Go Ahead into Galilee

March 27, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Mark 16:1-8

The women who came to the tomb early Sunday morning had been at the cross on Friday, watching from a distance. They knew Jesus was dead. Two of them followed Joseph of Arimathea and saw where his lifeless body was laid. They would have prepared the body for burial on Friday, but they were interrupted by the Sabbath. At first light on Sunday, they go to the tomb, preoccupied with how they’ll roll the stone away by themselves.

When the women arrive at the tomb, they encounter something they aren’t expecting. In fact, in Mark’s version of the story, we all encounter something we’re not expecting on Easter morning. We expect the stone to be rolled away; we expect to find someone who announces the astonishing news of the resurrection. We don’t expect the story to end right there. The other gospels, Matthew, Luke, and John, tell a much longer story, with Jesus appearing to the women and later to the disciples, showing his wounds and breaking bread with them. Mark leaves us hanging. The original Greek is, “The women went out from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; they said nothing to anyone, they were afraid for…” The English translation solves this awkward sentence by moving the preposition, but it doesn’t solve the problem of the gospel. The early church was so uncomfortable with Mark’s non-ending that later writers tacked on three separate, carefully packaged, churchy-sounding endings. Two of them appear in most Bibles; all of them take away the ambiguity of the resurrection story by adding accounts of post-resurrection appearances of the risen Christ. The oldest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel don’t include them, so most scholars conclude that the original account in Mark ends right here, with the women running scared.

It’s not like the Easter story isn’t already difficult enough, right? Apparently, the great 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr always turned down invitations to preach on Easter. Instead, he chose to sit in the pews of one of the more liturgical churches because there, the worship would focus on stirring music and festive sacraments, with not much in the way of a sermon. After all, Niebuhr said, he didn’t want “to be subjected to some preacher making a fool of himself trying to explain the resurrection.”

Like the women at the tomb in Mark’s gospel, we get the news of the resurrection second hand. We don’t have Jesus standing right in front of us, showing us his scars. Instead, we read about it in Scripture. We hear it proclaimed, sing it in hymns, and recite it in creeds. Then the mysterious young man goes on to tell the women, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Just before his arrest, Jesus predicted that the disciples would scatter in the confusion and anguish that awaited them all. Then he said, “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

Where will the women find Jesus? In Galilee. Galilee, where these women and the disciples lived and worked and led their ordinary lives. “Galilee of the nations,” or “Galilee of the Gentiles,” the prophet Isaiah called it, meaning someplace less than perfectly holy, less than perfectly anything, someplace where we’ll meet people different from us, but then again, the same as us; people struggling, trying to get by. Galilee means out in the world, the ordinary world of which every tiny crevice and corner needs to know God’s love expressed in human compassion and forgiveness.

And “Go ahead to Galilee” is what we are told, as well.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that our news of the resurrection starts off as second hand. Because the more you “practice resurrection,” as the poet Wendell Berry puts it, the more it becomes a firsthand experience. We find our own Galilees in different places. In the kitchen and the classroom, in the boardroom, the court room, the sidewalk, the city, the farm, in our own country and across the border and across the sea. Galilee is where ordinary people do extraordinary things with their lives. We may not always see it right away; we may not always understand it; the saving action of God in the world is often hidden, usually ambiguous, and never easily explained. It probably won’t look like success the way the world defines success; but it will make love more possible rather than less possible and it will most certainly involve community. Resurrection is the Christian equivalent of revolution, a life that says there is hope where others see only despair, there is life where others see only death.

Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him. Where charity and love prevail over injustice and violence, there is the risen Christ. Where compassion and hope replace cynicism and despair, there is the risen Christ. Where peace and love take root in lives that are empty and lost, there is the risen Christ. Where human beings know joy and justice, dignity and delight, there is the risen Christ, beckoning us into Galilee.

The story didn’t end 2000 years ago. It doesn’t end on Easter morning. Now it is our story. He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.

Palm, or Passion?

March 19, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

I grew up with Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday “Hosannas” were followed a week later by Easter morning “Alleluias,” with nothing in between. If my childhood Presbyterian churches held Holy Week services, I didn’t know about them. Sometime after I quit going to church in college, Presbyterians switched to Palm/Passion Sunday. The “passion” comes from “the Passion of Christ,” the phrase used to describe Jesus’ arrest, trial, conviction, and execution. One theory I’ve heard is that churches started telling the Passion story on Palm Sunday because so few people show up to hear it on Good Friday.

So, Palm or Passion? The lectionary for this coming Sunday offers two sets of texts. The Palm Sunday gospel lesson, Mark 11:1-11, describes the spontaneous parade that erupted when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. This was powerful street theater. A donkey sounds like a humble steed but it’s meant to echo Hebrew Scripture passages describing returning kings: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” [1 Kings 1:32-40; 2 Kings 9:13; Zechariah 9:9].

The crowds greeted Jesus as the Messiah; “hosanna” means “save now.” These crowds expect Jesus to overthrow the Romans, and the Romans take note. This was just before the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, and Passover was a tricky problem for the Romans. The Passover festival is all about deliverance from slavery and freedom from oppression. Passover wasn’t good for the Empire.

These events help explain why Jesus was arrested and crucified. Jesus didn’t merely offend the religious authorities of the day. He proclaimed another kingdom – the kingdom not of Caesar but of God – and called people to give their allegiance to God’s kingdom first. He was, in other words, a real threat.

The people are half right. He did come as God’s Messiah, but they misunderstood what that meant. It didn’t mean “regime change” by violence, but rather the love of God poured out upon the world in a way that dissolved all the things we use to differentiate ourselves. But that means the religious and political authorities are also half right. Jesus was a threat to the way they led and lived. For that matter, he still is. He threatens our obsession with defining ourselves over and against others. He threatens the way in which we seek to secure our future by hoarding wealth and power. He threatens our habit of drawing lines and making rules about who is acceptable and who is not. He threatens all these things and more. But the authorities are wrong in thinking that they can eliminate this threat by violence. The words of Dr. King come to mind: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. … Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

The Passion gospel lesson is Mark 14:1-15:47, and it includes the anointing of Jesus with costly ointment by an unnamed woman, the last supper, the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, the arrest in Gethsemane, Peter’s denial, the trial before Pilate, and Jesus’ conviction, torture, crucifixion, and death. We know the story. Why hear it again, either on Palm/Passion Sunday or during Holy Week?

I know people who grew up in traditions in which they were taught that we should listen to the Passion story because we, ourselves, are somehow guilty of Jesus’ crucifixion, and once a year we should be reminded and feel horrible about that. I do not fall into that camp. I don’t buy that those who shouted “Hosanna” are necessarily the same people who shouted, “Crucify him!” And I don’t believe listening to the gory details of Jesus’ death every year somehow makes us better disciples. Sensationalizing the brutality of crucifixion feels as though it has more to do with morbid curiosity than with the point of the story.

The point of the story is why I believe, nevertheless, that there is a good reason to hear the whole Passion narrative, whether on Palm/Passion Sunday or during Holy Week: As Jesus’ followers, we need to remember the consequences of challenging the powers that be. And we need to remember the consequences to all of us, to the whole world, of continuing to live by the politics of Rome. Whether we are Republicans or Democrats; American, Russian, or Ukrainian; Israeli, Palestinian, or Haitian; whether we are corporations or governments, parents or siblings, husbands or wives, whenever we seek to influence others through coercion and violence, we are following the politics of Rome. It is so easy to fall into thinking that violence is normal, that coercion is justified, that it’s just the way the world is. And it’s especially easy to turn our backs on drones, secret prisons, terrorism, counterterrorism, occupations, politically caused famine, mass incarceration, and all the other heartbreaking costs of the politics of Rome when we are relatively insulated from them by one form of privilege or another.

Brian D. McLaren imagines an alternative Palm Sunday in which a heavily armed Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a white war horse. “’Hosanna!” the people shout. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord to execute vengeance on our enemies! … Crush the Romans! Kill the collaborators!’” Jesus calls the people to fight to the death to avenge the blood of their ancestors. He shouts, “’Those who live by restraint will die by restraint. Now is the time. Now is the day of annihilation for our enemies.’ And so, the battle for Jerusalem begins.”

Then McLaren concludes, “No. That is not what happened. And the differences are at the heart of the story of Holy Week.”

So, Palm, or Passion? Either: if the Palm Sunday texts are read in a way that celebrates all that makes for peace; if the Passion narrative is read in a way that deeply laments the politics of coercion and violence; if, in either case, we are invited to remember that the end is always Easter, the peaceful power of death-defying love.

Resources:
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love (Harper and Row, 1963; reprinted as a gift edition by Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010).
Brian D. McLaren, http://brianmclaren.net/palm-sunday-2011-end-of-violence/
Brian D. McLaren, http://brianmclaren.net/palm-sunday/

Sir, We Wish to See Jesus

March 13, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

John 12:20-33

By the twelfth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus has become something of a celebrity, and so some Greeks approach his disciples and ask to see him. They approach Philip, who, although he’s Galilean, has a Greek name. Maybe he’s more accustomed to Gentiles. The Greeks say to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” When Philip relays their request, Jesus answers with a response that seems unrelated to what they asked, typical in John’s Gospel. If the Greeks are actually right there, eavesdropping, and if they do hear Jesus’ answer, I’ll bet they’re confused.

The Greeks said they wanted to “see” Jesus, and in John “seeing” is code for understanding. They want to see Jesus, and perhaps, to follow him. This seems to be a sign for Jesus: the fact that people outside Judaism are looking for him means his hour has come. He says a grain of wheat will remain just that, a single grain, unless it falls into the earth and dies, and then it produces much fruit. And then he teaches that those who love their lives, who maintain the status quo, protect and conserve their lives, will lose them. But those who reject their lives – elsewhere he says, “lose their lives for my sake” – will find them, will have real life, a full life, a wholehearted life. I wonder if the Greeks were looking for that.

What does Jesus mean? Barbara Brown Taylor offers this possibility: “[T]he hardest spiritual work in the world is to love your neighbor as yourself – to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it. All you have to do,” she says, “is recognize another you ‘out there’ – your other self in the world – for whom you may care as instinctively as you care for yourself. To become that person, even for a moment, is to understand what it means to die to your self.”

Loving others, really loving others, is to understand what it means to die to self. Don’t we experience the truth of this in our lives; don’t we see for ourselves that sacrificing for love, letting our hearts break open for love like a seed that breaks open, leads to more life? We see it in families where parents give up time, money, old dreams, and personal ambition so that their children might flourish. We see it where spouses set aside their own wants or needs to help their partner become who they are meant to be. We see it when someone cares for a frail parent, or a spouse with dementia; we see it when people show up for each other in a crisis. We see it when people stand up to injustice that doesn’t impact them personally. In a thousand places and ways we know this to be true. These may not sound like big deaths. They are the small deaths we experience throughout our lives when we love in big ways. But through them we live out the truth of Jesus’ words over and over again. Our “dying” multiplies, grows, spreads, and results in life.

If you want to see Jesus, it helps to know what you’re looking for. We see Jesus when we see profound love, love for another or for many others that is powerful enough that some part of the self must die, the part that gets in the way of love. We see Jesus when we recognize that this kind of death leads to more life. And so based on what Jesus taught, we see Jesus …
• … when someone dies to refusing to forgive.
• … when someone dies to arrogance and self-righteousness.
• … when someone dies to greed.
• … when someone dies to revenge.
• … when someone dies to violence as a solution.
• … when someone dies to the need to control or manipulate.
• … when someone dies to the need for power, privilege, and prestige.
• … when someone dies to hate.

“Sir, we would see Jesus.” In many older church sanctuaries, this Bible verse is carved into the interior of the pulpit, where only the preacher can see it. Of course, this reflects a time when the person reading the verse, the person standing in the pulpit, was invariably addressed as “Sir,” never “Miss” or “Madam.” Still, the idea is to remind the person who occupies the pulpit that this is the desire of everyone sitting in the pews: to see Jesus; to encounter Jesus, the one in whom we best encounter the love of God. But here’s the thing: This is great advice, but not just for preachers. It is also our calling as the church, as those who call ourselves the body of Christ in the world: to let the world see Jesus, in us.

Resources:
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World (New York, HarperCollins: 2009).
Janet H. Hunt, “When Dying Means Living,” March 18, 2012, http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2012/03/when-dying-means-living.html

The Whole World

March 4, 2024 / cjwhitt / 1 Comment

John 3:14-21

Some of us are old enough to remember the man known as “Rainbow Man,” who held up signs that said, “John 3:16” at sporting events during the 1970’s and ‘80’s. You can find the verse on bumper stickers and neckties, and there’s even a John 3:16 Nascar, a bright yellow racing car emblazoned with “John 3:16” on the doors and the phrase “Victory in Jesus” on the hood. Obviously, John 3:16 is a big deal. But what does it mean? There is a traditional interpretation of this verse that most people believe is a literal interpretation: if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior, you will go to heaven and not to hell when you die. This is a source of great comfort to many people, but a source of anguish to many others.

The problem with a so-called literal translation of these verses is that it really can’t be done. What does “condemned” mean? Condemned to what? By whom? What does “perish” mean? What does “eternal life” mean? Is it something that happens now, or after we die? Does “eternal” refer to time or quality? What does “believe” mean? Is it intellectual assent, or is it more like “trust” or “follow”? You can’t read this passage without answering these and many other questions and as soon as you attempt to answer them you’ve quit being literal and started to interpret. You’ve started to put a spin on it. The typical spin answers all these questions as though Jesus is referring to life after death, as though “believing” means what you think about something, and as though Jesus is intending by his words to create a small circle of insiders who are “saved” while the rest of the world can go to hell, literally. That interpretation works only if you define those crucial words in a way that plays fast and loose with the original Greek, the context of these verses, and much of what we know about Jesus and God from the rest of Scripture.

The context is a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus. Nicodemus visits Jesus in the middle of the night, plagued with questions about who Jesus is. Nicodemus is so concrete that he’s confused by Jesus’ metaphors. When Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be “born again,” Nicodemus says, “Can one enter a second time the mother’s womb?” And so Jesus pushes him gently: This is about newness, Nicodemus. This is about letting go of old truths, old definitions, old traditions, old theological certainties, and allowing God to lead you into a new and open-ended, hope-filled future.

And then Jesus says the most remarkable thing. John 3:16: “For God so loved the world…”. The single most important thing to notice about this verse is that God loved the world. God deeply loved the world that God created, and God longs for this creation to live; this whole world, this whole creation. And this is the way God loved the world: God loved by giving the son that the world might be saved. God wants to save the world; not individuals, not souls, this entire world.

All of John’s gospel has an urgency that often comes across in either/or terms. John draws sharp divisions between believers and non-believers, saved and condemned, those who do evil and those who do good. This either/or approach made sense for John’s minority community, which was trying to define itself not only against non-Christians but against other Christians. It doesn’t make sense for us today, when Christianity has been the dominant religion in the Western world for centuries, and we have the power to marginalize, exclude, and persecute. If we ignore this part of the context, then, in our hands, the gospel of John, and John 3:16 in particular, could do serious harm. And they have.

We don’t throw out this passage, however, because life can feel black and white at times. You take that drink or not, put the needle in your arm or not, walk out on the abuse or not, despair or hope, lie or speak the truth. No shades of gray. Some people come to faith because of a crisis, and John 3:16 feels like a lifeline. I once was lost. Now I’m found. I was blind. Now I see.

We also don’t throw out this passage because even those who have never felt driven to their knees before God are included in the rescue God intends for the whole world. What we know is that “God so loved the world . . .” The whole world. These familiar words are at odds with any interpretation of this verse that would exclude, demean, or minimize any part of the world, or any person in it, regardless of what they believe.

Frederick Buechner wrote, “The greatest miracle that Christianity has to proclaim is that the love that suffered agonies on that hill outside the city walls was the love of God himself, the love of God for his creation, which is a love that has no limit, not even the limit of death.”

The love of God for God’s world has no limits. No limits. How else are we to respond, but to cherish the world and every creature in it? And to live that love by throwing out a lifeline, to rescue, in very real, literal ways, whatever and whomever God so loves – which is everyone, and everything?

Resources:
John Stendahl, “The Beginner’s Gospel,” in The Christian Century, March 19, 2009, http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2009-03/beginners-gospel.
Marilyn Salmon, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=3/18/2012

The Disruptive Jesus

February 28, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

John 2:13-22

The story we call “the cleansing of the temple” appears in all four gospels. That’s a pretty good clue that it actually happened. But while Matthew, Mark, and Luke put it at the end of Jesus’ ministry, just before the arrest that leads to his crucifixion, John puts it up front, soon after Jesus’ miracle at the wedding at Cana. As one commentator puts it, John uses the words of the other three gospels but never the tune.

It was at the wedding at Cana that Jesus turned water into wine. John gives us an important detail: the water was in stone jars, which meant it was used for the rites of purification. By the time of Jesus, there was an elaborate system of purification. Some things were considered pure or clean, and others impure or unclean. Women were unclean seven days after the birth of a son, 14 days after the birth of a daughter. Dead bodies were unclean; certain foods were unclean; the list had grown very, very long. The system created a world with sharp social boundaries between pure and impure, righteous and sinner, whole and not whole, male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile. Changing this water into wine was symbolic of breaking down these barriers.

The Temple was the heart of the purity system. The animals being sold there were required for sacrifice. Moneychangers were an essential part of the system because it was idolatrous to use Roman coins stamped with the emperor’s image to buy your sacrifice. The moneychangers were giving pure tokens in exchange for impure money. When you added up the temple tax required of every Jewish male, the cost of animals for required sacrifices, the fee for the money changers, and the travel costs associated with coming to Jerusalem at least once a year, the whole thing added up to big business. It also meant the poorer you were, and the less able you were, the less access you had to a good relationship with God.

Jesus was not the first to cry out against this system. Centuries before Jesus, the prophet Micah asked, “Will God be pleased with thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of oil? …. God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” The prophet Amos raised a similar cry, “Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them,” says God, “but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” But the system persisted, so Jesus lost his temper. He drove the moneychangers and the animals out of the Temple and overturned their tables.

I’m very careful with this passage. Anyone who has ever lived with a person who explodes knows that the last thing that people with bad tempers need is biblical approval of their temper tantrums. I think we need a bit more humility than Jesus when it comes to a situation like this. As much as I affirm that we’re all to be more Christ-like, perhaps this is one of those times when we should ask, “What did Jesus mean?” instead of “What would Jesus do?”

There are several layers of interpretation possible here. Some commentators see a prophetic prediction of the destruction of the temple that occurred in 70 AD. Others understand the story as a restoration of the temple to its sacred purpose, as a place of prayer for all people, without exploitation. A third approach suggests that Jesus fulfills all the functions of the temple building as the place to meet God.

All these interpretations are compelling, but we also see that Jesus disrupts things. He challenged the rules that named things and people pure or impure in almost everything he did. Debie Thomas writes, “Jesus is not about ‘business as usual.’ Jesus is not a protector of the status quo. Jesus has no interest in propping up institutions of faith that elevate comfort and complacency over holiness and justice.”

That leaves us with a handful of questions. What are we passionate about when it comes to our faith? Have we settled for a way of being Christian that is more safe, casual, and comfortable than it is disorienting, challenging, and transformative? One of my heroes is Janie Spahr, the tireless evangelist for LGBTQ+ rights in the church. Janie says, “If you ever have the chance to get in trouble for the sake of Jesus — Do it.”

Are you willing to get in trouble for Jesus? Am I? These are terrific Lenten questions.

Resources:
Debie Thomas, “Not in God’s House,” https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2937-not-in-god-s-house
Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (New York: HarperColins, 1994)

Losing to Find

February 19, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Mark 8:31-38

Three times during his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus speaks of his impending death and resurrection, and each time, he pairs this announcement with a teaching about following him. We read the first one here in Chapter 8, verses 31-38. In the New Revised Standard Version, Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Scary, right? Whenever we hit a scary or difficult teaching of Jesus, the best approach is to look at it in the context of his other teachings. Jesus taught about nonviolence, a simple lifestyle, love of the poor, love of enemies, forgiveness, inclusivity, mercy, healing; he taught about not seeking status, power, privilege, and possessions. These teachings tell us that human beings matter to God; that who you are matters to God. So “deny yourself” and “take up your cross” can’t be read in a way that devalues human life and well-being. In other words, these verses cannot be a request that people denigrate themselves in order to “bear their cross” and suffer, as this passage has sometimes been read. Not all suffering is sacrificial or beneficial, and we should be deeply suspicious of any statements that justify abuse or oppression. We need to read these words in the light of what Jesus called the two greatest commandments: that we are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

That’s a good place to start in trying to understand this passage: To deny yourself and to take up your cross must in some way further these two great commandments. To deny ourselves and to take up our crosses must help us, somehow, to choose the connection with God and each other that God chooses.

We get a hint from Jesus’ conversation with his disciples. His disciples weren’t bombarded with 5000 advertising images every day as we are, telling them what they are supposed to look like and drive and wear and eat to be successful or cool or hip. But they still imagine that the secret to life is strength and power, the 3 A’s of appearance, achievement, and affluence, rather than vulnerability and love. So they interpret Jesus’ miraculous acts as demonstrations of power rather than manifestations of love. Jesus explains to them that the predictable outcome of insisting on living in God’s kingdom rather than in Caesar’s, of living the way of love rather than the way of domination, will be his death. The disciples, and Peter in particular, throw a fit. Jesus needs to win! Conquer! Defeat! Not be conquered and be killed. Jesus turns on Peter and accuses him of being the mouthpiece of the dark side. Peter’s way of thinking is the opposite of God’s thinking.

What Jesus is saying is that they, and we, need to go through some form of death – psychological, spiritual, relational, or physical – in order to loosen our ties to the way of winning and defeating, the way of the 3 A’s, the way of disconnection from God and each other. To “deny yourself” is to embrace the truth that we can’t live together peaceably, we can’t save our planet, we can’t thrive, without understanding that we’re all connected.

Karoline Lewis writes, “Lent is a denial of the self in the best way, the self that refuses community. The self that thinks it can survive on its own. The self that rejects the deep need of humanity: belonging.” This is a whole lot harder than giving up chocolate for 6 weeks. Jesus doesn’t sugar coat this. The images he uses are of sacrifice and death. Becoming aware of whatever it is in us that gets in the way of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, including loving ourselves, is hard work. As Richard Rohr writes, “Before the truth ‘sets you free,’ it tends to make you miserable.”

It is hard work but it is holy work and we do not do it alone. God is all about resurrection. The dailiness of the work fits my experience: every single day, daily dying to what does not give life, and daily rising to what does. Jesus promises this is what will save us. This is how we will find ourselves and each other.

Resources:

Karoline Lewis, “A Different Kind of Denial,” February 22, 2015, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3542

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).

David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/lent-2-b/

King Cake, Chocolate, and the Lenten Revolution

February 13, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Mark 1:9-15

I heard a story on NPR the other day about King Cake, and how important it is in New Orleans during the days before Fat Tuesday. The radio journalists used the French term, Mardi Gras, as well as the English translation, Fat Tuesday. They mentioned parades and floats, and described King Cake in detail, sharing the results of a poll deciding which was the most popular King Cake in New Orleans. What wasn’t mentioned, not once, was the word, “Lent,” or the phrase, “Ash Wednesday.” Nothing was said that would hint that the whole point of Fat Tuesday, of Mardi Gras, is to party hearty before the Lenten fast begins.

I suppose this could be due to ignorance. Lent isn’t a commercial success, after all. Or it may be due to Lent’s reputation as a time for penitence, for remembering that we’re miserable sinners in the eyes of our harshly judging God. For centuries, Lent focused primarily on self-deprivation and generally feeling unworthy. Lent kept people focused on their fear of what was going to happen to them after they die, which meant they focused less on the injustices of this earthly existence. As a result, few people rocked the boat in the name of Jesus, which, by the way, was convenient for those in power.

But this doesn’t fit with the God we meet in Jesus, whose very first message in the gospels, usually translated “repent,” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means to change your mind or your heart. Change, because the kingdom of God is at hand. Other translations say, “Ultimate reality is at hand!” or “God’s benevolent society is already among us.” The thing is, changing in order to live in this ultimate reality or in God’s benevolent society wouldn’t be convenient for those in power at all, because living as though God is the ruler of our hearts and lives means living as though the leaders of this world are not. Jesus’ first words must be read in the context of what was happening at the time: the kingdom of Caesar and the empire of Rome.

Jesus came to announce a new kingdom, a new way of life, a new way of peace that carried good news to all people. It wasn’t information about how individual souls could avoid hell and go to heaven after death. It was about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. It was about God’s faithful solidarity with all humanity in suffering, in oppression, and in the face of evil. It was a summons to rethink everything and enter a life of retraining as citizens of this new kingdom.

That is why Eugene Peterson writes that living a holy life is the Christian equivalent of revolution. What Lent is really about is remembering that we are part of that revolution, a revolution defined by resurrection. A revolution that says no to what deals in death and yes to what gives life for us and for all people. Lent is when we notice the ways we’ve slipped into living in the other “kingdoms” or systems around us, the systems that do not celebrate healing and our common humanity, that do not see the world and life as a gift, that do not put love of God and neighbor as the central shaping principle for everything we do.

So during Lent, we’re invited to practice saying no to what does not give life and love, and saying yes to what does. You’ve probably known people who give up chocolate for Lent; maybe you’ve done it yourself. I honestly don’t understand how depriving yourself of one of life’s most innocent God-given pleasures brings us closer to God. But there’s a good reason to give up chocolate, actually, or at least most chocolate. Human trafficking, child slavery, and abusive labor practices are common in the cacao industry. Hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their destitute parents or outright stolen and then shipped to West Africa, where they are enslaved on cocoa farms. These children, 11-to-16-years-old but some as young as 5, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They’re paid nothing, receive no education, are under fed, and often are viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again.

Candy companies, including but not limited to Mars, Nestlé, Hershey, and Cadbury, have admitted accountability and promised to remedy this situation. Sadly, 20 years has passed since they made this promise, and the numbers of exploited children has only increased. Luckily for chocolate lovers, there are a number of ethical chocolate companies that certify they are child labor free; here is one list: https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/ethical-chocolate-companies.

Welcome to the Lenten revolution.

Resources:

Richard Rohr, The Naked Now (New York: Crossroad, 2009).

Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2010).

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005).

Amanda Gregory, “Chocolate and Child Slavery: Say No to Human Trafficking this Holiday Season,” October 31, 2013, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-gregory/chocolate-and-child-slave_b_4181089.html.

Martha Mendoza, “U.S. Sued Over Imports of Cocoa Harvested by Child Labor,” August 15, 2023, The Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-08-15/cocoa-harvested-by-children-child-labor.

Slave Free Chocolate, https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/

You Have Something on Your Forehead

February 6, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

It’s Ash Wednesday evening, and you have attended an Ash Wednesday church service. Or maybe you’ve taken advantage of “Ashes on the Go” at the El Cerrito del Norte BART station, where I’ll be joining clergy colleagues this coming Ash Wednesday. You have a black smudge of ashes on your face. What do you say if someone tells you that you have something on your forehead?

In Scripture, ashes are a sign of mourning. Resurrection to new life, which we celebrate at Easter, is always preceded by death to the old life, and even if the promise of resurrection is the life you’ve always wanted, a whole-hearted life, life in the kingdom of God, any little change is a little death; any little death of ego; any little dying to thinking things are black and white is a little death. An even bigger change feels like an even bigger death. The ashes acknowledge the grief that goes with these deaths. So, you might say, “The cross of ashes reminds us that there are things we have to die to in order to live whole-heartedly. The ashes tell us that every little death brings grief.”

But in addition to announcing grief, those ashes proclaim resurrection. Astronomer and cosmologist Carl Sagan wrote, “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” Joni Mitchell put it more poetically in her song covered by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon, And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” It is an act of resurrection to become aware that we are all connected, that we are all in this together, and that today, in our world, this connection is more important than being “right,” maybe more important than anything else. So, if someone asks you what’s on your forehead, you might say, “Stardust. Billion-year-old carbon. What’s on my forehead is my connection to the past, present and future of humanity and of the other approximately 8 and a half million species on this blue-green planet that God gave us as our home. What’s on my forehead reminds me that we are part of everything, and everything is a part of us, and that there are ways that we can celebrate that and embrace that and be open to that rather than deny it.”

When I make the mark of a cross in ashes on someone’s forehead, I say, “You are stardust, and to stardust you will return.”

Ashes on the Go is returning to Del Norte BART in El Cerrito on Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024. Come receive this blessing from local clergy, 4:30-6:00pm. All are welcome!

Listen

February 6, 2024 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Mark 9:2-9

The event in the life of Christ that we call the Transfiguration is one of those stories drenched with meaning and truth, and we aren’t supposed to get distracted by whether it’s a factual account of an historical moment. If you get stuck on that question, you’ll miss the good stuff.

We hear the story every Transfiguration Sunday. Jesus leads Peter, John, and James up on a mountain by themselves. There, he is “transfigured,” but Mark doesn’t tell us what that looks like except that his clothes become dazzling white. Two other figures appear – Moses the lawgiver and the prophet Elijah. Peter’s response is, “Let’s build houses! Let’s stay here!” That’s often our inclination when we’ve had a spiritual high, a mountaintop experience. But we see Jesus leave the mountain to pick up his everyday life and his ministry of healing.

There are, indeed, mountaintop experiences that change us forever. Besides those momentary spiritual highs, however, there is the long and sometimes difficult climb of the life of faith. Most people realize marriage is work; experts describe it as a daily commitment, not just a one-time decision. As one writer says, “Every day you wake up you must decide to commit to your spouse for better or for worse.” It’s the same with the daily decision to follow Jesus, the decision to put one foot in front of the other on the path of faith.

There’s a reason Transfiguration Sunday is the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. I’ve often thought of Lent as a reset button. You lose focus, you lose your way on the path, you find yourself more distant from God than you want to be. Time for a reset. For centuries, Lent has been the season when we focus with new energy on the process of transfiguration that happens over the lifetime of a person of faith; it’s a season of practice, of training. Maybe “training” doesn’t have the sparkle of a mountaintop moment but as Cornelius Plantinga writes, “Spiritual exercise is like jogging. You often do it gladly. But you are no hypocrite if you jog even when you don’t feel like it.”

Just before Jesus heads down the hill, we hear the voice of God. God says, “Listen to him.” Listen to Jesus. I like the fact that God doesn’t say, “Become exactly like Jesus,” or “Take up your cross.” Just, “Listen to him.” That’s probably something I can do. Listening to Jesus in Scripture seems like an obvious place to start. When we listen to Jesus in Scripture, we’ll hear, “Peace be with you.” “I will give you rest.” “Take heart … do not be afraid.” We’ll hear that we will keep our heart only by giving our heart away, that we will find ourselves only by losing ourselves in love, and that we will be saved together, not in separation. We’ll hear that loving our neighbors as ourselves is the most important way we can love God.

And if we strive to love our neighbors as Jesus tells us, we will listen to our neighbors, as well. The 14th century Persian poet Hafiz wrote:
Everyone
Is God speaking
Why not be polite and
Listen to
Him?

God speaks to us again and again through the stories of other people, through our loved ones, through the person whose life is utterly different from yours or mine, and through people whose stories and experiences we might prefer not to hear. Some say that listening is the first duty of love; others say that listening is love. Listening tells someone that he or she matters, and that we are willing to risk being changed by what they say. One definition of communication is “opening yourself to change,” because if you really hear the other person, it means that you are allowing what the person says to impact you, to touch you, to change the way you think and feel and act. In other words, listening transfigures us.

The possibility of transformation is the essence of hope. We aren’t stuck with the way things are. You aren’t stuck with the way things are. Things can change, the world can change, we can change. This is the very purpose of the life of faith.

I think I just chose my focus, my training and practice for Lent this year: listen.

Contemplative Activism

January 31, 2024 / cjwhitt / 1 Comment

Mark 1:29-39

We’re told “the whole city was gathered” around Jesus’ door because he’s been healing the sick. Yet, in the morning, when it was still dark, he went to a deserted place to pray.

With so many social and global ills bearing down on us – war in several parts of the globe, climate change, gun violence, white supremacy, political polarization, homelessness, a growing disparity between rich and poor, just to name a few – you might think, “Who has time to pray? We need to act!” But as someone put it, the answer to the question, “Should I be an activist or a contemplative?” is “Yes!” With his early morning prayer in solitude, Jesus is our role model for “contemplative activism.”

Here’s the scenario: You’re passionate about a cause. Or many causes. You want to change the world, and the world sorely needs to be changed. Wrongs need to be righted; systems, structures, and individuals need to be confronted. Our righteous anger or moral outrage are motivating, but they are not effective as strategies. Further, they just aren’t sustainable. We lose hope, become exhausted, get burned out. Or we cause as many problems as we solve.

Thomas Merton wrote, “He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas. There is nothing more tragic in the modern world than the misuse of power and action.”

Someone else put it this way: “We will respond to trauma either by praying for God to punish those who hurt us, or by praying, ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.’” In order to be able to pray the latter, we need an approach to promoting social change that channels our best, loving selves, instead of our angry, resentful selves, an approach that allows for both self-examination and self-care. The term for that approach is “contemplative action.”

The guru of contemplative action is Father Richard Rohr, who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 “…because,” he writes, “I saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. Over the years I met many social activists who were doing excellent social analysis and advocating for crucial justice issues, but they were not working from an energy of love except in their own minds. They were still living out of their false self with the need to win, the need to look good, the attachment to a superior, politically correct self-image.”

Rohr continues, “They might have the answer, but they are not themselves the answer. In fact, they are often part of the problem. … Too many reformers self-destruct from within. For that very reason, I believe, Jesus and great spiritual teachers first emphasize transformation of consciousness and soul. Unless that happens, there is no lasting or grounded reform or revolution. When a subjugated people rise to power, they often become as controlling and dominating as their oppressors because the same demon of power has never been exorcised in them. We need less reformation and more transformation.”

Jesus shows us what we must do. Even with the whole town clamoring at his door, with more work to be done, when it was still dark, he went to a deserted place to pray. He reconnected with God, and likely with himself. There are many ways to pray that are considered contemplative, but they always have a foundation of silence, stillness, and solitude. For some, this means a commitment to practices like centering prayer, the Daily Examen, or meditation. Others choose physical practices like yoga, breathing exercises, or dancing.

Activist, or a contemplative? Yes!

Solvitur Ambulando

Putting one foot in front of the other on the path of faith

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