Worn out shoes

Van Gogh's 'A Pair of Shoes'

Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent ... Hebrews 6:11,12

To love others for as long as life lasts is how we become spiritually alive and passionately engaged, justice oriented and hope-filled.

It is not a stand alone venture, it is fundamentally communal, where no one is left out, moving at the speed of the most vulnerable and always making room for more...

It is to move in step with those in worn out shoes...

Babylon

“You have been deceived by the fear you inspire in others and by your own pride. You live in a rock fortress and control the mountain heights. But even if you make your nest among the peaks with the eagles, I will bring you crashing down,” says the Lord.    Jeremiah 49:16

Call it my ‘Rasta’ moment, but I have been thinking a lot about Babylon these days. To Rastafarians, Babylon refers to human government and institutions that are seen in rebellion against the rule of Jah (God), beginning with the Tower of Babel.

In my case, it’s more likely that the prophet Jeremiah has something to do with my current fascination with this ancient empire. Read Jeremiah and one encounters Babylon on nearly every page. It is not only the empire that Jeremiah predicts will trample down his own people, it is the empire which will burn God’s holy city to the ground.

Jeremiah’s entire life is one of unrelenting lament, with only brief respites of consolation to his people that if they wait long enough, 70 years to be exact, the land and the holy city will again be theirs.
These respites of consolation are the only good news he has. Wait two generations and then things will get better. In the meantime, Babylon rules. And ruthless their rule is.

Although the Babylon that ravaged the Promised Land is long gone, something like it has permeated human society ever since.
Two thousand years ago it was the Roman Empire.
Now it could be any of America, Neo-liberalism, Amazon or any other entity staking claim to power over others.

Babylon is anything which exercises dominion over more than just its own. For the sake of a few within its own, it denies prosperity and freedom to many.
It is the power of the wealthy over the poor,
the leverage the privileged have over the disadvantaged,
the pulpit the esteemed have over the ridiculed and despised.

So what would be good news to those over whom Babylon rules, who have little, if any means, of getting out from under its oppressive rule? Wait two generations for something better?

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.” Luke 4:18,19

When Jesus read these words in his hometown synagogue, he insisted not only was he their fulfilment but that their fulfilment had already begun.

This is a different kind of news to those of us accustomed to believing that Jesus is about the life to come. It is the good news that is in effect right here and now. In Babylon. In these days when Babylon is smiling on the world of the 1% and merchandizing the rest.

This proclamation from Jesus is unmistakably political. Enough to overthrow any Babylon.
It is a proclamation that rings most true, not in some sepulchre or sanctuary, but where life gets real messy and congested, in refugee camps and war zones.

It is God’s good news for poor people. Everywhere. Beginning today and not tomorrow. For those who have no power and no wealth, it is through the world's poorest people God’s kingdom comes.

We may not see it coming, mired as we are in the machinations of Babylon, but in promising sight to the blind and liberty to the captive, Jesus offers us the gift of seeing things the way he does and the freedom to live that way.

Palm leaves and protest

from front page of Globe and Mail - Saturday September 28, 2019 

Connecting Palm Sunday to last Friday’s Climate Strike March...

‘Jesus went on toward Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples. 

“Go into that village over there,” he told them. “As you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.  If anyone asks, ‘Why are you untying that colt?’ just say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
So they went and found the colt, just as Jesus had said. 

As he rode along, the crowds spread out their garments on the road ahead of him. 
When he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.

“Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord!
    Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!”

But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!”
He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!” Luke 19:28...40

Those of us who went to Sunday school likely remember this story, told on the Sunday before Easter, before things for Jesus dramatically took a turn for the worse. In this high moment of exaltation, Jesus is front and centre in a parade, with crowds waving palm branches and singing the praises of their long awaited King.

I remember the story for its palm leaves and branches. And I remember Jesus riding on a donkey worshiped like a rock star just days before the crowds turned on him.

The Sunday school teacher likely made reference to how fickle crowds can be, but definitely no mention was made of Palm Sunday's being a protest march. Like the Climate Strike March last Friday which was for the care of God's creation and against our abuse of it, Palm Sunday was for Jesus and his way of peace and against all forms of oppression.

Clearly Christ’s triumphal entry into the holy city was without official sanction. To openly praise someone other than Caesar as King defied the very empire under whose thumb the city of Jerusalem had been crushed, a message reinforced by the many wooden crosses on which other well intentioned liberators had been hung.

No wonder the religious authorities begged Jesus to silence his followers. He was jeopardizing what little they had. But Jesus would not, insisting that had he, the stones themselves would cry out in protest.
Truth has a way of making itself known even when we who know it remain silent.

No doubt this defiance on Jesus’ part hastened his demise. It forced on the holy city into a referendum as to who they would really like to be in charge.

By Thursday, the same crowds who had welcomed Jesus as King on Palm Sunday were, at the authorities bidding, openly declaring: ‘we have no king but Caesar!'

When the status quo is threatened and the people are forced to choose between those in power and Jesus, Jesus rarely wins.  Not only then, but in jurisdictions since, even when the majority of the electorate are Christian.

That said, it doesn’t devalue the significance of a parade, whether the one on Palm Sunday or last Friday’s Climate Strike. It does matter when we go public for something better, even if our loyalty proves suspect at times.

Fortunately enough people stuck with Jesus to change things for the better then, and hopefully with God’s help, there will enough people to change things for the better now.

Learning to interpret the times

Some of us are prone to allow our religion to do our thinking for us.
Jesus expects otherwise...
We must learn to interpret the times.
We must learn to decide for ourselves.
We must be aware of those who have a bone to pick with us, to settle our differences promptly.

In his words:

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?
“Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way..." Luke 12:54-57

Jesus expects us to rightly interpret the times we live in.
He expects us to judge for ourselves what is right.
He expects us to reconcile with those against us before their complaint lands us in jail.
He expects that we can sort out the confusion of letters and words and bias and grudges. He expects that we will resolve the tinder box issues of our time - immigration, abortion, violence, gun control, tribalism, drug addiction, the widening gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots, the loss of opportunity experienced by poor people.......

The Female Face of God

Have been intrigued by a Jewish theologian named Melissa Raphael, whose writing is featured in an essay written by Christopher Pramuk entitled 'Making Sanctuary for the Divine: Exploring Melissa Raphael's Holocaust Theology.'

'Where was God in Auschwitz?' is a hard question for which there is no easy answer. 'If God is all-powerful, why did he allow millions of Jews to die in Nazi concentration camps?'

Ms. Raphael in grappling with the question, takes issue with the popular assumption of the nature of God's Presence in the world.

She writes: "There has been too much asking 'where was God in Auschwitz?' and not enough 'who was God in Auschwitz?"

As Christopher Pramuk writes in his commentary on Melissa Raphael's 'Female Face of God',

"In truth, Raphael maintains, God was not wholly eclipsed in Auschwitz but was truly present in the relational acts of women who turned in compassion and bodily care toward one another, defying the most inhumane and desperate circumstances. 

'With unsparing detail, she unearths the largely ignored stories of women in the camps who maintained the practices of Jewish prayer and ritual purification with whatever resources were available to them - not excluding their own bodily fluids where no water was to be found. 

'Within the barbed-wire enclosure of the camps, one woman's body bent in compassionate presence over another woman's body or the vulnerable body of a child formed an encircling space where the divine Presence could dwell, where God could be bodily reconciled with humanity over against the patriarchal god of raw power, the false and idolatrous god of nation states and National Socialism. 

'Even, if not especially, in Auschwitz, the most basic gestures of compassion constituted a 'redemptive moment of human presence, a staying power against erasure - not only for women in the camps, but through them for God"

In reading Christopher's essay, it brought to mind a poem by rupi kaur

my god
is not waiting inside a church
or sitting above the temple's steps
my god
is the refugee's breath as she's running
is living in the starving child's belly
is the heartbeat of the protest
my god
does not rest between pages
written by holy men
my god
lives between the sweaty thighs
of women's bodies sold for money
was last seen washing the homeless man's feet
my god
is not as unreachable as
they'd like you to think
my god is beating inside us infinitely

I would rather be...

‘Oh Lord, I wanna be in that number
when the revolution comes.’ from ‘O when the saints…’

I would rather be the one beaten
than the one doing the beating
I would rather be kind and betrayed for it
than the one too mistrusting to be kind

I would rather welcome the refugee and migrant
than the one turning them away
I would rather love and suffer for it
than to not suffer being too fearful to love.

I would rather own up to the sins of my people
than deny them in the hope of not paying for them
I would rather be ridiculed for being privileged
than to deny it and hide behind its thick walls

I would rather be merciful and suffer for it
than be right and not suffer at all
I would rather be vulnerable and hurt for it
than be protected from all hurt and all wrong.

I would rather be welcomed by the homeless
than lauded in the corridors of power
I would rather be identified by the invisible
than praised by the highly esteemed.

Would I really?
I can say it, but that’s not where it matters.
Where it matters is ‘can I live it?’
Not alone, I know, not alone.

Do Muslims and Christians believe in the same God?

The question has been posed elsewhere whether Christians and Muslims believe the same God. Since the issue is a contentious one and has a history of sparking more than enough bloody crusades, it is one worth deliberating on.
This is my take on the subject.

No question, Christianity and Islam have two very different and at times conflicting theologies. And very different sacred texts.

The issue for me is the question of who answers when either a Christian or a Jew (who likewise don't believe Jesus to be God's Son) or a Muslim, or an atheist cries out to God.
I believe in all instances, the living God responds, not because he is correctly identified by the one crying out, but solely because of God's person, infinite mercy and love.
If having the right theology were a pre-requisite to God's answering our prayers, it would be a rare thing that anyone's prayers would be answered.

But we all know people who despite not sharing the same theology as ours, have their prayers answered.
We all know people who despite not having the right theology have the capacity to love in a way only the Holy Spirit can.

True we do well to know Jesus, to draw on his example, witness and Spirit to encounter and reflect the Living God, but if God is truly the God of all nations, and his house the house of prayer for all nations (see Isaiah 56 verses 6,7,8) - open to all who genuinely cry out for his help, then we can say, despite conflicting theologies, that the God who answers is the one true God.

There is no other.

Not white like me

Not white like me

Jesus isn’t white like me,

he’s not the colour of white oppression

he is black and beautiful

even though we lynched him

and left him hanging on a tree.

The colour of Jesus

is the indigenous woman

brown and beautiful

found raped and murdered

by the side of the road.

There is the white Jesus smiling 

from a thousand stain glass windows

on our forefathers who beat their slaves

and on us who beat down anyone  

who defies our Jesus who is white.

But this Jesus of stain class windows

Pane by pane is crashing down

As do all the false messiahs

Half truths, shards of broken glass.

Where is Jesus to be found?

Among the oppressed hidden. Listen.

Live the words he is saying.

Pray the lament he is praying

Share the breath and dignity

of the hurting people he sustains.

Breathe deeply to feel

his liberty

his justice, mercy

and peace.

January 17, 2019 inspired by James Cone's 'Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody'