JESUS: THE ULTIMATE CONSERVATIVE/LIBERAL/INDEPENDENT

At first glance upon reading the Gospels it might seem that Jesus is the ultimate and consummate liberal, at least as we understand that quite political term these days. Perhaps I should rather say, “as that term is misunderstood” these days. Also, at first glance, one could also conclude that Jesus is the ultimate conservative, again, as that term seems to be (mis)understood these days. And finally, Jesus certainly had to be the ultimate independent.

Jesus said that he came not to change one iota of they Law but to fulfill it. In that he was a true conservative. Jesus himself followed the Law, kept the Holy Days, fasted as the Law demanded. The Law had its purpose else God would not have given us the Law in the first place. However, it was never meant to be an end in itself. It was given to help us be better people and not to prevent us from doing what the dictates of the heart demanded. Sometimes the Law would have to cede to love. The Sabbath had its purpose but sometimes the laws of the Sabbath had to be set aside to take care of the needs of those in need. In saying that and in fact in doing just that, Jesus was a true liberal.

Perhaps one might thus conclude from all this that Jesus was the ultimate and consummate independent in that he was beholden to neither liberal of conservative, neither right nor left and certainly not to the Law. Of course, it does take a lot of courage, even gall, to attempt to define someone else’s political, sociological and theological stances. We know what they say about those who make assumptions about anyone or anything.

Nevertheless, when we do read scripture and read about Jesus’ actions and listen to his words, and when we are tempted to try to categorize those words and actions into a present-day political perspective, we can come away somewhat confused. We want to get a handle on Jesus but Jesus always seems to elude us; yet that does not deter us from making the attempt and from forming a conclusion which we will gladly share with anyone and everyone, especially those who disagree with us and to whom we want to prove that Jesus is on our side.

The safest course, it would seem, if one has the courage to actually define Jesus, is to assert that Jesus was an independent, that he marched to the tune of his own drumming; and that he did. But he did it in the context of his Jewish faith. He was neither a loose cannon nor a radical polarizer. He simply challenged everyone he encountered, from those in highest authority to those on the outskirts of society, to examine the reasons why they did what they did and why they avoided doing what they so refused to do. He demanded complete honesty. Asserting “It’s the Law,” was, for Jesus, disingenuous if not dishonest as well.

What he got in return was often a lot of self-defense and sass. Instead of people taking him seriously they refused to take themselves seriously. Instead of questioning their own motives, they questioned his. But he never let them off the hook. In the end those who refused to listen, to take him seriously, to change, silenced him on the cross. Yet, the words they heard were never silenced. They had to live with them. And his loving actions, the Law notwithstanding, were seared into their memories.

 Jesus challenges us today in no less a way than he did when he walked the highways and byways of ancient Palestine. As with his contemporaries, so with us: we are often tempted to label him, to assert that Jesus is on our side, to use him as a cudgel to beat over the head into defeat those who oppose us. The only person we should be beating over the head is the one we see in the mirror. His words and actions speak as loudly to us today as they did two thousand years ago. Categories aside, Jesus was always on the side of those who at that moment in time needed him the most, who needed to be loved and cared for, Law or no Law. So should we, no matter how we label Jesus and no matter how we label ourselves.

COMPASSIONATE LISTENING

There is either too much or not enough, let alone none at all going on in this world and even in this church of ours – talking, that is. On the one hand, there seems to be too much talking going on. Everybody’s talking at us. Everyone has an opinion and everyone seems willing and able to make that opinion known and heard. It is almost a Tower of Babel out there and it is all dissonance, lots of yelling and screaming.

Now talking in and of itself is not bad. That is often the best way to communicate thoughts and ideas to others. When we speak, we use body language and body language often conveys more than even profound words. Talking becomes bad when it degenerates into pontificating. Give some of us the opportunity to mount the pulpit and we will tell anyone who is listening what is wrong with the world, wrong with him and how to fix it. Why would others not think we have the answers, all of them, in fact, or maybe most?

On the other hand, there is not enough talking going on. When we are at odds with someone else, with another nation, with another belief, we tend to stand apart and glare at each other. We are unwilling to talk, for whatever reasons we may have. And if we do give in and agree to sit across the table with those with whom we disagree or whom we do not understand, we have a penchant for pontificating.

What is even worse is that when we talk too much, we do not listen. When we do not talk at all, no one is listening. When we do not listen because we are drowning out the other with our words or when there is nothing to listen for because there is no one to speak to us, we fail to communicate. And the failure to communicate is the primary cause for so many of the problems we have in our world today, the church included. In fact, I tend to believe it is the reason for the great number of problems we have.

We must speak with one another, communicate with the other, no matter who the other is, especially when we find ourselves at odds with the other. But more importantly we must listen to the other, truly listen, and listen compassionately. To listen with compassion we have to put aside for the moment our beliefs, our prejudices, and our opinions and put ourselves in the place of the speaker. That is in and of itself always difficult. But we must.

We cannot do that if we are listening sitting on the edge of our seat ready to interrupt or interject our retort. That is not listening and that prevents us from truly hearing what the other is saying. And so we fail to communicate even as we think that is what we are doing. If we are communicating anything, it is that we are not listening, certainly not listening with any sense of compassion and willingness to understand.

Even if we are convinced of the correctness of our position and the incorrectness of the other’s, we must listen with compassion. We must try to understand why he believes or thinks or acts the way he does. When it is our turn to speak, we simply do the same and trust the other will listen with compassion to us. In the end we may continue to disagree with the other, but at least we will have heard each other out and will understand why we each believe the way we do.

Listening with compassion also enables us to hear what we may not have heard before because we talked too much or talked too little or talked not at all or hear something we never thought about before. Imagine that! Speaking and listening with compassion, with an open heart and mind, enables communication to take place and will go a long way in bringing peace and help mend broken relationships of any shape or size or form.

 

THERE'S A CONSPIRACY AFOOT

 As Sherlock Holmes might say to Dr. Watson, after investigating all that is going on in the church, “Ah, Watson, there’s a conspiracy afoot; and it’s a good one.” And there is; and it is good – both in the correct meanings of those two words, thank God. Conspiracy, as in it’s Latin base – cum spirare, to breathe together; ­good, as in virtuous. There is a good, virtuous conspiracy, a breathing together, that’s afoot in the church. Some may disagree, but I digress.

Too often when we hear the word conspiracy, we immediately think of a group of people gathering together to commit some nefarious action. In fact, that is now the basic definition of the word. How far we have come. Thus, if someone were to observe that there is indeed a conspiracy afoot in the church, most would be speaking of something that is not good. They would be asserting that there is a group planning, scheming even, to destroy the church.

Of course there will always be those who do indeed conspire to work against the work of God. Of course there will be those conspiracy theorists who insist that there is a deliberate one afoot aimed precisely at them and their beliefs. Of course there are those who conspire to denigrate the good others do. Pun intended, they are wasting their breath with such protestations.

But is not the work of a church, a parish family, that of a conspiracy? Does not the Holy Spirit breathe in and through us as we breathe and work together doing the work, the ministry, God calls us to do? But this does not happen automatically. The truth is that we have to deliberately conspire to do God’s work. We have to willingly and lovingly breathe together, work as one, or else the work we are called to do won’t get done. We must be intentional about it because it will not happen on its own. The further truth is that when people are breathing together, acting as one, conspiring to be of one mind and one heart, more often than not they are doing so for good and not for evil.

We do not need any theorist, moreover, to remind us that the greater the conspiracy, the greater the breathing together for good, the more good things will be done – and vice versa, of course. Since as church we are called to do good, to remove evil, to work together for the good of all, we have no choice but to conspire together. The mission and ministry is simply too great to be accomplished alone.

The more we conspire, the merrier – and in the original meaning of that word as well, as in delightful. For that is what it is, is it not? We have all discovered just how delightful it is to work together doing the work of God wherever and whenever we do it. It is a good conspiracy. Granted, that work will not always be easy. Sometimes it may not be the work, the ministry, we like to do even as we know it must be done. But we do it because it is indeed good and delightful.

There is conspiracy afoot. Hang on for the ride. God only knows where the breath of the Spirit will blow!

 

WHY THE FIRST IS FIRST

Did you ever wonder why the First Commandment is first, other than the fact that God gave them to Moses and obviously wanted to make sure everyone knew from whence they came and who was really most important in their lives? From a human point of view we might easily assume that God was being a little self-serving when God insisted that the most important commandment, the most important rule in our life, is that we have no other god except God.

It would make sense to think that way. In a work environment the first rule is to obey the boss. All other rules and regulations follow. We may be a very conscientious employee, do our job well, always arrive at work on time and never leave work early, never ever take even a paper clip or a used pencil, and treat our fellow workers with respect. That is all well and good and even necessary for a great working environment. But if we disobey the boss, none of it really matters and is almost all for naught. So, of course, the first commandment is to obey the boss or, in our case, The Boss.

Yet, the truth is, if we do not obey this first commandment, it will be very difficult to keep all the rest. On the other hand, if we, in fact, do make God first in our lives, it will be much easier to keep the other nine commandments. The rest follow and flow from the first. For what matters first and foremost is who our God/god really is. If something else such as money or career, becomes first in our lives, becomes our god, then the other nine will never be kept as they should.

 

Consider: if we make our career, for instance, our god, we have already broken Number Two. It is already an idol, a false god. We will sacrifice family, health, whatever we must, to enhance that career. When things do not go right for us, we will curse that god for so controlling us and even curse God for allowing it to happen. As for Sabbath Rest, well that goes the way of everything else that slows us down in our race to the top.

What is worse is that our relationships with those who matter most, who should matter most, family and friends, deteriorate in this service of what has become our god. We no longer have time for them because this new god consumes our time. We will step on those who get in our way; we will lie and cheat and steal, covet what we do not have until we have it, all in the service of this god of ours.

Not a pretty picture is it? It is so easy to make something so all-important that everything else takes second place, and a distant second at that. When that happens, we have, intentionally or not, made that something into a god. It is even worse when we make ourselves to be Number One, when everyone and everything becomes subservient to our wants and wishes, to ourselves.

That is why the First Commandment is indeed first. Keeping it keeps us focused on what is most important in our lives. Even when we begin to lose focus and chase after some other god, which helps us so easily to forget about and break the rest of those Commandments, we will not lose sight of just who is Number One, thanks be God.

 

 

TO SAVOR OR TO SAVE

You and I live in a world of conflict. The newspapers and magazines, radio and television are full of stories about mankind's inhumanity to mankind. But the greatest conflict goes on not in the world around us but in the world inside us. Every day we are torn between doing what we would like to do and doing that which we know we should do. It is a conflict between faith and fulfillment.

Something inside us tells us that we will not be fulfilled unless or until: unless we have this, until we can do that. Something else inside us tells us that that which we believe will be fulfilling is merely and empty glass. The conflict will not go away because we cannot escape the barrage all around us and inside us.

We want to be the Good Samaritan but we also want to say Good Riddance. We know we should help the person in need and yet we know that he will probably be a burden we would rather not carry. Do we stop and help or do we look the other way?

There is something deep inside us that knows what to do, what should be done, the desire to do the right thing. That something is our faith. But there is also something inside us that is not so deep. In fact, it is rather shallow. And because it is rather shallow, it is on the surface, right there at the top, demanding our attention. It is the desire to do that which is pleasing, satisfying, seemingly filling. It is the desire to use the good of creation for ourselves.

There would seem to be no real conflict between the shallowness of life and the depth of our faith even when the conflict takes place at the same time. But there is. Writer and wit E.B. White (Salt of the Earth): "If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning, torn between the desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day!"

We've all been there. We are all there, every day. Our faith fills us with the desire to save what is wrong with this world, to correct the mess that we are in. Our desire for fulfillment – to be all that we are and all that we can be, as deep as that sometimes is, as shallow as it often is -- shoves us more into the mess rather than helping us solve the mess.

The conflict will never go away, not because we will never save the world. It has already been saved. It will not go away because it's – we've – been too busy either wallowing in misery or wallowing in wealth. Our misery stems from the fact that we don't know how blessed we really are and our wealth creates a desire that is never satisfied.

The fact of the matter is that we can both savor the world and save it – or at least continue the salvation – by simply living out a life of faith. Faith helps us understand the goodness of creation that is to be savored and gives us the strength to use it in loving service to God, others and self. Saving and savoring are two sides of the same coin and not two different and contradictory ones.

GROANING FOR SOMETHING MORE

As Christians we believe that we are born to live, to die and then to be born again to live eternally with God. Our end is not life on earth but life with God forever. But we are not there yet and we will not get there until we die in this life; not die to this life but die in this life. We still have to live this life before we can live the life to come. Yet, as we live this life as fully and as faithfully as we can, there is still something missing. As Paul says in Romans, we groan for something more.

Thus, in that sense, we are like a mother in labor. The life to come is still within us and wants to be born as soon as possible. Paul himself in another place talks about wanting to be with God in eternity right then and there but also knows that he still has a mission to fulfill in this life. He is not yet done with what has to be done even as he aches to be done with this life and be with God forever.

Perhaps that is why, even when we are most satisfied with life as it is, when we seem fully alive, we still have this inkling that there is more, that something is missing. There is a longing for something more, a holy longing as it has been called. That longing will not be satisfied until eternity. We know that. Yet we cannot help but groan from within for it to be now.

This is good. If life did not get any better than this, what would we have to look forward to? Or as Paul says, where would our hope be? If there is nothing to hope for, if this life is as good as it gets, what a pity! But we do have hope and we live with that hope and we groan patiently within for it to be fulfilled. No, we do not dwell on it and the labor pains are not constant. But every once in a while we feel them if only as a reminder that the best is yet to come, whatever that best will be like.

On the other hand, when life is not so good, when the pain of this life is real, whatever the pain, whatever the form of suffering we are in, this hope for life without pain is what helps us through the moment, however long that moment may be. We certainly are experiencing some of that these days, what with the virus and the restrictions on our life style and all the rest. We are longing for something better now, in this life, not just in the life to come. As we struggle through life now, the life to come is put on hold.

That’s the way it is in this life. When life is good, we still long for something more and better. When life is not so good, we long for something more and better. We are never truly satisfied and will never be until we finally live that new and better life with God in eternity. Until then we will continue to groan from within.

And that is as it should be, is it not? That is not to say we always are greedy for something more and better. Rather it is to say that as we live out this life, inwardly groaning for the life to come, we still know that we can always do better, be better. There will always be something missing even if we cannot put our finger on just what that something is. In a real way we can never be satisfied with what is. We have to look for ways to be better, groaning our way as we do.

 

FEELINGS

For a while now I have mostly put aside spiritual and theological reading and substituted it with Agatha Christie, David Baldacci, Sue Grafton and the like: mystery and detective stories. It’s been enjoyable. The other day I told Arlena that I started to feel a little guilty not reading serious stuff but books for pure entertainment. She replied that since I had been doing the serious reading for sixty years or so, I need not feel guilty.

Easier said than done, at least on my end. What may be even worse is that in the process of reading all these basically murder mysterious is that they are filled with some bad guys and gals, some very bad ones. They are cruel and sadistically enjoy their murder and mayhem. They seem to hold no remorse for their actions. No, they hold no remorse, no seeming about it.

Then, when one of these murderous incidents takes place, my blood begins to boil. Yes, it is fiction. No real person was killed. But still. In my internal anger I want that bad person, in the end, to suffer, really suffer. And sometimes, I have to admit, I contemplate how I would administer that suffering were I the one called upon to do so. Then, when I pause to think about what I had just been thinking and contemplating, I don’t like those feelings of anger and vengeance that I had.

This is not a new revelation for me because I have been aware of it all my life. Something inside me has always wanted those who knowingly and willingly and freely commit heinous crimes to suffer and to suffer in the same way and to the same degree – and maybe even worse – than the person they harmed. Authors of fiction often make that happen, but in society it doesn’t and, what’s more, society can’t and shouldn’t.

We may want to get even, as I often do when in my readings that feeling comes over me, but when we do, we make ourselves just like the person we want vengeance upon. Actually seeking revenge only makes matters worse. Even in my stories, when the murder is avenged, the one who was the victim is not brought back to life. George Floyd was murdered in cold blood, on video for all to see, gut-wrenching and anger-inducing. And even if the perpetrator is tried, convicted and executed, George Floyd is still dead.

Unfortunately, when our emotions, our gut feelings are aroused and we allow them to get out of control, bad things happen. Sadly, sometimes those revengeful actions make everything worse. An eye for an eye is never the answer. For me, thankfully, when my feelings of anger or guilt or vengeance arise when I am reading fiction, I am aware of them even as I am often repelled by them.

Nevertheless, those aroused feelings are a reminder that I am quite capable of actually acting out on those feelings were the situation real. That frightens me and, if you are like me, it should frighten you as well.