Between Realities

And again he said, "To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." - Luke 13:20-21 (NRSV)

Last Sunday the Re-Imaging Team of Vermont Hills UMC presented its case for a Re-Imagined church. We had some very good discussion and we had some heartfelt reaction. One of the many things I came away with was a strong sense of the fact most of us know we are living between realities. One reality is what we have known all our lives as the church. It is what I was trained to be and do as I grew up and especially when I went to seminary. We all learned our lessons well and we dutifully worked to put those lessons into practice. But while we were being so faithful to this reality another one was being nurtured into life. This other reality was born of frustration with my reality. It was born from a realization that the answers my reality provided didn’t fit the experience, situation and reality that others were living. As I have been in professional ministry for over 30 years and a natal Christian I know the reality I have been taught and lived. But this other reality has become too real to ignore any more.

In a recent Musing I talked about the three-tiered universe model and how that has passed away. In other Musings I have talked about the shifts and changes in what people want and need from a church. Many times I have Mused about spirituality and belief and how so many of us are frustrated by what we do and don’t find in the church as we have been taught it. I have shared about why we have gotten to this place and what it has meant for my beloved church. Last week I realized once again that this time in history is a between time; that we are living between realities. I don’t believe that one is a correct reality and the other is not. I believe that we have come to a place where reality is shifting and we are caught between realities.

Maybe this is the multi-universe theory becoming evident. Maybe it is common to other points in history when there have been seismic shifts in all aspects of life, science, and faith. Maybe I am just dreaming. But what I experience, what I know, what I have observed, what I have sensed and felt and known is uniquely different from what I have known and experienced in the past. I was at dinner last night with a friend and he and I talked about the future of the church. Our conclusion, the church as we have known it will not be the church of today and tomorrow. Sure there will remain bastions of the past where some will still find community, connection and God. There will always be a place for the church as I have known it but it will no longer represent the church that is and that is needed in our world today.

I will confess that I do not like living between realities. I know the one well, it is familiar and comfortable and dare I say predictable. It is where I found God and connections with people that run deep and true. It is where God called me to be. I mistook that call as a life-long agreement. I entered professional ministry with an expectation that what I knew and was trained for would be the reality for the rest of my life. I assumed God wanted me to help stay the course and see that this reality survived through the storm. Little did I know that what God was calling me to was to sail into the storm on a ship that would be broken apart and that reassembly of some other vessel would not be completed before I left the calm of the eye of that storm. Maybe it is more accurate to say I have a foot on the deck of two vessels, one that is struggling in the storm to stay on its pre-determined course and one that is trying to find a way through it no matter where this might lead.

I guess that I am having trouble putting into words what it is I am feeling and experiencing. But one thing is for certain, I can’t go back and the way forward is not clear but to not move is to die. So I’ll trust in God and those who are willing to risk the journey with me and together we will find a way trying our best to follow The Way to whatever that might be. I know that we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

Dear God, help me find peace living between realities. Help me to be open to whatever course needs to be taken to get to the reality you would have for me. Be with everyone regardless of the reality they find themselves in and help us all to find a way to live together in peace. Amen.

The Sacrifice of Jesus

The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! - John 1:29 (NRSV)

Here in Holy Week we must stop and reflect on the event of the cross – on the death of Jesus – on the execution of Jesus by the Roman and religious authorities – on the sacrifice of Jesus.

To get a handle on this we first need to understand sacrifice in the 1^st century CE Roman world and especially with regards to Judaism and Temple sacrifice. There were five basic types of sacrifice dictated by the Law in Leviticus:

1.       Sacrifices to please the Lord "whole burnt offerings" done to worship God, show devotion to God, and to ask for God's forgiveness; the entire object is burned  (1.1-17; 6.8-13; 8.18-21; 16.23,24)

2.       Sacrifices to give thanks to the Lord "grain offerings" done to worship God by giving thanks; to recognize that God is the giver of blessings and provider of good things (2.1-16; 6.14-23)

3.       Sacrifices to ask the Lord's blessing "peace offerings" or "well-being offerings" done to worship God and ask for God's blessing (3.1-17; 7.11-36)

4.       Sacrifices to ask forgiveness "sin offerings" done to ask for God's forgiveness; to make amends for specific unintentional sins; to become clean after becoming ritually unclean (4.1--5.13; 6.24-30; 8.14-17; 16.3-22)

5.       Sacrifices to make things right "guilt offerings" done to make up for cheating the Lord or unintentionally destroying something that belonged to the Lord; to make up for robbing or cheating another person (5.14--6.7; 7.1-6)

These types also cover other sacrificial practices in other religious traditions in the Roman Empire of the 1^st century CE.

In the entire New Testament Jesus is identified as the “Lamb of God” only twice, both times in chapter 1 of the Gospel of John, from the lips of John the Baptist. And only once is Jesus mentioned as the “sacrifice of atonement” and that’s in Romans 3. Yet the Church has grabbed the image of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of the Day of Atonement talked about in Leviticus (No. 4 above 16.3-22) as a primary understanding of the cross.

We have been taught that Jesus’ death is to pay our ransom, to take our place, to make it so God can actually pay attention to us. Without Jesus’ suffering and death we cannot hope to be found acceptable by God because we are so polluted by sin and cannot hope to find any acceptable offering to pay for our sins and return to a right relationship with God. The only acceptable sacrifice is a perfect one, one that only God could provide and one so free from sin that it would be able to absorb all sins and remove them.

But what are the words Jesus speaks in John 13? After washing the disciples’ feet he tells them to follow his lead, to let his example of humility and service be their guide. To understand that status and power as defined by human standards means nothing because Jesus, the revelation of God – the way we know God’s character and God’s values – has been as a servant to them, so they also should be servants to others. Jesus finishes this teaching moment with these words, “I give you a commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” This isn’t about substitutionary atonement – it’s about loving and serving. Jesus’ death is an example for us; it shows us that we are to be willing to put others ahead of ourselves. It shows us that what God desires most is a world where people love one another and serve one another. It says nothing about our being unacceptable. It never calls on us to believe that Jesus’ death was necessary to make it possible for us to be God’s beloved.

If you want to talk about Jesus and the cross and atonement you have to take Paul’s understanding of that event and realize that he isn’t thinking of substitution. Paul is thinking about participation. For Paul the “sacrifice of atonement” is the act of Christ on the cross that we are to join in. We are to die to our old ways and be raised to the ways of Christ. It is a sacrifice to ask for forgiveness which is all about repentance, a sincere covenant to turn your life around and head back in the direction God would have you go. Just look at Paul’s teaching about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians. His is the oldest information we have about what took place on Maundy Thursday of that first Holy Week. He passes on to us “what he received from the Lord” and his words of institution – the words spoken that change this meal into something more do not reference forgiveness of sins and in fact emphasize remembrance – we are to remember the sacrifice of love and the new covenant. That’s what the ritual of communion, of the Last Supper is about, remembering and reclaiming our participation in the new covenant community. A people set apart to live life as God would have us live it, a life of love, non-violence, justice and peace.

As we move through this Holy Week. As we come to the cross of Jesus. As we look into the empty tomb. Let us remember.

Dear God, thank you for memories and for those who call us back to remember. Thank you for the gift of Jesus and his witness to what you value. Help me to live as you would have me live. Help me to love as Jesus loved. Help me to remember. Amen.

The Role of the Church

Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. - James 3:13 (The Message)

My Sunday School class is beginning an exploration of Dianna Butler Bass’ new book Grounded. It has sparked my spirit and I can honestly say that I would recommend it for canonization as The Book of Acts of the Apostles Part 2. It speaks to our present time and circumstance and offers examples and wisdom to help the church and Christians be the church and Christians in our post-modern age.

One thing that has really helped me is her image of role of the church in the past. She talks about how we understood life as existing in a three-tiered universe. God was above in a far-off place unreachable and removed from our everyday lives. We exist in the middle living life out in the day-to-day struggles of being human. The third tier is below and a place without life. Within this three-tiered universe the church came to see itself as the elevator operator. Its role was to help folks know the will of God and provide them with the tools necessary so that they could have access to the realm of God after they died. Its role was to serve as the determiner of a person’s worthiness and whether or not you got to heaven or went to hell.

The primary question asked when evil things happened or tragedy struck was “What does God want us to learn from this?” or “What was God’s intention here?” And the church was to provide the guidance and interpretation. People know where God was, God was in heaven and if something untold happened it must be an act of God meant to communicate something to us.

After a century of climate destruction, evil, tragic, violent actions of human on human (World Wars, concentration camps, atomic bombs, genocide, etc) and a host of heartrending situations that reek of evil people have started to ask the question “Where is God?” If you buy into the three-tiered universe model with the church as mediator between God and people you have to come away from this century wondering if God really has just turned away, forgotten us, left us to our own destruction. This is the primary argument of atheists “If God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and all loving how can God allow such evil and destruction?” The only answer seems to be either God doesn’t care or there is no God.

An interesting thing about this is that a whole lot of people aren’t questioning the existence of God. Instead they are questioning the way we understand God’s place in the universe. “Where is God?” is being answered and the answer is that God is with us, here in the muck and mire of everyday life. The universe has been flattened. No longer is God out there somewhere. Now God is right here right now. People are experiencing the presence of God all around them and they aren’t willing to give up God but they are willing to give up an institution that preaches about suffering being necessary and the only way to experience God is through correct belief and blind faith. People are willing to see themselves as not needing an elevator to get to God and instead as companions with God. The stick and carrot approach of the church that has been its standard operating procedure now has no relevance because people aren’t focused on getting the elevator ride to heaven. Instead they are focused on improving life in the here and now and see God as a partner and co-worker in the effort.

This makes all the division points in Christianity mute. People are now saying, “Violence is wrong.” “Caring for the environment is caring for God and one another.” “Acceptance of LBGTQ understands that we are all equally valuable and loved.” You see the divisions we have created are all based on the three-tiered universe and that universe is no longer operational for many millions of people. They all have to do with determining who is gets a ride up in the elevator and who rides down. And people have abandoned the elevator for a deep, direct, and intimate relationship with God in the here and now. The funny thing is, this is exactly what Jesus talked about, what Paul envisioned and what mystics have known for thousands of years. It truly is God with us and how that impacts what we do that matters. Correct belief and institutional sanction no longer carry any weight and they should not!

I will end this Musing now. These observations are incomplete because I am still trying to make the shift away from what I have always understood, what I was trained to share and do, how I have seen myself, others and God. We truly are living in the in-between time. What has been no longer works and what will be isn’t fully understood or defined. But what I know is that God is right here with me, with us, in the mix of life and that God is part of the struggle and that God is part of the solution.

Dear God, thank you for renewed spirituality among your children. Thank you for the brave souls who have said to the church this doesn’t work, this isn’t how God is known to me. Help me and the church to listen and find ways to be a part of the new thing that is being birthed. Amen.

  

A Special note:

I am a part of the Host Team for the United Methodist Church’s General Conference which is meeting in Portland in May, 2016. Over 5,000 people are excepted and I am in charge of a team that has responsibilities at the airport, at the 12 hotels and with other areas. What this means is that as this event gets closed my Musings might get sporadic. So this is a heads up to let you know that you may not receive one every week from now until the end of May. After that I should be back on a regular schedule. Pray for me and my team!

Tim O-H

Some Positive in the Midst of So Much Negative

Kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim. Proverbs 15:4 (The Message)

I’ve been on a words kick recently and I thought after so much hot air and disrespectful hammering last night at the debate we needed and the universe needed to hear some kind, loving and respectful words so here are some quotes to help balance the cosmos:

A person's a person, no matter how small. – Dr. Seuss

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. – Jackie Robinson

One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.  – Bryant H. McGill

This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

We don't need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful. – Taylor Swift

Respect is what we owe; love, what we give. – Philip James Bailey

I firmly believe that respect is a lot more important, and a lot greater, than popularity.  – Julius Erving

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.  – Albert Einstein

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.  – Dalai Lama

Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.  – Conan O'Brien

It's not our job to play judge and jury, to determine who is worthy of our kindness and who is not. We just need to be kind, unconditionally and without ulterior motive, even - or rather, especially - when we'd prefer not to be.  – Josh Radnor

Be kind, don't judge, and have respect for others. If we can all do this, the world would be a better place. The point is to teach this to the next generation.  – Jasmine Guinness

I think our culture encourages all of us to always put our best foot forward. I think it's a good thing. I think it's nice to rise to the occasion, to be kind and considerate, and have self control.  – Amy Grant

When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.  – Whoopi Goldberg

If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.  – Maya Angelou

I found these on the site http://www.brainyquote.com/ where there are thousands more.

Dear God, help me to have basic respect for others, all others. Help me to be kind. Help me to remember that how I treat others says more about me then anything I can say about myself. Amen.

Words Part 2

 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.

– Proverbs 10:19 (NRSV)

There was another primary debate last night. It was full of words. An awful lot of those words were hateful, vindictive, belittling and abusive. The front runner was lashing out with typical lack of restraint calling others names and putting them down with an air of superiority and disdain. A lot of words spoken but it felt like not a lot of worthwhile words were shared.

Like it or not, words have power. They can uplift, inspire, rally and create vast possibilities. They can also demean, enslave, instill fear, cause riots, and make normally good people do very inhumane things. When you add tone, setting, inflection, emotion, body movements and volume words can take on even more power and significance.

Words can hurt. I remember the first time my eldest child said to me in a fit of pre-schooler rage, “I hate you!”  It stabbed me in the heart. It devastated me. Here was this precious child that I would do anything for, whom I had made a solemn covenant with God to nurture and protect, who I loved more deeply than I thought possible telling me with all the passion and power she could muster that she hated me. Now I know she was just trying to vent her frustration and that all children say these kinds of things without really meaning them but still, at the moment I felt the pain of those words.

I can’t even imagine the pain of racial slurs, the torment of belittling language, the soul damage of condescending verbiage that women and minorities, the poor and outcast, the disabled and disenfranchised have had to endure. I have never been the recipient of such words. The closest I have ever come would be in seminary when a radical feminist vehemently lashed out at me for not good reason just because I was a male. Though her words caught me off guard and made me reflect on what I had said and done they did not call into question my basic humanity or my reality of being a beloved child of God.

Words may be inexact. They might be metaphors. They are only representations of thoughts, feelings and emotions but they still carry tremendous power. Think about Genesis 1, John 1, Micah 6, Isaiah 2, The Gettysburg Address, the “I have a Dream” speech, FDR the day after Pearl Harbor, John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech, Barak Obama’s first inauguration speech, and the thousands, millions, billions of songs, poems, sermons, speeches, commentaries, editorials, reflections, novels, biographies, memoirs, diaries, and any other media that presents words that have impacted and influenced you, our society and our world and you get a sense of the power of words.

My hope is that I will pay attention to all the words I use. That I will try and make sure the words I speak and write do no harm. That they at least don’t damage and at best repair people. I see the wisdom in my mom’s advice to count to 25 before you react. I understand the wisdom behind the counsel to reread an email and let it sit for a moment before you send it. I have come to appreciate the pause before speaking. Now all I have to do is get my mind and mouth to follow this sage guidance.

I can’t help but wonder if some of the candidates just don’t hear what they say. Can they really mean what they are saying? And if they do, how can people of faith and good consciences support such hateful, demeaning and downright bigoted people? I heard a Baptist pastor on NPR defending a candidate because he would help bring our country back to good biblical values even thought he wasn’t a good Christian. I thought was he hearing what I was hearing? As we move deeper into this election cycle the words will only get harsher and the speech more inflammatory. Hateful and harmful things will be said and written. My hope is that somehow we can find a way to rise above the polluted festering pile of damaging verbiage to a more respectful and decent level of discourse. History has not shown me much reason to expect my hope to come true but as they say, hope springs eternal.

Dear God, help us all to pay attention to our words. Help me to work hard to keep my words in check. May what I say and write build people up, help people out and not be damaging to another. Amen.

Words

 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.  - Psalms 19:14 (NRSV)

As the various news stories and issues of the week swirled around in my head today – constitutional requirements, cell phone encryption, privacy, toxic air, living wage, etc – one thing seemed to pull at my attention, words. Words are really fascinating when you stop and think about them. I mean all they really are, are a bunch of letters strung together in a particular way that we have assigned some kind of meaning and significance to. The history of writing has words range from triangular indentations in clay, to hieroglyphic symbols, to strange markings, to stylized pictographic images to all the alphabets of all the languages on earth.

Remembering back to our school days, how we were taught to break a word down and look for the root words to try and discover its meaning, looking up words in a dictionary and reading the various meanings and uses of a word, and learning how words often got their meanings. I also remember how hard it was to try and define certain words. Try to tell someone what wet is. All you can do is say what it is not – dry – or explain how wetness feels or works but you cannot define wet. The same goes for colors and emotions and darn near everything else we use words to describe.

Add to the fact that words are just symbolic representations, metaphors for things we see, touch, feel and experience the fact that words change their meanings. Words like “gay” and “cool” have had their meanings changed by use, time and circumstance. Often buried in the definition are the less used and utilized meanings of the word but it more common use is listed first and it can really be different from its meaning in the past. Words and language itself are really living things.  As times change as situations and circumstances arise, as new discoveries are made and as new generations experience things for themselves the words change or new words are invented. Words evolve.

I find the recently revived argument about the US Constitution to be a classic example of how some of us just don’t see that all of life, thought, theology, science, arts and creation changes and evolves. Things today are not the same as they were ten thousand years ago, a thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, or even a day ago. It is just plain wrong to think that the words we used in a document written in 1787 in a society and world vastly different from our own can possibly mean the same thing today.

Take for example slavery, a reality in US society; it was accepted and generally expected as a viable part of the economy. The Constitution was written in that environment, in that reality. It could not handle the changes that came about in the mid-1800’s so an amendment was needed, a change to the original document, its words and language in order to keep it relevant for a changing nation. Even the original Constitution had to be changed within three years of its passing with the addition of the Bill of Rights. And we all know that the founders could never have envisioned a world of electronic surveillance, spy satellites, global computer networks and the reality we find ourselves living in.  What the Constitution said in 1787, 1791, 1865, and 1992 cannot be forever understood as locked in the time of its writing because the vary words themselves change over time.

What we can do is interpret them. We can try and glean the intent of the original words. We can explore why they were written in the way they were written in order to gain a sense and an educate opinion about what they meant and how they could be applied to a very different reality. It is the same as with the Bible. It is ludicrous to think that somehow the very words used in the writing of the Bible stopped evolving and changing their meanings. They haven’t and neither have we. Words, their meaning and significance change, shift, evolve and come to mean new things in different settings. Our job as users of words is to constantly be exploring the tides of change to get at the core of what is trying to be communicated. Why do you think the saying is “a picture is worth a thousand words?”

Dear God, thank you for language, for words and for their ever evolving nature. Help us give up our idolatry of words. Free us to see words as they are metaphors, expressions of our thoughts, ideas, dreams, visions and reality. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, my God! Amen.

God and History

But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses. Exodus 9:12 (NRSV)

I just finished reading the book Lincoln’s Battle with God by Stephen Mansfield. He is the author of such books as The Faith of Barack Obama and The Search for God and Guinness. It was an interesting summary of the life of Abraham Lincoln and his lifelong struggle with faith and God. I can’t do justice to his argument and sources in this Musing but I came away convinced that the Atheist President as not an atheist, he was a man struggling with a concept of God and faith that did not fit with his life experience and the circumstances he found himself in. The Christian Church and theology of his time did not provide him with the tools he needed to make sense of life. It also did not help that many practitioners were inauthentic and their faith did not stand up to the tests of reason or compassion.

One conclusion Mansfield comes to is that Lincoln become convinced that the Civil War was in some way God’s judgment upon the United States of America for our sanctioning human abuse in the slave trade. I am not advocating that this view is theologically correct. What I am willing to say is that given the times, the circumstances and the theological perspectives he had to choose from Lincoln made a choice that was necessary for his peace of mind and decision making as President. I would like to think that if Lincoln were alive today he would more than likely come out at a different place theologically. I think he would see the Civil War as the consequence of human action and our willful disregard for God’s desire for humanity and creation. It wasn’t divine judgment; it was natural consequences for humanity ignoring the fundamental foundation of creation – distributive justice, equity for all creation.

I think the argument can be made that where the Bible portrays historical power struggles, wars, etc as God’s intervention or lack thereof you could just as easily portray them as the natural consequences of humanity’s willfully ignoring God’s desire for human society and human and creation interaction. The Ancient and Modern state of Israel sits in a geographical place that makes it unavoidable for imperial or strategic control to be desired and their place to be a battleground for these interests. Add to this the modern reality that three of the world’s religions (about 4 billion people) all claim it as their own holy site and you have a perfect mix for human conflict and the consequences of choices made by the people who are in power in this world and in this troubled piece of real estate.

Dietrich Bonheoffer made the argument during his imprisonment, before his execution for his part in the assignation attempt on Hitler, that God was dead. Not that God, the divine beyond our ability to fully comprehend, was dead but that the human construct of God as the source of all that happens, the cause of dramatic world conflicts and the source of natural disasters was dead. The shear destructive force of the allied bombings of Germany and their wholesale destruction of all things and all life convinced Bonheoffer that we humans could not blame things on God. That natural forces and human created consequences were to blame and that ultimately God was grieved by what we humans do when we get out of step with God’s desire for creation.

I think Lincoln’s struggle with God is a mirror for the struggle many are having with the traditional portrayal of God today. I think his battle with the accepted ways of understanding God and human activity speaks to the battle many are having with the institutional church (synagogue, mosque, temple, etc). People find what is being offered as inauthentic and they cannot stand up to the tests of reason and compassion. People believe in God. People desire to live faithful lives. They just don’t feel that most of the contemporary expressions of faith echo what they know of God and they sure don’t reflect their desire for a world of justice, compassion and peace. We have to stop blaming God and start accepting the consequences of our choices and choose to go about things differently as individuals and as nations.

Dear God, help me to see that what I say and do has consequences and that what nations and corporations do have consequences. Wherever possible, help me to make the choices that reflect your desire for creation. May justice reign on earth and may there be equity for all. Amen.