Re-post from NBC News:
“I just want people to know that there are American Muslim women who wear hijab by choice because they believe in it and it feels right to them, not because anyone tells them to.”
-Lauren Schreiber, 26, Muslim Convert
Reading Jesus as a coyote who brings us into God’s reign against the law at no charge, or presenting baptism as making us all equally “wetback” strangers and aliens, are understandings coming directly out of years of working with undocumented immigrants struggling with the constant reality of possible deportation…
Reading Paul with undocumented immigrants, inmates, and “criminal aliens” cam clearly bring new life to worn-out texts. Reading these Scripture passages in a way that holds onto the radical grace that infuses them requires faith and risk. Though I am fully aware of other texts that emphasize the importance of being subject to governing authorities (Rom. 13:1-7) and of walking by the Spirit and not by the flesh (Gal. 5:16-26), I do not believe that people always need to be presented with the “whole picture.” Most people on society’s margins assume the Scriptures are only about lists of dos and don’ts and calls to compliance. Reading with people whose social standing, family of origin, addictions, criminal history, and other factors make compliance with civil laws or scriptural teachings impossible requires a deliberate reading for and acting by grace. The good news alone must be seized by faith as having the power to save, heal, deliver, and liberate. This good news is no one other than Jesus Christ himself, who meets us through the words of Scripture and the sacraments, and through the flesh of his family of buen coyote followers.
–Rev. Dr. Bob Ekblad, Reading the Bible With the Damned, p. 179-180, 195-196
By coming to understand ourselves as social beings, liberals may come to see forms of participation such as social justice work not simply as a choice we make (or do not make) as individuals but as a fundamental factor in the formation of our own identities. In other words, we must think of social justice work not simply as something we do, but as part of who we are. If I cannot see myself in solidarity with others whose circumstances are different from my own, then something is missing from my own identity. My sense of self is incomplete. In this self-help oriented culture, we often feel the need to attend to our own well-being before we can reach out to someone else. But the idea of participation can remind us that our own well-being is deeply connected to the well-being of others and that we can be healed only when there is healing, and justice, for others as well.
–Rev. Dr. Paul Rasor, Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century, p. 104
It is the soul searching for its counterpart.
It is a thirsty land crying out for rain.
It is a candle in the act of being kindled.
It is a drop in quest of the ocean.
It is a person listening through a tornado for the Still Small Voice.
It is the voice in the night calling for help.
It is a sheep lost in the wilderness pleading for rescue by the Good Shepherd.
It is the same sheep nestling in the arms of the Rescuer.
It is the Prodigal Son running to his Father.
It is a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the Universe.
It is a poet enthralled by the beauty of a sunrise.
It is a worker pausing a moment to listen to a strain of music.
It is a hungry heart seeking for love.
It is Time flowing into Eternity.
It is my little self engulfed in the Universal Self.
It is a person climbing the altar stairs to God.
The one who neglects worship, neglects that which separates us from the birds, the animals, the insects, and the fishes.
The unworshipful human is an anthropoid equipped with a highly developed brain.
She may be a paragon of morality, but so are bees and ants.
She may be keenly intelligent, but so are wolves and foxes.
She may provide for her family, but so do hyenas and orangutans.
She may be successful in affairs, but so are beavers and muskrats.
She may be artistic, but so are birds and butterflies.
Worship is the chief concern of highly developed human beings.
Human beings must be graded according to their capacity for Worship.
Worship for people is what song is for a thrush or physical beauty for a tiger or speed for a race horse.
Worship lifts people to their next level of experience and justifies their existence as people.
Worship is a Person expressing his or her entire personality.
To neglect Worship is to accept a low rating as a person.
To neglect Worship is to fail in life’s highest function.
The neglect of Worship is psychical suicide.
Ignorant Worship is better than intelligent non-worship.
Intelligent Worship is the most remarkable achievement of which a human being is capable.
The primary function of a church is to supply an incentive to Worship, and to furnish an atmosphere for Worship.
If one cannot Worship in Church, the Church may be at fault, or the person may be at fault.
If the Church is at fault it will eventually perish unless it remedies the condition.
If the person is at fault, she will dry up and become a spiritual mummy, unless she changes herself.
Adapted from Dwight Bradley in the Inter-Church Hymnal, published in 1946.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=piuKlpJmjfg%5D
I find it fitting to pair this NASA video of the sun with this passage from Thoreau’s Walden. His line about Olympus, in this case, applies to the universe entire. I don’t think he would mind…
When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.
An adequate sexual ethic does more than insist that no harm be done to others. It strengthens people’s well-being and self-respect. Good sex is good because it touches our senses powerfully but also because it enhances our self-worth and deepens our desire to connect more justly with others. The key concerns of this ethic are how power is shared and the quality of caring. Sex is not something one “does to” another person or “has happen” to oneself. Rather sexual intimacy is a mutual process of feeling with, connecting to, and sharing as whole persons. We enhance our sense of self-worth by attending with care to what is happening to the other person as well as to ourselves. In the midst of sexual pleasuring with a partner, we do not “lose” ourselves as much as we relocate ourselves in the in-betweenness of self and other, as we receive and give affection and energy.
–Dr. Marvin M. Ellison, Erotic Justice: A Liberating Ethic of Sexuality, p.89
At the basic level, we can say that liberal theology is based on the premise that human religiousness should be understood and interpreted from the perspective of modern knowledge and modern life experience. It has been said that liberal theology tries to articulate a framework within which one can be deeply religious and thoroughly modern at the same time. From this orientation, liberal theology is characterized by commitments to free and open intellectual inquiry, to the autonomous authority of individual experience and reason, to the ethical dimensions of religion, and to making religion intellectually credible and socially relevant…
Liberal theologian and social ethicist James Luther Adams put it this way: “Liberal religion by its very nature has aimed to live on the frontier and to break new paths.”
–Rev. Dr. Paul Rasor, Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century
This was posted to Facebook by Neal Presa, the current moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). I’m told it was originally written by Rev. Jose Luis Casal. Fruitful theological food for thought for anyone who cares about USA immigration policies.
Also worth reading on this subject is this sample chapter from Reading the Bible With the Damned by Bob Ekblad:
FOLLOWING JESUS, EL BUEN COYOTE: READING PAUL WITH UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
And here is the Immigrant Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in Almighty God,
who guided the people in exile and in exodus,
the God of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon,
the God of foreigners and immigrants.
I believe in Jesus Christ, a displaced Galilean,
who was born away from his people and his home, who fled
his country with his parents when his life was in danger.
When he returned to his own country he suffered under the oppression of Pontius Pilate, the servant of a foreign power. Jesus was persecuted, beaten, tortured, and unjustly condemned to death.
But on the third day Jesus rose from the dead,
not as a scorned foreigner but to offer us citizenship in God’s kingdom.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the eternal immigrant from God’s kingdom among us,
who speaks all languages, lives in all countries,
and reunites all races.
I believe that the Church is the secure home
for foreigners and for all believers.
I believe that the communion of saints begins
when we embrace all God’s people in all their diversity.
I believe in forgiveness, which makes us all equal before God,
and in reconciliation, which heals our brokenness.
I believe that in the Resurrection
God will unite us as one people
in which all are distinct and all are alike at the same time.
I believe in life eternal, in which no one will be foreigner
but all will be citizens of the kingdom
where God reigns forever and ever. Amen.
We may be New Yorkers, fans of the Yankees or the Mets, but this week we’re all rooting for Boston!
When I heard the news about the atrocity at the marathon, my first inclination was to change this week’s sermon topic. These are the moments when collective trauma demands a response from the pulpit. I’ve done it before, especially after the shootings in Aurora, CO and Newtown, CT. My first thought was that I should diverge from our current series on the Great Ends of the Church and use our time together this morning to offer words of healing.
But then I remembered something that happened to me on September 11, 2001. I was a senior in college then. It was a Tuesday and I was late to my 11 o’clock class. I didn’t usually turn on the news in the morning, so I had no idea what was going on in the world. I remember looking over my shoulder as I rushed past a conference room and seeing a group of people huddled around a television and there on the screen was the image that would forever be burned into my consciousness: the burning towers of the World Trade Center. I immediately stopped in my tracks, walked back, and sat down with the others in the conference room to take in what was happening. Needless to say, I never made it to class that day.
The next day, I went to see my professor, Dr. Hauser, and apologized for missing class. He had a strict attendance policy and I wanted to explain why I had missed class. “I understand,” he said, “but your absence will still count against you.” When I asked him why he wouldn’t excuse my absence, Dr. Hauser said these words, which I will remember for the rest of my life: “Because the goal of terrorism is to disrupt and I refuse to allow them to accomplish that goal, so far as my class is concerned.”
And so, borrowing a page from Dr. Hauser’s book, I have decided that I will not give the Tsarnaev brothers the pleasure of disrupting our church service this morning. We’re going to continue with our regularly scheduled sermon series on the Great Ends of the Church. In fact, their actions will only serve to illustrate my point, as you’ll soon see.
This week is the third in a six-week series on the Great Ends of the Church. We’re using this old Presbyterian document to answer the question, “Why does the Church exist?” On the first week, Easter Sunday, we said the first Great End of the Church is “the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind.” Last week, we said the second Great End of the Church is “the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God.” And this week, we’re saying the third Great End of the Church is “the maintenance of divine worship.”
I actually think today is the perfect Sunday to talk about worship because it is moments of crisis, like this one, that so often lead us to lean more heavily and stand more firmly on the foundation of our faith. When one part of our identity is attacked, we humans almost instinctively look to ground our collective sense of self in some deeper and stronger source. I think it’s no surprise that people flocked in droves to churches, mosques, and synagogues in the days after 9/11. I also think it’s no coincidence that we saw so many ecumenical and interfaith worship services going on at the same time. Even if it was just for a moment, labels like Protestant and Catholic, Jewish and Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu were being set aside in favor of some larger reality that embraces and connects us all. This week, we’ve even got Yankees fans wearing Red Sox jerseys (which is the biggest miracle of all, if you ask me).
When we talk about worship, we’re using a word that comes from the Old English term worth-ship. We’re talking about that which has ultimate worth or value in our eyes. In worship, we direct our attention toward that which is most important to us in life. We stop for a moment to orient our little lives within the larger context of the big picture. It is from this exercise that we draw strength, hope, and courage for facing the days ahead.
Drawing from the resources of our Judeo-Christian heritage, I picked out two passages of scripture that illustrate the act of worship and its power to sustain us in times of crisis.
I’ll start with our New Testament reading. It came from the book of Revelation, at the very end of the Bible. Here we read about a vision of what worship looks like from the perspective of heaven. The author saw “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” The author is told that these people are the ones “who have come out of the great ordeal”. Having passed through life’s hardships, they exist in a state of constant, ecstatic worship before God’s throne in heaven. As Charles Wesley wrote in his famous hymn, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, they are “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” The angel serving as the author’s celestial tour guide says:
They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’
This is the effect that worship has on their lives. They want for nothing. They fear nothing. We’re used to thinking of passages like this one as descriptive of the afterlife, but I see no reason why we cannot experience at least a taste of that heaven in this life.
This morning’s Old Testament reading from the book of Daniel tells the famous story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three young men who refused to bow down to the idols of the society they lived in and were made to pass through the fire by the powers that be. It was their worship of God that put them at odds with the values of the dominant culture around them. They saw their lives as part of a bigger picture than the one made up of the demands and concerns of the Babylonian Empire. So, when the reigning powers of that empire demanded their allegiance, they said no. The full weight of imperial sanction was brought to bear against them, but still they refused.
When they were finally cast into the fire, the reality of their faith was vindicated as it became plain to see that these three young men were not alone in their struggle. Someone was walking through the fire with them, some mysterious person who had “the appearance of a god”, according to those who saw.
As it was with them, so it is with us. As we pass through the fires and ordeals of this life, worshiping as we go, we discover that we are not alone. Our God walks with us in the fire. As it says in the book of Revelation, God shelters us and shepherds us, guiding us toward “springs of the water of life” where “God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes.”
The purpose of worship is to open our hearts and minds to this grand reality in which we live, move, and have our being. In worship, we lift our vision higher than our visibility. We look at our circumstances through the eyes of faith. We gather the fragments of our myriad little stories and lives into one Great Story told in prayer, creed, scripture, sacrament, and song.
This is why worship has the power to get us through times of crisis like the ones we lived through this week. Through it, we come to realize (or are reminded yet again) that the deepest part of ourselves is connected to the deepest part of the universe. “Deep calls out to deep,” as it says in the psalm.
We reach out to feel the bond of this deep connection in moments of crisis. What we need to do is nurture that same sense of connectedness in our regular, everyday living. That way, when crises happen, large or small, we have a well of spiritual resources from which we can draw the water of life.
Those who learn how to live from this deep center are often the very same ones who are ready, willing, and able to share their abundance of spiritual strength and compassion with others. They are the ones who can walk through the fire, trusting that God walks with them.
That’s what the worship-life of the church is here for: to nurture that strength in believers. We do it together in our weekly services of public worship, but I hope we also do it individually during the other six days of the week. This is why it’s so important to have a regular, daily practice of devotional prayer and Bible reading at home. These spiritual disciplines, far from being rote religious exercises, are as essential to the health of our souls as food and water are essential to the health of our bodies.
We need to maintain that sense of deep connection, not just during moments of crisis, not just on holidays, not just weekly, but daily.
That sense of community bonding we saw in Boston this week is available to all of us, all the time. The purpose of the church’s worshiping life is to maintain that sense of connection in the normal, boring seasons of life so that we can be ready to spring into action as heroes and leaders when these moments of crisis arise. We can face the flames unafraid because we know that our God walks through them with us.
This week, I believe we saw God walking with us through the flames. The stories of heroism, goodwill, and sacrifice cannot undo our grief and anger, but they can exist alongside it, reminding us that evil, chaos, and darkness are not, in fact, the only forces at work in this world. Furthermore, they will not have the last word. So long as there is still one good person in this world who’s willing to run toward explosions for the sake of other, wounded human beings, we know that “the light [still] shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
The worshiping life of the church reminds us of this truth and seeks to grow in us that same kind of strength and compassion, in hopes that we too might become beacons of hope and justice in this world, people strengthened by faith to stand up for love and walk through the fire, trusting that God walks with us.
Re-blogged from Huffington Post:
As 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the remaining man suspected in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings and Thursday night’s shootout with police was arrested Friday, cheers erupted on Boston streets and on television broadcasts. It wasn’t uncommon to see Boston residents give thanks to God, and similar sentiments echoed across social media.
But prayers of another kind also poured out online: those for Tsarnaev.
Here is my prayer for Dzhokhar:
God, who ignites the spark of creativity in every being and event in this universe: We hold before you in love and anger the pain of grief, the ashes of destruction, and the wasted potential of your son, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, asking that the inspiration of your Holy Spirit might open our hearts to bring light out of darkness, order out of chaos, and new life out of death; through Jesus Christ our Lord who came, full of grace and truth, that we might have life in abundance. Amen.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 