Last night a cricket got into my apartment and gave an uninvited concert intermittently through the night. I had lived the day in my clock and calendar, and so the intrusion of nature reminded me of my deeper home in the cosmos. For a moment, I laid aside my problems and projects and just listened.Some say that being religious means believing in an invisible being who made everything. To me, religion has always been about a sense of over powering reverence before the interconnectedness of life. John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” To me, religion is remembering I am an expression of something deeper and bigger that is more my home than anything that happens to me biographically. When a cricket chirps, it is singing to other crickets but, according to the Farmer’s Almanac, you can count the number of cricket chirps you hear in 14 seconds, add the number 40 and you’ll have the temperature. I doubt the cricket is aware of the meteorological aspects of its song, but its chirping reminds me that I, too, am a thread in an ecological garment. It isn’t true that a cricket plays its leg like a violin, but it does make music with its wing. I have always been struck by the fact that Einstein sometimes played a violin to break up his mathematical work. I suspect he sometimes used the violin to animate the intuitive side of his brain so that his intuition and reason might play together as he explored new possibilities. For me, religion has never been about dogma or magical rituals but a kind of playful exploration of the cosmos. Religion has always been about those moments I “dissolve” into a deeper sense of life than my own little story. I believe it is a mistake to think we have to choose between being good scientists and the singing cosmic song. Science tells us where to place the notes on the sheet music. It is what happens between the notes that we hear as music. I went to sleep last night lost in my clock and calendar. It took the unwanted hymn of a cricket to remind me to listen for a deeper and larger song, to tune my heart to that music, and then to play my own life like an instrument so others might hear my little fiddle and remember their part in the cosmic symphony.
Few biblical texts have been misused as maliciously, and as dishonestly, as has the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hebrew prophets talked about the “sin” of Sodom, but none of them mentioned homosexuality. The prophet Ezekiel spoke clearly on the matter:”“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”So what is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah about? Just like Jesus, the ancient rabbis often taught in parables. To take a parable literally usually means to miss the point entirely. The “sin” in the story of Sodom referred to a culture of domination and abuse toward of those outside one’s own culture. Sojourners were incredibly vulnerable in the ancient world. To not offer them hospitality could mean their death. To shoehorn the modern concept of homosexuality into the story of Sodom and Gomorrah says more about the sexual obsessions of the translators than anything that is in the actual text. Neither biblical Greek nor Hebrew had an equivalent term for the modern word “homosexuality.” In fact, the words “homosexual” and “heterosexual” were both coined by Karl-Maria Kertbeny in 1868. It is dishonest to pretend the ancient prophets were hating on the same people as the Christian Nationalists of today. We who live in the age of MAGA can learn a few things from this teaching story. As the demographics of our nation change and white Christian men are no longer the central stars of our nation’s narrative, many who benefit from white Christian male heterosexual privilege are tempted to mistreat those of the new demographic- as if their very presence were an assault on the the moral fiber of our nation.Forming lynch mobs to protect the old ways from newcomers is exactly what the bullies of Sodom were doing. Such mindless allegiance to the ways of yesteryear may feel strong at first but it actually binds us to an old world that is dying. The metaphor of Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back is a warning about being unwilling to let go of our former glories and enter a new world being born. We cannot make America great by bullying those who do not fit our stereotypes about who is and isn’t a real American. The DEI movement (inclusivity equity and inclusion) so dreaded by Christian Nationalists is just another version of the ethical sinew of this nation “E Pluribus Unum.” If we do not develop a culture that affirms the dignity and human rights of us all, our wealth and military might will not make America great again. Without diversity, equity and inclusion this nation will unravel for lack of a unifying ethical principle. Ironically, blaming our problems on vulnerable populations like the LGBTQ community or undocumented immigrants makes us the very “Sodomites” the story warns about.
I believe it was Jesse Jackson whom I first heard describing generational poverty as “frozen violence.” Herman Hess also described “frozen violence” very well when he wrote, “We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing.”Perhaps Hess overstated the case a bit but I take his point to be that sometimes the worst violence is institutionalized and therefore invisible to those who live higher up on the food chain. Every hierarchy can be thought of as frozen violence whether that hierarchy is racial, economic or gender based:The movement to interfere in the reproductive decisions of women is violent when it threatens people with prison even if it calls itself “right to life.” For police to be used to protect protect the structures of economic injustice is violence even if it is called “keeping the peace.”When marriage is withheld from same gender couples, when Christian family values makes no safe space for people who live outside its own moralisms, they are not expressing Christian piety but religious violence. Mark Twain bluntly called out the white Christian Church for its role in defending the structures of slavery. Twain said, “There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one – the pulpit. It yielded last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession – at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery texts in the Bible remained; the practice changed; that was all.”The desire to dominate others is a chameleon that can easily pose as patriotism, morality or evangelism. This is a chaotic time when religious people must choose between being popular cheerleaders for the remaining structures of frozen violence or prophetic voices calling humankind from hierarchies of violence to a new dawn where no one must live under the heel of another. And each of us must decide whether we will place our trust in the power that would dominate our human family, or the power that would liberate it.
Religious people are sometimes told they are supposed to believe that Moses parted the waters, that Jesus rose from the dead, or that someone’s scripture is directly dictated by God. But how could we ever know whether such things really happened? Is faith really just pretending that we really know what happened centuries ago? Is faith betting our lives on the possibilty that some ancient miracle “proves” our religion is right? Is faith running the ultimate bluff? I think it is important for Christians to remember how many times Jesus warned against hypocritical religion. The word “hypocrite” did not mean exactly the same thing it does today. Instead, “hypocrite” referred to the mask actors wore in Greek theatre. It seems to me Jesus was warning against religion that pretends to know what it does not really know or to feel what it does not really feel. It seems to me, if our goal is to love, that pretending to know and feel things only gets in the way. The faith that “saves” us is not belief in religion but trust in the life process. When religious people base their lives on things that they are only pretending to know they cannot be reasonable in modern situations. A commitment to yesterday’s understanding can make us enemies of today’s truth. I believe the one true faith that “saves” us is an allegiance to the web of life and an awakening to the fact that our fates are interwoven.I believe the resurrection that saves us does not belong to any one religion but is an acceptance of the cosmic process where beings arise and fall like waves in the ocean but not a drop of water is lost. Faith is trust in that process.I believe the most valuable parables and stories of any great religion awaken us to who we are in the here and now. Such stories and symbols lead us through the dragons of our fears and desires and into the cave of our own depths. We cannot find love while hiding behind a mask. We cannot find truth any other time than now. I believe the religious pilgrimage most needed is one into the depths of the human heart. Mythic stories are not fantastical historical claims but wondrous guided meditations past our hopes and fears and into the human heart. The treasure is hiding right now behind our pretended thoughts and feelings. The journey is always to here.
I ran across an interesting quote the other day but have been unable to locate its source:“Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.”That saying seems true to me. I don’t know how many people I have met over the years who repeated the same old patterns that made them unhappy just because they were familiar..I’ve known so many people who repeated the same romantic mistakes over and over because a certain type of lover felt familiar to the person with an unhappy home of origin.Many people choose religion, not to bring new insights, but to reinforce the trance holding their life together. Many people do not even suspect that healthy religion might illumines their world and open them to newly discovered truths. So many people choose their religion because it resembles the safe and familiar childhood memories of dull old hymns and reassuring but mindless cliches. Few people choose a religion that calls them out of their herd and into personal transformation. Should anyone be surprised when a political movement claiming to “make America great again” would defend Confederate flags and care more about the statues of old dead white men than reshuffling the cards so that America might be great to ALL its citizens? The great Zen teacher Suzuki said the secret of Zen is to always be a beginner. When Jesus talked about being “born again” I suspect he was challenging us to reboot our lives and see each moment with new eyes. We cannot reboot our lives from within the safe familiar walls of familiarity.Happiness demands that we let go of truths that have died and embrace the new world being born. We cannot find love so long as we seek people who match the romantic fantasies of our immaturity. We cannot find justice if we will not leave the culturally approved hierarchies of oppression. We cannot discover new paradigms of science if our only measure for truth is whether new ideas fit into what we already know.What a mantra of rebirth: “Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.” Who would have suspected that the most dangerous place in our spiritual pilgrimage is our comfort zone?
Many Christians in the U.S. saw the opening ceremony of the Olympics, not as an homage to earlier European religions, but as a parody and assault on their own Christian religion. Something bad happens when we look out at the world through the lens of our own sectarian narrative and cannot listen to people in their own terms. When groups are taught that God created the world especially for them they will most likely judge outsiders as inferior versions of themselves. So, instead of being able to understand the opening ceremony as a whimsical panoply of earlier European Gods and Goddesses, many Christians saw the opening ceremony as a sacrilegious depiction of the Last Supper. Sectarian Christians cannot really love those outside their theological bubble. To sectarians, life is always about themselves. Sectarian religion brings division to the world when it does not recognize the figures in its own theology as personifications and analogies of a deeper, common life we share with every other being. Sectarian religion ruptures the ear by which can hear the truths that do not fit in our simplistic Sunday School narratives. Literal belief wounds the eye that would see the humanity of those who do not fit into our religious narrative; but are, none-the less, standing right in front of us.Whatever the symbol “God” means, it must include female as well as male, animals as well as humans, and non-believers as well as believers. If religion is not to be toxic, it must point beyond anyone’s sect and call us into the life we share with everyone, including those who do not believe in our religion at all.If the Holy Spirit is understood as a ghost-like being belonging only to Christians, the symbol will leave believers isolated, selfish, and without roots into the natural world. But, if Holy Spirit is understood as a personification and analogy of the tie that binds us all together the symbol will not only unite Christians to each other, it will unite us to all humankind and to the web of life itself. The symbols of religion are like tiny umbrellas that start with our isolated egos and open us to the common life. They are seeds that open only to the sunlight of honesty and the nurturing rain of compassion. If our religion does not allow us to feel our kinship, even with the most dedicated Atheist, our seeds have not yet opened.
I’m not sure what does more damage- to burn a flag, or to use that flag as a colorful backdrop for a partisan political rally. The American flag is supposed to be a symbol of the common principles or our republic. Think about what happens when partisan politicians hold rallies using the flag to represent their own policies. What happens when partisan politicians address their followers as “patriots” implying that Americans who hold other policy positions may not love the republic as much? Are these politicians not using the flag to divide the one nation for which that flag is supposed to stand?What does it mean to love one’s nation if one considers it “communist” to care for the welfare of its people and “woke” to want to share power fairly with all? What does “E Pluribus Unum” mean after one has condemned diversity, equity and inclusion?And one flag can be the symbol of the principles of a nation, but a stage full of flags can reduce the symbol to a decorative back drop. We might even say that the more flags there are on a stage, the deeper the emotions and the shallower the principles are probably going to be.Democracy can die from traitorous contempt it is true; but a republic can also die from a vacuous, rudderless, narcissistic patriotism that is all symbol and no substance.
When people say preachers shouldn’t condemn Christian Nationalism, When they say we should be spiritual but not political, When they say we should support the church right or wrong, I know they have never understood the liberating message of Jesus, or Moses, or a cloud of prophetic witnesses who aren’t even religious.Our message is one of a love that grows into justice. It is spiritual, yes; but if religion does not break chains as well as heal wounds it is a prison chaplain for the poor and oppressed, not a prophetic call for their liberation. Our time is particularly bleak because religious leaders serve justice within the context of their nation, their sect, and a capitalist worldview, not from the context of universal love and justice. Like every ideal, these goals are unreachable, but they are pole stars of spiritual and political sanity.I’m so glad Moses “got political” about workers’ rights. I’m so glad Moses actually changed people’s conditions and didn’t just pray for a better day. I’m so glad Moses went directly to Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go.” Just as Pharaoh was the “decider” in his day, so are citizens the “deciders” in a democratic republic. Religious leaders who do not challenge citizens to seek justice for all humankind are no leaders at all.I’m so glad Jesus knocked over the tables of exclusion and didn’t simply offer thoughts and prayers. I’m so glad Jesus didn’t tell his followers about a pie in the sky heaven, but told his followers to make it on earth as they imagined it might be in heaven.Finally, I’m glad the Atheist Robert Ingersoll said, “Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.” In so doing he demonstrated that the tie that binds us together as a species is not sectarian religion, but love. And love without justice cannot be.
The more we love nature and humankind the more we feel the wounds around us. It is important for kind people to protect their hearts when they find themselves living in cruel times.It can be stunning to hear the cruelty and dishonesty that have become common place in our nation. It is important to treat our external conditions like a storm on the ocean and to keep our inner vessel dry of such hatred so that we do not ourselves sink into the storm.The branches of a tree cannot grow larger or stronger than the roots will support. Even as our “branches” strive sunward toward justice, so must our “roots” be nurtured in the dark rich soil of peace and compassion. It is not betrayal to the resistance to make time for rest and joy. One can face the perils of our day and still make time for community with other wonderful souls struggling to keep human sanity alive. It is not indifference to human suffering to make time to celebrate the wonder of being alive.
I was very happy to hear that two people from our little church will be honored at the Gay Pride parade in August. Rev. Babs Miller will be a “Lavender Legend” and Morgan Davis will be one of the Grand Marshalls. While Babs was in seminary she realized that she had always been attracted to other women. Being lesbian meant she couldn’t be ordained in the Presbyterian Church. Babs eventually came to serve at Saint Andrews because we were willing to violate church law to honor the dignity of every human being. Babs has been much more than an associate pastor. If you come to one our monthly leadership meetings Babs is usually moderating the meeting because she does that better than me. Babs is indeed a champion of the struggle who should be honored. When the vote came to determine whether Babs could be ordained, instead of hiding who she was, Babs “came out” before the Presbyterian Churches of Central Texas. At first there was a gasp, but then people realized we were voting on the same ol’ Babs who had served many of them faithfully for decades. As I remember it, the vote was unanimous. Morgan Davis is another champion of justice. Morgan had driven by the social justice messages of our church for sometime. As a transgender man, Morgan was understandably cautious about actually attending our church. For some time he just kept driving by. When I eventually met Morgan for coffee I didn’t realize he was the transgender man. I had been reading about him in The Washington Post. Morgan resigned his job with the state because he saw the trauma Texas was inflicting on families trying to keep their transgender teens from killing themselves. Morgan has become a beacon of hope, compassion and even joy for these families. He, too, deserves every accolade he gets. So, why have so many churches been on the wrong side of human rights struggles through the ages? Many churches do not realize there is a difference between the Hebrew word for “righteousness” (tzedek) and their word for ”justice (mishpat). They think they are supposed to be righteous, but not necessarily just.The word “righteous” means to be a good person within one’s value system. “Justice” means basing ones value system on what is good for all. The word “righteous” means working hard and giving charity to the poor. The word “justice” means changing the system so it will be fair for all. Many southern Christians saw “righteousness” as honoring their traditions and being kind to their slaves. If they had heard their bible’s call to justice they would have ended slavery in a heartbeat. The prophet Amos believed that God is not satisfied with our piety and worship, but also calls us to justice for all. Amos heard God saying, “Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice (mishpat) roll down like waters, and righteousness (tzedek) like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:23-24)Today, some Christians believe “righteousness” means playing out gender roles based on first century morals and science. Jesus and the other Jewish prophets did not come to teach such etiquette. They came to tell us we are members of one another. It is a good thing to be righteous, but in order to seek justice we must listen to who people are and to what they need. Yes, we need to have righteousness of character, but we also need to develop a love that grows into justice for the people of our own day.