135 #thisismyfaith

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Right now, there is a great evil threatening the world. There is no other way to state it. The result of a single person put into power will decimate lives.  This single person was put into place in large part by my sisters and brothers of the Evangelical Right. I do not want to get into a pissing match over scriptural interpretations or how one lives out their faith.  I did have planned a posting that it explained that was not my faith.  This is what I offer instead.

#thisismyfaith

I am pro-life. I have walked a woman past the protesters at an abortion clinic for she feared the violence they presented. They insisted that the fetus in her was sacred life, but denied that same consideration to her children. Forgotten was the place in God’s heart for the widow, the orphan and oppressed. Thus, when no one else would, I did. I believe that we have a responsibility to care for each other, this includes health care. I am pro-life; I stand against the death penalty.  Though I appreciate the sentiment, the death penalty is little more than a racist act against people already oppressed.

#thisismyfaith

I oppose assisting terrorists in devastating entire populations by refusing the admission of refugees into countries.  If you think that the presidential decree is aimed at keeping people safe – think again, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates home of 17 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 is not on the list of banned countries.   This ban on Muslims is bullshit in so many ways, and is simply religious discrimination. The parable of the Good Samaritan seems to call for compassionate action to those despised ones. Faith, at least the one that I am called to, leaves few safe quarters. Yes, while we care for refugees, we need to care for our own homeless, our First Nation’s people, these are not mutually exclusive.  Further, we have to step up to care for those that you and I sent into harm’s way; our veterans.

#thisismyfaith

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17

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The faith I celebrate recalls that it was women, and one man, that stuck with Jesus as he was crucified.  And that it was to women that his resurrection was first announced.  While the men were off doing something, it was the women that came to take care of Christ’s body. Women are not property or possessions to be ridiculed, judged on a scale of one to ten, nor are they to be grabbed by the pussies. And yes, if you voted for him, you too endorsed his view of women. And yes, I took exception to Clinton. Women are sacred.  Only women can create life, and it was a woman only that actually carried Christ in her body. I agree with Jimmy Carter, that it is only through self-serving interpretation of scripture that man can use such to subjugate women.

#thisismyfaith

The faith I celebrate embraces the culture of others.  It is more than just my love of food. I take Matthew 25:36 seriously, “I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Thus, my faith is worked out with the person in front of me. I am keenly aware, that Christ was not white. I believe that these rights we talk of are our responsibilities to each other.  And I am commanded to love my neighbours, whether their gender, sexuality, religion, colour, fashion sense, choice in music, or choice of TV shows meets with my approval. 

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I see the pollution of the world as the competition, the hatred and greed that we engage in. Christ taught us that we are to be in service to each other. Mark 9: 35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” I believe the church must be kept safe from the corruption of greed – greed for money and power over others.  I also am fortunate to be in such a church.


#thisismyfaith

I do not claim anything like perfection. I swear too much, I watch porn too much, I am cranky too much, there is a lot of shit I do too much of, and not enough of others. I am tired of having to explain my faith in the light of what many see as contemporary Christianity.  I am tired of those that think taking God’s name in vain is swearing; much of what I have seen from the Religious Right has been taking his name in vain. I offer this simply as encouragement.  That if this is your faith, and this is nowhere near a comprehensive list, you know that you are not alone. 

#thisismyfaith

134. When religion is worthless.

Let me be clear – I am not a fan of political correctness.  I see Donald Trump’s victory as being indicative of the outcome of this attempt at social control. We see a nation that learned that it was not alright to say obnoxious crap, but that lesson never made it beyond their vocabulary.  The first opportunity that the populace had to push back, they did so. 

         What we did, is to stop a dialogue that could have changed how people perceived the world around them. Instead, we stifled that conversation. Yes, it is not good on so many levels to use racial slurs. Humour based on sexual violence is truly not funny. And in changing our language, there can be a change in sentiment. It can also lead to such biases coming out in other ways.

          People think that years of progress have been lost.  They weren’t.  The progress we thought we had because people talked nicely, was simply a charade.  While I am given to profanity, I have heard some of the vilest crap spoken by sweet sounding people.  Hatred is hatred, no matter how you speak of it. 

Then I come to James, “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.” James 1:24.

Rather a strong message.  Your religion is worthless if you do not keep a tight reign on your mouth.  James repeats this admonition later in his letter.  In fact, his second message is stronger. 

My brother tells a story of when I was first clean from drugs.  We were going through a McDonalds’ drive-through.  We had placed our order and were asked if we wanted fries with that?  My answer, and I wince, “If I wanted fucking fries with that I would have asked for fucking fries.”

As I have become less angry, maybe less fearful of others, I talk less and less with others in that way.  Yes, I am still mouthy, still profane, but nowhere near as abusive.  It has been a process of following God, but also doing what I can to clean up how I talk with people.  As I have been healed, my language is less angry, and as I have cleaned up how I talk with people, I become less angry.

That said, or written, I am a stickler for language.  While what I say might use profanity as punctuation, I believe that we need to be clear about what we mean.  It is more than simply saying what you mean, it is understanding that how we talk about life, and issues, and beliefs, shape our perception of that which we talk.

          A case in point. Last week I was in a discussion about children trafficked for sexual purposes.  One of the people involved in the discussion made reference to sexually exploited children. While it might seem to be petty to point out the difference between being exploited and trafficked, there is a significant difference. I pointed out that difference. (Of course)

Could it be, that part of working out my salvation is paying attention to how I speak to people? I think so. For me, the challenge of this verse, and others like it, is understanding that there is a dynamic within language that I use. One that is between heart, soul and tongue.

         As with all else, we can become legalistic.  We can harness our mouth.  Even I can manage periods of time when I don’t use profanity. When I work, in meetings, in explaining the dynamics and processes of the work my cohorts and I do, I do so without profanity.

         Thus, as I write this I reflect on my language of faith.  Yes, I occasionally swear when I pray.  Often, my profanity laden prayers seem to be the most effective. It is not that God pays attention to the profanity, but rather the intensity.  But my language as I talk of my faith, shifts as I mature.  As I let God soften my heart, and learn to live in love, my language has shifted. How I talk about others most the time, is gentler. 

         In his letter, James promotes a faith that changes in how we are in the world. He recognizes that salvation is an inside job. For me, the message seems clear. If my faith does not lead to me changing how I talk, how I relate to people, I need to question my faith. Just as faith devoid of change is not really faith. I also need to pay attention to what I say and how I say it.

Thank you for letting me share.

133. Christ the Refugee

Matt 2:14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt.

While there is good reason to be skeptical of the story of Herod slaughtering all boys in Bethlehem under the age of two; the threat would have been very real. Herod was a man who killed three of his own sons in order to protect his reign. He would not have been pleased that a “King of the Jews” had been born. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, getting out of town would have been very prudent. If we digress into the discussion as to the historical accuracy, I think we miss the point.

          There is a natural tendency to draw a correlation between worshipping Christ and receiving refugees. As well, there is an intriguing commentary on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that places the emphasis on how foreigners were received - a much more challenging perspective for most Christians.  If we focus on the sexual aspects of the story of Sodom, for most of us it remains safe. It is in understanding that these ‘visitors’ were poorly greeted, it becomes a much more convicting story for us. Later in his teachings, Christ taught, “Even foxes have holes and the birds have their nests, the son of man has no place to lay his head.” Matt 8:20 DJMV)

          As I write this, there are more refugees in the world than there are people in Canada. Add to that our own population of people displaced by mental illness, addiction, and poverty. The impulse to care for such is a human, not just Christian, instinct.  Thus, there is good reason to consider our attitudes about those refugees, foreign and domestic.

But I am more interested in another aspect of the story.

My friend and pastor refers to this as the side of Christmas that no one talks about. We want to sanitize a faith that has as its core the mess that us humans can be.  I think the messiness of it amplifies the glory of God, and stops us from sliding spirituality into convenient slots.  I believe that Christianity was never intended to be convenient, sanitized, or safe. 

          In the nativity story, dark and otherwise, there is so much that seems upside down, or ass-backwards.  The flight into Egypt is one of those. Jesus, the child-king is in peril.  The response is not to call in a strategic airstrike of angels to take Herod out.  It is to flee until the threat has passed naturally.  It reveals a deeper agenda and a unique way of addressing conflict.  And, no it is not simply to avoid it.

          I have written about our binary view of the world.  The us or them, only one person can win, and there are only winners and losers perspective on life. In this story we are taught in no small means that are other ways.

          Herod was going to do what Herod was going to do.  It is a difficult part of the story. Would interfering in the actions of this tyrant have an adverse outcome?  It is an important question to ask.  There is much that happens in this world that is vile, evil and corrupt.  Is it God’s role to intervene?  I take great exception to those that would suggest that such events fulfill God’s purpose.  There is significant difference between using whatever event to his purpose and creating events for his purpose.  The puppet master God must be beyond callous in a world where events such as genocides are created by him to glorify him.

          The flight into Egypt, the point of this wandering post, is an example of how to manage conflict.  And lessons in managing conflict would come in useful these days.  We are currently back in an arms race on a global level.  It might be going on unnoticed, but it is going on.  The morality of any arms race, is one of there can only be one victor. The reality, is that in any conflict, there really is no victor.  For the moment we enter into conflict, we have both lost.

So how do we live out this morality in a polarized world?  As always, the answer comes to how do we live our lives out? 

On a personal level, we are called, I am called, to shift away from the binaries of which I wrote awhile ago.  We are called to recognize that there is no “us vs them.” That we are all part of this together.  It is my hope that in our maturity, we realize that there are really no winners if there are those that are oppressed.  We are also encouraged to understand that often the correct course of action is to wait for a more opportune time.

132. What if?

Happy New Year.  We have made it to another year.  The skeptical part of me wants to say, that we just made it to another day, and this entire New Year – New Me crap is really just the emotional hangover of our glut of commercialism.  I can be rather cynical at times.

What if this year we did life differently?

What if this year we came to understand how much Jesus disagreed with the religious institutions of his time? Yes, he was a devote Jew. Obviously, he loved God. But, consider his comment, “They ties up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23:4) We are not called to be religious, we are called to be of service, to offer up ourselves as a living sacrifice, of living life differently.  Often, I think we play the game of ‘God loves me more’ when we enter into religion

What if this year we came to understand that we are called to work on our own righteousness and not that of those around us? We are told to remove the plank from our own eyes.  I think by the time that I get my biases and prejudices out of the way, that I might just understand how to help those around me. Consider also, Romans 2:1, “You, therefore, have not excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”

What if this year we came to realize that if we lived our faith, the message would be stronger? It seems to me that Christ was always more interested in how people acted, than what they believed. In the parable of the sheep and goats, he said this, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matt 25:35-36

What if this year we started to take the words of Christ seriously when he taught that we are called into compassionate service of each other? How many different ways did he have to say that the greatest in heaven is of service here on earth?  Faith is not about feeling good, it is about being of use.

What if this year we realize that our commitment to church is not just about attendance? It is not about attending the cool church with the edgy hipster pastor and great music.  It is about coming together to say that these are the people that I stand with in Christ. And then, it is not about what we do when we are there, but what we do out in the world around us.

What if this year we came to realize the privilege that scripture affords us?  It is not a reference book for demanding that other believe as we do, or act as we want them.  If your morality is based on scripture, and not on the leanings of your heart, you are in serious trouble. The bible allows us a view of how other people lived their faith in a different time and culture.  It is sad that the messages of the Creation Myth are lost in our insistence that the world was created only six thousand years ago, and that it was done only in 144 hours.  We fail to grasp just how wonderful it is that we are an expression of love, and that women are of the very same fabric as men – a radical message for that time.

What if this year we understood that we are all works in progress? The person standing next to you in church, at the cashier, at the bus stop, or in the coffee shop is just trying to make their way through life the best they can.  And this included the person you just thought who you don’t believe that they are. Maybe if our interest in them is in how we can help, rather than how good they are living up to our expectations, we might achieve something miraculous.

What if this year we asked why we are not doing something about (fill in whatever dastardly event you want)? We are the body of Christ, if we are waiting for God to do something, we are only waiting on ourselves to take action.  It is up to us to take compassion measures. For may, we are the face of God.

This entry is not about living missional lives elsewhere in the world.  It is about living ordinary lives in extraordinary ways.  For me, it is realizing that how I treat those who work with me is more important than what I might say in prayer.  It is realizing the generosity of spirit is more important that the financial arrangement of tithing I might try to make with God.  It is realizing that this way of life can only start with me, if I wait for others, it might be a long wait indeed.

It is my wish for you that this year is filled with Joy, Love, Health, and PEACE.