Liberation<\/strong><\/a>\nMonday July 8, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>A prophet is <em>one who keeps God free for people and who keeps people free for God.<\/em> Both of these are much needed and vital tasks. Without the educated gift of prophecy, God almost always becomes imprisoned and made inaccessible, and far too many people have been shamed and taught guilt to keep us clergy in business. We saw our job as \u201csin management.\u201d That is not just being clever. I believe we religious leaders actually thought that. Sadly, the laity fully bought into this negative story line. That is what happens when priests are not informed by prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The priestly class invariably makes God less accessible instead of more so, \u201cneither entering yourselves nor letting others enter in,\u201d as Jesus says (Matthew 23:13). For the sake of our own job security, the priestly message is often: \u201cYou can only come to God through us, by doing the right rituals, obeying the rules, and believing the right doctrines.\u201d This is like telling God who God is allowed to love! The clergy and religious leaders, unintentionally perhaps, teach their disciples \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prophets spend much of their time destroying and dismissing these barriers and trying to create \u201ca straight highway to God\u201d (Matthew 3:3). Both John the Baptist and Jesus tried to free God for the people, and it got them killed. The other half of the prophet\u2019s job is to keep people free for God. We get trapped in chains of guilt and legalism, focusing on our imperfect church attendance and inability to live up to the law\u2019s standard; as if the goal of religion is \u201cattendance\u201d at an occasional ritual instead of constant participation in an Eternal Mystery! Prophets turn our ideas of success and belonging on their head, emphasizing God\u2019s unconditional and unmerited love in response to our continual shortcomings. God is always breaking the approved \u201crules of God\u201d by forgiving sinners, choosing the outsider or the weak, and showing up in secular places. Please check the Bible if you doubt me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our job is to love others the way God has loved us. In my life, I\u2019ve experienced God\u2019s unearned love again and again. God has persistently broken the rules to love me at the level I needed, could receive, and was able to understand throughout my life. The magnanimous nature of divine love keeps liberating me at deeper levels, and then I think that newly discovered level of love is the deepest. But it\u2019s a journey that never stops giving. Why wouldn\u2019t everybody want that? But many actually fight it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets: Part Two<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/justice-in-the-scriptures-2019-07-07\/\"><strong>Justice in the Scriptures<\/strong><\/a><br>\n<strong>Sunday, July 7, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me expand on our secular and limited definition of justice which for most Westerners is merely retributive justice. When people on the news say, \u201cWe want justice!\u201d they normally mean that bad deeds should be <em>punished<\/em> or that they want vengeance. Our judicial, legal, and penal systems are almost entirely based on this idea of retributive justice. This much bad deserves this much punishment; this much good deserves this much reward. The rational, logical, tit for tat, quid pro quo system makes sense to most of us. It does appear to be holding civil society together at some level, and seems to be the best our dualistic world can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I certainly recognize there are many early passages in the Bible that present God as punitive and retributive, but we must stay with the text\u2014and observe how we gradually let God \u201cgrow up.\u201d God does not change as much as human knowledge of God evolves. A sole focus on divine retribution leads to an ego-satisfying and eventually unworkable image of God which situates us inside of a very unsafe and dangerous universe. Both Jesus and Paul observed the human tendency toward retribution and spoke strongly about the limitations of the law (see the Sermon on the Mount, Romans, and Galatians).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biblical notion of justice, beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures with the Jewish prophets\u2014especially Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea\u2014is quite different. If we read carefully and honestly, we will see that God\u2019s justice is actually <em>restorative<\/em>. In each case, after the prophet chastises the Israelites for their transgressions against YHWH, the prophet continues by saying, in effect, \u201cAnd here\u2019s what YHWH will do for you<em>: God will now love you more than ever! God will love you into wholeness. God will pour upon you a gratuitous, unbelievable, unaccountable, irrefutable love that you will finally be unable to resist.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God \u201cpunishes<\/em>\u201d<em> us<\/em> <em>by loving us more!<\/em> How else could divine love be supreme and victorious? Check out this theme for yourself: read such passages as Isaiah 29:13-24, Hosea 6:1-6, Ezekiel 16 (especially verses 59-63), and so many of the Psalms. God\u2019s justice is fully successful when God can legitimate and validate human beings in their original and total identity! God wins by making sure we win\u2014just as any loving human parent does. The little \u201ctime outs\u201d and discipline along the way are simply to keep us awake and growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Isaiah says of God, \u201cMy thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways\u201d (Isaiah 55:8). Yet I am afraid we often pull God down into \u201cour thoughts.\u201d We naively and erroneously think fear, anger, intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to love. Show me where that has worked. We cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest. God always and forever models the highest\u2014love\u2014and our task is always to \u201cimitate God\u201d (Ephesians 5:1).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prophets: Part Two Liberation Monday July 8, 2019 A prophet is one who keeps God free for people and who keeps people free for God. Both of these are much needed and vital tasks. Without the educated gift of prophecy, God almost always becomes imprisoned and made inaccessible, and far too many people have been shamed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18150,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149\/revisions\/18150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>A prophet is <em>one who keeps God free for people and who keeps people free for God.<\/em> Both of these are much needed and vital tasks. Without the educated gift of prophecy, God almost always becomes imprisoned and made inaccessible, and far too many people have been shamed and taught guilt to keep us clergy in business. We saw our job as \u201csin management.\u201d That is not just being clever. I believe we religious leaders actually thought that. Sadly, the laity fully bought into this negative story line. That is what happens when priests are not informed by prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The priestly class invariably makes God less accessible instead of more so, \u201cneither entering yourselves nor letting others enter in,\u201d as Jesus says (Matthew 23:13). For the sake of our own job security, the priestly message is often: \u201cYou can only come to God through us, by doing the right rituals, obeying the rules, and believing the right doctrines.\u201d This is like telling God who God is allowed to love! The clergy and religious leaders, unintentionally perhaps, teach their disciples \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prophets spend much of their time destroying and dismissing these barriers and trying to create \u201ca straight highway to God\u201d (Matthew 3:3). Both John the Baptist and Jesus tried to free God for the people, and it got them killed. The other half of the prophet\u2019s job is to keep people free for God. We get trapped in chains of guilt and legalism, focusing on our imperfect church attendance and inability to live up to the law\u2019s standard; as if the goal of religion is \u201cattendance\u201d at an occasional ritual instead of constant participation in an Eternal Mystery! Prophets turn our ideas of success and belonging on their head, emphasizing God\u2019s unconditional and unmerited love in response to our continual shortcomings. God is always breaking the approved \u201crules of God\u201d by forgiving sinners, choosing the outsider or the weak, and showing up in secular places. Please check the Bible if you doubt me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our job is to love others the way God has loved us. In my life, I\u2019ve experienced God\u2019s unearned love again and again. God has persistently broken the rules to love me at the level I needed, could receive, and was able to understand throughout my life. The magnanimous nature of divine love keeps liberating me at deeper levels, and then I think that newly discovered level of love is the deepest. But it\u2019s a journey that never stops giving. Why wouldn\u2019t everybody want that? But many actually fight it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prophets: Part Two<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/justice-in-the-scriptures-2019-07-07\/\"><strong>Justice in the Scriptures<\/strong><\/a><br>\n<strong>Sunday, July 7, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me expand on our secular and limited definition of justice which for most Westerners is merely retributive justice. When people on the news say, \u201cWe want justice!\u201d they normally mean that bad deeds should be <em>punished<\/em> or that they want vengeance. Our judicial, legal, and penal systems are almost entirely based on this idea of retributive justice. This much bad deserves this much punishment; this much good deserves this much reward. The rational, logical, tit for tat, quid pro quo system makes sense to most of us. It does appear to be holding civil society together at some level, and seems to be the best our dualistic world can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I certainly recognize there are many early passages in the Bible that present God as punitive and retributive, but we must stay with the text\u2014and observe how we gradually let God \u201cgrow up.\u201d God does not change as much as human knowledge of God evolves. A sole focus on divine retribution leads to an ego-satisfying and eventually unworkable image of God which situates us inside of a very unsafe and dangerous universe. Both Jesus and Paul observed the human tendency toward retribution and spoke strongly about the limitations of the law (see the Sermon on the Mount, Romans, and Galatians).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biblical notion of justice, beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures with the Jewish prophets\u2014especially Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea\u2014is quite different. If we read carefully and honestly, we will see that God\u2019s justice is actually <em>restorative<\/em>. In each case, after the prophet chastises the Israelites for their transgressions against YHWH, the prophet continues by saying, in effect, \u201cAnd here\u2019s what YHWH will do for you<em>: God will now love you more than ever! God will love you into wholeness. God will pour upon you a gratuitous, unbelievable, unaccountable, irrefutable love that you will finally be unable to resist.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God \u201cpunishes<\/em>\u201d<em> us<\/em> <em>by loving us more!<\/em> How else could divine love be supreme and victorious? Check out this theme for yourself: read such passages as Isaiah 29:13-24, Hosea 6:1-6, Ezekiel 16 (especially verses 59-63), and so many of the Psalms. God\u2019s justice is fully successful when God can legitimate and validate human beings in their original and total identity! God wins by making sure we win\u2014just as any loving human parent does. The little \u201ctime outs\u201d and discipline along the way are simply to keep us awake and growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Isaiah says of God, \u201cMy thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways\u201d (Isaiah 55:8). Yet I am afraid we often pull God down into \u201cour thoughts.\u201d We naively and erroneously think fear, anger, intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to love. Show me where that has worked. We cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest. God always and forever models the highest\u2014love\u2014and our task is always to \u201cimitate God\u201d (Ephesians 5:1).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prophets: Part Two Liberation Monday July 8, 2019 A prophet is one who keeps God free for people and who keeps people free for God. Both of these are much needed and vital tasks. Without the educated gift of prophecy, God almost always becomes imprisoned and made inaccessible, and far too many people have been shamed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18150,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149\/revisions\/18150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}