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Why is it that clergy who most often speak for Jesus are the least likely to apply anything Jesus actually said in the Sermon on the Mount? Why must they “prove” their cruel form of Christianity by referring to other verses of scripture Jesus never said?

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount ”judge not,” yet these clergy preach that America will be destroyed by an angry God if we do not sit in judgement of the LGBTQ community or whoever they are currently using as scapegoats for their anger.

Jesus said turn the other cheek” yet these clergy call nonviolent men “beta” and say Christian men must seize power over this land. And, even though they are conservative in insisting on first-century ethics, they are equally liberal in allowing for the deadly weapons of today to force the “love” of their god upon the world.

While Jesus specifically said he had come to preach good news to the poor, these clergy attack any call to economic justice as “woke” or even as “communist.” Their God is nationalist and capitalist but is no friend to the poor like Jesus’ was.

It is time for every Christian of good will to leave any church that preaches judgment and cruelty. When Jesus called God his “parent” he was also affirming that humanity was his family. If the world is to be saved, it will not be by judgmental churches but by communities that walk the path of love.

And justice is simply love applied to everybody.

When I use the word “religion” please know I am not speaking of any one religious practice or sect. To me, the word “religion” refers to a shared sense of reverence before the cosmos and a shared sense of being intimately connected with all that is. Just as I want to reject the worst of religion (superstition, hierarchy, etc.), I also want to learn from the best (reverence before nature, a sense of unity with all being, etc.). Here are some moments when my idea of religion became bigger thanks to other world scriptures.

1. When I was a child my parents had a few books of Jewish wisdom tales. I fell in love with the rabbinic method of using tall tales to teach deep insights. It was in those mystic stories I learned to read miracle stories, not as magic tricks, but as parables of the miraculous nature of life itself. It was from Judaism that I learned love must grow into justice.

2. My school once went to a museum displaying Christian art in early colonies. The art was so horrible that I snuck off to take a peek at an exhibit of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The hair on my arm instantly stood up when I entered a room filled with the pictographs. Some deep place within me instantly recognized I was seeing a coded message from the past. I had no way of decoding the message at that point in my life but I could tell the pictures of human-animal hybrids were not about fantastical beings but about the deeper transcendental tie that binds plant, human, animal, and stars together.

3. In college I took a class on Homer that further widened my horizons. The classics professor unpacked the Odyssey as a parable of the human pilgrimage through a wonderful and terrifying world. Once again, I learned to hear scripture, not as history or science, but as a coded pilgrimage into my own deep and unlit psyche. Homer was using a story about a wandering hero to illumine my fear and courage in my own human heart.

4. It was in reading the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism that I first began to realize that the “I Am” sayings in the Gospel of John could be understood as a profound call to the heart of being instead of a superficial call to sectarian exclusivity. The “I” being spoken came from the heart of every being. The Gita was a song that helped me hear the song of life in me and in all those around me.

5. The Tao Te Ching is a wonderful scripture from China that taught me to recognize the sacred in natural processes instead of invisible beings haunting our human melodramas. It was from Taoism I learned that the sacred is found in the ordinary.

6. The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali taught me that any practice could become my “yoga” if it helped me settle my mind and realize my basic nature. I realized there is always a vast peace in the space between my thoughts.

7. The Sufi Islamic mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan taught that life is a kind of music. He taught that singing the song of life in harmony with others can be the beautiful heart of religion. Sufis taught that dance, or any great art, can be an expression of the sacred.

8. Finally, while my Atheists friends don’t usually consider their words to be sacred, it was from Humanists and Naturalists that I learned “I don’t know” is often the most reverent answer to give when questioned about life’s mysterious source. If was from Agnostics and Atheists that I learned to make my peace with life’s fundamental ambiguity.

Prophecy is not magically predicting future events. Prophecy is understanding the present in terms of its ethical implications for the future. Prophecy is considering what our actions mean to those yet to be born. Authentic prophecy is not about visions, but vision.

Prophecy is about taking those who have been scapegoated or discounted back into the equation. Prophecy is politics as through everyone counts. Prophecy must destroy every unfair hierarchy, cast light on every unexamined authority, a deconstruct every sense of special privilege.

Prophecy is loving one’s own beloved group enough to be called a heretic by our own beloved group for speaking truths they don’t want to hear. Prophecy is being brave enough to risk being called “traitor” by our own beloved country for extending justice to those beyond our own boundaries and interests.

False prophecy is revealed by its narrow mindedness, defensiveness and cruelty. False prophecy makes excuses for the crimes of its nation and sees its own group as the exception to any common norm of behavior. It tells the nation what it wants to hear and so poisons the people with the narcissistic cancer believing of that its might makes it right.

All of us are prophetic sometimes, none of us are prophetic always. In the strictest sense, there is no such thing as an individual prophet. Prophecy is always about the message, not the messenger.

The mind of all true prophecy is an honesty willing to face any truth. The “heart” of all true prophecy is a love so expansive it demands justice for all. Authentic prophecy calls us beyond the narrowness and self-interests of any one group into a greater and fairer communion with all humankind and into an atonement with the larger web of life of which we are each but a thread.

Bertolt Brecht lived at a time when Germany was falling into fascism. He wrote and produced plays that might call people to their deeper humanity. He wanted to empower his audiences to be able to reject the scapegoating of the Nazis. He said, “Those who always speak of enemies, are themselves the enemy.”

As in our day, the populist demagogues of Germany were actually lackeys for plutocratic policies. Brecht said, “Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.”

Perhaps Brecht’s best known quote is “Unhappy the land in need of heroes.” He was aware that nation that depends on heroic figures instead of a social contract are in serious trouble. Democracy governed by heroes is a contradiction in terms.

Brecht wanted German theatre goers to realize their choices were political whether they knew it or not. He said, “The worst illiterates are political illiterates. They hear nothing, see nothing, take no part in political life. They don’t seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. They even pride themselves on their political ignorance, stick out their chests and say they hate politics. They foolishly don’t know that from their political non-participation comes the human trafficking, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.”

Brecht said, “For art to be ‘unpolitical’ means only to ally itself with the ‘ruling’ group.” Brecht knew that artists are a tyrant’s worst fear. The trance necessary for tyranny to flourish is broken by artistic awareness and by a sense of solidarity with all humankind. Brecht said, “Though the rich of this earth find no difficulty in creating misery, they can’t bear to see it.”

Brecht saw theatre as a revolutionary force. Like all great artists, Bertolt Brecht wanted to affirm life. He said, “All art forms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.” He told people not to be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life. He said those who fight can lose, but those who didn’t fight had already lost.

Brecht found hope in living with a revolutionary spirit, “You can make a fresh start with your final breath.”

There are Christians who believe a soul is implanted in the fertilized egg at conception.

I’m not sure about the physics of all of that. I don’t know if angels are watching human beings make love with tweezers nearby in case a soul needs to be implanted. But, I’m a live and let live kind of guy, so whatever people want to believe is their own business.

Where I draw the line is when people want to impose their religious imaginings onto others through restrictive laws. What if somebody believed that the soul is implanted in the teeth? What if pro-life activists accused dentists of being baby killers whenever they extracted a tooth?

Yes, it sounds crazy, but think about this: There is no more evidence that a soul is implanted in a womb than for one gestating in a tooth. What people believe for themselves is one thing, but democracy demands a filter protecting each of us from the magical thinking of the rest.

Religion that imposes its beliefs on others is a cancer to a democratic republic. Bullying religion is also a a rejection of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus taught that the goal of his religion was to love. He told his followers to be good neighbors even if they had to break the rules of orthodox religion to do it. Religion that will not be a good neighbor to non-Christians is a cancer to the republic AND to the gospel. No one is attacking your freedom of religion by wanting to be free from your religious crusades and inquisitions.

People have a right to believe you do not speak for God even if you quote verses from the Bible. To be free FOR their own religion (or lack thereof) people need to be free FROM everyone else’s religion, including yours.

So the FBI has become the private police force for the president. In spite of numerous pictures of Donald Trump and Jeffery Epstein together, the Epstein files will be investigated by MAGA loyalists not objective investigators.

Frustration is probably inevitable to any who are still awake, but, a major problem with focusing too much anger on Donald Trump is that he would not be getting away with these crimes if they weren’t “legal” in the sense of being loopholes for certain dominant groups since the founding of this nation.

MAGA white supremacist tropes should feel very familiar to those of us raised on the bleached white version of American history that began, not with the experiences of the Indigenous people who already lived here, but with a European who is said to have “discovered” America even though the continent was already occupied with millions of people.

The bleached version of American history is centered on the experiences of white men and so all other voices must be muted. The MAGA movement boasts of free speech but such free speech does not include the freedom of a Black teacher to tell a truthful version of racial oppression in this land. Such truth could make children raised in a white supremacist narrative uncomfortable and so that kind of truth is now censored by those calling themselves free speech advocates.

White supremacy does not necessarily mean that a white person hates a Person of Color. Whenever we celebrate Columbus Day, or tell our myths about “conquering the West,” we are reinforcing the structures of white supremacy. Every time white people say, “We the People,” but think of a room full of landed white male founders, they reinforce misogyny and racism whether they mean to or not.

On playgrounds, children sometimes say, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” The insight, I think, is to not get so focused on individual bullying that we we cannot discern the structures of power they are hiding behind.

It is good advice to look at the evils of racism and sexism, not just as the isolated traits of Donald Trump, but also as systems of unshared power woven into the fabric of this land. We have to deal with both individuals and systems, but when we get lost in calling people names we can also get lost in a political melodrama and lose our capacity to objectively discern the structural dynamics also in play.

I believe discernment is going to be very important in the years ahead. Feelings of animosity toward people who harm others is understandable. Perhaps it is even sometimes inevitable. But, when the evil we abhor is actually woven into the structures of the culture itself, we must do something much more difficult than calling individual people names. We must learn to step out of those very systems of oppression and begin to deconstruct them.

Obviously, oppression isn’t a game, but I think the playground saying has some wisdom for us. In our current political crisis we must learn to stop being triggered by the individual players long enough to identify and deconstruct the immoral “games” people of privilege have been playing in this nation since our founding.

The theory of evolution destroyed the simple sense of purpose found in earlier Christian atonement theories. The idea that humankind “fell” at the Garden of Eden only to be saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus doesn’t make sense if we accept evolution. Violence was here long before humans arrived on the scene. The dinosaurs were not exactly vegetarians.

Still, creationist preachers have always warned, “if there was no fall from a perfect creation at Eden then there would be no need for a sacrifice at Calvary.” As a result of this conflict, many theologians declared war on the teaching of evolution. They claimed the theory of evolution was an assault of the Christian system of ethics.

Getting people saved from eternal torment was a very powerful system of meaning. “If human beings are just animals,” creationists reasoned, “then isn’t life just a dog eat dog struggle for survival? How can life be meaningful if there is no system of rewards and punishments in the after life?”

In my opinion, Genesis is best understood mythically. Scripture is art, not history or science. Genesis is a mythic poem attempting to illumine our lived experience from the inside out. Just as science illumines life from the outside in, mythic poetry puts us in touch with meaning as we live it. Science suspends subjectivity long enough to illumine our objective experience, mythology and other forms of art suspend objectivity long enough to put us in touch with our lived experience from the inside out.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell used to claim, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

All this leads to my real point for today’s post. The Stoics pictured humans as cells in the common body of the Cosmos. They found a harmony between the inner myth of creation and the outer truth of evolution. Nothing is harder than finding a consistent theory about the meaning of life, but nothing is more natural than living meaningfully when we remember the ecological nature of life.

I have always found the words of the Stoic Marcus Aurelius very helpful, “We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.” In other words, meaning is found by actually feeling the tie that binds us to all of humanity and the web of life.

Preacher Fredrick Buechner used to say we find our life’s calling at “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Theologian and activist Howard Thurman famously wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

There is a vast difference between holding onto a biblical theory of life’s meaning and living meaningfully. By dispelling any claims of scientific validity in Genesis, evolution actually helps us focus on the ecological nature of human meaning. From an ecological standpoint we are cells in a common being. Nothing is more insecure than religious theories of life’s meaning, but nothing is more natural than living meaningfully as a cell in the common body of life.

In my opinion, the problem isn’t when churches address political issues, the problem is when churches are politically partisan.

Politics is just how we treat each other. Politics is how we either share the world fairly with everyone, or hoard power and wealth for ourselves and our favored group.

When Moses objected to how Israelite workers were being treated in Egypt, that was politics. It was an issue of worker justice. When Moses went to Pharaoh and said to let his people go, that was politics. When Israel became powerful enough to oppress its neighbors, the Jewish prophets went to their political leaders and warned that their beloved nation would fall if it was not founded on justice for everyone.

The prophets were political, but not partisan. Prophets went to their political leaders to advocate for the poor and oppressed. A church that does not call for a redistribution of the world’s wealth and call this nation to take its foot off the throat of weaker nations has renounced its prophetic function.

Jesus was political but not partisan. When Jesus was alive, he didn’t talk about heaven as a fire escape from hell. He told his followers to make it on earth as it is in heaven. No heaven worth the name would permit poverty or untreated sickness. No heaven worth the name would have some people work all week for subsistence pay while a billionaire class rides them like donkeys.

A church that seeks to impose Christianity on everyone else is a partisan church. A church that says it is following the rabbi who taught them not to judge but then sees itself as God’s bouncer on moral issues is a hypocritical church. A church that says it is not political but then tries to control people’s lives is a lying church.

Politics is just how we treat each other. Even selfishness and apathy are political positions. Ethical people have to be political, but they must not be partisan. Being non-partisan does not mean ignoring the bullying of partisan groups. Being nonpartisan means advocating for universal human rights, environmental sustainability and working for a world that can be shared fairly by EVERYONE.

I know is very easy to get discouraged these days.

This morning I saw that Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, had made what looks like a Nazi salute like Elon Musk’s. Donald Trump has had plenty of time to distance himself from white supremacists but he somehow considers white hate speech to be a First Amendment issue at the same time he assaults CRT and reporters who dare to question his policies. For some reason, Donald Trump retweets messages from white supremacist websites which raises the question why he was on those sites in the first place. For the life of me I cannot think of a rational reason why someone who isn’t a racist would be so lackluster in reassuring People of Color that the American Dream is not centered around the white experience.

As I say, I understand how easy it would be to be discouraged right now, but when I got to church this morning the sanctuary was full of sleeping people from our cold weather shelter. It was just after 3 a.m. and it was moving to realize so many unsheltered human beings would have been out in the cold most of this week.

Our volunteers are trying to pull off a monumental task this weekend. Saturday morning we hope to feed a thousand people at the same time we are sheltering our friends from the street in the sanctuary. Then, after we have a midday educational event we will need to quickly get ready for our worship service on Sunday.

I understand why so many people dislike organized religion. Bad religion has been a bane to our species. At the same time, our church could not have helped all these people without a very committed and organized group of volunteers. The problem with religion is not organization but with hierarchy, superstition and with selfish sectarianism.

I love the fact that many of our best volunteers are not members of our church. Many have never been to our Sunday services. Some of our best volunteers are Atheists but, in my opinion, their love in action is exactly what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount.

Spirituality does not require organization but spiritual communities do. From my perspective, healthy religion consists in a community to share life’s journey, a gathering where people can share their reverence and gratitude for life, and healthy religion includes a dedication to serve the human beings who need it most.

I think it can be very comforting in these cruel times to find a community of meaning. You do not have to accept anyone else’s religion. You don’t even have to call it “religion” but it can be very helpful to have a community where you can share your life’s journey with people who care, share your reverence and gratitude for life in spite of dire times, and where you can be with others who consecrate themselves to serving our entire human family.

McKee was a remarkable friend of mine from long ago who still lives in my heart and head.

McKee had been a music producer who tired of the grind and went on a spiritual pilgrimage that eventually led him to a Hopi shaman. I believe the medicine man’s name was “Running Bear” but I may be wrong. McKee received many profound insights from Running Bear, one of which I want to share with you today.

The elderly shaman told McKee that when his people went to war they put on war paint for a very important reason. War is not the natural state of a human being and requires a kind of induced insanity. War paint was a reminder to the warriors that they were in a temporary state of madness. Before they went to battle, warriors would ritually apply the war paint. Just as importantly, after the battle was over, warriors (who were all male) would ritually remove the war paint and return to their natural state as fathers, brothers and sons.

Running Bear told McKee that when the U.S. returned from WW2 they did not remove their war paint, but instead applied the same aggressive energies to business. Decades ago, Running Bear prophesied that not taking off the warpaint would lead the U.S. to madness and destruction.

I believe the violence hidden in our political and economic structures did not begin with WW2. I believe they have been here all along hidden in our political structures, disguised in our property based economic systems, and, most shamefully, masked in our imperial forms of sectarian Christianity.

The office of President, as the word implies, was intended to fairly “preside” over the democratic process. The role of “Commander in Chief” was reserved for a time of war. To apply the kind of leadership needed in a time of war to times of peace will almost surely destroy the relationships that hold our republic together.

In my religious tradition we use the literature of Jewish apocalyptic tradition to remember previous times where nations and cultures collapsed and people had to let go of all that was familiar and to prepare themselves for a new way of living.

We are living through the implosion of many systems we falsely hoped would save us: unregulated capitalism, narcissistic nationalism and sectarian superstitions are tearing our world apart. The death throes of these systems may seem invincible in our day, but their seeds are completely barren. These systems are dying.

Apocalyptic literature is simply a warning to let go of the structures that are dying and to find our hope in the tender blossoms of newer and more noble virtues being born. Apocalyptic prophets were not preachers of doom, nor were they fortune tellers. They were just warning the people that they could not save themselves by clinging on to the structures of oppression and hoarding. These prophets were merely stating the obvious truths people did not want to hear.

In the words of Running Bear, the future belongs to those who know how to put on the war paint in times of struggle, and how to remove the war paint when it is time to build a peaceable home for our entire human family.

Let those who have ears hear.