06/25/06, Sermon

I don’t know, of course, if what I’m going to say is true. And, I suspect it is way too simplistic. I don’t care. Here it comes anyway: We are here to do it the way it ought to be done. The Dali Lama, for instance, is doing it the way it ought to be done. A lot of other people are not. I started a list of all the people who are, and are not, doing it the way it ought to be done, but had to quit. It was too depressing. To think that we are here to do it the way it ought to be done, and then to think of all the people who are doing it the way it ought to be done, is quite disheartening. It will sit you down. With a box or two of wine. Which, I am sure, is not the way it ought to be done. But, I have not yet reached the place of the Dali Lama, and am not sure that I ever will. But, I am sure that is our work, mine and yours, to get up each morning and do it that day the way it ought to be done.

If I am right about this, three things flow from it. There is the idea of the ought to be. Where does that come from? We can imagine a world that is better than the world we live in. We can imagine better ways of doing things than the way things are done. And, we can serve our idea of the good, of the ought to be, at the expense of all that is currently good in the world, or in our own lives. We can sacrifice “this”—the world of our actual, tangible experience—for “that”—our idea of how things could be improved in that world.

Of all the things about us I like, I like this the best, that is, our capacity to give up “this” for “that.” Our capacity to sacrifice “this” world of normal, apparent, reality for “that” world of ideas and visions of how the world ought to be. Now, that’s something. And, we don’t just do it to improve our lot, or the lot of those we love. We do it to improve the lot of perfect strangers. Why should we care? It’s beautiful. Our lives are not investments that we make to serve our own interest, or the interest of those we love. They are gifts to the whole of humanity. We are capable of loving those in whom we have no personal stake whatsoever. We can live in the service of an idea that is greater than, more important to us than, our own personal good.

Jesus can leave his family, and sacrifice his life, doing the work of reforming the society of his day—and all societies of all days to come. The Buddha can leave everything in the effort to put everything on a new track. William Lloyd Garrison can spend his life in the work to free slaves. It happens all the time. People give themselves up to serve an idea of how things ought to be. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is, in the service of our idea of the ought to be, all we have to work with are “Yes” and “No.” We transform the world by saying “Yes” to what must be assisted, and “No” to what must be opposed. In saying that we are here to do it the way it ought to be done, I’m saying that we are here to assist what must be assisted and oppose what must be opposed. The problem, of course, is how to know which is which. Well. Don’t expect me to make it easy for you. That’s the task of life. The work of spiritual maturity, which is the work of discernment, and perception, and wisdom. There are no shortcuts in that work. You have to guess a lot, and see what happens, and, maybe, change your mind.

We don’t know where we are better off. We might think we would be better off with the sweet young thing, or the handsome hunk, in tow. Maybe not. What do we know? We thought we would be better off with the used Toyota Camry, remember? Fooling ourselves is what we do best, remember? Shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best, remember? Illusion is everywhere, remember?

We suffer under the illusion of the ideal life. We think if we play our cards right, and read the signs right, and, perhaps, pray diligently for guidance, we can have it. The Ideal Life. I’m here to tell you it does not exist. I’m here to tell you, no matter what the scene is, you’re going to get some pictures and miss others. There is going to be something to be dissatisfied about. Something to not like. About Nirvana. You have to trust me in this, and stop thinking you are one right move away from Ideal. Ideal exists only in the land of your happy fantasies. When you get there, you’re still going to have to make the best of it. And, you’re still not going to know what to do to take full advantage of it. You’re still going to have to take your chances. It’s going to be a lot like right now. Or, to come at it another way, the life you are living is ideal from somebody’s point of view.

So, how do you know what to do? Some things are obvious. Some things are not. With some things there is no knowing. With some things there is only doing or not doing—there is only “Yes” or “No”—and seeing what happens, and correcting what can be corrected, and redeeming what can be redeemed, and bearing the pain of what cannot be undone, or celebrating your good fortune and great wisdom in making the right call. Maybe it works out, and maybe it doesn’t. But, how long can you sit there, afraid to move? This is the third thing. We have to decide. “Yes”? Or, “No”? What’s it going to be? Nothing changes until we move.

For too long, the church has just sat there, afraid to move. Reviewing the doctrines. Re-believing the beliefs. Afraid to move. We’re just going to have to take a chance. We have to question the legitimacy of the way things are if things are ever going to be other than they are. And, we will pay a price for doing that. The status quo does not cotton to being questioned. But, we cannot just take our place in the spot provided for us and live out our lives. That is not doing it the way it ought to be done. Yet, that’s doing it exactly the way those in charge of (and benefit from) the way things are think it ought to be done. So, who says what ought to be?

We can imagine a world that is better than the world we live in. In light of which world are we going to live? We have to ask the question. What is good? Who says so? How do we know they know what they are talking about? What can we think of that might be better?

We have to make a conscious decision to live toward one thing and away from another. In light of which world are we going to live? Will we take our place and serve the status quo, or will we question the good that those who benefit from the way things are call good? We need to think about that. And, we need to know that we will not serve the same idea of good.

The best I can imagine might well be the worst you can think of. There we are. What do we do then? Where do we go from there? It all depends, don’t you know? It all depends on the agreements that hold things together. “The end doesn’t justify the means.” How’s that for an agreement? “Don’t kill anybody, ever.” How’s that for an agreement? “Honor the opposition.” How’s that for an agreement? Agreeing upon the agreements that hold things together is essential. Jesus could say, “Love your enemies,” but if your enemies just want you dead, you’re in trouble. It would be very helpful if our enemies would agree to love us back.

Where we go with different ideas of the good depends upon our understanding and embracing the idea that we aren’t here to force our way on the world, or to compel other people to do it the way we think it should be done, or to kill those who don’t do it like we do. I say that with the full knowledge that war is the most powerful force for social and cultural change the world has ever seen. And yet, we still have war. War doesn’t change war. War leaves the basic orientation of civilization untouched. If we are going to change things at the level of the heart, we are going to have to change the way we go about changing things. We’re going to have to believe in the power of an idea to transform civilization from the inside out over time. Magically. Like yeast in the dough. Salt in the soup. Seeds in the earth.

The process of change and transformation is as magical as anything I know of. I have never changed anyone’s mind by being nice and accommodating, and suggesting, here and there, that maybe they could think differently about things. And, I have never changed anyone’s mind by being in their face and calling them stupid and asking how in the world they could tie their shoes and think like they do. I have never changed anyone’s mind, and you probably have not either. Yet, minds are changed all the time. How does it happen? It’s magic.

If we want to change the world, we have to hatch an idea, live in the service of it, and let things take their course. Over time, the revolution! But, we have to live in light of the revolution here and now, every day, for the rest of our lives. That’s the power of the kingdom of God.

Jesus could envision the kingdom of radical equality, and non-violence, and peace that surpasses understanding, and live every day in light of that eventuality as a portent of things to come—setting the stage, laying the groundwork, preparing the way for the revolution, and trusting the power of his idea to change the world over time. That’s the kind of faith that moves mountains. If you are going to believe anything, believe in the power of an idea to change the world over time—and let it change you right now. And live in light of it, so as to prepare the way for the revolution.

06/18/06, Sermon

We have to know what works, and, in order to know that, we have to know what it means to say something works. We have to know in light of what does it work. You can catch trout with dynamite or with a fly rod. Either approach works. What determines which you use?

What is The Good and how does it apply to this situation, here, now? What is being asked of us? In light of what do we respond? We live toward what? Away from what? Guided by what? We have to have some sense of what we are about, of what we are trying to do, of what is important, of what we want to happen, of what we are willing to do to have it happen, and of what the limits and restrictions are under which we operate. We have to know what works, and what the variables are that determine whether something works, or doesn’t work. We know what works in light of what is right, of what is good.

What do we intend? What do we mean to happen? What is our purpose? What do we hope to achieve? What is our orientation? Toward what are we living? Away from what are we living? These are the questions which, when answered, enable us to know whether something works. They also plot our position relative to the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is an orientation to The Good that runs contrary to the operating principles of the kingdoms and empires of the world. The Kingdom of God is an alternative to civilization as we know it, and represents the end, and beginning, of life. Life in the Kingdom is lived on a different basis, in light of different goals, than life in the world. It represents the radical transformation of the world. It is, simply put, a brand new world.

Nothing is willed into being in the Kingdom. Nothing is forced, pushed, pulled, compelled. In the Kingdom, things happen “in the fullness of time.” Nothing is made to happen before its time. Nothing is delayed past its time. Things happen in their own time. When the time is right, the savior comes, sometimes to us, and sometimes to life within us, and through us, into the world. In the Kingdom, the potter listens to the clay, and a pot is formed.

In the world, we are concerned about how to get to happen what we want to happen. In the Kingdom, we are concerned about listening to the clay. What needs to happen? What is trying to happen? What time is it now? What is coming to life now? What is being born now? How can we assist the coming to be of what needs to be? What is being asked of us? What is truly helpful? How can we help? In the world, we try to get ahead. In the Kingdom, we try to be of help. How to be helpful without being used is one of the problems of the Kingdom. How to see into the heart of things and know what is needed without being deceived and victimized, disillusioned and abused is one of the problems of the Kingdom. How to live in the world in ways that are true to the qualities and values, nature and character of the Kingdom of God is one of the problems of the Kingdom. Right seeing, right hearing, right living, right being—these are the problems of the Kingdom.

We begin to solve the problems of the Kingdom with time and distance. All things become clear with time and distance. We achieve the proper perspective with time and distance. We wait. We watch. We sit. We listen. We step back. We look. We walk around it. We “sleep on it.” We “put it on the back burner.” We “let it marinate.” We breathe. We allow ourselves to not know what to do.

Of course, the world intrudes. The world thrusts itself upon us, demanding action NOW! The world cannot wait. No time, no distance. That is what keeps the world in place, unchanged and unchanging. No time, no distance, and profit at any price. Those are the things that make the world, the world. And, they are the things that are contrary to the experience and expression of the Kingdom of God.

In the world, the profit motive is the primary motive. We don’t do anything unless there is something in it for us. We certainly don’t do anything for very long unless there is something in it for us. In the Kingdom, however, there is the idea of “God’s will.” There is the idea of that which has need of us beyond our need of it. There is the idea that we “find our lives,” that we live best, when we live in the service of that which is beyond us, of that which is greater than we are, of that which is more than we can “ask, or think, or imagine.”

We think doing God’s will is the way of earning the big pay off. We don’t understand that it IS the pay off. We think it is about being rewarded with prosperity and the easy life now, and the splendors of heaven when we die. If we do something good for God, God will do something good for us. If we mind our manners, and our P’s and Q’s (What’s a P and a Q, anyway?), and keep our noses clean, and to the grindstone, and go to church, and talk a lot about family values, and vote the way the Religious Right tells us to vote, then we will live happily ever after and have it ever-so made. We think doing God’s will is all caught up with clean noses and P’s and Q’s and having it ever-so made. We are so convoluted and contorted, I don’t know if we can ever be straightened out.

Joseph Campbell says “We know when we are on the beam and when we are off it.” Think of “doing God’s will” as being “on the beam.” There is nothing beyond “being on the beam,” nothing more than being “on the beam,” nothing greater than being “on the beam,” nothing better than being “on the beam.” “Being on the beam” is IT. When our lives are “on the beam,” we are in synch with ourselves, aligned with that which is deepest, truest, and best about us—and about life, generally—in the center of how things ought to be, and at-one with ourselves and with God. The spiritual quest is for that kind of alignment, synchronization, oneness.

We get there by slowing down, paying attention, being mindful, being aware, being awake, being alert, listening, looking, watching, seeing, hearing, feeling, sensing, intuiting, and knowing on the level of the heart. It’s like this: We know where we belong and where we have no business being. But, it’s also like this: Fooling ourselves is what we do best. And: Shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best. And, Talking ourselves into—or allowing ourselves to be talked into—what is not in our best interest is what we do best. There you are. That’s what keeps me in business. That’s the spiritual quandary. We know where we belong and we have eyes for where we have no business being.

That’s the story of the Garden of Eden. And the flip side of that same story is the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, one of the bad, really bad, things about the Bible and the way it has been handed to us is that we think the Garden of Eden is about us, and that the Garden of Gethsemane is about Jesus. We sin in the Garden of Eden, and Jesus erases our sin in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on Golgotha (which is the logical extension of Gethsemane). That is so wrong. Eden and Gethsemane are both about us. We are Adam and Eve, and we are Jesus. One minute we are saying “Yes” to the wrong thing, and the next minute, we are saying “No” to it. We are not all bad. John Calvin was wrong about us.

I know that is hard for you to take, but just look at it logically. If Calvin was right, and we are all wrong (Totally Depraved, you know) then, how could he possibly be right? Surely, you see the conundrum. If he’s right about us being all, completely, totally wrong, then he’s wrong. If we are Totally Depraved, not only can we not do what is right, but we cannot even know what is right. Of course, if you buy this, you can never sing Amazing Grace again, at least, not in good conscience, because you most surely are not a “wretch.” We have some wretched tendencies on occasion, but we also do some thoroughly wonderful things that wretches would never consider.

We stand in Eden in one minute, with eyes for what we have no business having. And, we kneel in Gethsemane in the next minute, and sacrifice everything for the sake of the truly good. “We know when we are on the beam, and we know when we are off it.”

Now, there is no permanent fix for our condition. We live between Eden and Gethsemane. Get used to it. We are on the beam one minute, and off the beam the next. That’s the way it is. But, doing God’s will is not a strategy for prosperity now and heaven when we die. That’s a calculated ploy for accruing the advantages. It’s having an eye out for what’s in it for us. It’s the Garden of Eden all over again.

Doing God’s will is listening to the clay and bringing to life what is trying to come to life—assisting with the birth of what is struggling to be born. And, there is no recipe for that. There are no rules to follow for that. We cannot make that happen. We are not in command of the beam. Sometimes we are on it, and sometimes we are off of it, and we aren’t conscious of doing anything different. Sometimes we sit with the clay and listen, and hear, and create with the clay more than we could ever manage on our own. And, sometimes, we sit with the clay and nothing happens. Sometimes, Eden, sometimes, Gethsemane.

But, Gethsemane is the place to be. We are looking for the beam. When we are off, we have to know we are off, and watch, and wait, and look, and listen. We have to keep showing up with the clay, sitting and listening, even if we aren’t hearing anything. Being with the clay, being present, being open, being ready is essential.

God’s will is the beam, the path with our name on it, and it opens before us in the strangest times and places and ways. It comes down to attitude and orientation, to having eyes that see, and ears that hear, and hearts that understand. It comes down to being present with what is present with us. It comes down to listening to the clay, and offering what is needed to the moment of our living. That’s the miracle, the wonder, and the joy. And, we flow into it and out of it all our lives long.

06/11/06, Sermon

If you think Christianity means anything other than “Justice Now!”, you have to re-read the Bible. Slowly, this time. Paying particular attention to the Sermon on the Mount; and to the inconsistencies, contradictions, and incompatibilities which disappear when understood as evidence of the move away from “Justice Now!” to a more practical approach to life in the world.
For instance, there is the proclamation that Jesus has broken down the dividing walls and made us all one, so that there are no longer slaves and free, male and female, Jews and Gentiles (and, by extension, gay and straight), but “Christ is all, and in all.” That is as bold a declaration of equality as you’ll ever read. But then, the retractions. “Slaves, obey your masters!” “Wives, obey your husbands!” “Submit to the governing authorities!” And, the usual way of living closes off the radical cry for “Justice Now!”, and we begin to think of Christianity as being about “heaven when we die.”

We have been told that Christianity is about “Heaven when you die!” Jesus came, we are told, to save us from our sins, by dying in our behalf, and appeasing an angry, vengeful God, whose righteousness requires justice, which means that we will have to be punished for our evil, disobedient ways, if we don’t confess our sinful nature, “prone to evil and wont to do good,” you know, repent, and believe that Jesus was God who died on the cross and was raised from the dead so that we might be convinced of the whole story, forgiven, and saved from everlasting torment at the hands of Satan and the demons in hell, and be delivered to the heavenly regions and eternal life in glory beyond imagining. The whole thing is about getting us to heaven. There is nothing in any of this about Jesus dying because he dared to break down dividing walls and live out the declaration: “Justice Now!”.

John Dominic Crossan says heaven and the bodily resurrection of the dead were invented 167 years before Jesus was born by Macabean martyrs who were being tortured and massacred by Greeks for being Jews. It was the first religious pogrom in history, or anywhere else, for that matter. People were being killed because of their faith. Up until then, it was thought that bad things happened to people who deserved it and that they were being punished by God for having abandoned their faith. Now, unquestionably good and worthy people were suffering and dying because of their faith. The facts could not be squared with the belief in a good, loving, God of justice. So, a shift in faith happened. Something new came onto the scene. In the 4th Book of Macabees, you have a martyr saying, “God will give me this body back!” God will make this up to us! Because God is just, there will be recompense. There will be compensation. There will be an afterlife and a resurrection of the martyrs, and of course, punishment for all those who caused the righteous misery.

The resurrection of Jesus, who died an undeserving death at the hands of the enemies of the Jews, was hailed by the apostles as the first sign of the general resurrection of the deserving dead. The graves at Jerusalem were emptied, remember, and Jesus was to return “soon” to herald the general resurrection and the full inauguration of the Kingdom of God for both the living and the dead. And, because that was going to happen “soon,” it was incumbent upon believers to begin living now in ways that modeled the justice and love of God—so as to “speed up the time” and be seen as “going to meet” the one who was coming by “preparing the way of the Lord,” and being ready when he arrived. “Justice Now!” was the hallmark of those who believed Jesus had been raised from the dead and was going to return soon to institute the Kingdom of God on the earth in this present world, in this present life.

Because living justly is the hardest thing to do over time, the emphasis shifted from “Justice Now!” to “Heaven When We Die!” as the first generation of believers was replaced by their successors. The impetus for believing shifted from participating now in the divine justice of God in preparation for that which was about to burst forth, to a theology of believing in the ultimate victory of God over the long haul. “God will save us eventually if we believe now,” is quite different from saying, “God is coming tomorrow, so make ready today.” The shift was a practical way of dealing with the unending delay of the return of Jesus. It saved us from the work of maintaining the momentum of justice over time, and allowed us to concentrate on seeking the advantage for ourselves and those we loved, while making gestures of compassion—food baskets at Thanksgiving, for instance—to the poor and underprivileged.

We are not going to take a vow of poverty and follow Mother Theresa into the slums of Calcutta. How just can we be and still enjoy our lives? What are the implications justice has for the way we live our lives? How can we do justice without threatening our life style? How just can we be and still pay the bills? We answer the questions for ourselves. We have to set our own limits, draw our own lines, and decide where we want to begin, and what we want to do, and how to go about doing it. There are no particular procedures or structures for “doing justice.” No established process for achieving “Justice Now.” There is only picking a place to begin working and plugging away.

What will it be? Affordable health care and a livable wage? Gay couples having the same rights and benefits and privileges as straight couples? Child care for the working poor? An end to war? Greening the environment? Issues and needs are everywhere. We only have to decide what we are going to do, and how much we are going to do, and where we are going to draw the line, and take a break and go take photographs, or read a book, or take a stroll through a meadow to the crest of a hill.

The decision between inner and outer, between personal and social, between how much for me and how much for you and how much for everyone else, is the fundamental decision. Where do we draw the line? When do we re-draw it? The question takes us to the essence of what makes us human. It is the spiritual struggle. And, reminds us of the duality at the heart of oneness: Yin/Yang; Darkness/Light; Good/Not-Good, at the core of being. We are not so much one way or the other as we are all ways at once. It takes some getting used to. But, it is not about achieving personal purity so much as it is about integrating the opposites within, and establishing appropriate boundaries, and maintaining appropriate relationships among all of the voices vying for our attention.

To come at it another way: We exercise considerable influence, but very little control. Yet, we should not let that stop us from controlling what can be controlled. We could live a healthier life-style. We could stop smoking; start walking regularly; eat less sugar and less processed flour. We could slow down. I do not know of a spiritual discipline that recommends speeding up, doing more, trying harder, working longer. Spiritual practice has to do with less, not more. It’s about emptying the tea cup, about not-knowing, not-doing.

If we controlled what we can control, we could “do justice” in various times and ways and places. We could be good company. We could become the right kind of people. We could see what is to be seen; hear what is to be heard; and do what needs to be done, or find someone with the skill and expertise to do what needs to be done.

We do not control everything, but there is much that we do control. There is no point in not doing what we can to make life better than it is. Of course, I have a theory as to why we don’t. I call it “The Weight of the Past and Future.” We are always remembering what has happened to us, or “looking down the road” and imagining what will happen to us, and eating another gallon of ice cream. The weight of the past and the future is too much for us to bear without ice cream. Or beer. Or whiskey. Or prescription pain killers. We cannot carry The Weight of the Past and Future. We shrivel, begin to shake, and curl into a fetal position. It’s what we get for looking.

We have no business giving up because of the past or peering into the future, and thinking we know how hopeless, pointless, useless, unpleasant and burdensome it is going to be. Anyone with our past; anyone looking into that future would have to wonder, “Why try?”, and go for the ice cream (etc.). So, don’t look. Do not think beyond what’s for dinner. The long view will give you the grim perturbations. And, you will be no fun to be around. Keep it local, within reach, today. Don’t look beyond today.

That’s what “One day at a time,” means. Control what you can control today. Live healthily today. Be a genuinely decent human being today. Be good company today. Treat yourself to some simple pleasure today. How slowly can you live today—being attentive, mindful, aware; looking, seeing, listening, hearing? Do not wonder what good is it doing, or ask what it is achieving, or what difference it is making. Live today with today only in mind. Do not carry The Weight of the Past and Future, today. And, don’t do it again tomorrow. Do what can be done with today and tomorrow, every day, and let the future unfold as it will.

This is called “doing your work and letting things take their course.” Our work is to control what we do control, to influence for the good what we can influence for the good, and then stand back, and let things take their course. That’s it. That is all that is asked of us. No one can do more. In order to do it, we have to free ourselves of The Weight of the Past and Future, and step into each day with today only in mind—doing justice where we can and being good company as we are able. And doing it again tomorrow.

06/07/06

“It” is all there is. Striking the right relationship with “it,” is what it’s all about. “It” varies from person to person, and with individuals, over time. “It” might be NASCAR or bowling for some, and Neapolitan ice cream for others. The trick is to enjoy “it,” embrace “it,” love “it,” spend time with “it,” without losing ourselves in “it,” or being absorbed by “it.” We can eat too much chocolate and play too much golf.

How much is enough? How much is too much? Where do you draw the line? It’s hard to know about some lines until they have been crossed. But, at some point, we have to say, “That’s it for ‘it’ for a while.”

There has to be integration, balance, wholeness. We know what addiction does to us. We cannot live in the extremes, no matter how pleasant it may be to ignore the “Not It,” and devote ourselves exclusively to “It.” Moths seem to love the flame, but it can consume them.

We also have to catch ourselves in the act of thinking that there must be something in “it” beyond “it” for us—that if we love tennis, we should be on the circuit, or if we love to sing, we should be on the charts. We ruin the experience of “it” in thinking there should be some payoff to “it” beyond the joy of “it.” We lose “it” trying to soak “it” for more than the simple pleasure of “it.” If we think being a writer is more important than writing, for instance, we have been “blinded by the lights,” and have lost the point.

So. That’s it. Be alert to “it,” aware of “it,” sensitive to “it.” Spend time with “it.” Do “it.” Love “it.” Delight in “it.” Without becoming obsessive, compulsive, addicted—and, without trying to ride “it” to glory, stardom, wealth, and beyond. If you get that down, you’ll have it made.

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After a while, you have enough photos of sunrise at Schwabacher Landing (in the Grand Tetons). At that point, you go somewhere else for sunrise, or you become very particular, waiting, watching for THE sunrise at Schwabacher Landing. You become a connoisseur of sunrises, grizzled, rumpled, leaning toward iconoclasm and curmudgeonhood. You say things like, “Ah, you think this is a good sunrise—you should have seen the one in May of ’86. Now THAT was a sunrise!” But, you keep looking for one to top that one.

You could do it like that, or you could decide that “that one” was good enough, and move on to something else, say, large flowered trillium in the Smokies, or lobster boats in the fog in Maine. At some point, you move on. Or die. When you get THE sunrise at Schwabacher Landing, you move on. Or, you keep going back to confirm the fact that you did, indeed, get THE sunrise, perhaps in May of ’86, and, die. If you understand dying as a form of moving on, at some point you move on.

If that happens before you die, what happens to make it happen? How do you come to the realization that “enough is enough”? When do you know when to say “when”? We don’t know. But, we know. One more sunrise at Schwabacher Landing isn’t going to be much different from any of the other sunrises at Schwabacher Landing—not different enough to make a difference, anyway. We can sleep in, or search out a sunrise somewhere else. We move on.

To what? We’ll see. What we move on to is as difficult to know beforehand as when to move on. We know when we have enough photos of sunrise at Schwabacher Landing. We’ll know where to go next when we know it. In the meantime, we wait, and watch. It’s what we do best, or better be.

The whole enterprise (photography, and life, and spiritual development, and all the other enterprises there are) comes down to waiting and watching. To take a photo, we wait, and watch, even as we walk into, and around in, and through, and back to a scene. In a scene, we wait and watch for something to catch our eye, for the light to be right, for the wind to quit blowing… Always, the waiting, the watching.

There has to be a place where thinking stops, and planning stops, and knowing what to do when, where, and how stops, and you wait, and watch, trusting that you will know “it” when you see “it,” and not worrying about it if you don’t. Where do you stop and the creative process start? You place a glob of clay on the wheel and, what? Command the clay to become a specific pot—the pot you have in mind? Or, listen to the clay to see what kind of pot—or pitcher, or bowl, or whoknowswhat—it wants to be? Who is in charge? If you have to be in charge, you will not be creative.

Flash back to God. Creation. Master and Commander of the Universe. Immutable, Unchangeable, Non-negotiable, Eternal and Irrevocable Plan for the Unfolding of Time from Before Time. Do you see how wrong that is? That is NOT how to do it, even if you are God. Waiting and watching—THAT is how to do it, even if you are God.

What is after Schwabacher Landing? What will the clay become? We wait, and watch. The creative power of God is waiting and watching and acting in “the fullness of time,” when the time is right, to do what needs to be done here and now, then and there, only to wait and watch some more. When you get that down, you’ll have it made.

05/31/06

God Becoming God

We are God, stirring, stretching, coming to life, slowly waking up to what it might mean to live as God in the land. We are God with different ideas of what it might mean to be God. We are God figuring out what it is to be God, here and now, in the present moment of our lives. How would God do it, with no more resources than we have available to us, with no more power and control than we exercise within the events and circumstances of our lives? That is the problem of God, and, it is our problem. How do we live here, now, as God would live in our place?

There are no answers in the back of the book. There is no script, no formula, no list of rules to go by. God is not bound by a manual of operations or a Book of Order. God is like the wind, you know, that blows where it will. God makes it up as it goes along. God figures it out along the way. God has the soul of a jazz musician, the uninhibited freedom of movement of a small child dancing. “What works best?”, is God’s only concern. “What is needed, here, now?”, is the guiding question of God.

Of course, it is complicated. When one person’s good is another person’s bad, it’s a pickle. What do you do, then, even if you are God? It is not easy, sometimes, even if you are God. So, what do you do? Who knows? Who knows what ought to be done? Sometimes, there is no knowing. We live with the burden of the complete freedom of God, wondering what is best, what is needed. Wondering how we bring the good to bear upon, to life in, this situation, here, now. Not knowing. Stumbling our way into Godhood, into holiness. Leaving behind traces of the kingdom in the wake of our living.

God Unfolding, Emerging, Within Us

You have to admit that the idea of God becoming God has it all over the idea of God as immutably and irrevocably in charge of every little detail (like the number of hairs on our head). The God of the Bible is only a bigger, meaner us. In the Bible, God’s way of dealing with those who oppose God is to kill them. And, send them to hell. Where they will regret for all eternity opposing God. In the Bible, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart and then destroys the chariots and horsemen of Pharaoh. That’s the best God can do. Which is no better that anything we can do.

Jesus may talk about loving our enemies, but, by the Book of Revelation, it’s all forgotten, and we are back to God being the Killer of the Beast and all the Little Beasties. And, everyone is supposed to admire that God, and fawn all over that God, and spend their time in heaven singing praises to that God forever. But, that God is more of a monster than a god worthy of the name. There is nothing admirable about a God whose idea of justice is the destruction of those who don’t do it God’s way.

Jesus seems to catch on to a different way of being God in the world. The prodigal’s father is glad to welcome home the prodigal, and you get the idea that if the prodigal took off again, and came back again, for an infinite number of times, the father would still be there to welcome him home every time. The Samaritan helps the Jew without doing a reference check to see if the Jew deserved to be helped. Of course, the Jew did not deserve to be helped! This is a Samaritan doing the helping! No Jew could deserve being helped! The Jews and Samaritans despise each other. There is no such thing as a good, deserving Jew from the perspective of Samaritans (and vice versa)! Yet, there he goes, tending and caring for his enemy, without even a hint of a suggestion that his enemy start doing things like a Samaritan would do them.

Jesus talks about yeast in the dough, and salt in the soup, and light in the darkness, and seeds in the earth, as a way of suggesting that the way of the good, the way of God, is to become good, to become God, over time. That God is working within “the scene,” within the moment, within the circumstances of life, to transform and deliver, renew and redeem.

Of course, as I sometimes say, Jesus hadn’t been dead fifteen minutes before everything changed. What changed was that everyone thought about God the way they had always thought about God. Gone was the yeast in the dough idea of God and back was the fist in the clouds idea. Back was “do it the way we tell you to do it, or else!” Or else, there will be hell to pay. Somehow, I cannot imagine the prodigal’s father saying, “If you ever do anything like that again, there will be hell to pay!” You just cannot square the idea of the prodigal’s father with the idea of a vengeful, wrathful God requiring the death of Jesus and the belief of all the people in the redemptive power of the death of Jesus, “or else.” Yeast in the dough, or fist in the clouds? I think we have to choose which idea of God is going to be the operative idea of God, and everything, you might say, hangs on the choice.

The Work of God

The work of God, of being God, of becoming God, is the work of aligning our lives with the idea of the best we can imagine. Whose good is served by the good we serve? How good is a good that serves only our good? I don’t think we can do better than Jesus’ ideas about the foundation of community, and working to incorporate those ideas into our lives.

How do we love our neighbor as ourselves? How do we do unto others as we would have them do unto us? How do we love our enemies? How do we love one another? How do we live in ways that do right by ourselves and right by each other and right by all others? The work of God is to do it the way it ought to be done in every moment of life. The work of God is to envision the good and do it in every moment of life. The work of God is to take Jesus’ image of the sheep and the goats and make it the foundation of our life in the world.

The upshot of the parable is that we have to do right by ALL of the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. And, that the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters have to do right by all of the rest of the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters: “In as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it unto me.” No one is off the hook here, and no one can slip by any of us unnoticed, unseen, uncared for. We are here to do right by ourselves, one another, and all others. That’s our life’s work. We would have to be God to get it done. There you are.

Good Company

Who are we going to “throw in with”? That’s as important as knowing what to do. Who are we going to be with? Whose company are we going to keep? Who is the right kind of company? Who is good for us? Being good company, and being in good company, are the two essential requirements for life. We cannot hope to be alive, in the fullest, deepest, best sense of the term, without being good company and without being in good company. Do we even know what “good company” means? We had better be figuring it out. There is no future worth having without it.

05/21/06, Sermon

There can’t be much to it. Why would it be complicated? Why do we think it has to be hard? Why do we think it has to be “out there,” “over there,” “up there,” “down there”? We think we have to go to India or China or Japan, sit past aching knees and sore rear ends, waiting for it. We think we have to be indoctrinated, initiated, inculcated, inundated. We think it could not possibly be free and easy. It has to be a secret reserved only for the deserving. Held back as a reward for those who have paid their dues, submitted to the regimen, and earned the right to be enlightened.

What is it that we think enlightenment does for us? What do we seek when we seek understanding? Oneness with the universe? Inner peace? Do you think inner peace would do anything about obtuseness in the White House? About being over weight and out of shape? The Buddha could have lost a pound or two. If inner peace keeps us from minding so much how things are—if that’s what we get out of it; if that’s why it is so attractive to us—why don’t we just chew peyote or smoke pot, drink beer and let the world go around?

What is it that we want? What are we after? To feel good about our life, and our place in life, and our lot in life? What would it take for us to relax and feel like we have it?

Here’s what I think. “Ommmmm.” Hear that? There is something innately right about it. You can’t improve it. It has it. “Whigggh!”, on the other hand, does not. The Ode to Joy has it, is it, chalk scraped on a blackboard does not, is not. There you are. We are looking to align ourselves with, to immerse ourselves in, what is right, and to distance ourselves from what is not right.
There are places, and people, and experiences, and thoughts, and ideas, and sights, and sounds that are right, and there are those that are wrong. We are looking for more of what is right and less of what is wrong. Gatlinburg is wrong, but the trail to Grotto Falls is right. We submit to what is wrong, sometimes, for the sake of what is right.

We yearn for what is right. For what is good. For the ought to be. We cannot get enough of it. It’s beautiful. Wonderful. Magnifique! That’s all there is to it. Simple as that. Become aware of it. Spot it. Name it. Love it. Spend time with it. Go back to it. Become it. Be sources of good, and beauty, and wonder in the world. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. There is nothing hard about it.

We only have to cultivate, as Jesus says, “Eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand.” We only have to develop “an eye for IT”; an ear for IT; a heart for IT. That’s all there is to IT!

And that, of course, is the problem. When we talk about knowing IT when we see IT, or hear IT, or sense IT, we move into the spiritual realm. We move into mystery. We cannot say what we are talking about. “Spiritual” is for “more than meets the eye.” How do you develop an eye for “more than meets the eye”? How do you see past the surface, into the depths? How do you develop “taste”? How do you cultivate an ear for music, and for truth? These are the questions we should be asking, and answering, in religious education classes. We should be talking about how to apprehend the reality beyond the apparently real, not discussing the doctrines and reciting the clichés and commonplaces of worn-out religion.

We have to figure out how to live with right-seeing, and right-hearing, and right-being at the center of our lives. There has to be some center around which we coalesce. It can be anything, but we have to form around something, around some idea of what is worth our life. Our lives take shape around our idea of what it means to be alive. Worthy lives require worthy centers, but already, with the idea of worthy, we have some sense of what shape that life should take, of what the center of that life should be. We are born with an incredible affinity for what is right. Amoebas know what is right, and what is wrong; what is good, and what is bad. Plants turn to the light. We can recognize where we belong and where we have no business being.

We can override That Which Knows. We can ignore the signals. We can “develop a taste” for things that are not good for us. We can live recklessly, carelessly. And, we can hold back when we should step forward. We can be inhibited, and intimidated, and fearful. We can refuse to “boldly go where no one has ever ventured.” We can be stupid. Shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best. But we know, in Joseph Campbell’s term, “when we are on the beam and when we are off it.” We know that much.

It is crucial that we know what we know, and live in light of it—to the extent that is permitted by the nature and circumstances of our lives. Poets can do a little plumbing and serve on the city council or the school board, but they cannot think that they are plumbers or politicians and not poets. We cannot make sense of things in a cosmic fashion, but we can know what makes sense for us, personally. We can know whether it makes sense for us to go into the auto repair business, for instance, or to go to vet school.

What is worthy? Worth while? Worth our life? What is our life worth? We are going to spend our life in the service of what? The ultimate decision is a values decision. What are the values that will shape our lives? Where do they come from? How do we decide what is valuable and what is not?

Or, to ask the same thing in another way, “Who does the grail serve?” We seek what for what? We seek “the grail” for what? To do what with it? What is the point of our lives? We live toward what? Away from what? What is “the good” around which our lives coalesce? How do we know what is worth our time?

To say, as I do, “We are here to bring out the best in each other,” is to open the door to wondering what constitutes “the best” and how we will know when it has been “brought out.” I think the question of “the good,” or “the best,” is fraught with complexity and paradox, and takes us to the heart of what it means to be human—to the heart of the struggle, if you will, to be human. I see the struggle to be human to be the struggle to do right by ourselves and by one another, and all others. That is the cross we all bear, who would be “fully human and fully divine.” Humanity, at the level of the heart, is divine. How to get there is hell.

Of course, there is no way to know if I know what I’m talking about here, so, let’s assume I do not. Never mind the business about being human and divine at the level of the heart, but hang on to the idea that the essence of the work/struggle to be human being the effort to do right by ourselves and all others. Or, as Jesus would say (Paraphrasing Hillel), “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s it. And, it is hell.

This is only one theory about what belongs at the center, about “the good,” “the best.” But, it is a good theory. An excellent theory. I can’t think of a better gauge for a life well-lived than the extent to which it does right by itself and all others. And, if we are going to bring out the best in each other, we are going to live toward enabling one another to do right by ourselves and all others. We are going to live in ways that take “the other” (a generic term for all others) into account. We are not going to dismiss anyone as being inconsequential or unworthy of our concern. We are going to recognize that WE are the neighbor (The answer, by the way, to the lawyer’s question—Luke 10:25 and following—to Jesus about “who is my neighbor.” “Who was the Jew’s neighbor?”, asked Jesus at the end of the tale. “The one who did right by him!”, said the lawyer. “Go and do likewise,” said Jesus). We are the neighbor who loves, and does right by, everyone. If you think that’s easy, give it a whirl. That’s the work of bringing God to life in our lives; it is the work of birthing God into the world. And, it’s our work. We are here to bring out the best in one another; to help one another with the work of bringing God to life in our lives. We do that best by being clear about what belongs at the center, at the heart, of our lives, around which we coalesce.

It would be easy for me to nominate “the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth” as the center around which we coalesce, but that’s just a way of formulating, of talking about, what is at the center. If Jesus is our model of “doing it the way it ought to be done,” there is, beyond Jesus, an idea of “the ought to be,” which Jesus reflects. The key is “the ought to be.” The idea of what ought to be is reflected in Jesus by those who have the right idea of the ought to be and can see it in him. Everyone who looks at Jesus does not see the same “ought to be.”

People have looked at Jesus and burned other people at the stake, and drowned reputed witches, and shamefully discriminated against black people, and gay people, and physically and mentally handicapped people, and mentally ill people, and women, and children, and, well, the list is pretty much endless. And, they claimed to have Jesus at the center of their lives.
The Jesus at the center of their lives reflected a world view that was really at the center of their lives. We see Jesus in a way that exhibits, expresses, and justifies our view of the good. Jesus rarely ever calls into question what we think of as good. We see “the good” in Jesus because we already think of it as “good,” and not because we see it in Jesus.

At the same time, however, “the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth” can be instructive and transformative—a source of revelation and enlightenment—if we approach them with open-minded awareness/mindfulness, and allow them to call into question our assumptions about “the good.” Attitude is everything. The spirit with which we seek truth and understanding determines the outcome of the search. We have to be aware of our heart and mind if we are to change them. What do we think is good, how do we know it is good, and how does the life and teachings of Jesus stretch, challenge, oppose, reflect our views? That is the kind of question we ask in the company of one another as a way of bringing out the best in each other, and enabling each other to bring God to life in our lives.

What is the good we think of as good? How good is it? How do we know? Who says so? Who says not so? Whose good is served by the good we serve? How good is a good that serves only our good? That benefits only us? What is good for us is one thing; what are we good for is another. How do we use the good that is good for us in ways that are good for others? How shall we live so as to do right by ourselves, and by one another, and all others? How shall we resolve the conflict of good, when what is good for me is bad for you, and what is good for you is bad for me? Our answers to these questions—and those like them—are the ones which shape our character and determine the value of our lives. Where do we go to ask, and answer them? It is no more difficult than finding a place to have the right kind of conversation.

05/14/06, Sermon

In the Zen story of the master butcher, the butcher sharpens the knife and gets out of the way. The knife finds its own path. We have to understand what “sharpening the knife” means for us and our lives. What is the “knife” for us? How do we “sharpen” it? Once we know that, then it’s only a matter of getting out of the way and allowing our “knife,” our “knack,” so to speak, to find its own path and lead us along the way.

The problem with this, of course, is that the path may not be the path we have in mind. We may wish for ourselves a bigger, better, finer path. We may not want to be a butcher. We may want to be king. Or queen. We may want the shine and sheen of stardom. Or the invisibility of a face in the crowd. We have our ideas, you know, about our lives and how they should be lived. There you are. That’s the problem.

Who is running the show? That’s the problem. Who is in charge here? That’s the problem. We don’t have what it takes to “sharpen the knife and get out of the way.” We have to be in control. “Give us the baton!”, we shout. “We’ll direct the orchestra!” We like to think we know what we are doing, and discount all evidence to the contrary, while continuing to formulate our plans and adjust our design, and create something on the order of a Rube Goldberg cartoon. Except that our apparatus doesn’t work.

Architects are always putting sidewalks where people do not walk. We think we know how things ought to be, but we do not allow things to tell us how they ought to be. We impose our ideas for our lives on our lives, and do not listen to our lives, or live within legitimate limits, or restrain our desire for beer and chocolate and cocaine and plastic in light of the impact of our desire on the whole of life. If we want it, we get it, and then go after the next thing we want. We are a way stop to the land fill for ten billion things. We pour sidewalks where people do not walk.
We are in a hurry for things to be better. We cannot stand how things are. We will not sit and listen. We will not take our time. We will not see and serve what needs to happen. We know what we want and what’s in our way. We cut the trees and pour the concrete. We attack Iraq and give them democracy. We think everyone should have democracy. We think we will be safe if everyone has democracy. And, overlook the fact that gay people in this country have democracy, and are not safe. Poor people in this country have democracy, and are not safe. We look at democracy and see something else. Democracy is not what we think it is. Democracy does not work the way we think it works. We also overlook the fact that we cannot tolerate democracy ourselves, and have dispensed with it, and erected in its place Rule By The Special Interest Group With The Most Votes (or, sometimes, just the most money).

We do not listen. We do not see. We do not seek to understand. We impose our way on the world. We push our way through the world. We compel the world to align itself with our ideas for the world. We cut the trees. Pour the concrete. And smile.

Lao Tsu says, “Do your work and step back. That is the secret to serenity.” Maybe so, but it doesn’t work for us. We can’t step back. We have to force our way forward, and make sure that our work has the desired effect, achieves the proper results, does what we want it to do. Doing our work and stepping back sounds too much like sharpening the knife and getting out of the way. The knife cannot possibly find its own path.

We cannot trust our lives to be worth living on their own. What do our lives know? What does our “gift,” our “genius,” our “knack,” our “knife” know? Who does the grail serve? That’s the question we don’t permit ourselves to ask. We have been given “the gift” for the good of whom, of what? Who exactly is it who is to profit from our “knack”?

The easy assumption, of course, is that we are the ones. The grail serves US! WE are the ones who should profit from our “knack.” After all, it is OUR “knack”! The grail blesses US! And we make it our life’s goal to profit from our gift, talent, interest, genius.

Making ourselves the point of our lives misses the point of our lives. Our lives don’t serve us. The grail doesn’t serve us. But, we cannot grasp this fundamental concept. Egocentricity makes gods of us all. Even God serves us, saves us, loves us, is obsessed with us, and will do anything to get us to heaven. As it is with God, so it must be with the grail, and every other thing. Our benefit, our advantage, our profit, our best interest are what our lives are all about.

What’s the point of having a fine young stallion if you can’t ride him to the big time? Here’s the bad news: It isn’t ours to say what the purpose and function of the fine young stallion is. Our place, our role, is the care and feeding of the horse. We are stable hands. We sharpen the knife and get out of the way. We serve the grail.

Our problem is not how to make the gift work for us. It is not how to profit from our association with the horse (or the “knack,” or the “knife”). It is understanding what it means to sharpen the knife, to serve the grail. How do we honor our genius and allow it to find its own path? How do we hone our talent and get out of the way? I think it is done with silence, and awareness.
We empty ourselves of ambition and desire and wait in the silence for direction, for instruction, for the opening of the way. In the meantime, we take care of business. We do the work that is to be done—the work that is ours to do—and step back. And get out of the way. We pay the bills. We mow the lawn. We wash the dishes. We take out the trash. And, we wait, mindfully, with awareness, attending the things that arise in the silence, seeing into the heart of things and responding to what is needed in the moment it is needed, allowing the knife to find its own path.

And, when it begins to look as though we are wasting our lives, we look at that. We see into the heart of that, and respond as needed to that. What does it mean to “waste our lives”? What is wasteful? What is to make the most of our lives? What is the measure by which our lives are to be evaluated? The standard by which they—by which we—are to be judged? What are the qualities, the characteristics, of a worthy life? How shall we know, how shall we determine, if ours has been a good life—a good enough life? Or, one that is being “wasted”?

The master butcher is, after all, only a butcher. Is his life good enough? Good enough for whom? For what? How shall we decide what constitutes “good enough”?

I don’t know about you, of course, but for me, a good life is an integrated life, a life of integrity, a life that reflects, exhibits, those qualities that are integral with what is deepest, truest, and best about us. It has little to do with achievement and acquisition; little to do with power, position, possessions, and prosperity. It has everything to do with being aligned with the essential values—justice, compassion, peace, gentleness, generosity, kindness, transparency, authenticity, honesty, vulnerability, understanding, grace, joy, patience, self-discipline, empathy, and the like. It is living in synch with the things that are truly important; being grounded on the right foundation; living in right relationship with all beings and things. A butcher, living well, transforms the world.

So, we serve our talent. We practice our art. We hone our skills. And, we wait to see where that takes us. We ride the horse, but the horse finds the way. In the meantime, we exhibit the wonderful old values, and qualities, and characteristics that are essential to our life together. We enjoy what is to be enjoyed, and celebrate what is to be celebrated, and cherish what is to be cherished, and love what is to be loved. And let the life that unfolds around this kind of orientation, that coalesces around this kind of center, be our life.

05/09/06, Sermon

Jesus is an ink blot. Jesus is who you say he is. Who do you say he is? Don’t tell me who Paul says he is, or John, or Matthew, or Mark. Tell me who you say he is. If you say he is the savior of the world, tell me why you think so. If you say because the Bible says so, tell me why you think the Bible knows what it’s talking about. Tell me where you get your ideas about Jesus and what makes you think they can be trusted. If you say you “just take it on faith that Jesus is the savior of the world,” tell me why you decided to take that on faith and not something else instead. Why do you say what you say about Jesus?

I say Jesus is God as God is in God’s essential being. God can’t do better than Jesus. Jesus is God as I would be God if I were going to be God. I couldn’t do better than Jesus. Jesus has it down. Jesus gets it right. You cannot understand Jesus without saying, “Yes! That’s it! That’s how it’s supposed to be done!” Jesus is the self-affirming, self-validating, self-evident way to live.

What’s so godly about Jesus is his integration of the essential values with his life. Justice, compassion, peace, grace, equality, kindness, generosity, gentleness, self-discipline, honoring and respecting self and others, and the like were not just ideals that he espoused, but realities that he lived out in the world. Jesus knew what was important and did what was important. He exhibited what he knew mattered. With Jesus we get complete integrity of being. We get a person aligned with the principles, qualities, and characteristics that are at the heart of life—that are at the heart of God. We can’t do better with life than Jesus did.

Jesus lived without compromising his understanding of how life should be lived. He took “love your neighbor as yourself” to its logical end. He took “love your enemies,” and “love one another,” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “judge not,” and gave them concrete, consistent, and reliable expression in his life. He lived life as God would live life if God were alive. He took the right idea of God and brought it to life.

The other side of the story is that if you live like Jesus did, you will be marginalized or killed. You will be dismissed, or lynched, or executed. In a different social, religious and political climate, Jesus would have been ignored. He would have been excused as being a little off his rocker, but a good person at heart. And, he would have lived out his life in obscurity, and died without fanfare or recognition.

That’s because it is easy to overlook God. The God of right relationship, of right being, of the right kind of company is easily lost in a world consumed by, and obsessed with, the “p” words: power, position, possessions, and prosperity. To be a God recognized by this world, you have to be the right kind of God. You have to be the kind of God the world would acknowledge as God. You have to be about dominion, and domination, and control. You have to be about winning, and victory, and obliteration. You have to earn the world’s respect if you want to be accorded the accolades of the world. If you want to be God in this world, you have to be God on the world’s terms.

Jesus was killed as much for the kind of God he was as for being God. The Romans killed him because they couldn’t tolerate a competitor, no matter how insignificant, to Caesar. The Jewish authorities sanctioned his death because Jesus represented the wrong kind of God. If Jesus had been the right kind of God, the kind of God they looked for and adored, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Levites and Sanhedrin would have been very much on his side. To be God the way Jesus was God is to ask for it.

To say Jesus is God, to see Jesus as God, is to raise the question of the nature of your God, of our God. Who do we understand God to be? We aren’t going to see God in Jesus if we don’t understand God as Jesus. God is Jesus. Jesus is God. “The Father and I are one.” We are to be who they are. We are to be as God is. “You must be perfect, as whole, as integrated and complete, as God is.” “You must be holy as God is holy.” We bring God to life through the life we live. What is the nature of our lives?

The story of theology, doctrine and the church is the story of trying to have it both ways. It is the story of trying to have the God we want to be God and the Jesus who lived as God is. It is the story of dismissing Jesus and explaining him in light of our idea of how God should be. The Romans killed Jesus and we dismiss him.

As we tell the story, Jesus is no longer God as God is, but the measure by which the God who is God the way we want God to be judges humanity, and condemns the wicked (to the everlasting fires of hell, of course), and ushers the righteous (by faith alone, you know) into the eternal habitations. As we tell the story, Jesus becomes the means by which the mess of life is all worked out to the complete satisfaction of true believers everywhere. We improve Jesus to the point of total dissolution, and lose what he was about by making him about the redemption of the world—and, say that at some dim future point in time he will return again to turn things inside out and make all things finally good, while we sit on the side lines, with our hands in our laps, believing and cheering him on.

What Jesus was about was the transformation of civilization NOW through the reordering of the lives of each one of us NOW. We cannot live in light of the goals, and purposes, and ends that we are currently living in light of and change the world. Just as going on a diet means to quit eating, so changing the world means to live differently. Jesus came talking about living differently. “No siree sir!”, said the Romans. “No siree sir!”, said the Jewish Authorities. And, they did exactly what had to be done to maintain what we today would call “the American Way of Life.”

Jesus has to go, or the American Way of Life has to go. What’s your pick? You don’t think you have to make a pick? Well, okay, you tell me how loving our enemies squares with having the most powerful armed force in the history of the world. You tell me how loving our neighbor as ourselves squares with the homelessness, and poverty, and hopelessness and destitution that are evident on every street in every city of the land. You tell me how doing unto others as we would have them do unto us squares with a foreign policy that is focused exclusively on serving what we perceive to be our national interests and national security. And, when you are quite done embarrassing yourself, I will tell you again that you have to pick between Jesus and the American Way of Life.

But, it isn’t just the American Way of Life. It is the British Way of Life, and the Irish Way of Life, and the French Way of Life, and the Spanish Way of Life, and the Italian way of life… It is the way of life of civilization. We have to pick between Jesus and the way life is lived, because no culture, no society, no tribal group is living the way life ought to be lived. And, we cannot change the world without changing the way we are living our lives.

It’s easier to change Jesus. Here we go. We can say this together by now: “Jesus hadn’t been dead fifteen minutes before everything changed.” We see evidence of the changes inside the New Testament. In Matthew (23:8 and following) we get the admonition, “You must not be called ‘Teacher,’ because you are all equal and have only one teacher…Nor should you be called ‘Leader,’ because your one and only leader is the Messiah. The greatest one among you must be your servant. Whoever makes himself great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be made great” (TEV translation). Then, in Matthew 16:18 and following, we get, “And so I tell you Peter, you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church… I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven” (TEV translation). So. Which way is it? No hierarchy, with everyone being equal, or Peter, the head of the church, jingling the keys to the kingdom of heaven? The church was before the Bible, which means the Bible serves the church and Matthew is laying a foundation for life in the church to go right on being the way life has always been lived.

Paul does the same thing. Paul dilutes, to the point of disappearing, Jesus’ radical pronouncements about the Kingdom of God and its complete juxtaposition with, and alternative to, the Kingdom of Caesar, by saying things like “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1), and “taxes to whom taxes are due” (Romans 13:7). He reverses Jesus’ insistence upon equality and inclusiveness—the implementation of which would have had extreme implications for the practice of patriarchy and slavery—by saying things like “Wives, obey your husbands” (Ephesians 5:22), and “Slaves, obey your masters” (Colossians 3:22). Paul changes Jesus, and keeps the way life is lived wonderfully in place.

We cannot embrace Jesus—we cannot be who Jesus was—without changing our lives—without changing the way life is lived. And, I don’t mean no smoking, no drinking, no gambling and no cussing. I mean doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, loving our enemies, loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves. I mean welcoming homosexuals into full inclusivity in the life of culture and society. I mean health care for all people. I mean an end to the systems that produce and support poverty, and homelessness, and the marginalization of human beings. I mean an equitable distribution of the world’s resources. I mean life styles that are environmentally friendly. I mean an end to privilege, and exclusivity, and domination. I mean the transformation of life as we know it. It’s a lot easier to change Jesus, and look forward to the second coming.

It’s easier because we have no idea what the mechanisms are to achieve the end of community, world wide, around the table and across the board. We don’t know how to institute the principles Jesus espoused, how to love one another as we love ourselves. But, that’s the work that is ours to do. Let the conversation, and the revolution, begin!

05/07/06

The top twelve photos of the Yosemite and Death Valley trip are up on the web site (www.outlandspress.com). I hope you like ‘em. Whether you like them or not, you’ll have to admit it’s the way to view vacation photos, and I don’t mean looking them up on the web. I mean looking at the top twelve. People should show you only the top twelve. They should not dump all 500 in your lap.

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Vegas is a cheap ticket. Vegas will always be a cheap ticket. Two of us can fly to Vegas for less than one of us can fly to Jackson Hole, or Calgary, or Halifax. And Vegas is not far from some great places. Like Death Valley, and Zion, and Bryce. Time spent in those places is time well spent.

And Las Vegas offers a staggering contrast to the truth and beauty of Death Valley, and Zion, and Bryce. The people who would spurn those places for Vegas can’t hear anything I have to say. We have erected in the desert the vice capital of the world. And, I’m glad, because it’s a cheap ticket to the virtues of Death Valley, and Zion, and Bryce (And Canyonlands, Capital Reef, and Arches aren’t too much farther up the road). But, the experience of Vegas is a shock to sensitive systems. And, it is a testimony to the vast differences that exist among people. We do not all think the same thing is fun. Or good. Amazing. And wonderful, in its own weird way.

Where was I? Oh, yes, I was about getting you to Vegas to get you to Death Valley (and back to the other places) in a month other than May through September. Go to the desert in April, or March, or February. I understand that the flowers are every where in late February. And there is water in Badwater, which would allow you to take a photograph of Telegraph Peak and its reflection at sun rise, which you can’t do in late April because the water has evaporated by then and you only have a vast salt flat, and salt flats don’t, as you know, reflect much of anything at any time.

Death Valley ranges from 280, or so, feet below sea level to over a mile above sea level, which in itself presents a range of contrasts. And, there are abandoned mines, and ghost towns, and sand dunes, and canyons, and vistas, and things you have never seen in your back yard or down the street, and you just need to go. You just need to take yourself to the desert in April, or March, or February. Vegas is a cheap ticket. Rental cars aren’t much. You have no excuse. Go.

04/21/06

Photographers actually go where the pictures are. People generally do not buy photographs photographers take because they say, “I could take a picture like that.” And, the truth is they could. And the truth also is, they won’t. They won’t go to the trouble, take the time, pay the price to put themselves in position to take the picture.

They may take a vacation trip to the Grand Tetons, for instance, but they will sleep until 9 o’clock. Eat breakfast. Stop for gas and a soft drink, and get to Schwabacher landing at 11, missing the picture and the point. The point is to be at Schwabacher Landing when the photograph is there, not 5 hours later.

There are two rules to photography. Put yourself in position to take the picture. That’s the first rule. The second is: See the picture, get the picture. That’s it. Everything else about photography is in observance of, and in compliance with, those two rules. Seeing is the hard part.

It takes a lot of looking to be able to see. Hang around me enough, and you’ll hear me say that a lot. Photographers look at other photographer’s work. Photographers look at the world. Photographers walk around (positioning themselves to take the picture) and look at the world from different vantage points. Photographers imagine what something would look like at different points in the day, at different seasons of the year, in different lighting and weather conditions, and come back (positioning themselves to take the picture) at different times.

It also means taking the picture NOW that needs to be taken NOW. See the picture, get the picture, means don’t put it off. Don’t come back tomorrow, or next week, when you’ll have more time and it will be more convenient. This moment won’t be here then. Don’t walk by a picture, or away from one, telling yourself you’ll get it later. There is no “later” when it is there “now.” “Later” only exists when it is not there “now.” If it isn’t there “now,” come back “later.” If it is there “now,” take it NOW!

The work of photography is being there and seeing what’s there “now,” and not waiting to take what’s there “now.” If you pass up what is there “now,” it will be gone forever. Knowing the importance of what is there now, is the most important thing photographers know. Actually taking the picture is somewhat of an afterthought. Oh, yeah. Click. The technical side of photoing is essential, of course, but it isn’t the heart of photography. You have to know your stuff, but it's knowing about the now that what you really have to know.

Sure, you have to understand the camera, and the lens, and the filters, and the tripod, but technical expertise and being able to talk aperture, and shutter speed, and ISO settings, and graduated neutral density filters, and polarizing filters isn’t going to take a picture. You have to know the technical side of photography, but you can’t think much about it. You know it so you don’t have to think about it. So you don’t have to think at all. So you can just see what is before you, and move around and see what else is before you, and open yourself to the scene, and expose yourself to the moment, so that you can show the moment to the film or the digital sensor and to the people who see your photograph.

You can’t see the moment if you are thinking, “What would Ansel Adams see?” That is not putting yourself in position to take the picture. To put yourself in position to take the picture, you have to shut up and see. You have to walk around and look. You have to disappear into the moment, become “one with everything,” and be open and receptive to the “Yes!”, to the “Now!”, to the “That’s it!”, to the “Here it is!”, and get it on film or sensor before its gone.

To do that, of course, you have to practice always. Photography is spiritual practice in that it requires openness to the now, to the moment, in every moment. You practice seeing in the grocery store, with your camera on the shelf in your closet at home. You see the child looking at her mother, and catch the expression that sets the moment apart from all other moments. You see the carton of eggs out of position in relation to the rest of the cartons of eggs, and something shifts so that you no longer see cartons of eggs, but lines and angles and shadows, and a beautiful arrangement of forms.

To see the picture and take the picture, you have to see pictures you don’t take. You have to see the pictures that are everywhere. Driving home from work on the freeway you see the hay being bailed, or the low sun light catching the high school football stands and one goal post in a way that crystallizes every high school football memory of everyone who has ever been involved in any way with high school football. And, then it’s gone, because you are whizzing by at seventy miles an hour and if you stopped you would be stupid, but the vision remains with you forever. You saw, you’ve seen, you are seeing. Keep it up, and one of these days, you’ll have a camera in your hands.

04/20/06

It has taken about five years to get things in place, but now I have my own wildflower garden just outside the back door. Just in time to beat the $4.00 a gallon shut-down. I don’t have to drive four hours to the yellow trillium and the wake robin, or two hours to the crested dwarf irises, or down the road to the bloodroot and the trout lilies. We can give ourselves a worthy future with a little imagination and planning. Why don’t we do that more often? Why do we continually wake up in a future we think we couldn’t do anything about? Why don’t we start today building a future we can be proud of?

We could start with walking around the block. Every day. Stop smoking. Lose 25 pounds—over time, by saying no to desserts and bread. We could give ourselves the future by doing any number of small things today. Planting a yellow trillium, for instance, or a wake robin.

Of course, there are large aspects of our future that we cannot figure out and do not control. I don’t know what we are going to do about the residue of George Bush. We will suffer from his excesses and deficiencies for generations. It’s amazing how much damage one wrong person in the right place can do, how bad one person can be for so many people for so many years to come. And, I’m sure he wanted to do so well. But, just because we are at the mercy of forces quite beyond us is no reason to fail to do the things we can do to make things as good as they can be.

We can still photograph the dogwood in the fog. Why? Because it’s beautiful. We can photograph beauty, and paint beauty, and draw beauty, and write poetry to beauty, and enjoy beauty. Beauty exists alongside the ugliness and sorrow of these days. One does not cancel out the other. And if we cannot deny that which is to be mourned, neither can we allow ourselves to deny that which is to be celebrated, embraced and enjoyed.

We can live toward the best future we are capable of producing. Why? Because our lives are our gift to the world. We are potentially as beautiful as the dogwood in the fog. We cannot fail to bring to life as much beauty as possible. Light in the darkness, you know. Hope, mercy, and love. Grace and peace. Comfort and laughter in surprising places. We cannot fail to be the wildflowers in our own back yard. A blessing of beauty to all who come our way.

04/19/06

To live, we die, and in dying, we live. That is the message of the cross. That message is central to any, and every, spiritual path. It is as basic as it gets. Spirituality 101. Every spiritual journey is, essentially, “the way of the cross.” Every spiritual master understands, incarnates, exemplifies the cross’ message of life and death, death and life. The way of the cross is the way of spiritual growth and development. It is the heart of the spiritual process.

Jesus gets this as clearly as anyone has ever gotten it. “Those who seek to save their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives for my sake and the gospel (or, in the service of that which is greater than they are), will find them.” The “gospel,” that Jesus was talking about was the “good news of the kingdom of God,” which was, through the lives of his companions, to become as real on earth “as it was in heaven.” It was a kingdom of equality, and justice, and compassion, and peace-without-military victory. It was the antithesis of the kingdom of Caesar.

To live the way God would live if God were human (Loving one another, loving your neighbor as yourself, loving your enemies, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you) would be to invite reprisals, to make sacrifices, and to die again and again. So, Jesus could say, “No one can be my companion who does not take up the cross daily and come with me.” Companionship with Jesus is a continual experience of dying to one idea of how life should be lived and living to another idea of how life should be lived.

How SHOULD life be lived? What is central to life? What is peripheral? What are the “first things” that we must do first? How would God do it if God were human? These are the questions that Jesus seemed to have asked. His answers were quite different from the answers of his contemporaries, both Jewish and Roman.

“If God were human, God would be like a Samaritan helping a Jew. Like a loving father welcoming a prodigal home. Like a vineyard owner who paid everyone the same amount no matter how much they worked,” said Jesus. “But that would be crazy!”, objected his listeners. “The world doesn’t work like that!” “Exactly,” said Jesus.

The way of the cross is NOT the way of the world. To say, “That’s the way the world works,” or “That’s just how it is,” is to keep things as they are. “If you pay everyone the same amount, no matter how much they work, you’ll never get anyone to work in the heat of the day. That’s just how it is.” The kingdom of God is not economically savvy. The world cannot wait to take advantage of a God like God. The huckster and hustler in all of us wakes up and begins to stir. “You mean I can live the life of a prodigal, whooping it up and playing fast and loose, and then come home and be forgiven, and made over, and treated like royalty?” We like the way that sounds, until we understand that “what goes around comes around,” and that we are expected to treat one another with the same reckless abandon and gracious love that God extends to us.

It isn’t only about what we get. It is also about what we give. And when we refuse to give as we have been given, we dry up on the inside and crumble away, like whitewashed tombs. And, there is nothing left of us to resurrect from the dead, because we have died in the wrong cause, and served the wrong master, and lived in light of the wrong ideas regarding how life should be lived. “Those who seek to save their lives will lose them.” They will be like the man “who built his house on sand,” and after the storm there was nothing left.

We’re back to the question, “How SHOULD we live our life?” Jesus doesn’t spell it out, because it cannot be spelled out. There is no formula for right living, no recipe for doing it as God would do it. “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” says Jesus. “You figure it out,” says Jesus. We live our way into the heart of truth. We stumble into the kingdom of God. There is no plan for realizing it. We do the right thing that is before us and see where it takes us. We live toward as much as we see that is right in this moment, and trust ourselves to find some way of continuing the process in the next moment. Already this is different from the way of the world.

The way of the world is to calculate the percentages, run the numbers, do a cost/benefit analysis every fifteen minutes, and keep an eye on the bottom line. If it isn’t profitable, we cut our losses while they are still manageable, and put our money on a sure thing. The way of the world is the way of gaining, and maintaining, and extending, the advantage. In the world, we don’t do anything that doesn’t pay off. That isn’t smart. That doesn’t turn a profit. The way of God is a gamble all the way.

God takes wild chances, forgives seventy times seven times, and keeps welcoming the prodigal home. And, doesn’t have a plan for making things happen as they should. It all hangs by a fine thread. Why should we care about doing it God’s way? What’s in it for us? The huckster and hustler in us can’t help asking “What’s in it for us?” Already, we have stepped aside from God’s way, from doing it the way God would do it if God were us. God wouldn’t ask, “What’s in it for me?” It may take a while for us to “be as God is.” That’s why the spiritual journey is the way of the cross. There is a lot of dying involved. We don’t get to the life part except through the death part. And, if we decide not to bother, well, that’s death, too.

04/18/06

The secret is that we have to live this life just as it is. The secret is that there is no secret that will give us the way out, or that will transform our lives like the kiss of a handsome prince or a beautiful princess. This is it. We can change what can be changed, but that will not be as much as we want it to be, as much as we wish it would be. Even when we have changed everything that can be changed, we still have to live with life as it is. We still have to make the best of it. We still have to grant concessions, make allowances, get up each day and make our way through the reality of things as they are.

There is much to not like about our lives. If we spend our time not liking it, whining, complaining, moaning, and moping about because it is so awful and we are so woe, we will miss the good when it comes along, and will not enjoy what can be enjoyed about our lives as they are. So, we do what can be done with what we have to work with to change what can be changed, and live to enjoy what can be enjoyed, while tolerating the rest; while refusing to let the rest interfere with our ability to celebrate and embrace all that is good about our lives as they are.

The bad doesn’t cancel out the good. The good doesn’t cancel out the bad. Both are true at the same time. Our lives could always be better. Our lives could always be worse. Things are not so good and things are unbelievably, wondrously, wonderfully, fantastically great—both, at the same time. What gets our attention?

I’m not talking about denial. I’m talking about emphasis. I’m talking about seeing with awareness and mindfulness how things are and how things also are, and what we choose to focus on, where we choose to live. In which world do we spend the most time? In the world of the not so good which we wish were better? In the world of the perfectly, beautifully, marvelously, right now, just as it is, right out of the box, good?

We look at a day, and what do we see? This is spiritual practice. Don’t think I’m pulling a Norman Vincent Peale on you. This is not “the power of positive thinking.” This is not making sour sweet. This is not the Lawrence Welk Dancers coming at you over the internet. There is much about our lives that is not good which we have to deal with every day. I’m saying acknowledge that and deal with it without succumbing to it; without being overwhelmed by it; without surrendering to the temptation to think that nothing is right with the world and we may as well end it now because it is only going to get worse.

Victor Frankl found men who brought meaning and hope and beauty to life in the worst prison camp experience that Hitler Germany could create. There were men in that environment who held on to the good in the midst of evil. They did not deny the evil. That evil could not be denied. They did not pretend that things were better than they were. They did not withdraw into Polly-Anna-ism, smiling sweetly, and skipping through merrily the mud and the misery. They shared their bread. They whistled symphonies and sonatas. They remembered and recited poetry. They told stories of happy times. They kept hope alive. They became the good which was missing from their experience, and brought the wonder of caring relationships to life, and transformed the world of the death camp by choosing to live as servants of light in the deep darkness of that awful night.

It’s all about what we attend, what we pay attention to, what we think about, what we see when we look at the broad scope of our lives, what we emphasize, what we choose as the center around which everything that is “us” coalesces. It’s about what we bring to life as we live through the day. What do we see? What do we say? Is our orientation toward the good or toward the bad? Are people better off for our being in the world with them? What impact do we have on the way life is lived around us?

What we do with our attention is our spiritual practice. What we spend our time thinking about is our endowment to the world. Where we place the emphasis is the legacy we leave behind. How we take a day, each day, and treat it, and treat the people in our lives is our gift to the day, to the people in it with us.

Our lives will never be as different as we wish they were. How we deal with the difference between what we have and what we wish we had is what makes the difference in our lives, in the lives of those who are with us in this place, and in the world as a whole. The way we respond to the day is the one thing about each day that is pretty much up to us. We are the gift we give to the day. Every day.

04/16/06, Sermon

When you aren’t going anywhere, it doesn’t matter how fast you walk. No one was in a hurry in Itta Bena, Mississippi, or, anywhere in the Deep South, for that matter. We ambled along, meandering through the day, hoping to stumble upon something of interest, an emerging butterfly, perhaps, or a dog fight. Anything would do as long as it was novel enough to break the boredom and give us something to talk about for a while.

The problem with conversation in the Deep South is that you weren’t encouraged to be novel yourself. It wasn’t proper to say things that weren’t expected. That hadn’t been said before, and had stood the test of time, and proven its worth by having been said many, many times before. Bringing something new into the conversation could not be done if you had somehow managed to think something new. You had to see it before you could talk about it.

“Cud’n Ned (You never said “cousin.” You said “cud’n.” That’s the way it had been said and was to be said. Just as you never said you and your family were going to have Sunday dinner with your parents, or even with your mother and father, or your mom and dad. You were going to eat with “Momma and ’em.” There were strict rules governing subject matter and syntax, which had to be obeyed down to your tone of voice if you were to be one of “’em”) “Cud’n Ned caught a gator last night on his trot (Not “trout”!) line and put him in the fountain down at the square.” You could say that, if it happened. But you couldn’t say you imagined it, or that you dreamed it. You couldn’t make it up. No one talked about their dreams, so far as I know, or had any. And, no one most surely ever made anything up. The poets and the novelists had to grow up somewhere else. In Itta Bena, You had to stay safely in the realm of what was supposed to be said, which diminished the likelihood of anyone paying attention to anyone, and reduced everyone to the level of functional invisibility.

There were no actual people in my childhood, only stereotypes. Everyone had a role, and a script, and everyone read from the script, and played the role. If you couldn’t bear it, you moved away, or lost your mind and were relegated to a backroom, where you lived out your life and served as a model for children of what happened to you if you were “different.”

It was a tense atmosphere in which to grow up, but no one would have recognized the tension, or commented on it if they did. You couldn’t call attention to yourself by commenting on how things were. You could observe, and have an opinion regarding, something distant, like President Truman firing General MacArthur, or impersonal, like the weather, but the closer to home it got the less you could say about it. You couldn’t comment on how life was being lived in town. To say something about it may have been the catalyst that brought change about, and change was the thing most feared.

We didn’t know we feared it. If you had suggested it, we would have denied it, but we were terrified of it. It represented the end to our way of life. We were afraid there was no way but this way, and if we strayed too far from the way things were thought and done, life would disintegrate before our eyes, and we would be lost and alone, without the guiding path trod into a well-worn rut by those who had gone before. If we called anything into question, we ran the risk of being on our own and not knowing what to do. A desperate state of affairs if there ever was one. So, no one dared challenge the traditions and policies, practices and customs, or do anything that had not been done, or think anything that had not been thought, because to do so would have been the end of life as we knew it.

This was the kind of social climate that was ripe for the arrival of a handsome stranger after the manner of an Alan Ladd, or a Clint Eastwood, or a Jesus of Nazareth, who could shake up the status quo, transform the way things were done, and bring a new way of thinking and being into being. The handsome strangers were evidently busy elsewhere, because none came to town on the C & G, or got off the bus, or drove in from parts unknown to work their magic, and break the spell of death and isolation.

Of course, it didn’t feel like death and isolation. No one would have said, if you had been so bold to ask, what the problem was, “We’re dying here, from isolation,” but that was the case. We were dying from isolation. We were cut off from ourselves, alienated from our own voice, our own perspective, our own slant on things, our own gift, our own genius, our own soul. We sacrificed all that for the sake of a communal way of life that killed us all. Because we were afraid. Of dying.

We needed a handsome stranger to break the spell, and wake us up, and bring us to life, because we did not have what it would have taken to do that on our own. And, none came calling. But, in an ironic, paradoxical, sort of way, the absence of a handsome stranger can be as transformative as anything an actual stranger might do. The absence of the stranger makes resurrection as likely and as real as his presence. In the absence of the stranger, we have to become the stranger if we are to have a chance. We bring the stranger to life in our own lives and come alive because of him. Because of his absence, we live and he lives because of us—through us. The deficits and deficiencies of our youth can become the obsessions and compulsions of our advancing years, and I find myself compensating for what was missing when it mattered. Or, trying to. Trying to redeem the irredeemable. Trying to resurrect the dead, by being the person who was most noticeably absent from my life, and living, vicariously, through him.

I step into the role of the Handsome Stranger, and say the things that were not said, and ask the questions that were not asked, and exhibit the qualities that were not evident, and offer what was not given, as if to say, “It may be too little, too late, but I cannot perpetuate the illusion that an unexamined life is worth living, or that it can even be taken for life at all.” We bear the impact, for better or worse, as the blessing or the curse, of where we have been into the far reaches of where we are going. “What we do not embrace as destiny comes to us as fate,” (Carl Jung). One way, or another, we will be who we are. One way, or another, we will live to express what is most important to us. Unless, of course, we die.

The one thing we must not do is die by being afraid of death. The one thing we must live to avoid at all costs is dying before we are dead. To believe in the resurrection of the dead is to step into our fear. It is to look deeply into the empty eyes of that which we are most afraid, and without flinching, do the thing that threatens our future and keeps us from being alive. To believe in the resurrection of the dead is to say the thing that cannot be said, to do the thing that cannot be done, and to know what that thing is, what those things are.

What is anathema? What is life? What is death? How can we be raised from the dead, raised to new life, if we don’t know what constitutes death, or where life is to be found?

Let me take you back to the time of the martyrs. Who killed the people who would not recant their faith? Rome, or the Church? Rome made Christianity punishable by death because the Christians weren’t playing by the rules, mainly by refusing to buy animals to sacrifice in Roman temples to Roman gods and goddesses. It was wrecking the economy. It was creating unrest. Their way of life was coming under fire. It was a lot like Itta Bena, Mississippi.

We protect our way of life at all costs. So Rome instituted the death penalty for Christians who refused to pay appropriate homage to Zeus. And, the church resisted the Roman initiative by telling its members to go to their deaths for the sake of their faith without renouncing their savior and their reward would be great in heaven. Who bears the greater shame here? Rome, or the Church? Who killed the Martyrs? Rome, or the Church? What is it that cannot be done? Sacrifice to Zeus or not sacrifice to Zeus? To do what cannot be done would have been to do what?

How much more inventive, and imaginative, and creative, and life-giving it would have been for the Church to sacrifice to Zeus as a gracious concession to the fear and insecurity of Rome and a testimony to the all-inclusive nature of the God Who Is God! Sacrifice to Zeus every Thursday, winking at each other, with our fingers crossed! Jesus will understand! And laugh! How gracious and compassionate can the one be who is called Lord of Life if he requires our deaths in the coliseum in order to be certain of our faith in him? The belief in the resurrection of the dead enables us to live by dying to that which cannot be. What is it that cannot be? That is the thing we can do, and live, here and now, in this physical life, today! What is it that we cannot do—sacrifice to Zeus, or renounce Jesus? That is the thing the resurrection enables! Die to that thing, and live!

Would the handsome stranger lead a rebellion? Killing the Romans and establishing the Church? Would the handsome stranger support the local economy, sacrifice to Zeus, and wink, and establish the Church? What would he, what would we, do in the service of life? We cannot talk about the resurrection of the dead—of the resurrection to life everlasting—without talking about what we are going to do as evidence of our resurrection, as an expression of our wonder and joy for life, and living, and being alive.

Tombs can be cozy, safe places of refuge. What is the nature of the tomb we are called to abandon? What must we do to do the thing that keeps us from being alive? Sacrifice to Zeus? Question the status quo? Speak out of our experience to say that which must not be said? What is the thing standing between us and life? What do we need a handsome stranger to help us do?