anyone who attempts to be creative. Over the past three years, I have created podcasts, videos, audio files, books, blogs, seminars, and classes. You would think that my need for someone to say “Good job” would soften after some time. If I am being honest, it is not so much that I want approval from everyone, but a part of me wants approval from those I look up to or care about. Perhaps that is why this line from Hemmingway struck me so hard. I must be willing to do good work for the sake of doing good work, not as any means of getting approval. Creating good things that help the world progress or move a little closer to a beautiful and just world is its own reward.
2. “You should run a thousand miles from such expressions as: ‘I was right.'” St. Teresa of Avila, 16th Century Carmelite Nun.
Humility, humility, humility. After Love, it is easy to see why humility is necessary to live a meaningful life. Teresa of Avila has influenced me greatly, and I know I have said that before. Her works and her wisdom were the gateway for me to step through and into a whole new journey. She radically redefined my understanding of faith and the pilgrim way that accompanies it. Faith formation has little to do with going anywhere and is more about being present at the moment and finding the profound presence of God in and among everything. There may not be anything as toxic to healthy spirituality as pride. The need to be seen as correct has led to the downfall of many people. Greatness is not defined by being right but by being humbly and humorously human.
3. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Martin Luther King Jr., Pastor and Civil Rights Activist
We are all in this together, even if we do not believe it or see it. The word “diabolical” means to separate or to break things apart. Anything that encourages or promulgates some level of separation or division is inherently diabolical. Isn’t that amazing? The word can still define a spiritual reality, but for me, it has taken on another aspect of identifying things that fracture our world. It is for this reason that justice must be sought in all places. If justice is not happening to one segment of humanity, it is roundabout affecting the whole with its injustice. If Jesus taught us anything, it is that God’s will is that we descend from our distant and lofty places and learn to identify with those who are suffering.
4. “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Activist and Public Figure.
Mahatma Gandhi gave Christianity a gift with this one. His gift was that of being a mirror, of reflecting back to Christendom how the rest of the world was experiencing it. When we go too long without someone who can honestly reflect back to us how we are being experienced, we can fall into thinking that others see us as we see ourselves. As human beings, we have an inherent psychological need to see ourselves as either the hero or the victim, but never the villain. We are blind to that possibility. We will draw up elaborate explanations and rationalizations so as not to see ourselves as the ones creating havoc in the world. When we combine hubris and an inability to self-critique with political power and influence, we set ourselves up for a cacophony of disasters. Through this quote, Mahatma Gandhi was fulfilling the biblical role of a prophet. He was outside of Christianity, looking in and naming what those inside did not want to admit.
5. “Go kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.” Bruce Cockburn, Canadian Folk Singer Man, that’s good. The style of music is not my favorite, but a good lyric goes a long way.
Something I am reading: Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Yep, I’m still making my way through this one. I am taking my time with it because it is a text I genuinely enjoy. One thing that stands out in this reread is the smaller statements against Christian nationalism throughout this book. It should come as no surprise that it was written at an illegal seminary at a time when the German Church was shaking hands with Adolf Hitler. Discipleship is a product of its age and yet speaks to every age.
The thing about domestic violence and intimate partner abuse is sometimes we don’t see it because everything appears normal. Because there is no one type of abuse victim, often people are being abused and we have no idea…. Then there are times when we do, yet we pretend not to see…. The friends in this passage who knew their friend needed help did not turn the other way; they instead went and picked him up to get him some help. —Rev. Kamilah Hall Sharp
In a sermon on the healing of the paralyzed man (Luke 5:17–25), Rev. Kamilah Hall Sharp challenges the church to support those who are suffering from the terrors of domestic abuse:
Here [the paralyzed man] is unable to walk around freely, depending on others, and being marginalized because in this society most people believed if something was wrong with you, it was because you sinned. You did something wrong or your parents did something wrong. The pain one must feel to have been told the only reason this is happening to you is because of what you did wrong. The pain one must feel when they internalize this and begin to believe it. Here he is living with this, and his friends now are taking him to get help…. I don’t know if the man asked them or if it was the friends’ idea. What I do know is the friends are now taking him. That tells me two things: (1) The friends had to be willing to take him, and (2) the man had to be willing to go.
See, what that means for us is as a community we have to be willing to help those in need and those of us who have been abused must be willing to take help. What would it look like if we were the friends lowering our sister before Jesus? What would it look like if we came as a community around our people in need and said, “My friend, I got you in this time of need”? How does the church create a space where people feel safe and comfortable enough to come and say, “I need help; I’m in danger”?
Sharp affirms God’s desire that all be healed and helped.
For so long, we have failed victims of domestic violence…. Please hear me when I say this; I do not believe God wants any of us to stay in a relationship where we are being abused, married or not. I believe God loves us too much to want us to be abused. God does not want what God has created and said is wonderfully and fearfully made harmed in any way. And as the church, as followers of Jesus, we should not want anyone to be abused for the sake of staying married…. We must be willing to help…. I think we sometimes forget we are the hands and feet of Jesus. We can show or take people to get the help they need.
Worship Me only. Whatever occupies your mind the most becomes your god. Worries, if indulged, develop into idols. Anxiety gains a life of its own, parasitically infesting your mind. Break free from this bondage by affirming your trust in Me and refreshing yourself in My Presence. What goes on in your mind is invisible, undetectable to other people. But I read your thoughts continually, searching for evidence of trust in Me. I rejoice when your mind turns toward Me. Guard your thoughts diligently; good thought choices will keep you close to Me.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 112:7 NLT
7 They do not fear bad news;
they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.
1st Corinthians 13:11
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
A leper came to him begging…, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” —Mark 1:40–41
Womanist biblical scholar Dr. Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder describes the social ostracization caused by skin disease in Jesus’ time:
Leprosy was the term for a range of diseases from house mold to ringworm, from psoriasis to what is termed Hansen’s disease (modern-day leprosy). The common symptom was the breaking of the skin. The resulting impurity and the stigma that went with it prevented the infected person from fully participating in society. For the man who now seeks a cure from Jesus, this social barrier is as damaging as the physical malady. [1]
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann emphasizes that we are all in need of Jesus’ healing touch:
[Jesus] touched him. He put his strong hand into the sore skin. He risked touching the contagious skin and thereby making himself, as well, socially unacceptable and ritually impure. He risked all of that in his compassion. And the narrator says, “Immediately! The leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”…
Now I know this is not your story. I assume that you are like me; none of you likely has leprosy. But leprosy in the Bible becomes a metaphor for all kinds of diseases and malfunctions.
Some of you may be HIV positive and find it to be a social disease with a stigma attached, a lot like leprosy.
Some of you may have an addiction that has power over you, a lot like leprosy.
Some of you are in a tough marriage or at the brink of a failed marriage, a lot like leprosy.
Some of you have broken relations with a kid or a parent, a lot like leprosy.
Some of you have made bad decisions, and wish you could undo them, but cannot find a way, a lot like leprosy….
Take that list, extend it toward yourself. And slot it all under “L” for leprosy. Leprosy is the threat that may undo the world, … because such a disease overrides all barriers and leaves all under threat.
Brueggemann imagines those healed by Jesus singing Psalm 30:5, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
A lot of lepers are still in the night. But they wait for the morning when comes healing. This faith of … Jesus and the church is not a moral code or an ideology or a quarrel. It is rather a performance of transformation, of old made new, of lost found, of dead made alive. And the whole cosmos is filled with the singing of ex-lepers, the saints of God who attest that gifts from the holy God are given that make for life. [2]
Last week, I attended a meeting with a group of faith leaders. The Rev. Traci Blackmon offered a reflection to the gathering about hope and resilience in the midst of the current political turmoil and crisis. “Every day,” she said, “I look at a photograph from a house in Los Angeles. Although it was surrounded by complete devastation from the fires, with entire neighborhoods wiped out, this one house remained.”
Focusing on this image — sort of like an icon — strengthened her hope. The house — like the few others that survived — employed fire-resistant technologies and architectural building techniques intended to do exactly what they did — not burn down in such a conflagration.
No one, of course, wanted or fully imagined the Los Angeles fires. But a handful of owners had prepared for the worst. In an interview with The Guardian, Jacob Ruano, a federal firefighter, remarked, “This house was perfect; it was built for this. Not all homes are built like that.”
This house … was built for this.
Rev. Blackmon knows a fitting biblical illustration when she sees one: “A wise man built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock,” said Jesus. “A foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!”
This house was built for this.
That’s how we all must think right now, because she insisted, “We are all vulnerable now.”
No one wanted (well, to be truthful, some people did want) the conflagrations of this new administration (who are, sadly, the arsonists). But have we built for this? Is our house ready? What does it take to shore up the walls when the fire has already begun?
Is my house built for this?
* * * * * *
Since January 20, I’ve been asked one question by scores of friends, neighbors, and readers: What are we going to do?
I haven’t know what to say.
But Rev. Blackmon’s remarks sparked the epiphany I’ve needed: We can build for the fire.
As a result, I came up with a list of things to do. I call it the “Ten Ws.” For me. For anyone who is floundering. It isn’t about fixing everything that is being broken. It is about building for the fire.
HERE ARE MY TEN Ws:
WAKE UP (everyday) Sleep is important, but hiding under the covers is bad. Get on some sort of schedule for sleeping and waking. And don’t doom scroll before bed.
WELCOME THE DAY (everyday) With gratitude. Say “thank you” first thing when you wake. The night and day are still doing their thing, no matter what. You may feel defeated or scared. But you are alive. Life is the first and most fleeting gift. Remember Stephen Hawking: “Where there’s life, there’s hope”
Reread Grateful (or read it for the first time). I wrote it during Trump I. There’s a lot of wisdom in those pages. I’m rereading my own book now.
WALK (everyday) Get fresh air and exercise. This isn’t a weight loss program or training for a marathon. Walk to feel the ground under your feet and notice all the little things on your street, in your neighborhood, at the park. Feel your body in the world. Move, be attentive to your world, pray or meditate as you go (if you like). Or just put one foot in front of the other — because that’s the only way through the next four years.
(BE) WITH OTHERS (everyday) Don’t isolate yourself. Reach out or connect with someone every single day. Face-to-face, via text or email, or write a letter. Go to church or synagogue. (I know lots of people who have theological questions who go to church just to be with others.) Volunteer to feed the hungry or read to children at the local library (also: support your local library!). Do good for and with others. Go to conferences. Hang out with people you trust. Start a book group.
WORK (most days, but take Sabbaths too!) Keep doing your work. Do what you love. Practice your vocation. Don’t try to do everything all the time. Focus on your own gifts and calling. This isn’t just working at a job. Clean your house, rearrange your closets, take up a hobby. You may be challenged in the future to go far beyond your comfort zone. But it is far more likely that the work you do will be your primary arena of acts of assistance, democracy, and justice on behalf of others. Be an everyday hero wherever you are.
WRITE (everyday, weekly, or often) Keep a journal of these days. Express yourself as fully as you can in its pages. If you don’t like writing, draw or weave or throw pots. Whatever. Have a creative way to work through your fears, losses, or doubts. You may think you don’t want to remember any of this. But one day, you — or someone who comes after you — will be grateful to know your story of now. And writing or art can clarify things for you.
WATCH THE NEWS (as able) You must stay informed. The arsonists want you ignorant. If you can’t watch the news, read or listen to it. Subscribe to a few news digests that deliver news in smaller, digestible bits (I subscribe to ProPublica, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter) along with newsletters you trust. I still get the Washington Post and the New York Times, keeping in mind their recent editorial shifts, etc. Support local journalism. Use the mute button on your remote. Be cautious with sources. You don’t need to know everything, but being aware of at least some things is important.
WIDE-SIGHT (a practice to develop) Broaden your perspective by looking to the periphery. I wrote about wide-sight in Grateful (pp. 65-67). But I first learned the practice from Parker Palmer in The Courage to Teach (which is still one of my favorite books ever!). Here’s his explanation:
Normally when we are taken by surprise, there is a sudden narrowing of our visual periphery that exacerbates the fight or flight response — an intense, fearful, self-defensive focusing of the “gimlet eye” that is associated with both physical and intellectual combat. But in the Japanese self-defense art of aikido, this visual narrowing is countered by a practice called “soft eyes,” in which one learns to widen one’s periphery, to take in more of the world.
If you introduce a sudden stimulus to an unprepared person, the eyes narrow and the fight or flight syndrome kicks in. But if you train a person to practice soft eyes, then introduce that same stimulus, the reflex is often transcended. This person will turn toward the stimulus, take it in, and then make a more authentic response — such as thinking a new thought.
Don’t get fixated on the direct threats. Instead, remind yourself to look toward the edges of your field of vision. What’s there? What’s not immediately obvious? Is there something on the periphery that is helpful, healing, or hopeful?
WEEP (whenever) Embrace whatever emotions come up. I’ve cried many days in recent months. But I’ve laughed, too. Don’t judge how you feel on any given day (or at any given hour). Don’t regret the tears and don’t feel guilty about joy — and all the feelings in between the two. If you have someone to talk to about your feelings, share what’s going on.
WONDER (as much as possible) Go out into nature, spend time at an art museum, listen to your favorite music, read books and poetry, get obsessed with space photos from the Webb telescope — anything that connects you to beauty and deepens your awareness of awe. Researchers have discovered that “awe leads to goodwill, cooperation, and a transformed sense of self as part of a community” (Berkeley professor Dacher Keltner). Embrace mystery. Ask unanswerable questions. Awe is “pro-social” and has been shown to reduce polarization!
Wake up, Welcome the day, Walk, (Be) With others, Work, Write, Watch the news, practice Wide-sight, Weep, and Wonder.
Some are every day practices, some occasional. Some need to be learned; others are intuitive. This isn’t a to do list. It is a mapMix them up. Borrow what you like or need. Whatever helps. Add your own Ws. Keep it simple.
* * * * * *
That’s what I’m doing. My ten Ws.
I don’t know how to solve many of the big problems and, frankly, I’m as afraid of what is coming as much as you are. But these ten things seem like a good foundation for a fire-proof house. We didn’t want this disaster, but the wildfire is burning and shows no real sign of being contained. The conflagration comes closer. We want to survive, we want to help others survive, and we want to somehow shape a better future from the ashes.
Disability rights activist and author Amy Kenny challenges the implications of Jesus’ healing of “the blind man” in John 9, whom she refers to as Zach or Zechariah, which means “God remembers.”
Zach is so much more than his blindness…. Structurally, the focus [of John 9] is not on the physical but on something deeper and richer that Jesus offers to Zach. It is true that Jesus cured people’s bodies as part of his ministry, but this passage is often misinterpreted to perpetuate the notion that disabled people require physical modification to be complete. Jesus’s ministry is not all about a physical cure but about holistic healing.
Today, we typically think of illness (and sometimes disability) as biological, with Western medicine set up to find and cure disease directly…. Folks in Jesus’s day thought about healing in much broader terms. They talked about healing as restoring relationships and integrating someone back into social and religious systems. The Greek word often used in Scripture for healing is sozo, which means “to make whole” or “to save.” It’s the same word used to talk about salvation. Jesus’s healing is not purely about a physical alteration but about reestablishing right relationship between humanity and God and, hopefully, between individuals and community. Healing allows people to flourish. Modern medicine still recognizes the difference between curing and healing. Curing is a physical process…. [Healing] focuses on restoring interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions. It’s lengthy and ongoing because it’s a process of becoming whole….
Zach received a physical cure … when he emerged from the pool able to see, but his true healing does not occur until much later in the chapter when he declares, “Lord, I believe,” and worships Jesus (9:38). That’s the moment he’s restored through a conversation with the living God and is finally able to reach the place of worship he’s been excluded from. Jesus is always tearing down the boundaries we put up, and here Jesus reveals the unnecessary barriers of kingdom exclusion. Everyone is now welcome at the table!
Kenny writes of the fullness of God’s image found in the diversity of people’s physical and mental abilities:
To assume that my disability needs to be erased in order for me to live an abundant life is disturbing not only because of what it says about me but also because of what it reveals about people’s notions of God. I bear the image of the Alpha and the Omega. My disabled body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. I have the mind of Christ…. I don’t have a junior holy spirit because I am disabled. To suggest that I am anything less than sanctified and redeemed is to suppress the image of God in my disabled body and to limit how God is already at work through my life. Maybe we need to be freed not from disability but from the notion that it limits my ability to showcase God’s radiance to the church.
The Idol of Politics: The God Gap
Click Here for Audio For decades, sociologists and politicos in the U.S. have noted that a significant percentage of religious believers vote for one party while non-believers vote for the other. They called this the “God gap.” The common explanation for the God gap is that certain strongly-held religious beliefs and values drive people—particularly Christians—to vote for the political party espousing similar views. Simply put, the common assumption is that a person’s religious beliefs determine their political beliefs.
New data compiled by Michele Margolis, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, challenges this explanation. Her recent book, From Politics to the Pews, says that our faith often doesn’t determine our politics, but rather our politics determine our faith. Margolis points to research indicating that most Americans’ religious beliefs are not set until relatively late in life—often after marriage and parenthood. Political beliefs, on the other hand, are shaped in late adolescence and early adulthood. That means a person’s conservative or progressive political convictions are usually defined long before their religious convictions. Margolis says that as a result, when later deciding their religious beliefs, Americans will often let their political views determine their spiritual identity; political conservatives are more likely to embrace evangelical Christianity and political progressives are more likely to remain religiously unaffiliated.
Why does this matter? This research reveals that many of us hold our partisan political identity as more foundational than our Christian identity, and that cable news channels are shaping young adults’ beliefs more permanently than their churches or youth ministries. In other words, politics is now occupying the space in our lives that rightfully belongs to God. The real God gap is not between political conservatives and progressives but between those who claim the identity “Christian” and those whose identity is actually shaped by Christ.
WEEKLY PRAYERThomas Ken (1637–1711) O our God, Amidst the deplorable division of your Church, let us never widen its breaches, but give us universal charity to all who are called by your name. O deliver us from the sins and errors, from the schisms and heresies of the age. O give us grace daily to pray for the peace of your Church, and earnestly to seek it and to excite all we can to praise and to love you; through Jesus Christ, our one Savior and Redeemer. Amen.
Father Richard Rohr focuses on the Gospel of Mark to explore the significance of Jesus’ healing ministry:
The Gospel of Mark is primarily a gospel of action. Jesus is constantly on the move from place to place, preaching and healing, preaching and healing. Jesus is conveying the good news of God’s big picture into people’s small worlds, and he does this much more than he talks about it. Jesus’ actions and physical healings consistently rearrange faulty relationships—with people’s own self-image, with others, with society, and with God who is henceforth seen as on their side. The same is true for us today.
There’s not much profit in just thinking, “Wow, Jesus worked another miracle!” But there is much profit in noting the changed status, self-image, courage, and relationship to family or community that the cure invariably entails. This is the real transformative message. I am not denying that Jesus could and undoubtedly did perform physical healings. It still happens, and over the years I have seen it many times. At the same time, the healings and exorcisms in Mark’s Gospel are primarily to make statements about power, abuse, relationships, class, addiction, money, exclusion, the state of women and the poor, and the connections between soul and body—the same issues we face today.
Jesus also doesn’t heal as a reward for good behavior. Usually there is no mention whatsoever of any prerequisites, and sometimes it’s not even the one cured, but those around them, who have faith. Neither in Mark’s Gospel is there any primary concern about life after death or heaven. We projected that onto the text. All of the healing stories are present-tense concerns for human suffering in this world. They tell us that God cares deeply about the tragic human condition now. How could we miss this? In general, rewards and punishments are inherent and current. Sin is its own punishment, and virtue is its own reward now.
Jesus’ healing ministry reveals God’s solidarity with suffering.
We are all initially created in the image of God, and Jesus’ public ministry is always recreating and restoring that image. We could say that is all he is doing! Christians believe that we cannot know the mind of God until we see what God was doing in, through, and with Jesus. Transformed people, like Jesus, naturally transform others. In Jesus’ ministry of healing and exorcism, the transformations were immediately verifiable and visible. The real message here is not a medical cure or whether Jesus could do such a thing, but that (1) God cares about human pain, (2) God cares about it in this world now, (3) God’s action actually changes people, and (4) the people who have experienced God’s grace are equipped to pass on the real message.
Possessed by the Wrong Perspective
Richard Rohr offers one way we might understand the exorcisms Jesus performed:
When a person has a constantly changing reference point, they have a very insecure life. They will take on any persona, negative or positive, and become incapable of much personal integrity. This is the celebrity-obsessed world in which we are living today. The biblical tradition uses the language of “having a demon” to describe such negative identity. We post-enlightenment, educated people don’t like this language very much, but one way to think of “being possessed” is when there is an unhealthy other (or others!) who is defining us—and usually rather poorly.
In that sense, I’ve personally known a lot of possessed people. It’s no surprise that Jesus exorcised so many demons from people who seemed to carry the negative projections of the surrounding crowd (Luke 9:37–43), synagogue worshippers (Mark 1:21–27; Luke 13:10–17), or the Gerasene residents (Mark 5:1–20; Luke 8:26–39). The ancients were not as naive as we might think. In these stories, we see exactly what the internalization of negative judgment means. Such people do need healing, even a major “exorcism”! While we tend to send them to therapists instead of holy people, in general, the only cure for negative possession is a positive repossession! Jesus is always “repossessing” people—for themselves and for God.
When a good therapist, a wise and holy (meaning whole or healed) person, or a totally accepting friend becomes our chosen mirror, we are, in fact, being healed! I hope it doesn’t sound too presumptuous, but I think I have exorcised a good number of people in my life—primarily because they had the trust and the humility to let me mirror them positively and replace the old mirror of their abusive dad, their toxic church, or their racist neighborhood. That’s why Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you” (Luke 7:50). I am just saying the same. [1]
Drawing on the healing of “Legion” in Luke 8:26–39, Father Greg Boyle describes a similar experience from his work through Homeboy Industries:
Jesus asks the demoniac who is terrorizing the neighbors, writing on walls, selling drugs, shooting at people, harassing folks as they walk by, “What is your name?” The guy says, “Legion,” which at first bounce means, “There are a lot of my homies to back me up.” But the word actually means “I am what has afflicted me.” The invitation and plea is for healing. And Jesus does. Even though it would appear he “drives out the demon,” he’s actually freeing him of his affliction and asking him not to define himself this way anymore. More liberation than salvation. The demoniac’s “growth” is not about becoming less sinful, but more joyful. He is now connected to a community, having been liberated from his isolation. Jesus has made him whole. [2]
The Idol of Politics: Misplacing Power
Click Here for Audio One of the more curious characters in the narrative of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion is Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. The exchanges recorded between Pilate, Jesus, and the crowds of Jerusalem are fascinating. More than once, Pilate admitted that he could find no crime necessitating Jesus’ execution, and he could not understand why Jesus refused to defend himself. “Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Pilate said. Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above” (Luke 19:10–11).
With this exchange, we see the disconnect between Pilate and Jesus regarding the source of true power. Pilate believed power was ultimately political—granted to him by the state and its emperor, Caesar. Jesus understood that ultimate power rested in God alone, and his fate resided with his heavenly Father, not the Roman governor of Judea. Pilate’s error is the same made by all who worship the idol of politics today. They bow themselves to a king, state, or constituency believing safety and well-being are rooted in securing political advantage.
But, the very political power we think will liberate us ultimately enslaves us; we become servants of the false god we ourselves have erected. This is exactly what happened to Pilate. Although his conscience told him Jesus was innocent and he looked to release him, Pilate did as the people wanted. He ordered Jesus to be crucified. Pilate boasted that his political position gave him the power to free or kill Jesus but in the end, Pilate was beholden to the crowds and their threats. If a riot occurred in Jerusalem he risked losing his political power—the thing he loved most. Because Pilate could not betray his idol, his conscience had to submit to political expediency.
At least to Pilate, Jesus was an innocent man whose life he willingly sacrificed to appease the false god of politics. Unlike Pilate, Jesus was able to defy the crowds, the religious leaders, the Roman Empire, and even his own followers because his allegiance was to his Father alone. He shows us how worshipping the living God leads to true freedom while worshipping a false god always leads to slavery and injustice.
WEEKLY PRAYER. Thomas Ken (1637–1711) O our God, amidst the deplorable division of your Church, let us never widen its breaches, but give us universal charity to all who are called by your name. O deliver us from the sins and errors, from the schisms and heresies of the age. O give us grace daily to pray for the peace of your Church, and earnestly to seek it and to excite all we can to praise and to love you; through Jesus Christ, our one Savior and Redeemer, Amen.
Drawing on personal experience, Father Richard offers an encouraging reminder that we don’t need to be perfect in order to be loved and accepted by God.
We don’t come to God by doing it right. Please believe me on this. We come to God by doing it wrong. Any guide of souls knows this to be true. If we come to God by being perfect, no one is going to come to God. This absolutely levels the playing field. Our failures open our hearts of stone and move our rigid mind space toward understanding and patience. It’s in doing it wrong, making mistakes, being rejected, and experiencing pain that we are led to total reliance upon God. I wish it weren’t true, but all I know at this point in my journey is that God has let me do just about everything wrong, so I could fully experience how God can do everything so utterly right.
I believe this is why Christianity has as its central symbol of transformation a naked, bleeding man who is the picture of failing, losing, and dying, yet who is really winning—and revealing the secret pattern to those who will join him there. Everyone wins because, if we’re honest, the one thing we all have in common is weakness and powerlessness in at least one—though usually many—areas of our lives. There’s a broken, wounded part inside each of us. [1]
In the Everything Belongs podcast, Father Richard explains how he has been freed from his tendency to focus on “what’s wrong” with himself, others, and the world:
As a perfectionist by nature, accepting that things aren’t perfect has been at the center of my life’s inner struggle. I’m always seeing the wrong of everything. At the same time, I haven’t wanted to let “what’s wrong” drive the show—in myself and others. I want to be perfect, and I want other people to be perfect—but of course, the only perfection available to us is the ability to embrace the imperfect.
What I like to call “holy dissatisfaction” gave me my instinct for reform, but it also chewed me up. In the first half of my life, I was constantly thinking, “It’s not supposed to be that way!” I was constantly noticing, “That isn’t it! That isn’t it!” It’s only in the second half of my life that I am finally able to live in the holy tension of accepting that a “remnant” or “critical mass” is enough. Scattered in each group are always a few who get it, a few who live and love the gospel. When that became enough, and even more than enough (even in myself), I was free. So, this scriptural image of “remnant” or “yeast”—to use Jesus’ words—is very important for me and my own liberation. If I’m going to wait for the reign of God to be fully realized before I can be happy, I’m never going to be happy. [2]
Healthy Religion is simply the container that brings us to Spirituality (or perhaps brings Spirituality to us?). In the modern devaluing of Religion, we have lost access to Spirituality. I believe much of the fracturing we see in the world is a consequence of this.
Spirituality can uniquely cultivate wisdom, reflection, self-awareness, and many other things necessary for human thriving. STEM fields do not touch on those topics in the same way.
Follow me for a moment: what do we think the world might look like if we have atomic warfare, flame-throwers, health insurance policies, and political hierarchies but still have a shallow humanity? Any immature human will use these things for their benefit to trample out opposition, right?
Anyone guided by a healthy Spirituality will say it is time to dismantle the missiles into farming equipment and point toward a better way forward (just like the prophets of old).
After all…
“He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” – Isaiah 2:4
2.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.“
One of the most overlooked or dismissed aspects of Christianity is its emphasis on one-ness, on the interconnected reality of everything. This idea is often scoffed off as either too “Eastern” or “New Age.”
If anything, it is an “Old Age” thought we have lost reverence for—the myth of separation causes and excuses many evils. Our actions and thoughts have consequences that reverberate out to other people, whether we know it or not.
Perhaps this is why in Romans 12, Paul teaches us to weep with those who are weeping and rejoice with those who are rejoicing.
What happens to one of us happens to all of us.
3.
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.“
MLK elsewhere calls the absence of conflict as “negative peace.”
“Positive peace” is only achieved after a healthy conversation or disagreement is done well. I fully believe we often settle for being in the same room and avoiding topics, shallowly believing that “peace” is what is happening.
Think about it…
During the Pandemic, there was an enormous amount of “negative peace.” It felt as though whole communities tried to gather and yet not talk about anything of consequence or meaning to avoid conflict. Of course, that was unsustainable, and the rising social pressure rose until it burst out in disagreements or even riots. I am sure that history books will be written about that season of human history.
True peace is only possible with justice, truth, and love.
4.
“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. He who loves is a participant in the being of God.“
This quote is fantastic because of two powerful themes: Love and Participation.
It is not new to say that Christianity values Love as the fount and foundation of all the virtues. It might be new to some to discover that Participating in the Life of God was a theme of the Early Church. All of us exist within God already, and God is already present within all things. As a result, we can either “Participate in the Life of God” and work together with it or, in our fury and selfishness, work against the Life of God within us and around us.
It is entirely possible to exist within the mystery of God and yet not Lovingly Participate in it.
5.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.“
In light of this quote, I Google searched a few things. Here is what I found out:
America has 750 military bases around the world.
Currently, the US has 5,000+ nuclear warheads.
The US budget for the Department of Defense for 2024 was roughly $850 Billion.
Is a country having such things a sign of spiritual health or unhealth? Can we say that a country knows how to “love its enemies” when it occupies that much ground in other countries, has that many nuclear warheads, and spends that much money when the problem of homelessness could be solved for $20 Billion? Jesus never told his disciples to invest in instruments of war, so why do we, as a self-proclaimed “Christian country,” do that? If we are not even allowed to ask the question, does that tell us something? Why is this topic not more talked about in churches?
As I have written in other places, when Christianity became the formal and favored religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, it gained a favored seat at the cost of its preachers becoming chaplains of the empires of man rather than prophets of the Kingdom of God.
Remember, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a 32% approval rating just two years before his assassination. Never forget that this man went to seminary and was deeply influenced by the Hebrew Scriptures and Greek New Testament in his critiques of American culture. Jesus would likely have the same critiques if we were ruthlessly honest with ourselves.
This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
If you’d like to start a CO2, we’d be glad to help you and your partner get started. Also click the link below to see how others are doing CO2.Odds Monkey
Steve Harvey Introduces Jesus To A Secular Audience
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After a miraculous conversion, Paul was called by God to carry the message of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire well beyond the Jewish community where the earliest Christians emerged. This calling would occupy the remainder of Paul’s life as he tenaciously and faithfully took the gospel from city to city. He proclaimed the good news, taught converts, planted churches, and raised up leaders to take his place before moving on. Along the way, he faced unimaginable difficulties including beatings, imprisonment, and shipwrecks, and through it all Paul refers to himself as a “servant of Christ Jesus.” When in prison he calls himself a “prisoner for Christ Jesus.”