We Teach Life, Sir

This.  

So good.

So relevant.

Eucharist

"The Eucharist is the feast of the whole church as it participates in and yet awaits the perfect reign of God. And what we expect to become, we seek to be now. The future of God… is the divine tug that motivates the reform of the present state of things."

— Laurence H. Stookey

Pray

"Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us."

— Blessed Augustine of Hippo (via theorthodoxbritreturns)

(via sacredsecularity)

When it comes to the conflicts of the world, our prayer is important, but prayer that is silent or in private places cannot be enough.  We must remember that prayer must be coupled with action, just as our faith couples grace and works.  

1/12/16 -- Immersion Trip

"We're now flying over Israel," the Lufthansa flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker.

"Philistine!" shouted a passenger, followed by another.

The flight attendant went on, using the occupying title again.

"Philistine!" they shouted.

No one said anything.

Soon after, one of the gentlemen turned around to comment on my rapidly wiggling foot.  A refugee and resident of Amman, he told us how great a time we'd surely have.  "You must see Petra!" he said.  After a fairly substantial conversation for a plane ride, I typed my name into his phone so he could find me on Facebook.  Everyone has been so kind.

When we arrived at the Jordan airport, we were greeted by 3 men with 3 vans who would be driving us for the next few days.  We split into 3 groups and 5 of us headed to a van, following our guide.  He loaded our baggage into the trunk.  As he started the van, Arabic music flooded through the speakers.

"Sorry," he said, and turned it down.

"No!  Please!" we insisted and enjoyed the voice, moving along an unfamiliar key with beautiful agility.  The driver told us about the farming in the region-- strawberries, olives, bananas, oranges...

We pulled to a stop alongside another of our vans.  The two rolled the windows down.

"I am the king!" said the other driver.

"You are a refugee!" our driver said, smiling.

"We are all refugees, my friend," was his response.

They were laughing, but it was only funny because it wasn't.

God and Suffering

"Any attempt to cloak the most extreme forms of human suffering with a view that sees in it intrinsic meaning fails to address the suffering we meet at the heart of the Shoah. Indeed, after Auschwitz we may say that it is a moral and spiritual outrage to justify anyone’s suffering, whether the most despicable human being or the Messiah himself, for some transcendent reason."

— Henry Knight

Today I begin my trip in Jordan and Israel/Palestine.  I think this quotation is of particular relevance to the situation in these lands.

We cannot justify anyone's suffering.

James Cone

"Jesus is not a proposition, not a theological concept which exists merely in our heads. He is an event of liberation, a happening in the lives of oppressed people struggling for political freedom. Therefore, to know him is to encounter him in the history of the weak and the helpless. That is why it can be rightly said that there can be no knowledge of Jesus independent of the history and culture of the oppressed. It is impossible to interpret the Scripture correctly and thus understand Jesus aright unless the interpretation is done in the light of the consciousness of the oppressed in their struggle for liberation."
--James Cone

Gospel of Mark

Mark hasn’t received enough credit. Mark is the earliest gospel and thus likely more accurate. Written in the 1st century by someone alive during Jesus’ ministry, Mark’s tale had less time to become embellished by history. 

It’s important to remember that Mark is not written by today’s standards. Early historians were less concerned about relating detailed imagery and more concerned with conveying what they believed was the point of documenting it to begin with. This can explain some discrepancies between the synoptic gospels and should also help us to be mindful of the larger picture. Whether or not Jesus stood on a rock or a log would have been of little importance to our gospel authors, except in situations where they are meant to draw parallel with another Biblical character. 

That said, this does not mean we cannot derive historical information from gospel texts. We need, simply, to be mindful of the differences between modern and 1st century scholarship, as well as the intentions and motives of the early writers. Whatever the early Jesus movement experienced with Jesus’ ministry had lasting effects because of the devotion of his followers. What did these people see that made them give up their wealth, their lives? Early followers faced persecution and death. If they were willing to risk this, Jesus’ ministry must have been profoundly affecting.

Inbreaking

Theology and Preaching

I oftentimes find a disconnect with what I have thought of as “celebrative” Christian attitudes.  By this I mean: I find salvation theology often problematic.  "Hooray!  Jesus died for my sins!“ mentalities do not meet my understanding of God nor the Jesus story and seem to neglect issues of the world.  

To the contrary, I found, in listening to celebrative sermons, that the celebration can live in justice moments and passion.  I am challenged to rethink my ideas surrounding "salvation” in terms of resurrection.  

I am saved (according to my own personal theology) in the sense that in finding Jesus and Christianity, I have found a way to a better world, love, and a family of people who are committed to that loving world.  Thanksgiving and joy are appropriate responses to that truth, even if my personal theology doesn’t understand Jesus as dying for my sins.  

A challenge that I am trying to address as part of my seminary experience is how to use Christian “jargon” in ways that are authentic to my self while also compatible with more popular Christian theological understandings.  

John D. Caputo

"But the divinity of the truly divine God is to be displayed neither in a display of magic by Jesus or his heavenly Father, nor in the secret hope that the Father is going to square the accounts for him in an afterlife and give these Roman soldiers their comeuppance in the world to come. The divinity is rather that his very death and humiliation rise up in protest against the world, rise up above power…"

— John D. Caputo

The Body: How Our Obsession Leads to Our Neglect

Early on in my minister's tenure at my church, she preached on the body. It hit me.

She referenced scripture wherein Jesus lets a woman rub oil on his body and they eat in the home of a leper, both of which are taboo in the Jewish tradition Jesus came from. There is no shame in the body in these stories.

I know a lot of people who’ve had trouble feeling at home in their flesh because of religion’s tendency to portray the body as profane at best, dirty at worst.

The sacred and profane dichotomy has been adopted and utilized by institutions to do far more than keep a populace from having premarital sex. The dichotomy is applied to gender, race, the environment, national identities, etc.. If we define something as sacred by virtue of certain (I would argue, arbitrary) physical characteristics, we Other things. If sacred Life forms are those which have a heartbeat, trees are therefore often seen as devoid of spiritual value and available for use to the benefit of the “sacred.” We rape the Earth in this way. We eat poorly because we don’t see our bodies as sacred.

Penny’s sermon hit on this idea. Christianity has a history of denying the body. We make things about the spiritual and neglect the physical. We focus on work and forget sleep. We need to be able to love our physical selves. Penny joked that she was surprised most churches don’t require you to check your body at the door.

She reminds us how our bodies tell us when things are wrong… but we don’t always listen. Our bodies have higher cancer rates, asthma rates, obesity rates… all of these results of the way we treat the body of the Earth, the bodies of animals, and our own bodies. Why don’t we listen? Why don’t we stop drinking milk that’s full of steroids, hormones, and puss?

Instead, we continually try to alter the changes out of our bodies. We get plastic surgery; we build a dam. 55% of U.S. women color their hair (according to Proctor & Gamble). Cosmetic surgery is becoming surprisingly (or unsurprisingly?) common. I am one of the few women I know who is willing to go to work/mall/wherever without doing my hair or makeup-- our society pressures us to look a certain way all the time.

If we believe in a creator, does that not make Natural systems morally paramount? Shouldn’t we have respect for the way this Earth was “meant” to operate? Why do we feel the need to give ourselves new breasts? A new nose? What is wrong with the noses God saw fit to give us… the nose that is a creation of my lineage? Shouldn’t recycling be a primary concern? How is it that we can look past issues of genetically engineered food? How can we look past the way that animals are treated in the food industry?

We all have this idea in our minds of what it means to be beautiful. We all give into these media pressures. I wear makeup. I may not get plastic surgery, but I’ve starved myself. I may not eat meat, but I’ve not made the organic switch. I may not have a Hummer, but I drive.

And so Penny asked… am I willing to be married to my body, to love it as it is? No. It wasn’t a step I could take. I want to be 95 pounds. And I want to be 95 pounds more than I want a lot of things. As much as I want to say that I can be happy with myself and focus on things that matter more than the size of my thighs, it is something that occupies my headspace constantly. I’ve made progress, but…

I want to drive. I want to cover the blemishes on my face. I want these things that matter far less than my ultimate concerns.

I think to myself… what issues do I need to start living in? What issues do I need to force myself to live? If I really believe what I think I do about the environment, I need to transform the way I do things.

It’s just so easy not to. Convenience is hard to overcome. But all bodies matter.

Piety in Process

"These theologians [we studied in seminary] never had to deal with the reactions of ordinary folks who felt that their spiritual leader was destroying their faith. That would be the job of graduates like myself. Most graduates, I was to learn, however, would not rise to this challenge. They would graduate, pack up their seminary notes, and revert to the piety of their youth, undergirding their preaching with traditional religious understandings. They would claim the power to explain the ways of God to their congregations, thus encouraging the unbelievable concepts of a manipulative, invasive, this-world-oriented deity who governed the intimate details of people’s lives from a position just beyond the sky. I vowed that I would be different when I finally became a priest. Little did I know how difficult that would be."

— John Shelby Spong, from Here I Stand

What is Religion?

What is religion?

I would say that religion is a system of beliefs and values one has that are related to a history and, most often, a community of others who hold similar beliefs and values derived from that shared history. I would argue that religion is one’s dominant paradigm, whether or not that paradigm can be categorized under the traditional understanding of “religion.” Therefore, political views, atheism, etc. can be considered religions. One’s religion is, more simply, whatever worldview most inspires one’s morality, values, beliefs, and practices. I don’t believe there is anyone who isn’t religiously devoted to something. It’s part of self-identity for most of us.

For me, religion isn’t something that helps me sleep better at night or provides me with some sense of comfort that people who die end up in some kind of Disneyland. My religion is a system which provides a holistic approach to bettering the world and my person. Derived from a history of people seeking to do good in the world (in its better moments), it’s a study of this history, a commitment to justice, and a lens with which to look inward at the kind of relationship I seek to have with myself, others, and the higher order of being. While religion provides me a sense of inner peace and orients my life in a way that enhances meaning, it doesn’t make me giddy.

Golden Gate Park

spinachandmushrooms:

Not photographing well, but this is mist rolling in on the grass in Golden Gate Park. #sf #ggp

Justice

"While the many different liberation theologies reflect the places where they are found, they share a critical perspective on society and on Christian faith that often challenges the beliefs of other Christians. They remind us that the suffering of the poor is not an accident or an unfortunate fact of nature. It is the result of economic and political systems that deliver wealth and power to the people who control them at the same time that they exploit the poor. Often, it is difficult to understand how these systems work, especially for those in privileged groups whose self-interest lies in not seeing what is happening."

— from An Introduction to Christian Ethics: Goals, Duties, and Virtues by Robin W. Lovin