Live Without Denial

 Oh, the house of denial has thick walls

and very small windows

and whoever lives there, little by little,

will turn to stone.

              -- Mary Oliver, "Hum Hum"

As humans, we go about our daily lives, frequently falling into the time and ego trap that the world and life revolve around us.  Yet it doesn't. Events and trouble suck us into thinking our participation in them is of earth-shattering importance. Self-help gurus have said and written about the importance of "staying in the now."  There is healthy wisdom in that, especially if one is prone to overthinking and catastrophizing imagined dangers. Getting out too far in front of your skis is hazardous to mental health as much as dwelling on unfortunate events or traumas of the past. But here I am thinking of our human calling and special abilities to improve our world. 

Much has gone haywire in the past ten months in the United States.  One of the most common questions arising in news commentary and posts online is, "What can we do about it?"  

Shrinking violets that so many of us are, think we're too small and insignificant to matter.  Being helpless and powerless was Moses' excuse initially to turn God down at the burning bush. Denying our capabilities is a sure way to freeze us out of making a difference.  Not seeing ourselves as worthy enough, strong enough, smart enough, or articulate enough turns change into stone; whatever is "haywire" then is allowed to proceed. 

When you look in the mirror, what do you see?  Commonly, we see all that's wrong with our face and wish it were different.  But faith affirms that we are made in the image of God, so when we look into the mirror, that person is God's image. So whatever is there, good/bad/indifferent, that is also God's presence.  With God's presence is the power to make a difference -- be that in your private life or in your communal life. 

You do not have to deny yourself. God wants you in the game.  Others in the game are counting on you, too. Live big.  Live boldly. 

Live By Virtue

 A dark tide is insidiously swelling into the lives of everyone living in the United States.  Whether you watch the news or not, tens of thousands of us are being directly impacted by incarceration, job loss, character assassination, twisted uses of due process, escalating costs of living, rising mental health concerns, and political violence. This darkness is undermining our strongest attributes for which we have historically stood.  Attributes like truth, fairness, justice, mercy, generosity, compassion, and the promise of hope. A government-wide action against diversity, equality, and inclusion is in full swing-- trying to purge "DEI" from schools, universities, libraries, and all government offices. And, "Christianity" has parted company with itself, leaving the ones with the loudest microphones dictating what people think of Christianity. (PS: it is not white Nationalism.)

I listened to a short video today about preaching. In it, Carey Nieuwhof talked about one attribute of a good sermon is ensuring that the essential focus is always on Jesus (not the text or side stories). I believe virtuous living is grounded solidly in how we see Jesus living his life through the Gospels.  There are many virtues well worth wrapping your life around.  They aren't necessarily spelled out specifically in Jesus' sermons, parables, or actions, but they are there.  Importantly, they are NOT intended as whipping posts to judge "good" from "bad." 

All virtues together weave a beautiful tapestry of nurturing community life. If they're used to divide and conquer the people we don't like, they quickly slip into the realm of vices.  When they are abandoned for vices, society suffers.  We're suffering because rudeness is replacing kindness. Hate of fellow human beings is replacing love. Greed is replacing generosity. Bragadocia is replacing humility. Fear is replacing compassion. The list goes on. 

It is incumbent upon the Church and people claiming the faith of true "Jesus-hood" to incorporate virtues into our daily walks with Jesus.  Study the virtues and vices.  Incorporate them into your prayer and devotional life.  Practice them in public, at home, and on social media. Raise the question with yourself regularly, "How did I do with living by virtue today?" 

I strongly recommend Grace Hamman's book: Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life

Mirth

Mirth - noun: "gaiety or jolity, especially when accompanied by laughter. Amusement or laughter."  From Middle English circa 900 CE mirthe

Mirth is a word not often heard in modern US English.  I'm claiming it and bringing it back. Having its rise in the medieval period, a time we don't often think of as happy, with Crusades, heresy trials, debt prisons, and lack of sanitation....  Yet sometimes, in the worst of times, a certain social counter-response evolves to aid in coping. This is my proposal: could we adopt mirth as a virtue to counteract the worst of our times?

This week, the sourpus man occupying the office of US President decided to cast his dour aspersions upon the late-night comedians. Steven Colbert had already been handed his termination notice by NBC a couple of weeks ago, and this week, through FCC arm-twisting, ABC/Disney has obediently silenced Jimmy Kimmel. The President suggested that Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers might be next.  Laughter, or mirth, is most definitely not feelings or responses that a would-be dictator, trying to look the part of a serious strongman, wants his subjects to be snickering at.  Overwrought seriousness is a vice that stifles creativity.  It is part of life-squashing domination and the sign of imposed respect expected from us as the power tools of cruelty, political violence, inexplicable arrests, and ripping up of the US Constitution take unmistakable shape and rip lives apart. 

However, we, the People, have a far different goal/perspective for our lives.  It is succinctly expressed in our Declaration of Independence (from another despot 250 years ago): "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Additionally, those are words that I believe God wants for us, the Creator's vision and hope for us.  Let's face it.  Religion is frowned upon, disparaged, and tossed in the fire because certain power-hungry, attention-driven (mostly) men usurped God's place and put themselves in as the definers and arbiters of what they wanted God to say to aid their domination of their subjects.  And Christianity ever since has had the unglorious reputation of being a violent, dour, rule-dominated, threatening, sorry excuse for what is the Beauty of the Universe.  A Beauty that values mirth, as in the dancing sparkle on the surface of a mountain lake or stream.  The majestic palette of color in a sunset/sunrise, or on the trees in the Fall.  The first giggle from a beloved child, or that special way your beloved's face lights up. These are the gifts and delights God desperately wants us to feel and share with each other. For when mirth is present, love (another virtue) blossoms and spreads.

Love, and the mirth I very much expect God expresses to all angelic beings (human and supernatural), is what also magnifies the goodwill and embrace of our shared humanity.  We are not and never were created to be subjects to anyone. We were created as companions to the Most High in the very beginning.  We were granted free will, and in freedom we love with all our powers. Companions, partners, co-conspirators of mirth. So today smile/laugh!  Spread the joy of knowing your true place in a life created for mirth and love, and the dominators be damned.  

  

A Call For Non-Anxious Presence

 "And which of you, by worrying about your life, can add an hour to your lifetime?"  -- Luke 12:25

Though these words were said by Jesus a couple of millennia ago, they still ring true enough today, even though the nature of our stressors/anxieties is multiple times more ubiquitous than in the first century.  Being a non-anxious presence, or lowering the temperature of anxiety in a room or work situation, has become the topic of books and workshops for management and leaders.  Most of them highlight the value of reducing anxiety in tense situations.  The primary value is that everyone can think more clearly and assess alternative steps when reactivity is reduced. Pressure cookers aren't for solving problems; they're for canning your vegetables.  

Speaking of pressure cookers.  American civic society is falling into a pressure cooker with the kettle's temperature being increased substantially day by day.  (If you wish to stay in the bubble of news blackout you've built to avoid the news, you might want to quit reading here and try another of my posts.)  Charlie Kirk's untimely death solved nothing that his shooter may have been hoping to accomplish, unless the accomplishment was intended to inflame political passions and warring madness. America needs someone to call a time-out on the escalating rhetoric and retaliatory threatening stances being taken by the White House and Mr. Kirk's followers. They have obviously not read management materials about the debilitating effects stress and anxiety have on finding solutions going forward. 

My brief analysis of the escalating situation is, in a word, sin.  The sins of wrath, pride, and envy have hit a peak on this roller coaster ride and are very near the plummet down the other side, with uncertainty whether the car will stay on the tracks. Wrath is unrestrained anger without a rational goal.  Pride wounded stirs increasing actions to counter the perceived loss of face.  And envy is an unmatched craving for more of what you think others have (like the power other dictators have in other countries?) The danger in the over-reach of these sins in government is bad for everyone living here. 

The counter to these sins - barring a divine intervention of Biblical proportions- is to step inside the countering virtues: meekness, humility, and love. Living in pursuit of the virtues, because they hold a sacred life-giving quality, is the best route to finding the restorative power of non-anxious presence and healing.

Meekness is the power Jesus modeled to feel what he felt while remaining introspective, insightful, and discerning to act non-violently to address the problem.  Examples: the table-turning affair at the Temple, or the face-down of Pilate at his trial, or every time he went up against the Pharisees.

Humility is the ability to grasp, process, and gain insight into one's own internal emotional/spiritual/mental space and to quickly gain the cognitive upper hand to calm one's tendency to rush in "where angels fear to tread."  Humility helps us know of what we are capable, and what our limits are.

Love is having a firm grasp on "brotherly love."  We love because God first loved us -- loved me and thee. We hold tightly to the premise that all things and people have sacred worth, no matter how "smudged up" their behavior may be. 

I must be clear - nothing herein suggests that sin needs to be overlooked or excused.  Resistance is still permissible (even needed) when the sin is injuring or killing.  Consider Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and many others who have taken stands for justice throughout history. 

I am convinced that reclaiming the old teachings and power of the classic virtues practiced by the Church through the ages is our best way forward as individuals and as a country.  The fracture of "Christianity" where a large component of anti-Jesus, white supremacists, and Christo-nationalists have separated themselves down a dark path that raises the spectres of racism & misogyny and seeks the demise of immigration, diversity, equality, and inclusion. This is not in keeping with God's love.   The evil being visited on so many calls on each of us to remain non-anxiously enveloped in the Spirit, standing together with sure hope in Christ's Way being made straight and the soon-and-very soon victory of Love. 

We Learned It All In Kindergarten

 "Using knowledge in a sacred way leads to wisdom."  - Sun Bear, Chippewa Native American

Our times have gotten rough if anyone hasn't noticed.  An unavoidably strong movement has caught hold in the United States that aims to deny truth, rewrite history, castigate experts, and overwrite well-established norms in science, medicine, law, social contracts, education, economics, Christian faith, and politics. Democracy is being systematically dismantled in favor of an authoritarian who gives us the rules and only the information he decides we should follow or need. Wisdom is not mentioned or being sought in this radical shift, and knowledge is being replaced by the King's mostly unfounded, myopic beliefs.  Since the baby is being tossed with the bathwater, the sacred is not a consideration either.  Yet the sacred is what holds earthly existence together. Without the sacred, there is no measure to be used for morals, for understanding one another, or for any possibility of life-giving communal existence. 

So let's review what the Sacred Way is. The Sacred Way originated long ago, grounded in the history of human interactions with each other and with the land the people occupied. We gained wisdom and experience in what helps a band of people, or a tribe-- a community-- thrive. For much of Western European history, the Bible shaped a lot of their life together. With the New Testament, the ideals of Jesus came into focus, where we all could subscribe to caring for the neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and loving acceptance became a value that humankind cherished. During medieval times, definitions of vices and virtues took on meaning and helped hold not just individuals to account for destructive social behavior, but also served as community stepping stones for the betterment of all. These became a basis for what "civilized" humans accepted as the Way forward, and they seeped into the legal tools used to enforce sacred basics.  Most people agreed with the wisdom expressed through this process.

Fast forward to today.  There has always been an element in the human race that has never accepted social norms and has preferred pursuing their own selfish, ego-centric ways.  Rules and social order were their nemesis. Destructive misbehavior usually resulted in consequences like imprisonment. Rarely have these kinds of individuals acquired too much of a following. When they have it has never been good for the population as a whole. Violence, murder, corruption, and injustices of all kinds  multiply to extreme levels, usually until the population-at-large unifies sufficiently to put a stop to it.

The Sacred Way is the way of the New Testament Jesus. Virtues like compassion, mercy, justice, humility, love, forbearance, peace... have comprised the wisdom of ages-- our great-great... grandparents helped shape them and lived them. These are the energies that make for healthy people and healthy communities.  We let them slip from us at our peril. While many of the vices: the opposites of the virtues-- are being extolled in our (USA) government: envy, anger, retribution, fear-mongering, violence, greed, lust for power -- the hope for a better world for ourselves and children dries up. We can't let it happen. Keep your focus on the knowledge you were once given.  As Robert Fulgham once said, "We learned it all in kindergarten."  Using knowledge in sacred ways leads to wisdom not just for ourselves, but for all.        

 

Worthy Disciples

 “You Are Worthy Disciples”

A Sermon Given at St. Luke (Renton) Episcopal Church, July 20, 2025:

Baruch 2:11-15, 19-23; Luke 12:4-7

“Inside every woman and man is a place of knowing.”  So I invite you to touch base with this place of knowing within yourself and let’s just rest here for a short peaceful moment to get ahold of that.

Admittedly, it is a bit of a rarity for me to be here in the flesh and blood. More often for me, I’m a virtual being on Zoom at our Morning Prayer.  So if you don’t know me, let me share a few things. I love theology. I love church history. I love medicine –all kinds: Chinese 5-element, homeopathy, folk, herbal, and even conventional Western.  I don’t believe there’s a place for violence ever. I enjoy dreaming about unlikely possibilities – like walking on water.

I believe: Spirit is the mesh that holds life and all creation together in one big beautiful overwhelming place. I believe sharing is a societal superpower and that kindness, decency, and providing humanity with the basics of what each one of us needs makes for peace.

The latest editions of me have come to appreciate the questions and cherish the mystery rather than being hellbent for an answer. So I hope I spark some of your own ponderings.

I have many questions.  The first is why is Scripture – these ancient writings – some of them like Baruch this morning might be nearly 3000 years old – still being looked to for inspiration and spiritual food?  Is there no expiration date? I’ve found these dusty tomes to be MOST helpful in the mere wondering about what the spiritual or life problems were that folks of old were struggling to understand/resolve. Cynically, I might suggest scripture still has its holding power because humanity hasn’t fundamentally changed in all this time. We keep playing the same record and keep hoping to receive an easy solution to complicated dilemmas.  Dilemmas like the clear existence of Evil, or why a loving God permits ICE, or the seeming impossibility of eliminating racism, sexism or war? Are these things God permits?  Or, do they arise out of the darkness inherent in the human heart?  Yet, I don’t feel the darkness in my heart so what causes it seemingly to be deeply embedded in others’?

Carl Barth was a pretty well-known 20^th century theologian rising out of a Swiss/German Lutheran background stuck in the time of Hitler’s rise to power.  He and his colleagues in the Confessing Church in Europe got together in 1934 to write and adopt the Barman Declaration setting the Church against the dark powers of fascism beginning to boil.  He is one of several who encouraged doing theology with “a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other.”  I invite you to that technique now.

First the Bible.  Baruch is not part of the Protestant canon of scripture.  It is, however, still held in regard especially in the other church branches.  Baruch was like a traveling secretary for the prophet Jeremiah.  Jeremiah and the other OT prophets railed against the wealthy admonishing them to pay attention to the poor or they’d be sorry.  And sure enough. When Babylon swept into Palestine and Galilee in 687 BCE, the Babylonians deported the rich, the artisans, craftsmen, and leaders (in other words the Elite) off to Babylon.  Where they then sat by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers whining about how God had left them even though they were probably much better off than the “dregs of society” Babylonians left behind. Not having experienced it of course, their whining seems odd as they did suddenly find themselves living in a City known for being one of the 7 Wonders of the World.  Jeremiah’s advice to these Elite ones – we read it last week or the week before: it was to, “Get over it.  This is the penalty for years of sin.  So marry, have children, make families and just cope.”  I can feel how that might have been a hard pill to swallow!  But the Book of Baruch we have here, the scholars believe it may have been written several centuries later – around 100 BCE – so obviously it’s a ghost writer who took the scribe’s name, and the passage we read this morning is from chapter 2 that’s in the book’s section believed to be a confessional prayer for use in the rebuilt Temple back in Jerusalem.  So the elite did eventually get returned (by the Assyrians), and they soon rejoined their ancestor’s ways doing what rich people do and as long as they gave their fealty to each passing Emperor their lives were minimally impacted.  Meanwhile, as a later Biblical character put it – “the poor you will have with you always.”     

Skip ahead to Jesus’ time. True Christians, worthy of being called by that label, view Jesus as a rare, exquisite diamond of sparkling humanity and insightful divinity.  He had a radical notion of what life might be like if we allowed the Spirit to rule our lives. He was a visionary for an upside-down social order where the privileged served “the least.”  The human way, the Godly way, is to notice the downtrodden.  To SEE the lame, the sick, the struggling and not just look at them and walk away but REALLY notice!  To take their hands, LIFT them up, heal and bless, fight for them, and turn over the tables of the capitalists who had infiltrated the Holiest spaces of their communal life.  To NOT shame them & shut them out of the liturgy because they couldn’t afford 2 coppers for a sparrow to sacrifice.  Paraphrasing, he said, “EVEN the lowliest hairs of the heads on the least of these is counted, SEEN, LOVED, and worthy!”

So turning to our daily news how do we apply Spirit and Bible lessons to our modern-day Babylonian Capture?  First off, we have a flipped Babylonian Conquest – instead of our elite getting deported, they’re cruelly deporting our laborers, our workers, our most vulnerable… cutting them off from healthcare and food with indications they might take to purging all of us from OUR soil who do not worship White Wealth and Power. Our long struggle to build an inclusive multicultural society, to teach how to SEE each other without all the degrading labels and biases, to notice who is not thriving as Jesus modeled is all quickly becoming illegal.  Worst of all, the spirituality of love – our very life net – that I spoke of that holds creation together is tearing – what would Jesus advise?

I think he would say, DOES SAY, “Don’t hide your eyes.  Don’t go to sleep but stay awake with me in the Garden.”  The garden of prayer, the garden of courage, the garden of watching.  Put on your prophet pants: to Speak up, to Speak out, and call out the evil wherever we see the Powerful misusing it against us and especially against the most vulnerable.  Trust that the Holy Spirit will honorably be with you to use your words, the Constitution, and the power of shame to somehow impact these moments. But maybe we should use a different lens.

There are so many ways we each can defend the boundaries of the Realm of God and undergird our common life liturgy.  First, we all can pray.  I hold tightly to the belief that SPIRIT outlasts, overpowers, outperforms our physicality.  The Spirit busted down Paul and Silas’ prison doors and converted their jailers – that’s a seeming impossibility that the Biblical story of old testifies to. Why can’t it happen again? The Spirit is bigger than cultic power, as early Christian martyrs defiantly demonstrated in the Roman arena.  They are our ancestors!  Drink deeply from their Spirit River and nurture the spirit power within you & stand true!

Reframe how you define yourself.  We’re not helpless mere US residents.  We are disciples of the one true God.  We’re the construction crew intent on building the Realm of God.  We are crucial!  We are the guardians of Christly decency, vocal advocates for justice, stalwart companions of mercy.  So there is no need for shyness or apology.

Don’t be afraid to be obnoxiously outspoken with old-time powers of guilt and shame in the faces of those doing wrong.  Appeal to everyone’s higher angels.  Ask questions about what virtues people are upholding for the children, our children, the future of all.  If words fail you: Use your body language – adopt a prayerful pose – the Spirit understands sign language, your body understands Spirit language!  But also remember importantly, that a powerful flip side to speaking out is being a silent witness. To wit: those silent witnesses standing at the foot of the Cross transformed Christ’s life into a Power that has reverberated for millions even to us here.

In my Native American Meditation book this past week Charles Alexander Eastman – one of the first Native Americans licensed to be a Western Medicine physician, a member of the Santee Sioux said, “Silence is the cornerstone of character… It takes a warrior to be silent.  Silence is powerful.  Silence can be loving.” Silent watchful eyes can transform the world.

And so, my friends, I wind this up the way I began – Inside every woman or man is a place of knowing.  Know who you are -- you are a worthy powerful disciple!  Trust your discernment.  Then take to the path laid before us. 

The Wisdom of Water

One of the most important symbols in Christianity is water. First, it is a vital necessity,for life sustenance as well as its cleansing properties .Symbolically, it shares properties of the Holy Spirit - flowing, omnipresent - yet difficult to come by in dry times.  It chiefly appears in church life through baptism, and it is used in purification ceremonies, in christening rituals, in washing feet.  

Water is unique in the universe and is a substance science uses as an indicator for the presence of life in the search for extraterrestrial life. So in all its variety of ways in which it is found it contains wisdom - wisdom that binds and connects us 

I invite my readers to meditate on all the ways water connects humans and the planet. A few thoughts to get you started:

• Whose mom never said, "Wash your hands"?  (You hear her voice don't you?!)
• Hydroelectric power that provides electricity to run our lives -heating and cooling, cooking... 
• Every source of food must have water. (Food shared around common tables.)
• How filthy (and stinky!) would life be without it?

Last weekend a horribly tragic disaster involving water struck Kerr County, Texas with 300+ missing or killed in a massive flash flood. While water has vast powers to hold life together, like most other extreme powers (fusion, fission, electricity, violence, God?), it has a "dark side" that can reset all that has gone before. 

Scripture, particularly the Old Testament, supplies a regular reminder about "having fear of the Lord." "Fear" in the time of King James English meant "respect."  In the human experience of life and death, powers that end life receive special warnings and admonish respect, or even reverence.  There is no answer to the inevitable question of why except to say because it can rip life to its most basic elements - carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen - 3 elements that are the beginning and ending of creation. 

Herein is the tangible lesson present in the wisdom of water: respect what can give or take away life. Value the positive powers it has to make life not just convenient but possible.  At the same time cherish (respect) the inevitability that all life surrenders to the elements, elements that God uses to remake New Life.  

Vibrations

When I was learning to do Acutonics - a therapeutic technique using tuning forks in place of acupuncture needles -- it was pointed out that sound is vibrational energy.  It is a type of energy that can be used for medical imaging (ultrasound), and it is known to move things -- like your furniture when the bass on your sound system is too high.  We would also not be able to hear if sound did not cause the ear drum to vibrate.  I live in Tacoma, WA.  We had a famous bridge across the Narrows Strait called Galloping Gertie a significant suspension bridge because it swayed so much in a slight wind.  On Nov 7, 1940 the beautiful suspension bridge came crashing down.  A powerful windstorm came through.  Early speculations were that the wind was so strong it snapped some of the suspension cables.  Later analysis determined it wasn't the strength of the wind, but the whistling sound through the cables of the bridge that set up a resonant vibration that caused the bridge to literally vibrate apart.  "Sound waves," or the variety of frequencies, are what make the vibration. 

Vibrational energy can be used as an apt metaphor for Love. When God spoke (sound of speech) to trigger creation, the resonant Love frequency in the tone of God's voice was the vibration that generated galaxies and life.

Music, containing various vibrations (some harmonic, some discordant) can have powerful effects on the human nervous system.  Our brains retain memories of sounds that connect us to places, events, or emotions for a lifetime.  Virtues and good feelings could be conceptualized as harmonizing vibrations, whereas, emotions we consider negative -- anger, hate, danger, etc., might be discordant ones.  Love may have it's own vibration. 

So, I'd like to plant a meditative seed or project for you.  Sit in a quiet comfortable space and slow your breathing.  Become aware of the rhythm of your breathing and your heart.  Then begin to hum different notes.  Take note of how the vibration of each note feels.  Then you can begin looking for the tone that most closely resonates with any of the following:

• how your are feeling
• note(s) that make you feel good, or courageous, or sad, 
• the note that could represent love

When you hit a frequency that feels good stay with the note as you breathe in and out with it. Where does the Spirit lead you then?  

Another option is to use YouTube.  YouTube has a huge selection of musical tones of different frequencies, which some individuals have attached certain properties to the tone.  Put aside these definitions from others and consider yourself the authority of what feels right or helpful to you or your goal.  You can begin on YouTube by searching for "healing tones."  Just entering "frequency" will pop up a list of all sorts of possible options.

Good Vibrations!

Mark

  

Tribal Awareness

 What Tribe Are You A Part Of?

A sermon for Renton UCC based on the passages:

Acts 11:1-18

John 13:31-35

Mark Fredericksen, MDiv, ND

 

Let me borrow, if you will, the control of your imaginations and let me steer us back through time.  We’re going to go way back -- way before the earliest Bible stories were being told around smoky campfires.  Before humans inhabited the Middle East, still living in Africa.  Let’s go to roughly 200,000 years ago.  This is approximately the period of time when Neanderthal humans were evolving into Homo Sapiens –us!  We were living in small family bands.  There were no arrowheads or spears so you were surviving on mainly whatever vegetation was edible, maybe some small game or fowl that could be snared – but fire has just started to be domesticated by some – so maybe your band did not even have that.   As the food sources in your location got consumed, you had no choice but to move on.  If your band ran the territory of another band there could be trouble because food (and water) was a basic matter of survival. The other discovered truth, however, is that more people provided more scavengers and so, the bands negotiated and became tribes. Burying the hatchet so to speak for the good of all.  Those are our roots, our ancestors. And point in fact, approximately 96% of our functional digestive system today is still dependent on the genes we have inherited from them – so our food gets digested the same as theirs did.  And this is a sermon, not a nutrition lecture, but there’s little wonder with all the radical changes in our food chain over just the past 60-70 years that we have trouble digesting the chemicals and processed food.  Also the other prehistoric genetic reality we’re a bit stuck with is we have a high amount of our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that are what they are because of the eons that humans spent in survival mode – fending off predators, reacting to scarcity, fighting with competing tribes, facing famine and natural disasters. Humanity has been stuck in dog-eat-dog life for a stinking long time. So out of near necessity our human tribalism became hard-wired into our brains. Those with the violent knee-jerk reactions survived and thrived while the less-so struggled. There was then and there is now a cognitive component which can take over and choose other kinds of reactions – but for many they haven’t practiced and learned to do that part.

So let’s move the clock up closer to us – about just 3 or 4000 years ago same competitions going on only the human geography had expanded widely.  There’s cities and empires and organized armies to defend territory.  Food-wise cities could work together for sake of agriculture and animal husbandry. Hunting and gathering took a back seat but the control of territory was still a thing. Wars were still how things got settled. So many of the human beings’ worst traits were still being used for control and the measure of successful cultures. The Bible gets established revealing all the mean rottenness that could play out in human communities. There’s the story of the Flood where God lost patience and wiped the slate clean to start over – but it didn’t really.  The Jewish people have an endless parade of different marauders trek through their lands – Assyrians, Persians, Babylonians, Romans, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. 

To survive, naturally, Jews become one more established population group with 12 tribes at one point and they fight off their neighbors (or don’t or can’t).  Then something remarkable happens.   God comes into the picture as a child wrapped in swaddling clothes in a far-flung part of the Roman Empire called Bethlehem. That single event changed world history – or perhaps a better way to say it put a new choice in our laps – That single event drew a line in the sand and supplied a powerful choice to humans to believe in the value of the good side of our nature or continue the warring, violent, resource-snatching tribalism that, until then, was all the world had known.  And that choice is still ours today: the Jesus Tribe or the Ugly Tribe.  The Jesus Tribe – the Christian Way – has not been entirely clear of the messiness of the built-in on-going traumas and reactions of past tribes, cities, nations, and continents.  The Christian Way, as we read here in Acts had two “tribes” facing down each other on who gets to call themselves Christian.  There’s the Jewish Christians (Peter) saying that to be Christian you have to adopt and follow all the Judaic laws and there’s the Gentile Christians (Paul) who aren’t too keen on all the Jewish law.  This splitting of Christianity hasn’t really improved dramatically in 2000 years as we still have – even worse now – denominations where each has its own set of ideas on who can belong, with no shortage of bragging who is best or in the extreme – who is of God and who is of well – you know whatever is worse. Peter’s Vision in Acts caused him to see a new Light for the Way.  He saw a more inclusive way was the path Jesus expected.  Paul had seen this light on the Road to Damascus and was busy welcoming Gentiles all over the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. And so here we are.  What light do we follow?

 

What should be the purpose of the Christian Way today?  Do we want to stay locked in the terrible, learned, defensive violent ways of the past 200,000 years?  Can humans learn nothing besides what the past has imprinted on our brains?  Do we not have a healing remedial solution to knee jerk violence and rage over the slightest slight?  I think we do, but it’s going to take us working together to overcome the panic  & domination reflex – where we see too easily everything as a threat that needs to be eliminated – whether that be not enough money, not enough people, not enough faith?  Threats trigger our fear, which brings out our smallness, our negative reactions.  So where do we turn?

In the Gospel Jesus says, “I’m going where you cannot go, but I give you this: Love one another.” Sure loving one another is easy if we’re all alike – look alike, think alike, hold the same grudges and biases against the others not like us.  And maybe Jesus was pipe dreaming that we could, though I think he really saw a different side to everyone he met – even the ones who crucified him.  So therein is our challenge.  I don’t think the Jesus we know through scripture would leave us with something that was impossible, and we couldn’t possibly do.  I’m also sure that retribution, revenge, grabbing everything you can for yourself is not the Christian Way. There is no faith in Christ at all pursuing those goals.  They cannot sustain your spirit, your soul, any community, or the good of the planet as a whole. Those are the antithesis of everything Christ-like. 

The healing we need for ourselves, our families, our communities and our world are the virtues Christ lived.  Cooperation not competition.  Inclusion not domination. Sharing not possession. Forgiveness not grudge-holding.  And most of all holding tightly to sacred value, worth, and kindness for yourself AND for each one you meet.  I could beat this point into the ground, and Lord knows we all need to be hearing it daily in this toxic soup our politics have plunged us into – but love is the Christian Way for the Jesus Tribe. 

I’ll close with a piece of writing by Hafez.  He was a Persian Poet and Sufi Master born in 1326.  He says,

“We are not in pursuit of formalities or fake religious laws.

For it is through the stairway of existence that we have come to God’s door.

We are people who need love, because Love is the soul’s life.

Love is simply creation’s greatest joy.

Through the stairway of existence, You have now come to the Beloved’s Door.”

 

Hafez was a Muslim, but I think he and Jesus would have been pals. Because in the height, and width, and depth and breadth of God, Love is our common denominator and is what keeps us beautifully human with a pinch of the Divine in every one of us.  Always!   

Post Easter Reflection

 The historical truth about authoritarian governments is that subjugation of the masses and cruelty as a cudgel for obedience is the entire point.  The guy at the top is almost always an unusually self-hating narcissist who craves the feeling of being superior to all around him. In the Christian Church this past week, we walked in the steps of one who did not cave in to the narcissistic power structures of the early first century. Rome had it's own problems with subjugated populations from a string of ill Emperors.  At the same time Judaism had it's own unique way of organizing a "power-over religious institution."  Such is the ways of Empire structuring - intimidate all the institutions of a society into worshipping the head and garner their cooperation.

But beginning on Maundy Thursday this past week we were pulled into the acts of remembering to whom and with whom we ultimately and specially belong.  "Maundy" is derived from an Old French word that meant "command or mandate".  Many churches, on this Thursday before Easter, observe foot washing as a liturgical act of remembering Jesus' act of washing the disciples feet and commanding them to "love one another."  It is in loving others (and all of God's created order) that we all flourish.

Good Friday is often observed in visiting the "Stations of the Cross" - the final stopping off places in Jesus' forced travels through the Roman & Jewish gauntlet of legalities to nail him to a cross of state-sponsored shaming.  It was an act to discredit Jesus and threaten would-be followers to tow the line for Rome and "religious authority." 

Holy Saturday is the pause.  The waiting of the world for the final word to drop.  Will death have the final say?

Then the Easter proclamation, first by Mary Magdalene, "the tomb is empty."  Then the appearances of the Risen Jesus start being reported throughout the region.  Death cannot hold this sacred Love that designed creation and set love, acceptance, forgiveness, grace, hope, and peace to nurture and sustain the well-being of all God's creatures. 

That realm, God's realm on earth -- not an authoritarian regime, lets love and kindness loose.  Lets free will and personal sovereignty be the rule of life. Lifts us through blessing and admonitions to thoughtful consideration of purpose with the daily question posed: "Is this the world you want for yourselves, your children, and your children's children?"  If the answer to that question is "Yes!", then remember!  Remember the acts of resistance in grace and purpose that Jesus acted out and taught.  Remember the long string of disciples through the ages who have perpetually harkened back to "The Way of Jesus." Remember and follow him in your daily interactions, your votes, and your voices. 

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. 

    

Dry Bones

Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are cut off completely."  Therefore prophesy, and say to them, "Thus says the Lord God: 'I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.'" 

                                                                                           --Ezekiel 37:11-12 NRSV

The chaos occurring in the U.S. government alongside an hourly stream of news about it leaves us exhausted and feeling dried up, our minds suspended in incredulity, and in the end anxious and cut off.  Hopelessness may cozy up next to us, pull closed the shutters and we find ourselves reacquainted with numbed deadness. Ezekiel asks in this kind of moment, "Can these bones live again?: I hear in the question a lingering ray of hope. Ezekiel is asking "Can we expect something unpredictable?"  

In his most recent book, On Freedom, Timothy Snyder insists that there can be no freedom when everything is predictable. At first this didn't match up with my idea of freedom. I want freedom to be a stable, mutually understood value on which all humans depend. Yet, as I read on, it began to be clearer. It can't be called freedom if there is only one choice. The more choices, the more freedom to opt for one of those. And yes, therein, the door is opened for us to make "wrong" choices, or choices not to our liking, or even as we're witnessing bad for the earth and its inhabitants in general!

I believe most of us would agree that God has ultimate freedom.  Who hasn't wished from time to time that they were God so that they could choose the physically impossible thing to happen?  But then if anything can happen by our choice, I have a feeling we wouldn't keep any banks open for all the people wishing they had all the money they desired. Enter the larger moral questions of freedom.  Freedom has to be tempered with virtue. The choices people make ideally should be in the best interests of everyone.  Virtues reflect the best of how things should be, what the best choice is.  Knowing what should be gives us a compass heading for how our freedom should be exercised in any given circumstance.

I suggest that pondering and implementing the more virtuous pathways forward may open up futures we cannot predict, which leads to more freedom for all.  When we are feeling dried out, lifeless, stressed, and caught in the bottom of a deep rut (grave?), the direction to choose might lie in the direction of acting virtuously, even if you don't feel it in the moment.  Like being kind, generous, giving aid, or offering a blessing to the people you meet. Single acts of virtue can lead to transformation in someone's day or even in your own soul!  Let's set humanity truly free by doing the unpredictable -- by acting virtuously.

Shalom & May Prosperity Knock Frequently on Your Door!

Mark

 

The Field of Heart

Those on the path are they who have heard; then comes the devil and takes away the word from their hearts in order that they not believe. Luke 8:12

To follow the Path of Jesus is to do so with heart, soul, and mind in the same way that the first Commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. I believe that all creation, including every human being, is in God's body and dependent on God's heart to nurture and supply us with all that we need. (Pause and feel/hear that rhythm underlying your own heartbeat.) God's heart is a mother's heart - a good mother's heart -- and no compassion, love, gentleness, or goodness is spared. 

But in our world there is an opposition force.  Scripture calls this the devil or Satan.  This force is one we can choose in our use of free will. Free will is character and choosing our character is a lifetime daily decision. If we choose to pursue the opposition way it is like putting a blockage in the flow of life, and the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace...) withers. The result of a blockage is growing jealousy, greed, competition, lies, possessiveness, isolation, and even violence, all of which only hasten death.

We, in the United States, are experiencing the symptoms of a heart attack, a concerted blocking of godly generosity.  Cynicism and withdrawal is a natural response to repugnant behavior that is hurting others. Yet that is a plan to avoid treatment of the condition.  Adopting the Path of Jesus is God's modeled plan for addressing clogged channels of love. So lift up your voices.  Sing praises to our Mothering God. Share a smile, a small act of kindness, and an encouraging word.  Let the Godly flow of all things helpful go through you and out to fill the field of heart with the seeds for peace.       

Sacredness Within

She brought an alabaster jar of ointment. Then she stood behind Jesus’ feet, crying, and began to wet his feet with her tears. She wiped them with her hair, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.  --Luke 7:38

The lectionary my church is using this Sunday asks us to reflect on Luke 7:36—50, the story of the (unnamed) woman) who anoints Jesus' feet with oil, tears, and her hair. It is a touching scene. Luke describes her as a woman, well known in the community for having many sins. Jesus meets her gesture with mercy and forgiveness. Simon, the well-off Pharisee at whose house this scene takes place, questions how Jesus allows her to touch him in this way.  Jesus answers him that she was lavishing him with love in measure for all the sins for which she was forgiven.  He contrasts this to Simon's small heart and the lack of love he has shown to Jesus since they arrived at his house. Which of the characters in this story understood their sacredness more? 

Jesus' sacredness comes as a given in the gospels.  It's something he tries not to flaunt, but his frequent actions and words reveal a for-real confidence and certainty in his spirit.  

The Pharisee presumes his sacredness.  Much as many in the religious structural orders assume a certain haughtiness about their position with God, their lack of sensitivity and perception of those around them betrays their puffery.

Then there is the woman. I'm just going to give her a name, for she deserves one. I choose Desiree because she knows where she comes from and desires greatly for the Messiah to see her and remember her.  She takes her full authentic self, casts aside all the cultural baggage that villagers have heaped on her, and takes the radical steps for a woman to trespass in a wealthy man's house, side-stepping all the gossip about her, and without asking touches Jesus in a quite intimate way - even by our own social standards today!  And Jesus filled with Spirit, accepts her, forgives her, blesses her, and receives from her what she has - profound gratitude to him for restoring her sacred worth.

How do we connect with our sacredness?  For from out of our sacredness comes our resilience to roll with what life throws at us. Our sacredness instills us with a peaceful countenance and a firm confidence of knowing whatever may come we will survive.  We will have the certainty to take loving actions toward all those we come into contact with because our sacred will recognize and speak to the sacred in another.

So some sacredness-building ideas:

1) Affirm and love yourself. If you can look in a mirror and say "I love you," and mean it then you're on the right track.  If not, practice it, no matter how stupid you feel, until you don't feel that way and do find truth in the statement. While you're at it, get in the habit of every time you see yourself in any reflection, find something that you really like in what you see.  

2) Look for the good.  Being critical, judgemental, and assuming the worst is a culturally inculcated habit-forming creed but it's not the lead step of one with healthy sacredness. It is a harmless assumption and probably quite often true that everyone you meet has something bubbling under the surface that is not okay with them.  Our trite auto-response of "Fine" to another's question of "How are you?" is more due to a lack of trust/time/closeness or sheer overwhelmedness.  We don't have to pry the truth out of anyone. Just know that "fine" probably doesn't wholly mean fine and pray for them - or better yet, when you part, offer a short blessing like, "May everything come together for you today just right."

3) Do spend some time daily looking for joy, gratitude, love, kindness, and things to praise for going right.  When we look for something, we have a far more likely chance of finding/seeing it.  When you see it, you feel it, and that feeds your soul's sacredness. Along with this time can come some compassionate prayer -- lifting or "sending energy" to others you know are in need.  The Spirit realm is holding the world together. I believe that!

4) Nearly every place has a park or a place where nature's beauty still holds out against concrete and structures. Take advantage of being in that space at least weekly.  In Japan, far more densely populated than most places, they are encouraged to do "forest bathing" which has been proven to lower blood pressure and stress.  God's greatest sacred moment was birthing you and creation at large. Sacred rubbing elbows with sacred generate more. 

5) Confessing your screw-ups takes away the tarnish on your sacred. I don't have to list the "sins" for you to watch for.  You have a built-in detector and you know when there is a wrong that is smudging up your spirit. Confess it and be done with it.  Confessions are still heard by priests/pastors, but it doesn't have to be a "religious authority."  Good friends will listen.  I find trees remarkably well-equipped!  You can write it out (and then burn it). And then, go back to #1!

6) Don't forget to be kind.  It's among the best exercises for endowing your sacredness.

May a galaxy of Blessings flood your day!

AMEN. 

   

Making Peace

For where there is jealousy and selfishness, there will also be turmoil and everything vile.  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, and sincere.  And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for they who make peace."  - James 3:16-17

The present state of things in the United States could summarized as "in turmoil." Certainly, some wisdom from above would be welcome.  But I don't believe a big rain cloud of wisdom will drop from the sky and dump the listed virtues on the population, or even just our politicians!. Those virtues - peace, gentleness, reasonableness, mercy, etc. are available only to those who actively seek, perceive, and adopt them for their own.. Sadly, that isn't an automatic occurrence.  It is sometimes difficult to find those virtues under one's roof!  There are plenty of reports that even in monasteries and abbeys these qualities are known to take flight. Living in a hermitage might get you close, but that's not practical for most. So what can we do?

I know that we can put our heads in the sand and swear off paying any attention to the news in this quest for peace.  But that is, in essence, leaving the world to fend for itself.  As we already see that doesn't work out well when power structures are hellbent on grabbing as many of Earth's resources as they can for their own power and gain.  When cruelty becomes the goal and masses are being hurt. We see, too, that the evil this brings also tends to corrupt the religious structures and we see dimensions of this evil in Christian Nationalism. So we shouldn't build any hermetically sealed bubbles to ignore what is going on. Jesus didn't.  So neither should we.  But what can we do?

We can limit our consumption of news. Take in enough to know where things are going. Participate in what ways you're comfortable.  This is the public engagement phase of life.  But then it is important to withdraw, to remember, and to recognize that this entire planet is the tiniest of specks in a colossal galaxy.  God's "church" is the universe and God will be here for us regardless of what transpires. Take time out to bask in silence, and practice breathing deeply from your toes to your head. Pick one of the above virtues and think about it for the duration of time you can give over to the meditation.  For instance, what does gentleness feel like?  When have you been gentle with someone?  What would the world be like if gentleness were the primary indicator of social welfare (rather than the economy as it is now?)  Then, make a pact with yourself to try living gently for the rest of your day. Every day you can take a different virtue. This is the way to righteousness. It is the way to make peace.  

Combating the Sorrows & Losses

 

In the long run, change is as much devotional as it is psychological. It is out of love that we ultimately reshape our lives. It is a matter of discipline, a word has the same root as the word disciple. In other words, “To what will we be devoted? What is it that we will love and serve?” ---Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow.

 The news this week has not been great.  Plane crashes, incompetence & lying being crowned, jobs being removed, the judicial system being undermined, and people deported. Lots and lots of grief and loss being purposely foisted on 330 million people with not much aim apparent toward a positive goal.  I think a good reflection point is in the questions Francis Weller poses above.

One of this Sunday's texts in the Wilda Gafney Lectionary is found in Luke 7. It is the story of Jesus at Nain raising a child from the dead and putting them back in their mother's arms.  Putting the metaphysical miraculous element aside, we can see behind the scenes with a larger lens the fact of the earth's "life cycle" at work.  The completeness of life that we are granted only temporary & partial direct experience of is the flow from living through death.  Like the moon, we only see the lighted side, never the dark backside. 

Throughout life, we experience gain and loss, birth and death. Too often, we plunge ourselves into wallowing in our losses while the gains we experience seem fleeting. I say we do it to ourselves because, far too frequently, it's our brain's interpretation and in-built assumptions that anticipate, exacerbate, or extend our anxiety and misery.  We are wired to expect "the worst" and thus kick start our worry and sense of loss before "it" even happens. How often has "it" not turned out as awful as we imagined? Do we make "it" worse by bottling it up and recycling it over and over in our heads?  I have done that until I am sick of "it" and of myself for allowing it.  Which I don't believe is where God wants any of us to live.

Humans have an extraordinary capacity to change things. We can look at glasses as half full or half empty.  If we carry a belief in the unseen "hereafter" being a glorious improvement over life on earth, death loses a good measure of its pall. As Weller says above, change is devotional as much as psychological. How much devotional time - meditative time - do we spend imagining ourselves in positive spaces surrounded by joy, gratitude, hope, promise, peace, and love? Do we have the positive habit of looking for those virtues bubbling to the surface all around us, all the time?  I call it taking time out from stress. Can we imagine (using the power of our brain) shifting ourselves into a Jesus-loving space where we can feel Jesus loving us and us loving like Jesus? 

I believe there is a realm that is very near, just beyond our physical touch, that operates on the purely virtuous side of life. We are every bit as much spiritual beings as we are physical ones.  The spiritual side breaks into our lives many times a day.  Does it pass us by because we're too busy in our heads/lives to take notice?  Do we look for it? It IS there. Reshape your life with Love. Take it as a New Year's challenge.  Who/what will you be loving and directing Love toward?   

Gifts Received, Gifts Given

 Gifts Received, Gifts Given

A Sermon given on Jan. 19, 2025

Renton United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ

Mark Fredericksen, ND, MDiv

Based on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

 

A saying my mom was fond of reciting at me when any of my pals would call me some awful name was, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  Have you heard that before? Did the saying do anything to make you feel better? Naw, me either, because the ways that we can be hurt don’t only involve our physical being but, too frequently, real injury can be inflicted by words said. If they get repeated, they can dig a trench in our psyche such that we adopt them and make them into who think we are.  If those words dig into our very soul, they may keep us handicapped or knocked down our whole life long.

As you heard, a big part of my healer’s mindset is holding together the belief that we are complete human beings who have physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, and socio-cultural parts.  I think of our soul as being the underlying processing unit that knits these connections together into the authentic person, we are according to God’s design. Our soul provides the gears to make us what we are. But if there are missing gears or damaged gears it’s going to impact our ability to be authentic. Sadly, our society, culture, and technology have pulled us in directions that discourage authenticity and because we can’t be ourselves in the mold that God made us to be, we have a lot of problems like what we’re having. I am sure that you probably would like to see the world a lot differently.  I’m assuming that you would like to experience authenticity.  It’s a hard thing to come by in our society with our past histories and traumas.  So, let’s explore a concept that we can work with to help make a difference – if not for the world, maybe for ourselves or a small corner in which we live.

There is a theological practice borne out of Judaism called ZimZum.  To explain it completely would take several days in a retreat, but I’ll boil it down to its simplest idea.  Instead of Creation being made by a power-exerting God. ZimZum embraces the notion of a love-exerting God who opens a space within Godself for a womb where the love spark for creation is breathed in and grows.  We, and all we know, are growing inside of God.  Through Christ we see the potential love can create and manifest.  This means a) God is our mom, b) God intensely cares what happens to ALL of us.

With those givens – we come to 1 Cor. 12. A wise loving God knows what we need and has provided us with many gifts to enable us to thrive and realize our full authentic potential both as individuals and as an entire species. God is pumping love into the system as an empowering enlivening force for our world.  The Apostle Paul lists a few of these as Gifts of the Spirit. Our souls crave and need all of them.  I don’t believe it is in any way limited to these 12 as there are other passages with different gifts listed.  I also don’t think that we are limited to having just one or two, which is not what some of the Spiritual Inventory makers preach with their online questionnaires.  To reach our full authentic love-empowering selves we need to be open to receiving all the gifts God is providing.   One of the questions that you might ponder or journal about at home is this: What are the gifts you carry in your soul?  And what ones is your soul wanting you to have?

Call me an idle dreamer or an impossible romantic, but I have believed in my heart and soul my entire life that love – a true agape love – such as that demonstrated by Jesus, such as that preached about throughout the New Testament, such as that God imagined to spark the universe -- you know – the ideal we see being strived toward early in the book of Acts – if the Church could model that/live that what would become of the wars, the greed, the grasping for power, the racism, sexism, the hating, the monetizing of everything?   Even though the Church historically and at present has failed to live this out on so many levels I still hold my small little candle of hope that I can do better, that we can do better, that the Church can be better/do better, and that my light and maybe ours together will be the light that the darkness cannot swallow up.

To get there we have to daily recommit ourselves to seeing and receiving the gifts God is placing into our lives in front of us.  To see something we have to look for it.  Get in the habit of assessing/taking an inventory every day of all the good you saw – compassion shown, joy felt, gratitude expressed, love demonstrated, kindness offered, and miracles worked. Since the 1^st of January, I have been keeping a Joy Jar.  I have a small Mason jar and each day I try to write on a small slip of Post-it note a joy I felt, and I put the paper in my Joy Jar.  I have found that when I’m asking myself what I’ve enjoyed (note that word: En-JOY) my thinking changes as well as my perception of what joy is.  Our culture has taught us to be so serious & critical that we don’t realize we’re enjoying things when they’re right there in front of us.

In this process of looking for and taking note of what we are receiving, the table begins to turn. We begin to think things like – “Why couldn’t I do that!”  I could be more positive.  I could smile more.  I could be more willing to offer a helping hand.  I have a gift for listening – I could reach out to someone.  Let me tell you – I’m doing some work in the area of grief and loss.  And what I’ve learned is EVERYBODY has loss and grief.  EVERYBODY.  And the single best healing practice for it is simply telling the story to someone.  Who hasn’t got time to listen?   Though I will admit that listening without offering fixes and advice is a hearty challenge – and maybe it IS a gift.  One that you have? 

 But see?  THIS is how the Holy Spirit spreads. We for too long have been lulled into Christian complacency of expecting the Holy Spirit (or God) to fix every wrong.  But the wrongs get fixed when we activate and use the gifts we’ve received.   Are you sitting under a bushel?  Letting your light be hidden?  Feeling sorry for yourself or frustrated or angry at the stampedes of hypocrisy and greed and violence it seems the whole world is descending into?  I’m convinced it’s taking place because we all have been lured into shutting down, separating ourselves, isolating & withdrawing, and hoarding what gifts we have and not sharing what we have.  What we’ve already been given.

Finally, the last benefit of sharing our gifts is through that experience we get insights into who God made us to be. We find out where our authentic self has been living. And we take a step closer to being a full loving representation of God-in-Christ to the world.