Category: Spirituality

The Present Age and the Age to Come

St. Paul writes of the “the present evil age.” Jesus speaks of the “age to come”—as Paul does also.

We experience the present age as evil. We experience violence, mass shootings, road rage, all kinds of rage, deep divisions in our society, breakdown in relationships and families, mental health struggles with our youth, racism in police departments, politicians motivated by personal power rather than a holistic vision, and, of course, the roots of our problems in the selfishness, arrogance and greed that are a part of the human condition. We live in an evil age.

The flip side of all this, of course, is that it is our experience of the goodness and beauty of creation, including of humanity made in the image of God that enables us to see the starkness of evil. It is human compassion, mercy, care for justice; it is human beings forgiving one another and being reconciled to one another that puts the existence of evil into sharp relief. As we grow as children of God made in the image of God, we increasingly recognize what we have lost of our humanity. We recognize something of the depth of evil in this age, and we long for a time when everything will be made right.

When Christians celebrate the resurrection to eternal life, they look, in part, beyond the present evil age to the age to come when we will know the fullness of our true humanity in God.

In this present age, we get a taste of this resurrection life. In Christ, we have the experience of dying and rising, dying to a false self and becoming alive to our true humanity in God. But we remain in a battle. We are up against “spiritual principalities and powers of darkness.” We are in a great struggle, and so we look forward to the day when the battle will be over and all things will be made right.

We stretch out for that day. We view what we are going through in this present age with a vision of the age to come when “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

St. Paul kept hold of this vision which sustained him in the midst of the evil of this age. He was able to face battles because he believed in the resurrection. Paul made it clear that this belief enabled him to put himself in danger. He was able to fight, in his words, “wild animals at Ephesus” where a crowd came against him. He was able to face the mob and jail and beatings because of the resurrection from the dead. He could freely face death because it was not the end.

When I think of movements toward justice, I think of those who have kept the future before them—a future with hope that makes present action possible. It is a vision of what could be, what ought to be, a vision of a world where justice reigns that sustains present action for change. The most expansive vision for such action is that of the age to come when everything will be made right.

In this present age, we journey into mystery toward that future age. St. Paul: “Look, I will tell you a mystery! …. We will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).”

There is no blueprint for this journey, for living out our days in this present age, but there is the leading and empowering of the Spirit. And there is the assurance of faith that there is an age to come when we will know fully what we now only know in part: We will know the fullness of the resurrection in the presence of God.

Filed under: Humanity, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,

Choosing Life For Our Planet

I have visited Methuselah in the White Mountains of California, the oldest documented tree on earth. As Sarah Kaplan noted, “It was a sapling when the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids more than 4,500 years ago.” So, when I read Kaplan’s article concerning what is happening to bristlecone pines (hundreds are dead or dying in Death Valley National Park), I realized the dire warning they represent for the effects of climate change. Kaplan writes of the stress on trees all over the world. But bristlecone pines! They have survived so many crises over the thousands of years of their existence, and they have managed to flourish in the harshest of environments. And yet, they are now in danger of survival.

And Congress has been unable to pass urgent legislation that would only begin to address the extreme weather situation we are increasingly producing. We are in the midst of a mass extinction that is moving faster than any of the five previous mass extinctions our planet has undergone. We continue down a path of making our planet unlivable and show little awareness of what we are doing to ourselves and our earth home. And we do not have the leaders we need (although, they are the leaders we have chosen) for such a time as this.

We have individuals in positions of leadership whose narrow vision is defined by how they can retain personal power. Life on our planet is being destroyed, mass shootings are rising, divisions sap us of a common vision and power to bring about change, and we have leaders who spend time working people up over false issues. (For example, worrying White parents over their children learning the White-supremacist history of our nation.) These kinds of issues sidetrack others from the truly pressing matters of our time, like taking the necessary actions to truly care for our planet, its creatures, and ourselves.

I think of words from a time when Methuselah, the bristlecone pine, was still young, words from the book of Deuteronomy, where Yahweh, who brought the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, speaks:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.

This continues to be a message for us. We have before us life and death. We can choose. The word of the Creator is “Choose life!”

Can we see that anytime we do not choose to love; anytime we do not choose to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8), we choose death? Justice, mercy, and faithfulness are life-giving. They are life-giving for our planet because they move us into action to make right what is wrong and to do it with compassion.

Anytime we choose to be motivated by fear, prejudice, hate, or choose to disdain or condemn others (Jesus reminds us there is one judge and it is not us!), we choose death. It does not matter how much “religion” we wrap our choices in. These choices cut us off from others and from the needs of our earth home.

It is hard for me to imagine the kind of movement necessary for us truly to choose life, without a great spiritual awakening. Without a renewal of life in the spirit, life directed outward in openness, receptive to the Spirit of God, our decisions will be locked into our physical desires, our arrogance, and our rationalizations. We will be unable to see beyond our most immediate experienced needs and our self-absorption.

Gracious God, free us from our in-turned bondage, the bondage of our wills. Liberate us to love one another, to truly see the needs of others, including the needs of the creatures who share our earth home. Free us to see with compassion and to act. Amen.

Filed under: Climate Change, Compassion, Environment, SpiritualityTagged with:

Where Is The Resurrected Life Found?

A reflection on Acts 10

Peter, a Jew, found it in a Roman soldier, who, as a soldier, represented the oppression of the Roman empire.

It took a vision and the leading of the Spirit to bring Peter to the point where he invited three Gentiles sent by a Roman centurion named Cornelius into his house and “gave them lodging.” And then went with them and entered into the home of Cornelius.

Peter shared with Cornelius the change he underwent: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”

The distance Peter traveled could hardly have been greater: He was in the house of a Gentile, a soldier (in Christ, Peter had become a man of peace) and a Roman who represented the occupying power of Rome. Because the distance was religious as well as political in nature, it was a longer way to travel than that of a progressive ideologue sitting down with a conservative ideologue.

What made it possible was a spirituality that recognized the humanity in all. Peter had his eyes openned by the power of the Spirit. He had died to the old way of seeing others and made alive to what God was doing in places where he had not expected to see the resurrected life. The new life that he had found was not far from anyone, if they would turn to receive it.

Peter shared with Cornelius and his household what he had come to see: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

Peter speaks of “what is right” as a sign of God’s work in a person’s life. He also refers to the fear of God. But here it is not a slavish fear of punishment, but rather fear understood as taking God seriously, having reverence. The “fear of God” in Cornelius was seen in his life of prayer and care for the poor. This was a man who was open to what Peter had to share concerning Jesus of Nazareth who “God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Where is the resurrected life found?

It is found where love is practiced, where there is goodness and healing. Peter says nothing about what Cornelius believed but about what he did. The resurrected life is not, first of all, about beliefs or a particular Christian theology. It is about the lived life. Above all, it is about openness. One who thinks of themself as an atheist but is implicitly open to Incomprehensible Mystery and to our true humanity is closer to God than a Christian who has a well-worn Christian ideology, but whose heart is closed to others, particularly to others very different from themselves.

We have seen Christian ideologues operate by falsehood and manipulation, who live for power and are far from “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” for “doing good and healing all who were oppressed.”

Resurrection to new life is open to all who will receive, wherever and whoever they are. It is not far away. As with the reign of God, new life is near.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,

Martin Luther King On Spiritual Blindness

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

These words of Rev. King are from a sermon entitled, “Love In Action,” in his book, Strength To Love. This sermon has for its text the words of Jesus from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The quote above comes from King’s reflection on the last part of Jesus’ words: “They know not what they do.”

For King the reality of these words—“they know not what they do”—runs through all of human history. Wars, slavery, and Jim Crow were “perpetuated by sincere though spiritually ignorant persons.” Therefore, “sincerity and conscientiousness in themselves are not enough.” We can be sincere and conscientious about all the wrong things. King lifts up the Apostle Paul’s words concerning those who “have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened.” So, it has been with a White nationalist Christianity.

King is pointing to the problem of spiritual blindness. He speaks of “head and heart—intelligence and goodness.” King calls us to an intelligence that is spiritual in nature. (I think of Jesus calling upon his followers to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”) King makes clear that what he means by intelligence does not come merely by formal education:

I know many people of limited formal training who have amazing intelligence and foresight. The call for intelligence is a call for openmindedness, sound judgment, and love for truth. It is a call for [people] to rise above the stagnation of closedmindedness and the paralysis of gullibility. One does not need to be a profound scholar to be openminded, nor a keen academician to engage in an assiduous pursuit for truth.

King reminds us of words from the Gospel of John:

“This is the condemnation,” says John, “that light is come into the world, and [people] loved darkness rather than light.”

The point is this: The “sincere” embrace of what amounts to false values, ideologies, and commitments keeps us from the truth and in the darkness. If we refuse to acknowledge the false thinking that we have used in order to secure us from addressing our fears and insecurities, and to secure us in our prejudices, we will remain closed. We must relinquish our false ways and false thinking—false to our true humanity, false to love toward others. We must let go of what we are guarding in order to be open to the truth. We must be committed to the truth no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. We must stay committed until the truth sets us free. We must let the truth break the bondage of our fabrications about ourselves, our nation, and its history.

This is a word for our time. King speaks of “gullibility.” We have massive gullibility. When politicians and corporations so easily hook into our passions, prejudices, fears, insecurities, and self-absorption, we end up directed away from our true needs and the needs of our life together as a nation. We devolve into ever deepening divisions. The way out is for individuals to become aware of why they make the decisions they make and contrive the rationalizations they give for their decisions. We must each turn from what is false and take actions directed to what is real. As we read in the Gospel of John, “Those who do what is true come to the light.”

Filed under: Justice, Spirituality, Truth

A Spirituality For Addressing Global Warming

We have been witnessing cataclysmic destruction by drought and fire in the West and wind and water in the Southeast and Northeast. Many in those regions are suffering multiple losses. Lives have been disrupted and some are grieving the loss of loved ones. What we are witnessing directs us to prayer and action.

Compassion for suffering individuals, however, must be coupled with care for the larger global reality of life on this planet. The warming of our globe that produces one disaster after another reveals something about our relationship to the home we share with other creatures. Our relationship to our natural environment has not been a healthy one. Global warming is a symptom of our sickness. We need to get on a path of healing.

The twelve steps for recovery from addiction can help us here. The first three will get us moving toward health:

  1. The first step is admitting that our life together on this planet has become unmanageable and we are powerless to help ourselves. (We certainly keep demonstrating our powerlessness.) We have treated nature as simply there for our personal benefit, operating with little regard for the life of other animals or for those coming after us. This dysfunctional relationship has made some of us very wealthy at the expense of others. We are stuck in this destructive orientation to our environment. The reality of the growing catastrophe has been unable to shake us from our lethargy. The first step is to admit this.
  2. The second step is to believe in reality greater than our own. Everything in the cosmos does not revolve around us. Coming to accept our finitude will help us.
  3. The third step is a spiritual step that is present in multiple religions across cultures. It has to do with relinquishing our lives to God, to the Higher Self, to Higher Power, to Incomprehensible Mystery. Where that happens, instigators for change arise—or in Jesus words, people, who are becoming light, begin to shine in the world.

It does not take many to instigate movements for change. It takes empowered people with vision who are committed to gain knowledge and act. Others will join. It has always been movements that have brought change, and they often have had a spiritual element to them—particularly movements that have had longevity. Substantial change in the way we address climate change will take massive non-violent global movements.

Where are Christians and churches in this movement for change? It depends on where they are on the road to recovery. If they have refused to recognize and respond to this global crisis, they must admit that their lives and the life of their congregations, as change agents in the world, have become unmanageable. Ultimately, the issue is where they have put their trust—no matter their religious talk. If they have been blinded by moralistic religiosity or prosperity religion or White nationalism or an anti-science attitude, they must admit to being ensnared by the typical idolatries of our society: self-righteousness, consumerism, racism, and arrogance. They need to be liberated by a power greater than their own.

The daily turn from idols to the “true and living God” frees us. We become open to the truth, including the truth of our global situation. In our turning to God, we receive vision and power to work for change, that is, to do justice, love mercy and live faithfully.

Filed under: Environment, SpiritualityTagged with: ,

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

A Good Place To Be

When a person says they cannot see the way forward anymore, when they can’t figure a way out of their situation, when they feel powerless, the message they most need to hear is “You are in a good place.” They are in a place of need and poverty of spirit. Jesus’ words apply to them: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the reign of God is theirs.”

We have different ways to talk about this “good place.” (Never mind that it does not feel good.) We speak of someone reaching the end of their rope. Their life is in pieces. They have nothing to stand on. They are at a loss. It has become clear to them that they need help beyond themselves. Self-help is not helping anymore.

We may be tempted to encourage them by saying that things are not that bad. They just have to be strong. With such words, we turn them back upon themselves with their poverty and helplessness. Of course, they expect this kind of encouragement. The world around them speaks this way and they try to speak to themselves this way but to no avail. They have reached the end of their resources. They are despairing of themselves, of their ability to fix their lives.

Good news, for them, has to come from someplace other than their ability to lift themselves up. They are going to have to see that the place they have come to is rich in possibility. They are in a good, fertile place. It is a place of blessing. God’s reign is near and it is for them.

Jesus said to the self-sufficient and self-righteous religious leaders that the sinners and outcasts of society were entering the reign of God ahead of them (Matthew 21:31). God’s reign, God’s healing, liberation, and restoration are available to the poor in spirit, to those, who in their brokenness, reach out beyond themselves to the Source of life. Their insufficiency meets God’s sufficiency.

Paul learned this. He discovered that “whenever I am weak, then I am strong” and that God’s grace is sufficient whatever the “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.” The God who is present and active in all things is our hope, the ground of our being, our all in all.

Filed under: SpiritualityTagged with: , ,

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

Witness Amid False Christianity

What does witness to the Christ reality look like in the midst of so much that is false to Christ? This is an issue for followers of Jesus who care about witness to Christ. We see a distorted, destructive Christianity. Some expressions of "Christianity" are downright scary: We expect violence. Many of us viewed a video of a man, who had broken into the senate chamber, praying a prayer of thanksgiving to God. He was involved in the insurrection and claimed a God-given victory. These actions, of course, have nothing to do with the "reign of God" that Jesus proclaimed. Nor do any of the nationalist, ethnocentric, and racist blends of Christianity.

For those who have little experience with churches or Christianity other than what they receive in the news, there must be bewilderment at the dizzying array of Christian institutions, forms, practices, theologies, and values. Those that have read Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels may have recognized the distance between Jesus and many who lift up his name. There is much Christianity that operates in ways distant from the "reign of God" that Jesus proclaimed and his actions of mercy and compassion.

So, what does witness to Jesus Christ look like in the midst of so much that is false to Christ? Where do we see it? What forms does it take? Here are characteristics of a true witness in the midst of false Christianity:

  1. Actions Come First. Many, for good reason, are turned off on Christ-talk and God-talk. Witness to Christ, therefore, is seen first in acts of love. It simply manifests Christ in the world by action. It acts from the reality of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore it does justice, loves mercy, and lives faithfully. The love of God is made concrete and practical. It responds to actual needs with compassion. Actions proclaim the Christ reality. With loving actions there may also be opportunities to witness with words.

  2. Speak to Human Experience. When the opportunity to speak is present or necessary, Christ people must declare the message of Jesus without formulas and doctrines and with humility. We must operate like the first followers of Jesus: We must respond to people at the point of their need and with words that speak to their deepest humanity. We must speak to spiritual reality, rather than moralize. Our witness must come from a life rooted in the Spirit and able to discern the things of the Spirit. We may speak to spiritual realities long before we name Christ. Our words will engage with individuals’ spiritual journeys. Therefore, we will spend much time listening and receiving from their experience as well as sharing our own. If we see that the name “Christ” alerts them to be cautious because of their experience with people who do a lot of Christ talk without a Christ life, then we may, at first, speak of the Christ reality in terms that are more available to them. We may speak of our true humanity which, in its infinite depths, is rooted in God. After all, Christ is the union of God and humanity. He is our true humanity. People who have found their way to their true selves, have implicitly encountered Christ. They have come into a dying to the false and rising into their true humanity. The reality of Christ, even without the name, is never far away.

  3. Encourage Faith. Our primary message is the same as Jesus’ message: “God’s reign and purpose are near. God is near. Turn to God, the source of your life and identity.” We must encourage others to relinquish their lives to God and discover the Christ-life. When they let go of their lives to God (which is what faith does), they do so through Christ. As St. Paul puts it: We become right with God through the faith of Christ; his faith becomes ours. Faith is the gift of God in Christ. As we come to participate in this Christ reality, the word is: “Go on in him. Learn to live by an ultimate trust in God and in community with others.”

Filed under: Society, Spirituality, Witness

The Year That Exposed Our Ignorance
And Gave Us Work For The New Year

The disparities have always been there: the inequities in health care, education, housing, city services, job opportunities, and the injustices of the criminal justice system. In the year 2020, many Whites were awakened to these realities by the reporting of disparities in infections and deaths from COVID-19 among communities of color, and by the video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a White police officer. But the disparities and injustices have always been there. Ignorance has been there as well.

At this end of 2020 and as we make plans for 2021, let us make the commitment to address the disparities and injustices. This will mean that we acknowledge our ignorance of what others suffer and are open to change.

Scripture is revealing in the way it treats ignorance. Ignorance is an aspect of a broken humanity and society in which we all share (Ezekiel 45:20). It is an expression of our alienation from God and is coupled with hardness of heart (Ephesians 4:18). Ignorance is not only a lack of knowledge but an act of ignoring what we ought to pay attention to. It comes from the breakdown in our relationship with God. We ignore God and God’s will. We are distant from what is on the heart of God for humanity. We are self-absorbed and do not see what God sees.

God said to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians.” Then God engaged Moses in God’s work of deliverance. As with Moses, God continues to call us to turn from our self-centered ways and observe what God observes, and then to let God engage us in God’s work of liberation and justice.

This means that we repent from ignoring the experience of others (the others who are not kin or friend or “like us”). It means that we get to know how others are affected by our attitudes, decisions, priorities, and the kind of policies and legislation we vote for and work to get implemented. How do our actions affect the lives of others, especially those who have been marginalized by racism, poverty, or incarceration? With the help of God, we can repent and turn to what we have ignored and become intent on getting to know the lives of those who have been largely out of sight and out of mind because of our ignorance. Because we have ignored them.

As we enter 2021, let us do so in prayer, turning our hearts to God to see the way God sees, with the love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit. And let us hear again God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. Let us surrender our lives to God and to the leading of the Spirit for the concrete actions that God calls us to take, each of us with our individual abilities and ways of serving. Let us turn from ignorance to understanding and action, so that in the freedom of God’s love we work to make right what is wrong.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, Spirituality