30. Religion as Evil

Luke 11: 46 Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

I have had an apostate period in my life.  A combination of ego, rejection of popular doctrine, and friction with those who follow Jesus led me to seek God elsewhere.  This saw me look at a number of different faiths, and spiritual practices.

          In large part my search had to do with the divine feminine – the goddess.  I had trouble with the presentation of the Holy Trinity as a single parent family, with God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit being this ill defined sibling, or uncle.  Just to let you know, I have found much in the way of the divine feminine in Christianity and one day will comment on that discovery.

          However, that is not the point I am after with this offering.  I carefully considered paganism, and animism, Buddhism, and Daoism.  In my sojourn, I found that everywhere I went the same dynamics.  People simply creating lists of what constituted acceptable worship, morality and conduct.  What I found was an emphasis on the outward form and a lack of consideration of a contrite heart and humble disposition. – Those of you who know me know how important those are to foster within myself and my worship.

          My clearest experiences were within the pagan community. What I saw were the rudimentary components that I wrote about in describing the fall.  First, a belief that we are separate from God, and from each other.  Then, a level of judgement, in this case it rivals right wing fundamentalism along with a rigid code of morality.  Finally, and seemingly just as important is a belief that we, the participants of that belief, were significant.  There were some that I met that seemed to be of similar mind to me, but they were in the minority.  I came to understand that religion, all religion, is man (people) made.

           What is more pertinent to me, is that I came to see how I do the exact same thing, regardless of what belief I espouse.  Generally I become convinced of my own cleverness, of my specialness, which of course separates me from you, and I think ultimately from God.  And because I am so special I know what you should be doing as well.

          In that moment of clarity that was afforded me, and it was not a particularly memorable one at that, I became aware of a few things.  First, that I can never go where Jesus isn’t.  Second, that I can never be good enough to earn God’s grace – and it isn’t earned anyways it is given away.  Third, that I am not as clever or as special as I would like to make out.

          If you started reading this hoping I would lambast religion as the source of all evil, my apologies.  There has been great evil, vile acts done in the name of God by the religious creeps that have abounded in the world.  There are still horrific acts done.  But I realize that they are done by people like me.

          There have been equally as horrific acts done in the name of other ideologies.  Think – Cambodia, or Soviet Russia (especially under Stalin), or Nazi Germany, or – you get the idea.  We cannot gather together without bringing ourselves.  I see the same three factors, separation, rigid moral code, and significance, that I see in religion.

          The challenge, I believe, in Christianity is not to recognize the fallen nature of the world; although we are told that all nature groans in frustration. (Rom 8:19 – 23).  It is to recognize the fallen nature of ourselves.  The challenge for me is to see how I am fallen, to see how I bring that into all that I do.  Religion is simply what we do when we get together.

           I believe that I am called to be mindful in my worship, and in my involvement with others, I believe that I am called to support you in your walk.  I believe that I am called to not be a stumbling block in your walk of faith.  I believe that I, and you, can be the antidote to religion.

          As far as being separated from God:

Psalm 139: 7 – 12 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus

          As far as being separate from each other:

Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

          As far as having a rigid moral code:

Mark 12: 32 & 33  “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

          As far as being significant:

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.”

29. So What Happened?

Genesis 2: 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

So there we were, or here we are in the lesson on Drewidism, in the Garden of Eden.  So if it was paradise what happened?  For those of you who have sat in too many sermons, let me cut to the chase, I don’t think the original sin was anyone particular act nor was it simply disobedience.  But something happened.  Something gave this merry-go-round a shove.

          It is clear that something is amiss.  At the end of the second chapter in Genesis Adam and Eve were running around the garden nakkid.  But further, they felt no shame.  Then, after it all we have Cain killing Abel.

          It was Karen Armstrong who wrote, of Genesis, “The true meaning of scripture can never be wholly comprised in a literal reading of the text, since that text points beyond itself to a reality which cannot be adequately expressed in words and concepts.”     If the original sin, and the subsequent fall was simply around a stolen piece of fruit, and a god so vengeful that the rest of humanity is left paying the price for that misdeed; I would want nothing to do with that god. 

          There was something that happened before the fall, a precursor, something that set the whole thing in motion.  And, I think, just me, I know there are others than agree with me, but – it was our self awareness that set the whole thing in motion.  I would ask that you read Genesis 3:1 – 11 (I have included it at the bottom), and ask yourself could this conversation happen if they lacked self-awareness.  This conversation could only happen if they were aware that they were distinct from God. It is part of the inner core of Drewidic belief that it is this optical delusion that we are separate from each other and from God that is the root of all evil.

          The next step?

          The fall, the original sin – this is where I get absolutely clear that it was neither disobedience nor was it a fruit.  We ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of God and Evil. It was not apple, not a pomegranate, not a peach; as it was not a food.  It was judging, it was deciding this is right and that is wrong.

          This gave the merry-go-round a mighty shove.  “Adam, hide that thing!” Eve would have yelled at a butt naked Adam.  “Eve, letting those puppies out for air are you?”  Could have been his response – but suddenly nothing had changed except for their awareness.

          You would have read this in another entry of mine, but it was our judgement that condemned us, and everyone who followed.  We pass on our judgements like they were family heirlooms.  I listened to my mother and my father as they condemned, passed judgment on all others, and themselves.  Judgment, and when I get scriptural references I will be back, produces nothing but hate and anger.

          And then the final piece, that last push of the merry-go-round: the belief in significance.  It is my belief that somehow God loves me more than you that allows me to do all sorts of vile stuff to you.  It is the belief that I am separate that sets the stage, is it my belief that I know right from wrong, and it is my belief that I am more significant than you - that is the original sin.
            It was the competition between Cain and Abel, a desire to be better than the other, to have God love each one better that lead to murder.  It still does.  

          I have nothing more than my experience and my view of scripture to back me on this doctrine.  And you should by now know that I am always open to being proven wrong.  You would also know that I am passionate about this, that I believe that God loves us, always has, always will, and that it would take more than a friggin apple to piss him off like this.  In fact, I question the entire angry God doctrine.

          Now, to answer the questions that I would ask.  Yes, we are distinct, but we are not separate.  We are not God, but we are of him, I believe that his very essence runs through me and you and everything.  The Psalmist wrote that there is nowhere he could go that God would not be there already.

          Yes, there is good and evil, but the judgment is not ours to make.  St. Paul reminds us that when we judge others we condemn ourselves.  It is in the act of judging that condemnation is found.

          And yes, we, I am insignificant.  Although I find it hard to believe, the word did not wait with baited breath for me to be born.  And when I go, it will be noticed by only a handful of people. 

          If I am right, and I know that as a Drewid I strive to be not-wrong, but if I did manage to get it right, should we not be concerned about our churches and religious institutions.  After all, do they not teach that we are separate from God?  And while I would agree with them, I don’t think many might understand the distinction of how it is our sin is that keeps up from experiencing his glory.  Two, do they not teach a clear understanding of good and evil?  And inadvertently make lists of rules that we need to follow? Three, do not our churches teach to seek to be better than others?  I think it is quite possible that the original sin was the creation of religion itself.

          I leave you with that.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

          The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,  but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

          “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.

          “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

          When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

          Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

          He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 

          And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”  

28. Jesus – My Extramarital Affair

Matt 6:24 No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money

Jesus also said, “"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple.”  (Luke 14:26)

          I have a confession to make; I am having an extramarital affair on Wanna.  I am smart enough that it is not with another woman.  Not only would I not do that to her, but I would not do that to myself.  But really, there is someone else, something else that comes before her.  I am grateful that she is accommodating of this affair, I have friends whose spouses have not been so indulgent.  My affair is with Jesus. 

          When he told us that no one can serve to master, he was not giving an ultimatum, he was stating a reality.  We cannot have two loves, two focuses.  Always time, life and circumstances will conspire to force us to choose.  Always.  If you have been fortunate enough not to have to choose between two affections be thankful and be prepared.

          I was originally going to call this entry “Why I hate Jesus.”  But thought maybe I should get you reading before I became offensive.

It has been one of those weeks.  I will not go into details, they matter not, and I know you have had those weeks as well.  The reason why the details are unimportant is that the true struggle has been within me.  I am faced with situations that would most easily be dispatched if I were not conflicted.

          I would let people go, I would yell at others, and I would turn to those that scrutinize us and say “See? I was a dick.”

          Where I am caught is that I am wanting to do the right thing.  The right thing is not always the most popular, and often in this world is not appreciated.  What I want to do is to support those who have shown up to a difficult job and have made a mistake.  What I want to do, is honour that commitment and the difference it has made in people’s lives.  It is a struggle for integrity. 

          Jesus seems to be the one who is saying, “Do the right thing.”  And then asks, “If you cannot do the work the way it should be done, then why do the work at all?”

          That is why I hate Jesus.  This struggle is really his fault.  He is the one who has laid the seeds in me, that began the great work.  It would be easy to fire those who should be fired, regardless of the devastation in the lives of those they serve.  I could show those who scrutinize us that we don’t tolerate no bullshit.  It would show our commitment to having our work look the way it should.

          Jesus, annoyingly, reminds me that this work never looks the way it should.  He is also the one that taught me that in our errors lies the ability for greater works to be done.  He shows me in the midst of all the nonsense that has gone on this week, where potential exists.  Also he reminds me that at no time were people malicious, and at no time was anyone injured.

          Like I said, today I hate Jesus.  I get that he has a grander view of things, that he sees the big picture.  I get that I am lost in the details of my own life like a myopic ant.  I just want him to make the bad people go away. 

          I just want life to be easy. 

          I hate his indifference to that desire.  It is not that it is indifference to me, or my plight, just the recognition that reality has a harsher edge to it.

          Jesus is okay with me hating him, he loves me anyways, he also has faith that I will get over it.

          While it seems that I may be rambling a bit, there is point.  I am grateful for my spiritual heritage in AA and NA.  The entire serve two masters is presented in a different light.  The struggle is between self will and God.  To serve money, is really to serve ourselves, our desires, our greed.  To serve God is to serve you and those around us. 

          In this situation I can either serve the self-serving agendas of those around me, or I can serve God.  Couched in these terms my choices seem clearer, and I feel braver with the action I am called to doing.

I am also told, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” 2 Tim 1:7

On a lighter note, in church today we sang silly songs and danced.  Maybe we as a church are figuring it out.

27. Drewidism 101 – We are not his fan club

Genesis 1:27 So God created human beings, making them to be like himself

                              He created them male and female

                             So God created mankind in his own image,

                            

To hear some folks tell it, God was bored, and one day decided to create everything and specifically humans.  We are his personal ant farm.  Or fish bowl.  Or for those of you who follow a particular face book page; a hamster cage.  Further, God being a petty minded child sits in judgement of what we are doing and just waiting for the day when he breaks out his magnifying glass and roasts us on the celestial sidewalk.  Thus, the prospects of being created for the glory of God are really not that appealing. 

          It is like when an acquaintance of mine talked about a vision of heaven where we were all standing and singing songs to God.  The afterlife was just one begin songfest.  As he is telling me this, I hoped that his vision was of Sunday morning.  But then another friend of mine equates good worship with sex; one of us is doing something wrong.

          Me?  And this is Drewidism, believes that God had little choice but to create.  It is the nature of love, it is the nature of God; to create, to expand.  Love simply has to express itself.  We, you and I, and your aunt Ethel, and Uncle Wilburt, and Granny Faye, were all created simply because he is so friggin awesome.  It was not an act of egotistic power.        But I don’t believe that we were created to stand in heaven, the throne room of God, and sing his praises all day!

          There are many references that state we were created to glorify God.  We bandy about that term, and for most of us it is simply meaningless church-speak. Most of us when we talk about glorifying God think Sunday mornings, standing and singing hymn, worshipping him, and loving him.  Others talk about magnifying him.

          This is a time when I can only speak for myself.  I attend church, sing hymns, and drink questionable coffee because I need to do that.  God while he enjoys this, does not need it.  He did not create us to be his personal fan club.  There is little I can do to magnify his glory.  It would be a really, really, good day for you to say wow, can you ever see God in that man. 

          As already stated, I believe, God created us out of an expression of his love for us.  There was really no point, no profound purpose, no great design, in many ways it strikes me as our struggle to be significant that makes us look for a reason.  We were created out of that joy, wonder and delight that are God, to enjoy who he is.

          We were created in his likeness.  One translation uses the word godlike.  But what does that mean?  For me, in his image, in his likeness, means – we are able to love.  We have to be in relationship with others.  We create.  We reason – sometimes not that well.  We have humour.  We are compassionate.

          When we were created, so the story goes, we lived in the garden.  We toiled, we gathered food, hunted animals.  God came and visited us.  He hung out with us, told jokes, and just enjoyed being with us; and we with God.

          But Drewidism holds the Garden was a state of existence, it was not a physical place.  Oh yes, there was a physicality about it.  There is always physicality about strong emotion.  My love for my wife and kid has a manifestation, a body sensation.  When I look at pictures of my wife and I playing on the beaches of Thailand I feel an ache of longing.  But I don’t think that the Garden was a place.  You know, “Go to the Tigress River and turn left and go to the tree that looks like an old man.”

          In the Garden, there would have been toils and struggles, there would have been defeats and failures.  There would have had to have been. If our successes were guaranteed, they would not have been enjoyable.  This idyllic life where we ate fruits and drank nectar and waited for God to show up so we could worship him; I don’t think existed.

          When Jesus came to earth, that sort of reads like a UFO story, we see again why we were created.  Most of what he did, was be with people, he loved them, he took an interest in their lives, he showed compassion.           

          So we are not his fan club, if anything we are more like family.

So who is God?

This is not my idea, but I like it so I swiped it.

If God is Love then....

God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.