Apophatica

Ok, so here we go.  This will be the first installment of a series of posts on the core tenets of the Christian faith.  I do not claim to hold the keys to “absolute truth” and I am definitely not saying it’s my way or the highway.  I am merely positing my own conjectures as it relates to these tenets.  In my personal journey of Christian faith, I have found that many of the things that I was taught in a conservative college or church do not hold water for me.  Fortunately or unfortunately my intellect got in the way of me swallowing dogmatic teachings whole-cloth without engaging them for myself.  I would encourage anyone reading these posts to do the same.  Theological dialogue and cognition are extremely healthy and, I think, lead us to a more sustainable image of and experience/relationship with God.  This post will be on salvation where the topic of atonement theory (how we are saved) will be kept for another post.

Say this prayer with me: “I am a terrible sinner and have a great propensity for doing evil things because of the fall through Adam and Eve.  Through the blood of Jesus who died on a cross, sent by God to take away my sins and the sins of the world, I can be saved and escape the fires of eternal damnation. . . . ”  Blah.  Blah. Blah.  If you were actually praying along, STOP!  The idea that God could not redeem humankind and all of creation without killing his own son is a terrible insult to the hugeness of God.

Salvation has typically been described as a one-time event often precipitated by an altar call and much self-flagellation and tears.  It is generally described as an individual deal with God to ensure eternal bliss in the after-life and avoid the punishment that we rightfully deserve.  What if, however, salvation was NOT an individual thing, but a communal one?  What if it didn’t mean saying a magic mantra and putting on a WWJD bracelet (lest we slip up and risk losing our salvation), but was a way of life and redemption in relationship with one another right here on THIS earth?  

Before I start to sound too trite (too late?) let me say that I do believe in sin.  We will get into this in a later post, but there is no doubt that we humans do really crappy things to one another and cause a lot of pain.  The evidence of this is never far.  How, though, can cutting a deal with God to save my own rear end regardless of what I do during my time here on this spinning rock going to make manifest the kin-dom of God that Jesus spoke of? (More on this later)  If salvation is merely an individual transaction without redemption at the communal level, I would opine that it’s a sign of extreme selfishness.

Now that I’ve rallied about what I think salvation isn’t or shouldn’t be, let me say what I think it is and ought to be.  Salvation should be a means of ending oppression and injustice in the same systemic way that they come about.  By teaching youth that anger and violence is not the only way, by showing adults and children that there are wise ways to handle money in which all can have their needs met, by demonstrating love and compassion for those in need around us and lifting up the downtrodden and weak – in these things salvation can become a reality.  Step-by-step, person-by-person we can can “save” ourselves and one another by living lives true to ourselves and to the God that indwells us.  Might this be what Jesus meant when he spoke of the gospel and the kin-dom of God?  More on these two themes soon.

If we were to ask 10 people what it means to be a Christian, you will likely get 10 different answers.  As adherents to the Christian faith, there are a number of tenets that tend to define our religion and comprise our theology.   While it is good to have these tenets to help us define what it is that we believe and what the core meaning of our faith is, it is also true that dogma can become a stumbling block that causes people to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  In other words, Christianity is typically comprised of theological themes such as salvation, atonement, sin, redemption, forgiveness, the Kingdom of God, the divinity of Jesus, crucifixion, resurrection, etc.  Many folks tend to have one definition for each of these themes.

Unfortunately, if people are opposed to the definition (or perceived reality) of the theme, they disassociate themselves with Christianity.  I feel that this is unnecessary as there are actually numerous ways to approach these tenets and it is even possible to do away with some of them.  Rather than giving up on the system, I would rather that we dialogue and engage in a process together of redefinition.  Indeed, discussions have been taking place over the past two millennia, but have been reserved for the academics.  I believe it is time that we become theologically conversant and discuss these tenets in the mainstream.  It is time that we realize that Christianity as we know it is merely the result of theological decisions made hundreds of years ago.  They do not necessarily represent truth, but rather we have allowed ourselves to be beholden to the definitions that others laid out.  Therefore, I am going to start a series on this blog engaging these themes starting with salvation.  Stay tuned!

Most of the time we feel like we do not have enough faith.  We think that if we had more faith God would do more for us.  I don’t think a lack of faith is our problem, though.  I think we have too much faith. We have faith that everything that we think about God is right.  We have faith that God will work when we aren’t willing to.  We believe that we do not have to seek God out because God will be God and there is nothing that we can do about it anyway.  We have entirely too much faith.  We need to assume that what we think about God is wrong.  We need to embrace doubt and bask in mystery.   Instead, we tend to pretend and not state the obvious.  We act like nothing is wrong and that we are perfectly sure about ourselves when it comes to God. 

Peter Rollins tells the story that, on a British military base in Northern Ireland, it was tradition for officers to go to the local pub and poke fun at the Irish.  One day, when a new battalion came in, one of the leaders said to the others, “Watch this.”  He took out a crumpled up five pound note and a shiny new one pound coin and sought out the drunkest of the Irishmen at the pub.  When he found him he asked him which of the two that he wanted – the old wrinkled bill or the shiny new coin.  The man took the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket.  After he walked away the leaders said, “See?  These people are fools!  We can have fun with them all night and they never figure it out.”  And so the new personnel to the group began taking out their money and doing the same.  Meanwhile, a tourist was in the pub watching and couldn’t believe her eyes.  She watched Irishman after Irishman fall for the same obvious prank.  Finally, after the soldiers had left, she went up to one of the old men and said, “Could you really not figure out which was the better deal!?  It was so obvious!  Why did you keep taking the coins?”  To which the old man replied, “Of course we knew which was the better deal.  But the first time one of us would have taken the five pound note the idiots would have stopped the game.”

Sometimes it’s beneficial to just play along and play dumb.  The church is notorious for this.  God is right here, but yet God is everywhere.  God is completely in control, and yet somehow really bad things happen anyway.  God is three, but yet there is only one God.  God created everything as good and there is nothing that God didn’t create, but yet somehow there is evil in the world.  Any and all of these should get our stomach and knots and most likely do, but yet we act like they all make perfect sense.  What would be different if we actually engaged God instead of pretending that we already have a perfect understanding and that we’re perfectly ok with it?

I’m reading a book by Diana Butler Bass.  She is one of the foremost scholars on church history and she did a study of over 50 mainline protestant churches that were flourishing and wrote a book called Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith.  It’s an exceptionally interesting book and she narrows down the common denominators among these churches.  As you could imagine, social justice and doing acts of love and compassion was one of the top factors of these growing and flourishing churches.  Being welcoming and having a great sense of community as the title connotes was also vital.  After all, you can’t be a neighborhood church with out that.  These churches served the people right around them and became the go-to place for the local people.  But, there was something much more important, something so obvious that we often miss it.  That is, God.  That’s right.  We tend to view our society as a godless one with no interest in the Divine, but that’s not true.  Yes, it is true that many are not interested in the Christianity of Christendom or the traditional theology that we all learned in Sunday School.  But, they are all deeply interested in and on a search for the Divine. 

Mainline protestant churches tend to be more liberal and in so doing we get a bad rap for watering down the faith.  Indeed we do.  We focus on social justice (which is a good thing), but we tend to forego spirituality.  All of the churches in Diana’s study realized that God must be at the center of anything that the church does.  These churches had services that tended to be more contemplative in nature and they practiced spiritual disciplines regularly.  If we are to put God at the center, and as a church that’s what we must do, then we are going to have to intentionally and actively engage the God that called us to be the church – even if it hurts.

Jacob found out the hard way that God is not something to be studied from afar.  Jacob found out that in as much as we pursue God, God pursues us even more.  God is in search of humankind as much as we are in search of God.  We have this view that God is always in control and can do anything with us or without us, but that’s not necessarily true.  God came to Jacob when Jacob was scared to death.  His brother, whom Jacob thought was rightly upset with him, was moving toward him with an army of men.  Jacob was afraid that his family, himself, and all that he possessed was going to be slaughtered and he was scared for his life.  Jacob did cry out to God, but God came to Jacob and wrestled with him.  God is not an idea or a concept to be understood.  God is something to be experienced.  We have to engage God and wrestle with God, but we also have to realize that God seeks us out and initiates the wrestling.  God works through us and just like a fluid which is always seeking a space to fill, God is constantly in search of humans who are willing to be a conduit for God. 

Let’s think about this.  We have all been broke at one time or another or had some other pressing issue that we were desperate about and cried out to God for help.  Imagine that the electricity is going to be shut off if we don’t pay the bill by tomorrow and we pray for a miracle.  Then, we check the mail and there is a check there for the amount we need.  Is that from God?  YES!  BUT, if the person who wrote the check and put it in your mailbox when prompted by God said, “No, I’m just imagining this feeling.  It’s not real.”  Or if they said, “Heck no.  Their bills aren’t my problem.  Why should I do anything about it?  They should work harder so that they don’t get into such a financial mess and it will teach them a lesson” then NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN!  God needs us to wrestle back and to experience God and then to act.  Jacob got his hip put out of socket and we should expect some pain along the way, too, but in the end we will be blessed immensely. 

When the angel of God told Jacob to let him go, Jacob refused and said “Not until you bless me.”  That is what we need to do.  We will have difficult times.  We will have things about God that bother us to the core of our being.  We will have questions that trouble us greatly.  Instead of ignoring them and pretending like everything is ok, we need to embrace them.  We need to hold them even when it hurts and refuse to let go until we are blessed by them because I promise that we will be.  Then, after seeing the face of God, just like Jacob we need to go act.  You can’t encounter God and then not feel moved to action.

This is what Jesus taught the disciples and the people who were fed at the feeding of the 5000.  The disciples wanted Jesus to send everyone home because it was getting late.  Jesus had plenty of reason to pack it in.  He was tired and extremely sad because he had just heard that his cousin and friend, John the Baptist, had been beheaded.  But instead, he set an example.  He told the disciples you feed them.  In the Greek, the “you” is already implied, so it was unnecessary to say it.  For emphasis, though, just to make it clear Jesus said you give them food.  They didn’t have much, but God was able to take that little bit and turn it into enough to feed all of the people there so that none went hungry.  We experience (not understand) God, then we act, then we watch the miracle unfold.

What Jesus did was not a bandaid.  This experience was about a lot more than food.  He didn’t just provide for people in that moment of need and this is something important that we need to learn from.  After our encounter with God,  after we have wrestled with God and even had God engage us, we cannot merely give food to someone who is hungry or drink to someone who is thirsty.  We have to address the systemic problems that lead to the cause of such situations.  We have to be willing to be conduits for God to teach that such things do not need to exist.  Jesus taught those people on the lakeshore that day that, if they would just share and not be selfish, that none would go hungry.  He didn’t just give them food.  He changed their mindset.  Having their eyes opened like that to realize the cause of their malaise must have been painful.  It never feels good to realize that we’re wrong or to undergo a huge change of mindset.  But, even though it hurt, when they did agree to be molded by God, they were blessed immensely. 

Wrestle with God.  Let God wrestle with you.  But even though it hurts, don’t let go until you’re blessed.

Horace, in his Ars Poetica, said that a playwright or poet should never resort to “God from a machine” (Deus ex machina) “unless a difficulty worthy of a god’s unraveling should happen.”  In Greek tragedies, the protagonist would often find him- or herself in such an unredeemable situation that there could not possibly be a positive outcome, when suddenly a person playing a god would be raised up from the floor or lowered from the ceiling by a machine to save the day.  This is where we get this term.  Horace’s words rang true over 2000 years ago and they still ring true today.

I have been reading Insurrection: To Believe is Human, To Doubt, Divine by Peter Rollins – just one of my favorite Irish-folk.  In this book, he makes many great points on how we view God and how we live in ways that are often antithetical to our views.  It got me thinking about how our faith has evolved over the years.  In today’s post-Christendom culture, there are few who would subscribe fully to a 1950s version of traditional theology.  Congregants, non-church goers, and even pastors have become more progressive in their thinking when it comes to things of God – but do we act like it?

As a pastor, I write liturgy, choose hymns, and craft sermons for every Sunday.  I realize that much of what I create is geared toward my audience and it’s never a good idea to piss off those who pay your bills.  BUT, how are any of us doing when it comes to our words and actions in relation to our understanding of the workings of the cosmos and the nature of God?  When I pick hymns, I often have to stick with old favorites to appease folks, but is it really healthy to sing hymns about a royal deity much removed from creation when our thoughts actually tend toward the panentheistic?  Is it ok to pray that God heal Mrs. Jones when we’re not so sure that’s how God works?  What about throwing out cliches to comfort someone during loss when we’re pretty convinced that we’re not going to be gathering at the river when this horse and pony show is done?

So, most of these are inconsequential examples, but I would also argue that they have large ramifications.  Something that isn’t inconsequential, however, is how we live our lives.  When we have moved far beyond a belief system that assures us that God will some day send Jesus back and make everything alright after kicking the “bad guys'” butts, why do we act like we still adhere to it?  If our theology tells us that the God that works ex machina is a long-dead construct, then how are we doing in light of our evolved theology that informs us that WE have work to do because God works through US?

When it all comes down to it, we are all living our lives as if we still adhere to a theology that we wrestled with, tasted the bitterness of cognitive dissonance, and finally freed ourselves from.  Why do we bother?  What if our actions and our beliefs were aligned in a way that we actually put our money where our faith is, so to speak?  Random acts of love and kindness, intentional work to bring hope to the downtrodden, freeing the oppressed with words and actions – it all takes guts and embracing the idea that nobody will do it for us.  As a pastor, I guess it’s my job to set the example and call on other clergy to set the example for their congregations to live as they believe.  Man, why do I always have to do all the work!?  Life would be so much easier if Horace were wrong and the conservatives were right . . . .

Romans 7:15-25a

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I deserve to be happy.  I appreciate those around me, but sometimes I just need to do things for me.  It’s not that I am saying “to heck with everyone else,” but sometimes I have to get pretty close to it.  If people are going to be insensitive enough to keep me from being happy, then that’s just how it needs to be.  I have the God-given right to be happy and if others don’t like it, then they are just plain wrong.  Lot’s of people understand this, not the least of which was Michael.

Michael was troubled.  He couldn’t figure out what it took to make him happy.  Video games, watching YouTube on his iPhone, new clothes – nothing seemed to work.  The more he tried to be happy, the more angry he became because it almost seemed like people were getting in the way of his happiness.  If his parents didn’t buy him what he wanted, they were of course intentionally trying to keep him from enjoying life.  He deserved to be happy and who was anyone to say what he could or could not do to attain it?  So, he started acting out more and would seek attention from his peers, but it would usually end up in fights when nobody was paying him the attention that he so deserved.  So, he got negative attention instead.  He got mad at himself when he did foolish things, but it was usually someone else’s fault for making him mad.  He knew that he had to stand his ground, though, because happiness was his right and nobody should be allowed to deprive him of it.

This pattern continued and Michael quickly became labeled as a trouble-maker.  He always had a poor attitude and alienated people along the way in his search.  One day, during his sophomore year, he overheard the kids behind him on the bus talking about the girl with cerebral palsy that had her wheelchair strapped down in the back of the bus.  The girl, Lillian, never smiled and always looked sad until her mother came to the bus to help get her off at her home stop.  The kids were making fun of her and Michael was in the regular practice of spiting people, so he went back and sat in the seat across from her and said hi.  She seemed to be struggling with a piece of clothing, so he reached over and straightened it for her and took her hand.  He began talking to her and for the first time, he saw her smile.  Lillian’s mom was amazed when the bus got to her stop and her daughter was beaming.  The cerebral palsy made it nearly impossible for them to communicate, but somehow they figured it out and Lillian and Michael were laughing when the bus pulled up to her stop.  

Michael couldn’t believe it.  He couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy and it came not from seeking things that pleased him, but in doing something for someone else.  Something changed in him that day and he began volunteering with special needs children.  Lillian’s mom quickly developed a great appreciation for Michael and they continue to be friends.  Along with Michael’s great joy came an added bonus.  The school bus camera had recorded the initial encounter and Michael’s name was put in for an award for acts of kindness at a local TV station.  He was recognized on TV and tens of thousands of people were able to see what true and unmistakable joy looks like.  They were able to see that sometimes, what we’re looking for isn’t really what we’re looking for.

I recently heard on a podcast a philosopher and a mathematician.  They noted tongue-in-cheek that a philosopher is like a blind person looking for a black hat in a dark room; a mathematician is one who calculates the probability of finding it; and a theologian is one who is assured that he/she has found the hat.  I kept thinking about that all week and, at first, felt like I was trying to put a square peg in a round hole by using it in this sermon.  While I am probably most like the theologian (go figure), I would posit that there is a person who is missing from this illustration: the wise person.  Like Jesus speaking in Matthew 11, I think some people have the courage and sense to admit that perhaps it is not actually the hat that we are looking for.

In Romans 7, Paul is in a tizzy about what he keeps doing although he knows that there is a guide within him that, should he choose to follow it, would give him peace.  Unfortunately he seems unable to do this and drives himself crazy chasing something that seems beyond his grasp.  Even though it is attributed as spoken about 50 years before Paul penned his letter to the church at Rome, it is as if Jesus is answering him.  Who will save this wretch?  Jesus to the rescue!

Jesus appears to be telling his audience that they are like a bunch of attention-seeking kids.  These people think that they are wise and intelligent, but they are actually no wiser than babies when it comes to realizing what they need.  An infant doesn’t ask for toys or to watch particular TV shows.  An infant just needs its mother’s breast, attention from both parents, the touch of human skin, and the love of it’s parents to survive.  Children are raised to want stuff and develop a sense of entitlement that grows until there is so much junk that nothing could possibly satiate the need for whatever it is we think we need.  As adults, it is often the case that we aren’t any wiser than children.  Rather, we are just better at acting like kids because we’ve had more practice.  

Feel-good preachers will tell us on TV that prosperity is our right and all we have to do is claim it.  We can have our “Best Life Now” if we just trust that everything is going to be alright and maybe throw a few bucks in the kitty for good measure.  Maybe I’m missing something here (wouldn’t be the first time), but it seems to me like Jesus is telling us that, if we’re tired of running around chasing elusive dreams that aren’t ours to begin with and experiencing excruciating cognitive dissonance like Paul was, then we just need to sit, relax, and be.  Look at what Jesus did and do likewise and we will find God.  Our burden will be lightened, our souls will find rest, and in that being, we will experience the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Does your spouse believe different from you?  Have you got a brother or sister who just can’t open their hearts and accept Jesus?  What about your parents or kids?  Jesus’ words are difficult, but very clear: If you don’t let go of those who impede your relationship with Jesus, then you are not worthy of the love of God and you will be cut off and lose any hope of salvation.  It’s not an easy message at all, but we must accept it.  If you have a spouse who doesn’t share your firm beliefs about Jesus, you need to save yourself and divorce him or her.  If your own children can’t understand how important it is to believe in Christ, then you need to disown them.  Hopefully they will figure it out soon enough and then you can let them back into your home.  Friends?  Who needs them if they don’t get it?  Family?  To heck with them if they are only going to drag us into hell.

Jesus is full of difficult discourses and this in Matthew 10 is one of the most unsettling.  Far too many people take this passage literally without any regard for the context.  It grinds me when people prooftext and don’t even bother to search for the contextual meaning of Jesus’ words.  If he’s important enough to call your “savior” then one would think that it’s important to understand him.  How many people have we seen that would sell their own families down the river because they disagree with their interpretations of scripture?  How many progressive people have been kicked out of conservative homes?  How many LGBTQ children have been sent off into oblivion because their parents’ God will have none of that?  It makes me so mad to think about it.  I hope you guys aren’t too sensitive and if you are you might want to cover your ears because I’m about to drop the f-bomb.  These people are completely and utterly so fu – – – – ndamentalist that it drives me nuts!  

Fundamentalism sprang up as an answer to the enlightenment.  When people were dismissing faith for empirical data and evidence wrapped up in logical thinking, some dug in their heels and held to a literal, factual interpretation of scripture.  In doing so they lost the desire and effort to bother studying Jesus or any other part of scripture for its intended meaning.  The Bible is the inerrant, spirit-breathed word of God and every word in it is 100% factually literal and anyone who believes otherwise should be pitied for the kind of hell that awaits them.  After all, the Bible was written in English, wasn’t it?  So, when we come to a passage like this one in Matthew 10, we need to see that there are the right people (us, of course) and the wrong people (anyone who doesn’t see things as we do) and the wrong people need to be cut off because they just can’t listen to reason and we won’t let them bring us down.

Let’s pretend for a minute that Jesus (or Matthew who puts the words in his mouth) was speaking to a particular audience at a particular time for a particular reason.  So, let’s see, Jesus is speaking to a group of Jews from the synagogue (this is Matthew’s context as well) and tells them that there will be discord between them and their loved ones.  Why would this be?  Perhaps it could be that many Jews (as we have seen in other passages) were kowtowing to the Roman authorities and giving up on their faith heritage.  They still went through the motions, but they didn’t dare speak up against those powers that oppressed them.  It was easier to just sit back and keep their mouths shut when they experienced and witnessed injustice because it was a much safer way to be.  So, Jesus is warning those who would listen that, if they chose to respond to the spirit of God that was tugging at their hearts telling them that something was terribly wrong and it needed to be addressed, they should expect some serious backlash from those who did not want any negative attention brought to their families.  As long as nobody sticks out or speaks up, everybody will be safe.  

This mindset was the common wisdom of the day.  Jesus was explaining that God wasn’t about common wisdom, but would keep pushing us and pushing us until we were ready to explode if we didn’t do something about what we knew was wrong.  This was the special divine wisdom that rests within all of us and that Jesus so fully embodied.  Take a look at Proverbs 8 (and also the Message version) and tell me if that sounds familiar?  Tell me if that couldn’t be something that Jesus was paraphrasing and espousing.  

Jesus wasn’t the only one or even the first one to notice that we all have an inherent fire burning within us to speak out against injustice and do that which is wise, just, and godly.  Look at Jeremiah 20:7-13.  He was ridiculed, derided, disowned by his friends, and left in a pit for dead.  He cries out to God and says. “Why do I even bother!?  Why do you have to do this to me?  I would have been better off not having been born!  Everyone mocks me and I am a laughing stock!  Any time that I try to say or do what’s right or even recognize that there is anything wrong, I get attacked.  I don’t want to do this anymore, but I can’t not do it!  There is a fire that burns with in me that knows what’s right and intuits what needs to be done and if I ignore it, it will burn me up and I will be consumed!”

We didn’t start the fire.  It was always burning since the world’s been turning.  Jeremiah knew it, Jesus knew it, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Medger Evers, Billy Joel, and the list goes on.  We know it.  We can feel it and sometimes even become pretty good at ignoring it because we also know what Jesus and the rest of them knew – when we try to speak out, when we denounce injustice and cry out like Lady Wisdom for those who have no voice, we WILL be castigated.  This is what happens when we choose to follow divine wisdom instead of the common wisdom that just sits back and keeps its mouth shut.  No, we didn’t start the fire, but we don’t have to let it consume us.

In the beginning.  This is where we always start, but not necessarily where we return to.  According to most Christians, it was in the beginning that God created the universe ex nihilo (from nothing).  Interestingly enough, the text actually says that there was a void and that “the spirit hovered over the waters.”  This connotes that there was something already in existence and God spoke it into some semblance of order, thereby creating order where there was chaos – something where there was nothing.

Many Christians get caught up on the first three chapters of Genesis and base the roots of their theology on it.  In the process, many things tend to get ignored.  First of all, there are two separate creation accounts here.  One is Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a and the other is Genesis 2:4b – 3:24.  Scholars today realize that these two separate accounts are from two separate sources writing hundreds of years from each other.  In the first account, for example, “Adam and Eve” are created at the same time, “male and female he created them.”  In this account, the animals are created first and the creation of all things on a cosmological scale occurs in chronological order.  In the second account, Eve is created after Adam and animals in between with a focus on the earthly and not so much the cosmological. 

Reading the texts in English (as if we had any other choice) leads to some confusion.   Adam is the word used for humankind and is not a proper noun.  Unfortunately, many people will defend the notion that an actual man named Adam was created first and followed by a woman named Eve, but this is not what the text says.  A BIG point of controversy is the original language used for God in the two accounts which we can see even reflected in the English.  In the first account it says “Let us make man (adam) in our image, in our likeness.”  Many Christians point to the plural language as proof of the existence of the trinity.  This erroneous assumption is to overlook the original language. This reference in the plural to God is seen again later in Genesis 11 when God (plural, Elohim) says “Let us confuse their language . . . .”

The first creation account uses the the word Elohim for God.  This is a term meaning god(s) and not a proper name.  Putting im at the end of a Hebrew word makes it plural such as in the case of seraphim or cherubim – both different kinds of angels – plural.  In the second account, God is referred to as Yahweh.  Yahweh was a proper name for God used after Moses adopted the tribal religion of his father-in-law Jethro for the people of Israel when bringing them out of Egypt.  This begs the question then: Where does the plural expression for God come from?

The Sumerian people were the first to record a written history in the land of Mesopotamia (lit., the land between the rivers).  Their religion told them that the goddess Nammu created the god An (heavens) and the goddess Ki (earth) and therefore, the word an-ki means “cosmos.”  An and Ki had a son named Enlil who was the god of the air and there is an account similar to that in Genesis of Enlil sweeping over the face of the waters and separating them from the sky.  Later, Enlil had a wife named Ninlil and they gave birth to celestial gods such as the moon and the sun.  There was a paradise in an unknown location in the east called Dilmun much like the biblical place called Eden.  Eventually, the gods Enki (god of sweet water) and Ninhursag (another name for earth) were at a banquet of the gods and while drunk, were complaining about how difficult farming fields and digging canals was.  So, they created six flawed humans out of clay to do the work.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should.  It says in Genesis that Abram and Sarai (Abraham and Sarah) came from Ur (the last capital of Sumer) to Canaan (later, Israel).  Not the least of these familiar stories is that of Ziusudra who was the lone survivor of a flood and would gain god-like attributes.  Around 2050 BCE, the Babylonians conquered the Sumerians in what would be the final of many conquests over them and would begin to adopt and change the myths of Sumerian religion.  The religion became much more misogynistic and male-dominated.  One of the sons of the Sumerian god Enki had a minor son named Marduk who became a major figure as a warrior and chief hero of the gods.  The rather peaceful creation account of Sumerian religion gave way to the violent battle in Babylonian mythology of Marduk competing with his mother, Tiamat (Babylonian dragon and goddess of the sea) to create the cosmos.  Marduk killed his mother and cut her in half using the halves to create the heavens and the earth.

Seeing that the male-dominated creation account in Genesis was likely written in the late 500s BCE when the southern (Israeli) kingdom of Judah was in exile in Babylon leads one to a better understanding of the influence on this account.  Eventually, the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 BCE and a new religious influence came on the scene – Zoroastrianism.  Zoroastrianism held that there was one god (verses an entire council) and that this God created everything and was in a constant battle with an evil one who was near to being a deity.  There was a three-tiered cosmology with heaven above, the earth in the middle, and hell below.  Eventually, a great battle would lead to the defeat of evil and a return to the original paradise that had been created by the one god, Ahura Mazda.  It’s no wonder then, that such apocalyptic language starts to show up in the book of Daniel which was written after the Persian defeat of Babylon.  

Now that it’s a little easier (I hope) to understand the evolution of thought in the Jewish writings (Old Testament), what about our understanding of creation today – specifically among Christians?  We agree for the most part that we were created in the imago Dei (image of God) and that we were given dominion over the creation.  What we fail to grasp from the creation accounts in Genesis – especially the first one – is that God created something out of chaos.  If we do not look like God in terms of physical attributes, then what is it about us that makes us be in the image of God?  I would opine that it is our ability to create – especially out of chaos!  God uses us as we are in relation to one another to continue to create even today.  When is the last time we thought about the power that we have in relationship to join together as a group and affect great and positive change around us?   

During the evolution of religious thought, it appears that something went terribly awry.  We went from being created “just a little lower than the angels” with the ability to do amazing, almost god-like things to thinking of ourselves as sinful, worthless creatures who can do nothing right until Jesus comes back to make everything better.  Where did the wheels come off the bus!?  It seems to me that it’s time that we go back to taking some responsibility for creation – both the care and preservation of the physical creation that preceded us and the task of continuing to create in relationship with one another.  In a world with plenty of chaos to spare, who are we – the ones who have been made in the image of God – to sit idle when we know that together we can do amazing things?  How dare we wait for someone else to come and do what we were told from the beginning was our responsibility?  To create something out of nothing doesn’t necessarily have to mean that there is nothing physically in existence at the outset.  Rather, it could be that there are endless possibilities that merely haven’t become reality because nobody has taken the necessary actions to speak and act them into existence.  I wonder if that might not be a lot of what Jesus was trying to tell us in the first place . . . .

Two men are on vacation in the Emerald Isle.  It’s Sunday evening and they decide to find a local pub in Dublin and grab a pint.  When they walk in, they find a dark rustic space with wooden exposed rafters, lit candles all around, and a screen with an icon projected on it.  There is folky, yet soothing music playing and people are sitting down on an assortment of different couches and chairs in a semicircle.  A 40-something man with wild curly hair comes up to the men and invites them to grab a pint and have a seat.  A sudden calm passes over them as they enter this contemplative space and they realize that they have just stumbled upon church.

It’s Saturday afternoon.  A young husband and wife in downtown Philly are jogging when they see about 40 people working in a garden on an abandoned city block.  They stop and watch as the people laugh and pick weeds out of the garden occasionally throwing clumps of dirt at each other.  A young man with a pony tail and a bandana on his head walks up to the couple with hand extended and asks if they want to help.  They do.  The couple realizes that they have happened upon something special.  Something sacred.  Something like worship with hands and feet.  They have discovered church.

It’s Sunday morning.  Two women – neighborhood friends – walk into a church building.  Perhaps it has a high steeple and a cathedral-like interior.  Maybe it has nice carpeting and looks more like a mall with a little coffee shop in the entry area.  A band is playing praise and worship music as people wave their hands in the air and sway.  Perhaps a Bach organ tune is flowing from the pipe organ. The women find their way to a couple of comfortable chairs toward the back of the sanctuary and sit down.  Nobody greets them.  Nobody says hello.  The women realize that this place looks like a church, but doesn’t feel like one.

All three of these churches exist.  The first is Peter Rollins’s church in Ireland.  The second is Shane Claiborne’s church in Philadelphia.  The last, well, we’ve all seen that church somewhere or another.  There are a lot of churches these days that don’t look like what we imagine when we think of church, but they sure feel like it.  We know the opposite is also true.  I often wonder if Jesus were to come upon a modern church if he would even recognize it.

I think it’s worth considering that Jesus did not even invent the concept of church.  In his day, he had synagogues and he attended them.  It was likely earlier, but certainly by the time of Constantine that Christianity even became a separate religion from Judaism.  We know that Jesus had no intention of starting a religion and that his focus was not so much on belief as on action.  If I am looking for a church to attend, certainly doctrine is important, but I’m more interested in what they do than what they believe.

Jesus preached about the “kin-dom” or Kingdom of God.  He showed the disciples how they were to bring such a place into existence and entrusted them with doing so after his death.  Jesus was content with the synagogues for worship, but he wanted his disciples to teach that we are to go out and do what God has put on our hearts.  Looking at the New Testament, we can see that the disciples failed time and time again both before and after Jesus’ death.  When Jesus was alive he told the disciples that they still didn’t grasp what he was trying to teach them.  How many times did he rebuke them for not doing something that he taught them to do?  I can’t say that I recall any times when he got upset with them for not teaching the right doctrine . . . .  Nonetheless, James and Paul, Paul and Peter, Thomas and the rest of the disciples, so on and so on, we find them at odds with one another over doctrine completely missing the point of the message and being paralyzed by their inability to look beyond their beliefs.

Two disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus.  Emmaus was a safe place to return to and try to regroup.  They had a hard time making sense of what happened.  When a stranger comes along and asks what they’re all worked up about they act like the stranger has been living under a rock.  “Haven’t you heard!?  The one they called the messiah was killed and we were hoping that he would redeem Israel.  Now we don’t know what we’re supposed to do!”  The stranger tells them that they are fools for interpreting the prophets in such a way as to understand that the messiah would do everything for them.  He launches into a discourse about the prophets and teaches them a new understanding of scripture.  Despite the teachings the disciples still do not recognize him.

The stranger is about to move on when the disciples invite him to stay with them because it is getting late.  He sits with them and without a word breaks the bread and hands it to them.  Suddenly they understand that this is Jesus.  It wasn’t because of his speech.  It wasn’t because of anything that he said.  In doing the disciples’ eyes were opened and they were able to see the stranger for who he was.

How is it that through such a simple act the disciples came to realize something that they hadn’t through words?  What was so significant about such a mundane task as breaking bread?  I look at breaking bread as something sacred – when we make it that way.  The act of gathering with people from different backgrounds, different understandings of how the cosmos works, different races and socioeconomic statuses – all of these people are unique.  Yet, when gathered together focused on the simple act of sharing a table and food together being fed in the same way regardless of creed or color, gender or orientation, something miraculous happens.  Ideologies are transcended and our eyes are opened to the realization that we have gathered to fulfill common needs that we all can relate to – the need for sustenance, the need for community, the need to belong to something greater than ourselves.

When the disciples realized who Jesus was and he was satisfied that they understood, or well enough at least, Jesus disappeared.  Just like at the tomb when he told Mary to let go of him, he just vanished.  His action spoke louder than any sermon or discourse could have – you have work to do, now get to it.

Regardless of what shape a church is or what kind of space we “do” church in, I’m hopeful that we can create something through the power that God has given us that will look like what Jesus envisioned.  I’m optimistic that we can create a church that does and is more concerned about our actions than our beliefs.  I am confident that somehow we can create a space, no matter where it is, that Jesus could happen upon and say, “This is what I was talking about.  Now you see that I never left.”  Am I against belief?  Nope.  Because I believe that such a thing is possible and to me, that’s what faith is all about.

Jesus is alive!  He is risen!  He’s been raised from the dead after three days in the grave!  Hallelujah!  So what!?  I must admit that the whole resurrection thing just doesn’t mean a whole lot to me.  I mean, what’s the point?  Jesus went into a tomb dead and came out alive.  Big deal.  What did that do for the rest of us?  He went to heaven and left us here to fend for ourselves so I can’t say that I see too much reason for rejoicing.  Unless, that is, there really is some meaning to all this that we haven’t grasped thus far. 

Take James, for example.  James was a religious man.  He had great faith.  So much, in fact, that he believed that healing only came from God.  He belonged to a fundamentalist church that said sickness was the work of the devil and going to the doctor for healing showed a lack of faith.  So, when he started to feel ill, he went to the doctor for a diagnosis – not healing.  He wanted to find out what was wrong so that he knew what to ask the church to pray for.  The doctor came back with the diagnosis – liver cancer.  The good news was that the cancer was still in it’s early stages and they had caught it in time to remove the affected area and begin treatment.  He had a great chance of survival.  But, James wasn’t going to let the devil have the last word.  He was going to put it in God’s hands and let God do the healing.  

And so the congregation gathered around him regularly and prayed for him, laying hands on him, fasting, crying out to God.   Day after day, week after week, the congregation prayed for him and their pastor encouraged them to keep praying.  When he started to lose a lot of weight and became bedridden, the pastor said keep praying, God works in his own time. They kept praying until the day that James died.  That next Sunday, the pastor got up to the pulpit and said “Well, God works in mysterious ways.  We can’t fully understand his purpose.”  There was a noticeable tension in the air as many people glared at the pastor in anger.  Finally, one elderly lady in the back stood up and said, “Yeah, and God gave us doctors and we don’t even have the sense to use them!”  Sometimes our version of faith gets in the way of the deeper meaning.

There are four different accounts of the resurrection event.  Marks is the shortest and Jesus doesn’t even make an appearance.  In some accounts there are two angels, in some, one.  In some, the angels say go to Galilee and in others Jesus says to go to Jerusalem if the disciples want to find him.  The details are all over the place in these accounts and they don’t match up factually.  So I guess we should just toss them and assume that it never happened.  UNLESS, there is a unique meaning to each of these texts that supersedes the facticity.  Meaning doesn’t take away from the facticity, it just gives it meaning and truth.  

Now Jesus has been placed in a tomb and the Roman authorities think that they have shut him up once and for all.  His followers are dejected and hopeless.  We keep this story going in our mind that we celebrate every year that tells us that Jesus was rose on the third day and then went to be with God after appearing to the disciples.  Who said it was the third day?  We assume this because he was buried on a Friday and rose on a Sunday, but how do we know it was the Sunday right after the burial?  How do we know it wasn’t weeks or months later?  It would have made sense for Mary and the disciples to visit his grave on a regular basis.  Then, one day, the stone has been moved and he’s not there.  

Now comes the good stuff.  What does it mean that he’s not there?  He’s been resurrected.  Ok, so what does that mean?  Because we don’t have to look far to realize that this world is still severely messed up.  What meaning can we take from these accounts?  The women are told to go tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.  What’s that about?  That, my friends, is where everything started.  Jesus began his ministry when he stood up and read from the scroll of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  THIS was the meaning of Jesus’ ministry and it all started in Galilee.  

Likewise, when they are told to find Jesus in Jerusalem, that is because that’s where the story ended.  Jesus accepted what he always knew would happen if he opposed the Roman authorities.  He knew that he would get crucified for stirring up the pot and when that came to fruition, he went willingly as an example to the disciples.  In a way, it showed them that, if you love someone enough, you will be willing to die for what is right.  This is the ultimate detachment – letting go of your own life so that others might find a way to live.  

Then, one of my favorite lines from all of the accounts is found in John when Jesus tells Mary, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  All of the sudden, everything that Jesus said and did in his ministry starts to flash through her mind and it all starts to make sense.  In Galilee he told the world what his ministry was about.  Then he went and did it.  He taught the disciples exactly what to do and say.  He showed them the way.  The way of love, compassion, respect, and hope.  At the transfiguration, he gave them all a test and they failed.  When the disciples fail to heal the boy with the demon, Jesus says, “How long must I be with you and put up with you?”  There it is!  Suddenly his statement to Mary makes all the sense in the world.  I showed you how to do it, now GO DO IT!  Why do you always want me to do it for you?  I have always showed you and then told you to go and do likewise and you still are holding on to me in hopes that I will do it for you.  If you still don’t get it, go back to Galilee where it all started and take a walk down memory lane.  Retrace the steps.  

Just like the scared and dejected disciples who were hunkering down in an upper room, 2000 years later we are still waiting for Jesus to make it all better.  Just like when God told Moses, “Why are you crying out to me?  YOU do something!” as the Israelites were traversing the Red Sea, those who knew Jesus were told, “You have to let go of me and do this yourselves. Just look.  God is in front of you and behind you all the way.  You are not alone, but you have to take the initiative to actually DO what I taught you for the kin-dom of God to become real on earth.  Pilate and the Sanhedrin thought they were shutting me up forever and ending this movement.  If you don’t do anything, that’s exactly what will happen.  I’ll stay here in this grave and that will be it.   

The gospels are four different accounts for four different audiences from four different perspectives.  It would do us well not to lose the forest for the trees.  The resurrection story is the last story in these gospels.  Why?  Because that’s where it all ends?  Nope.  It’s just the beginning.  It’s up to us to write the rest.  

When I was 12, my grandpa died.  He was my father figure, my hero.  He was the one who saved me when I got myself into a bind as I often did back then.  One day, my grandma and I were going to my aunt and uncle’s beauty shop where we were meeting my other aunt so everyone could get their hair done as we did about once a month.  When we arrived, I thought it was strange that my uncle was there, too.  I remember them all chatting off by themselves while I sat there seething because they wouldn’t tell me what was going on.  Finally, they said that my grandpa had a heart attack and was in the hospital, so they were going to send me off with my uncle’s sister to wait at her house.  I was upset that they treated me like a child and wouldn’t let me go with them to the hospital.  I was infinitely more upset, though, when my mom came home and told me the news that he had already been dead when his brother found him slumped over the kitchen table.  I flew into a fury and felt like my family, God, and even my grandfather had betrayed me.  My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

My grandpa died on Good Friday.  A savior already died on this day, why did God have to take my savior?  For Easter, my mom gave me a Michael Bolton CD and one of the songs was “How am I Supposed to Live Without You?”  I bawled my eyes out listening to that song over and over again.  I still tear up when I hear that and “Wind Beneath My Wings” which my cousin sang at his funeral.

I can still see his good friend Norm coming up to me at the visitation.  Norm was a biker who customized Harleys in his machine shop across the street from where we lived.  He drank a bottle of Red Eye every day and had a mouth that made a sailor look like a saint.  I’ll never forget the shock that I felt when he came to me with tears in his eyes and said, “Well, you’re going to have to grow up now.”  I couldn’t believe it.  What a jerk!  How could he be saying something so rude to me at a time like this?  I wanted to hit him.  It wasn’t until days or weeks later when I realized that he was right.  Although I would never have wished for my grandfather to die, it occurred to me that nobody would bail me out when I got myself in trouble.  I had to start doing for myself and stop being a knucklehead.  And so I changed.  It was as simple as that.  My old self had to die.  It was crucified on Good Friday and it was time to start looking to Easter for the birth of a new me.

I chose the Mark text instead of the Matthew text in the lectionary because it is closer to a historical account.  It’s NOT an historical account, because we know that Mark was not with Jesus at the crucifixion.  His gospel was written over 20 years after Jesus died.  Matthew and Luke used Mark as their source to write their gospels another 20-30 years after Mark.  So it makes me wonder who this character Simon is.  Who does he represent?  I suppose he represents all of us.  The ones who want to stand on the sideline and just watch from the periphery and then are thrust into the experience against our will.  When you stand so close to the action you can’t help but get a little blood on your hands and be greatly transformed by the experience.

I can recall my time in Japan when I would take part in the matsuri each year.  We carried the omikoshi that weighed hundreds if not over a thousand pounds.  I was one of the tallest ones and so a good portion of the weight was on my shoulder, digging in, pushing me down, hurting my back, my neck.  So I can sort of relate to Simon, but at least I had 20 other people helping to share the weight.  He had this huge, solid piece of wood laid on his shoulder and was made to drag it.  Here’s your boulder Sisyphus – go.  The top of the hill must have seemed like miles away and the closer he got, the farther away it seemed.  I can see him as he finally dropped the cross where the centurion told him to.  Jesus and the cross hit the ground at the same time and dust flies up in Simon’s eyes as he looks on at this broken and battered man lying there wondering if he was still alive.  I imagine the tears in his eyes were not all from the dust that was stinging them, but from a deeper understanding of what was happening to this man, but yet never really comprehending why it had to happen.  Who was this man that would challenge the common wisdom, the authority of the day knowing what would happen to him if he did?  And then they stretched the man out, secured his arms with ropes to the cross beams, centered the spikes and began pounding.  Thump.  Thump.  Thump.  Each lowering of the hammer brought a deeper sob from Simon who had front row seats.

Crucifixion hurts.  So does rebirth.  Neither of these things are easy.  Just ask anyone who has had spikes driven through their wrists and feet.  Ask anyone who has given birth to a child.  There is great darkness before the morning, before the rebirth happens and we are born anew.  It’s not something that happens quickly.  Three days is a metaphorical image for a really long time that is required for completeness.  Even then, for us, it’s really not complete.  We have to keep doing it again and again.

Today I still find myself in situations where things don’t go as well as they ought to.  Sometimes relationships don’t click the way they seem they should.  Sometimes somebody will suggest that I do things a little differently.  My first reaction is to get my hackles up and wonder what their problem is.  Why can’t they see things my way – the right way?  Eventually, usually later than sooner, I remember that 12 year old boy on Good Friday and I recall that I am the common denominator in every situation.  I become acutely aware that Good Friday and Easter are not once-and-for-all-time events.  They are events that have to happen annually, daily in fact so that I can remember who I am and who God has called me, indeed created me to be.