The Time is Now.

"And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.  The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  Then he began to say to them, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing'." (Luke 4: 20-21 NRSV)

In chapter twenty of "We Make the Road by Walking," Brian McLaren takes us into the early days of Jesus' public ministry in Galilee.  Of particular interest is his visit to his hometown synagogue of Nazareth.  McLaren offers a challenge in this story, and I'll present that challenge to you as well.

At a particular point in the Jewish Sabbath ritual, men are allowed to read from a particular scripture and offer comment on it, much like Christians today are used to hearing a pastor or priest give a sermon or homily.  Imagine sitting in the synagogue in Nazareth that day.  Jesus himself would be a familiar site, after all he had grown up in your town.  He'd probably read and offered comment in the synagogue before as well.  Let's say you've enjoyed what Jesus has had to say, so you settle in and look forward to it.

Jesus asks for, and receives the scroll from the prophet Isaiah.  He begins to read and then gets to the part which we today know as the first verses of Isaiah 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free."

We love verses like that today, don't we?  Certainly the people in the synagogue that day probably did as well.  As McLaren mentions, these kinds of verses give us hope that someday somebody will come along and really set things right.  This would have been especially meaningful back then as the people were living under Roman rule and oppression.  They were looking for that Messiah who could come and toss out the Romans and set things right, someday, they believed, he would come.

McLaren suggests that message could very well have been what the men in the synagogue were expecting to hear from Jesus that day. Someday, perhaps someday soon, the Messiah will come and set things right.  Are we as Christians in the same boat?  I think many of us are.  How many times have each of us sat in church over the years and listened to somebody read verses like these, maybe out of Revelation, and talk about how wonderful it will be when Jesus returns in glory and sets everything right?  I bet most of us have, multiple times.  These messages give us hope, hope for a better tomorrow.

But then Jesus goes in a totally different direction.  He says: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Wait now, what did he say?  He's not promising a better tomorrow, he's suggesting something better....today.  He's not suggesting that there will be some glorious afterlife with streets paved with gold, he's suggesting something that's happening....now.

There was some excitement in this.  Perhaps this man was a new prophet, could he, just maybe, be the promised Messiah?  And hey look, that's Joseph's son!  He's one of our own!  This man proclaiming this bold new message is one of us, from Nazareth, how awesome IS THAT?

But then thinks get ugly.  Jesus resorts to two stories from the Old Testament prophets Elijah and Elisha, about how they went outside their own people to do some of their deeds, and how displeased some were back then.  You and the other folks are starting to get confused, and as his point starts to dawn on you, you start to get mad.  This guy isn't preaching some new thing just for you, but he's talking about others, outsiders!  This good news is meant for us, not for all of those sinners, rule breakers, and the OTHERS.  This guy is a heretic!

At that point, you and your buddies, in a fit of righteous, or shall we say self-righteous, anger, drive Jesus from the synagogue and corner him on a nearby cliff, where you're ready to give him the old heave-ho. 

That's pretty scary stuff.  However, Jesus holds out long enough and is eventually able to pass through the crowd without harm and continue his ministry, a ministry that would be marked by the calling of dirty fishermen and tax collectors, a ministry that would heal those with the most untouchable diseases, a ministry that would exalt adultresses and prostitutes over the "righteous" religious folks of the day, a ministry that would turn the world on its head even centuries later.

McLaren challenges us first to think about this kind of a situation today.  Imagine if some very charismatic guy, or girl, popped up on the all the cable news networks and started to say:  "The time is NOW! This is the time for bringing about the kingdom of God. This is the time for ending violence and oppression.  This is the time to treat the poor with dignity and make sure everyone has a place at the table.  This is the time to expand the blessings of modern medical care to everyone no matter their ability to pay for it.  This is the time for peace, justice, and reconciliation."

Moreover, this message is for EVERYBODY!  This light, this new life of service and sacrifice, of peace and understanding isn't just for Christians or people we think follow all the rules.  The life, the light of all people is for everyone regardless of creed.  This life is for everyone regardless of gender. No more are there to be things that people are excluded from because of gender.  This life is for everyone, no matter their skin color.  Now is the time for prejudice to cease, especially prejudice in the name of religion.  This life is for everyone, straight, gay, lesbian, or transgender.  No longer are we to discriminate against people because of who they love.  All are God's children, made in his image, and engraved upon the palm of his hand.

Well, how would you feel about taking part in that message?  Not just the parts you agree with, mind you, all of it.  Love all, serve all.  Would you be one that would join in and be a disciple of this person, or would you be one of those who would be more interested in tossing this individual off of the proverbial cliff?  We've seen the attitudes toward Pope Francis with some of these very things. It's not always pleasant, and there are things listed above that I'm sure he won't even touch, such as gender issues.

McLaren quite startlingly argues that many Christians today would seem to be in the camp that's ready to throw Christ off of a cliff, and it can be over any of those issues listed above.  In our culture poor people are looked upon as inferior.  Many of us still lean on ancient bits of the Bible in order to continue to justify legal discrimination against LGBTQ individuals.  Many of our most important positions in our workplaces, governments, and faiths remain closed to women. 

As I've commented on several times before, the inclusiveness of Christ has been totally lost in many of our churches.  It's one of the main reasons why, years ago, I left church. Fortunately through people like Pastor Gary and organizations like the United Methodist Church, I've finally found a place that not only accepts and loves me, but welcomes and loves everybody with the open arms of Christ.  A place where you don't even have to be a Christian to partake in the Supper of the Lord.  

I firmly believe that the table of Christ, the banquet of love is set and open for all.  It is unfortunate that as the poor, the outcast, the women, the gay people, and even people of other faiths and no faith sometimes come to that table, the Christians, the "righteous," turn their noses in the air as Christ welcomes all to his table of peace, justice, and love.

Words like McLaren's have challenged me, and comforted me,  Not only are all of these welcome at the table of Christ, but so am I, despite my shortcomings and failures, which are many.  You are welcome at this table too, at anytime, free of judgement under the grace of Christ given for all.  If people judge you, come to me.  I will not.  I will be happy to chat with anyone regarding faith and the love of Christ.

The time is now.  Will you join me, will you join Christ and proclaim peace, love and justice for all?  The more of us that do that, the more of us that gather around the table and break bread together, the better our lives and our world can become.

Believing the Unbelievable

And Mary said, "Behold I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:38 ESV)

Today we have the "War on Christmas." In this so called war, Christian extremists and non-Christian extremists fight back and forth about issues like "Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays," was there really a virgin birth, did Jesus even exist, and if he did he wasn't actually born in December, and blah blah blah.  Everybody wants the "facts" on their side and everybody wants to be right, despite the fact that nobody is going to change anybody's mind.  Meanwhile any actual meaning in the season beyond getting that new flat screen tv is lost in the shrillness of the argument.

Let's take for example the two children whose conceptions are detailed in Luke 1.  First we have Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, and older couple who have been trying to have a child their whole life but who have never conceived.  An angel appears to Zechariah and says 'Hey guess what, your wife is finally going to be pregnant and the child is gonna be a pretty big deal, kind of like Elijah." Well, Zechariah has a bit of a laugh to himself and asks the angel how he knows that he can trust his words since Elizabeth is thought to be barren and they're both pretty old.  The angel then strikes Zechariah dumb until the time that the baby is born.  Now it's not out of the realm of possibility that a woman in her 40s or early 50s gets pregnant.  Highly unlikely perhaps, but possible.

The second woman to conceive in Luke 1 really does conceive in impossible circumstances.  The angel Gabriel appears to a teenage Jewish girl, a virgin, and tells her that she will bear a child as well, and he's going to be a REALLY big deal, in fact, he's going to be the one spoken of by the prophet Isaiah among others.  This event is captured in a more modern setting in the painting above: "Annunciation" by John Collier.  It's also on this month's issue of "The Upper Room" and it gives a look at what Gabriel and Mary might look like if these events took place today.

Of course, you are skeptical, as is Mary, who point blank asks Gabriel how this can happen since she is a virgin.  She's engaged to a man named Joseph, but they're not married yet and haven't had sexual relations.  She knows how the birds and the bees work, so to speak, and so do we.

And that's just part of what makes the Christmas story wild, fantastical, and perhaps one might say: impossible.  We can bring in the arguments and the debaters from both sides and argue for hours over stuff like this.  You just don't get pregnant without having sex. Period.

But if we're missing part of the point of the story....?

In chapter 15 of "We Make the Road by Walking" that's exactly what Brian McLaren suggests that we're doing.  We get so caught up in dealing with whether the events told in the Bible actually, literally happened that we miss the bigger point of the story, and the Christmas story is no different. What if God and the writer of this passage is trying to communicate a bigger point?

What if that bigger point is that maybe we should believe in the "impossible?"

The other night I was having a conversation with a coworker of mine. She's only 17 years old, a couple of years older than Mary in our story, and is just really starting to become aware of a lot of what is going on in the wider world.  Specifically we were talking about how you make a difference in the world.  She was saying that she had always wanted to make a splash, to really go out in the world and make a difference for good, but when she looks around, it seems impossible that one 17 year old girl from Utah could make a difference.

I've been there.  At one point I thought I was going to be a pastor.  I though I was going to make a splash and make a difference.  However the more I looked at what was going in the world and in my life, the more I became convinced that it was impossible.

What if Martin Luther King Jr thought that making a difference in race relations was impossible? What if we thought that traveling in space and going to the moon was impossible?  After all, it was for much of our history.  What if people like William Wilberforce and John Wesley thought that ending the slave trade was impossible?  What if people in the 1940s thought that defeating Hitler was impossible, as some actually did?

Without great people taking these great steps, it's hard to tell where our society might be.  What does that have to say to a 17 year old Utah girl, a 36 year old former-future pastor, or a young teenage virgin from Nazareth?

For McLaren one of the big points in the story is: believe in the supposed "impossible," and I agree. As Gabriel says in the story: "For nothing is impossible with God."  If we don't open our hearts and our minds to both the possible and the supposed impossible, we may very well miss our chance to make a difference for ourselves and the world around us.

For Christians this can be a central theme of Advent.  As we wait for the coming of the Lord, we can examine ourselves and open our hearts and minds to the will of God as Mary did, and indeed as her son did as well.  In the end our response should be "Behold I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

What do you think?  Do you believe in the impossible?  Can you give up your longing to "know" and and dare to believe the unbelievable? That might be a tough call for you, but I think even if you can't right now, the message of this beautiful story rings true: think big and open your heart because you never know what might happen!

The God of Liberation and the Ten Commandments

Moses said to the people "Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by the strength of his hand."--Exodus 13:3a (NRSV)

How often do we forget that one of the main themes of the Bible as a whole and the life of Christ is LIBERATION?  For Jesus, liberation was about freeing us from sin and excessive self interest and moving us into a place where we can live his Kingdom on earth, perhaps even bringing freedom and liberation to others.  Many of the great abolitionists of the 18th and 19th centuries were men and women of faith, folks like William Wilberforce.

The thread of liberation runs through the Old Testament as well.  Nowhere is it more pronounced than in the Exodus narrative where Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.  This occasion is still marked by Jewish people all of these years later in Passover meals and traditions.  This was also an important aspect of the life of Christ.  It was at Passover that he sat with his friends for the last time and instituted the new covenant of Communion.

The fact that God stands with the slave and raises the oppressed is a part of the Biblical and Christian narrative that is often downplayed or totally forgotten in modern times.  We're all slaves to different things, be it money, power, or social position.  Then of course there is the very real situation that many people on this planet still live in cultures that keep them down because of lack of money, lack of power, lack of social position and such.  The governments and systems of power that run our world are largely neglectful to the needs of the most vulnerable among us, those to whom Christ was the closest.

It's this God of Liberation that Brian McLaren introduces us to in Chapter 10 of "We Make the Road by Walking."  He follows the Israelites from Egypt to Mount Sinai where this God, the God who freed the people from their bonds, gives them commands for their new lives,  This is of course, the Ten Commandments.  At the heart of this chapter is a restatement of these 10 Commandments as opposition to continued slavery and the slave economy.  Let's take a moment to consider these commands.

1. Put the God of Liberation first, not the God of Slavery.

We read this first commandment as "You shall have no Gods before me," and chalk it up to the fact that God is a jealous God.  That's true, but is that really all that's going on here?  If we restate it as McLaren has, then no.  When we put the God of Liberation first, we are free to live our lives in his kingdom ethic, an ethic that not only frees us from the slavery of the culture that surrounds us, but also inspires us to stand up for the rights of others and the least among us, people to whom the God of Slavery seems very real.

2. Don't reduce God to the size of an idol--certainly not one made of wood and stone by human hands, and not one made by human minds of rituals and words, either, and certainly not one is whose name people are enslaved, dehumanized, or killed.

The first level of understanding this command, or the Sunday School level as I call it, is that you don't make an idol to worship out of anything physical or in your mind.  However McLaren looks deeper. Can we make an idol out of our religious traditions and dogmas, emphasizing them over God? Sure, we can and do.  Can we use these traditions and dogmas to oppress others?  I would say we absolutely do.  The "gospel of wealth" has come to America and given us all kinds of excuses not only to "lay up treasures on earth" but to look down upon people who are less fortunate.  Instead of seeing folks as worthy of a hand up, we tend to see them as lazy people looking for a hand out. The particulars of their situation are given little to no thought as we continue in our selfish ways.

3. Do not use God for your own agendas by throwing around God's holy name.  If you make a vow in God's name, keep it.

Again the Sunday School version of this is "don't take the Lord's name in vain."  Truly this is something that Christians who love God shouldn't do.  But again, there's more. In the 18th and 19th centuries the God of Liberation himself was used to justify keeping slaves.  Today many Christian fundamentalists and people on the far right continue to use God to push their own agenda.  We use God to attempt to deny same sex couples the right to legal benefits of a marriage contract.  We use God to justify a culture of selfishness and wealth, where we have now talked ourselves into thinking that the God who came to earth in a manger wants us to all be fabulously wealthy.  We use God to justify a culture of violence, where the ownership and use of weapons is seen as the highest expression of freedom.  We use God to keep women in lower stations: many Christian denominations still exclude women from various positions in the church .  This shows the world around us that we're not living our lives as God would have us live.  Many of my atheist or nonreligious friends, whose opinions I respect greatly, see this as the biggest practical problem with Christians.

4. Honor the God of Liberation by taking and giving everyone a day off.  Don't keep the old 24/7 slave economy going.

Oh we Christians love to use this to get out of having to work on Sunday.  The funny thing is that maybe you don't work on Sunday, but I bet each and every one of us patronize businesses  that require others to work on Sunday.  It's not just about Sunday either. We expect people to be there for us at a business when we want it, when it's convenient for us.  We don't stand up for the rights of people who work blue collar or service jobs: rights like sick pay, personal days, and a living wage. This perpetuates the modern version of the slave economy.

5. Turn from self-centerdness by honoring your parents.  Honor is the basis of freedom.

None of us do this all on our own.  We succeed only with the help of others.  For many of us, including me, that begins with our parents and our families.  These people, while never perfect, deserve a place of honor in each of our lives.

6. Don't kill people, and don't do other things that frequently incite violence, including: 7. Don't cheat with others' spouses, 8. Don't steal others' possessions, and 9. Don't lie about others' behavior or character.

While the previous commands talk about how we, as people living under God's liberation, interact with God and our families, these next four deal with how we interact with others in our lives day to day.  Certainly don't kill people, and don't do anything that might incite violence against you or others.  Don't cheat with someone else's spouse and ruin their marriage covenant.  Don't steal from others, and don't lie about or defame people.  Though many of us claim that we live in a "Christian Society" violence, adultery, theft, and dishonesty are all rife in our culture.  These practices should not only be shunned, but confronted.

10. If you really want to avoid the violence of the old slave economy, deal with it's root source--the drama of desire.  Don't let the competitive desire to acquire tempt you off the road of freedom.

A couple of entries back we discussed the temptation of Christ and the temptation to be slaves to things and the acquisition of things.  This comes into play here in Exodus as well.  The God of Liberation wants us to be from these desires.  We shouldn't be focused on wealth or things.  We shouldn't be focused on the desire for power, or the desire to fulfill our sexual drives at all costs. These desires often to lead to negative, destructive, and sometimes even violent behaviors.

As we see throughout the Old Testament, including just a couple of chapters down the road in Exodus, the ancient Israelites weren't pros at keeping these commands.  Each and every one of them is broken multiple times throughout the story of the Bible.  The Israelites conquer and enslave others. There are also many stories of theft, violence, adultery, and other behaviors exhibited by people who would become known as heroes of the faith.

They were not perfect, and neither are we.  Much like the narrative of the Old Testament, our live are often a daily battle between our own excessive self interests and the interests of God and others around us.  Where we can be gracious and merciful, we are often cruel and judgmental.  Where we can stand for others, we often go on our merry, selfish way.  When we might use some of our resources to help others, we are often overcome by the drama of the desire to acquire, so much that it may even destroy our own lives and financial situations.

But there is good news, there is the Gospel.  Later in the Bible a man came along who did not give into these desires.  This man truly stood up for the interests of others.  This man gave us an example of how to live our lives in humility and service.  We will never totally live up to the example set by this man, but that's ok, because his death and sacrifice help make up for our shortcomings.  Then because Christ lives, he is able to guide us, be alongside us, and help us start over when we fall short.

Christ is the God of Liberation, and through him we are indeed set free.  My prayer is that we all live in this liberation and seek to stand up for others: the oppressed, the sick, the dying, the poor, the orphans, and those who are discriminated against by our worldly systems of power.  That is the life of his kingdom, the life of liberation.

Faith: God's Call to Adventure

Some of the most enduring stories in our culture are adventure stories.  Think about it for just a minute and I'm sure you can name at least a couple.  For me the first two that come to mind are Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings.  Both of these stories feature an individual who leaves their home and goes out on a path to fulfill their purpose in life.  In psychology and literature, there's even a name for this: it's called an "archetype," or more specifically this particular archetype is called "The Hero's Journey."  In fact, some people would day that you can boil pretty much every story down to a hero's journey.

Of course the Bible is full of these kind of stories.  One of the first ones we come across is the story of Abram in Genesis 12.  It's this story that Brian McLaren introduces us to in chapter six of "We Make the Road By Walking."  I've never given the background to this story much thought before, I mean it's one I must have heard a thousand times in Sunday School when I was a kid, but McLaren provides some insight.  Abram and Sara lived in Ur, one of the first civilizations of the Middle East. The historical city-state of Ur was located in what is today southern Iraq, and is cited in written history at least as far back as the 26th century BCE.  Cuneiform documents that have survived since the early Bronze Age talk of Ur as being the most organized and powerful city-entity that that particular area of the world had known up until that time.  They had an army, they had wealth, and they were powerful.

So it's this powerful, comfortable society that God tells Abram and Sara to leave and head out on the road, to go have an adventure.  If they do so, God makes them a promise.  He tells them that they will become a great nation and that all the nations on earth shall be blessed through them.. That's not exactly small potatoes.  Abram and Sara choose to trust in God, and they leave, taking the first steps on their "hero's journey," their journey of faith.

As McLaren says, we are also called to make that journey, to take those first steps in faith. However, this call to faith is meant to be a call to adventure, which isn't often how our culture pictures faith these days.  As Marcus Borg writes in his book "The Heart of Christianity," the modern Christian view of faith is largely a matter of the head, the mind. Faith is a checklist of things that we say that we believe are true, and a list of behaviors that we think should be avoided.  We check the appropriate boxes on our list and compare it with others, testing one another's orthodoxy. However this faith is very passive.  As long as we check off the correct things on the list, we're good!  We don't venture out, instead it gives us license to sit in our pew every Sunday and be COMFORTABLE.

But McLaren advocates a different kind of faith,  This faith is ACTIVE,  This faith is not always comfortable.  This faith calls on us to have an adventure.  To do this, we have to leave the comfort zone.  Once we do, we get out in the world and try to walk and to live the way of Christ,  We try to be peacemakers, we try to help others.  As we do this, we gain new experiences and knowledge.  We meet others on the path to share our adventures.  In short, as we walk the path of Christ, we become a blessing to others on the way.  I can tell you from first hand experience, it's richly rewarding.  I wouldn't trade my time working on an orphanage in Mexico for anything in this world or the next.

Of course if you're familiar with the story of Abram and Sara, you know that they didn't always get it right.  They screwed up a few times.  You also know that it was often far from comfortable for them even when they were on the right path.  Our pastor had an interesting quote on the church billboard last week that I think speaks to this.  It said: "God doesn't promise a smooth ride, just a safe landing." The ride isn't always going to be smooth.  The best adventure stories are never easy.  Would you want to read about Frodo Baggins or Luke Skywalker if they didn't encounter struggles on the way?  Of course not.  It's the overcoming of difficulty that makes an adventure an adventure.

We're all going to run in to our share of difficulties.  Some will be worse than others.  We're all going to mess things up and not get it right from time to time. However through it all God promises that he'll be with us, that he'll be there when we need him. Abram wasn't perfect, the disciples weren't perfect, and we're not going to be either.  However, when we take those first steps on our adventure in faith, we take the first steps on a road that can be richly rewarding for us, and more importantly we can be a blessing to others as they see Christ in us.

Adam Vs Jesus: Role Reversal

Last week I wrote an entry on the Logic of Love, as introduced by Brian McLaren in chapter three of "We Make the Road By Walking."  He also writes about the Logic of Rivalry as an alternative to love.  These two logics are represented by the two trees in Genesis 2: The Tree of Life and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Now, as McLaren leads us into Genesis chapter three, we see Adam and Eve make their choice between these two logics.

Whether you're a Christian or not, chances are you know how the story goes.  The serpent in the garden is having a chat with Eve about what God said they can and can't eat.  Eve tells him that they're not supposed to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The serpent tells her that the only the only reason God said that is because he knows that if Adam and Eve eat of that tree, then they will become "like God."  In other words, they can become equal to God or rivals with God. Eve is convinced, and she eats the fruit, then she takes it to Adam and he does as well.  The choice is made, and they now live in the logic of rivalry and judgement.

Later God shows up walking in the garden looking for them.  However, now Adam and Eve no longer see God as a friend.  According to McLaren, they now see God as a rival and they hide from him out of fear and shame.  God confronts them about it, and they immediately try to disperse blame and avoid responsibility (as often happens when something goes bad for competitive people.)  Adam blames Eve, and Eve in turn blames the serpent.  God isn't impressed, and expels them from the Garden of Eden, out into the world to make their way with the logic they have chosen.

McLaren points out that you don't need to (and probably shouldn't) read the story literally to see the issues that affect us as humans even today.  Everyday, all over the world, people have to choose how to live their lives.  They have to choose between the logic of love and the logic of rivalry.  Far too often people choose the logic of rivalry, just as Adam and Eve did in the story.  This results in all kinds of negative behaviors.  People become selfish, always seeking to look out for themselves  as opposed to others.  People view others as somehow less than themselves, especially if they're a member of a different gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation.  This can devolve into anger, rejection, and even violence.  The logic of rivalry is the heart of "us vs them" thinking.

But what if we had an example of how to live better?  What if we had an example that showed us how to take the course that Adam and Eve didn't?  Well in Philippians 2, Paul very deliberately sets Jesus up as that example.  If you read my first entry from my study of Philippians with NT Wright, you read that I really love this letter, but strangely enough, I had never picked up on this role reversal with Adam and Jesus before.

Adam and Eve acted out of selfish desire.  Paul says that's the exact opposite of Jesus and what he desires for us.  Adam and Eve, and later Cain and Abel, saw themselves as rivals.  For Adam and Eve this resulted in blame shifting and scapegoating.  For Cain and Abel, it resulted in violence and murder.  In turn, Paul urges us, through Jesus, not to be rivals with each other, not place ourselves above others, but to put others above us in a life of love and service.  Adam and Eve and wanted to be "like God," yet Jesus, one in being with God, didn't see being equal with God as something to be grasped.  Adam and Eve acted and chose the logic of rivalry.  Jesus acted and chose the logic of love, serving others and eventually giving himself up to death.

So what do we take away from this?  Looking at the story in Genesis 3 this way makes it about more than the theology of original sin and atonement.  It provides two concrete examples of how we can live our lives.  We can choose the rivalry of Adam, or we can reverse the roles and choose the love and servanthood of Jesus.  We each have to make this choice everyday of our lives.  Hopefully we can free ourselves from the rivalry of Genesis three and exist in the selfless love of Jesus and Philippians two.

The Logic of Love

What makes the universe run?  What makes Mother Nature tick?  What governs interactions between people everyday?  What makes YOU tick?  What governs the way YOU interact with people everyday?  These questions are what Brian McLaren explores in the third chapter of "We Make the Road By Walking."

The first two chapters focused largely on the building of creation itself and our place in it as human beings.  Now however, McLaren invites us to take a step back and ask: "What does it all mean?"  He suggests that most of us live our day to day lives wrapped up in one of four logics.  These logics govern the way we treat ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

The first logic is the logic of rivalry. In this logic, the universe and our world are a large battleground where we fight against each other and compete against one another constantly trying to gain the upper hand.  I thought about it as a large, anything goes game of football where the only rule is: do whatever you want as long as you get the ball, score, and get ahead.  In the logic of rivalry, cheating and deceiving are largely ok--it's the spirit of competition.  The more ruthless you are, the more you get.  The more generous and kind you are, the more you get taken advantage of and tossed to the side, or worse.

Next is the logic of compliance.  In this logic, the universe is ruled like a big, powerful corporation, and we as humans strive to learn the rules and do our jobs, to stay in our place.  This logic encourages us to bow to power and riches.  This logic doesn't reward honesty or honest work, it rewards those who stay in their place, do their job, and don't ask questions.  Of course, trying to gain influence with those in power is always welcomed, as long as you don't break the rules to earn it.

Then we have the logic of meaningless mechanism.  In this logic, the universe is just a big machine that churns on with or without us.  There isn't a deeper meaning to it, we just ARE.  Once we're done BEING, then we're just done.  What we do in life doesn't really matter if we're just viewed as a sack of water and organic material that will one day cease and be claimed by the forces of the big machine around us.

McLaren advocates a fourth logic, a logic of love.  He introduces this concept with the opening verses of the Gospel of John.  If you've ever spent any amount of time going to church in your life, you've probably heard a sermon or two on these verses: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  When I was young, one of the assistant pastors at our church was almost obsessive about this passage.  He was intrigued by the Greek word "LOGOS" which is translated to our English Bibles as "Word."  You see this root in words with "--ology," psychology, biology, sociology and so on.  Early on we learn that this root means "the study of" or "the logic of."

In John 1 we learn that the Logos of God, the Logos that was there at the beginning, the logic behind everything became flesh.  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).  This of course is Jesus.  Think about what John is saying here.  The logic that governs everything, the creator that set the stars in their courses, that breathes the breath of life into creation all around us became one of us.  It's a pretty extraordinary thought.

Given this, we should probably pay attention to the way this man, Jesus, lived his life.  His logos, his logic, was of love and mercy.  His logic was not about violence, but dignity and respect for all human beings and all things around us.  He didn't seek to compete with those around him.  He had no interest in being a compliant footstool to those in religious authority around him.  He sought the meaning, the divine presence in everyone, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, rich or poor.  In the end this logic was so subversive to the world around him that they killed him for it.

Today the logic of love is no less subversive.  Even in "Christian" circles this is often cast aside for the logic of rivalry.  Just a couple of days ago one of the gentlemen from "Duck Dynasty" was on a news station brandishing a Bible and saying that if ISIS members won't convert to Christianity, then they should be killed.  The ideology behind ISIS is certainly horrible and they are undoubtedly guilty of many atrocities, but "covert them or kill them" would never have come from the mouth of Christ. What did come from Christ's mouth as he died on the cross? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Love and mercy are frowned upon and considered a weakness.  However, when employed the logic behind them is powerful enough to change your life.  Then as your life, and my life, changes and grows in the logic of love, we can help others change and make the world better, whether you're a religious person or not.  There will be bumps in the road.  There will be people who take advantage, but in the end, as more of us make our choices with the logic of love and the logic of hope, we can start to dispel the the darkness of the logic of fear and violence.

Will you join me, and help me on this path?

A Tale of Two Trees

What did the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" mean to you growing up?  It's part of that basic Sunday School story that all church kids are raised with.  After God created Adam and Eve, he told them that they were free to eat from any fruit in the Garden of Eden except that which was from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Then of course in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve do precisely the one thing that God told them not to do, and the rest is history, well at least allegorically speaking.

The second chapter of Brian McLaren's book, "We Make the Road By Walking," deals with Genesis 2 and the introduction of this forbidden sapling.  The title is "Being Human" and talks about the two creation stories presented in the first two chapters of Genesis, and the two different trees that are mentioned: one the aforementioned "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" and the "Tree of Life." We don't hear so much about that one, do we?

So I started off by thinking about what the "forbidden tree" meant to me as I was raised in church from a little boy to eventually someone who considered joining the clergy.  When you're a kid in Sunday School, the tree itself doesn't really take top billing.  The story is about how Adam and Eve did something that God had told them not to, plain and simple.  Then look what happened because they disobeyed!  Of course then you go home and wonder if, because Adam and Eve were the first man and woman,....maybe we're all related and marrying somebody you're related to is generally frowned upon, but anyway...I digress.

Eventually I got older, and I started to think more in depth about this.  Okay, I admit, I didn't always WANT to think about this stuff, but I had to memorize parts of the Heidelberg Catechism, so thinking about something as relatively simple as the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" was a nice change of pace in high school Sunday School class.

So I guess my "adult idea" about the forbidden tree became something like this:  "Adam and Eve bought the serpent's argument that eating the fruit of the tree would make them like God.  Wanting to be like God is bad because there can be only one god (cue the Highlander reference).  This desire and this "sin" not only separated them from God, but put them in open rebellion against God."  This was, of course, all taken care of when Jesus died on the cross.

Sounds reasonable enough, right?  I mean for someone who grew up in the "sin avoidance" world of Calvinism.

McLaren takes a certain bit of this idea and riffs on it.  He challenges us to see BOTH trees in a slightly different light.  The Tree of Life is just that.  When we eat from it, we realize how wonderful the world around us is and how wonderful it is to be alive.  When you eat from the tree of life, everything, every human being, every plant and animal, is good just like God created it.  When we eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we are indeed wanting to be like God, to play God.  We start judging aspects of the world around us.  This escalates into this "us vs them" thinking. Our tribe, our faith is good.  The other tribe, the other faith, is BAD.  If they're bad, well then we can go to war with them, run them down, and dehumanize them.

Eating from the tree of life invites love, joy, compassion, and the fullness of life.  Eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil invites judgement, resentment, and perhaps violence and death. Part of "Being Human," as McLaren puts it, is that we are faced with this choice everyday of our lives.  Everyday we face the choice to be accepting and loving or judgmental and self-righteous.  Is there really a question as to which Jesus would have us choose?  Remember, people are judging and looking down on you the same way you look down on others.

I will readily admit that I struggle with this concept.  I'm a very judgmental person.  I've been told that in certain situations I come across as really haughty and impressed with myself, and as I look at my thoughts and behavior, I'm thinking that there's a lot of truth to that.  The good thing is, as I've started to recognize these patterns of thought and these mannerisms, I've been able to make an attempt to think and behave differently.  I certainly don't succeed every time, but I have confidence that the effort will make me a better person in the long run.

At the end of the chapter, McLaren asks us to consider our hand.  A hand can be made into a fist for violence, or it can be offered as a gesture of peace and friendship. A hand can wield a gun or play a violin.  A hand can steal from others or serve others.  A hand can destroy or it can build.

Think about it.  What tree will you eat from everyday?  What will your hands do tomorrow?  It's considering questions like these, whether you're religious or not, that can make us all better people and make the world a better place.

Participatory Harmony

Recently I purchased Brian McLaren's new book "We Make the Road By Walking."  In this latest effort, McLaren endeavors to take us through a journey both through the church year and the Bible in 52+ chapters that act as pieces for devotional reading and contemplation.  At the end of each chapter, he poses several questions for the reader to use to engage the material.  I've got a fresh new notebook that I'm using to write about my responses, but I figured I would share a few here on the blog for everyone to read and comment on.

The book is actually set up to begin in late August-early September, for what in the church year is known as "Ordinary Time."  This is the season that eventually leads into Advent and Christmas.  Many evangelical Christians might not be all that familiar with the church year outside of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.  However, with the Catholic Church in my background, I'm very attuned to the liturgical calendar, and I really enjoy what it can add to any church.  So this book is right up my alley.

The first chapter in the book is called "Awe and Wonder" and is primarily based on the creation story in Genesis 1 as a reading.  The first question asks what one thought in the chapter intrigued, provoked, disturbed, challenged, encouraged, warmed, warned, helped or surprised the reader.  This was easy for me.  One thought stood above the rest, the thought of participatory harmony in creation.

So we get going with the very first word in the very first verse of the Bible.  The Hebrew creation story beautifully unfolds through the opening chapter.  However, too often these days these words are seen as a source for controversy and division as opposed to a celebration of the beauty of the universe around us.  That's right, it's the whole religion vs science debate, a debate where many Christians totally disregard empirical evidence and observation because it seemingly controverts the opening scenes in the Bible.  In the interest of full disclosure, I am not one of those people.  Extensive training in hard sciences gives me the evidence I need to believe in things like evolution and modern astrophysics.  Too often however, this divide becomes so sharp that people on both ends of the spectrum forget to take a step back and marvel at the world around them.

Moving past that debate though, I see one area where modern Christians have really dropped the ball, and that has to do with the care of the world around us.  For me, this stems from one belief that often seems inherent in Christian theology: the idea that God created humans and set them apart from and above the rest of creation and the world around them.  Science challenges this assertion as well.  If humans evolved in the same way other animals, plants, and birds did, well then we don't seem quite so special.  But in my mind, this assertion isn't just an affront to science, it changes the way many of us view the world.

Instead of viewing the ourselves as part of or a caretaker of the world around us, we see ourselves as above it all.  That in turn, gives us leave to abuse it and consume it in an irresponsible fashion.  After all, God put it all here for us to use, right?  We have definitely used it, and used it up.  Global temps are rising, and air quality is an issue in most American cities of any size.  Rivers, streams, lakes, and even our oceans have been turned into dumps, which continues to have toxic effects in many parts of the world.  Forests. jungles, and pristine natural environments are bulldozed to claim their finite resources and to make room for our species to expand even more.  Where is the Christian church in all of this?  Most often the church is either totally silent or tossed in with the "consume at all costs crowd."  People who speak against this are often labeled as tree hugging liberals and either dismissed or shouted down.

This is a pity, because the beauty of this passage is that the creation story calls us to behave in a different manner.  McLaren writes:

"The best thing in Genesis is not simply human beings, but the whole creation considered together as a beautiful, integrated whole, and us a part."

Christians believe that people are made in the very image of the god who created the world, the artist that painted the masterpiece.  Imagine standing next to the Mona Lisa and being able to discuss it with Da Vinci himelf!  Imagine how angry he might become if you destroyed it.  Now, take that a step further.  Imagine that you're not separate and apart from the masterwork, but that you're a part of it!  Imagine that everything you do plays a part in the finished product!  You, and I, have a great opportunity to be a player, to be a character in the greatest masterpiece: the Earth and Universe around us!  We have a part to play in the harmony of creation, and that part is essential.  We are a force, and we can use it for renewal and beauty or consumption and destruction.

However it's when we actually participate in the role that the creator has laid out for us, when we seek to be agents of renewal and preservation of the world around us that we can truly see the beauty, poetry, and music in all of it.  My choir teacher in high school used to talk about how when all 4 parts of a harmony are sung correctly, you can actually hear a fifth part in the music as well.  When we play our part in the harmony, that overarching beauty comes through.  How can anyone stand on the shore of an ocean and not feel like they're a part of something large, unique, and beautiful?

When we actively participate in harmony with creation, then the Creator, the One who is the beginning and ending of all things can, like a master artist, step back, smile upon his creation and say once again that "It is good."