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IMAGE
“You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Anne Lamott

NOURISHMENT
The actions of our savior are so rich in meaning that every soul  that ponders them finds... its own share of spiritual food to nourish it and bring it salvation.
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

VIEW
There are those among you who want to see God with the same eyes with which you look at a cow and to love God as you love a cow - for the milk and cheese.
Meister Eckhart
 

LIGHT WITHIN
People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out; but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross


LITTLE THINGS
Good and evil both increase at compound interest.  That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.  The smallest good act today is a capture of a strategic point  from which, a few months later, you may be able to go to victories you never dreamed of.  An apparent trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
C.S. Lewis

QUESTIONS
The question from agnosticism is, Who turned on the lights?  The question from faith is, Whatever for?
Annie Dillard  (b1945)

 
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Does God Take People? (click)

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He who thinks he is finished is finished.  Those who think they have arrived have lost their way.
    
Henri Nouwen  (1932-1996)

Greatness

When Jesus gathered with disciples for the Last Supper they had been having trouble over which one was the greatest.  Gathered at the Passover feast, the disciples were keenly aware that someone needed to wash the other's feet.  The problem was that the only people who washed feet were the least.  So there they sat, dirty feet and all.  It was such a sore point that they were not even going to talk about it.  No one wanted to be considered the least.  Then Jesus took a towel and a basin and so redefined greatness. 
     M. C. Richards


Liberty
Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it.
     George Bernard Shaw  (1856-1950)


OUR VULNERABLE GOD
by Joseph Holub

I'll never forget when we brought our infant son David home from the hospital. I remember the first time I laid him down on his changing table to do the diaper thing, and he looked up at me.  It was then it hit me, like a ton of bricks, that I was responsible for this tiny, fragile, vulnerable human life. 

This new little life that was before me wearing dirty diapers was totally vulnerable in every way.  Without us he could not survive.  His well-being depended on us, young parents with no experience!  Infant David was the epitome of vulnerability. Without the swaddling clothes of care, love, nourishment, touch, and protection the infant David would have perished.    

"And she gave birth to her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger…" Luke 2:7 

The Christian Faith has the audacity to claim, that the God of the universe chose to shed completely the prerogatives of power, prestige and invincibility and express himself in the complete vulnerability of a baby.   It's preposterous if you think about at all!       

We handle our vulnerability by spending a lifetime putting on protective armor, but it is not so with Jesus.  Like us, Jesus was born vulnerable, but unlike us for his entire life and ministry he lived without the protective armor we cherish.  He was the most alive and whole person that ever lived.  His love never turned cynical or bitter or condescending.  He never lost his unequivocal trust in God his father, even at his life's most difficult moments.  When he was betrayed and denied he responded with grace and forgiveness.  He never became numb and indifferent to the need and pain that existed around him.   

He remained open to those that all others had rejected and written off.  The lepers that everybody avoided and feared, he touched becoming ritually unclean himself.  The prostitutes and tax collectors that the community scorned, he went out of his way to pursue.  The sick and dying, beggars and blind that lay along the streets that most people past by without even noticing, he brought healing and acceptance.   In those last final hours when the whole world had turned on him, even his best friends, he was faithful to love's prerogatives to the end speaking the most remarkable words even to be heard, "Father, forgive them."

In the stories he told about himself, he was frequently the vulnerable character.  He is like the Samaritan who attended to the needs of the man who had been mugged and left to die along the side of the road; ignored by the priest and Levite. (or maybe he most resembled the man in the ditch)  He is like the shepherd who is willing to risk the dangers of the wilderness to find the one sheep gone astray.  He is like the loving father, who even after his son has left home and made a whole series of devastating sinful choices that yielded compound negative interest, still waits ready to embrace him.  

All of us have been wounded in some profound way by life, and we bear the marks of those wounds in our souls.   Every one of us struggles to cope with all that has happened.  We wonder if there is a love in this universe in which we can rest back, be accepted, healed and empowered.

         I'm here to tell you that there is a love like that that burns for you. There is a heart that beats passionately like that for you.  That love is lying in a manger in this vulnerable little child. 

         Don't be afraid.  Don't draw back. Come!  Take him into your very being!  Invite him into your soul.   Let him wrap his swaddling clothes of healing grace and forgiveness around your deepest wounds.  Lay him in the manger of your heart.  Let him love you, heal you, empower you to not be afraid to go and be in the world wrapping the swaddling clothes of His love around others.

 

Post Election Musing
by Joseph Holub

 Contrary to what some believe, I believe a political party cannot usher in the kingdom of God.  For a party to think it can is the mountaintop of mass self-delusion. 

 I wouldn't go so far to say that the republic was saved on November 7, 2006, but I do think the shift in the balance of power is potentially a healthy development that could change the course of  dangerous trends established over the past six years. 

 Since 2000, one party has had control of the executive and legislative branches of the government, a potentially dangerous thing if left unchecked.  Since 2000 I have seen  troublesome trends emerging.  We have record deficits.  There has been an epidemic of scandals, dishonesty and lack of truth telling.  The constitution, if anything, has been weakened and undermined.  The President has attached more "signing statements" to bills than all of the previous presidents combined.  Legislation for environmental protection has been relaxed and in some cases not enforced.  We have a quagmire of a war that is exacting a huge toll in human life and financial resources.  The number of people living in poverty in America, especially among children, has increased.  Many social programs have been cut in the name of saving money with total disregard for uncontrolled spending in other areas.  Salaries among corporate executives have increased dramatically while the earning power of the average worker has not.  We have seen thousands of jobs exported outside of our boundaries.  Health care costs are out of control. The country is more polarized than I have seen it since the 1960's.  We’ve seen an attitude of self-righteous indignation towards those who disagree with even the patriotism of those who disagree being called into question.  There has been a pervasive attitude among the party in power that could be expressed, "It's our way or hit the highway."   Even the outgoing Secretary of Defense got in one last shot when he said that no one really understands or appreciates the complexities of the war but he and few others.  How arrogant and presumptuous can one be? 

 I believe these kinds of trends are inevitable when one party is calling most or all of the shots over an extended period of time without a counter-balance of power to keep them honest.  Regardless of party affiliation, it is human nature to grasp for power, as much power as possible.  And, it is human nature to abuse power once power is attained. 

 What excites me about the results of the November 7th election is that the counter-balance has been restored.  What I discern to be dangerous emerging trends have a chance of being interrupted, and in their place an opportunity for more equal and honest dialog over the issues that will hopefully result in good public policy.   I believe  sound public policy that helps the most people arises out of honest dialog, exchange of differing ideas and compromise. 

 It seems to me that the post November 7th configuration of the executive and legislative branches of government might represent a higher percentage of the population and a broader spectrum of opinion on the issues than before November 7th.  The executive branch, being Republican and right of center certainly represents a huge number of Americans.  Likewise, the legislative branch with the slim majority being Democrat and more left of center also represents a huge number of Americans.

Three cheers for the republic!  Hooray for democracy!  Once again it self-corrected and counter-balanced dangerous emerging trends and has created a new possibility for meaningful dialog and relevant action among policy makers. 

 God does not reside with a political party, but God resides in a process when the two primary parties of this country commit to sit down together, look each other in the eye, become truly involved with each other and forge public policy that serves the most Americans, especially the poorest and weakest among us. 

 I am somewhat hopeful again, not because the Democrats gained power, but because democracy worked and better balance is restored. 

 I will pray that our elected leaders will put the inflammatory rhetoric away and begin to do some good, solid bipartisan work for the common good and the good of the world. 




Who Are You Taking With You Into the Voting Booth?
by Joseph Holub

I would submit that none of us goes into the voting "booth"  by ourselves.  We all take someone(s) in with us.  We all have our lists of concerns and things that we want to see accomplished in our community, country and world.  When we step into the voting booth and cast a vote, we are becoming advocates.  Our concerns emerge from our interaction with the world and from the values that we deem to be important to us.

My take is that campaigning this  "election season" has been more ugly and nasty than any that I can ever remember.  I am seeing more of two campaigning techniques than I have ever seen in my lifetime. 

The first is the use of fear.  Fear is a very powerful factor and motivator.  I must acknowledge that fear has saved my skin more than once in my life.  There are things and people to be afraid of in this world, and a healthy sense of fear can help me respond to those things in a way that protects me from harm.  However, I also must acknowledge that fear is ultimately irrational.    When fear takes over, it undermines clear and analytical thinking.  Fear can be used to manipulate and control.

I am seeing fear used prolifically this election season.  I am seeing too many adds that appeal mainly to fear and little else.  The tactic is twofold: name it and then make people afraid of it.  If you can accomplish that you can exert great power over people who will have consequently stopped thinking rationally and analytically .

 I have decided I simply will not take fear into the voting booth with me - period!   My votes will be cast based on a rational study of the issues and the values that I hold dear to my heart. 

The second technique is the use of  negative and condescending campaigning.  This is no-brainer for me.  I learned this in elementary school in about 1st grade observing the behavior of my classmates.  Those who condescend against, and even slander others, have nothing of substantial value to offer to the common good, so all that is left is to attack the other.  

I become immediately suspicious of ads or candidates who use negativism as a strategy.  It tells me they either have nothing to offer that is substantial and important, or they are deflecting attention away from themselves.  At that point I must ask, "What is it they do not want me to know about them that they exaggerate the faults of or even slander the other?  What are they hiding?"    I have decided I will not cave into the deceptions of negative campaigning, and I will not take it into the voting booth with me.  

So who or what will I take into the voting booth with me?  What are the factors that will influence my votes this year?   I am seeking candidates who have a sense of the "common good" as opposed to a narrow and self-interested view of the world and issues.   I am looking for people who, I conclude, have the desire and ability to build bridges and be reconcilers, as opposed to those who seek to only deepen the divisions and polarities among us.    I am looking for people who do not stoop to fear and condescension to get my vote, but use common sense and clear thinking to address the issues. 

Because I am a person of Christian Faith, I am also taking a few of the Old Testament prophets into the booth with me.  As I read the prophets I see they were most concerned about three things:  Justice/fairness for the oppressed;  the misuse of wealth by the rich over and against the poor; and idolatry by the wealthy and powerful that insulates them from the needs of the less fortunate and anesthetizes their sense of justice and compassion. 

I am also taking Jesus with me into the voting booth, especially the Jesus of Matthew 5, 6, and 7 - the Sermon on the Mount.    The Jesus of Matthew 5 - 7 is a radical and passionate Jesus who, if we really take him seriously, is countercultural to many of our cherished 21st century American values:  "Do not judge..."  "Do to others as you would have them do to you."  "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."  "Turn the other cheek."   "Go the second mile."  "Whenever you pray go into your room and shut the door."   "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth."

So, who are you taking taking into the voting booth with you? 


JESUS THE PHARISEE?
by Joseph Holub       
click for an audio remark

It has been my experience and observation that American Fundamentalism and other contemporary expressions of mainline Christianity generally separate the word "Christian" from the person of Jesus Christ, from his teaching, preaching, and the example he modeled for us in his life and ministry.  

The Jesus I see and encounter in the gospels is the Jesus who denied self for the sake of others; the Jesus who loved sinners and outsiders and enjoyed their company; the Jesus who risked uncleanliness by touching and associating with the unclean; the Jesus who intentionally violated the literal law when it was out of line with the spirit of God's law; the Jesus who lifted up the poor and other "second class citizens" that the self-righteous scorned;  the Jesus who frequently departed from the "literal" to speak in parable and metaphor;  the Jesus whose whole life was an model of humility and self-sacrifice; the Jesus who commanded that his followers "love their enemies"; the Jesus who was a straight shooter with his disciples not preaching a "prosperity gospel," but only that they would be like sheep in the midst of wolves and would have to take up their own cross for his sake; the Jesus who defined neighbor as anyone in need, not just those who look and talk like me.

I believe the sin we Christians most frequently commit is that we make Jesus over to look more like us, than allowing Jesus to make us over to look more like him.   In many Christian circles Jesus comes out looking more like a Pharisee than anyone else. 


A SACRAMENTAL MOMENT IN TIME
by Joseph Holub

If I trust that Christ is present in the other: in their need; in their pain; in their confusion then it is truly Christ's pain, and Christ's need, and Christ's confusion that I touch.  And if I touch Christ then I run the risk of being transformed, if ever so little, in some way, and so does the other.

If I trust that Christ is present in the other, and I take the risk and open up my need, and my pain, and my confusion to the other, then I run the risk of being touched by Christ and hence transformed, if ever so little, in some way, and so does the other.

Once in a while another intersects my life just at the right moment in time who is Christ to me, or me to the other, or both of us to each other.  I am touched so deeply that my life and my journey are profoundly altered and a sacramental event occurs.  Through one ordinary human life, I am touched by the divine.  At that holy moment in time the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and we both bask in the presence and light of God - and are bonded as siblings in Christ. 
 

JESUS TRAVERSED THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED
by Joseph Holub

 “’Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.’  In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling on the ground.”   (Luke 22:42, 44)

I saw someone sweat blood once!  I was in high school P.E. class and we were in the midst of a wrestling unit.  There were two very strong kids in my class who were arch rivals.  The day came when they were to wrestle each other.  One of the kids had a very light complexion with platinum blond hair.   The two went at it.  It was more than merely a wrestling match.  It was a fight for self-esteem and bragging rights.  Towards the end of the match the platinum blond kid found himself in a hold that had almost pinned him to the mat.  To escape, he gave it one final mighty effort to loosen the grip of his opponent.  Perspiration was running off his face.  Then I saw it.  The sweat running down his face was pink!  He was exerting himself so hard that his sweat contained blood! 

 Luke tells us that Jesus prayed so hard that his “sweat became like great drops of blood.”  Jesus went to the Mt. of Olives that last night before his crucifixion to pray.  And this was no simple bed-time prayer.  This was praying at the deepest depths.  Before he even went to Jerusalem he knew what lay in store for him.  He knew that it was inevitable that he would be killed.   But he went anyway.  In the garden at the base of the mount of Olive, he prayed to his Father that if it was possible for this “cup” to be removed from him may it be so.  But in the end he yielded to His Father’s will. 

 Immediately following, Judas led the authorities to Jesus, and they seized him and took him away.  You know the rest of the story.  When I reflect on this story, I cannot help but think of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Less Traveled.


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood    And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood     And looked down one as far I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth    I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence     Two roads diverged in a wood

And I took the one less traveled by    And that as made all the difference.

 Jesus took The Road Less Traveled.  Jesus chose the road that “bent into the undergrowth.”   And it “made all the difference.”   It made all the difference for you and me.  His journey to the cross secured salvation.  His journey to the cross reconciled us with God through the forgiveness of sins.  His journey to the cross sets us free to be God’s people in the world.  His journey to the cross was the victory of love over hate, good over evil.

 Which road do you most often travel in your faith journey?  Do you most often opt for the beaten path, the road more traveled, the road that is free of risk and sacrifice?  Or, like our Lord, do you follow him down The Road Less Traveled, the harder road of love, sacrifice and risk all for His sake, the One who took the Road Less Traveled for you?

 

Tolerance is a Christian Value
by Joseph Holub

The other day I heard someone attempt to argue the position that tolerance was not a Christian value.  I thought long and hard about it and I beg to differ. 

I did some research on the word tolerance and made some interesting discoveries.  The English word tolerance comes from the Latin toleratus, which means "to endure or to put up with."   The Latin is considered parallel in meaning with the Greek, pherein, which also means "to bear; or to put up with without giving away."  

When I explore and put into practice the teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount, toleration is a given. 

Think of some of the things that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
        "Do not resist and evildoer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also."  (Matthew 5:39)
        "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."  (Matthew 5:44)
        "If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" (Matthew 5:46)
        "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged."  (Matthew 7:1)
        "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but not notice the log in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:2)
        "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you." (Matthew 7:12)

When I reflect upon these teachings, as well as others, I can only conclude that toleration is a Christian value.

As I look at the life of Jesus, he never forced or coerced his position on anybody.  He knew who he was, and he boldly lived and declared the good news of God with no apologies, but he did it in such a way that always affirmed the dignity of the other and tolerated whatever their response might have been to him personally or to his message.   

Jesus was quite clear that he did not come to establish a political kingdom that would force his values upon the masses.  Jesus said, "My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over ..." (John 18:36)   We read in Luke 4 that even when tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus rejected the idea of political messiahship.  When Christianity tries to force its way into the gears political process and confuses the kingdom with God with an earthly political movement, it always loses its connection with love and tolerance and surrenders to the corrupt nature of the political process. 

In 1 Corinthians 13 the apostle Paul said that "love... bears all things... endures all things."  (1 Corinthians 13:7)

The supreme act of tolerance in the history of humanity was Jesus willingly dying on the cross.  Nobody took Jesus' life.  Jesus gave his life for the sake of sinful human beings who had come to a place of disdain for him and all for which he stood.  He was willing to tolerate others to the point of giving his life.   His dying on the cross is a testimony that toleration is a characteristic of love.  He willing "put up with" the disdain of others to the point of death. 

Christians are people who live within a tension or paradox.  We are called to be bold witnesses, but not without humility and toleration.  Toleration does not mean abdicating one's own values to the values of others.  It means living boldly with a humble heart, at the same time recognizing it is a very diverse world that is in dire need of the supreme value of the Christian Faith, suffering love for the sake of others - even those we do not like, disagree with, or distain!

I am a Christian and make no apologies for it.  The Lord calls me to be a bold witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.  I live my life as a Christian, and I relate to others out of that faith and the values that come with it, but never in a way that is coercive or condescending.  The kind of love Jesus manifested in his life demands, especially when another disagrees with the precepts and values of my faith, that I not judge but turn the other cheek, and not respond in an unloving and condescending way, but always respond in a way that affirms the humanity and dignity of the other. 

A religion without love is a religion without tolerance; and a religion without tolerance is no religion at all, but just an excuse to disdain and hate others. 


The Prayer of Jabez Falls Short in Africa

by David Batstone

Bruce Wilkinson, author of the best-selling book The Prayer of Jabez, made a big splash nearly four years ago when he announced his ambitious plan to help children suffering from AIDS in Africa.

Not everything for Wilkinson has gone according to plan, unfortunately. A page one feature in the Dec. 19 The Wall Street Journal captures the sad tale in a nutshell: "In 2002 Bruce Wilkinson, a Georgia preacher whose self-help prayer book had made him a rich man, heard God's call, moved to Africa and announced his intention to save one million children left orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. In October [2005], Wilkinson resigned in a huff from the African charity he founded. He abandoned his plan to house 10,000 children in a facility that was to be an orphanage, bed-and-breakfast, game reserve, Bible college, industrial park and Disneyesque tourist destination in the tiny kingdom of Swaziland. What happened in between is a story of grand hopes and inexperience, divine inspiration and human foibles. …[H]is departure left critics convinced he was just another in a long parade of outsiders who have come to Africa making big promises and quit the continent when local people didn't bend to their will."

It is not my aim to gloat at Wilkinson's failure. To the contrary, I mourn what this means for the millions of African children in crisis who apparently will not benefit from his efforts. I also want to honor Wilkinson's desire to help the least fortunate. It would have been easy for him to take the wealth he gained from his book sales and live a life of personal comfort.

This chain of events, however, should not pass without a moment of theological reflection. The "blessed life" that Wilkinson has helped to promote carries with it a number of assumptions about where God is present in the world, and how God acts in response to the prayers of the faithful.

The Prayer of Jabez is based on a passage out of the book of Chronicles, in which a devoted man named Jabez asks God for a favor: "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!" The fact that God honors Jabez' prayer and blesses him with great riches indicates to Wilkinson a God-principle. If we in pure heart ask God for a blessing - and do so using the very words that Jabez prayed - then God will bring wondrous gifts into our life. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Wilkinson interprets the wild commercial success of his books (roughly 20 million copies sold combined) as yet another proof of the miraculous power of the Jabez prayer. In other words, it worked for Jabez, it worked for Wilkinson, and now it should work for you. With the fiasco in Africa now behind him - and the full Journal report makes clear that fiasco is the appropriate term - I wonder if Wilkinson has reconsidered his theology.

Maybe because I spent so many years in poor regions of the globe I could never accept the prayer-in-blessing-out approach to faithful living. Straight to the point, I have known too many devoted Christians for whom life did not bring them material blessing. Their children still died of infectious diseases that plagued their village. They could not avoid the violence that dictators and ideologues so often use to cow the powerless. Their territory did not expand because their only path for survival was a daily labor with their hands. Yet they did not lose faith, or cease praying for God's blessing.

As I ponder on their lives, I find a more fitting theology for God's presence and action in the world to be laid out in the book of Hebrews. There we are encouraged to have "faith in things not yet seen," and are offered models of individuals who tried to lead devoted lives that honor God. We read that some of them did receive great material blessings, while others ended up in the dens of lions or stoned due to their principled living. We learn, in other words, that God does hear their prayers and loves them profoundly, but it does not always bring them material riches or expanded territory.

Wilkinson's doctrine in fact implies that social structures are immaterial. An individual reciting the right prayer can transcend an AIDS epidemic in his or her village or escape being bought and sold into slavery (like 27 million people on this planet yet today). Perhaps now that Wilkinson has immersed himself in Africa, he better understands that the curse of poverty is not a spiritual punishment, or an indication of a lack of faith. To bring blessings to the orphans and widows of Africa, a dramatic shift in values - political, economic, and personal - will be required. And that challenge cannot be owned by Africans alone; it falls squarely on the shoulders of us in rich nations, who enjoy such great material "blessings."

Just like the next Bible reader, I could pick out individual passages that seem to suggest that God will give us whatever we desire as long as we ask for it with a pure heart. "You can even move this mountain" with such a prayer, as Jesus teaches his disciples in the gospels. I do not summarily discount these passages, nor do I assume that we should never pray for rain in a time of drought.

But the weight of the biblical message balances heavily toward a prayer life that yields courage, love, and compassion to do the will of God. The expectation of material gain and miraculous blessings may even distract us on that pilgrimage. The passage in Hebrews calls us, based on past heroes of the faith, "to run the race in front of us," confident that devoting our lives to God's work is all the reward we will ever need.


Bono's Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

click for an audio remark

If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex.

Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation. Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird, isn't it?

You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind.

Mr. President, are you sure about this?

It's very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned - I'm Irish.

I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you're here.

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here - Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God. I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.

Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was...well, a little blurry, and hard to see. I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land...and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment...

I must  confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV. Even though I was a believer. Perhaps because I was a believer. I was cynical...not about God, but about God's politics. Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call - and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

'Jubilee' – why 'Jubilee'? What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor? I'd always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)...'If your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and cannot maintain himself...you shall maintain him.... You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much...yet. He hasn't spoken in public before... When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).  What he was really talking about was an era of grace – and we're still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate - in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn't a bless-me club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions...making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.  But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn't miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children...even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back! But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age. Love was on the move. Mercy was on the move. God was on the move. Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS...soccer moms and quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses! Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!  Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit. It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks. When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened - and acted. When churches starting organizing, petitioning, and even - that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened - and acted.

I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world. Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone. I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.  God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war.  God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."

It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

Here's some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world's poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it's true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors. In  fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.

Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic.  Be very, very proud. But here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There's a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about justice. Let me repeat that: It's not about charity, it's about justice. And that's too bad. Because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can't afford it. But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality. Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe. It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain. You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the image of God." And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews - but not the blacks." "Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."

So on we go with our journey of equality. On we go in the pursuit of justice. We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than 2 million Americans...Left and Right together... united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.

We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas. Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue. And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject. That's why I say there's the law of the land¿. And then there is a higher standard. There's the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living? As the laws of man are written, that's what they say.

God will not accept that. Mine won't, at least. Will yours?

[pause]

I close this morning on...very...thin...ice. This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.

And this is a town - Washington - that knows something of division. But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.

This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith. 'Do to others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus says that.

'Righteousness is this: that one should...give away wealth out of love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.' The Koran says that (2.177). Thus sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.

That is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your back.' Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it; I have a family, please look after them;. I have this crazy idea... And this wise man said: stop. He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing. And that is what he's calling us to do.

I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.

Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America: I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing.... Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor. What is 1%? 1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet. 1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. 1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water. 1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

America gives less than 1% now. We're asking for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions of lives - but not just that and I say this to the military men now ¿ to transform the way that they see us. 1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.

These goals - clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty - these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.

Now, I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don't have to make the tough choices.

But I can tell you this:To give 1% more is right. It's smart. And it's blessed.

There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames. I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not do - to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

Did God Send The Hurricanes?
by Pastor Joseph Holub

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country." (Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day)

I don't doubt that God probably is mad, or at least profoundly disappointed, in America, and a lot of other nations, for all sorts of reasons.  But that's not what I want to comment upon.  I want to talk about the inference Mayor Nagin of New Orleans made that God sent the Hurricanes as punishment for our national sins. 

God created a natural world that is guided by natural laws.  Experts tell us that hurricanes come in alternating quiet and active cycles over long periods of time and that we are now in a "very active cycle."  Some experts posit the correlation of global warming and the severity of hurricanes, but even those experts concede that the verdict is still very much out on that pending more research and data.  It is not God punishing America so much as humanity is reaping the consequences of the potential impact of modern industrialization and technology upon the earth's climate.

If there is a lesson in the hurricanes it is more along the lines of, "Why do we allow  our cities to be so inadequately protected when we know such events will occur sooner or later?"   The laws and statistics of climate and weather tell us that!  "Why do we not take more action to address the root issues of global warming when more and more experts are telling us human technology is definitely changing the climate?"   We must not side step these critical climate issues by deferring to God's wrath.   

It is a very dangerous thing to equate natural disaster with the will of God.  It is not even good theology.  The New Testament talks about a God of grace and love, who sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins - not a God of wrath and condemnation who hurls hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes at humankind as a penalty for sin.

If in fact what Mayor Nagin said is true, then how and who is to discern which natural disasters are from God and which are simply the result of the natural process?    Were the devastating tornados of 2005 and early 2006 punishment for human sin?    Was the gargantuan Tsunami of December 2004 that killed hundreds of thousands punishment for sin?  

We don't need God to wind up hurricanes and throw them at us like Frisbees to know what God thinks about certain things.    We already know that among God's chief concerns are the plight of the poor, economic injustice, racial prejudice, war, and a host of other justice issues.    The overwhelming testimony of the scriptures tell us that much.  No doubt fewer hurricanes would be well received, but what we really need is leadership with the moral integrity, commitment and courage to take on these tough issues and lead us through – not deflect the issue to God’s wrath.

Perhaps the bottom line is that anyone who thinks that God would do such things has a very small and a very mean God.

Pastor Joseph Holub
Aurora, Colorado


The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”   - Revelation 3:20

When early Christianity spoke of the return of the Lord Jesus, they thought of a great day of judgment. Even though this thought may appear to us to be so unlike Christmas, it is original Christianity and to be taken extremely seriously. When we hear Jesus knocking, our conscience first of all pricks us: Are we rightly prepared? Is our heart capable of becoming God’s dwelling place?

It is very remarkable that we face the thought of God coming so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the prospect.

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable and forgetting the serious aspect; that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings but, first of all, frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we ever recognize the incomparable kindness of God. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us and comes to us with grace and love. God makes us happy as only children can be happy.

God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be – in our sin, in our suffering and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us. We are no longer homeless; a bit of the eternal home itself has moved into us.

One day, at the last judgment, he will separate the sheep and the goats and will say to those on his right: “Come, you blessed…I was hungry and you fed me…” (Matt. 25:34). To the astonished question of when and where, he answered: “What you did to the least of these, you have done to me…” (Matt. 25:40).

With that we are faced with the shocking reality: Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He asks you for help in the form of a beggar; in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing. He confronts you in every person that you meet. Christ walks on the earth as your neighbor as long as there are people. He walks on the earth as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you and makes his demands. That is the greatest seriousness and the greatest blessedness of the Advent message. Christ stands at the door. He lives in the form of the person in our midst. Will you keep the door locked or open it to him?

Christ is still knocking. It is not yet Christmas. But it is also not the great final Advent, the final coming of Christ. Through all the Advents of our life that we celebrate goes the longing for the final Advent of God.

Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent – that is, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when all people are brothers and sisters and one rejoices in the words of the angels: “On earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.” Learn to wait, because he has promised to come. “I stand at the door…” We however call to him: “Yes, come soon, Lord Jesus!” Amen.


 

Killing Him Softly

C.F. Blumhardt

Given the number of people who've been "saved" these days, you'd think the world was becoming a brighter place. It could be, too, if more people would stop worrying about religion and lose themselves in service to God and each other. People like Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842-1919), the maverick German pastor and religious socialist who wrote the piece below. (in italics)

Blumhardt's witness influenced theological giants like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, but his books (mostly collected sermons and devotions) can hardly be characterized as theology -- they are too blunt, too earthy, too real. Burning away the trappings of modern piety like so much chaff, his "active expectation" of God's kingdom leads us away from ourselves and toward our fellow human beings. Blumhardt's Christ is not the bringer of a new religion (nor a political power-seeker), but a Savior whose humanity brings hope to the despondent, and whose compassionate hands reach down into the darkest places.

Nowadays, unfortunately, many things are done with the idea that the more spiritual and otherworldly we are, the better. But it is just the other way round. The more we learn to seek truth and to act on it as far as possible in the situation in which God has placed us, even if that be in the dirt, the better it is. For the Savior does not want to come as an idea but as a reality, wherever people live and struggle (Matt. 18:20). It is here that we must make way for him and how can we do this except by acting in accordance with his nature? And his nature is simple, true, and genuine.

Every person who is waiting for Jesus can receive a distinct impression of what is right and good (Rom. 2:12-16). Perhaps he may feel that one or the other habit he has cannot be pleasing to God. If he stops it and changes, then he is making way for the one who comes. When our hearts are set on this practical kind of waiting, God will surely guide us every step of the way. In fact, all sincere followers of Jesus will be given so much practical work to do that - if you will permit me to say so - they will hardly have time for long devotions or for sitting in church (James 1:27).

Jesus has been called a founder of a new religion. But that is not God's word to the world. His aim was never to give us a new religion in order that we might live a bit more decently - in that case Moses and his law would have sufficed.

With Jesus' simple command to the disciples the Savior is saying, "Don't make a religion out of me! That which I bring from God is not a religion, for all religions are rigid. They don't want to move forward, they don't intend to change. They set up shrines, they institute museums, they set up councils, and because of all this they are a stumbling block to the world." As a matter of fact - to be quite frank - our religions are a hindrance not only to the world but to the history of humanity.

Nothing is more dangerous to the advancement of God's kingdom than religion. But this is what Christianity has become. Do you not know that it is possible to kill Christ with such Christianity? After all, what is more important - Christianity or Christ? And I'll say even more: we can kill Christ with the Bible! Which is greater: the Bible or Christ? Yes, we can even kill Christ with our prayers. When we approach God with our prayers full of self-love and self-satisfaction, when the aim of our prayers is to make our world great, our prayers are in vain.

The Savior will not allow himself to become petrified in religion. That is why the Savior told the story of the ten virgins, some of whom were wise and others not (Matt. 25:1-13). With this, he says, "There are some who make a religion out of me, a cozy haven, a state of bliss. It is the others who will be the living Christians, always open to change, always seeking something new, until the entire world stands there renewed."

Yes, we love the word of God spoken to humankind but if we truly love it, we will understand that this word is much greater than the Bible. It cannot be chained, written down as if set in cement. When God's word is frozen, even the best Christians are able to justify their hate toward their fellowmen, even killing them and vehemently separating themselves from them.

Today there are Christians who believe that they will (after death or at Jesus' return) fly with the Savior to heaven and then laugh at those left behind. I find it incomprehensible that those who call themselves devout consider themselves better than others or exempt from God's judgment. This kind of religion is false because it separates us from other human beings. I will have nothing to do with it! Jesus entered right into the human condition in all its ugliness. He united with people. He did not separate himself from them.

 

Compelled to HIde
by M. Scott Peck

How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded!  Community requires the ability to expose our wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures.  It also requires the ability to be affected by the wounds of others... But even more important is the love that arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness.

To Be Poor in America
- Eugene Robinson, columnist.

"To be poor in America was to be invisible, but not after this week, not after those images of the bedraggled masses at the Superdome, convention center and airport. No one can claim that the post-Reagan orthodoxy of low taxes and small government, which does wonders for the extremely rich, also inevitably does wonders for the extremely poor. What was that about a rising tide lifting all boats? What if you don't have a boat?"

Joy and Pain
Philip Yancey

"Often a work of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain."

No Place Safe
Frederick Buechner
Those who believe in God can never, in a way, be sure of Him again.  Once they have seen Him in a stable, they can never be sure where He will appear or to what lengths He will go, to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation He will descend in His wild pursuit of man.  If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in the least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant's child, then there is no place or time so lowly or earthbound but that holiness can be present there too.  And this mans that we are never safe, that there is no place that we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from His power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where He seems most helpless that He is most strong, and just where we least expect Him that He comes most fully.

An All-Embracing Love

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Love all God's creation, both the whole and every grain of sand.  Love every leaf, every ray of light.  Love the animals, love the plants, love each thing.  If you love each thing you will perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once you perceive this, you will henceforth grow each day to a fuller understanding of it; until you come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.

So Where Is the Cross?
by Joseph Holub

There is an emerging prevalent attitude in Christianity today that sees God only in success, especially as the world defines success: winning, wealth and security.  I find this to be a very peculiar and hypocritical attitude for a people who have the cross of Jesus as the center of their faith.  I also find it peculiar that when we introduce God into our schemes for war, emphasis on Jesus and being Christ-like, the centrality of his cross and taking it up, seem to evaporate into thin air!  So, I ask,  where is the cross?

Dark Valleys of Growth
by Dave Draveky

God doesn't promise us a life of mountain top experiences.  There will be valleys to go through too; dark valleys; disorienting valleys; valleys of depression and despair.  What He promises is not a road map that will give us a detour around those valleys, but that He will walk through those valleys with us.  When we emerge from those experiences, we look back and realize that is where the growth is.  It isn't on the mountain tops, above the timber line; it's in the valleys.


This I Believe: In Religious Freedom and Toleration
by Pastor Joseph Holub

Thomas Jefferson said, "Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom."  Jefferson also said, "I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."

Soon we will celebrate "Independence Day." I personally prefer "Independence Day" and not "4th of July." To me "4th of July" is a date, whereas "Independence Day" denotes a  sacred occasion. This is the day that we especially give thanks for our incredible nation where we enjoy the greatest and most unprecedented freedoms in human history.

On Independence Day I will give abundant thanks to God for our awesome nation, but not without some grave concerns. It seems as if in recent months there have been many stories in the news about what I perceive to be a growing lack of toleration between religious groups, and between religious groups and non-religious groups. Because I am a Christian and a pastor I would like to comment from the religious side of things.

I get concerned when one's religious expression narrowly identifies true Christian witness with a specific political expression or stance on a specific issue. Personally, I don't find many life issues to be that simplistic or that narrow. I know sincere, conscientious and faithful Christians who fall all along the political spectrum from right to left. I know these sincere people all struggle to apply their understanding and experience of the Christian Faith to the issues of our time, often arrive at differing conclusions. I can live with that, but to carry it a step further and subsequently escalate the rhetoric to a level of mean-spirited condescension only polarizes people, causes creative exchange of ideas to cease, and sows the infant seeds of oppression.

I get concerned when Christian witness becomes intrusive, coercive and condescending against other Christian expressions or other religions. I get very concerned that many attitudes are being identified as "Christian" that seem to me to be very "un-Christ-like."  When I look at the ministry of Jesus I don't perceive that he was intrusive, coercive or condescending. In fact, the only people with whom he seemed to be particularly upset were the religiously self-righteous. We need to learn a lesson about witness from our ultimate mentor Jesus Christ. Jesus' witness was never mean-spirited or narrow. He met people where they were and for whom they were. He ate with "tax collectors and sinners." He never forced people and was never negatively intrusive. It is clear that the one value he brought to every situation was love and respect for the other regardless of whether they were saint or sinner, friend or enemy.

The founding fathers of our nation knew the critical importance of religious freedom and toleration. Thomas Jefferson reminds us that true liberty means, on the one hand, affirming the right to be being committed to one's personal religious beliefs, but on the other hand, also affirming and respecting the right of your neighbor who may have a differing religious and political viewpoint.

As Christians we are called to the mighty and awesome task of applying our faith to the issues of our day. We are all called to be conscientious and faithful public witnesses of our faith. But when our witness becomes intrusive, coercive and condescending I believe we have lost touch with the spirit and attitude of our one true mentor, the Lord Jesus Christ, who willingly went to the cross for His enemies and adversaries. We could say His cross is the most extreme display of toleration in the history of humankind. In fact, Christ went far beyond toleration, to outright unconditional love for His enemies. The underlying power and truth of His witness was suffering love, not coercion or condescension.

I don't perceive many of us are very good at "loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us,"  as Jesus instructed his followers in the Sermon on the Mount. But I do pray that we could at least practice toleration, and that our public witness could be loving, kind, gentle, respectful and non-condescending towards others.

Happy Independence Day!

Black Hole
Diogenes Allen
There is an emptiness at our core that is like a Black Hole, a black hole in space.  A black hole sucks down all matter, and there an emptiness in us which threatens to suck us down as well, although what it is actually doing is dispelling an illusion.  It is not destroying us but revealing to us that we are already a dead thing trying to give life by taking all within its reach.  To be a person, a soul, is to need something beyond oneself to live, whatever we can grasp cannot give us life.  No matter what efforts we make to fill ourselves, we always find ourselves once again empty.


God in Failure?
Cheryl Forbes

Somehow we never see God in failure, but only in success---a strange attitude for people who have the cross as the center of their faith."

Frozen Anger
Henri Nouwen

Looking deeply inside myself and then around me at the lives of other people, I wonder which does more damage, lust or resentment?  There is so much resentment among the "just" and the "righteous."  There is so much judgment, condemnation and prejudice among the "saints."  There is so much frozen anger among people who are so concerned about avoiding "sin."

Justice - Mercy - Grace
by Bruce Larson

God does not mete out His grace only to the deserving.  That's why it is called grace... Someone has said that getting what we deserve is justice.  Not getting what we deserve is mercy.  But getting what we don't deserve ...that is grace. 


The Road Less Traveled

by Robert Frost
I should be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by---
and that has made all the difference. 


Health Club

by Philip Yancey
The health club is a modern temple, complete with initiation rites and elaborate rituals, its object of worship on constant and glorious display.  I detect a trace of theology here, for such devotion to the human form gives evidence of the genius of a Creator who designed with aesthetic flair.  The human person is worth preserving.  And yet, in the end, the health club stands as a pagan temple!  Its members strive to preserve only one part of the person: the body, the least enduring part of all.


"WHO AM I?"

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell’s confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They also tell me
I would talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I would bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.


On the Verge of Despair
Thomas Merton
Only the man who has to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy.  Those who do not want mercy never seek it.  It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness.  A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless that one that always verges on despair. 


Who Are You?

M Craig Barnes
Many today think they can change their "being", who they are, by changing what they do.  Our society claims that if we really want to "be" happy, we have to do something different.  We are offered new products that will do it for us, new lovers to do it with, and new vocations to give us work that will make us significant.  Behind it all is the common lie that what we do creates who we are.


Stained Glass

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out; but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.

Grace
Gordon MacDonald
The world can do almost anything as well or better than the church.  You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick.  There is only one thing the world cannot do.  It cannot offer grace.


Happiness

John Gardner

If happiness could be found in having material things, and in being able to indulge yourself in things you consider pleasurable, than we, in America, would be deliriously happy.  We would be telling one another frequently of our unparalleled bliss, rather than trading tranquilizer prescriptions.


Forgiveness
Lewis Smedes

The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiving... When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.

On Being Saved

Reinhold Niebuhr

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint; therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness

Do More

Do more than exist, live.
Do more than touch, feel.
Do more than look, observe.
Do more than read, absorb.
Do more than hear, listen.
Do more than listen, understand.
Do more than think, ponder.
Do more than talk, say something.
John H. Rhoades
 

Faith is God Holding On To Me
My own faith has continued to be central to my being-in-the-world, but it has not been a fixed and final point impervious to reinterpretation.  Faith in the unchangeableness of God does not entail the unchangeableness of faith itself, for faith is not so much my holding on to God as it is my willingness to let God hold on to me.  Such faith includes the trust that in this process one's relation to God will be deepened rather than destroyed, and that has been my experience.  I don't have the world on a string (or God in a box), as I did when I first came to philosophy.
Merold Westphal

The Question
"The question for agnosticism is, "Who turned on the lights?  The question for faith is, "Whatever for?"
Annie Dillard


The Way to Relief

Eberhard Arnold


The natural world around us shows
the way to relief. All of life is maintained by the sun, by the air, by water, by the earth and its resources. And to whom was the sun given? To everyone. If there is any one thing that people do have in common, it is the gift of sunlight. But as the early Christians said, “If the sun were not hung so high, someone would have claimed it long ago.”

And the desire to own property, to take for ourselves things which in no way belong to us, does not stop short at the sun. The air is already bought and sold as a commodity, by health resorts. And what of water? Or waterpower? Why should the earth be parceled out into private hands? Is it any different from the sun? No; the earth belongs to the people who live on it. God intended it for them, but it has been taken over by private individuals. The word “private” comes from the Latin privar—“to steal.” Thus private property is stolen property – property stolen from God and from humankind! 

Jesus is the friend of humanity and therefore the enemy of private property. He wants people to have true life. He attacked the urge to self-preservation and privilege. He gave up everything and became not only the poorest but also the lowest, for he was classed as a criminal. He kept nothing back for himself. He had no money of his own: his wandering community had a common purse.


Blessed Are the Poor

Jean Vanier


We who are rich are often demanding and difficult. We shut ourselves up in our apartments and may even use a watchdog to defend our property. Poor people, of course, have nothing to defend and often share the little they have.

When people have all the material things they need, they seem not to need each other. They are self-sufficient. There is no interdependence. There is no love. In a poor community, however, there is often a lot of mutual help and sharing of goods, as well as help from outside. Poverty can even become a cement of unity.


If You Truly Love

Mechthild of Magdeburg

If you love Jesus Christ
more than you fear human judgment, then you will not only speak of compassion, but act with it. Compassion means seeing your friend and your enemy in equal need, and helping both equally. It demands that you seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner, and comfort him and offer him your help. Herein lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devil much distress.

Why the World Is Upside Down

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Jesus taught us how to forgive out of love, how to forget out of humility. So let us examine our hearts and see if there is any unforgiven hurt - any unforgotten bitterness!

It is easy to love those who are far away. It isn't always easy to love those who are right next to us. It is easier to offer food to the hungry than to answer the lonely suffering of someone who lacks love right in one’s own family.

The world today is upside down because there is so very little love in the home, and in family life. We have no time for each other. Everybody is in such a terrible rush, and so anxious…and in the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.

If I Do That
..
Soren Kierkegaard

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.


Even Though...

Even though we are surrounded by death and darkness in so many literal and metaphorical ways on a daily basis, the light still shines in the darkness, and it is enough; it is the gift of all gifts; it is grace!
Joseph Holub, April 14, 2005   -The day my mother died.


Children

Eberhard Arnold

It is children who lead us to the gospel… We are not worthy to educate them. Our lips are unclean; our dedication is not wholehearted. Our truthfulness is partial; our love divided. Our kindness is not without motives. We ourselves are not yet free of lovelessness, possessiveness, and selfishness… Only wise men and saints, only those who stand as children before God, are really fit to live and work with children.

Cross-Shattered Christ
Stanley Hauerwas

“My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?” shatters all our attempts to understand God in human terms. We try, for example, to compliment God by saying that God is transcendent, but ironically our very notion of transcendence can make God a creature after our own hearts.

Our idea of God, our assumption that God must possess the sovereign power to make everything turn out all right for us, at least in the long run, is revealed by Jesus’s cry of abandonment to be the idolatry it is. The god we assume is but a name we sue to impose some purpose on what we otherwise think is blind fate comes to ruin in these words from the cross.

These words from the cross, the cross itself, mean that the Father is to be found when all traces of power, at least as we understand power, are absent; that the Spirit’s authoritative witness is most clearly revealed when all forms of human authority are lost; and that our God’s power and authority is to be found exemplified in this captive under the sentence of death.

The silence of Jesus before Pilate can now be understood for what it was—namely, that Jesus refuses to accept the terms of how the world understands power and authority. In truth we stand with Pilate. We do not want to give up our understanding of God. We do not want Jesus to be abandoned because we do not want to acknowledge that the one who abandons and is abandoned is God. We seek to “explain” these words of dereliction, to save and protect God from making a fool out of being God, but our attempts to protect God reveal how frightening we find a God who refuses to save us by violence.

God is most revealed when he seems to us the most hidden. “Christ’s moment of most absolute particularity—the absolute dereliction of the cross—is the moment in which the glory of God, his power to be where and when he will be, is displayed before the eyes of the world,” says David Bentley Hart. Here God in Christ refuses to let our sin determine our relation to him. God’s love for us means he can hate only that which alienates his creatures from the love manifest in our creation.



Known By Their Deeds

by William J Bow


For nearly two millennia
theologians and philosophers have asked, “What does it mean to be a Christian?” Today we might ask, “What is the unchanging essence of Christianity?”

The answer can be found in its origins and the amazing things that happened in the infant church as it responded to the soaring promise of the New Testament.

The early Christians felt that God had revealed himself in Christ. They felt that God had been met and engaged and they strove to let his spirit rule their lives.

Their beliefs were simple. Prior to the development of theological Christianity, they focused on the message of the Gospels and the one commandment, “Love God and neighbor.”

The early Christians were passionate about helping the sick and the poor. Mother Teresa would have gone unnoticed if she had she lived during the first three centuries of Christianity. Hers was a life of sharing and caring, as were the lives of the early Christian people.


Let Go, and Respond
Thich Nhat Hanh

Let go, and respond  to the immediate needs around you. Don't get caught in some false perception of yourself. There will always be another person more gifted than you. And don't perceive your position as important, but be ready to serve at any moment. If you can let go of who you think you are, you will become free - ready to love others. If you learn to see your impermanence, you will be able to live for the moment and not miss opportunities to love by pushing things into the future.


Only Then
Romano Guardini

Thomas appears to have been a realist - reserved, cool, perhaps a little obstinate. He wanted proofs, wanted to see and touch. Then again, it might have been rebellion deep within him, the vainglory of an intelligence that would not surrender, a sluggishness and coldness of heart. In any case, he got what he asked for…in that state of unbelief which cuts itself off from everything, that insists on human evidence to become convinced. But nothing that comes from God can be proven like 2 x 2=4. It must touch one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit purged of self. Only then can it awaken faith.

 
Our True Life
Leo Tolstoy

Our true life is not this external, material life that passes before our eyes here on earth, but the inner life of our spirit, for which the visible life serves only as a scaffolding—a necessary aid to our spiritual growth. 

Seeing before him an enormously high and elaborately constructed scaffolding, while the building itself only just shows above its foundations, man is apt to make the mistake of attaching more importance to the scaffolding than to the building for whose sake the former has been temporarily put up.

We must remind ourselves and one another that the scaffolding has no meaning and importance except to render possible the erection of the building itself.

The Riddle of Salvation
Christopher Friedrich Blumhardt

The riddle must be solved in you—the riddle of your heart, which makes you so stubborn, ill-humored, and querulous; so hard of hearing and so apathetic.  God means to see it answered in you, and thus you must grapple with it…

You rack your brain to solve the mystery of the Savior, but you would do better to examine the puzzle of your own heart. You should be wondering why you are so impenetrable: why your intentions, which are always so noble, are followed by so few good deeds; why, despite your pious impulses, your life is so lacking in genuine devotion; why, when it comes to really getting things done, you turn out to be so feeble, so lame. You are always sighing, it is true, but to what effect?

“Faith is no safeguard against stupidity; indeed, most people are living proof that faith can lead to stupidity.”
 
Passover Thoughts

Abraham Joshua Heschel

We are all Pharaohs or slaves of Pharaohs. It is sad to be a slave of a Pharaoh. It is horrible to be a Pharaoh. Daily we should take account and ask: What have I done today to alleviate the anguish, to mitigate the evil, to prevent humiliation? Let there be a grain of prophet in every person!

You are always struggling, but where are your victories? You are always shooting down someone or something, yet never prevail.  These are the enigmas that ought to occupy you: everything else is irrelevant.

Don’t be tempted to believe that some man of God can help you; that a pastor or priest, an institution or an organization can save your soul.  Each of us must tackle the riddle of salvation for himself; each must battle his own nature; each one must abandon himself if he is to grasp spiritual things.

C. F. Blumhardt, from Die, and Jesus Will Live (1891)


Waiting for Judas
Madeleine L’Engle

John says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

When the world rejected that love and crucified it, Jesus did not lash back; he cried out in love and forgiveness.

Things are never quite the way they seem: things do not look the way we think they ought to look. Isaiah’s description of Christ as the Suffering Servant bears little resemblance to the pretty young man with the beautifully combed beard and melancholy eyes we so often see depicted. But Isaiah’s description rings much more true. In his own day, Jesus was a monster to many, disconcerting them with his unpredictability and the company he kept, vanishing to go apart to pray and to be alone with his Father just when people thought they needed him.

Perhaps if we are brave enough to accept our monsters, to love them, to kiss them, we will find that we are touching not the terrible dragon that we feared, but the loving Lord of all Creation.

And when we meet our Creator, we will be judged for all our turnings away, all our inhumanity to each other, but it will be the judgment of inexorable love, and in the end we will know the mercy of God which is beyond all comprehension. And we will know, as Hosea knew, that the heavenly Spouse says, "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion."

It is too good to believe; it is too strong, so we turn away, and the church leaves the Song of Songs out of the lectionary. But we can put it back in.

To the ancient Hebrew the love of God for his chosen people transcended the erotic love of man and woman. For the early Christian, it was the love of Christ for the church. For all of us it is the longing love of God for his Creation, a love which is too strong for many of us to accept. 

There is an old legend that after his death Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit. For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent he looked up and saw, way, way up, a tiny glimmer of light. After he had contemplated it for another thousand years or so, he began to try to climb up towards it. The walls of the pit were dank and slimy, and he kept slipping back down. Finally, after great effort, he neared the top, and then he slipped and fell all the way back down. It took him many years to recover, all the time weeping bitter tears of grief and repentance, and then he started to climb up again. After many more falls and efforts and failures he reached the top and dragged himself into an upper room with twelve people seated around a table. "We’ve been waiting for you, Judas," Jesus said. "We couldn’t begin till you came."

I heard my son-in-law, Alan, tell this story at a clergy conference. The story moved me deeply. I was even more deeply struck when I discovered that it was a story that offended many of the priests and ministers there. I was horrified at their offense. Would they find me, too, unforgivable?

But God, the Good Book tells us, is no respecter of persons, and the happy ending isn’t promised to an exclusive club. It isn’t-face it-only for Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Episcopalians. What God began, God will not abandon. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. God loves everyone, sings the psalmist: what God has named will live forever.

The happy ending has never been easy to believe in. After the Crucifixion the defeated little band of disciples had no hope, no expectation of Resurrection. Everything they believed in had died on the cross with Jesus. The world was right, and they had been wrong. Even when the women told the disciples that Jesus had left the stone-sealed tomb, the disciples found it nearly impossible to believe that it was not all over. The truth was, it was just beginning.

Tsunami Victims Prayer

 Gracious God,

Words cannot adequately expressed what we feel today in the face of the magnitude of the human loss and the grief, suffering and pain the tsunami left in its wake.  People of every race, nation and religion are shocked and grieved.

 We shout and scream for answers and there are none that could ever satisfy the ache we feel in our hearts. 

 But then “the Word made flesh” passes before us, first as a vulnerable child, and then as a vulnerable man, and we try to comprehend the tsunami of hate and sin that destroyed him and grieved your heart. 

 Because of Jesus we know that your divine heart grieves today with every human grieving heart, and that the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ is present even in the darkest crevices of darkness.

 We pray for the victims that the power of your Spirit would give them hope and assurance, even in their indescribable suffering.  We pray that the political, community and spiritual leaders of every land and tongue would call upon their people to rise up with compassion and resources to help rebuild and restore the devastation of the land and people. 

 We pray for those who lost loved ones; lost their homes; their possessions; those who are sick and the dying. 

 We know that human resource cannot restore the 130,000 lost lives.  We know the names of some might never be known, but we know every one is known to you. 

 May this unprecedented human disaster bring the whole world together, laying aside differences and disagreements; animosities and hatreds; divisions and disunions; and may the very best of the human spirit burst forth to provide light for a new day for all who are in the darkness. 

 All of this and all of that we cannot find the words to express we pray in the name of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

 

Where are you, God of salvation? (A Tsunami Lament)
A hymn following and based on Psalm 88. t
Tune: Bryn Calfaria (87874447)

"Where are you, God of salvation?"
earth cries out to the darkest night.
Overturned is all creation
in the chaos of ocean's might.
Hearts and minds are
filled with anguish,
hell draws nearer -
numbered we among the dead.

All our help is gone and vanished,
lost, forsaken, we seem to be.
Earth's delight for us is banished;
grave and death-trench are all we see.
Heavy is our
fear and panic,
flood and tempest
threaten all our hopes and dreams.

How can we still sing your praises
when our world is devoured by death -
in the village that flood razes,
where its people no more draw breath?
Dark is daylight,
dark as thunder,
dark is terror
as the abyss opens wide.

Easy answers would demean us;
empty promises have no place.
Close the distance set between us
in the chasm that shows its face.
In the struggle,
of re-building,
give your courage
to those making all things new.

© 2004 Paul P J Sheppy
(Pastor of the Abbey Baptist Church, Reading, UK, and Research Fellow in Liturgy, Regent's Park College, University of Oxford)
Written after the tsunami of 26 December 2004 in South Asia


The Showing Forth of Christ

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr.  He found a Golgatha, where he was crucified, even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last.    His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but evening and morning of the same day.  And as even his birth is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us is his birth, for Epiphany is manifestation.  Every manifestation of Christ to the world, to the Church, to a particular soul is an Epiphany, a Christmas Day.
- John Donne


A SONG CALLED GRACE
Joseph Holub

Lord Jesus, when you were born the angels sang and the shepherds came to worship at your manger.
When you died there were no angels singing and no shepherds worshiping - only agony and anger.

There were only sounds of mocks and jeers;
the sounds of cowardly silence of even your peers.

But yet there was a song that dark Friday; the muted song you sang from your cross; a song that no one heard right then,
but it was the song you were born to sing again and again.

You sang it for those who watched you die;
you sang it for all of those who ever cry;
you sang it for those who nailed you to the tree;
you sang it to all - even to me.

"Father, forgive them!" It's the great song called grace,
"For God so loved the world he gave..."
the song you sang for every time and place. Amen.
 

Smoke and Mirrors
Joseph Holub

 “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness…  saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  I baptize you with water for repentance… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand… and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  Matthew 3:12

 You have heard the expression, “They are doing it with smoke and mirrors.” Of course the expression refers to illusion, magic, trickery, or cunning.   The expression can be applied to most anything.   Of a mediocre sports team that defies the odds and keeps winning we might say, “They are doing it with smoke and mirrors.”

 It might be used to describe politician who has projected false impressions.

 It might be used to describe anyone who employs cunning and trickery to accomplish their purposes – “smoke and mirrors.”

 I believe this Advent gospel  is about God using “smoke and mirrors” to accomplish His purposes.  The difference is that here there are no illusions; no tricks; no magic; no cunning – nothing but the truth.

 When we were kids we used to love playing with mirrors.  In fact it was favorite game in the evening, after sunset, to get as many mirrors as we could find, and using our flashlights, to see how far and around how many corners we could flash Morse Code, setting up the mirrors to reflect the beam of light around corners and upstairs.  It was great fun.  I remember once we reflected the beam of light, using at least 8-10 mirrors, all around the outside of our houses and then back inside.

 One of the things that strikes me about John is that he reflected the coming Messiah.  His life pointed beyond itself to the One who was coming.  In that sense John’s life was like a mirror.    Apparently some thought that John was the messiah.  But John made it clear that the purpose of his life was to mirror the One who was coming. 

 So who or what does your life reflect?  What or who do you mirror to the world.  Do you mirror the life of the Messiah of God?  Or do you mirror your own agenda?

 Second, John said there would be fire, and where there is fire there is smoke?  John said the Messiah would clear the threshing floor and save the wheat and burn the chaff.  It was a familiar agricultural metaphor.  The thing that I believe many people miss about this text is that all of our lives contain both wheat and chaff?  It is not a matter of having one without the other.  We all have both.  Many have used this passage to instill fear in people or to judge people.  Many divide up the human race between the wheat and the chaff – and of course it is usually those who perceive themselves to be the wheat that are doing the dividing up.  But notice the action in the passage.  It is the messiah who is doing the separating – not us.  This is a description of what the messiah does inside of us.  To me it is a passage of hope and grace.  It’s a promise.  Repentance means to turn toward the messiah, let him in, and allow him to perform his good work of grace inside of us.   In the end only He can save us – only He can separate the wheat from the chaff and do away with the chaff once and for all.

 The bottom line is that this passage is about smoke and mirrors.  The smoke of God’s fire of grace, and the mirrors we can become as a result to reflect the coming Messiah to the world. 


The Passion of the Christ
Joseph Holub

If you strip away 20 centuries of doctrinal development within Christianity…

If you strip away 20 centuries of church history…

If you strip away 20 centuries of Christian traditions…

If you strip away 20 centuries of preaching and the billions of words, spoken and written that have been expressed and proclaimed regarding the faith…

If you strip away 500 years of denominational development….

If you strip away all theological discourse, debate, and disagreement…

If you strip away the myriad of contemporary issues over which we may agree or disagree in terms of applying our faith… 

If you strip away Christianity's great teachers and heroes like Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Lewis, and hundreds more… 

If you strip away all expressions of piety and spirituality…

If you strip away the magnificent works of Christian art that grace the walls of the great galleries of the world…

If you strip away all the creeds that have ever been written…

If you strip away everything that Jesus ever said and did up until the last week of his life…

             …you are left with a man who rode into town a hero one day, and a few days later was executed in the most heinous manner…

             …you are left with a man who died a hideous death at the hands of both the religious and secular; the believer and non-believers alike…

            …you are left with a man who in spite of having everything thrown at him that was evil and sinful, hurtful and hateful, still never wavered from his mission of love… 

            …you are left with the passion of the Christ. 

            This is what our faith finally gets down to after everything is stripped away.  The Passion of the Christ -  whether we are talking about the movie, or the accounts we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.   

What it finally gets down to for me, after everything has been stripped away, is just this. 

It's an experience of unmasking.
    First, it unmasks the capacity within all of us to be reduced and dehumanized by our own sin and fall under the spell of hatred and total contempt for another.
    Second, it unmasks the incredible lengths that God is willing to go to demonstrate unconditional divine love for the very ones who committed such horrendous crimes against the only Son of God.
 

You can believe it to be true or not.  But know this.  If you are looking for a love in this universe that is infinitely greater that the sum of all human love, here is where you will find it. 

If you do not believe it to be true, then you are saying that no such love exists, and in the end all is vanity and meaninglessness.

If you do believe it to be true, then I say, be careful, because it will change who you are and how you live in ways you cannot imagine.


How Big Is Your God?

"Now when the first came they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last only worked one hour, and you would have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat?' [The landowner said] 'Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?" Matthew 20:10-15

I really believe one of the biggest temptations we face every minute of every day is to make God too small - to put God into a box - to make God as small as our aspirations - to make God fit comfortably into our lives - to conform God to our values - to shape God around our prejudices and fears - to paint a picture of God who fits our conception of who we think God should be. The whole thing is based on our ability to delude ourselves into thinking that's the way God really is.

The paramount temptation for the Christian is to sculpt God into our image rather than allow God to sculpt us in His image, even when God seemingly departs in a direction opposite from what from all our sensibilities are telling us is rational.

Whenever we start to play God, we always, every time without exception overstep our bounds, and in the process, God is domesticated to look much more like us than we ever begin to look like God. For all practical purposes God becomes the God of our stratagems and schemes. God gets put in a box. And, if we get a sense that God might be bigger than the box within which we have locked him, we can begin to sound a lot like those disgruntled workers in Jesus' parable, "God, who do you think you are to behave in such a way? God?"

The temptation is to violate, in a very cleverly subtle way, the first commandment that God put to his people, "Have no other gods." We violate it, but delude ourselves into thinking we don't. We do it by trivializing God. We live with a god we create in our own image.

If this parable tells us anything at all, God will not be trivialized down to human-sized aspirations. God will not be domesticated to fads and fancies. God has ways that are far beyond us and beyond our reckonings.

This parable provides a wry glimpse at the difference between God's designs and human desires and even accepted human values. The landowner's generosity is bestowed on these last hired laborers for a reason known only to him. He does not explain or apologize for the accounting system that lavishes the same wage on everyone hired, regardless of the amount of time logged on the job. The only response the landowner gives to the disgruntled workers is, "Am I not allow to do what I choose with what belongs to me?"

The utter and unmitigated sovereignty of God is something that we humans have never been wholly comfortable with. Most of us would prefer a more democratic system of rule, a system where we would get a vote or at least more say in the matter of how God is to act. It would be a way to keep God in check when God is out of control, especially when God goes crazy with grace.
   Joseph Holub,  June 18, 2004


Essence
"...the only thing that counts is faith working through love." 
Galatians 5:6
    The good news is that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ through grace and forgiveness of our sins to re-establish the relationship we have broken.  We now live out our daily lives in gratitude for the grace and reconciliation we do not deserve bringing glory and honor to God and His only Son with lives of  "faith working through love."
    This is the essence of Christian faith.
Joseph Holub, June 9, 2004


A World That Has Lost Its Soul 
"And the Word became flesh and lived among us… full of grace and truth."  John 1:14 

     Let's face it, we live in an age where science and technology have beaten back the boundaries of inner and outer space to such an extent we often assume that everything is understandable on an empirical level, and that nothing is ultimately mysterious. In our scientific age mystery has been shoved aside and everything is measured, analyzed and categorized.  In such an age what do we make of an angel's announcement, a virgin who gives birth, shepherds who are visited by angels, a star who leads the curious, and God who comes as an infant?   If you cannot run the results through a computer, it must not be real.
    But you know what?  I believe a world that cannot live with mystery is a world that has lost its soul!
    Human knowledge has allowed us to do many wonderful things.  But even so, the very same technology before which we bow and make our god has also put us on the brink of any number of cliffs over which we could tumble to a tragic and devastating fall.
    Life has been too much reduced to charts, megabytes and things which interface.  We are becoming the products of input and output and reams of paper which spew from our gadgets. Technology has done much, but has it really changed the human condition or enlivened the human soul?
     Cures for diseases that have eluded us may be on the near horizon, but even if we do find a cure for AIDS, has our technology helped us become any more compassionate to those who have it.
     Does our technology help us when we cry and weep over our losses, failures and the treachery of others?
    The last few years have revealed starkly that we will still climb over each other ruthlessly trying to make our way to some mythical top, where the tree of happiness is rumored to be planted.
    Can technology do anything about the way we put each other down and then wonder  why we are not loved more than we are?
    You see, the most important issues of life are not and cannot be solved by all the technological competence, gadgetry and scientific wisdom we have amassed or will ever amass.
    The most important issues of life like forgiveness and reconciliation; tenderness; peace; purpose; joy; fulfillment; unconditional love; these things are all a part of the mystery before which life must be lived, and once we have mislaid our sense of awe; our sense of the holy; our sense of that which is mysterious, we are lost.
    How is it that the great creator God of the universe who by whatever process that we will most likely eventually understand, flung the stars and planets into space, and created the inner intricacies of the genetic code; how is it that God loves us?  That is not a question we can take into the lab and solve; it is a mystery before which we bow.
  Joseph Holub, June 8, 2004


A NEW SELF
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me."  Gal.  2:20
     That's a bold descriptive declaration of what it meant for Paul to name himself a disciple and follower of Jesus.  "To be crucified" with Christ is to have all of who you are nailed to cross and buried in a tomb - period!  This is an affront to our self-realization culture that worships the idea that the individual person is the center of everything.  But Paul lived his life as if it were no longer his own.  His life belonged to Jesus Christ.  The living Jesus Christ now lived his life through Paul.  When people encountered Paul, they did not encounter merely Paul, but in a mysterious and almost unfathomable way they encountered Jesus. 
    This is hard pill for us to swallow, especially those of us who wish to assert self over everything.  This is, even more, a hard thing to trust.  We desperately hang on to self at all costs and refuse to let go.  This is a gospel paradox, and this is what makes it so hard.  We are called to trust a gospel paradox.  The paradox is just this.  When you allow your self to die and the living Christ to take its place you receive a new self back that is more amazing and miraculous than your original self ever was - it is the self of Christ merged with the God given uniqueness of who you are. 
Joseph Holub, June 3, 2004

God's Great Gift
  
  Sunday May 30th was Pentecost Sunday, the day the church celebrates God's gift of the Holy Spirit.  There is much I could say about the Holy Spirit, and there is much that the Bible teaches.  Ten of thousands of volumes have been written over the centuries regarding the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit.  One passage that has always been a favorite of mine appears in John 14:18.  From it I have drawn an immense amount of comfort, assurance and power over the span of my lifetime.  In John 14 Jesus is preparing his disciples for his inevitable departure from them.   He tells them that he is going to a place where they cannot follow, at least yet.  He knows this will produce a great amount of fear and anxiety in their hearts, so he gives them a great promise.  He says, "I will not leave you orphaned..."
    If you scrape away all of our bravado and insistence upon self self-reliance, one of our biggest fears is that we will be left alone.  Modern psychology tells us that one of the biggest human fears is dying alone.  
   There are many things that can happen in life that can leave us feeling alone and cut off from God and from one another.    The great promise of Pentecost is that God does not leave us "orphaned," but promises always to be present no matter what lonely place or dilemma we may find ourselves in.
    Think of a time when you felt "alone" and cut off.  How did God come to you?
Joseph Holub, June 1, 2004

Productivity and Grace
   
We live in a culture that equates self-worth with productivity.  We hold a faith that equates self worth with being loved unconditionally.  Often the two come into conflict.  I have found it to be the case in my recuperation over the past month in what is now two surgeries in 28 days.  I have found myself feeling guilty for taking sufficient time off to recover.  I have found myself angry at my own body for failing me and not healing faster.  I have found myself sitting smack in the middle of this conflict of productivity and grace.  Perhaps even the "doing" of these "Reflections" is a way to resolve the conflict and feel productive.
    I suspect that a very mature level of faith is a faith that can simply rest back in the arms of God's grace and accept the unconditional love that is there all the time for me (and you).  But let's face it, it is hard to trust that kind of love because it is a rare, perhaps non-existent, thing in the everyday world; a world in which we are bombarded constantly with the message that unless we are "doing something" we are not worth anything. 
    God save me from this conflict and help me to surrender to your love, so that even when I am being productive, I can still see myself and others as your children, and that before doing anything we are each cherished and loved by you.
   How does this conflict between productivity and grace manifest itself in your life?
- Joseph Holub, May 26, 2004

"Christianity is..."
    How would you complete the sentence, and it can only be one sentence?   "Christianity is..."   I acknowledge that this little exercise forces you to oversimplify, but it is a good exercise.  When you boil things down to the basics, to one sentence, what is Christianity?  What is the nature of Christian faith - your faith?  I complete the sentence with these two words - "following Jesus."  "Christianity is following Jesus." 
    Since, before everything else,  Christianity is "following Jesus,"  and not a bunch of other things that we often make it to be, I must get to know Jesus.  I must diligently read, study and absorb the gospels.  I must see how Jesus interacted and related to many different kinds of people: sinners, outcasts, men, women, sick, healthy, rich, poor, religious, believers, non-believers, old, young, foreigners, neighbors, friends, enemies, etc. 
    Since Christianity is "following Jesus" I am called to be Jesus to those around me and relate to them as Jesus would.  Jesus is my Lord and Savior.  Relationship with Jesus is the essence of Christianity.  Being Jesus to others is my call. 
- Joseph Holub, May 25, 2004

Centering
It seems that more and more Christians are "centering" their faith around political issues, and there are so many issues to choose from nowadays - many of them volatile and, of course, divisive.  More and more Christians  are making issues the center and agreement on the issues as qualification for membership into their church - or even into the kingdom of God!  But I have to challenge  this kind of thinking.  Jesus certainly wasn't "centered" on issues.  His "center" was his relationship with God, his father.  His focus was people - loving people and extending God's grace to people, even his enemies!  You can't put two things at the "center" and Christians above all others should know it, as we preach it all the time.  But Christianity has fallen victim to the mistaken notion that a specific position on a certain issue is the ticket that gets you in.  There is only one issue that is pertinent to entrance into the kingdom of God:  that we are ALL sinners and in need of God's grace and forgiveness.  The issues of life and culture change with time.  Life is broken, fallen and complex, and on this side of heaven not even Christians are going to agree on all the issues.  But the one thing I pray we can agree on is that "centering" has to do with relationship with God through Jesus - and nothing else.
- Joseph Holub, May 20, 2004

"Thy will be done"
"To say that we abandon our will to another's will seems very easy until through experience we realize that this is the hardest thing one can do if one does it as it should be done."
- Teresa of Avila


What Happened to Radical Christianity?
by Robert Ferrar Capon

What happened to radical Christianity--the un-nice brand of Christianity that turned the world upside down?  What happened to the category smashing, life threatening, anti-institutional gospel that spread through the first century like wildfire and was considered (by those in power) dangerous?  What happened to the kind of Christians whose hearts were on fire, who had no fear, who spoke the truth no matter what the consequence, who made the world uncomfortable, who were willing to follow Jesus wherever he went? What happened to the kind of Christians who were filled with passion and gratitude and whom every day were unable to get over the grace of God?   I'm ready for a Christianity that "ruins" my life, that captures my heart and makes me uncomfortable.  I want to be filled with astonishment which is so captivating that I am considered wild and unpredictable and.. well... dangerous.  Yes, I want to be dangerous to a dull and boring religion.  I want a faith that is considered 'dangerous' by our predictable and monotonous culture.


To Overcome Evil
by Howard Thurman

I seek the strength to overcome evil.
I seek the strength to overcome evil in my own heart.
I recognize the tendency to do the unkind thing when the mood of retaliation 
    or revenge rides high in my spirit.
I recognize the tendency to make of others a means to my own ends.
I recognize the tendency to yield to fear and cowardice when fearlessness
   and courage seem to fit easily into the pattern of my security.
I seek the strength to overcome the tendency to evil in my own heart.

I seek the strength to overcome the evil that is present all about us.
I recognize the evil in much of the organized life about me.
I recognize the evil in the will to power as found in groups, institutions and individuals.
I recognize the terrible havoc of hate and bitterness which makes for fear and panic
   in common life.
I seek the strength to overcome evil the evil that is present all about me.

I seek the strength to overcome evil; I must not be overcome by evil.
I seek the purification of my own heart, the purging of my own motives.
I seek the strength to withstand the logic of bitterness, the terrible divisiveness of hate, the demonic
   triumph of the conquest of others.

What I seek for myself I desire with all my heart for friend and foe alike.
I seek the strength to overcome evil.


Tigers That Live Like Goats

"...you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."  John 8:32

There's a wonderful old story about a little motherless tiger cub who was ADOPTED, RAISED, and REARED by a community of goats. The tiger cub was taught to speak the goats' language; to emulate the goats' ways; to imitate the goats' habits; to eat the goats' food;  to live a goat's life.  In every way the little tiger cub was taught to believe that he really was a goat and not a tiger at all!

One day down by the river, a full grown adult king tiger came wandering along, and all the goats scattered in every direction out of fear for their lives, except for this one young tiger cub! For reasons he could not explain the little tiger cub didn't run, but he stayed. The king tiger asked the young tiger cub just what he meant by this silly masquerade, but all the young tiger could do was to bleat nervously like a goat and continue to nibble away at the lush grass along the riverbank.

The king tiger then took the little tiger down next to the river by a little pool of clear backwater where he forced the little tiger to look at their two reflections in the water, side by side and then hopefully draw his own proper conclusion to his true identity. But this also failed and the little tiger went back to nibbling on the lush grass. Totally frustrated, the king tiger finally offered the little tiger his very first piece of raw meat. At first, the young tiger, as he cautiously smelled and then licked at the meat, recoiled and winced at the strong and unfamiliar taste of it. But, drawn to it he took a little bite, and then another, and another, and as he ate more and more, the raw meat began to WARM HIS BLOOD... and HEAT HIS PASSION... and slowly but surely the TRUTH gradually became clear to him... and he finally knew the truth... and the TRUTH SET HIM FREE from his goat-hood prison... and LASHING his tail, the young tiger cub for the very first time raised his head high, and the jungle trembled and shook at the sound of his magnificent roar!

Sin means we are tigers that live like goats.  It is one of life's greatest tragedies that most of the time we are satisfied to live like goats. It is God's purpose that we be set free from our goat-hood prisons and begin to live like the tigers we were created to be.  The only one who can set us free is Christ the Tiger.  As we live in him and he in us we are transformed into the tigers we were meant to be.