Please think about this

Sure, it would be nice if Jesus made more clear and concise theological statements. I guess. Although, I suspect we’d probably just argue more about what they mean. There are so many “authoritative interpretations” announced as “the right one” that it’s hard to know what to think sometimes.

So you probably should. Think about it. Really think about it.

That said, there’s lots to think about and lots of information and interpretations to consider. There’s also lots of people who are happy to tell you “the facts” and separate “the facts” from “the myths” (which are apparently bad) and, with the right delivery, their words carry a lot of weight.

It seems like all you have to do is hold up the right book and somehow it makes what you have to say “the truth.”

I think that’s why the stories need to speak just as loudly as the statements. And they need to speak to you. Please don’t let anyone “tell you how it is” unless they begin with “here’s what I think, please think about this.” And please consider their actions, too, when, assessing what they offer.

So. Please think about this.

Each of Matthew, Mark and Luke have stories of Jesus addressing which is the greatest commandment. Matthew, in particular, places it in the context of the leaders of the Temple asking Jesus questions, hoping to trap him with an answer they can use against him. Again, they seem more concerned with his words than anything else. So, in the story, this is their final question: which is the greatest commandment in the law?

That might seem tricky, there being not just the ten we’re most familiar with, but also another more than six hundred. But Jesus answers right away: love God with all your heart, soul and mind. And love your neighbour as you love yourself.

The first would likely have satisfied them, but there’s Jesus, always with the “and.” As if there’s always more. Because there is.

We’re often quick to point out that the “love” Jesus means is the unconditional, grace-filled, compassion-filled, life-giving love of God. There’s different kinds of love, of course, and we don’t want to complicate things with physical love, emotions, kinship, family, other things. This is the divine, transcendent love of God. Which is a really convenient way of holding it at arms length and making it something impossible for us to achieve. So. Please think about this: I think Jesus means all love. It’s not something to put on a pedestal and wonder at, it’s something to hold close and share generously, be amazed it and wrestle with. Love is love. It’s heart, mind and soul.

And that’s another thing. It’s in you and around you. It’s heart, soul and mind. It begins your relationship with God, with yourself and your neighbour. I’ll just say that again, so please think about this: it begins. It begins life. It begins relationship.

That’s what makes it the real test. Questions, statements, words, they’re not as challenging as love. That’s why we didn’t get more words from God, we got Jesus. Living, breathing love from the beginning. Want to know how to do love? Be Jesus.

"Deep in our hearts, there is a common vision"*

*From the hymn by John Oldham © 1995

Jesus always has a vision. He probably has visions, too, but I mean he has a vision of what things ought to be and how we can get there. Yes, “can.” I don’t for a minute think Jesus thought we aren’t capable of the love, grace, compassion and, yes, righteousness he taught. He tried to show us that we, too, are divine and human, and he literally lived and modelled it for us in a way that demonstrated his belief in us.

So it always bothers me when people try separating things into the spiritual and earthly, as if those things aren’t - or shouldn’t be - connected. (I wanted to say it surprises me, but it doesn’t anymore.) They are. Perhaps if we leaned into that a bit more, we might find it easier to see the Jesus in each other, and all around us, and see just how life-giving it is.

Take politics, for instance. Yes, politics. (Don’t stop reading now, I’m almost there.)

By all means, separate church and state. Keep religion out of politics. And politics out of religion, I hope. If, like most, you believe that religion and politics are the very human and very fallible structures that we’ve built, please, keep them apart. If you see them as being about partisanship, power, control, management, uniformity, or even more cynical things, please: keep them apart. They’ll only hurt each other.

But if, like Jesus, you might view this differently and you might see it, instead, as the interconnectedness of God - or however you know that life-giving force of love that I’d call God - with something more akin to “ubuntu” or the people in relationship as a caring community, well, that can be a different thing. That’s the kingdom of heaven Jesus is always talking about.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all relate a story in which religious leaders tried to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes. Should the people pay taxes to the Roman emperor, or not? If he says no, he risks being reported to the state authorities and being arrested. If he say yes, he risks alienating all the people. It’s a trick question. There’s no way Jesus can answer it that they can’t claim a victory.

Except there is: Jesus asks to see a coin and, showing the image of the emperor on it, he says “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s.”

Clever Jesus, we traditionally think. But I don’t think Jesus meant to be clever, I just think he answered sincerely. They just weren’t all on the same page. And we’re not either.

I think the religious leaders saw this as an either/or option only, just as we do today. But for Jesus, God is in all things, especially us. It might have been Caesar’s image on the coin, but we are created in the image of God. And the earth. Divine and human. It’s not separate, it’s connected; it’s not an either/or, it’s and “and.”

It might seem to us that we’re far from the kingdom of heaven Jesus envisioned. But maybe that’s part of the point of Jesus and other great figures of love and grace and “godliness.” We live in the world of our making and God’s. Again, however we might know God, there is divine and “earthy” in all things. The structures we might build around our beliefs and our societies are meant to help us understand and engage those things better, to grow and give them life. Ok, so they’re not always doing that. But we could try and see them differently, maybe with Jesus eyes.

"i thank You God for most this amazing day"

It’s Thanksgiving this week, in Canada at least. But it’s harvest time on this part of the planet for lots of people and, at least where we are here, there’s cause for celebration. It’s been a good crop, pretty good weather and lots of people working to bring it in. Given the state of things in the world today, I imagine there’s lots of people having to work to find something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. No doubt, there’s more than a few heaving a big sigh and saying “thank God for the harvest.”

Now, some of those might be just an expression of relief, but, really, we should all start by thanking God for the harvest. Really, however you know God, in nature, in each other, in spirit, in passion, in creativity and in relationships, we truly need to be thankful that we are filled, surrounded and connected by life. Maybe we should start there.

I guess it depends on what end you view things from. I’m already seeing lot of messages reminding people that there’s always something to be thankful for. Even in these pandemic times, even with grief, civil unrest, racism, poverty, homelessness, war and violence and, well, and, and, and. The list is long. But still, there are little things every day for which we should be - could be - thankful. Often it’s simply a question of looking for them and acknowledging them. Do you see things to be thankful for?

Like the harvest. Even with all that other stuff, there’s a good harvest and that’s the point of the seasonal holiday, anyway, isn’t it? At least we’ve got farmers to be thankful for.

Yes. About that. No one’s more grateful for farmers than me. Obviously I like food. And I also would be a terrible farmer and appreciate the skill and dedication of so many who, thankfully, are good at it.

But they don’t do it alone, do they? They need the seed and the animals. They need the land. They need good (or, at least, cooperative) weather. They need farm equipment. They need workers, they need trucks and drivers to haul the harvest, they need places to process, workers and places that turn the raw ingredients into other things. They need time. We don’t do things alone, we need the resources of creation and the support of each other.

Maybe we should start there.

What if we began with being thankful simply for what is? What if we began with a sense of thankfulness for this creation in which we live that offers, yes, challenges, but also opportunities? What if we began with the wholeness of creation, before we broke it down or broke ourselves down? What if, like the poet E.E. Cummings, we began each waking moment with “i thank You God for most this amazing day,” recognizing that the wholeness of life is the beginning of thankfulness.

That’s why “i thank You God for most this amazing day.” God is in that wholeness of creation, from the beginning. God is all that is beautiful and all is beautiful in its beginning. God is that love that connects us, that energy that inspires us, this earth that feeds us. Lets begin in thanks.

Finding the heart of our story

Do you know The Ten Commandments?

I mean the movie. I’ll get to the actual Ten Commandments in the Bible in a  minute, but what about the classic 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film that made Charlton Heston a star? If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a look as a classic epic of its day. You’ll need three hours and forty minutes, though. That’s about 22 minutes a commandment.

Except it isn’t. Moses receiving the commandments and bringing them to the people takes up less than 10 minutes. Makes you wonder why the movie's called The Ten Commandments. Maybe it should be “The Life of Moses” or “Exodus” or “the journey of people who only knew slavery gaining their freedom and then having to learn how to be a community, a people and a nation.” Yeah, I think that’s the one.

Which is also what the “Ten Commandments” are about. I’m using quotes there because we only started calling them that - commandments - in the 16th century thanks to the Geneva Bible and then the massively influential King James Version. Hebrew people knew them as the the ten words or sayings. Because that’s what they are. 

On their journey to finding themselves, growing and learning as people to be a people together, they needed more than the “wilderness experience.” They needed guidance. They needed some fundamental principles for relationships, with each other and with God, that would create and build community. They needed some building blocks for a society that would not just live, but thrive. That’s the purpose of the ten sayings. They’re not “commands” to control behaviour or laws to be taken literally, they’re a universal framework for loving ourselves and our neighbours.

They’re an essential part of the Exodus narrative, but they need that narrative context - that story of “the journey of people who only knew slavery gaining their freedom and then having to learn how to be a community, a people and a nation” - for us to understand their purpose. They need to be written on our hearts and lived out in our daily lives, not chiselled in stone like some long forgotten monument. They need to be part of our narrative.

I also think that we have a particular way of understanding laws and rules that we impose on the ten sayings. As a society, most laws and rules tend to be designed to tell you what you can’t do or what you must do - or else. There’s a consequence to not following the law and it’s punishment.

But this is a covenant, not a contract, a covenant with God and each other. In a covenant, each party offers its part to build a new thing, in this case a mutually supportive community of love, grace and compassion in which everyone can belong and have an equitable place.

Suppose we were to look at all laws and rules differently. Suppose we could look at them like people who believed in a God of hope and promise, who’s story included being a God who heard the cries of people in bondage, broken and hurting, and then sought to do more than just free them. A God who sought to bring them to a new life and create a new world in which relationships were honoured, lives were respected and compassion, honesty and truth were commonplace, not exceptional. We could sure use that right now.

How do we get there from here?

Jesus talks about “the kingdom of God” a lot. Or heaven. Sometimes he says “kingdom of heaven,” but biblical scholars generally think he means the same thing.

No surprise there, right? In the Gospel of Matthew especially, I think Jesus’ point isn’t about the life that’s next, but to teach how that “kingdom” can come here, in this life. When you couple the number of times he says “the kingdom of heaven is near” with the number of times he says “the kingdom of heaven is like …” and the very earthy way in which he describes it, I think it’s pretty clear it’s about making this world something more heavenly.

But that’s not easy. At least, it can be easy to talk about. Love, grace, compassion, justice, equity - Jesus tells lots of stories about bringing those things into the world and making things “right” in our relationships with each other, the world around us and, of course, God. And when we tell those stories and talk about them abstractly, as we so often do, well, “it’s a nice thought, but …”

Thing is, the real “but” is that this isn’t the kingdom Jesus talks about and bringing it here is going to be - as it always has been - hard work. Jesus knows that the kingdom of God won’t come without a struggle. That’s why it’s so important to not hear the stories as a third party observer, but to get in them, live in them and own them.

How else will we discover the perspectives that will cause us to engage the kingdom in our own lives, work at relationships in our own lives and make our own lives more life-giving? Perspective is so important.

In Matthew 20, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven with a story about a landowner who hires workers first thing in the morning to work in his vineyard. They agree to a wage for the day and off they go. At several other times during the day, he sees other workers in the market with nothing to do, so he hires them, too. At the end of the day, when he pays them, he pays the last ones hired the same as the ones hired first. Those who worked the whole day grumble that the landowner is treating them equally, though they didn’t do as much work. The landowner replies that he is giving them what they agreed to and has chosen to give the others the same, it’s his right to do so. “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Is this story about the generosity of God’s grace? Is it about equity and social justice? Is it about both, engaging the tension between the world that is and what it could be? There are many interpretations, but take a moment and step inside the story. Be one of the workers hired first and toiling all day. How do you feel about what happened? What do you think of the landowner and their explanation?

If I were one of those workers, I think I’d feel tricked. I’d feel offended and hurt that my work was undervalued, that I was undervalued. I don’t know that I’d struggle to understand or just go away angry and not want to work for this guy again. I just don’t know. But I know I’d be struggling.

That, too, is a learning from this story. I don’t think Jesus anticipates the coming of the kingdom without that struggle, without there needing to be moments of hurt, questions of value and feelings about conditions and expectations that we’ve learned and lived by. The landowner here has the power to do as they did. But perhaps we should ask questions about that, too. I wonder if we should consider that struggling together, hearing each other and considering other views could be more meaningful than simply imposing change. What’s your perspective?

No one said it was going to be easy

Jesus isn't easy.

Oh, here he goes again, right? Sure, but it’s another one of those “we need to be reminded, constantly” kind of things. So, I’ll say it again, Jesus isn’t easy.

Jesus is loving and caring, kind and forgiving, comforting and hopeful. But easy? No. To follow the way of Jesus, to live out the profoundly simple message to "love one another as I have loved you" is full of complications and challenges in our very human world.

According to John, Jesus lost followers because of his teaching about being the Bread of Life. Remember how Jesus tells people he is the Bread of Life? Not with just a "it's kinda like this," Jesus is adamant that we must literally consume him because "whoever eats me will live because of me" (John 6:57). You can just imagine people turning away thinking "wow, this guy's really lost it." John recounts how "because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66). No one wants to be a cannibal and drink your blood, Jesus, especially people who believe "you shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off" (Leviticus 17:14).

But, of course, that's not really the hard part for us. The hard part is understanding Jesus means that to live - to truly live - is more than behaviour and to live the life of Jesus isn't just about how you act or what you say, but how you live. To be Jesus is to live from your heart and mind and body, to quite literally live out what you have taken in, and that is Jesus. I've said this before, I think, and lots of others have, too. And it's not about achieving a perfection that's beyond us, it's about doing the best we can, as we can.

And, sometimes, that's not easy. Sometimes, we won't like it (really?). Sometimes, we'll doubt (gasp!). Sometimes, we'll want to just walk away (no!). As C.S. Lewis wrote, "if you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

Jesus wants us to know (and I mean really know) that we are loved by God and we should love others, especially those that are hardest to love. That's not easy.

Jesus wants us to know (and I mean really know) that God cares for us and is with us, in times of sorrow as well as joy, adversity as well as prosperity, just, well, all times. And we should be there for others, too, especially those who are hardest to care for. That's not easy.

Jesus wants us to know (and I mean really know) that God's grace is for all, that we are all forgiven and welcome by God, and we should show grace to all and find forgiveness for even those that it's hardest to forgive. That's not easy.

Jesus wants us to know (and I mean really know) that God is about what’s true and right for all of creation and we should seek that always so that we might live in right relationship with each other and all creation, even with those who are the hardest to live with, even when we struggle to live with the earth. That's not easy.

But it is worth it. Peter knows why.

That piece of the story in John, that I mentioned above, concludes with many of the people who'd been following Jesus just walking away in disbelief. So Jesus asks the twelve disciples, "do you also wish to go away?" I imagine there was some shuffling of feet, a few doubtful looks and a sigh or two before Peter says "to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:69). The way of Jesus is life giving.

I was going to leave it there, but I can't. I need to go back to that quote from C.S. Lewis for a moment. "Religion" isn't just God or the Spirit and it isn't just our faith or belief, it's the structure, the system, the institution, even, that we human beings create around our faith to give it order and a certain common expression which we might share together. There are many religions and many expressions of faith. If they follow the way of God, however we might know that God, they will surely also present the same challenges that Jesus wants us to know (and I mean really know) are part of life. That's not easy and, as churches often experience, people will often walk away. Is that because the the church has lost it's way? We certainly have some history of that. Is it because the way is hard? We have some history of that, too. But discerning that, I think, is best done by engagement, not departure. These are words of a parting prayer I've used for a number of years and, to be honest I'm not sure of the source and there's a few variations, but it is still true:

The way is long, let us go together.

The way is difficult, let us help each other.

The way is joyful, let us share it.

The way is Jesus, let us follow.

The way is open before us, let us go.

Hey! Over here!

Question: why a burning bush?

I wonder if Moses thought about that on his way back down the mountain. Why would God appear to Moses as a burning bush?

That's part of the story of God calling Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, to lead them to "the promised land." Moses is tending to some sheep, he sees a bush which appears to be on fire and "was not consumed," so he goes to investigate. He hears God’s voice telling him he’s standing on holy ground. God goes on to tell Moses how he will save the people and where they're going and there’s a little bit of a debate because Moses is reluctant, to say the least. Fearful, even. Moses also wants to know the name by which he will call God and God tells him "I am who I am … the God of your ancestors."

There’s lots packed in this little bit of Exodus 3: the call of Moses, where and how the Hebrews will go, who God is, and more. This is, after all,  a pivotal moment in the life of Moses and a key moment in the story of the Hebrew people. 

All of which hinges on Moses turning aside from what he's doing to see the burning bush. So. Why the bush?

There are a variety of interpretations, as you can imagine. The burning bush became an important biblical sign, a key symbol of reformed churches since the 16th century.  Originally adopted by the Huguenots (French Presbyterians), it's the symbol of most Presbyterian churches worldwide, including the Presbyterian Church of Canada.

Here’s a few. That the fire burns but does not consume is symbolic of the power of God's spirit, that we may be consumed "with" it, but not "by" it. God empowers us (as it will Moses), but does not destroy us. Another is that God's power is a mystery beyond this world. It can, literally, violate the known physical laws of creation. And a more practical one is that the bush symbolizes the Hebrew people. Though they suffer through great trials (the fire), they will not be consumed because of God's love and support for them.

There are more, of course, from the mundane (it was a trick of the light reflecting off dew) to the obscure (one commentator suggests that Moses had consumed some hallucinogenic herbs … no, really).

I like the first one, myself, because it connects with my understanding of the Spirit in our lives and I can appreciate that as a symbol. I think it also informs the rest of this passage - God is at work with Moses and his people, and with us today.

That's all interesting and important and, like I said, as a story of "call," there is so much more to this story.  It certainly worth more than I have room for here - and worth looking into, for sure - but it's not my point. What I'm pondering today is a question that's a lot simpler but one we should all spend some time with: why did God need the burning bush to get Moses' attention in the first place?

It makes for a great story, but it raises a very real question for me: how does God get my attention? What do you think? What does God have to do to get your attention?