Blogging Towards Sunday

March 29, 2009
The Vocabulary of Faith 13
Humor & Laughter
Luke 10:25-37
Matthew 19:16-30

Humor. It’s a funny It can bring us to tears, and double-us over in laughter. We feel good when we’re “in on” the joke and excluded when the joke is at our expense. Sometimes it’s through a poignant joke (not at our expense) that we are most open to hearing the truth.

Humor is actually quite present in the stories and diverse faith testimonies that have been assembled over the past 2,500 years to form the book that we call the Bible. As I read and reflect back on the stories of the Bible I have the image of a God who enjoys a good laugh, never at our expense, but who is able to laugh at the craziness of our actions and the ridiculousness of our stubbornness. Think of Sarah who refuses to believe that she will actually have a child – as God promised – laughing at the preposterous promise [Genesis 18:10-12]. Abraham falls down and laughs when he hears the promise of God [Genesis 17:17]. Then when they do have that miracle child, they name him “Isaac” which means “he laughs” [Genesis 21:6], because she says “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” I wonder what they thought each time they heard or said the name of their son?

In today’s scriptures Jesus is struggling to invite people to follow him, to move beyond prejudice and comfortable routines, to authentic new ways of living together, understanding community and practicing their faith. I wonder if he laughed at the scribe (or lawyer) who refused to say the word “Samaritan” in his answer about who was the better neighbor [Luke 10:37]. Here was a man who dedicated his life to studying the laws of the Torah in order to live by them, yet refused to admit that a non-Jew might actually be doing God’s will. I wonder if Jesus laughed when he said that it’s easier for a “camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 19:23]. I wonder if Jesus laughed when the disciples, desperate to follow Jesus ask “who then can be saved?” [Matthew 19:25]. Maybe it’s only through humor that we are disarmed & become open to hearing God’s truth for us?

Blogging towards Sunday

March 22, 2009
The Kingdom of God
Mark 1:14-20
Matthew 13:31-35
Mark 12:28-34
Luke 17:20-21

What is the Kingdom of God? Is it a place? Is it the future? Is it just a metaphor that Jesus used? Something historical we look back to or something in the future comes towards us? What is it? Where is it? When will it be here? – or will we get there?Traditionally we seek to grasp it in the language from the Bible - from the teachings of Jesus - who says the kingdom is like yeast, mustard, a sower who goes out to sow seeds, like the City of God, the New Jerusalem, good news that make fishermen become fisher of men and the image of the feeding of the 5,000.

Powerful words and images that try to convey something that is both available to us and beyond us, a promise, as Paul would say, that is already outs and not yet completely fulfilled.

Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Latin American Liberation Theologian writes that “The Kingdom of God revealed to us in Jesus’ practice is a messianic practice which inverts not only values, but historical realities and social roles as well. To be a disciple of Jesus is to make our own his messianic practice.”

The Kingdom of God is the alternative community – or way of being together through faith – that Jesus invites us to become. It’s the creation intent that God has for humanity. It’s the new creation existence that we are invited to and empowered to live in, through and by Christ’s resurrection. I think it’s knowing God – with our lives, our minds, our hearts, in our actions, relationships and service.

The testimonies of the Bible say that God is both absent and present in our world.
Absent – in the sense that God can’t be controlled or manipulated: Isaiah 45:15; 1 Kings 8:27
Present in the sense that God is actively working in our history and in our midst: Exodus 40:34-38, Deuteronomy 4:7, Exodus 19:16-18 & 1 Kings 19:11-13 & Daniel 3:62-66.

The Bible also affirms that we live from hope into hope. Today we’re in the midst of a bail-out in which we don’t know what’s really happening, where we’re really headed and who is actually being bailed out. The testimonies of the Bible talk repeatedly of God’s future – of wholeness, healing and redemption – which is breaking into the world in which we live. We know God in history, in our own lives, in our experiences of loss, grace, hope and faith. The future of God is talked about in many ways: as the City of God (Revelation 21) as the New Jerusalem (Isaiah) and by Jesus most often as the Kingdom of God. It’s a new way of being that’s already here and now in Christ and not yet completely fulfilled, until the last days when Jesus heals everything through his powerful love. It’s like the picture below (that I took from the Exploratorium on a recent visit) that changes according to our perspective – and is more than we can take in when we first encounter it. When you relax your eyes, focus differently, you see that what you thought was static and dead actually seems to be alive and moving. When we encounter it we both see it and yet our vision isn't yet fulfilled - you have to look for "it" to encounter "it". I think it's a similar thing with the Kingdom of God: what we think at first glance is distant, stagnant or non-existent is actually moving, breathing, creating and acting before our very eyes.

In the Old Testament the people knew that God was in their midst because the tabernacle (or tent of meeting Exodus 36:8-40:35) was in the center of the space in which they lived. They saw daily the Glory of the Lord in their midst: the cloud that traveled with them in the day and the fire at night (Exodus 30:34-38). God was in their midst. But what does that mean for us? Is it just a story? Is it just history? Could God really be living in our midst? If so how does that shape the way we act, reflect and engage our world in the name of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Blogging Towards Sunday March 15th

The Vocabulary of Faith
"Faith without Works is Dead"

John 13:33-35
Ephesians 2:1-10
James 2:16-24

I think we often put the cart before the horse when we talk about faith, doing good works (or puttying our faith into practice) and salvation. We in the Modern American Church spend most of our time talking about what is truth, how we know it, who is saved and how we are saved. I suspect that we've somehow gotten it backwards. How come we invest little of our teaching and spiritual focus upon what a saved life looks like, not just after a prayer, but day in and day out? What does a life - and a community life - look like of and for those that are doing what Jesus commanded - following him and his teachings in word, action, presence and relationships?

Part of our challenge undoubtedly comes from the testimony of the Bible itself. Jesus says "come and follow me" - the following implies a doing - putting into practice what he teaches in order to be saved. The apostle Paul seems (in Galatians, Ephesians and Romans) to focus on the mysterious paradox that we are saved not by doing good works - or earning salvation - but rather through faith in Christ - the gift of Grace freely given by God. The Greek work for SAVED means to both "be saved" and to "be made whole"- to be set free from past sickness, division, destruction or brokeness. Maybe Jesus (and Paul too) are talking more about how we lead lives of wholneesshere and now, as opposed to what life in heaven is all about and how we can intellectdually know we're among the chosen. Maybe Jesus is inviting us to know a truth not just with our minds but first and foremost through relationshop, to comtemplate the word of God not just with our minds, but in the way that we as a commnity act in the world in which we live.

A traditional African proverb states: "when you pray move your feet". [blog link] Liberation Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez puts it another way "The starting point of Chiristian life and therefore of theology is the encounter with Christ, in whom we recognize God to be love and Father, and other human beings to be our brothers and sisters. The truth that liberates is Christ himself and every action and word which comes from him. Christian life, is above all else, a following of Christ." In John 13, Jesus says if you love me you'll do what I command: love as I have loved.

Someone told me recently that they don't feel an overwhelming love for God. At funerals when people say about the deceased "he/she loved the lord" this person says that they don't think they would say that about themself. Yet this person is one of the most militantly and faithfully active people I have met in terms of fighting for the poor, empowering growth, deliverance and wholeness in Oakland, and a tirless advocate for children. If I know anyone who moves their feet when they pray - it's this person! Maybe we do have it backwards....love is maybe more about action than vocabulary, more about speaking with our hands and feet than simply giving lip-service to it?

Blogging Towards Sunday, March 8
Membership - The Body of Christ
The Vocabulary of Faith

Matthew 12:46-50 Jesus redefines family not along lines of genetics, culture or ethnicity, but rather upon a new community of those that do the will of God.

Matthew 10:37-39 Jesus teaches the paradox inherent with this new family, new notion of community: that we find ourselves by losing ourselves, in living for and with others we find who we are and begin to live.

1 Corinthians 12:1-13:13 - together as community we become and are the re-presentation of God's loving action in Jesus the Christ in the world.

According to the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s interpretation of the above scriptures this is what it means to be a member, to be part of this new community:

In the Presbyterian Church we believe that the church is the gathering of all those who profess faith in Christ as Savior and accept his lordship in their lives. G-4.0101

The church is a gift of God and find expression in its faithfulness to the mission to which Christ calls it.

We affirm that a congregation is to welcome as members all persons who respond in trust and obedience to God’s grace in Jesus Christ and desire to be part of the community and ministry of the church.

We assert that faithful members of the church are active in ministry, accepting Christ’s call to be responsibly involved in his ministry, carried on by the church. G-5.0103

There is a connection between faith and community, recognizing what chaos theory tells us today -that all of life is relational. I think we screw things up by always divinding them - faith vs. reason, doubt vs. belief, science vs. church, friendship vs. doing God's work. In the end I don't think that they're different: It's the paradox of life we find life when we lose it, when we live for something(one) bigger than just ourselves. We can just talk about it, we have to give it life service. That's what Jesus is calling us to and in the end what just maybe is the nature of the universe.

Is Jesus the Only Way?

(Part 2)
The Vocabulary of Faith
Blogging Towards Sunday
John 14:1-17

I followed a car on Sunday that had a bumper sticker that read "Pagan and Proud of it!" [wish I'd had my camera!] I found myself unconsciously thinking "how sad." Then I wondered why do I think that? They obviously are proud to be pagan; not a choice I'd make, and one they've happily made. For me Jesus is the choice I've made, the one I follow, the one in whose footsteps I want to tread, grow and mature. A friend of facebook recently updated their status saying "I know Jesus is the answer. But what is the question?" What does that mean? Is that faith? Or merely endoctrincation? How do I know that Jesus is the only way? That I am saved? That I'm not wrong?

1. How do we know we're saved and consequently that someone else isn't?
We (in the Christian family) have different takes on this. The Catholics would say you're saved if you practice your faith in the membership of the one holy church. Methodists have said (at least historically in Welsley's England) that you know you're saved by sanctification, how God works to redeem and make whole your life (for them the temperance movement and leaving alcohol behind historically played a big part in that). But how do we know we're saved? In a sense you can't know. It's not necessarily visible. Max Weber wrote the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism affirming that spiritual security isn't visible or tangible and so isn't a sure thing. As a consequence he observed that Protestants (in particular Calvinist-leaning ones) worked hear to accomplish economic security as a visible sort of proof of their salvation. This leads in my opinion to the tweaked health and wealth gospel, which dictates that if you're doing well financially you must be loved and blessed by God, aka "saved." Yet I can't accept that the poor and disenfranchised are so because they're not saved. So how do we know?

2. How do you know if Salvation is true?
How do we know that God is true? We can't see him. We can't touch her. We can't prove his existence with an experiment or convoke her to an interview for validity. How do we know that Jesus is the living visible image of the invisible God? Can you prove it? Is Jesus an objectif(ied) truth: one that we can prove, touch and objectively say is truth via the scientific method? Or if Jesus existential truth: one that we can't prove but can point to through our own testimony, life-story and faith-journey? Is existential truth less true than objectified truth? Is truth universal, shared in common between and across all cultures? Or is it contextualized? How do we know? And can we ever know?

3. Is faith, the salvation story, the experience of God merely a contextualized event?
Is it true according to our context: our cultural background, socio-economic situation, gender, age or orientiation? We say following Jesus is a choice. Yet what if you've never been given that choice because of your context, if you've never heard the gospel in word or experience? Can you still know God personally, experientially and existentially? Is it all just a question of where you were born and what you've experienced (or haven't experienced?) Catholic Theologian Karl Rahner posited that you could via his "Anonymous Christian" doctrine [basically that you may have chosen to serve and follow the God known in Jesus the Christ without ever having heard of that God through the way that you live].

4. Maybe in the end it comes down to the question of what does it mean to say "I believe."? Does that mean that if you believe X, that Y is wrong? And when we say we believe X, what are we saying we don't believe in the words we aren't pronouncing?

I believe in an orthodox way that God chooses to reveal God's-self in an unique & exclusive way in a signular historical event: Jesus the Christ. In confessing that, am I saying that there is only one revelation of God? That Jesus is the best revelation among several revelations? Or that Jesus is the best/right revelation of the divine for me?

Historical Jesus scholar Marcus Borg wrote that the resurrection was/is not a video-tapeable moment, meaning that it's beyond objectif or scientifically measured truth. It's an existential choice. Sure would be nice if you could netflix it on DVD. But you can't. And Jesus didn't talk this way about context, existential truth and objectified truth. It wasn't his vocabulary for talking about this question of existence. So if we dialogue about this are we reading into Jesus, projecting our issues on him in a way that can never fully be answered? Is Jesus the path or one of the paths? (Here's a thoughtful video of Marcus Borg talking about this)



So how then do we live faithfuly and faith-fully in our pluralistic world, living the core teaching of Jesus: love your neighbor as yourself, or love your neighbor as God first loves you?

I've been called a conservative traditionalist as well as vaguely referred to as a heretic. I believe with all my heart and life that Jesus is true for me. I can't prove it. I can talk about my experience and point to it with my testimony. It's my existential truth. It's my context. It's my choice (even though I'd argue that it chose me). Does that mean I'm not faithful? that I'm unitarian? that I have no back bone? Or could it reflect a deeper truth that we can only experience and never really "understand" cognitvely or in a cartesian way?

What does it mean that I (or maybe you) claim Jesus as center of my life, life and the universe? How can I affirm that and live in a pluralistic culture and context and completely, honestly and organically respect my neighbor (who may or may not follow Jesus) in a way that recognizes them as a fellow human being and created child of God? I wonder. I love this song. As I listen to it I find it both beautiful and challenging, comforting and disturbing. What does it mean to have Christ as center?

Is Jesus the Only Way?
The Vocabulary of Faith 6
Blogging Towards Sunday, February 8, 2009
John 14:1-6
Revelation 17:1-19:10
(or selections below)

The word for the week in my preaching series at the church I serve is "Only through Me" - "or "is Jesus the Only Way?" Tough. We want to be inclusive without being exclusive. And what is Jesus saying? I read John 14 and most often have heard people preach/talk about all those that won't be saved in some sort of long list or repetitive litany. Yet in the context of the passage Jesus isn't talking about other religions or faith traditions.

We’re often quick to judge others, or say that Jesus is the only way to knowing God, salvation, or inclusion in what God wants for the world and the chosen people of God. And maybe it means something more. Are we ourselves following that way, truth and life? I hear John 14:6 and I think of Jesus as being first and foremost relational, a truth we know and experience, a life we receive and mature in, a way of living that is more a journey to discover in community with other disciples than a moral certitude or theological knowledge to posses. What does it mean for you to follow Jesus? How does it shape your daily life, priorities, way you spend money, relationships, work, rest and spiritual life?

Are we following Jesus as Jesus commanded us to?

What does it mean that Jesus is the way, truth and life? Here’s some of the definitions (the gospel of John is first written in Greek) to help you go deeper in your experience of Jesus.

Όδος: WAY, public highway, street or road, journey, a way of life or conduct.

Άληθεια: TRUTH, truthfulness, dependability, uprightness, divine truth, reality.

Ζωή: LIFE in the physical sense, livelihood, means of sustenance life with God.

Revelation portrays a vision of faith and faithfulness from John in the 2^nd century of the Roman Empire, a time of great tribulation and persecution for followers of Jesus. The book is a challenging read. Many people disagree on what it means and how is it truth. Is it more like a newspaper or a poem? Is it fact? Is it a metaphorical vision? Is it historical prophecy? Babylon the enemy of the people of God, is most likely Rome, representing the Roman Empire and the wealth and ways of the world. John portrays Rome as a prostitute or whore, who gathers wealth and admirers through seduction. What he's warning is for those who follow Jesus as the way, truth and life to not forget who they're following, or called to follow, and not to be seduced by the voice on the corner, or in the office of power in our government, industry, medias, neighborhoods or families. I'm struck this week by all of the blow outs about the bail out. Executives getting huge pay offs when they're receiving bail out monies paid out by the people who were abused, or lost their money. Of course the irony of it all is that we're quick to point fingers, yet we all were seduced by our own Babylons and Romes: cheap things to buy, overbuying, mortgages that were just too good to be true, borrowing seemingly free and endless money, believing and acting as though the good times might not ever end.

In the church, at least a lot of people I know and have heard, are quick to speak up about the sins of others in terms of choosing Jesus as the WAY, yet mute in terms of noticing the log in their own eyes. Isn't that a deeper reflection of human nature, and the new way of living that I believe Jesus invites us to know as truth, not found in a book, but in a new way of life that comes first and foremost with the living God that Jesus points to.

">Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore who is seated on many waters, ²with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.’ ³So he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. ⁴The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; ⁵and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.’ ⁶And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

When I saw her, I was greatly amazed. ⁷But the angel said to me, ‘Why are you so amazed? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her….⁹ ‘This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings,… ¹⁴they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.’

¹⁵ And he said to me, ‘The waters that you saw, where the whore is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages… ¹⁸The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.’

18 ¹After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. ²He called out with a mighty voice,
‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling-place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit, a haunt of every foul bird, a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.
³For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication,
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury.’

⁴Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins, and so that you do not share in her plagues; ⁵for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. ⁶Render to her as she herself has rendered, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed. ⁷As she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so give her a like measure of torment and grief.Since in her heart she says, “I rule as a queen; I am no widow, and I will never see grief”, ⁸therefore her plagues will come in a single day— pestilence and mourning and famine—and she will be burned with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.’ ⁹ And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning;

My thanks go to Sharyl who talked with me about this, relating a sermon that Tony Campolo preached on this last week with the Presbytery of Philadelphia, which I'm freely plagurizing.

Forgiveness

Blogging Towards Sunday, February 2, 2009
The Vocabulary of Faith

Forgiveness: is typically defined as the process of ceasing to feel resentment, indignation or anger for a perceived offense, difference or mistake, and ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. (Wikipedia Definition) The faith tradition of following Jesus talks about forgiveness in relationship with confession (which literally means to turn 180 degrees around and head in a different direction) which together leads towards reconciliation with God and with one another. Redemption is perhaps used in the Bible more than forgiveness, a notion that's more about wholeness, healing, restoration not to the past - but freeing the past to inhabit the present and move into the future.

Some interesting quotes about forgiveness that are food for thought and a cool youtube video with more:

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that the prisoner was you.” - Lewis Smedes

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that hold and get free.” - Catherine Ponder

“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.” – Cherie Carter-Scott

“It is impossible even to begin the act of living one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Forgiveness is love practiced among people who love poorly. It sets us free without wanting anything in return.” – Henri Nouwen

“When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to him forever.” - Henry Cloud & John Townsend.



Below are some scriptures I consider relevant and am preaching upon on Sunday. I think they say that forgiveness is first and foremost about relationship, restoring one, resurrecting one or beginning one. There's a connection between such a relationship (or reconciliation) with God and with one another. There's also a deep connection between how we forgive others, and how God forgives us (and vice versa). What we often overlook in Christian circles is the need to forgive ourselves. Maybe that's our biggest problem/challenge with forgiveness. Yet are there things that we can't forgive - sexual abuse - murder - treason - terrorism - abuse in general? I don't think that forgiving is forgetting. You can force yourself to forget, in fact don't our relationships always bring things to mind? I think it's more about freeing ourselves from the power that our memories, pains and anger have over us as individuals and as a people or system. It's costly - and free - and the only thing that makes relationships grow.

2 Corinthians 5:11-21 (Today's New International Version)

Matthew 6:14-15 (The Message by Eugene Peterson)

What scriptures come to mind when you think of forgiveness? I also think of the Parable of the Prodigal Son [Luke15:11-32], Joseph forgiving his brothers [Genesis 50], Psalm 51, the Lord’s Prayer [Matthew 6:5-13] in which we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others, the call to forgive up to 77 times [Matthew 18:21-35] and the story of Zaccheus [Luke 19:1-9]. I think that most of our life-changing encounters with God are rooted in forgiveness or redemption when we have experienced true spiritual brokenness, humiliation, hopelessness and move through and beyond them. It’s when we come to the end of ourselves that we can most clearly see God beckoning us to accept the kind of forgiveness that will truly transform our life and quite possibly restore us to life.

Often we'd ask how much and who should be forgiven? I preached a sermon once talking about Osama bin Laden - could we, should we forgive him? The reality is I doubt I'll ever face him. Anger over that doesn't really eat me up. But other relationships, still broken and/or damaging to and for me eat me up. I hear Jesus inviting his audience and followers to face those broken places and relationships in us, between us and between us and God. When asked if we should forgive up to 7 times, Jesus says no, up to 7 times 77 times...[Matthew 18:21-35] I don't think it's about the number. He's trying to point to the existential reality we have to choose in order to experience the fullness of God - we have to be people of forgiveness, reconciliation - peace-makers, who let go of our anger rather than let it consume us. It's not about laying down and letting ourselves be treated like crap, or martyrs, or repeatedly abused. It's about power - true power - the power to let go of the past in order to let the future - something new - life - I'd call it the love and power of God - in,to let it begin to work within us and to activate us to choose life and to choose life abudantly.

The question we more have to face is: can we forgive those that have hurt us, abused us (verbally, relationally, physically maybe even sexually), treated us injustly, dehumanized us, taken us for granted, used us, marginalized us? Can we? And why should we? How much power do those people have over us? I think odds are it's a lot more than Osama bin Laden or Hitler does.

I've been taking a parenting class, positive discipline, based upon the work of German Psychologist Alfred Alder who wrote about gemeinshaftsgefühl – a notion that the foundation of the human condition is that we want to be in community and find our meaning in relationship. I think forgiveness points to that. Our last class I learned about mirror neurons - that something in our brain actually drags us to copying or imitating the things we see and experience in social interaction. Here's a great 14 minute NOVA video on it [link].

Maybe that's what forgiveness is about - paying it forward. Monkey see - monkey do. The more we forgive, the more we're forgiven. The more we relate, the more we find our meaning in relationship. Maybe that's what Jesus is pointing to, and the Apostle Paul says we are to be ambassadors of in 2 Corinthians 5:11-21?

The Vocabulary of Faith
(Blogging Towards Sunday, January 18, 2009)
RIGHTEOUS
John 3:15-17 & Romans 3:9-26
Psalm 1

So I'm continuing this vocabulary of faith series I'm preaching and teaching on with the church community I serve. People suggests word(s) or phrase(s) that are problematic and then I report back with reflection and hopefully some thoughtful questions. This week it's the word "righteous" and the verse "John 3:16).

Ok when I hear this word I think of self-righteous, as in I'm more righteous than you, you're going to hell and I'm on the way up! Sure is easy to say to someone you disagree with. Yet I don't think that righteous(ness) is really about what we do: our actions or our morality. I think that the body of the Bible is talking more about the way we are, our idenity - our being - our relationships. It's not a state of mind - it's a way of life. Yet at the same time it's beyond us. Repreatedly the bible says that none of us are righteous. Just look at what's going on with the whole BART muder affair of Oscar Grant. There's this indignation today that the Johannes Mehserle is some horrible human-being [story] - ok it's wrong - but maybe anyone of us would have done the same thing, had the same (what I suspect what a knee-jerk reaction out of fear and newbiness). [Drummond has a great op-ed on it: Turn down the temp].

What the Bible lifts up and what Christian Theology articulates is that we choose independence, autonomy from God - to go our own way to get what we want and deserve [that's what the Garden of Eden is all about]. We prioritize independence from God over relationship with God - yet then don't know how to go back to relationship when we want it, when we want what we're created for. So God takes our self-righteousness upon himself in Jesus the Christ, make us right-with-each-other [righteousness]. It's all about relationship - one that's contagious, that infects us and moves us forward into a dynamic of relational living, being and doing. That's what faith is - not moral statements, not adherence to a dogma or a worldview, but living relationally - with God, from God, towards God as we live with one another. What do you think? Am I whacked? A laxist? Or maybe am I on to something?

Here's where I did some reasearch (an online Bible word seach on righteous)

I also think this scene from Pulp Fiction about Ezekiel 25:17 is interesting food for thought.

Blogging Towards Sunday January 10, 2008

The Vocabulary of Faith
Hell, Judgment & Damnation
Matthew 25:14-30 & 31-46
Matthew 7:1-5
Matthew 5:17-19 & 7:12

OK - this sounds depressing, but is an interesting 2nd vocabulary "word" for this new preaching series. What do you think of when you hear or read the word "hell"? Here's snapshot of pictures I found on the internet.

The English word "hell" comes from the Greek "hades" which in the Judeo-Christian literature comes from the Hebrew "sheol".

Of course the vision of flames, tormented bodies, devils, pitchforks comes to mind. For me my first thought was of junior high [I slipped a picture of mine into the collage]. The Bible is actually relatively quiet, or sparse in terms of descriptions of hell. There are a lot in Revelation. You can compare those sections to very similar descriptions of Hades by Greek Philisopher Plato in Phaedo to see that the writer(s) of Revelation were most likely using their contemporary cultural understanding of Hell to describe the absence or anti-thesis of presence with God [what we usually call Heaven, Paradise, where you want to be, etc.].

Here's the excerpts from Phaedo written about 200 years before Revelation. (click on the picture to enlargen). Compare them to Revelation 19:19-20 and Revelation 20:11-15. I think that what we see is that the writer(s) of Revelation use the image of hell/hades, prevalent in their culture, to explain what they're trying to say. They use their culture to articulate faith for them, which simultaneously subverts the cultural assumption.


Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an amazing play, No Exit, about Hell. It's famous for one line in particular, "l'enfer c'est les autres" [hell is other people]. He's basically teasing out the fact that we are relational, need each other to choose, to create, to move into our futures. If we live without honest, mutual, peripatetic relationships, choosing manipulation, power over and vanity we literally live in hell. Recent sociological work has lifted up that many Americans now consider life to be hell, they are involved in less and less relationships and networks and feeling increasing isolated and alone. [salon article] [thesis of the book Bowling Alone].

The 1997 film Devil's Advocate has a challenging speech about God, Satan and the situation in which we seem to be set. It's an interesting speech to listen to about sin, freedom of will - and what life is meant to be and how it can be twisted [it is R rated]



So is there a hell? Is it a geographic/cosmic place? A myth to frighten us into good behavior? Or is it a metaphor that seeks to express the opposite of being present with God and in God's life-giving presence? And who gets to go there? Is it only those that call upon the name of Jesus? And what about those that call on that name in faith at the last possible second? Is that fair?

These are our modern ways of asking questions. Jesus in the passages above seems to focus more on actions, how we live, how we follow what he teaches, than upon upholding the correct doctrine, dogma or belief. In the two parables in Matthew 25, Jesus basically says that it's all about how you live your life. Did you use the gifts/talents you were given to steward? Did you care for the least of these? Or only yourself or those that could get you ahead?

I think that judgment is actually about being held accountable. Are we coherent in what we believe, how we act, how we relate to others. I think that heaven is being in the presence of God who is community (three in one). Life in and from community into increasing community is what we're made for. That's what "created in the image of God" means. So if we refuse that, refuse to live in community, to recognize our interdependence and gemeinschaftsgeful [my new $100 word] nature as human beings....then we are in hell and not living as God lives or calls us to know life. It's all about relationships and community not about results and work. In the end I guess I find that I wonder what are we motivated by in how we live and make meaning in our life? Is it according to what we think will happen to us afterwards, in terms of fear or benefit? Is it about how we live in the moment? Or the legacy that we leave behind us?

I'm not actually interested in the afterlife. I'm to busy surviving day to day, trying to make meaning of my life, my relationships, my work and to collaborate in the world living as faithfully as I can as one created in God's image. My motivator is more today than tomorrow, more about meaning and purpose than paradise.

What about you?

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Blogging Towards Sunday, January 4, 2009
The Vocabulary of Faith
Keirkegaard's Leap of Faith
Hebrews 11:1-3
[or whole chapter]
Matthew 17:20 & John 8:31-32

Today I'm beginning a new series at the church I serve entitled "The Vocabulary of Faith." Members and friends of our church community have suggested words and/or phrases about faith or from scripture that are problematic, confusing or complicated. I'm then trying to teach upon them and flesh out what they might mean for us today as followers of Jesus in our 2009 East Bay context.

Today's vocabulary phrase is "Leap of faith" or "faith as a leap" coming Soren Kierkegaard. He's talking not just about believing, but about knowing what we believe to be true in an existential and epistimological way. Basically everything is subjective - all knowledge is personal. You can't prove that any one thing, or one way of thinking, is universally and objectively TRUE. He's one of our early post-moderns, debunking (not faith) but rather the scientific model which claims tha there is a pure, objective, scientifically obtainable TRUTH somewhere out there that we can get to through reason and logic. Kierkegaard says that actually all knowledge involves some sort of relationship. We believe, we base our actions upon the beliefs that we choose. This leads to modern pragmatism. Yet it doesn't mean that our belief(s) are wrong. Rather it frees us to recognize that proving belief isn't what it's about, rather it's all about how our belief(s) shapes our actions, orients our life, gives breath to our relationships and existential commitments.

Here's a great quote:

Faith begins where one knows and has experienced the limitations of rational thought. Therefore, it is a leap into a paradox: I know by not knowing; I believe because I cannot know - but due to this unknowing, I have established a direct and unspeakable relationship with that which is beyond thinking, but which leads me in the relationship.

- Kierkegaard.

Most of our past modernistic thought has been based either upon logic: trying to prove it as true, or a anti-modernist fear/rejection of logic: nothing needs to be proved. A leap of faith, for Kierkegaard is neither about denying the scientific "facts" nor trusting only in tradition, it's about recognizing that knowledge is relational, that belief is beyond proof (which isn't even really the point). I think most of us have been screwed up by Blaise Pascal's Wager, which basically says "hedge your bets" - it's better to believe and be wrong than not believe and be wrong. It's all about a quid pro quo, getting what we want and what we esteem we deserve, as opposed to living fully.

That's what those 3 scriptures I choose point to: making deep, life-sustaining and transforming meaning of the life we live: our actions, our words, our relationships, our community, our commitments. It's about praxis: how we live and why we live that way, rooted in a foundation of faith. For me that's about following Jesus - freedom that comes from a relationship, a truth that's more relational/existential knowledge than scientific certainty, more about praxis and purpose than proof.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has an interesting scene about faith as a step that's often referred to.



It's an interesting way - Jones, a scientist, can't prove things, figure it out, or quantify it - in the end knowledge, and his pursuit of it, has to come from a relational vortex, based first and foremost in trust and moving towards deeper trust. Isn't that what relationship (between us and God, or between us and others) is all about? I think our culture has basically handicapped us by teaching us that knowledge is quanitfiable, proovable and knowable with our minds, as opposed to something we experience in relationship, existence and meaning-making actions.

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE - scroll down on ther right side until you see "listen to Monte's sermons here"