Sovereignty of Spirit

In response to the Saducces question about which of the seven dead brothers the passed-down wife belongs to:

Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection."

  -Luke 20:34-36

When I heard this passage read at one of the special Holy Week services, I heard for the first time the freedom this passed-down woman received by Jesus' explanation.  She was no longer bound by the definitions and expectations the death(s) of her husbands (and culture) loaded onto her. She was, for the first time in her life, her own person.  Nobody could tell her who she was or what she could do with her life.  She was as free as angels and children!

The Apostle Paul makes reference to the fact that if we believe in Christ we are also raised as new creatons with him.  Our own resurrections are found in our Christ Life that we live out both in our souls and in our community here and now.  We are no longer strictly bound by the rituals, doctrines, legalisms, and cultures of older times. A New Age has dawned and we are granted Sovereignty of Spirit -- true freedom to fully be the creation God breathed into us from the first moment of our spirit-awareness.  We are free to become the full blossom of Love's fingerprint, stamping our unique identity in this time and the time to come.  Angels celebrate all of us who are in the resurrected life. 

So what new expressions of you do you wish to undertake?  How do you go about finding your sovereign identity?  What supports do you need to put into your life so you take hold firmly of your angel-like freedom? 

What happened to the cloud of witnesses?

When I asked Zelens’kyi why he had remained in Kyiv, he said that he “could not have done otherwise.” Explaining his choice, he began not from the specific predicament, dramatic though it was, and not even from himself. He spoke of his love for his parents, and what he had learned from them. He had not chosen them, and yet in his love for them he was free. He compared that love to the decision to remain in the capital as the war began: something self-evident. Staying was not something he did alone: he was in the company of those who had taught him when he was younger and those who had elected him. He was in the company of others who were also taking risks. He understood the situation, he said, because of what it meant to represent others.

Snyder, Timothy. On Freedom (p. 19). Crown. Kindle Edition. 

In the church we talk often about the "cloud of witnesses."  These are the people, our ancestors and saints, who have gone before us.  Hopefully, they have left us good lessons, vibrant virtues, and positive regard for all humanity.  Their lessons can carry us through life on the humane, gracious, and ethiscal side.  When we are faced with difficulty and hard choices, that company of witnesses keeps our communities and country on a steady compassionate course.

What we're living in today in the United States is a government that has been blinded by greed for money and power to the point that uttter chaos (and cruelty) is raining down on all who lack money, influence, or white/male privilege.  The more egregiously forgotten the words and lessons of our forebearers become (they're actually erasing histories of women and POC) the more moral poverty and physical danger we fall victims to.  

My lifelong involvemtent in the mainline Christian church supplied me with goood lessons from the life of Jesus, good role models, and steady watchful love.  My forebears taught me how to care, how to think for myself, and to always be kind.  I don't begin to understand the world of Donald Trump or Vladamir Putin where life is a constant bitter rage and retribution, where money crowds out all compassion and regard for the dignity of others. 

It is part of my dream for the future, that there is a strong remnant of people in the United States left who have the bravery and conscience to pull the burning embers of criminality, greed, cruelty, and misery from the fire and water them down with decency, thoughtful considerations, and a shoulder to lean on in tought times - no matter your race, sexuality, gender, class, religion, or status. 

Human Dignity

In the Lent II passages of Wilda Gafney's women's lectionary, we hear about Jacob leaving Laban's ranch in the dead of night with Laban's two daughters and a bunch of his flock.  Laban catches up to them and insists Jacob agrees to make a covenant to stay exclusively committed to Laban's daughters. In the Gospel, there is the story of the woman who touched Jesus' garment and received Jesus' healing (and blessing) from more than a decade of constant menstrual flow. In both cases, the women were extended privileges that were not routinely extended to most women in that day. Life in that time for women and any people stuck with any kind of characteristic outside the dominating male culture resulted in exclusion and frequently death or abuse. That has been a human "norm" for eons. 

Humans have had an ugly vocabulary that gets used somewhere in the world daily.  Words like pogrom, misogeny, genocide, segregation, apartheid, terrorism, homophobia, and a slew of epithets demeaning "undesirable" ethnic groups. Frequently, governments or wealthy classes use awful terms to raise their own lofty arrogance and privilege or to build their dominance and social cohesiveness using hate.  They exaggerate despicability of others to seek security for strictly "their own."  It's a disgusting human social quality.

Jesus is pro-human dignity.  In his interaction with this woman, he adopts her problem as his problem.  He calls a halt to the clamoring crowd.  He puts them all on pause, while his complete attention is lovingly directed toward her plight. Many doctors have let her down. She is ostracized by her community. She likely has difficulty meeting basic needs like food and water. She's considered "unclean" and "untouchable" in Judaism.  And while her mere touch of his garment heals her, that moment is too significant to her life to let it pass anonymously. It needs the attention of the crowd. "This People! This is what true faith looks like!"

We are living in a fraught, ugly time.  The forces of exclusion are marching.  Those with the hardest lives and the shunned ones are being targeted with blame and scapegoated for every perceived wrong. They're being bound and placed on transport planes out of the country (in place of the trains that did the same in 1939 Germany.) I think the clamoring crowds need some lessons in faith, lessons in human dignity, and to be reminded of Jesus pausing the crowd to look inwardly at their immoral constructs. All people are of sacred worth, imbued with dignity and deserving of respect.  Kindness, generosity, and faith keep civility alive in society.  Walking the way of Jesus is to notice the smaller, insignificant people dwelling on the edges, the ones society considers "dangerous," or "of little worth."  We're to see their need and bring what aid we can to them. Our communities should be places people can thrive, where they're healed and welcomed, and not be punished and or kicked aside. This is the Way.