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: , ,

The Love of God and the End of War

My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine, to the children who are being traumatized and to their parents who are trying to protect them, comfort them, get them out of harms way, as they endure the shelling and bombing of their cities. Along with the rest of the world, I have watched the massive gathering of Russian troops and their entrance into Ukraine in an effort to bring Ukraine under the control of Vladimir Putin’s government. The blatant disregard for the will of the Ukrainian people, the bombing of their cities, the growing number of civilians killed, and the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II has focused the world’s attention and brought widespread condemnation.

I also feel for the situation of young Russian conscripts who thought they were involved in a military training exercise and would soon be back home, only to find themselves sent across the Ukrainian border into a war where their mission was to kill other human beings, many of whom had deep Russian ties. They were being treated as fodder for a war machine.

And then I think about this war in relation to the wider global reality of war. Our world is at war. Wikipedia names 5 current major wars in which there have been 10,000 or more combat-related deaths in the current or past year, 18 current wars with 1,000–9,999 combat-related deaths in the current or past year, 41 current minor conflicts (100–999 combat-related deaths in current or past year) and skirmishes (fewer than 100 deaths in current or past year).

Afghanistan has experienced 1,450,000–2,084,468 fatalities; Yemen, 377,000; Myanmar, 150,000–210,000; Tigray, 23,600–100,000; Ukraine (beginning in 2014), 13,300+.

We are a world at war. Nations go to war regularly. Autocracies go to war. Democracies go to war. Autocracies and democracies both do wars of aggression. Russia has gone into Ukraine on the pretense of addressing Nazism and genocide. The United States went to war in Iraq on the pretense of addressing weapons of mass destruction. Over 100,000 civilians were killed in Iraq. I felt for the children of Iraq the way I feel for the children of Ukraine. In the case of Iraq, children were being traumatized by American bombs. Whatever nation goes to war, the outcomes are the same: people killed, maimed, traumatized, and their support systems destroyed.

Furthermore, it is apparent that humanity sees little in the way of an alternative. The United States has been involved in war somewhere for most of its history. And a nation’s citizens generally support their nation’s wars, anti-war protests not withstanding. War has had a kind of inevitability attached to it. It is an extreme symptom of our spiritual condition: we are a humanity centered in upon itself rather than in God (who is Love), our true center.

If we have begun to experience a recentering of our lives in God, we must bear witness to what we have come to know which includes a growing spiritual understanding of why humanity chooses war. Given the human condition, war appears to be the only thing available for the people of Ukraine in their situation—and they take it up with courage and determination against great odds. Thomas Merton, in a journal entry for March 1, 1966, speaks to this. He writes these words at a time when the United States had over a 184,000 troops on the ground in Vietnam. He writes of his “sorrow at the fabulous confusion and violence of this world, which does not understand God’s love.” And then he states what he must do: “I am called not to interpret or condemn this misunderstanding, only to return the love which is the final and ultimate truth of everything, and which seeks all [humanity’s] awakening and response. Basically I need to grow in this faith and this realization, not only for myself but for all.”

It is the experience of God’s love that allows us to step out of the inevitability of war and of killing one another. This love encourages us to not “sign up” for war but rather witness in word and action to the spiritual reality of an unconditional love that Jesus says is capable of loving our enemy. Operating from this love means, in Jesus’ words, praying for those who persecute us and, when hit, rather than returning the same, turning the other cheek. But this love does not only mean not reacting to another’s aggression with the same kind of aggression; it also means confronting evil, confronting injustice. Jesus called out injustice. He was a “sign that was opposed.” His words and actions were subversive to the established order, and they brought about his execution. The unconditional love of God involves being willing to die for the sake of others.

We have seen this kind of action, at times, on an individual level, and we got a sense of this kind of action on a social level in the non-violent action of the civil rights movement. We do not expect it on a national level. There would have to be a massive spiritual awakening for that to happen. So, we do not spend time “condemning this misunderstanding” of how to respond to aggression, but rather witness to “the love which is the final and ultimate truth of everything.” Jesus said that he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to seek and to save the lost. In a world that condemns itself to war and death, those who have experienced the unconditional love of God must live more deeply in it and bear witness in word and action to that love so that, in Jesus words, we are a light in the world, a light that reveals the only alternative to war.

Filed under: Humanity, War, WitnessTagged with: ,

Those of us who are White need Black history.

My White children grew up in a Black neighborhood and Black church. They went to Black schools where they sang the Black national anthemn and learned Black history. This experience deeply enriched their lives and expanded their knowledge and understanding. Above all, it gave them a truer view of American history than they would have received in many other places. I would like something of their experience for all children.

It is deeply troubling to see the current White backlash to teaching children the realities of American history—the good, the bad, and the ugly. This determination to keep the truth from our children, will only hurt and stunt their lives and close them off from others whose experience is different from their own.

In a speech last year, Richard Corcoran, the Florida education commissioner said, “I’ve censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers. There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure she was terminated.” (Washington Post) And this action helps our children?

Many states have introduced new laws on how history and current events are taught. It is clear that the impetus for these laws is a fear of students receiving viewpoints of American history other than that of a White view. Without history seen through the lens of the Black experience and that of Indigenous peoples and others, we are left with a skewed and White supremicist view—a view that makes the White experience and perspective the norm: Our revolution, the constitution we created, the leaders and presidents we put in place, and the laws and policies we instituted. We then operate as if the only history is the one we tell ourselves.

The history of this nation as experienced by African Americans is very different from those of us who are of European descent. We need Black history—as well as the history of Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans without which we do not have American history.

We especially need to receive from those who have experienced oppression, the “underside of history.” We love stories of “our” heroes. We need the stories of those victimized by our heroes; we need their struggles, their overcoming of oppression, and their leadership in movements for change. We simply need reality. Our children need truth. It will set them and our nation free.

I look at this issue as a follower of Jesus who sends me out to all. I need to hear from the experience of those Jesus sends me to. My family and I need others; we need the views of others—those whose experience is very different from ours. We do not need to remain in a White bubble or a particular class bubble. We do not need to remain in our “comfort zones”—nor do our children.

We do not need to be afraid of the truth, including the truth about ourselves, our brokenness, our nation’s history, and our complicity in the racism of our nation. With God who is Truth Itself, there is forgiveness and healing and liberation.

Filed under: Justice, Liberation, Racism, TruthTagged 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

Christmas Reflections 2021

Jesus came into the same world we live in, with the same pressures and fears and brokenness. He was born in an occupied land, a province of the Roman empire. Like us, the nation in which he was born was occupied by oppression, injustice, and violence. He was born as an outcast. There was no room for him in the inn.

We who have come to know Jesus, who have become his followers and have a taste of God’s reign, are not surprised by how the Messiah and Savior came into the world, how he came to us vulnerable as an infant born in a stable. Everything about his birth points to his life as a whole. He came to outcasts, to the poor, the broken, the sick, the leper, the deaf, and the blind. He came to those that the self-righteous put on their list of sinners. He did not come to condemn people, but to seek and to save the lost.

If we have experienced God’s grace through Messiah Jesus, if we who were lost are now found, we know this is the way God is. We are not surprised that the Savior’s birth is announced to shepherds in the field, rather than to those in positions of wealth and power or to religious leaders who make much of their righteousness and talk down to others.

Shepherds were among those at the bottom rung of society and as far as the religious leaders were concerned, they were ritually unclean. The announcement of the Savior’s birth is made to them. Is not this the way it is with God our Rescuer? God proclaims good news to those who have been marginalized. Our Liberator comes to us in our brokenness and need.

Shepherds in the field “keeping watch over their flock by night” are told that “this will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” The sign that this child is the liberator the world needs is that he is wrapped in rags and lies in an animal trough. And this is good news for us!

God our Savior, who comes to us in Jesus, comes where we are, in our low places, when things have gone wrong, when there is no room for us, when everything has broken down. In fact, when we are at our most vulnerable, most broken, we know, right then and there, that rescue and liberation is present for us.

Of course, when we are full of ourselves and thinking we have it together pursuing life on our own terms, our salvation is still near, but we hardly know it or experience it—until we are knocked off our high horse and perhaps blinded like Paul on the road to Damascus. He went from being full of himself and his self-appointed mission to being vulnerable, broken, and open. At that point he started to let God his Liberator direct his steps, and his mission completely changed.

Jesus described this spiritual reality. He said, “The humble are exalted and the exalted are humbled”—which is good news for both the humble and the exalted. The Savior meets us where we are. God will bring us down from our high horse in order to get us to a place where we will receive what God gives. And when we have hit rock bottom, God will raise us up. Either way it is grace. God’s grace is sufficient in every situation and time of need.

Because God has come to be with us in Christ Jesus, we are finding that we can rejoice in all circumstances. God our saviour is near, whatever we face. With the shepherds on that first Christmas eve, we join “a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!'”

Filed under: Grace, Mercy, Society

Breaking the Vicious Cycle of White Backlash

Critical Race Theory has been around since the 1970s in higher education. While its fundamental tenets may help teachers with their understanding of the subtleties of racism in America, it is not taught as a discipline in elementary schools and high schools. Nevertheless, across the country, in order to leverage the White vote, it has been depicted, by politicians, as being taught at the elementary level.

Republican Glenn Youngkin, in the Virginia governor’s race, was substantially behind in the polls until he started talking about banning critical race theory in schools. Independents, in particular, started to swing in his direction. The affect of his message was not hindered by the fact that critical race theory was not taught in Virginia schools and that most parents did not know what the theory was. For a backlash, it was enough for White parents to know that it was about race. Youngkin’s message hooked into White parents’ fears that the issue of race would be treated in a way that did not conform to their (unacknowledged) White-centric view of America.

White parents expressed fear that their children would be made to feel bad about themselves if race and racism is made a subject of discussion in schools. So, what is the source of their fear? Is it White guilt? Is it the preservation of Whiteness? After all, race is a social construct of White supremacy. Historically, people of European descent divided up the one human race into different races with the “White” race at the top. Having distinguished ourselves from others—we who are White—do we feel that we need to protect our view of Whiteness—and our children’s view? How much do we, who are White, continue to be invested in our Whiteness as something distinct from the rest of the one human race? How much do we make Whiteness the norm by which others are measured? Isn’t it time to let go of our Whiteness, let go of distinguishing ourselves from others, raising ourselves up over others? (Of course, we cannot begin to let go without acknowledging that that is what we are doing.)

There is this further historical reality: Having distinguished ourselves from others, told ourselves that we were superior, we then acted badly, very badly, brutally badly. That has been the history of racism—a history of enslavement and genocide and its continued legacy. If being White (as distinctively different from others) continues to be important to us, then it is also critically important that we face what we as a White race have done.

There is help for this: It is called “confession of sin.” In the church that I served as pastor, as with many churches, we began our worship service with confession of sin. Sometimes a member would lead us in a prayer of confession, naming some of the sins we were prone to. Sometimes we used a general confession from our tradition:

We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart: we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

Confession of sin means acknowledging our broken condition, our self-absorption, our mistreatment of others. With confession comes the experience of forgiveness and God’s mercy. When the confession of sin is a weekly exercise for a community of faith and a daily exercise for individuals, it takes away the avoidance of the darkness in our lives. Without confession, we must find another way to “not feel bad” and keep our children from not feeling bad about themselves. We have to stay in denial. There is no healing and freedom in denial.

There is healing and freedom in entering the darkness, including the darkness of history and the darkness of our own racism. There is healing and freedom in confessing our racism and repenting—turning from a false humanity to what is true. As Jesus said, “The truth will set you free!”

Filed under: Confession, RacismTagged with: ,

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: ,

Learning War No More

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:4)

The United States brought its 20-year war in Afghanistan to a close and proved again the futility of war for nation-building and constructive outcomes. After trillions of dollars were spent and thousands of civilians and soldiers maimed or killed, the United States left Afghanistan to the Taliban it had pushed out 20 years earlier. The speed at which the Taliban took over the nation revealed how little impact the United States had on governance in Afghanistan. More to the point, it demonstrated the futility of war for positive outcomes. (When we assume positive outcomes, it is only because we have no experience with the alternative: God’s governance.)

Nevertheless, nations will lift up swords against nations and the United States will continue its warring ways. We spend massive amounts of money on learning war—on building sophisticated weaponry and training warriors. And we have shown our propensity to use what we have learned.

What if we stopped studying war and started studying peacemaking? What if we spent the money we now spend for war preparation on humanitarian aid, building up communities, and on the ways that make for peace? What if, instead of making our security the paramount issue, we made doing justice our focus?

Of course, the radical nature of these thoughts means they are immediately dismissed by any in positions of government leadership. What is painful, is that many Christians are dismissive of such thinking. That has not always been true. In the first centuries of the church, Christian leaders spoke with one voice against war. It was assumed that followers of Jesus could not take up arms. They could not be soldiers. Former soldiers were to learn war no more: “The Lord in disarming Peter henceforth disarms every soldier.” (Tertullian, 155 AD – c. 220 AD)

Despite the state of Christianity today, there remain Christians who continue the tradition of the first centuries of the church. They take up the work of peacemaking and therefore do justice. They stand against war as a means of securing our lives and the life of our nation.

In witnessing for peace and against war, I have no illusions that any nation will give up warring. Capitalism and greed do not give up war as a means of securing possessions and gaining power. Enmity and fighting remain as ways of this world. Nevertheless, the followers of Jesus are to witness to God’s governance and God’s ways. They are to demonstrate, by their lives, a radically different way of living and of doing relationships. Love must abound among us. How else can others hear us, when we proclaim the good news Jesus proclaimed, “Turn to God, for the governance of God is near.”

We must keep before ourselves and others the radical message of Jesus:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Filed under: Discipleship, Justice, PeaceTagged with: , ,

Building True Community

Left to ourselves, we are failures at building true community. We prove this over and over again. We divide ourselves off from others in a great multiplicity of ways: by race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, sexual orientation, politics, ideology, religion, values, personal morality, self-interest, and so on. We form into groups, camps, and parties that go to war with each other. Both political conservatives and progressives can be quite smug about their own positions and demean each other. They can essentially write each other out of the realm of compassion. Our divisions cut us off from the humanity of others (and from our own humanity).

Eberhard Arnold, founder of a community deeply oriented to social justice in the early part of the last century, a community patterned after the church of Acts which shared all things in common, says this about their community: “What we are seeking together is not any dogma, any stringing together of religious words, but a power. The essence of this elementary power is love and unity, a love and unity that extends into the outermost aspects of life and action and work.” He was very clear about this power: “Only through the Holy Spirit, which comes upon us, are we enabled to achieve a unity of consciousness, which brings about a complete unanimity of thought, willpower, and emotional experience.”

There is no other source of true, abiding unity than the Spirit. Our divisions are the outcome of our alienation from God who is the source of our ability to be and remain in relationship. The unconditional love of God “poured into our hearts by the Spirit” makes true community a reality.

The fact that we see so little unity in the world, including in and among churches and religions, points to the deeply spiritual roots of our problem. In our alienation from God, we try every kind of foundation for our unity other than the foundation of the Spirit. Churches have attempted doctrinal unity and moral unity. They have attempted unity on the basis of a way of thinking, a way of interpreting sacred texts, and a way of acting. And then they have fought over these things and often tried to impose them on others.

Right now the Taliban, with their particular interpretation of the Koran, are prepared to impose their beliefs on an entire nation. There are forms of Christianity that attempt something similar, that promote the idea that Christians are to have dominion and therefore must move into positions of power in order to impose their theological and political constructs on others. Clearly, Jesus’ words about being servants and not lording it over others are ignored.

In our alienation from God, we run from the Spirit. We prefer churches founded on elements of our own making. What if the Spirit were poured out on us like the Spirit was poured out on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost in Acts or on those gathered at the Azusa Street Mission in 1906? Outpourings of the Spirit give us the impression that, by the Spirit, we are taken up and empowered for God’s purposes and, at the same time, released from control over our own self-proposed and constructed purposes. We fear surrendering control, even when it is to God’s purposes of love—especially when it is God’s cross-bearing love. The truth, however, is that, in the Spirit, we receive true control and our true selves. As one theologian has put it, “Our independence is found in direct proportion to our dependence on God.” We receive the “freedom of the children of God,” the freedom of love. Ultimate dependence on anything else is tyranny.

Where there are communities formed in the unity of the Spirit, there is outwardly directed love, compassion for others, mercy, inclusion, liberating action, and works of healing. These communities do not pour condemnation upon others but offer grace and healing. They often operate out of the limelight but are themselves light. When we encounter them, we know them by their fruit: they do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.

Filed under: Spirit, UnityTagged 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