Category: Faith

When Christmas Is A Wilderness

Jesus asked what people were looking for when they came out to the wilderness to see John the Baptist (and, by implication, what they were looking for when they came out to see Jesus). Jesus said, “What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.” Jesus implied that they did not go out to see such things because the wilderness was not the place to find them. They came out to the wilderness to seek God’s reign. They sought the coming and power of God in their lives. They sought healing and new life in God—in the wilderness.

For many people, Christmas comes as a wilderness. At a time when families gather, when there are parties, “soft robes,” lights, and jubilation, there are those who experience most intensely the loss of loved ones or experience depression and anxiety. There are those who, when the parties are over, feel deep emptiness.

We all experience wilderness—times of trial or emptiness, sometimes most profoundly at Christmas. The God, who has come to us in Christ, comes to be where we are in the wilderness. Often, it is when the music stops and the party is over and we are alone in the wilderness and receptive, that Christ’s presence is most made known.

We need the wilderness. Prayer is often experienced as a wilderness. Our self-absorption is not interested in prayer. To our pride and arrogance, prayer appears as a wilderness. Prayer offers emptiness, the emptying of ourselves. Prayer calls us to let go of our lives to God, to trust.

When prayer feels like wilderness, we must enter into the wilderness, enter into the emptiness and silence, and then let the Spirit lead us in the wilderness as the Spirit did for Jesus. When prayer is experienced as wilderness, we simply need to go there. Enter the wilderness where the Spirit leads us to God who, through Christ Jesus, is present in all the circumstances and struggles of our lives.

Whatever the wilderness, this Christmas, the Spirit is present to prepare our hearts to receive Christ afresh. Thanks be to God.

Filed under: Faith, Prayer, Suffering

The Alternative To Anxiety

A pair of cardinals built a nest in the bush just outside my front window, a nest which a cat discovered. I kept trying to shoo the cat away but to no avail. The cardinals left to find another place (hopefully more protected) for their nest. They simply took the next appropriate action.

I am reminded of Jesus’ words concerning the “birds of the air”: “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” Jesus tells us that our “heavenly Father,” who cares for the cardinals, knows what we need and provides. I need these words of Jesus and the simple action of the cardinals taking the next steps given to them.

There is so much we can be anxious about, personally, socially, and globally. Jesus tells us not to worry about our lives. In the passage, from which I quoted above (Matthew 6:25-34), he tells us what to do instead of being anxious about our lives: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Here is my (rather free) translation: “Above all else, seek God’s reign and will, and God will provide what you need to live out the life God has given you.”

The implication of these words is that we do not even have to ask God for these things that we are anxious about, for God is taking care of us. Of course, we are encouraged to go to God (rather than elsewhere) for our provisions: “Give us this day our daily bread.” And we can “cast all our anxieties on God, because God cares for us” (1 Peter 5:7). In doing so, we are set free to give our foremost attention to God’s reign and will. Our prayer, therefore, first and foremost, is “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” And, because this is our foremost prayer, and is at the heart of our being and doing, we also pray, “Deliver us from evil,” that is, deliver us from whatever would keep us from letting God be the center of our lives and would keep us from living out God’s purposes for us.

These words are very freeing—no matter what we are facing. These words keep it simple, no matter what we are going through. Paul clearly understood this when he wrote of doing one thing: “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” No matter what turns our life’s journey takes, it is always about one thing: God’s reign and purposes. God has a way for us to walk in that is life-giving no matter our circumstances. God is present in all things—in darkness and light—to make God’s purposes known and realized.

God knows what we need for this journey! And God provides! We can turn our focus on what God is doing in our lives and where God is leading, no matter our situations. We can attend to what is needed in the here and now. This is why Jesus also says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” In other words, take it one day at a time. Live in the present where God meets us and where the leading of the Spirit takes place. Doing so moves our attention to where it needs to be: on the love and mercy and will of God.

Filed under: Faith, Spirituality

Reflections On Lent

We have difficulty admitting weakness. We tend to cover up our fears and feelings of vulnerability, not only before others but within ourselves. We all put up fronts before others and ourselves, in one form or another. Some put forward a front of confidence and strength. Others put up a front of neediness in order to get something from those who appear strong and self-sufficient. In either case, we attempt to control and manipulate situations and others, as if we were the source of our lives. In this denial of weakness, we run from our fundamental need which is our need for God.

The truth is that we are profoundly powerless, helpless, and weak. That we are these does not mean that there is no power, help, and strength for us. But denying this reality of helplessness (or acting like all we need is the strength someone else appears to have) cuts us off from our true power, help, and strength—the “grace that is sufficient” and “the power that is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

One of the aspects of Lent for Christians is the experience of silence and self-examination that puts us in touch with our weakness. We take a step toward our true selves when we acknowledge our cover-ups and our brokenness. We take another step when we willingly share our weaknesses and fears with others. It is at that point that we truly meet one another. We find that we are all in need of God’s grace.

In the season of Lent, we draw near to the cross of Christ which is both the symbol of our brokenness and of our deliverance. At the foot of the cross, we find true fellowship with one another. Gathered around the one who, in dying, took our sin upon himself, our cover is blown; our weakness is exposed. And we find that we all share the same condition. We are a fellowship of broken, needy people, needy for God and God’s liberation through Christ.

Lent is a season for getting in touch again with our weakness, that in our weakness we may discover strength and help and the empowering that is ours in God. We discover that “God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1) The wording of this psalm does not have God giving us strength, but rather that God is our strength. It is in union with God that we experience power. Acknowledgment of weakness and loss opens the door to the power of God available through Christ. Baptized into Christ, we are united to Christ’s weakness, loss, and death. In Christ, we die to our attempts to be strong in ourselves apart from God, and we are released into the power of God, raised with Christ, and made alive to God and God’s will. Thanks be to God.

Filed under: Faith, Grace, Spirituality

Christmas Reflections 2020

Thus he has given us…his precious and very great promises, so that [we] may become participants of the divine nature.

2 Peter 1:4

The good news of Christmas is that God is with us and is present with liberation and transformation. God desires a relationship with us, coming to us in Christ Jesus. We become participants of the divine nature through the one who is the Participant of the divine nature. The Word (God’s self-expression) became flesh and dwells among us. In creating, God did not fling us away into infinite silence, but became united to creation and speaks into it life and healing. The Word became flesh, became matter, so that God is intimately near: God is “above all, through all, and in all.” (Ephesians 4:6)

God is in creation. God is in our humanity and relationships. God is in all of the situations and circumstances of our lives. God is present to us and for us in the midst of a pandemic. God can be found there. God is in the darkness as well as in the light. God is in the world as it is, not in a world of make-believe. We experience this when we relinquish our lives to God, living from the source of our lives.

In the midst of the pandemic, we may have run to various coping mechanisms for relief from anxiety and stress. We may, for example, have tried binge-watching streaming videos. In this way, we managed a little escape for a while, but binge-watching lasts only so long before we must escape it as well. And then, we must face our anxieties again. The good news is that God is in all things with deliverance for us. God is in a world going through a pandemic. We meet God in the midst of our present situation. By trust in God, we can face our anxieties and find release. “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

Our coping mechanisms serve a purpose until we surrender ourselves to God, which is a daily activity of faith. Our coping mechanisms allow us to carry on with a degree of sanity. They are necessary because of our experience of alienation from God. I think of them as symbolically expressed in the Genesis story of humanity’s fall into sin where God makes for Adam and Eve a covering, something that they had not needed before their break with God. Without God, we need ways to cope in the same way that Adam and Eve needed a covering. It is only as the reality of God’s presence deepens that we are increasingly freed from having to cover over our anxieties. We can start to face them.

Coping mechanisms are both a covering and a bondage. They are habits similar to addictions. They offer no freedom. Our freedom is in facing our anxieties in Christ. This is why we experience prayer as so critical to our lives, prayer understood as the surrender of our lives to God in the midst of present circumstances.

The coronavirus pandemic has been experienced in many different ways. For many it has meant isolation from loved ones, loss of employment, and survival concerns. For some, it has meant death and grief. It may also have meant the acknowledgment of our vulnerability, a deepening of trust, and finding God in the midst of it all. The good news of Christmas is that God is with us. God is near and available with forgiveness, mercy, welcome, peace, healing, and freedom. Therefore, we can turn to God no matter what we are presently facing. With grateful hearts, we celebrate the one named Immanuel, “God with us.”

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Nothing Has Changed For Faith

Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump as president of the United States is a welcome change for many of us. But nothing has changed for faith. We expect a positive change in the rhetoric coming from the White House, the treatment of children arriving at our southern border, and the policies addressing the disparities in our nation. These changes, of course, will be relative to what has gone before and what is envisioned for our future. Many of us will be disappointed by the smallness of these actions. Which is why it is important to recognize that nothing has changed for faith—for faith in God and the actions flowing from faith.

The trusting relinquishment of our lives to God keeps us rooted in and growing in love and reality, whatever may come. Dependence on God for our very being sustains and grows our vision. Our ultimate dependence is not on a particular form of government or political party or president or congress but on God and God’s reign. By faith, all governments and all who govern are critiqued by God’s ways of governing. All actions are seen against the backdrop of God’s reign where the servant is leader, the last first, and the humble exalted. Nothing has changed for faith. God has always been the all in all, whatever the circumstances. When we have been anxious about our circumstances (a pandemic and a president), it has been faith that has kept us and will keep us, whatever we face. By faith, we have found that we can cast our anxieties on God who cares for us, sustains us, and guides us through it all.

Nothing has changed for the changeless center of all things. Faith, hope, and love abide. By faith in God, we see visions and dream dreams. By hope, we stretch out for the realization of those visions and dreams. By the unconditional love of God, we are enabled to act. The love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit gives us the actions that are true to our humanity made in the image of God and to the visions of the Spirit. This love is merciful and forgiving; it sees beyond ours and others’ faults. It does not judge, nor is it demeaning toward others but rather is manifest in works of healing and deliverance, justice and peace.

By faith, we are clear-eyed about the corruption of humanity, the self-absorbed divisiveness, enmity, greed, and lust, the self-inturned ways of a broken humanity. By faith, therefore, we are not given to magical thinking, no matter how sophisticated and intellectual. We are not into ideologies or rational programs for fixing things. We know that our fundamental problem is spiritual. Jesus’ good news remains the answer: “Repent and have faith, for the reign of God is near.” “Turn to God, who is the source of your life, and surrender your life to God’s reign.”

Nothing has changed for faith. An election has not changed our fundamental problem, nor its solution. We need God. We need to be centered in the One who is the center of all things. Nothing else will solve our divisions. Every division has a wrong center. In God, we live and move and have our being. Trust in God frees us to truly embrace each other.

Nothing has changed for faith. Faith in God continues to look to a future beyond our brief history. It reaches out for the end and goal of history in Christ, who is our true humanity in union with God. In its stretching out, faith works through love with the goal in mind: All things will be made new in “a new heaven and a new earth,” all finding their home with God.

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When Does “Do Not Be Afraid” Help?

Joe Biden quoted Pope John Paul II, who quoted words from Scripture: “Do not be afraid.” I became interested in how many times that phrase is used in the Bible and did a search. I found that it is used 68 times, 76 if the Apocrypha is included. Mostly, this phrase is a word of the Lord spoken through a prophet or in a vision or a dream. These words are also on the lips of Jesus. What is apparent from the occurrences of this phrase is that most often our fear is a fear of others or a fear of an individual with power:

Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him; for there is one greater with us than with him.

2 Chronicles 32:7

Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.

Jeremiah 1:8

In this time of the COVID-19 pandemic and the racism pandemic that spans our nation’s history, along with the absence of leadership, we need these words. We need to hear God speak these words to us. We cannot speak them to ourselves. When we mutter them, often over and over again, they are generally our attempt to repress our fear or to deny what is happening around us and to us.

When these words are a word of God to us, they are a call to trust in God, no matter what we face. When it is God who says to us, “Do not be afraid,” we are helped. These words free us for action, for doing God’s will.

Left to ourselves, without trust in God, fear either immobilizes us or has us lashing out. Fear of losing the “traditions of his ancestors” had Paul persecuting the followers of Messiah Jesus. An encounter with the risen Jesus turned his life around. He began to operate from the call of God rather than from his self-made righteousness and anger. He was open to hearing God say to him, “Do not be afraid.”

“One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent.'” (Acts 18:9) Paul was in Corinth, at the time, where a community of Jesus followers was being formed. Paul needed these words of the Lord. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, we learn of his emotional state when he came to Corinth: “I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.” Considering what he had already been through, it is not surprising that he came to the city of Corinth in fear and trembling. In Philippi, he had been beaten with rods and imprisoned, and he was driven out of Thessalonica and Beroea. He kept finding himself in, what John Lewis called, “good trouble.” Although it was good trouble (or God trouble), it nevertheless was trouble, and as he approached Corinth, he had every reason to expect conflict. So it was that he came in fear and trembling. That he came despite his fear had to do with the call of God upon his life. As Paul pursued the mission God had given him, he received God’s encouragement to “speak and do not be silent.” God was with him for the work he was to do in that place.

God’s message, “Do not be afraid,” comes to us when we are responding to God’s call, a response that brings liberation and healing to some, but reaction and trouble from others. When we have decided, by the grace of God, to come out of our comfort zones to respond to the needs of others, God says, “Do not be afraid.” When, in response to God’s call, we turn away from racism and prejudice and fear of the other to welcome the refugee, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and those imprisoned, the words, “Do not be afraid,” give us courage.

We cannot separate the message, “Do not be afraid,” from the speaker. Our fear of a virus or of others will not be removed by telling ourselves not to be afraid, but by turning to God and away from xenophobia, racism, and self-absorption, trusting the whole of our lives to God.

It is to those who are actually following him, responding to his call, that Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32) To the “little flock” who are losing their lives for Christ’s sake and the gospel, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

We, who are coming to find our true selves in God and beginning to live in love, know that we are to “speak and not be silent.” We are to protest injustice and work to make right what is wrong. In the face of opposition, God speaks a message of encouragement to us. “Do not be afraid” is a word that frees us for the steps God calls us to take in bearing witness to God’s reign of love. In trusting obedience to God, we are freed to do justice, love mercy, and live faithfully.

Filed under: Discipleship, Faith, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,

Anxiety and the Coronavirus

It is hard to tell ourselves or others not to worry. Our lives are being upended by a virus. The whole of our society and the global community is in combat mode directed to this invisible attack. Growing numbers are contracting this virus. Health workers do not have all the equipment they need; there is fear that the health system will be overwhelmed. Businesses are shut down, many are out of work, schools are closed, travel is halted, and we are being directed to distance ourselves from one another. And we do not know how long this “new normal” will last. So very much is out of our control. Of course, each of us can take steps to help in this situation, but we are also dependent on the steps others take—including our leaders. Anxiety is a natural and even necessary response. Fear gets us responding to situations that need quick action. It got our attention to the realities of the present crisis so that we would act. And yet anxiety can undo us. Fear can overcome and immobilize us. So, how can we tell ourselves not to worry?

For followers of Jesus and others who are open, that is exactly what Jesus tells us: “Do not worry.” With these words, Jesus calls us from fear to faith and assumes that it is possible to trust rather than be taken over by, and act from, anxiety. With this directive to not worry, Jesus expresses the possibility of our taking steps away from anxiety. Here is the passage: Matthew 6:25-34. Here are the first two verses of that passage:

I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

The reality that makes possible the movement away from anxiety is that God cares for us. When Jesus says to us, “Do not worry,” he is calling us away from the anxiety that would direct our lives, to a trust in God in whom “we live and move and have our being.” He assumes that the empowering Spirit of God will help us to turn from being driven by anxiety, to the care and direction of God.

Jesus also describes the alternative to anxiety: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Make the focus of your life, God’s reign, God’s ways of governing, and God’s will. Anxiety, when it directs what we do (rather than merely telling us to act fast), will have us losing our humanity and purpose. Anxiety tempts us to believe it is all up to us. It will make us feel that everything is urgent all at once, and it will have us getting frantic and acting rash. Trusting in the One who holds our lives together frees us for action—for compassionate, life-giving action.

The movement from anxiety to liberated action happens in the relinquishing of our lives to God and God’s purposes for this time in which we live. God calls each of us with our gifts and ways of serving, for the time we yet have, to love one another. The message, “Do not worry,” is the same as “Trust God.” Our heavenly Father knows what we need, knows what we need right now in this time, and cares for us. We are simply to go after God’s reign and purpose, and trust that God will provide what we need to do what God calls us to do.

Filed under: Faith, Fear, Love, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,

No Substitute For Discernment

Those of us who are citizens of the United States of America are presently involved in making decisions regarding leadership in our nation, decisions about who to vote for. We are having to discern and decide among human beings, like us, who are flawed. People of faith pray for guidance as they listen to candidates and weigh various factors of our present situation. Some, however, may look to religious leaders for direction and may tell themselves that it is enough to get direction from this or that “man of God” or “woman of God,” as if we could simply rely on another person to tell us what to do without exercising discernment. However, Jesus tells us that we each have a responsibility to exercise discernment. He tells us that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” is connected to God’s reign. Therefore, we are responsible to know them by their fruits; we are to exercise discernment in relation to religious leaders and what they tell us.

Jesus tells us not to be like religious leaders who are hypocrites or play-actors and who do what they do “so that they may be praised by others.” What we see of them, their outward actions and words, is a cover for what is inside. We are to exercise discernment so that we recognize false prophets. Outwardly Jesus tells us they wear sheep’s clothing, but “inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7:15-16) They may talk religiously, read their Bible, and tell us that they are for a return to morality in America. But Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)

Jesus tells us that we know false prophets by their fruit, that is, by their actions and by what is important to them. What they treasure tells us where their heart is. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) We cannot see into another person’s heart; we cannot see what motivates them, but we can see their fruit. We see what gets expressed and acted out, and, in this way, we see what they treasure, what they go after, and what is truly important to them.

Do their lives manifest what Jesus calls the weightier matters: doing justice, loving mercy and living faithfully? Do they, like Jesus, actively care for the plight of the poor, the outcast, the refugee? Do they extend God’s mercy and welcome to the broken and the bound. Are they about healing and liberation? Or, instead of God’s welcome, do they lay heavy burdens on others by condemnation and blame, or even by belittling and ridicule?

Whether we are discerning our next steps or discerning whether to listen to a particular teacher, proclaimer, or prophet, it comes down to a matter of discerning God’s will: The one who enters God’s reign is the “one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” We must discern not only our next steps (God’s will for us), but discern false leaders and proclaimers. This is critical for our life together and for the building of true community. We must be careful that we are not led astray or that we lead others astray. If our prejudices, fears, and attitudes toward others govern how we see things, then we will be attracted to religious leaders that cast blame on others and demean those we do not like.

We must do what Paul tells us to do: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice” and “be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.” It is only by relinquishing our lives to God that we are able to discern God’s will. It is this discernment that enables us not only to see what is of God and what God calls us to do but to recognize the voices that declare God’s will and those that do not.

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Where Security Resides

At some point in my early twenties, in college, it occurred to me that I was not simply seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge and truth. I had told myself that that was what I was doing; it was a conscious desire. But I came to admit that there was more going on than simply a search for truth. There was a desire to secure my life with knowledge. There was the feeling that if I just knew enough, I would feel more secure in the world and perhaps feel that things were a little more under my control. I became increasingly aware of this attempt to secure my life, along with the realization that it was not working.

When it came to my relationship with God, in whom there is true security, I found that I was often attempting to think my way to God, a decidedly futile project. I despaired of it and continued a journey of surrendering my life to God.

I am seventy now and am mindful that my efforts to secure myself have never gone away, even as I have found security in God who, in the words of Karl Rahner, is Incomprehensible Mystery. My security is in the Incomprehensible! It is in the Mystery! Since my attempts at securing myself have not disappeared, I have been on a journey of relinquishing my life. My security is found in losing my life, my insecurity in trying to secure my life. (“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” – Jesus)

The struggle remains. And God’s grace remains. God knows where I am in the midst of this struggle, for which I am grateful; I am thankful that God knows me and knows where I am. And God is my deliverer. The journey I am on is a journey of grace.

I share this experience, because I realize I am not alone in this, and I understand the danger of seeking knowledge and information as a way to secure ourselves. This danger is certainly found in the ways that technology can give the illusion of power and security. And the scientific method, while achieving much growth in empirical knowledge (and at the same time multiplying the questions and keeping us immersed in mystery), can, nevertheless, for some, be a means of “pinning things down” in order to gain a sense of security. When technology and science become a way of securing ourselves, our lives narrow to a very mean (as in “small”) self. On the other hand, when science is pursued for the sake of knowledge rather than security, as with all forms of knowing, it opens us up to wonder and mystery—and therefore to spirit. (Read the Journey of the Universe, by Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker.)

But an attempt to secure ourselves by our knowledge may reach its most dangerous level in theology. The temptation to have our thoughts about God secure us is great. For many, the fall into this temptation is most obvious in fundamentalist thinking, where, for example, Bible quotes are provided as pat answers to all manner of life’s problems. However, the danger exists for any theological project. We are tempted to think our way to God, rather than reflect from our lived experience of God. The danger is that our theology becomes merely another ideology that keeps hidden the primary idols (false centers) that drive our lives and undermine our relationships. Theology replaces experience rather than reflecting it. Essentially, this is the cause of so many forms of Christianity revealing little or nothing of Christ.

Jesus speaks to this when he prays, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” And when he says, “Let the little children come to me…for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” And “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Therefore: Leave aside all your thoughts, your intelligent and well-formulated answers. Become like an infant, not knowing, open to receive. Be silent. Be still. “Be still and know.” (Psalm 46) Wait. “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” (Psalm 37) Release your thoughts and yield to Incomprehensible Mystery. Be open to the One you can never wrap your thoughts around. You have put your faith in your thoughts; now trust the Mystery. The One you cannot comprehend will bear you up and secure you. In silence and trust, the eyes of your heart will be opened, so that you become aware of both your great need for God and God’s gracious acceptance. In that awareness, you may find that you are discerning your next steps. Your next steps, as God gives them, are prior to and greater than your reflections. Knowing and doing God’s will are preeminent over any theology.

As a response to God, the steps you take grow your true self. This experience gives rise to reflections so that you are not merely repeating what you heard from others or read in the Bible, but rather you are witnessing from your own lived reality.

Furthermore, you find that you are not bound to any one formulation of reality, but you are free to find new ways to express your experience as you change and grow. You increasingly become open to the many ways God comes to us and the many ways others have expressed this reality. You discover that, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “God is the great iconoclast.”(A Grief Observed) God keeps breaking up our images of God (for new images) lest we make any one image that in which we place our trust, our security being in God alone.

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Christmas Reflections on Incarnation

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3,14)

Christmas is not the celebration of baby Jesus but of the entirety of Jesus’ life and the whole of humanity. It is the celebration of incarnation, the “Word become flesh.” We are giving thanks that we become truly human by becoming divine. The Word of God, God’s self-expression, participates in our humanity. Or to say it another way, humanity participates in the divine nature through Christ who is the Participant of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4)

In the early centuries of the church, especially with eastern Christianity, the word “divinization” was used as a way to express the meaning of incarnation. God, who created all things through the Word or Image of God—stamping all of creation with divine reality, raises up God’s creation into union with God. God “divinizes” God’s creation. We humans are that aspect of an evolving universe that has become self-conscious and that experiences itself as open to God. We are spirit as well as matter.

What this means is that God does not come to us as an afterthought or an add-on to creation and to our humanity, but inseparable from who we are, when we are truly ourselves. We cannot be truly human without, at the same time, being divine—that is, “children of God.” We were created for union with God.

When we are alienated from God (what Christians mean by “sin”), we experience the loss of our humanity. What we have lost is our divine center. We have tried to make ourselves the center of our own universe, no longer at home with God or the universe. We construct a false self and produce broken relationships and broken societies and a broken enviornment.

We have ways of expressing this loss of humanity. We speak of our inhumanity. We speak in negative terms. We are unloving, unwilling, untruthful, ungrateful, unfaithful, impatient, unkind, unspiritual, in a state of disunity, discord, disorientation, etc. What we have lost is the fruit of the Spirit of God, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) When we are godless, we are inhuman.

When Jesus proclaims God’s reign and calls us to repent, he is telling us to turn back to God as the center and source of our lives. He is expressing the same call as the prophets before him: “Return to your God, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.” (Hosea 12:6)

Jesus declares that God’s reign is near. The source and center of our lives, the fountain of life and our true humanity, is not far away. We can turn again to the divine center. “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15) Therefore James tells us to “draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8) Right now, in this moment, we can again draw near to God, knowing that God is drawing us near.

Filed under: Faith, Humanity, Spirit, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,