Mary Sermon

Originally Preached at Mira Vista United Church of Christ on 12/04/2011.

Mary has a way of looking into my heart. Don’t get me wrong it is not that there are other biblical figures and stories that resonate in my very soul. But still Mary has a way of looking into my heart. Mary is a figure that protestants have often been very uncomfortable with. We don’t talk a lot about Mary. And yet the fact remains she still has a way of looking into my heart. Let us together today consider Mary’s story once again a now and maybe, if just for a moment, she can have a way of looking into all of our hearts.

Mary’s story begins not at the center of the world, nor is she a person we would expect to be visited by an angel. Mary is a young woman, probably no more than 12 or 13, in her time her age and gender would have left her with little or no power over her daily existence. She is born of an occupied people, living at the whim of empire. Not only this, but Nazareth is really nothing more than a back water town. It is so lowly thought of that later in the scripture people mock that nothing good has ever come out of Nazareth. It is this setting that the writer of Luke sets up for us. He shows us a Mary that is as ordinary as one can be. She does not stay that way for long.

The angel Gabriel appears to her announcing something that must have shaken her very world. She was to bear a child, one that Gabriel says is going to be “most high of God.” This is no small announcement for Mary. This revelation puts her very life at risk. A young unmarried woman pregnant, the law would call for her to be stoned. I can imagine her asking in her own head, that though the angel addresses her has favored, what kind of favor is this. She is so taken aback by this moment she responds to the angel by asking how can it be. Gabriel explains to her she is not in this alone, the spirit will be with her, furthermore he cousin Elizabeth is also miraculously pregnant, explaining to Mary that “nothing is impossible with God.”
It is here that I think the real miracle of this story begins. This Mary in her extraordinary ordinariness does something amazing. Instead of turning and running, instead of simply saying whatever, Mary shows the courage that can exist in the human spirit. This Mary chooses to be an active participant in this new story with God. She believes that though there are great risks, that in this moment something new is happening that is going to make the world a better place. She chooses to be a part of that moment.

This is where the scripture for today leaves off but the story continues and I want to focus for a moment of what comes next. Mary knows she can not go it alone, and even though she knows God goes with her, she knows she needs earthly support as well. So Mary goes to see her cousin Elizabeth. When she arrives she finds support there and it clearly it inspires her further. She then sings a song, one that harkens back to other songs of women of the faith in the past. It is a song of extraordinary joy, hope and courage that the world will be better because of this new journey in her life.

“My soul proclaims your greatness, Oh God,
And my spirit rejoices in you, my savior.
For you have looked with favor
Upon your lowly servant,
And from this day forward
All generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me
And holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
For those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm;
You have scattered the proud in their conceit;
You have deposed the mighty from their thrones
and raised the lowly to high places.
You have filled the hungry with good things,
while you have sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant,
Mindful of your mercy—
The promise you made to our ancestors—
To Sarah and Abraham
and their descendants forever.”

In this song we hear the real character of Mary. This is no meek and mild Mary. This Mary is courageous believing that what God has started is going to change the world. We hear these words of peace and justice from Mary, I think we can see so deeply her influence on Jesus. Mary is much more than a simple vessel from which Jesus came. It is at least in part Mary’s raising of Jesus that makes Jesus who he is.
It truly is one of my favorite biblical stories. But what does it have to do with us? I imagine that most, if not all of us in this room have a hard time connecting with a story of miracles and angelic visits. The world we live in each day seems very far away from such things. Yet in the story of Mary can have great meaning in our lives, in our relationship and in our faith community.

Some of us in our lives have or will face Mary moments. Maybe they will not come to us accompanied by an angel, but that does make them any less important. These are the moments in our lives when we choose to risk for a better world. In these times, though they are scary, we know that if we begin a new road that, the result could make a difference. In those moments I think there is much to be gained from the Mary story
We can gain courage; those moments are often as frightening as they are exhilarating. The spectacular thing about the Mary story is that Mary is so human. The courage Mary draws on is something that resides in each of us. We too can find the courage in out Mary moments to say “Here, I am.” We can become with God co-creates in a better world in which, “with God all things are possible.”

We can learn as individuals to not try to go it alone. Mary intentionally seeks out Elizabeth. She knows that if she is going to take on this momentous task she needs support. The same is true with us. As we have these moments in our lives, it is those around us that will help us, guide us and help direct us.

Community is an important part these moments. There are many people who may not have Mary moments of their own, or that those moments have passed. Still we can be like Elizabeth, providing support for those who are having these moments. We can provide guidance, strength and experience. We can support those who have the energy, time and imagination, to make the world better than it is now. Mary moments may start with an individual, but they truly involve the whole community.

Yes, we as the Mira Vista Community have much to learn from Mary. After all we are small church, we meet in a space that is not our own and maybe there are those who don’t expect much from us. But can we once again feel that “with God anything is possible?” Can we devote ourselves to finding ways to being a part of the Mary moments, whether they are our own or if we are supporting those of others? I know we can do these things.
As we come to the table today we may not being visited by an angel. But we are reminded that in the meal we once again experience the divine. We can come to the table like Mary ready to have courage, to say here I am. After all, Mary does have a way of looking into our hearts. Or maybe more accurately we have a way of looking into our own hearts and finding the courage of Mary there.
Amen

Longing for Advent

Originally an Article for the December 2011 Mira Vista UCC Newsletter.

Advent is a special time of year for me. It is this time of year that we take time to wait, listen and discover once again what Christmas can mean. It is time where the songs we sing and scriptures we read often express a longing for God. Whether it is singing “Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel” or hearing the words of Isaiah saying to “prepare the way” we are invited to join in that longing.

Humans define God, tie God down, limit God to a few ways of showing up on our planet. Still, after millenia of recorded thought, God remains elusive for earth people. The authors of our scriptures speak beautifully about our human despair as we search for a God we can really know. If God is still speaking, what's God saying? Who or what is Divine? Even as we actively search for God, God often remains elusive. As if the divine is only just outside our reach.

As I have journeyed from time to time I have experienced moments when God seems to break through that elusiveness. It is a fleeting moment but it is a powerful experience. For me it is often in quiet contemplative moments. One moment I’m singing a Taize’ Chant and the next I feel as if the divine is within reach. As if I can feel that I am a part of something much bigger than myself. It is both a comforting and daunting experience. In those moments I feel as if I’m wrapped in the love of God, but I also feel the great responsibility it means to be connected to the entire universe through the divine. For that moment I feel I am truly present to the possibilities the world has to offer. Just as quickly as those moments come they are gone and I’m left longing for more.

While I feel I have gained insight these moments, I am always struck by the fact that the more I experience of the divine, the more I am aware just how little I truly know about God. It makes me long for those moments of connection, long to experience more of the divine. It is like an ache, an ache for a world where that divine love permeates all experience. A dream of a world not as it is, but rather as I hope that it can slowly become.

So at advent time I feel connected with Isaiah’s hope proclaiming comfort to the Israelite exiles. I experience hope as John the Baptist as he points forward to something new that's coming, even as he doesn’t know exactly what that will be. I take comfort in the courage of Mary and Joseph in their willingness to listen to their visions and dreams, in hopes that by doing so the world might be a better place. I long to hear the angels say “Do not be afraid” proclaiming that hope has once again entered the world.

Re-imagining

Sermon Originally Preached at Mira Vista UCC on 10/16/2011. The scripture was Exodus 33:12-23

Moses is worried. He used not to be this way. There was a time when it felt like he had all the answers. Back at the Red Sea it felt like there was nothing he and the people of Israel couldn’t handle. But now the Red Sea is but a distant memory. Moses had only been away for a short time and the people had built the Golden Calf. The people had traded a God who is in the process of journeying with them, into a product. A product they could touch, feel, and possess. Their imagination about who God was and who God could be had failed. The tablets lay smashed on the ground. Now Moses is not even sure that God would go with them on the rest of their journey.

So Moses speaks to God. Speaking to God by name Moses reminds God that God has brought the people this far and implores the divine to bring them the rest of the way. God responds by saying of course I will take you the rest of the way. Moses responds from his deep anxiety again and tells God that if God’s presence is not going to go with them why carry them this far, is God sure God’s presence will be with them. God once again tries to comfort Moses saying that God will do everything Moses has asked. This is when an anxious Moses gets very bold, see his peoples’ imagination, having failed Moses asks to see God’s glory with his own eyes. God agrees but reminds Moses that he cannot possibly see the wholeness of God. So God places Moses in the broken place in a rock, comes by shielding Moses’ eyes until God passes only exposing God’s backside to Moses. In this Moses understands that he can only see part of the wholeness of God and knowing that God is with him Moses is ready to take action and move forward leading his people in the rest of their journey with the divine.

The writer of Exodus beautiful weaves for us this narrative about people of Israel and it is one that we can deeply relate to as the people of America? It wasn’t too long ago that it seemed as a nation that we had all the answers. Our economy was the strongest in the world, terrorism a word that referred to something that happened somewhere else. But those times, as the Red Sea, are now a distant memory. As a nation it is easy to feel like Moses there preparing to talk to God. As a nation just like the Israelites of the scripture trust had been put in our products, the things we could touch, feel and possess. Creativity was traded for certainty and forward motion seemed stopped. But just as on the mountain Moses gets to reimagine who God can be, one way to look at the groundswell for change expressed in movements like Occupy Wall Street is as the beginning of the reimaging process. Maybe in movements like these and others around the world we are just being to see the back side of God.

What the story in Exodus is showing us and what we can see in our economic crisis is how certainty can make it difficult to move forward. Difficult to truly experience the presence of God. The language and symbols we use when we talk about God are very important. Over the centuries people have come up with a number of rich symbols to talk about God, these rich symbols have for the most part been helpful in talking about something that ultimately is inexpressible and that is the nature of God.

Symbols are wonderful things they help us to understand God by pointing to God. But ultimately all they can do is point. You see when I point at the alter my finger is not the alter but it does lead you to see at least part of the alter. But over time even the best of these symbols can become problematic. Over time certainty sets in and the symbol becomes mistaken for God, God’s self. And the more certain we get about our symbol the harder it is to access the presence of God even though God is still right with us. The symbol, like the Golden Calf becomes a product something we can feel, touch and possess. Theologian and Poet Dorothee Solle puts it this way “If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive.”

This is what happened to the Israelites with Golden Calf. They became certain of their symbol and mistook it for God and ignored to presence of God that was so excitingly and specially in their midst. While they were busy holding on to the Golden Calf they no longer had space to receive God’s presence. It was this lesson that God teaches Moses. When Moses is concerned about God being with them God does not show Moses the wholeness of who God is, or even the most amazing part of who God is. God instead shows Moses his backside. There is humor in this moment, I use backside intentionally because in the Hebrew it does literally refer to God’s behind. This is surely not the part of God Moses expected to see. But Moses is open to this new image of God, he makes space to receive it and is it enough to get Moses and the people to move forward on their journey with God.

God reminds Moses that if we are so set in what we think the Divine can be, we might miss where God is present to us. This reminds me of a story. There once was a man who reached the end of his rope. He prayed to God telling God he was going to God sit in his Garden until God appeared to him. So he sat in his garden for several days. Finally tired of waiting he yelled at God, “I’ve waited and waited and you did not show up.” And God spoke to him saying. “Did you not see the butterfly that landed near you, did you not feel the wind and hear it in the trees, did you not see the sunset? I was there in all of these. “

Unless we can understand that our symbols for God are just that, symbols. Unless we can accepted that God is mystery we easily can end up like that man missing God’s presence right in front of us. Even more dangerously if we begin to be too wrapped up in our own images of God, our own Golden Calves we begin to see God as a product, something we can own, buy, sell and control. But our God, the God that speaks with Moses, is not product, but rather presence. In the scripture God reminds Moses that no, you can not experience the wholeness of the divine, but you can be assured that my presence is with you. It is by reimagining God, being open to the mystery, that we are able to avoid the pitfall of making God into a product.

But how do we continue to reimagine God, after all we are just human and it is easy to become certain of things? It is this very reason that community is so important. If we as a community can share together our symbols for God, not putting them all together to make our own Golden Calf, but giving them each space to live we might find richer understand of God than we once had. If we create space so as new people come into the community we can learn of their symbols, God might be present to us in new and exciting ways. Moving us forward in our journey just as the new view of the Divine did for Moses in the opening of that rock. After all just as God promised to be with Moses and the people, so God is always present with us on our Journey.
So I pray God forgive us when we mistake our symbols for the divine.

I pray God help us to reimage how to talk about the mystery that is God. I pray God connect us with one another so that we might widen our vision of who God is and can be. So that we may hear God say as God Moses did “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” Amen.

Thirteen Years Later

I begin with a confession; this is a very difficult blog to write. Thirteen years ago yesterday my home town of Laramie, WY was thrust into the spotlight when Mathew Shepard was beaten and left to die because of his sexual orientation. I want to share with you my perspective of what it was like to be in Laramie at that time and what it has been like to be from Laramie since. In doing this, however, I want to make it clear that I am speaking only from my experience and do not presume to speak for the people of Laramie.

Until recently the events of thirteen years ago would have been something I would have been very reluctant to talk about. I think this is true of a lot of Laramie residents. When you introduce yourself and say you are from Laramie, Matthew Shepard’s brutal death is often the first thing people think about. The natural inclination is to take a defensive posture and defend Laramie or speak about nuances that have gotten lost in the media covering what happened. The truth is that these reactions truly are not helpful and are out of truth not about the event itself but rather feeling like I have to defend myself for being from Laramie. Understand too my memory is also clouded by the media’s decent onto the town. The reporters hounded us as High School students as we left school to give them a sound bite about local reaction. Memories of TV cameras pointing into classroom windows while we were simply trying to do our work. These also have not been helpful to me as I have tried to really think about that time over the years. My goal has been to move beyond such things and what follows is my attempt to do so.

What has really stuck with me all these years more than even the brutal event itself has been the community reaction to it. Almost immediately the University and High School students mobilized to create a way of saying that what had happened was not acceptable and had nothing to do with the Laramie we knew. Almost everyone’s backpack or bag had a yellow ribbon on it supporting Mathew’s family.

When Fred Phelps and his hate group from Westboro Baptist Church decided to protest there was a group who bravely surrounded them wearing white robes with large angel’s wings to block the hate from sight. This simple moment of love and resistance is one that has stuck with me and to this day acts as an example when I plan acts of resistance.

I remember Mathew’s mother’s courage and compassion when she decided to ask the DA not to seek the death penalty in the case of Mathew’s killers. In this act she stopped the cycle of violence right there. It must have taken a great deal of courage and overcoming a great deal of pain for her to act in this way.

But what of Laramie? I’m sad to report that though there are positive things like the Matthew Shepard Symposium at the University of Wyoming each year dealing with issues of homophobia, the environment that allowed this kind of act to happen still exists. The issue of homophobia is still one that has yet to be dealt with in significant ways. But this is not true only of Laramie. You see it would be easy if we only had to irradiate homophobia in Laramie, but the conditions that allowed Mathew Shepard to be killed exist far too pervasively in our society. For every Mathew Shepard we hear about there are hundreds who are victims physically and emotionally of homophobia that we do not here about.

So I turn to my faith and ask for forgiveness for my silence. Thank God for the ability now to reflect on this and continue said reflection. And the strength for this native son of Laramie to continue the fight against homophobia and to fight for my LGBTQ sisters’ and brothers’ equality where ever that might lead me.

River Sermon 9/25/2011

This is a sermon delivered at Mira Vista United Church of Christ on 9/25/2011. The scripture was Revelation 22:1-5 "Then the angel* showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life* with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants* will worship him; 4they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever."

A crystal clear river peacefully running down the middle of the street, light glistening off its waters, it feeds two huge trees that seeming brake out of the ground and shooting upward to the sky. These trees provide cooling shade, more they provide to all in this place fruit and healing. It really is a beautiful image of hope provided to us by the rich symbolism of the scripture today. I have a confession though, when I first read this image for this week it struck a sense of discord within me. The world we live in seems so far away from this image. If you follow the news, you hear everyday about the pollution of rivers, species of fish in danger of extinction, rampant deforestation, and human injustice to one another. The world seems to be crying out. I find myself asking where is the “healing of nations” talked about in the scripture because our world could really use some of that right now.

The reality is that we live in a broken world, a world that is not how we would have it and I believe one that is not the way God would have it. So as people living in a reality of brokenness, what do we do when confronted with the beautiful hope in the image from today’s scripture? We find this scripture very near the end of the Book of Revelation. Revelation is a book full of images and metaphors of a broken world. The author of this book identifies himself as an exile on the island of Patmos. He uses symbolic images to write about the brokenness of the very world he sees around him. The symbols in Revelation critique an Empire which has begun to care more about its wealth than its people, it critiques the deep injustice than within the system, and it speaks to a profound sense of powerlessness in the face of these things. Any of these things sound familiar. Yet out of this profound brokenness rises this image of deep and lasting hope. When we examine this image it is one that speaks directly to who we are as people of faith.

The first thing to notice about this image is that it is not an image about escape in some distant future, rather it is an image rooted in the here and now. This is not an image about hope for a heaven that is light years away, but rather hope for our everyday existence. We see this in the language the writer of Revelation chooses. We see the river of life, running down the middle of the street right there in the middle of our everyday path, we see the trees of life shooting up toward the sky in my spiritual imagination they are breaking through the concrete, breaking through the ordinary, those boundaries of our world that seem to keep hope out. It brings “the healing of the nations.” In choosing these images the author is calling on the natural world that is right around us. He is telling us through symbol that God’s divine presence is already in our midst; that we need not look far for hope because it is right here in the very ordinary things in our lives.

It doesn’t surprise me that the author of Revelation uses water at the center of his symbol of God’s hope in the very here and now. As a church, in baptism, water acts as a symbol of God’s presence in the life of the one being baptized. It seems water has a way of teaching us about our connection with the present moment and our connection with the divine. The Lakota Story teller Joseph M Marshall III recounts how his Grandfather taught him about the interconnectedness of all things and the divine. He was with his Grandfather near the river and they were throwing stones into that river. As they throw the stones his Grandfather pointed out the circular ripples that were created. “In the circles, there is no first or last, no higher or lower… The river was teaching me that no one or no thing is higher or lower than any other form of life. We are all connected…It is the acceptance of such a simple reality that we are a part of all species in the world.” He goes on to describe how the river taught him of hope because while it is constantly changing it is also constantly there. This connection speaks of a hope that is right near us and in us, in our connection with the earth and our connection with God.

This sense of hope being right in our midst, this sense of God with us makes me think of one of the most important scriptures for the Jewish faith, the Shema, which you heard me say earlier in Hebrew. “Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The shema is at the center of the liturgy of Shabbot service and in many ways at the center of Jewish spiritual practice. It is a reminder of a God that is not far off but is rather right here. The word translated as one in English, ehad, is a number but it means much more than simply the number one. It means God is one with creation, one with us, and one with everything around us. It is a reminder that God breaks into our midst not just now and then but rather God is continually among us. This is not a distant God, when read in the Hebrew the word translated as the Lord is actually the name of God, which even when read in Hebrew is replaced with the word Adonai out of respect, the God we are reminded of in the Shema has a name and a close relationship with us. In the Shema as in the image in Revelation, God and hope are here and now.
But this brings me back to my original question; living in a broken world how do we as Christians hold the reality of a God who is right with us? I think the answer resides in our everyday lives. Our spiritual practices are a great way to allow the breaking in of hope to our world. Our spiritual practices can act as that thing that does the breaking through, making space for the divine to enter, making room for the tree of life so to speak. When our prayer, our meditation, our hiking, our singing, our reading of the scriptures is at its best it brings us into contact with the hope described in Rev. 22. One way I personally connect that hope you have already seen this morning. I pray the Shema on my exhaling to connect myself with that hope, to connect myself with God. I suspect many of your own ways of fostering the connection with God and with hope. It is in these practices that we can find strength when the world seems so broken that the image of hope seems dim, it can reconnect us to the river of hope that is our connection with the divine.

The most ordinary of things can bring hope into our daily lives. The very earth itself has a way of quite literally providing hope and healing. In Reading, England the charity Thrive is using Gardening as a therapeutic practice for persons with a number of disabilities. Stuart, the care giver of his wife, Denise who is suffering dementia, says of her experience. “As she waters the garden, she waters herself. The work seems to reconnect her with herself. This ordinary garden has grown hope in both of us.”

As the hope of the divine breaks into our daily lives flows through us, it flows to others. As we live out of the hope and connection we experience with God we do things in our life that share that hope with those around us.

An example of this are friends of mine from PSR Hope Attenhofer and Gale Tompkins Bischel. This summer the went to the Arizona desert to work with the organization Humane Borders who was providing water for those crossing the desert so would not die of thirst along the journey. While this act seems so small to the people doing it, people make these kind of delivers every day, the fact is that it is saving lives. This small act of leaving water is a way in which the hope of the divine brakes through the brokenness of our worlds emigration policy. This water is in a very real way feeding the tree of life.

Now we may not have the opportunity to deliver water to the desert, we all have ways to provide hope to the world around us. In this very congregation we have people who help fight hunger at the supercenter each month. This action, no less than those of the church group in Arizona feeds the tree of life for the healing of nations. It is in these everyday acts that hope flows through us and to others. It is by sharing the hope that the divine instills in us that we begin to participate in the healing of the nations.

So when it comes down to it the image of the scripture today really is not discordant with our broken reality, but rather it is a vision of where to begin. How our reality may in fact be full of life and healing rather than brokenness. It is through making space in our ordinary existence that opens this hope that it may flow through us and be shared with others.

So may hope like the trees of life break through the concrete of our world into our here and now. Through our spiritual practice may we feel a river of hope flowing from God into us, and in our own everyday lives may hope in all the small ways flow to others; that we may truly begin to see the healing of the nations.
Amen

Empowering the Dis-empowered

I was recently shocked when I read about JCPenny selling t-shirt that suggested to young girls that being pretty and being smart are mutually exclusive. I was horrified that you girls and boys for that matter might take this message to heart. This got me thinking a lot about the kinds of messages we send by the things that we say and the things we do not say.

In the case of the JCPenny t-shirt many people spoke up and JCPenny did pull the t-shirt. My question is however is simply speaking up against this t-shirt, while the right thing to do, enough? The reality is the misogynistic expressed by this t-shirt is a part of the cultural zeitgeist, how then can we become active and not just reactionary against this injustice? The truth is that we need to have the courage to be continually putting out a message that says "You are not limited by what society tells you that you can be. You have the ability to the the thing that makes you most whole, that makes you fully human!" Yes, we do need to speak against the negative message, but just as important is the work of empowering, loudly proclaiming the positive message.

As a religious leader I am particularly concerned about this within the sphere of the church. For many years our scripture and faith have been wrongly used to limit people's potential, to dis-empower rather than empower. This means it is all the more important that we take on the call of God to let people know that God calls them to be the thing that makes them whole, fully human. That we want them to be empowered and we want to help them to break through the walls that keep them from being fully and authentically themselves.

We must do much more than say it as the church however, we must embody it. Just saying it does no good if our own structures continue to mirror those of the wider society. As long as there are those those are excluded we can speak of it all we want and it will ring hollow. We must follow the example of Jesus and draw the circle wider, giving human dignity and empowerment to those he met without that power, while challenging those with the power about their structures of dis-empowerment. The truth is as the church in America we must recognize that we are the ones with the power, so the scary (though I believe exciting) thing about being real about empowerment is that to do it we are going to have to be open to change.

This empowerment is an active pursuit in our society, because empowerment is not the status quo. It is counter-cultural to empower. We must begin to help raise each raise one another up, instead of looking down on those who have no one to give them a boost. Silence is simple not good enough as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said " In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Help Me Source of Creativity

Why did the hateful voices seem the loudest? How do I help change that? Help me source of creativity.

Why do the negatives of the world seem so overwhelming? How can I help others to feel the hope? Help me voice of hope.

Why does the world seem so ordinary? How can I help to reignite people's sense of wonder? Help me source of wonder.

Why do we seem so divided as a world? How can I help unite? Help me weaver of the universe.

I am here! Guide my feet great maker of paths!

Pointing out GOP/Ayn Rand Hypocrisy Without Demonizing Atheists

I have been very glad lately to see the progressives finally calling out the hypocrisy of members of the GOP holding Ayn Rand up as a foundational Republican thinker and claiming that it is the party of faith. This is a hypocrisy that should be pointed out. I am concerned however that progressive people of faith while pointing out this hypocrisy are unintentionally in the process demonizing atheists.

I think the youtube video Ayn Rand & the GOP vs. Jesus is an example of this. I have seen it widely distributed and have watched it a number of times. Each time it left me feeling uncomfortable. The video while trying to point on the hypocrisy has a tone that seems to fall into an us vs. them binary that borders on calling atheism evil. This is deeply concerning to me.

The truth is that while I have different views on faith than the atheists I have met, I have found some of my best allies and friends in the fight for social justice in the ranks of self-proclaimed atheists. The truth is that some of the most compassionate, caring and moral people I know are atheists. Atheism simply is not evil, it is an expression of belief. People of faith can find much common ground with those who adhere to know religion. I have gained much over the years from open, honest and respectful dialogue with my atheist sisters and brothers.

We must be careful and respectful. If we as progressives begin to demonize atheists we are no better than those who use the scripture as a weapon rather than to give life. We can disagree on issues of faith and still work together and live as neighbors. We must not stop pointing out hypocrisy like that we see in case of Ayn Rand and the GOP, but in doing so we must be careful not to create collateral damage.

When we go down the road of the us vs. them binary we are always in danger of hurting those who in no way deserve it. We must use our faith as a tool to unite and resist the temptation to use it to divide. I believe our faith calls us to nothing less.

Why Tolerance Has Failed.

Whether it is the arguments over marriage equality, the rampant Islamaphobia or the anti-emigration sentiment in our country it is becoming very clear that at its very heart tolerance has failed. When we think about it for a moment it should not be a surprise, tolerance has been doomed from the beginning because tolerance simply does not go far enough.

Essential to the divisiveness of the topics mentioned above is the labeling of someone else as the other. Tolerance allows this to continue to happen; we tolerate the people who are different then us. They are the other but that is ok. Tolerance fails right there, we must instead of seeing people as the other, see them as essentially human and valuable. It is this much more radical approach that is called for by the Christian faith.

We are called to see the image of God all around us, particularly in people we come into contact with each day. What this means is recognizing that all have the divine spark, divine value. This goes far beyond simply being ok with differences; this means celebrating differences, seeing those differences as an essential part of what it means to be human. It means breaking out of the binary world we have all been taught to believe in.

This becomes all the more challenging when we consider those we disagree with on the deepest level. We are however called to treat them with the same respect and recognize the same divine spark within them. This is what Jesus was talking about when he called us to “Love our Enemies.” It is easy to hate when we can label people as other. It is much harder to hate when we see that divine resides in those who disagree with us as well.

The practical reality is that if we can move beyond tolerance and move to a place where we see people as worthwhile and valuable it will open the door to true conversation. We will not always agree and we may in the end continue to make each other mad, but by not labeling each other we can at least come to the table. In coming to that table maybe find more common ground than we expect on which to stand and make the world a better place.

Proud to be an Ally this Pride Month

I have to say that I’m very excited that it is Pride Month. I am particularly excited to be living in the Bay Area this year and getting to go to the San Francisco Pride celebrations at the end of the month is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I’m also excited because I know the Grand Marshall of the San Francisco Pride Parade.

I am ally and I am deeply proud to be an ally. Over the years I have been asked many times why I am so deeply drawn to the fight for inclusion and equal rights for the LGBTQ community. I have a hard time answering that question because I cannot pinpoint a “became” an ally. It simply feels like part of who I am and has been that way as long as I can remember.

While I cannot answer how I became an ally I can, however, tell you the reasons it means so much for me to be an ally every day. Over the years my life has been deeply affected by my LGBTQ friends and I have learned more than I can possible say from them. They have taught me about courage as they have been themselves even in the face of the world asking them not to be. They have shown me what it means to love and love deeply and honestly. They have taught me about faith, staying in love with God even when the church brokenly says we don’t want you. They have shown me acceptance and they honor and affirm who I am. I am grateful for the lessons the LGBTQ community has taught me even at the same time mourning the brokenness of the rest of the world that gave the opportunity for these lessons to be taught.

So this pride month I proudly declare that I am an ally and would not have it any other way.

Mary

A poem inspired my worship at New Spirit Community Church on 5/29/2011.

She stares into my soul. Her eyes that of divinity. Caring, compassionate, loving. She knows me, this Mary, not for who I pretend to be, but for who I am. In the moment, Mother God with us.

Reflection on the End of the World That Was Not

May 21 came and went and we are all still here (no surprise here) and I find myself wanting to be snarky. I find myself wanting to say I told you so, and to make jokes at the expense of those who thought the Judgment was upon us. The truth is, though, if I fall to these urges I miss an opportunity to learn from what we have just seen, I miss to opportunity to practice compassion for those who must be reeling from this experience.

Before I begin my thoughts on the subject I want to give credit to one of the most intelligent and thoughtful people I know Jay Johnson for helping me to recontextualize this event in his blog post "Apocalypse Now or Later."

Now to my thoughts; if we just become snarky about this event I believe we miss the point. The fact that so many people were willing to see and wish for the end of the world revels something about the brokenness experienced in our world today. When people see the only hope as the end, something has failed them, it is not a new phenomenon but it is one to pay attention to. What if we who saw this prediction of the end of the world for what it was had been better able to express a sense of hope to those who had been unable to find it? What if I had been able to speak of hope instead of simply making fun of the prediction as I did? I find myself feeling I missed an opportunity to engage brokenness and instead engaged in brokenness.

I also find myself with anger at Harold Camping himself. I think that some of that anger is rightful. This man has done a great deal of damage to thousands of people, and has in the name of Christianity once again hurt the world rather than done anything to better it. So I’m not saying my anger is not justified but if I stay only at anger I miss a lesson here. We who are religious leaders need to see again just how much sway we hold in people lives. There is a lesson for us here to once again examine our beliefs and make sure that we are not through what we do and say leading people to a place that is destructive for them. While we may not predicting the end of the world like Harold Camping, we need to take the time to ask ourselves if our theologies are really furthering the betterment of human kind or are we holding onto dogmas that divide, encourage hate, rob people of hope, or leave them feeling that the only hope is in the end. It would be ashamed to let this pass without reflection.

Lastly, we are left with a great opportunity for compassion. There are a great number of people in a great need for that compassion. Yes, it is true that they themselves chose to quit their jobs uproot their lives to follow Camping. This does not make these people any less worthy of compassion. In the end what one of us can look back at our lives and say we have not at one time or another made some kind of massively bad decision? In the end these people are people and they are people who are hurting. We have an opportunity to provide hope and to heal some of the brokenness in the world. Are we going to fight the brokenness of this world or again add to it, in the end it is our choice.

Open Letter to Sojourners

What follows is an open letter I wrote to Sojourners in regard to them rejecting an ad from Believe Out Loud a United Methodist group working for full inclusion in the church.

Dear Sojourners,

As a long time reader of Sojourners, I have gained a lot from your insightful take on issues of faith. I am deeply troubled however by your rejection of the ad from Believe Out Loud. You have been a consistent voice for the oppressed and marginalized and this decision is simply out of character for your organization. I understand that not everyone in your organization is of the same mind on the issue but you do not foster honest dialogue on the issue by by excluding the voice if faithful Christians who are attempting to promote said honest dialogue as Believe Out Loud is. I fear that this decision has less to do with the mission of your organization and more to do with dollars and cents, fear of losing readers/ sponsors. I pray that you will reconsider the issue and live up to your call to be the prophetic voice I have known you to be.

Chris Hockley

Blessed is the One Who Comes in the Name of the Lord

Jesus...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Moses, Mohammed, The Buddha...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Dorothy Day, Holy Mary, Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks...
Blessed is she who comes in the name of the Lord!

Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X, Oscar Romero, Harvey Milk...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

The Dalia Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Black Elk, Eboo Patel, Rumi...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

The millions unknown who devote their lives for Justice...
Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord!

Letter to My Body

To my body,

I know it has been a long while since we have really talked, truthfully far too long. I don't even know when and how we lost touch, it was so long ago. Admittedly you have kept trying to reestablish contact and I just outright ignored your pleas. I let others tell me that you were not good enough, that there was essentially something wrong with you. That was never the truth. But because I believed that lie I abused you. I can't say how sorry I am for the damage I have done. I really should never has lived as if you didn't matter. As you know I have been trying to take better care of you and when I saw you in passing in the mirror the other day I was happy to see you looking well. Truth is though I've still been treating you like nothing but an empty shell. You are much more than that. You are God's own creation, I'm sorry that I forgot that. I'm sorry and ashamed of what i have done to you. I worry that some of the damage can never be undone. I truly wish I could say I love you.. but I'm truthfully not there yet. But there are more days I can honestly say I like you and that is something at least. I promise to treat you right... or at least try to ( I know myself and my bad habits). I've missed you thanks for not totally abandoning me like I have deserved.

With hopes of better days to come.
Chris

What Religion Is and Is Not

Over the last month or so I have watched and read a lot of different people define religion. The thing that struck me has been that most of these definitions of religion don’t work for me. I don’t intend to create a definitive definition of religion here but I want to talk about how I define what religion is and is not to me personally.

First, for me religion is not about an afterlife. Whether there is or is not an afterlife and what that looks like is a constant debate but I believe that that is missing the point. Religion, Christianity in my case, is at its best when it is focused on the here and now. I believe deeply in the wisdom of an old Jewish story in which a Rabbi is asked what he would do if he was told that the world was going to end that very day. The Rabbi responded that he would plant a tree and then see what all the fuss was about. My faith is not about some better life I will get later but about improving the life I live this day and the lives of those around me. In other words I think there is wisdom in living life as if there is no afterlife whether you believe in one or not.

Religion is not a set of rules to me. Certainly my faith informs how I live but not like a checklist of things I must do and must not do. If we turn religion into a five step process to salvation, it has lost its life giving abilities. Also if religion is only about rules I must follow to be “saved” it becomes a very selfish pursuit. It is this that leads to dangerous platitudes like “love the sinner, hate the sin” quite frankly when I have seen people try to practice this idea it has always devolved into hating the sinner. We must focus on community and solving the real problems of this world not blindly arguing dogmas.

I completely reject religious exclusivism. I believe whole heartedly that there are many ways to God, Goddess, the Creator (whatever name you choose to use). I believe that Jesus reveals one way and so I follow that way. But as I journey up the metaphorical mountain to the source I more and more often hear the sounds and prayers of those on other paths and they brighten my journey. I believe we are going the same direction we are just taking different paths. I have often, on my walk, been taught how to be a better Christian by Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics. Without the influence of these others I would have been missing essential parts of my own faith. It is incredibly important to me to walk the journey with these people and see them as spiritual equals.

Religion should be about embracing ones true/whole self and the true/whole selves of those around us. Religion is about wholeness, it is for this reason it is so important for me to be a part of the fight for full inclusion my LGBT sisters and brothers. Also why I think it is so important to try to actively dismantle systems of racism within and outside of us. If people are treated as subhuman or asked to assimilate to be parts of our communities not only are they being harmed by religion but we are harming religion by not embracing the wholeness that they have to offer to the whole. Religion should help people live into their full selves, the beautiful selves that God, Goddess, the Creator has made them to be. Religion should bring people together too often it does not.

To me the heart of religion is connection, connection with the divine, connection with my fellow journeyers and connection with the world around us. This is what I view my spiritual life and my practices as cultivating. By engaging my spiritual practices I hope to feel more connected and gain a sense of compassion and a resolution for social justice that spurs me to action. Spiritual practice should lead to a life lived out of that practice.

Ultimately, there is a lot of religion out there and there is much I reject. There are many constructions of “God” that simply don’t work for me and I am not shy about rejecting them in my life and asking what the implications of believing in such a god would have. There are days where religious systems and institutions are so frustrating that it is tempting to reject them all together, however I instead choose to embrace the life giving possibilities I have experience in the divine. I choose to walk a path that defines religion as connections, inclusion, community and love. This is how I define religion and how it informs my life. It is not the only answer but it is mine.