Sharing Statement March 1, 2015

Today our scripture came from the Gospel of Mark.  Mark emphasizes Jesus' call to sacrifice by those who would follow him, and dwells on the Passion, Jesus' ultimate sacrifice.  What does that mean for us?   I believe it means giving sacrificially with our time, talent and treasure to see that God's will is accomplished on earth.  This church is a good place to give your time, talent and treasure as we embark on a new vision for an old institution.   Right now, we ask you to share your treasure. 

Deborah, Barak and Jael

In the story of Deborah and Barak in the book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible,  Deborah, a married woman, was a judge and prophetess; Barak was a military leader then judge. Barak hesitated to lead his army against the Canaanites. Deborah challenged him to follow God's will. With her by his side, Barak led his army against the Canaanites and conquered. The result was 40 years of peace.

Has history repeated itself?  Did President Obama achieve a great victory when Hillary Clinton was by his side as Secretary of State?  I do not know, but I see no peace.

Perhaps there is another woman to be focused on: Jael.  She drives a tent peg through the brain of the enemy general while he sleeps.  With his death, the conflict is ended.  Deborah had predicted that the general would die at the hand of a woman.

Is Elizabeth Warren the next Jael?  Will she drive a tent peg through the capitalist system that controls our nations wealth at the expense of the middle class and poor?  I hope so.

Salomon de Bray, the artist, shows Jael, with hammer and pin, next to Deborah and Barak.

Christian Inaction and the Second Coming

 Literal belief in Jesus and the Bible restrict climate change legislation

 

I am a scientist and a Christian.  I received my doctorate in chemistry at the age of 25.  I became a Christian at age of 29. The above article is very good on the views of scientists, but very poor on its analysis of the Christian belief in the  second coming of Jesus. I have a literal view of Jesus but still believe in all the tenets of modern science including evolution and that climate change is man-made.

The only conflict that exists lies between fundamentalist Christians (a small but media savvy group) and atheists who enjoy portraying all Christians as fundamentalists.  There is no conflict in belief about the reality of man-made climate change and their faith in the minds of mainstream Christians.  Mainstream Christians believe just as scientists do that we must take action now.  My own view is that we are too late.  We have sown the wind, we will reap the whirlwind.

The author of the article failed to realize that it is not the belief in the Second Coming of Christ that determines how a Christian acts, but whether the belief is that the Second Coming is predictable and imminent. The immediacy of the Second Coming is a staple of fundamentalists who believe that the trumpet shall sound and Christ return within their lifetimes. Most believers in the immediacy of the Second Coming will tell you that they expect it to occur at any moment. Essentially, they are always looking over their shoulder for God.

I believe in the Second Coming but do not believe we will ever know how close or how far it is from us.  Jesus himself said in the Gospel of Mark that only God knows the schedule, that he did not.  If the Word of God did not know, how can we? 

Ministers, tel-evangelists, and end times writers teach an all too gullible Christian fringe that the end is upon us, so get your spiritual affairs in order.  This teaching that we know Christ will return in the present day yields at least two results.

First, the imminent Second Coming scares believers.  This fear triggers a blind obedience to the purveyors of this fear.  Out of fear that they are not right with God, believers give money to or buy things from those who claim that they know how believers can be safe. The focus is on saving yourself and lost souls by converting them to the only correct faith. (For my views on the many paths to God, read this. )

Second, the idea of an imminent Second Coming encourages believers to ignore the injustices around them. They reason that if Jesus is due any day now there is no need for them to take action because Jesus will fix everything.  Better to spend their time focused on getting right with God than follow Jesus' command to help the least.

The time has come for mainstream Christians to make the media acknowledge a more complex faith than fundamentalists' sound bite theology, and to destroy the miasma of fear that too many create to line their own pockets.  We must stand up for the intellectual truths of Christianity, for knowledge and understanding.  We must embrace science and show there is no reason to fear it.  We must demonstrate a faith inspired by a holy book, not bound by it. Above all, we must make known the diversity and intellectual honesty of modern Christianity.  

 

 

Sequester and the Moral Failure of Congress

Last week Congress voted to end flight delays by voting more money for the FAA. This was a self-serving and a genuflect to the wealthy. I am appalled that while so many suffer Congress chose to act on that measure.

"Repealing the small part of sequestration that affected Congress itself and the donor class, while letting cancer patients go without chemotherapy, seniors go without meals on wheels, pregnant mothers go without nutritional assistance, and children get kicked out of Head Start programs, is a new low in our debased public morality." Fear of Flying: Cancer v. flight delays from the Washington Post.

I am a Christian.  I have never believed we were meant to be a Christian Nation nor have we ever been one. The sequester confirms we are not one.  I believe we are being judged by how we treat the least among us and we are abject failures.

Matthew 25: 31-46

The Judgement of the Nations

 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. 

Will we raise our voices for those sick with cancer, seniors without food, mothers without food for their babies, little children denied education because they are poor?

Will we raise our voices for the immigrant(the stranger), for the unjustly imprisoned, for the poor, and all who suffer needlessly in this nation of wealth? 

Will Congress stand up for the least or grovel before their rich donors' Golden Calf?

Will we worship Mammon instead of God?

The Decline in Church Attendance - A Benefit

There continues to be articles that either lament the decreased attendance in mainline churches in the United States or rejoice in the decline of the institutionalized church.  Both see as an increased absence of religion in younger Americans.  One side recoils in horror for souls they assume are lost forever while others cheer the downfall of established churches assuming that their own movements can profit from mainline Protestant decline.  I believe that the smaller numbers in attendance do not reflect a change in faith but instead a change in American mores.  Ultimately, mainline churches will benefit from congregations of the committed.

When I was a kid in the fifties, church attendance was mandatory in order to function in society.  People who did not attend some religious institution were seen as outside the bounds of society.  Their businesses were to be shunned and their children proselytized. I lived in a city that was predominately Southern Baptist, so the majority of church goers were Baptist even if they were only "Sunday Baptists" engaging in less than Christian practices during the week.

By the sixties, community standards were beginning to relax,  As a teenager, I could stop attending church with only mild approbrium from family and friends. (The church my mother and I attended did not approve of members asking questions.  I was told my questions were a sign of unbelief.)  Adults still faced social stigma for not attending church at least once a month.

By the time I received my doctorate in chemistry in the early seventies, I caught only minor flack for being a confirmed deist and never attending church.   God was not present in my life.  I never attended church and neither did most of my friends. My supervising professor did.  He was a committed member of his Presbyterian church and had tried to persuade me ever so gently not to work in the lab on Sundays.  He never succeeded.

When the eighties rolled around, all that remained of obligatory church attendance for younger Americans had devolved into attendance on two occasions: Christmas Eve and Easter.  Still, older Americans were entrenched in the weekly ritual of morning worship and indoctrinated in its social benefits.  But, there was another form of worship on the rise - the megachurch.  Many of these churches had existed since the fifties, but their growth took off in the eighties. These churches vacuumed up members as people fled the cities for the suburbs.

I had a front row seat on the growth of one megachurch.  In 1979, I helped start a church in Austin, Texas. (In 1975 I became a Christian and joined a liberal Baptist church)  Very few of the sixteen that originally saw the need for a new church thought about becoming a megachurch although it was our pastor's dream from the beginning.  We started with 60 in attendance on the first Sunday and grew to over 6000 attendees spread over three services every Sunday morning.

By the nineties, mainline churches had started to see a precipitous drop in attendance.  I think two things happened.  First, the megachurch provided religious entertainment with few strings attached.  One hour Sunday morning was all that was demanded.  Second, people who had grown up in the days of mandatory church attendance and for whom it still was a way of life began to die off. Together, these factors caused the decline in mainline Protestant churches.

 Who remains in the mainline churches?  Some survivors of the days of mandatory attendance have proved to be long lived and continue to occupy the pews.  Most of the remaining congregants are believers and true converts. The rest are the flotsam and jetsam of modern society, people who feel lost in a megachurch or  are somehow outside societal norms.  In the mainline Protestant church they find a welcome if for no other reason than they fill the pews.  Perhaps that is too cynical.  In the small church I now belong to, such people are loved, accepted and nurtured.  I hope that is true in most churches.

So, the megachurch has siphoned off those that want church as entertainment, a way to compartmentalize religion by reserving it to their occasional Sunday attendance, or a way to meet people in a supposedly safe environment.   Megachurches do have their committed, but they are few.  The mainline church has shrunk but still cares for the least including, but not limited to, the damaged humans that find their way through their doors.  The decline is an illusion of numbers only.  The relative number of true followers of Christ remains unchanged.  Those that came because society demanded it are gone as well as those that found their answer in the megachurch. Today membership in the mainline church is a matter of belief first, attendance second. I think that is the way it should be.

 

The Many Paths to God

By -=Bruce Berrien=-

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."    John 14:5-6.

Whether we are Atheist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, etc., I believe that the aspect of God that we encounter when we die is the Word, God in action, no matter what we called or did not call the supreme being(s) in life. That is what John 14:6 tells us.  It is a statement of mechanism, not exclusivity.

I believe that Jesus is the highest revelation of God in human history and the best path to God. That is why I am a Christian.  I also believe that all faiths have God's truth.  I do not believe God condemns anyone because of their place of birth or faith or lack of faith, nor do I believe that Christians have an exclusive claim on God.

Conservative Christians are repelled by the possibility that their God and the God of Islam could be the same while they embrace the God of Judaism.  Muslims trace their ancestry through Ishmael, the son of Abraham by the slave girl, Hagar. Theirs is the God of Abraham whether conservative Christians like it or not. Just as the God of Judaism is the God of Abraham.  Even without the link through Abraham, I think that inherently all monotheists share the same God. 

Atheists do not believe in any Supreme Being, but are closer to God than the nominally religious.  To reject God you must first think about her.  Such thought puts an atheist closer to God than all those who are indifferent or oblivious, lost in their own daily lives. Atheists will be judged just as we all will be, on how we treat the least.

My personal belief is that everyone at some point will be confronted by God and know that God is real.  At that point whether before or after death, one can choose to be with God or not.

The immortal soul is a Greek concept, not Hebrew.  I believe that without God, there is no existence.  If a person rejects God, knowing God exists, then that person after death ceases to exist.  No hell, no eternal punishment, just ending.

The God of love that Jesus modeled desires to wrap us in her love forever, but the choice is always ours. 

How Christians Will be Judged

The Bible passage below seems to be ignored by many conservative Christians and Republicans as evidenced by their support of the sequester that shreds many services for the hungry, poor, homeless and ill.  If the United States were truly a Christian nation, the government would embody those that ministered to Jesus in Matthew 25:41-45.

On the day of judgment, Jesus will ask "Why did you not care for me when I was  hungry, poor, homeless, disabled, and sick?  Conservative Christians will answer, "We did not see you suffering like that in our neighborhoods."  Then Jesus will answer, "I am everywhere in the world with the least of my people.  In your nation, you elected representatives to cut all the programs funded by the federal government that would feed the hungry, aid the poor, help the handicapped, and provide medical care for the sick."  Conservatives will answer, "The help would have come from the government, not us personally.  We would help those next door."  Jesus will answer,  "Do you think I only want you to care for the person next door?  Do I care if you help with your own hands or through the hands of others?  I care for the least of these my brothers and sisters.  When these least were hungry, struggled in despair with no money, wandered the streets of your great cities, and died alone in your parks; I starved, had no money to care for myself, slept under the bridges in your cities, and died alone in a homeless camp. 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' "

Matthew 25:31-45

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

The Judgment

³¹ “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; ³³ and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶  naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ³⁸ And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ³⁹ When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ ⁴⁰  The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
⁴¹ “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘ Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not ^[a]take care of You?’ ⁴⁵ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

Lectionary Musings for February 24, 2013

Luke 13:31-35
13:31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you."

13:32 He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.

13:33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.'

13:34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

13:35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, but at his own pace.  He is in the area controlled by Herod Antipas when Pharisees come to warn him that Herod wants to kill him.  The warning rings a little hollow when we contemplate Herod's actions when later Herod has the chance to kill Jesus.  Herod sends him back to Pilate, not the actions of a man who has been waiting three months to kill Jesus (according to Luke's time table),  Perhaps the Pharisees simply want to get Jesus away from their fiefdoms and think he will be afraid of a threat from Herod.

Jesus does not fear Herod.  He does not even respect Herod calling him "that fox".  He tells the Pharisees that he is busy caring for the least and will not move on until he has finished his work.  The words"today and tomorrow, and on the third day" here and in the following verse just mean an indefinite period.

But Jesus has a purpose in his journey.  That purpose is to die in Jerusalem.  He makes that clear in his lament that the city kills the prophets and stones others.  Yet, God has tried again and again to gather her chicks under her care, but they have refused to accept her love.  The use of a feminine image reminds us that God is neither male nor female. This passage also reminds us that it is ultimately our choice to accept God's love or not.

The New Revised Standard Version translation of the beginning of verse 35 is not very enlightening.  The New International Version translates that first sentence as "Look, your house is left to you desolate,"  House in this case refers to Jerusalem and reminds us that  by rejecting Jesus as God Incarnate, Jerusalem is choosing to separate from God.  Yet, God's love does not stop because we turn away.  God is always the father waiting for the prodigal child to return.

Jesus quotes Psalm 118:26.giving us the last sentence of verse 35.  That quote reminds us that a triumphal entrance into Jerusalem awaits Jesus on Palm Sunday.  Christians today see that Psalm 118 as a messianic psalm.  At the time of its writing, this verse applied to the king's entrance into the temple.  Jesus knows what is coming: celebration, death and triumph.  Jesus is in control.  God will choose the place and time.

Lectionary Musings for January 27, 2013

¹⁴Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. ¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Ruins of Sepphoris

This week's lectionary reading in Luke's gospel finds us in Chapter 4.  Jesus returns to the synagogue of his youth and reads from the writings of the prophet Isaiah.  The passage he chooses may well have been written about Isaiah himself.  Now, Jesus applies them to himself and they take on new meaning.

His focus will not be on the religious whom he sits among.  His focus will be on the poor, those that are not full participants in their faith.  Jesus will make them valued members of his faith and recipients of his all encompassing love.

He will seek those who cannot seek him: the captives, the blind, the oppressed.  To them, he will proclaim the love of God.

He claims ownership of this passage and proclaims himself God's anointed.  He does not claim to be the Messiah yet.  This is the opening of his ministry.  He is setting the stage for the revelation of divinity that is to come.

Why would he choose to make this proclamation in Nazareth?  Nazareth, where he grew up,  was a small village of Jews.  However, Nazareth was adjacent to a new city, Sepphoris.  Sepphoris had been rebuilt by Herod Antipas after it was destroyed by the Romans in 4 BCE.  By the time of Jesus it was a bustling city whose population was much influenced by Rome.  Perhaps Jesus intended for his words to go beyond the boundaries of Nazareth to Sepphoris.

Those that frequented the synagogue in Nazareth may well have frequented the ten synagogues in Sepphoris.  Having grown up in the area and worked in Sepphoris, Jesus would know that what was said in Nazareth would spread to Sepphoris.  In a subtle way, Jesus is announcing himself not just to Jews but also to Romans.

Jesus tells those that hear him that the world is changing, that a new force has entered into both the world of Jews and the world of the Romans.  There is no fanfare, but God's good news is seeping into the world.  Drop by drop hearts will be changed.

Lectionary Musings for January 13, 2013

I have decided to bring a little discipline to my religious life.by musing on one of the lectionary readings for the coming Sunday.  Yes, I now belong to a church that follows a three year cycle of readings from the Bible. As a Southern Baptist reject, I have found these readings to be surprisingly comforting.  My musings today will be on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, labeled by commentators as the baptism of Jesus.

Why did Jesus have to be baptized?   I know scholars can provide answers.  I suspect that in the past I had explored the question either on my own or in a study group setting, but no glib answers spring to mind. 

We know some people were confused and thought John the Baptist was the Messiah.  Even John's own denial may not have stopped their belief in him. Jesus knew he was the Messiah, but he does not wish to announce it to the world.  He is content to let the confusion continue for a while.  This will give him time to call his disciples and begin the long, circuitous death march to Jerusalem.  I think with his baptism Jesus is announcing the beginning of his ministry to God.

One oddity in Luke's narrative is that John is arrested and thrown into jail before Jesus is baptized.  I had never noticed this because all the narratives of Jesus baptism have long since blurred into one preferred story in my mind.  A commentator called my attention to this strange glitch in Luke's story of Jesus' baptism.  If John is in jail, who baptizes Jesus?  God, the Creator.

By going to the place of baptism, Jesus announces his intention to become the God that has always been within, the God submerged within the human until this time. Now that divinity will be free and fully engaged in the world around him.  

Jesus prays, heaven opens and the "Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.""  Here for me is the Trinity: Creator, Holy Spirit, and Word.

In the beginning, the Trinity is one.  The Holy Spirit (Love) is the binder between Creator and Word as the universe is spoken into existence.  In choosing to be born of a woman, the bond was not severed, but I believe it must have been stretched.  How could it not have been as the Word of God was poured into a vessel as limited as a human being? 

At baptism, Jesus acknowledges who and what he is.  The Holy Spirit  descends and binds Creator and Word together.  The Trinity is whole.  Jesus will show us God in human form linked by Love to the Creator.

How does this passage speak to me?  It reminds me that Jesus made a conscious commitment to pursue the purpose God had set for him.  I believe that we are confronted at some point with existence of God, just as Jesus was confronted at his baptism by the Creator.  When does this happen?  At different times, in different ways, with different concepts of God.  Then and only then are we required to make a choice.  We can choose to become some small part of God's plan, God's being, or God's eternity, but it is our choice and I believe it comes for everyone on this planet. 

For me, this choice came at age 29.  I had received a doctorate in chemistry at age 25 and was actively engaged in science.  I was a confirmed deist, not attending any church and not interested in doing so. I had been told as a child by Sunday School teachers and ministers that Christians did not ask questions about God or about our faith.  Any faith that did not like questions was not for me. After age 13, I never attended a church of any kind again. 

As the years passed,  I did feel I was missing something in my life.  I began a totally unsystematic study of various faiths minus Christianity, of course.  I also made random attempts at finding some volunteer opportunities (none religious) where I could be of service. Nothing seemed to fit. 

I was a voracious reader.  I had enjoyed C. S. Lewis' Narnia series as a child.  Now, I read his science fiction trilogy.  I was a little put off by the obvious religious overtones, but I enjoyed all three books.  Looking for more by him, I read The Screwtape Letters.  Suddenly, there was more to Christianity than I had believed.  I decided perhaps I should see if there was an intellectual side to Christianity afterall.

I made a choice and joined a liberal Baptist church with an engaging minister who presented short messages that challenged you to think.  At the same time, I joined a study group led by a doctoral candidate in philosophy.  Both the minister and the study group made me realize that Christianity was a faith of the intellect as well as the soul.  I could ask all the questions I wanted.  So when I was asked to be a deacon, I said yes to serving and yes to God.  My choice was to believe. 

As a Christian I met a God who revealed herself in the Bible as Creator, Love and Word.  Now that Love came to me as the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  There was no speaking in tongues, no tongues of fire. no overwhelming emotion.  Just a quiet assurance that I had found my way.  

Jesus was a year older than I was when he made his choice.  Perhaps the message of his baptism is that even if one committed oneself to God as a child (remember Jesus in the temple at 12), adulthood demands a fresh decision. Choose.