The Bible: The Fourth Person of the Trinity?

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.”

-Rumi

If I’m guilty of anything, it’s being a relativist. I’ve given up trying to persuade people what to believe, or what God is or isn’t. I have my ideas; you have yours, and as long as these ideas and beliefs enable us to love, let’s learn from each other instead of tearing one another down because we don’t align on nuanced and (practically) irrelevant aspects of our theology that add up to arguing whether God prefers Chiptole or Freebirds (the answer is Chipotle).

In light of this idea, a wise friend pushed up against my somewhat radical openness at the bottom of his third glass of wine: "If this is your way of navigating the world and your spirituality, what is home base? What do you point to as an authoritative guide for morality and belief?"

A fair critique.

Ultimately, not fighting for a particular belief or theology can look like fuzzy emotionalism that lets people pick and choose what works well for them because it is comfortable and familiar instead of right and healthy, like scarfing hot pockets or pop-tarts when we all know our diets should look greener and probably not come out of a box. Now don't get me wrong, there are theological ideas that we should support and defend, as well as ideas that we should vehemently oppose and condemn. 

But too often we are approaching spiritual “authority” in our life as what dictates wrongdoing and rightdoing. We become so obsessed with this method of being correct that we often ignore the beauty of true religion and spirituality.

In the past, the anchor of my ethics and belief was the Bible. More specifically, a conservative evangelical interpretation of the Protestant Bible, which trumped any argument from reason, science, philosophy, experience, or tradition. But the constant scenes of misogyny, violence, and exclusion made me reevaluate the Bible as an inerrant guide to morality—I think if we’re honest with our reading of the Bible, it’s clear we can’t treat this library of books as “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth,” or some sort of owner’s manual that lays out strict rules on how to behave and think. 

There are over 30,000 Christian denominations that have different views of what the Bible is and how to use it. Maybe this ancient library of poems, letters, and stories wasn’t meant to be a conversation ender--Something that settles the “Christian” view on homosexuality, abortion, science, history, or the death penalty. I think a better way to view the Bible is as a progressive unfolding of how a particular people group viewed and understood God—essentially, it is a piece of art that should promote conversation, community, and debate as we wrestle with how to live in this fascinating and beautiful world in the midst of doubt, confusion, and pain. I know I just spouted a gushing geyser of what some may see as heretical thinking like I was ordering a ham sandwich at Subway, but stick with me.
  

The Bible can be authoritative, but it doesn’t have to be inerrant.

You don’t have to justify a six-day creation,

or attack evolution when virtually every scientist argues it’s an empirical fact.

You don’t have to defend the existence of eternal conscious torment as a primary aspect of your faith in order to be part of this wild and diverse Jesus tradition

or tell our Muslim and LGBTQ brothers and sisters they’re headed there.

The Bible and our tribe’s interpretation of it isn’t the fourth person of the Trinity,

 and I feel as though we are often guilty of exalting it to such a position.

But what do you cling to if the Bible isn’t telling you how to vote or how to respond to your pinko-commie philosophy professor like some gimmicky Christian film?

A tricky question, for sure.

And I think the answer is something a little unsatisfying: we must have a personal ethic that seeks to humanize everyone, fight dehumanization in any form, and cling to the grand mystery of God and capital ‘B’ Being within the context of community. Doesn’t it seem more Godly that we wouldn’t have all the answers to the pressing questions of our time? That ultimately what we should do is search our own experience, the tradition of faiths before us, and the scriptures to come to our best understanding of reality? And even then, shouldn’t we test these theories through the shared wisdom and experiences of our community?

As humans, we want certainty. We want the world to present itself in the concrete dualism of black and white. But that just isn’t reality. Life is a mess of Technicolor that needs reevaluation, rethinking, reinterpretation, and needs it constantly. Isn’t there something embedded within us that wants to embrace this type of thinking—an approach to life that sees more sophistication and enigma than simply the old and stale ideology that repeats “The Bible Tells Me So,” like a broken record that’s been stuck in a monotonous cycle of destructive and exclusive repetition for decades?

I think moving beyond this black and white thinking is the field that Rumi speaks of—a place too full to talk about—a way of living life that promotes inclusion, love, and our profound connectedness to one another despite our differences.

May we learn to sit in the tension of unknowing and mystery, and may we learn to explore this infinite landscape of life with friends as we savor a world too full to talk about.

Grace and Peace.

Listen Well: Thoughts on Race, Religion, Sexuality, and Privilege

For most of my life, I haven’t been vocal about politics. It seems like when we talk about politics or religion, it winds up being an all-you-can-eat character assassination with both sides feeling morally superior to each other. It’s best not to say anything, right? Just walk into your next holiday dinner and shout the following words like a shrapnel grenade, hurled into the heated world of your family’s politics: 

1. Trump

2. Benghazi 

3. Tax Plan

4. Obamacare

5. Global Warming

6. Black Lives Matter

7. Feminism

8. Muslim Ban

9. Alt-Right

10. Privilege

I imagine you can already see the vein in your Uncle Frank’s forehead throbbing like a cartoonish stubbed toe. So, for the most part, we say nothing. 

The problem with saying nothing is that it’s a benefit of being comfortable. There aren’t many policies that negatively affect me (directly). 

I’m a man. 

I’m white. 

I’m straight. 

I’m protestant. 

I’m, relatively speaking, well off. 

Why would I need to contribute to the conversation about the #metoo movement, #blacklivesmatter, LGBTQ rights, the immigration debate, or even the new tax bill? My life won’t change much with any of these shifts in our political landscape. 

However, many in my same situation are frustrated with all the hashtag movements and feverish debates. They’re bent on opposing voices that claim to be oppressed. They’re steadfast in their denial of misogyny and systemic racism. They’re certain our LGBTQ brothers and sisters aren’t deserving of equal rights. They feel their faith is under attack—that their hard-earned money is being sucked up by the government and handed to the lazy, drug-addicted underbelly of our nation.

In light of all this controversy, I do think there is something positive about this heated era of political turmoil and the somewhat unforeseen rise of Donald Trump: politics, privilege, and oppression are at the forefront of the American conversation. So let’s talk about it. 

My interpretation of the situation is that Trump has become a symbol of those who seek to maintain the status quo or bring America back to the greatness of yesteryear.

But if we’re going to “Make America Great Again,” a fair question would be, when in America’s history are we talking about? 

In the 1920s, the nation was caught up in the throes of rampant materialism and hedonism along with the rise of the KKK.

The 1930s saw our greatest economic crisis.

The 1940s suffered through World War 2 and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The 1950s was marred by racial segregation.

The 1960s experienced the Vietnam War and the assassinations of JFK and MLK.

And the 1970s endured Watergate, coupled with the deterioration of our faith in government.

Don’t get me wrong. I think America has done great things and is still capable of greatness. But I think Trump captured the American Imagination with the idea of “greatness” by stirring up images akin to 1950s and 60s television: The quaint peacefulness of Leave It to Beaver or the simplicity of The Andy Griffith Show. However,—and I know this might ruffle some feathers—I think America has been great for a certain demographic of Americans:

Me. 

Think about it. 

What would it mean for a person of color to make America great again? What would America go back to that would benefit a person of color or someone who is currently marginalized? White America has the privilege of thinking we once lived in an America that was great.

Many of our American brothers and sisters have had a much more difficult time achieving the same quality of life that I have. My privilege has handed me resources for generations, making a middle-class lifestyle a piece of cake, regardless of how hard I work. But what about those of us born in poverty or in crime-ridden locales, forced to drop out of school to pay the rent? What about those of us who have been driven to crime and drugs as a result of generational oppression and prejudice? 

I can approach this incredibly difficult and horrific situation and say to the suffering person, “You need to try harder,” or I can understand that I have been handed tools and a position in society that is advantageous, realizing the difference in our lifestyles is the result of my winning a genetic and cultural lottery. It isn’t a level playing field, even if the laws are (on the book) equal. 

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. focused his energies on what he called “The Poor People Campaign,” where he said, “It’s alright to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” 

When we discuss the socio-economic situations of those who have been oppressed, like women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, Muslims, and the impoverished, we MUST consider things like the gender gap, slavery, Jim Crow, and xenophobia. By rightfully moving toward the abolishment of such horrid institutions, we will take steps in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean we’ve given boots to our neighbors. There are red-blooded human beings around us every day that have the right to achieve and excel through the law but have no resources—no bootstraps—to pull themselves out of the crushing weight of poverty and oppression. They have no tools to achieve the quality of life many of us enjoy because of the families we were born into. 

So what’s the solution? 

This is what I’m wrestling with right now. I feel as though I’ve just come into an awareness of my privilege and am learning how to live with, speak about, and wield it. 

For me, I think it means that I need to have an acute awareness of where I am situated in the power structure; many things that are true for me are not true for everyone. 

It means I have to vote for candidates campaigning for a more equitable society. 

I have to voice my opinion when I recognize injustice. 

I must be willing to give up my privilege when it comes to policies that seek to level the playing field.

and most importantly, I must actively engage the marginalized around me and hear their story, creating space and opportunity for those who have been silenced. 

When it comes down to it, my voice and opinions should take a backseat to the first-hand experience of those who have suffered beneath the crushing weight of inequality. Instead of fighting to prove we live in an egalitarian society because we feel as though it is, shouldn’t we strive to hear the stories of those who say it isn’t? 

There’s a quote that I’ve been mulling on for a couple of years now. I tried to find the author but couldn’t. If you know where it comes from, let me know: 

“If you are accustomed to privilege, equality looks a lot like oppression.” 

Losing certain privileges may be painful, but it is a necessary step in achieving real equality. 

I don’t fully know what using privilege for justice looks like, but I want to be a voice, a mind, and a body that seeks to end inequality in my country. And if it means I have to take a step or three backward to grab the hand of my brother or sister who has fallen victim to the oppressive forces of the American machine, then I will do so to help sculpt a more just world. For the two or three of you who are reading, I hope we can learn to live together, to love one another, and most of all, to find the intersection of voices that aren’t white, straight, or Protestant and listen well. 

The Name of God

True religion must come from a place of unknowing: a deep and profound experience that understands we don’t know much. But even typing that sentence, part of me revolts. There’s a slice of pride embedded in me that points to my library, to my experience, to my job, to my credentials to say not only do I know about God—but I know God. But if we believe God is unknowable, claims like this are absurd, flirting with blasphemy, like an ant explaining astrophysics. But we can’t help it. We’re human.

We want to know things,

and want people to know that we know things,

and want people to know that we know that they know we know things.

We place boundaries and restrictions on God with our theology, which most of the time, only serves as stale, God-inspired fan fiction₁. We put the infinite in a flimsy, cardboard shoebox so we can feel the comfort of grasping the Divine Mystery. We cling to the box and say “I’ve got it! Eureka! I’m right!” We take pride in our small-minded ant-thinking--an insect’s understanding of reality’s vast infinitude. But when we watch God’s behavior in our experience and in scripture, we see the movements, evasions, and attacks of The Great Iconoclast, leaving behind shattered porcelain fragments of our inflexible doctrines and rigid ideas.

When Moses is told to return to the Israelites, letting them know God would deliver them from the oppression of the Egyptians, Moses asks God’s name. He wants to understand who he’s speaking with—to nail down some concrete aspect of the Infinite so he can pack it up neatly in his shoebox and present it to his buddies at the base of Mount Horeb like the kid whose parents splurged on the newest Jordans.

But God dodges Moses’s longing for a definition or a boundary, saying to Moses: “I AM WHO I AM… This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations.”

So God’s name is…

A verb?

God’s title is not a noun. It is action and doing. God is not so much an “It” but an “Is.”  

Maybe instead of a being, God is being itself.

In Hebrew, this name has four letters, YHVH, probably pronounced Yahweh. Some scholars say (and apparently there’s controversy behind this, so take it with a grain of salt) the letters are breathing sounds, consonants that have rough exhalations. So you would say the four letters of the name of God with definitive breathy sounds:

Yod (sounds like “yode”)

He (sounds like “hey”)

Vav (sounds like the initial vowel in “lava”)

He (sounds like “hey”)

So, transliterated: Yode, hey, vahv, hey (breath out when you say them like a dramatic high-schooler, and you’ll catch the drift).

I heard a teaching a few years back that took this idea₂ a few steps further: If the letters that make up the name of God are merely aspirated consonants, is saying the name of God the sound of our breath?
 

Day in and day out, it would be like we were evoking the name of the Divine—

when we wake,

when we wash dishes

or send emails.

When we walk the dog

or sit in the presence of those we love—

Maybe the name of God is constantly on our lips. In this way, God is not an IT, but an IS--the very fabric of our existence, woven into every moment of our precious realities, despite our beliefs or behaviors, despite our religions or ethnicities, despite our genders or sexualities, despite our sin or righteousness.

God IS.

May we feel the presence of the I AM, as we breathe in—

As we breathe out,

As we endlessly whisper the holy name of BEING itself.

Amen.

₁ Thanks, Science Mike

₂“Breathe”. #14 of Rob Bell’s Nooma Series

Us or Them: Thursday Week 2 of Advent

Let anyone with ears listen! —Matthew 11:15

It's natural to see the world through the lens of our tribe. 

We are right. 

They are wrong. 

And behind these lenses, we can hear a verse like Matthew 11:5 and assume that Jesus is talking to them: The Democrats, the Republicans, the Muslims, the Atheists, the LGBTQ community, the Catholics, the Protestants, Fox News, Calvinists, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, your crazy Aunt Sue, Social Justice Warriors, Feminists...

But in Matthew 11, Jesus is speaking to the crowd. A crowd, we should assume, we belong to. Do we have ears to listen? Are we wise enough to open our minds to a world without labels and categories? 

Paul tells us "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

The coming of Christ in our consciousness should give us a renewed mind that breaks down categories and labels, tearing to shreds the very notion that there is even a system consisting of "us or them." There is no longer anyone other; there is only us. 

May we learn that labels and categories are often used to oppress the powerless. May we end the destructive nature of our dualistic thinking. May we see our brother or sister when we look into the face of our enemies and bring the refreshing gift of Christ to all we encounter, letting each person know that they are loved by the Divine. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Isaiah 41:13–20

Matthew 11:11–15

America's Hard and Heavy Yoke: Wednesday Week 2 of Advent

We have created a pseudo-happiness, largely based in having instead of being. We are so overstimulated that the ordinary no longer delights us. We cannot rest or abide in our naked being in God, as Jesus offers us.

-Richard Rohr

Last spring, Tarrant County College offered me a full-time job. I took it. The transition to teaching college from high school has been refreshing, to say the least. If you find any public educator that works with K-12 students, buy them a coffee (and maybe something stronger) and ask them about their job. You may find yourself in an endless vortex of acronyms and despair (and rarely are their complaints about students. It's almost always attached to unrealistic expectations and unsupportive policies). I was fortunate enough to have great high school students and a supportive administration, but even then, the job can feel like you're drowning in responsibilities and pointless programs while politicians with $3,000 suits throw TPS reports at you from their windowed corner offices, claiming teachers are the problem. 

One the frustrating things with K-12 education is that there isn't an opportunity to move up the ranks unless you want to go into administration, which, if you know me, wouldn't be a good fit.* This was one of the primary factors that attracted me to teaching college.

When I started at TCC, I found myself situated in the midst of brilliant, articulate people, feeling under-qualified. Not only that, but the college provided an outlet to satisfy my ambition to "move up" with rank and tenure. I spiraled into a frenzy, looking into Ph.D. programs, looking for groups to join in order to expand and polish my resume, anything that could put me on level playing ground with my colleagues. Nevermind that I had only been working at TCC for a couple of months, have two kids, and great coworkers who hadn't done or said a thing to make me feel this way. It didn't matter. Now was not the time to rest; it was time to go, to work, to ascend! 

It's so funny writing a story like this because everyone knows the outcome: You crash and realize you can't do it. You get overwhelmed and exhausted. I always think about that line Bilbo has in Lord of the Rings: “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I ignored my wife who kept trying to ground me in reality: my new job, my healthy kids, time to enjoy my hobbies, the lack of stress from my old job. I ignored her and became a human doing instead of a human being. 

But Christ offers an alternative, a way of escaping the bustle of America's hard and heavy yoke: 

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

May we realize that taking the yoke of Jesus's teaching brings us to a place of rest and contentment. May we learn to end the American striving for our constant economic ascent and savor the small beauties that surround us every day. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Isaiah 40:25–31

Matthew 11:28–30

*Here's how my interaction with a student would go: 

Principal me: Stephanie, Did you throw your fidget spinner at Billy's head?

Student: Yes. 

Principal me: Why? 

Student: I had to take care of my mom when she came home drunk last night. I didn't get any sleep, and I just got mad. 

Principal me: ***tears*** Oh, my gosh. It's all going to be ok. Let me pay for you to stay in a hotel. Do you need a ride? I'll talk to Billy and pay his medical bills. Everything will be alright. ***tears***

A Wise Wife and a Husband with Too Many Words: Tuesday Week 2 of Advent

It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. 

—Matthew 18:14

I love books. Books on religion. 

Philosophy. 

Language. 

Novels. 

Psychology. 

Science. 

You name it. 

In the process of all the reading, I get wrapped up in my comfy robe of words, making everything abstract, sophisticated, and theological. In the past couple of years, I've gone through a monumental deconstruction of my faith where I realized I padded my true thoughts and feelings with Bible verses and a vast library of theologians--something my wife never had much interest in. 

She always spoke of a loving God who surpassed everything we could know or fathom. I remember reading an author (who shall remain nameless) and talking to Taylor about how the "road was narrow"--how we would be surprised by how few people would be in heaven. 

Tay is an incredibly compassionate person. She listens like a sponge; there are few things that shock her. When I said this, her face contorted like I'd punched her. She said, 

"I think we'll be surprised by how many people are with us in heaven." 

I wanted desperately to believe her. But I could hear all of those red-faced, white, German, male theologians firing arguments in opposition. I'm sure I said something to argue back, but I don't remember. There was something in her words that struck me deep--like they were laced with the very Spirit of God. 

In hindsight, I think that conversation was one of the first dominoes to fall in the collapse of my old faith. It led to a painful, sometimes excruciating release of values I thought was important to me. But my faith resurrected into a more loving and open view of God, where I can read a verse like Matthew 8:14 and see the deep longings of the Divine and feel the hum of reverence tremble through me, untainted by the endless train of words and ideas meant to illuminate the reality of God, but too often, muddy the truth. 

May we remember that your coming was, is, and will be an act of love where you unite with your children. May we understand that words are just tools--metaphors and systems--a ladder to climb toward your Holy Presence. May we never exalt the words, but only the one the words speak of. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

p.s. I know I teach English and ended a sentence with a preposition. It's something you need to deal with. 

Isaiah 40:1–11

Matthew 18:12–14

Here are the lyrics of a song by John Mark McMillan called "Death in Reverse". Check it out if the lyrics speak to you and know that if you have a vision or idea of God that isn't working for you any longer, it's ok to change and evolve. People have been doing in for thousands of years. 

You descend upon me like a rolling stone

Like black swan raging on for all that I know

You know it unnerves me when I lose control

And I'm, all out of options

And I'm, out of my head

Then I build my life around

Someone who I thought that I was

But it turns out

All the things I do to feel young

They only make me old

But You raise me

Like a baby

Like a fiery Phoenix bird

Oh, and You lift me up

Like Lazarus

You love me like death in reverse

You unearth me like a vein of gold

With the powers that drive up the flowers from the fold

You cast me, uncursed, unearth my body and my soul

Like fire from my ashes, like fire from my coals

And I build my life around

Someone who I thought that I was

But it turns out

All the things I do to feel young

They only make me old

But You raise me

Like a baby

Like a fiery Phoenix bird

Oh, and You lift me up

Like Lazarus

You love me like death

You love me like death

You love me like death in reverse

And all my life I've been

Fighting for a place I could thrive

But it turns out

All the things I do to survive

They only make me old

But You raise me

Like a baby

Like a fiery Phoenix bird

Oh, and You lift me up

Like Lazarus

You love me like death

You love me like death

You love me like death in reverse

Christ and The Headlines: Monday Week 2 of Advent

There isn't a day that goes by where we don't see a headline (or tweet) that sends us into a sense of

moral outrage. I was talking with some friends the other day about how I'm addicted to twitter because I savor seeing an article that makes me want to rip my shirt apart in a Hulkamania fury. The anger, I think can be good. But my disgruntled and resigned posture is not. But it's difficult to know how to respond when we see:

"59 Die in Las Vegas Attack"

"Act of Evil in San Antonio"

"White Nationalists March on University of Virgina" 

"Weinstein Paid off Harassment Cases for Years" 

The darkness is here. It takes the form of rampant xenophobia, racism, the class divide, mass shootings, and misogyny. Our pressing work, then, is to not to run from the darkness. Richard Rohr says, "Our Christian wisdom is to name the darkness as darkness, and the Light as light, and to learn how to live and work in the Light so that the darkness does not overcome us." We must resist and expose the darkness with the light of Christ. 

Banning a group of people from entering our nation because of their religion is darkness. 

Police brutality and our corrupt prison systems are darkness.

Wealth inequality is darkness. 

Violence is darkness. 

"Sexual misconduct" is darkness. 

May we not let our political affiliations or the tendency to throw up our hands in resignation keep us from understanding we live in a world of darkness. May we have the wisdom to bring light to where it isn't. Let "The wilderness and the dry land... be glad, the desert... rejoice and blossom," as we bring Christ to the desert. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Isaiah 35:1–10

Luke 5:17–26

Christ and Caesar: Sunday Week 2 of Advent

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the Way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" 

-Mark 1:1-3

In the context of the Roman Empire, Mark's audience would have understood "the good news of Jesus Christ, the anointed king of Israel," as a subversive claim against what was called "the gospel" or good news of Caesar, also called the "Savior" who brought peace to the world. Giving Jesus titles like this makes the opening passage of Mark's gospel something political, controversial, and revolutionary, a declaration that those who follow this new savior have chosen to turn their backs on the rule and authority of the old king: Caesar. 

For us who choose to follow Christ, this means a new savior has come who hears our voices crying in the wilderness. He is a God who has begun the new exodus in or hearts, liberating us from the prison of sin and performance. But to enjoy the Good News or Gospel, we have to let go of the other lords who want to claim the seat of our hearts. We must rip out our allegiances to the Republican party, the Democrat party, our country, or any other system that serves as the cornerstone of our identity.

May we see the Good News: God has liberated us from a system of points. The Divine doesn't judge us by our good and bad deeds like some cosmic scale in the heavens. This gospel and our loyalty to it surpasses all forms of political empire or nationalism in its ability to bring life, peace, and joy. You are with us, have been with us, and will be with us. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Compassion for the Oppressed: Saturday Week 1 of Advent

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest it plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers..."

Matthew 9:36-38

I've got respect for street-corner preachers. I can't imagine how uncomfortable it is to confront people time and time again about an issue that is, to say the least, sensitive.  Sometimes, there's just something admirable about a belief becoming visible.

For me, the issue lies within the focus of the ministry. When I read Matthew 9, I see Jesus filled with compassion when he sees the harassed and helpless, the sick and needy, the ones who need a shepherd to lead them to greener pastures. What's profound to me is Jesus's response to those around him: he treats their physical needs. He tells the twelve that the kingdom is near, which means they are to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons--the work that reveals the kingdom is at hand, not just an ethereal destination in the distant future.  

The kingdom in these verses isn't about a transaction that stamps someone's passport into heaven or an impassioned plea to turn or burn. It's about seeing those who are in need, standing up for those who suffer beneath the boot of poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia--anything that transforms another human into "the other"--an unspoken label that keeps the poor, the LGBTQ community, people of color, Muslims, and immigrants neatly tucked away behind the blinding walls of our privilege, where we neither have to see nor deal with their oppression.

May we assume our place in the body of the cosmic Christ, see as Jesus does, be moved to compassion for "the other," and meet the needs of the sheep here and now.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26
Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8

The Solar System of Life: Friday Week 1 of Advent

There is a sense in which Christ is already "come." Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand"; it's here now. But why don't we see it? Why don't we experience the reign of Christ today? Why is it always a lofty, golden future that shows up after we've tucked ourselves behind our desks in a fluorescent-lit cubicle for seventy years? 

I think it's because we invite other kingdoms into our lives that reign with a sense of jealousy: the god of a new house, a better job, political ideals, a promotion. Whatever it is we worship with our behaviors and minds becomes the sun of our own unique solar system. Each aspect of our complicated existence: a spouse, job, kids, hobbies, finances--they all revolve around the god we've chosen to enthrone. 

When the centerpiece isn't the Divine, the gravity that keeps our life in proper alignment is wonky. Balance is gone and we spend the finite currency of our days chasing things and ideas that lead us to crippling anxiety and profound discontentment.  This is what it feels like when the Kingdom of God is not present--when Christ isn't come. A small disclaimer: orienting our lives around the Kingdom of God isn't a promise of receiving everything we want, but a renewed mind that can approach life with a sense of contentment, peace, and love--a state of being where we can savor the rule of a coming and already present Christ as life stays balanced in its proper orbit. 

May we learn to see out of the gloom and darkness--that our blind eyes would see the eternal life Christ offers is both to come and already present.

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Isaiah 29:17-24

Matthew 9:27-31

Jesus and the Refugee at the Well: Thursday Week 1 of Advent

Advent is the season for God's people to cry "Come!"--the very bedrock of how Jesus taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." I think this means to bring glimpses of heaven to earth: helping the least of these, fighting for those who struggle beneath the boot of oppression, easing the crushing weight of poverty. 

Jesus demonstrated the ushering in of this Kingdom by committing political suicide over and over again. In John 4, Jesus takes time to minister to the Samaritan woman at the well. Verse 9 says "Jews (like Jesus) do not share things... with Samaritans." Verse 27 also highlights another controversial aspect of the conversation: Jesus takes time to speak with a Samaritan woman, compounding the taboos to what would have been a fevered pitch to Jewish audiences. This woman was at the intersection of two oppressive barriers: racial bigotry and sexism, making her the epitome of a marginalized character. 

As shocking as it might seem, I think it might be more poignant in 2017 America if we imagine that Christ took time to be with a transgendered black refugee. Such a person would, like the Samaritan woman at the well, experience the suffocating burden of a nation's judgment day in and out, feeling out of place, broken, pushed aside. Jesus, however, was determined to make God's Kingdom come, humanizing society's most "untouchable" people by acknowledging their presence in a nation that would rather turn a blind eye, despite the political and religious biases of his own tribe. 

God, may we build our house of faith upon the bedrock of your words, trusting that a deep longing for the arrival of this wild, upside-down kingdom of yours, which lays low the lofty city and loves the marginalized, is a true mark of Your reign in our hearts.  

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Isaiah 21:1-6

Matthew 7:21, 24-27