Faith, real faith, is the key

Then those who grew up ‘in the faith’ but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.  Matthew 8:12

 The miracles that Jesus performed were not so much demonstrations of his power although that is typically what we were taught and what we continue to believe.  Little surprise that we do since it is much easier to believe that the "Son of God" has the power to heal us than to believe that it is our faith in the Divine One and the Word of the Divine One that heal us.  It is more comfortable to somehow think that we need to convince the Divine One to take saving action in our lives than to realize that our faith is what saves us.

The only prayer that makes any sense is a prayer for faith, a personal relationship with the Divine One which changes us and everything in our lives.  The photo above contains both the beauty and the ugliness and the randomness of life, my life.  The divine One is in each and every piece of my life and yearns to transform me into the beauty that has always been my truest self.  If only, I can say yes.

I am back blogging.

The old hydro generating building at Lock 33 on the Erie Canal

It has been almost a year since I last posted here.  I intend to begin publishing one or two a week as reflections on the daily scripture readings from the lectionary.  I can't remember now exactly  why I stopped but it was a conscious decision rather than inattention.  I did become busy with a community organizing effort in Rochester.  In truth I became too busy and over committed.  There is only so much time available to and some things had to take a back seat.  This blog was one of them.

I don't think anyone missed it.  I had no followers and almost no indication that anyone was reading it.  No matter that.  I primarily write this to help me reflect on the daily readings and focus on an insight or thought for my own life as someone who tries to follow the way of Jesus the Christ.

I will continue as I have with a photo or image which I have made along with a quote from scripture and then a reflection or observation.  Sometimes there will be a connection between the image and the reflection but not necessarily.  Also I do not intend that this will be a daily blog.  During the time I was active with posting, it average about two posts a week.  That seems about right.

Mercy, not sacrifice

Go and learn the meaning of the words,I desire mercy, not sacrifice.  Matthew 9:13

Sometimes the most important insights are simple and yet we keep forgetting them.  I know that I need to be constantly reminded of this one.  These words of Jesus to Pharisees who were criticizing him for associating with "sinners" point up the fruitlessness of practices without a corresponding change of heart.  This was nothing new.  It is an insight found throughout the Hebrew scriptures and especially in the Psalms.  It is repeated so often because they like us, like me, tend to forget it.

What the Divine One desires of us is not a set of religious practices.  It is not even a set of acts of mercy but rather a heart that is merciful.  From such a heart will come acts of mercy in the same way that fruit appears in an orchard:  naturally and without conscious effort.  Trying to somehow produce the fruit without the life force of the tree or plant is precisely fruitless.

Eric Fromm wrote that the great masters of living all agreed that the key to a joyful, fulfilled, and engaged life was "to be, not to have."  To that, we can add, "to do."  If I focus on being who I truly am in the world as it most is, acts consistent with my true nature will emerge and flourish.

What could be easier....or harder?

It's that spirit and flesh thing again.

I say, then: live by the Spiritand you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit,and the Spirit against the flesh;these are opposed to each other,so that you may not do what you want.But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  Galatians 5:16-18

Paul is again writing about the spirit and the flesh.  These are words that have acquired meanings which are not exactly what Paul meant.  "Flesh" has come to mean the body and thus by extension sexual and other pleasurable excesses.  The Roman church's preoccupation with sexual ethics and morality can be seen as an expression of this interpretation.  The "spirit," on the other hand, has come to be understood as the immaterial as though the true good is only what is not connected to the body in some way.  The Roman church's preoccupation with doctrinal orthodoxy can be seen as an expression of this interpretation.

Our ordinary experience, however, is that we are both spirit and flesh, body and soul, material and immaterial.  Surely the way of Christ cannot be one that requires us to deny a part of who we are.  I believe that Paul is trying to describe consciousness or awareness.  The consciousness which Paul calls "the flesh" is one that sees the world and other people as existing for me and my benefit.  Within this consciousness, my self interest apart from my inter-relationships with others is the highest good on which I base the choices in my life.

The consciousness that Paul calls "spirit" is one that sees the world and other people as expressions of the life and love of the Divine One.  It is the consciousness of St. Francis who saw the Divine One in everything and everyone, especially those overlooked and ignored by most people.  If I see the world and other people as expressions of the Divine One's life, I will see them and treat them as valuable and good in and of themselves.  I will see every thing and every person as things and persons to be loved, respected, and cherished, not things and persons to be used for my own ends, pleasure or ease.

Paul experienced this change of consciousness in many ways.  Perhaps he expressed it best when he wrote, "Now not I live but Christ lives in me."  This is the change in consciousness that we celebrate in baptism as an ongoing unfolding process in our lives.

Social Justice and the Feast of the Visitation

He bared his arm and showed his strength,    scattered the bluffing braggarts.He knocked tyrants off their high horses,    pulled victims out of the mud.The starving poor sat down to a banquet;    the callous rich were left out in the cold.  Luke 1:51-53

Today we celebrate the event of the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with the future John the Baptist...a person who would figure prominently in the spiritual development of Jesus.  This story as told by the earliest Christian communities contained a hymn placed in Mary's mouth that we have come to call "The Magnificat" after the first word in the Latin version.

We tend to be most familiar with the first part of the hymn--"My soul magnifies the Lord"--because it fits in with our very human desire to see salvation in terms of our individual  relationship with the Divine One.  We are less familiar with the second part of the hymn from which the lines quoted above are taken.

The God that "has done great things" for Mary, the God magnified Mary's soul is not a God of individual holiness abstracted from the realities of human existence.  The God whom Mary proclaims, to whom the Hebrew Scriptures testify, about whom Jesus taught is a God preeminently of justice.  This prayer is not a nice little hymn by a pious and demure young woman but a revolutionary declaration that the world is at odds with the gospel.  If Christians do not work to turn things upside down, they are not being faithful to the deepest values of their faith tradition.

Can I be a child...and enter the Reign of the Divine One?

The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.  Mark 10:13-16

This passage is very familiar to us and can be understood in many ways.  I think the key is to be clear about what it means to be a child.  I think this becomes clear when you observe children and their interactions.  Children seem to be at their most "natural" when they are playing with each other with out any kind of adult supervision or "rules."  Not to overly romanticize this--I have raised seven children who have 17 grandchildren--but children at play enter fully into a play world.  They seem to create a new reality with relationships and interactions that have meaning within that new reality.  It is a world that they create and into which adults cannot gain admission unless they become part of that new reality.  An adult who attempts to enter as an adult breaks the new reality apart.

Sometimes this passage has been misinterpreted by those in powerful positions in religion to mean that members of a church should accede to the judgments and decisions of those in leadership without questions, a kind of childlike obedience to adult authority.  This is tantamount to an adult trying to enter a child's play world while remaining an adult.  One can do it but it changes and degrades the reality of the child's play world.  More than that, any one who has spent any time with children knows that the last thing one would say about children is that they are "unquestioning!"  The unending series of "why" questions makes that quite clear to those who listen.  The exasperated adult who finally ends that sequence with "Because I said so" is simply using authority to break the reality of the child.

Can I enter into the Reign of the Divine One with the commitment of a child?  Can I enter into this new reality with all my being?  Can I leave aside the authoritarian inclinations of human nature and become fully one with a new reality?

St. Paul in Athens: What lesson for us?

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’as even some of your poets have said,‘For we too are his offspring.’Since therefore we are the offspring of God,we ought not to think that the divinity is like an imagefashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.  Acts 17:28-9

Although it is tempting to read these lines as confirmation of the universality of the Divine One's self revelation, I think the relevant message for us today concerns Paul's failure in Athens.  These lines are taken from Paul's address at the Aeropagus--public gathering place--in Athens.  He was trying to use the prevailing cultural and religious beliefs to communicate the Christian message to those considered pagans.  He takes lines from two poets--and he takes them out of context--to try to convince the Athenians that the Christian message is compatible with their traditional beliefs.  Interestingly he mentions nothing about "The Way" of life that is central to Christian faith.  His communications tactic does not work and he never find Paul again trying to use this to spread the message.

This reminds me of some of the current Christian thinkers and writers who seem convinced that quantum physics has provided a way to "almost prove the validity" of the Christian revelation.  I am not a physicist but I do have two children who are.  If I have learned anything from them it is that when I think I understand quantum physics especially through the writings of someone who is not a quantum physicist, I almost certainly do not understand it.  Most writers of this sort use words that seem understandable but which are distortions of the quantum insights.  It is all too easy both as physics and as theology.

Paul learned that the Athenians were not buying his facile interpretations of Athenian religions.  Just so, we should learn that those who understand--if that is even possible--quantum physics find the Christian message undercut by such tactics.  The core Christian message is about a way of life and the only effective evangelization will be based on lives lived in that way.  Philosophical and theological analyses are certainly important but will never bring people to faith.  Contact and engagement with Christians who are on the way will do that.  The analysis will come later if at all.