A Progressive New Year

Practical Jokes

I used to be the king of practical jokes. The key to doing a practical joke is to not be around when the joke hits. I was the last person people thought would do a practical joke. One of the best ones I ever did was in college to one of my professors. I attended Asbury College (now University) and had a Christian Ministries professor.

I had received a scholarship from Campus Life, which is a now defunct Christian youth magazine that was called Ignite Your Faith, before going belly up. Because I got a scholarship from them, I also received their magazine. Every so often, they would send me a stack of postcards with about 500 Christian universities, colleges, and seminaries, which I could fill out and request more information about their institution. The Internet was around, but in its very primitive form. So requesting this information was by snail mail.

So, as a practical joke, I filled them all out in one of my professor's names. I held no animosity towards him. In fact, he was one of my favorite professors and I thought he could take this joke very well.

Imagine spam mail, but just in the snail mail version. This is what happened to him. Slowly he became inundated with huge envelopes from all of these colleges and universities around the country, thinking that he wanted to attend their college as a prospective transfer student. I made one mistake. I anonymously left a note for my professor on our attendance sheet, which said, "Have you gotten any mail lately?" He shrewdly compared handwriting and deduced that I was the culprit. On the very last day of class, before finals, he had a huge box of mail that he dumped in front of me on my desk and told the class what I had done.

He took it good-naturedly and even remarked that one of the letters he received was from a fellow student he had been in college with that he had to fire from the college newspaper.

This practical joke had been good-natured, but Jesus told a parable of a practical joke, that was not good-natured at all.

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The Parable of the Weeds

Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like someone who planted good seed in his field. While people were sleeping, an enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat and went away. When the stalks sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds appeared.

"The servants of the landowner came and said to him, 'Master, didn't you plant good seed in your field? Then how is it that it has weeds?'

"'An enemy has done this,' he answered. The servants said to him, 'Do you want us to go and gather them?'

"But the landowner said, 'No, because if you gather the weeds, you'll pull up the wheat along with them. Let both grow side by side until the harvest. And at the harvest time I'll say to the harvesters, "First gather the weeds and tie them together in bundles to be burned. But bring the wheat into my barn."'" (Matthew 13:24-30 CEB)

I like this parable a lot. A farmer had planted some wheat in his field. Someone maliciously went and sowed weeds along with the wheat. The Greek word for the weeds (sometimes called "tares" in older Bible translations) is thought to be ryegrass, a type of plant that looks similar to wheat as it grows, but doesn't produced seeds for human consumption and is often a culprit of hay fever.

As the crop grows, the farmer's servants notice what has happened and offer to weed out the ryegrass. The farmer declines this, saying that they might accidentally pull out wheat along with the weeds. It would be better to wait until the harvest time when it would be much easier to sort the good crop from the weeds.

This is the Realm of Heaven

Just a note about the word, "kingdom." I have many friends who object to the term, mostly due to the masculine implications of the word and assigning gender to God. My own church likes to use the created word, "kin-dom," to imply that we are all kin with each other and with God. If the word is a stumbling block to you, think of it more as a "realm."

This realm is not something we are striving to work towards when we die, but is something for us to establish here and now. This parable, especially, shows us how we should treat each other. Often we like to evaluate and judge people immediately and consign them to hell. We want to harvest the crops too early. This has happened so often:  the Spanish Inquisition, the Peasant Wars of Europe during the Reformation, the Salem Witch Trials, "Farewell, Rob Bell," etc. When Rob Bell wrote his extraordinary book, Love Wins, many Evangelicals, like John Piper, felt that he had left Christianity because he dared to critically look at our understanding of Hell.

People are quick to judge and slow to be patient.

Jesus said that we shouldn't do this. Leave any "judging" to God. God will handle it. 

And we? What should we do?

Live life. Be kind to each other. Possibly the worse thing to do is to exclude someone from your community because they are different. Maybe they think or believe differently than you. Maybe you believe that they don't worship the same God as you. So what? Treat them as if they were created in the image of God because that is exactly what they are.

When the Harvest time comes, in whatever way God sees fit for that to come, let God do the work. It's God's job anyway.

Let us make this New Year one where we treat everyone as if they are loved by God.

A Progressive Christmas - the Kwisatz Haderach

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Image by 2427999 from Pixabay 

As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though you are the least significant of Judah's forces, one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out of you. His origin is from remote times, from ancient days. Therefore, he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor gives birth. The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. They will dwell secure, because he will surely become great throughout the earth; he will become one of peace (Micah 5:2-5a CEB)

Recognize the picture? It is the new Berlin Wall and it is located in Bethlehem, separating the Palestinians who live there from the rest of the Holy Land. If ever there were an abomination on this Earth, this is one of them. One of the greatest tragedies of our times is that the three great Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism cannot live in peace in the land of their birth.

I visited Bethlehem once. It was one of the most spectacular and at the same time saddest places I had visited in all of the Holy Land. The wall separated Bethlehem from the rest of the country. Even our Jewish guides were not allowed in Bethlehem because of the animosity there. We had Palestinian Christian guides, who informed us that the number of Christians had gone down significantly in Bethlehem, which at one time was 50% Christian. According to our guides, the population of Christians had been depleted by the Israeli government, which had been exacerbated by this wall. I find it sad that many American Christians equate the Israeli government with the Jewish people, when this is not the case. The Israeli government doesn't speak for Judaism just like the American government doesn't speak for Christianity.

This city, this little town, however, has become a symbol for Christmas.

The Prophecy

This prophecy, as with other Messianic prophecies quoted in the New Testament, had a much different meaning than its Christian one. The prophet, Micah, is one of the 8th Century prophets. He lived approximately 800 years before the birth of Jesus. At the time, the nation of Judah (and Israel) had been harassed by the Assyrian Empire. They were looking for hope. It came in the form of this prophecy. Just as David had been born in Bethlehem, so would the coming savior. However, it wasn't sins that the people needed to be saved from:  it was the Assyrians. If you keep reading on, you will notice that the antagonists are the Assyrians and this savior would rescue them from this empire.

That didn't happen.

But the prophecy remained and people sought other meanings from it. So when a young Jewish rabbi from Nazareth, but born in Bethlehem, started preaching, this prophecy was in people's eyes again. Perhaps this is the one to deliver us from the Evil Empire, but this time from Rome?

I'm troubled.

When I read these prophecies again, I am filled with consternation. I don't know why our Christian ancestors insisted on hijacking this prophecy and say it was meant for Jesus. Maybe it's my 21-Century logical mind that is getting in the way. Perhaps Christians back then saw parallels between these ancient prophecies, which had no obvious connection to Jesus, and said that these were similar to them.

If we are to believe the Gospels, even the priests and religious scholars at the time believed that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem.

But why the obvious deviation? What is going on here?

Jesus: the Kwisatz Haderach

My parents introduced me to the movie and books of Dune. When David Lynch's version came out in the 1980's, they said I might not understand it, but I probably would like it. They were right about the latter part. Frank Herbert, the author of Dune, was an atheist, but he often wrote about religion and how it was used to manipulate the masses. Dune is no exception to this. A female order, called the Bene Gesserit, wanted to create the perfect man. As such, they had a eugenics program to create a male version of their order. They were also adept at infiltrating cultures and planting prophecies that would benefit and shield their members, should the need arise.

The version of their messiah was called the Kwisatz Haderach. He was to be a type of superhuman who could have the memories of all of his ancestors. The protagonist, Paul Atreides, became this promised Messiah, but came a generation early. He and his mother used and manipulated the prophecies the Bene Gesserit had created. Paul was the Kwisatz Haderach, but he was also something more.

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus were like this.

People tried to manipulate and use Jesus. They used prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures to link him to being the promised Messiah. They were looking for a deliverer, but Jesus became more than this.

Jesus is famously quoted in his "Sermon on the Mount" as saying:  "Don't even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven't come to do away with them but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17 CEB)

And then Jesus promptly went and changed several laws, making them more humane than they were before.

Jesus - the Messiah

I look at Jesus:  this young man, killed by religious people for being too liberal and committing heresy. Killed for not renouncing the claim that he was the Son of God. Executed for treason by the Romans. This man became a synergy of the human and divine. He became much more than the prophecies. He became something unexpected.

I, a mere human, have been trying to figure him out for such a long time. Jesus is more than the prophecies that we manipulated into saying they applied to him. In many ways, I am getting to know him all over again. He is more than I had imagined.

This Christmas, I celebrate him again, hoping to pattern my life after his.

A Progressive Advent - The Virgin Birth

Photo by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels

Mansplaining

I feel quite inadequate to address the concept of Mary and the Virgin Birth. Growing up Protestant, we were definitely taught to respect Mary and to believe that she was a virgin when Jesus was born. That was supremely important. Afterwards, we were taught to continue to believe that she and Joseph had other children, including James and Jude, who were believed to have written the Epistles of those same names.

The Catholic view of Mary was very foreign to me growing up:  Revered, exalted, portrayed as a perpetual virgin and the "Queen of Heaven." This fascination seemed for me tantamount to a worship of Mary. I have since come to realize that this is false misconception, spurred on by the hundreds of years of animosity between Catholics and Protestants.

Which brings us to this week's lectionary reading from Luke 1:26-38 (CEB):

When Elizabeth was six months pregnant, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a city in Galilee, to a virgin who was engaged to a man named, Joseph, a descendant of David's house. The virgin's name was Mary.

When the angel came to her, he said, "Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is with you!" She was confused by these words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

The angel said, "Don't be afraid, Mary. God is honoring you. Look! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule over Jacob's house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom."

Then Mary said to the angel, "How will this happen since I haven't had sexual relations with a man?"

The angel replied, "The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God's Son. Look, even in her old age, your relative Elizabeth has conceived a son. This woman who was labeled 'unable to conceive' is now six months pregnant. Nothing is impossible for God."

Then Mary said, "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be with me just as you have said." Then the angel left her.

EWTN

Growing up, I remember sometimes scrolling through the endless amount of channels to watch. I no longer have cable, but back then it seemed (for a teenager) that it was a necessity. Still I got bored. Occasionally I would wander onto the Catholic channel, EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network). There I would see this kind old nun, Mother Angelica, host these great programs. Sometimes they would even do televised rosaries. That was my first introduction to the "Hail Mary."

The repetitious nature of the rosary was alien to my Protestant ears and torture for my younger sister. She hated listening to it, so I would keep it on the channel anyways to spite her. Siblings will be siblings. However, the "Hail Mary" has its roots in this scripture passage.

The Controversial Part . . . 

Do I believe Mary was actually a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus?

No.

Do I believe it was necessary for Jesus to be born from a virgin?

No.

(Let the online debates begin.)

Here is my reasoning behind it and my caveat. More than likely after several years, I will have different thoughts on this subject.

Neither the Gospels of Mark nor John make any reference that Mary was a virgin. Mark actually takes pains to point out that Jesus had other sisters and brothers (see the end of Mark 3). Mark was most likely written before the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Nowhere in the writings of Paul (or the pseudo-Paul epistles) do you find any mention of the virgin birth. Again, Paul wrote his letters before a single Gospel was actually written. If the Virgin Birth were so important, why isn't it mentioned anywhere else in the Bible?

Matthew seems to want to bring a parallel of the birth of Jesus to the "virgin" birth mentioned in Isaiah 7:14. This had nothing to do with a messianic prophecy and it is quite obvious that Matthew was quoting from the Septuagint and not the original Hebrew Scriptures, which makes no mention of a virgin at all.

Luke wants to emphasize the supernatural importance of Jesus' birth and his future ministry. At the same time, he continues to emphasize that Jesus was a descendant of David. Jesus really can't be a descendant of David if he were actually born of a virgin. Mary's lineage is not discussed in the Bible. I know most people might just let that one slide. I tend to let the virgin birth slide.

Why would a virgin birth be important?

Some have said that it was necessary for Jesus to be born of a virgin to avoid humanity's Original Sin. Well, Original Sin wasn't a concept for our Jewish friends and it wasn't a tenet of Christianity until Saint Augustine of Hippo came up with this idea. There are even other Christians who believe that Mary was immaculately conceived, that her mother was a virgin when she was born.

The ancient understanding of fertility is not what we think of today. The ancients believed that the male carried the seed of a human and women were only the ground on which the seed was planted. This gives rise to the talk in the Bible of women being "barren" like a field is barren that cannot produce crops despite seeds being planted there. Our understanding of human reproduction nullifies this idea.

The main concept, however, that the writers of the Gospels were trying to bring is that Jesus was extraordinary, especially from his birth on. There was something unique about him, which was similar to the births of Isaac, Samson, and Samuel. Even the Gospel of John indicates that Jesus as the Christ existed with God before his birth.

The idea of virgin births was also not new to the other religious societies surrounding Judea at the time of Jesus' birth.

Sometimes in our modern world we tend to take too literally stories from the Bible, when they were told symbolically. John Dominic Crossan, in his book, "Who is Jesus? Answers to Your Questions About the Historical Jesus," states:  "My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are dumb enough to take them literally."

And Mary?

In our modern sensibilities, many have taken issue with this pronouncement from the angel, Gabriel, that Mary had no choice in the matter. In essence, that the decision for her to give birth to the child was forced upon her, almost as if it were a divine rape.

If we are to continue to look at this scripture, though, we can see that Mary was not apprehensive at all about the situation. Curious as to how it was possible? Yes. Was she not willing for it to happen? That was just the opposite.

We see this incredible speech by Mary, what we call the "Magnificat." She praises God that God has "pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly." God has "filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed." (Luke 1:52, 53 CEB)

It seems to me that Mary actually revels in the idea of giving birth to the Messiah. She rejoices and knows this is a cause for celebration and that the Messiah would turn the world upside down, raising the lowly and the weak and crushing the powerful and the rich.

What about me?

I grew up in a denomination (The Salvation Army) that placed little value on sacraments and recitation of creeds. To this day I could not recite the Apostle's Creed from memory, let alone the Nicene Creed. The Salvation Army developed its own creeds and sacraments (although they would deny this to anyone) through their doctrines, flag-waving, and singing about themselves. (Seriously, they are the only denomination I know that sings about itself.)

But having that upbringing, I have no qualms about not saying any of the creeds. They were not formative for me. (The creeds bring up the statement that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.)

And Jesus? Because I don't believe in a virgin birth, what does that do to my concept of Jesus? In a word:  nothing. Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one of God. Jesus is the Word of God for me. I follow his teachings, who did not claim to be God, but insisted on calling himself the "Human One" (Son of Man was the old term). Paul celebrates Jesus' humanity, stating that Jesus did not exploit any divine prerogative, but he "emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming a human being" (Philippines 2:7 CEB). Paul commends us to be like Jesus.

So I will do just like Jesus did. I will be human. I will be like Mary and pray that the rich will be overthrown and the weak and lowly will be exalted.

A Progressive Advent - Who am I to Judge?

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Mystical Experiences

Have you ever had a mystical experience? You experienced something so profound, but had a difficult time trying to explain it. That's my best definition of a mystical experience. If I'm being honest with myself, I have experienced this both as a conservative Evangelical and as a Progressive Christian. Mysticism is not unique to any one religion, either. Normally it is very difficult for me to describe.

Once a friend of mine asked her friends for advice on devotions to read or whatever enhanced our Christian life. Something that has profoundly affected me is contemplative meditation, specifically body scanning. My friend had never heard of it and she looked it up. She thanked me for the advice, but said that she wasn't looking for relaxation techniques, but for something to read, like a book.

I smiled. Body scanning, when one looks at it initially, does seem to be a type of relaxation technique, but it is more than that and it's hard to quantify. I first learned about it through the Liturgists Podcast. In their guided meditation, not only was I relaxed, which was an initial benefit of the meditation, but I also felt closer and more one with God than I ever had before. The experience was truly profound just as it was inexplicable. Those of you who just looked up the link probably are also scratching your heads to figure out what this has to do with Christianity.

It's a mystery.

There are certain aspects of my spiritual life that are so hard to fathom. This is one of them.

Paul, in his letter to the believers in Corinth, Greece, tried to expound on this (1 Corinthians 4:1-5 CEB):

So a person should think about us this way - as servants of Christ and managers of God's secrets. In this kind of situation, what is expected of a manager is that they prove to be faithful. I couldn't care less if I'm judged by you or by any human court; I don't even judge myself. I'm not aware of anything against me, but that doesn't make me innocent, because the Lord is the one who judges me. So don't judge anything before the right time - wait until the Lord comes. He will bring things that are hidden in the dark to light, and he will make people's motivations public. Then there will be recognition for each person from God.

What does it mean to be a Christian? Paul said it was like someone who is a manager of God's secrets (or mysteries). That is normally not exactly the first thing that pops up into someone's head when they think of a Christian, but that should be what we do. We are managers of Christ's mysteries.

What does that look like? I believe it's all in our attitude and how we engage other people. A loving attitude is how we should engage others.

Losing My Religion

When I was going through my divorce, I reached out to one of my mentors. He dropped everything he was doing and came down to be with me while my life and my ministry came undone. He listened to the heartache I was going through and was by my side. We don't believe the same things about God and theology: far from it, but he was there for me in a way that I will never forget. He was a servant of the mysteries of Christ.

I had just moved into a new apartment. My family was a great support to me and helped me move as best as they could, but physically this was very difficult for them due to their age and health issues. Being new to the area, I reached out to a friend who dropped everything he was doing and helped me move into my new apartment. He and I believe so vastly differently as far as theology is concerned. He is a conservative Pentecostal, but he was also a servant of the mysteries of Christ.

I had just been told I was unwelcome at my last church because of my views on marriage equality. I nearly thought I should leave it all behind. If that was how other Christians treated each other, why should I stay in that religion? Then I remembered this church, where the pastor had spoken up on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community so forcefully before the city council. I thought to myself, "If ever there were a church I would choose to attend, it would be this." So I went to this church, introduced myself to the pastor, who invited me to coffee. When I told him my story about being bisexual, being defrocked, and being told I wasn't welcome to be a member of my old church, he didn't bat an eye. He just accepted me for who I was. He was a servant of the mysteries of Christ.

I was not judged.

That could have happened, too. In all honesty, it did happen, but not by these people. I had family members who condemned me for being a sinner for being bisexual. No one, except for one person, from my last division (an administrative division of The Salvation Army) reached out to me to ask me if I was ok or to even ask me what happened. Instead, most of them gossiped about me and speculated as to why I had been terminated as an officer (pastor) in The Salvation Army. When I was rejected as a member of The Salvation Army and had to fight to become a member, most of the people in the local congregation unfriended me on social media or outright blocked me. 

It would have been so easy to lose my faith. I nearly did because of the hatred shown to me by those in my faith.

Why do I stay? It's because there were those who did not judge me.

Paul says as much:  "So don't judge anything before the right time - wait until the Lord comes."

One of the things that has hurt me the most was the judgment from other people. Christians would say that they were trying to tell me "the truth in love," but mostly that meant:  "This is how I am right and you are wrong." It was never showing me love, but trying to argue with me. I'll admit it. I am prone to engage such arguments, but these have proven to be fruitless.

Christians, both conservative and progressive, are masters at judging and canceling each other out. (By canceling, I mean getting a group of people to no longer support or acknowledge someone who used to be a part of their community.) Sometimes this is called "shunning." This is one of the most hurtful and hateful things Christians do and it rarely brings the intended effect.

Are there times when we shouldn't support another person because what they are doing is actually harming people? Absolutely. However, that should also be the absolute last resort and not the weapon one chooses right away.

Instead, we should be more prone to love, not judge. We should assume the best in people, not the worst. We should look on each other as God does:  created in God's image. When we see the divine in someone else, our attitude should change. It might not change the other person, but it should change us.

During this Advent, my hope for myself is to be more a manager of the mysteries of Christ and less a sentry posted at a gate that God has kept unlocked.

A Progressive Advent: God Allowing Evil

14 December 2012

I was still a Salvation Army officer. It was the middle of the Christmas season, one of the busiest and most stressful times for me as an officer. Christmas meant less and less to me as we begged for money to keep our corps (community center and church) open through the donations of the public.

I was sitting down for lunch at a local restaurant with my then wife and another colleague from work when the notifications on my phone started going off.

Another school shooting. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Twenty children slaughtered.

Six school personnel murdered.

The perpetrator's mother killed.

I was in shock. Terrible shock. School shootings had become routine in the United States, almost to the point of numbness. But this? This was beyond horror.

The children who were murdered were the ages of my oldest two sons:  6 and 5 years old. When they got off the school bus, I hugged them tight. I didn't want to let them go.

I was not prepared for the reaction from my work colleagues in ministry. On social media I was publicly lamenting how little our society cared for its children, but cared more about firearms and guns. Some clergy in my denomination wrote me privately and told me that they had the total opposite view and that due to the shootings, they were joining the NRA. That made absolutely no sense to me. With all the violence with firearms that were going around, why would anyone wish to join a group whose sole purpose was to make certain that people had access to those firearms? It's like throwing gasoline onto a flame. That concept was ridiculous.

Fast Forward 9 Years

Just recently, on the 30th of November, a 15 year old boy allegedly killed 4 of his fellow classmates and injured others through a school shooting in Michigan.

My oldest son is 15.

What have we as a society learned?

Nothing.

We still show the same lack of concern for the lives of others. Our democratic society has made an evil decision:  the right to "bear arms" outweighs the lives of our children. 

Democracy can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be a very evil thing, too. Democracy only works when those who vote and participate in the government are just. It seems that in our case, those who vote are motivated more by fear and selfishness than by justice and love. The majority has ruled and their ruling is an abomination.

Why do the wicked prevail?

This is the question that perplexes the writer of Isaiah (Second or Third). He writes in Isaiah 63:15:64-3 (CEB):

Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and glorious perch. Where are your energy and your might, your concern and your pity? Don't hold back! You are surely our father, even though Abraham doesn't know us, and Israel doesn't recognize us. You, LORD, are our father; your reputation since long ago is that of our redeemer. Why do you lead us astray, LORD, from your ways? Why do you harden our heart so we don't fear you? Return for the sake of your servants the tribes that are your heritage! Why did the wicked bring down your holy place? Why did our enemies trample your sanctuary? For too long we have been like those you don't rule, like those not known by your name.

If only you would tear open the heavens and come down! Mountains would quake before you like fire igniting brushwood or making water boil. If you would make your name known to your enemies, the nations would treble in your presence. When you accomplished wonders beyond all our expectations; when you came down, mountains quaked before you.

The writer had a simple question:  God, where are you? Why aren't you coming down and making everything right? The wicked are prevailing. We are forgetting your ways.

"If only you would tear open the heavens and come down!" What a powerful imagery! The writer is pleading with God to make a grand entrance and right all that has been done wrong.

This verse is the basis of an old German Advent Hymn:  "O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf."

This has a very medieval flavor to it and I like it.

Our Lutheran friends have translated this hymn into English:

Where are you, God?

This is the question that we so often ask. It is a good question to ask, even when there are no satisfactory answers. I used to think that asking why was the wrong question. I don't think that anymore.

Will I get a satisfactory answer? Maybe, but more often than not, the answer is no. I look at the suffering in this world. I see children being butchered in schools. I see people being treated inhumanely because of their skin color, their accent, their political beliefs, their sexual orientation. I see people willing to believe in lies and conspiracy theories rather than the truth. I see humanity poisoning and polluting this world, believing falsely that it's not as bad as the scientists say it is.

I am frustrated with it all. I yell at God, asking God why.

And God is silent. God does not answer. God does not rend the heavens wide.

Is it my fault?

Some things I have no control over. The evil that happens in this world is sometimes so overwhelming. What do we do in such situations? Do I blame God? No. God is not responsible for our inhumanity. We are.

So what do we do? God did show us the way. God did in essence "tear open the heavens and came down." We celebrate that in Advent. We celebrate God becoming human in the person of Jesus, the Christ. The life and mission of Jesus is worthy to emulate. A life of serving the needy, the lost, the ones that society has rejected. A life that celebrates humanity and creation and doesn't seek to destroy it through weapons, greed, or selfishness.

One of my favorite quotes comes from The Lord of the Rings. In it, one of the main characters, Frodo, wishes that the evil circumstances he was in had never happened. His mentor, the wizard Gandalf, replied: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

That is my wish and hope. I may not be able to rend the heavens wide and wave a magic wand, making peace on this Earth, but I can make peace with what God has given me in the time I have on this Earth.

A Progressive Advent: an Unfulfilled Prophecy

 The First Sunday in Advent

The 28th of November marks the First Sunday in Advent for the Christian Calendar. Technically, it's the "New Year." The Church liturgical year starts off with Advent. What is Advent? It is the four Sundays preceding Christmas that marks the anticipation of the coming of Christ.

Advent is a big thing for me. I was probably influenced very much by my time in Germany. There we even had a distinction between Advent hymns and Christmas carols. One did not wish someone else a "Frohe Weihnachten" (Merry Christmas) until it was actually Christmas. So normally until after the Fourth Sunday in Advent did Germans start wishing each other a merry Christmas.

So, I felt it only appropriate to continue a series on Advent from my own point of view. You could call it "progressive." In fact, that's what I am doing:  My very own Progressive Advent Series.

In a very liturgical sense, however, I will be referencing the lectionary for my scripture passages. Those of you who are familiar with the Revised Common Lectionary will note that I am not using that particular one. I will be using the German Protestant lectionary, which, in my humble opinion, is a bit more in-depth, seeing how it runs on a 6-year cycle, compared to the 3-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary.

The preaching text for this Sunday is from Jeremiah 23:5-8 (CEB)

The time is coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous descendant from David's line, and he will rule as a wise king. He will do what is just and right in the land. During his lifetime, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And his name will be The LORD is Our Righteousness.

So the time is coming, declares the LORD, when no one will say, "As the LORD lives who brought up the Israelites from the land of Egypt." Instead, they will say, "As the LORD lives who brought up the descendants of the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where he has banished them so that they can live in their own land."

The Low Down

At first glance for the Christian reader, they might jump up and say, "This is about Jesus!"

Well, no it's not.

Jeremiah was writing at a time of great upheaval. There had been a civil war a couple of hundred years prior, which divided Israel into 2 kingdoms:  the Northern Kingdom, also called Israel. This was the more powerful kingdom with its capitol in Samaria. Then there was the Southern Kingdom, called Judah, with its capitol in Jerusalem, which was significantly weaker than the Northern Kingdom. The Assyrian Empire conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Judah barely escaped their wrath. The Northern Kingdom was deported and settled in other countries and new people were moved into the land.

Judah tried its best to lay low and appease the Assyrians, but finally the Assyrians themselves were conquered by the Babylonians, who, in turn, decided to conquer this small nation of Judah. Judah was no match at all for the Babylonians.

This is where Jeremiah comes in. He promises hope for both Judah and Israel. He prophesies that this salvation will be so great that it will rival the time when the Israelites were delivered from Egypt. A righteous king will be established here from the line of David, who name means "Yahweh (or the LORD) is our Righteousness."

What's actually interesting here is that this seems to refer to the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, whose name means "Yahweh is righteous."

A Failed Prophecy

It would appear at first glance that this prophecy is a failed one. Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon and the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, killed Zedekiah's sons and blinded him as well (2 Kings 25).

However, Biblical prophecy is not fortune telling. Most prophecy in the Bible is not future prediction and it is certainly not prediction for events that are to happen hundreds or thousands of years later. When the prophets wrote, it was to call the people back to God and to tell them what would happen if they did, but also what would happen if they didn't. Prophecy was a call to justice and holiness:  to reject evil and to live a life of love.

Zedekiah was a stupid king who thought he could rebel against a mighty empire. He paid the price for it by seeing his sons executed and then blinded. He never had any more children and was the last king, descended from David, who reigned in Judah.

People can use scripture passages like this and say, "the Bible isn't true!" And, honestly, they'd have a legitimate argument for that. Scripture passages like these are the ones that can depress me and disappoint me.

And then I remember a truth:

Scripture is neither inerrant nor infallible.

And that’s ok. I remember that I had just read this Scripture passage from my old perspective. My critical self analyzed it. I brought up all of the historical context for it. I saw it for how other Christians might see it. Try as we might, the Bible is full of errors, contradictions, and mistakes.

That scripture imploded in front of my eyes. It fell apart and I couldn't and wouldn't put the pieces back together again.

This represented my whole deconstruction from Evangelicalism:  I examined my beliefs. I found where they were wrong and fallible. I went through a crisis. I couldn't put the broken pieces back together again.

But what to do? What do you do when your foundation has crumbled?

I grew up believing that "the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God and that they only constitute the divine rule fo Christian faith and practice." Scripture just took a tumble for me. Its legitimacy took a major hit in my eyes.

I do not, nor have I ever believed in Sola Scriptura:  That only Scripture should be the guidepost for my beliefs. When I did that, I had elevated Scripture to the level of God. I made Scripture the Word of God when Christ is really the Word of God for me.

Maybe that's what the first Christians did . . . 

They saw this passage in Jeremiah. Everyone knew that it was written about Zedekiah and how he was supposed to save Judah from the Babylonians, but it failed. His sons were murdered and his line ended, but he had a nephew whose line did not end. If we are to believe the pedigree that Matthew and Luke have given us (which are both substantially different from each other), they at least point us to the claim that Jesus is also descended from David.

Where Zedekiah failed, Jesus succeeded. The teachings of Jesus bring peace. Where Zedekiah failed to live up to his potential, Jesus did something completely different. He lived a fulfilled life and showed us how to live. He brought us the way of peace, even when the world brought death and destruction.

My world had fallen apart.

I had been rejected. Divorced. Lost my faith community. Everything that I thought I knew had crumbled. It wasn't, however, God who had failed me. It was my own fallibility. It was the fallibility of my faith community and the rejection they had show men for being bisexual. It was the fallibility of Scripture, which had not been written by God, but normal, everyday humans who were just like me.

What is the basis of my faith then? I try to base it on God and love. Scripture is secondary. Where Scripture contradicts love, I reexamine it to see what I could learn from it. Then suddenly God is beyond Scripture. God can be found in nature, in the cosmos. God is found in Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and, (dare I say it?) in Satanism and atheism.

God is found in the beauty of the sunrise, in the tragedy of death. God is found despite broken promises and unfulfilled prophecy. God is found despite rejection and hate.

I have discovered more about God than what I had previously known. Now I realize just how little I know about God. I look forward to exploring that and finding out what God actually is and what my relationship to God could be.

For this Advent, despite all of the broken promises, rejections, and hardships, I hope that both you and I can look beyond this to the hope and faith in a God who is better than an unfilled prophecy.

Eternity Sunday

Immortality?

One of the interesting appeals about Christianity is eternal life. Immortality. Living forever and never dying. This Sunday (21 November) in Germany is called "Ewigkeitssonntag," or "Eternity Sunday." It is normally a very solemn day, memorializing those who have passed away in the previous year. In the Liturgical Calendar used by the German Protestant Church, the Scripture passage is taken from Isaiah 65:17-25. It is a very famous passage and a beautiful Hebrew poem and prophecy. God through the prophet is speaking:

Look! I'm creating a new heaven and a new earth: past events won't be remembered; they won't come to mind.

Be glad and rejoice forever in what I'm creating, because I'm creating Jerusalem as a joy and her people as a source of gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad about my people. No one will ever hear the sound of weeping or crying in it again.

No more will babies live only a few days, or the old fail to live out their days. The one who dies at a hundred will be like a young person, and the one falling short of a hundred will seem cursed.

They will build houses and live in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They won't build for others to live in, nor plant for others to eat. Like the days of a tree will be the days of my people; my chosen will make full use of their handiwork.

They won't labor in vain, nor bear children to a world of horrors, because they will be people blessed by the LORD, they along with their descendants.

Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear.

Wolf and lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the snake - its food will be dust. They won't hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain, says the LORD.

Jerusalem
Photo by Haley Black from Pexels

I always like looking at the context for why a particular Scripture passage was written. Isaiah was written by at least 2, if not 3 authors. The first author, most likely Isaiah himself, wrote the first 39 chapters. The second half of Isaiah then suddenly shifts tone, speech, and context to another era. This is what we have here. The author, writing in the style of the original Isaiah, was looking forward to the return to Jerusalem and the peace that God would give them.

We have this beautiful imagery of the wolf eating grass with a lamb and a lion sleeping peacefully with an ox. This is a paradox we know does not happen in real life. The lion would definitely attack the ox, given a chance, and wolves prey on unsuspecting lambs. However, that is the beauty in this image:  Returning to Jerusalem would start this era of peace and Jerusalem would live up to the meaning of its name:  the City of Peace.

This peace, beautifully expressed in Hebrew and also in Arabic, does not mean only the absence of war, but of wellness, contentment, and wholeness. In Hebrew, as in Arabic, when someone asks you, "How are you doing?", they actually ask them:  "How is your peace?"

What does this have to do with immortality?

Not a thing.

If you read this passage, this is not a prophecy about the End Times. This isn't about Jesus' Second Coming. The writer of this passage knew nothing of Jesus at all. We Christians tend to superimpose images of Jesus on passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that had nothing to do with Jesus at all. There is precedent for this. Even the writer of the Gospel of Matthew misquotes Isaiah 7:14, misattributing this verse to Jesus, when it had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.

There is no talk of "eternal life." In fact, the writer speaks of death, of people living to the ripe old age of 100.

This Scripture passage does talk about a new heaven and earth, but "heaven" in this case was not a kingdom of God. "Heaven" in Hebrew was synonymous with the sky. It wasn't like Mount Olympus, where the gods reigned.

What I do love about this passage is that it gives us hope for right now, something that we can accomplish with God's help:  a new Heaven and a new Earth. Heaven isn't a ticket for us to gain when we die, the Kingdom of God is for us to build right now on this Earth.

If we fail to do this, if we fail to bring peace to this Earth through the love of God by loving our neighbors, we have missed the whole message of Jesus and this passage from Isaiah.

Mea Culpa

Recently I have had to examine my own life. Am I doing everything I can to build God's Kingdom on Earth? Am I loving my neighbor like Jesus commanded me to do? I have to admit it.  Not always. I have failed many times. There have been times when I could have done better, loved a little more, brought a kind word instead of a harsh tone. For that, I can only ask for forgiveness.

And Immortality?

I don't know for certain if it exists. If you ask me if I believe in an afterlife with God forever, sometimes I can say "yes, most definitely." Other times, I am not so certain. What spurs me on, though, is the knowledge that it is my responsibility to bring God's Kingdom here on Earth, whether or not an eternal life is guaranteed to me.

Even if I were to die and ultimately cease to exist, with no one but my family, my sons, and my loved ones to remember me:  I will still serve God.

Even if there is no immortality.

Even if I cease to exist when I die.

Even if God does not really exist, I will bring peace to this world by loving others and following the teachings of Jesus.

My friends and acquaintances who are devout Christians might shudder at that. They would probably even say I am not a Christian at all.

I don't care.

I love God. I will serve God by bringing peace to this world.

Joe Biden and Isaiah 6

Caveat

I am not in any way, shape, or form an expert on politics, let alone the state of affairs in Afghanistan. As such, I won't pronounce judgment on whether or not the United States military should have left Afghanistan in the manner that they did. I thought the entire war was evil. I believe war is an evil. I believe there is always a better solution to killing people. The cost of innocent lives, not only on civilians, but on the veterans and soldiers, outweighs the negligible gain found in war.

The Background

On Thursday, 26 August 2021, a suicide bomber killed at least 13 American soldiers and over 60 Afghanis. People started blaming and defending the Biden Administration over what happened. I tried to take a more measured approach and listened to the speech President Biden gave to the American people.

Being a former pastor, the following line that President Biden said jumped out at me and made me pause:

"Those who have served through the ages have drawn inspiration from the Book of Isaiah. When the Lord says, 'Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?' The American military has been answering for a long time:  'Here I am. Send me.' Each one of these women and men of our armed roles are the heirs of that tradition and sacrifice, and of volunteering to go in a harms way to risk everything, not for glory, not for profit, but to defend what we love and the people we love."

President Biden quoted a very famous Scripture passage, describing the great call of the prophet Isaiah to give a special message to the people of Judah. I love this Scripture passage. It is one of my favorites. When I studied Hebrew, this is one that I would repeat over and over again. The majesty and splendor of this passage is awe-inspiring for me.

This is that passage of Scripture, taken from Isaiah, chapter 6 (Common English Bible):

In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple. Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about. They shouted to each other, saying:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces!
All the earth is filled with God’s glory!”

The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke.

I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!”

Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.”

Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?”

I said, “I’m here; send me.”

God said, “Go and say to this people:

Listen intently, but don’t understand;
    look carefully, but don’t comprehend.
Make the minds of this people dull.
    Make their ears deaf and their eyes blind,
    so they can’t see with their eyes
    or hear with their ears,
    or understand with their minds,
    and turn, and be healed.”

I said, “How long, Lord?”

And God said, “Until cities lie ruined with no one living in them, until there are houses without people and the land is left devastated.” The Lord will send the people far away, and the land will be completely abandoned. Even if one-tenth remain there, they will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, which when it is cut down leaves a stump. Its stump is a holy seed.

My Reaction

I was disgusted by this misappropriation of Holy Scripture. Politicians tend to do this all the time, but I'll get to that a little bit later. It is not the first time, nor is it the last time, that a politician uses religion to influence his or her audience.

A bit of context for the scripture passage:

Uzziah was, for the most part, a righteous king, but near the end of his reign, he was struck with leprosy (or some other infectious skin ailment). The Bible remarks that this was due to the fact that Uzziah attempted to burn incense in the Temple, a task reserved only for priests and Levites (2 Chronicles 26:18). He never recovered from this disease and the year of his death was also the time that Isaiah received this great vision.

Isaiah sees this great image of God and these fiery winged creatures, called seraphim in Hebrew, were flying around, announcing the greatness of God, stating that the whole cosmos was filled with the glory of God. The Hebrew term for this glory implies something tangible and weighty that could be felt.

Isaiah, struck with terror and awe at this mighty vision feels unworthy to be in this presence. One of the seraphim symbolically cleanses Isaiah with one of the burning hot coals from the altar. I always tend to laugh at this part when this fiery creature said: "See, this has touch your lips." Duh. A burning hot coal touched Isaiah's lips. I think he might have noticed that.

And then God asks for a volunteer:

"Whom shall I send and who will go for us?" [I always got a kick that the Hebrew says "us" and not "me." This implies that God was speaking for all the heavenly beings, too. It does not imply (as many Christians might maintain) that God was speaking as a Trinity.]

Isaiah volunteers. "Here am I! Send me!"

THE END

Um.

Maybe not.

I have been to numerous youth events. Growing up in The Salvation Army, we had these youth weekend, called "Youth Councils." Invariably this scripture passage was used to inspire us to become ordained pastors/officers in The Salvation Army. Dozens of officers were waiting at the front of the stage where young people prayed and signed their life away, pledging to become officers in The Salvation Army. I did it one time, too. I remember crying as I prayed to God, wanting to dedicate my life in God's service. An officer was right at my side, getting my name, address, and phone number to contact me at a later date and make sure I was serious about becoming an officer.

Nobody kept on reading the Scripture passage.

Basically, God told Isaiah:  "Go and bring my message to the people . . . BUT, they will not listen to you. It will be futile. They will act like you're not even there.

Biden's Misappropriation of Scripture

So here we are. President Biden has the unenviable task of informing the American public that not only has the Taliban taken over Afghanistan after the United States' futile 20-year war, but another terrorist group, called ISIS-K, has killed innocent people along with American soldiers.

To make it palatable, the President invoked the Scripture passage from Isaiah, saying by comparison that the military sacrificed their lives, being called by God for this higher purpose.

There is a term for this.

Bovine Scatology.

In theological terms, this is called eisegesis, reading into Scripture your own personal meaning to justify your views.

I find it ironic, then, that Biden unintentionally brought a greater truth to this tragedy:  the whole war in Afghanistan was futile and useless. Americans killed more civilians and soldiers (241,000) than were killed in the attacks on September 11, 2001, which prompted this war.

What is the result? Before the war, the Taliban controlled Afghanistan. After the war, the Taliban control Afghanistan.

Eisegesis by Other US Presidents

President Bill Clinton on 26 October 1994 gave a speech at the peace agreement between the Kingdom of Jordan and Israel.  He misquoted Jesus when he stated:  "Blessed are the peacemakers - for they shall inherit the Earth." Jesus actually didn't say this. This is from the great Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5. What Jesus actually is recorded saying was:  "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9 NRSV). I don't know if Clinton did this intentionally or not, but the Christian view of being called a child of God is problematic for Muslims and Jews, who do not have a view of God being a parent.

President Abraham Lincoln once gave a speech before becoming president, when he was selected by the Republicans to become their nominee for Senator from Illinois. To stave off the possibility of people supporting Stephen Douglas, Lincoln famously quoted Jesus by saying:  "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln quoted Mark 3:24, but infamously this Scripture passage was dealing with religious leaders, accusing Jesus of performing miracles and casting out demons in the name of Beelzebub, a demon.

Where does that leave me politically?

Believe it or not, I didn't vote for Biden. That caused a lot of tension among my friends who are Democrats. I voted for Mark Charles, who best represented my own personal beliefs. I had several friends block me on social media because of that, which made me realize that extremism lies both among the political liberals, just as it does among the political conservatives. Room for differences does not exist and people tend to go to polar opposites.

I saw a meme, that adequately expresses my views of voting for Biden:

I am disappointed in the misuse of Scripture. I mourn that this war has been unnecessary. As Kohelet, the writer of Ecclesiastes, so eloquently states:  "But when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had worked so hard to achieve, I realized that it was pointless - a chasing after the wind. Nothing is to be gained under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 2:11 CEB).