If Faith were a Song, What Would It Sound Like (please, not George Michael)

A word does not have a meaning.            

I mean they do, but sometimes the meaning of a word is vague, fuzzy, or it hits many things.  Linguists do not usually speak of a “definition” of a word, but of a “range of meanings.” A word is like a nebula.    Sure, it is an entity, but what exactly is it?  It has a lot of parts to it, a lot of colors. And when you find out more, you discover that the colors were made up by scientists and don’t reflect the reality at all, but are there to show depth and beauty.   Even so, the meanings of words can be beautiful, but hard to pin down.

Like the word “bear”.  “Bear” of course has two meanings, one is a large animal with pointy bits or possibly our spouse who we say is being a “bear” this morning.  But the other, separate range of words, has a root source of “bearing” something on one’s shoulders, which often means something difficult and we can use it to mean that we can “bear” with someone who is being difficult, which means that we can say of our spouse that we are “bearing” with a “bear”, neither of which has to do with the literal meaning of either word “bear”.  This is why words don’t have a single meaning, but a range of meanings.

The tough word we will be talking about today is “faith”.  Comes from the Latin root “fides” which is a translation of the Greek word “pistis.”

For secular people, faith is spoken of a “leap”, an accepted conviction without evidence.  The idea that God exists is a “leap of faith” that some hold and others do not.  Jesus being raised from the dead is a “leap of faith” that Christians hold. Creationism is a “leap of faith” which stands in the face of science.  And some think that the sign of being a true, saved, believer is to take a leap of faith toward Jesus without evidence.

However, this idea of a belief without evidence is only as old as 150 years when Soren Kierkegaard created existentialism, where one creates one’s own life through belief or through a personal act of will.  Before then, faith goes beyond what one can see, but is still based on reality. We step on a plane, which is an act of faith that we won’t die when we go up in the air, but it is based on knowledge that planes rarely cause people to die.

So if someone holds their chair for me when I sit down, I am putting my faith in him.    I am putting my faith in him because he could, right now, pull the chair out from under me and then I break a bone.  Some might say that I am making a leap of faith by sitting on this chair. On the other hand, I have sat in others of these chairs and not fallen.  I have experienced, let's say, this person's character and have evidence that he is not the type of person to pull the chair out from under me. This is the kind of evidence that the Bible talks about.  Yes, we are putting our faith in an uncertain future, but it is dependent on our experiences in the past.

For many Christians, to have “faith” is to believe in one of the creeds, which comes from the Latin word “Credo” which means “I believe”.   A creed is basically a laundry list of basics that “true believers” should believe.  Others call creeds the “prolegomena to the gospel” or an introduction to some basic facts we need to hold before we can move ahead with the deeper aspects of the gospel.   However, this was not conceived as the foundation of faith until the mid to late 300s, which is long after Bible times.

The apostle Paul and the book of Acts speak about “the faith”.  This is a particular belief in Jesus, risen from the dead, king of the new kingdom of God that all Christians have.  So they almost never spoke of Christians, but spoke rather of a belief system. A belief system that causes one to change one’s authority from one source-- Jewish priests, for example-- to another-- Jesus, and the community that trusts in that authority.  For many, “faith” means to follow a certain authority.

The word “faith” in Greek is pistis and the word for “I believe” is pisteuo-- both are forms of the same word.  Sometimes this might hold to a “belief” or a “belief system”, but in the bible that meaning of the word is rare. The Bible has a range of meanings for that word, which includes “belief”, but also “confidence” and “perseverance” and “commitment”-- such as having a life-long commitment to a king, which we call “fealty” or a life-long commitment to a spouse which we call “fidelity” or a life-long commitment to a god, which we call belonging to a “faith”, all of which are English words that come from the Latin word fides which we would translate in modern English, “faith”.

But I think that if we were going to use one word that gets at the core of the significance of the Bible word pistis, I think that word would be “trust.”   The Bible already warns us that belief in facts don’t bring us one step closer to walking with God. As James says, “Even the demons believe, and the shudder.”  So there is a reliable pistis and an unreliable pistis. Demons have knowledge of many of the same facts as we, but take a remarkably different course of action.  Belief in a set of facts don’t mean much.

Nor does a commitment mean much if the object of the commitment is evil.  We might consider faithfulness to our word or to our commitment to an ideal to be great, until that commitment allows us to kill people in its name. Fealty to a king is evil if that king tells you to harm innocent people.  Faith in God is a detriment if our God is not a God of love.

Let’s try out this idea of “trust” in the Bible.
Abraham trusted in God and this was credited to him as righteousness.   Abraham didn’t just believe a promise, but lived a life of trust in the God of love.

Jesus said, “By your faith you are healed.”  This isn’t just belief in the fact that Jesus could heal, but that Jesus and God would do right by them, deliver them from their life of destruction.

Jesus said, “Trust in God, trust also in me.”

See if this makes more sense, “If you have trust as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain be cast in the sea, and it will happen.”  Not belief or confidence that God CAN do such a thing, but trust that it is according to God’s loving desire and that God has the power to do this.

When it says in the bible not to doubt, it really means to set aside one’s distrust of God.  We sometimes believe that God has it in for us, that God doesn’t have our best interests in mind.  Like the children of the wilderness who didn’t have “faith” in God and so didn’t think that God would feed them. As if God didn’t know what they needed.

• To have trust, is to rely on God’s care for us.
• To have trust is to rely on God to guide us to live our best lives.
• To have trust is to act in God’s love, even if it is hard or asks a lot.
• To have trust is to be in a relationship for the long haul, not just an exciting moment.  Trust doesn’t look for the next spiritual thrill, but walks with God regularly, even in the boring or difficult times.
• To have trust is ultimately leaning on God to be one’s security.
• Trust is knowing that God will provide even if love requires that we take chances with our provision.
• To have trust is to rely on God as deliverer from all that oppresses us.
• To have trust is to hear things we don’t like, but we will listen anyway.
• To have trust is, almost more than anything, to wait for the good that we are impatient for.  To believe that God does have peace in store for us, even if we don’t see how we will obtain it.

Trust is when my family and I were praying for God to pay our utilities.  We had a number of people living with us and so our utility debt was three thousand dollars.  So we were praying that God would provide us with the funds. This was a faithful prayer because we had dedicated our house and our lives to taking in the poor.  And it was a desperate prayer because we knew that if we didn’t pay our water bill, especially, they would call Family Services on us because we were “endangering” our children.   So we prayed for God to pay our utility bills.

That morning at 1am Diane woke me up.  She said, “I’m sorry to have to wake you up, but the car is totalled.”  I am very groggy at 1am so it took me a while to register. I went out our door and instead of our car there was broken glass and a lot of flashing lights.  It turns out a drunk driver in a large truck hit our car on the street, pushed our vehicle two houses down into the neighbor’s yard. The police was concerned because brown fluid was dripping from our ceiling.  That was the gravy we had placed there left over from the meal that night. Yep, it was totaled.

In about a month, we received a check from an insurance company.  It was for six thousand dollars. Enough for us to purchase a used minivan for three thousand and to pay our utility bills.

In my experience, trust is messy.  Trust is chancy and causes us to take chances.  But trust in God means: if you follow the path of love, everything will work out in the end.  Even if in a weird way.

The Politics of Baptism

Nelson Mandela of South Africa spent 18 years in prison on Robben Island.  Robben, isn’t Dutch for Robbers, but for “seal” because before they built a prison there, the island was covered with seals.  When Mandela was released from that prison, that meant a new opportunity for himself and for South Africa, a new future. To symbolize that event, there is a swim that happens every year from the island in the sea to the mainland, that takes a good swimmer about 2 hours and a professional swimmer 23 minutes.  It is called the Freedom Swim, and it symbolizes the deliverance of an entire nation. Of course, taking a dip in the ocean doesn’t make a nation free. But participating in it makes one feel that they are participating in the freedom the new nation brings.

This is baptism.

Is anyone familiar with the story of Moses and the mass baptism?  What about the time that Noah baptized his family? No? Smh. What are pastors teaching these days?

Paul, in I Corinthians 10, talks about Moses taking the children of Israel through a baptism  What baptism? That in the Red Sea. Peter speaks about Noah going through a baptism. Going across the flood with his family.  And John baptized in the Jordan River. Why? To remember the baptism of Joshua and the children of Israel, crossing the Jordan River centuries before.

Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you, let’s talk about what the Bible considers baptism.

First of all, the word “baptise” comes from the Greek, “baptidzo”, which doesn’t mean “to dunk” but “to give a thorough soaking”, either through dunking or pouring or whatever means.  It absolutely does not mean cleaning.

The pattern of baptism, whether Noah, Moses, Joshua, John or Jesus-- or the entire world in creation-- is this:

-A group of people are trapped in a horrible nation or world, trapped by oppression
-God promises to deliver these people
-God leads the people to a body of water, which threatens suffering or death
-God delivers the people across the dangerous body of water
-On the other side is a new world, a new opportunity for freedom without oppression

We can see this as crossing water and delivering a nation to freedom, like Moses or Nelson Mandela.  But it is more likely seen as immigration to a new nation of God.

Acts 2:36-38 For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that the Lord and Christ whom God has made is this Jesus whom you crucified.’

Hearing this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘What are we to do, brothers?’   ‘You must repent,’ Peter answered, ‘and every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Here is Peter preaching to the crowds, months after Jesus’ crucifixion.  He is telling them that their leaders crucified Jesus, even though Jesus was an innocent man.  He tells them “you crucified him”, because in a sense, this is true. They are part of a system in which crucifying innocent people, even the son of God, can happen.  They all know this. They don’t see any way out.

But Peter offers them a way out.  If they are baptized in Jesus’ name, they are doing two things: they are renouncing or “repenting of” the evil system they are a part of.  And they join the kingdom of Jesus, a completely separate political entity. They leave the old, corrupt, oppressive, evil world behind. In their case, this world was the temple and priestly and Roman systems they were a part of.  They knew that this system was oppressive, but they couldn’t do anything about it.

Peter’s answer is, “leave it and join Jesus’ kingdom.”  The sins that Peter was telling them they get forgiveness of, are the sins of the system-- the actions of oppression and anti-love they are participating in.  Once they are baptized, they are free to live in accord with the love and surrender of Jesus.

This is the same answer John the baptist gave.  He pointed at the corruption of Judea and the high priest and Pharisees and Sadducees and he baptized to get everyone out of that system.  He was pointing to a new nation, but he didn’t know what that kingdom looked like.

Jesus also had the same answer.  But he showed us and explained to us what that new nation looked like.  Who would be a part of it, and how it would operate. And he had people baptized so they would know that they were no longer in the old, corrupt system, but in a new world.

We need to recognize that we too are in a corrupt place, a corrupt nation.  Our nation was built on the backs of slaves, of Natives whose land our ancestors stole, that they refused a living to the poor people they forced here.  This nation continues to forfeit the rights and equal opportunities to African Americans, to Native Americans, to people who suffered from sexual abuse, to LGBTQ, to the homeless, to the mentally ill, to people whose only crime is to try their best to be a good citizen.  This nation kills innocent people around the world. This nation is corrupt.

And Jesus offers us a way out.  Baptism isn’t just a religious ceremony.  It is a way of turning our backs on the corruption of this age and to live a life free from that corruption, if only we would take it.  Jesus shows us not only a way to be free from our sin, but to be free from our nation’s sins.

To do this, we have to be involved in politics, the way Jesus was.  The first way is to join Jesus’ nation-- his kingdom whose only law is love, which is not bound up by the corruption of humanity, which breaks the oppression of all evil systems, including the evil systems of the churches built in Jesus’ name.

Jesus' Political Theory (in Context)

“After John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:14-15

I just want to let you know, before I begin on this story, that I’m not really a fan of sports and especially not boxing.  But here goes, anyway.

In the 18th century, boxing had a much more open field than it does today. The boxing ring used to be a circle, which is why it is called a “ring” and the crowds, almost all men, would crowd around to see the series of bouts.  A single boxer would come out the winner at the end of the night. At this point, anyone who wanted to challenge the winner from the crowd was welcome to come up and take their chances. But instead of a number of people shouting, the challenger would take off their hat and throw it into the ring to declare their challenge.  This is why Teddy Roosevelt used the phrase, “I am throwing my hat into the ring” when he was stepping forward to run for president. And that’s the source of this saying.

When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand, believe in the gospel,” Jesus was making a religious statement, but even more than that, he was throwing his hat into the ring— in the sense of Teddy Roosevelt, not like a boxer.  Because there already was a kingdom of God that almost every Jew recognized. And Jesus was saying something decidedly political here. That a new kingdom is coming. A new king is coming. And he is set to take over. This was Jesus’ political speech.

In the ancient world, all the way until the time of the Protestant reformation, there was no separation of religion and state.  They were constantly and continuously united. If you were talking about politics, you were certainly talking about a religion. They weren’t separated.  Every king had their own god, sometimes their god was themselves— like Pharoah or Alexander the Great. A political leader was also the head priest of the nation and they led the worship of the nation.  A battle is an act of evangelism— a war is the battle between two gods and the general that wins the battle declares their god as more powerful than the god who lost. And the loser must acknowledge that the winner’s god is more powerful than the loser’s god.  The loser might still worship their own god, but they also have to worship the victor’s god.

Except for one group, the Jews.

A hundred and sixty some years before the birth of Jesus, there’s this Greek ruler called Antiochus Epiphanes. “Epiphanies” meant that he was calling himself “god on earth”.  But his main God was Zeus, and so he decided that that every national temple under his control had to be dedicated to Zeus, including the temple to Yahweh in Judea. After all, the Jews were the losers, they lost to the Greeks.  So they should properly dedicate their main temple to the winner, Zeus. So he sent his soldiers to Judea, gathered some faithful Jewish servants of the Greek overlords and sacrificed a pig to Zeus in the Temple of Yahweh.

Not everyone was okay with this.  One of them was a old guy named Matthias and his sons.  He was a descendent of Aaron, so in line to be the high priest of Yahweh.  When the soldiers came to sacrifice a pig on his altar, he sacrificed them, instead and called his sons and anyone else to stand up and fight against these Greek savages that desecrated the Temple of Yahweh.  You see, because Jews were taught that no matter who won a battle or war, Yahweh was always in charge, always ruling the whole earth and all the nations. So they weren’t going to accept someone disrespecting Yahweh.

After seven years of battle, Matthias and his sons, the Maccabees, gained freedom from the Greek oppressors and rededicated the temple to Yahweh, which is what the holiday Haunakah is about.  Matthias passed away and one of his surviving sons, John, became ruler of Judea. He was primarily the High Priest, but he was also the king, in charge of the nation of Judea. This nation was going to go back to Moses’ law and that would be the law of the nation. He set up a council of elders called the Sanhedrin, and they would meet together regularly to discuss how to interpret the law and apply it to all Jews.  John was not only the king of Judea, but to all who would come to the Temple to worship, to all Jews throughout the world— in Babylon, in Persia, in Egypt, in Turkey— everywhere. This was a remarkably powerful position. John was the king of the Jews, the anointed one, the Messiah, both priest and king,

But even if you agree on the god and agree on the law and agree on the priest and king, there is still a lot of room for interpretation.  Thus, political parties were born. There were three main ones:

The Sadducees.  They were kind of like the ancient Jewish Republicans.  They were very conservative in their interpretation of the law, and they also had the ear of the wealthy. They were generally the favorite of the high priests, and so stayed around Jerusalem and Judea, near their patrons.

The Pharisees.  They were kind of like the ancient Jewish Democrats.  They were more flexible with their understanding of the law, bringing in new ideas.  They were the populists, and many more people appreciated the Pharisees as leaders. They were seen as strict purists by some, but they just had a long tradition.

The Essenes— They were the rebels.  They saw that Matthias and John’s line to be the wrong line of high priests and they had stepped in front of the true line.  So they preferred not to worship with the other Jews, and had their own compounds in which they would bathe and clean themselves.  They were the real purists, much more than the Pharisees.

And we may see these groups as just arguing about legal or religious matters.  Not true. John’s son, Alexander Jonathan became king after him, and he openly sided with the Sadducees, so that really ticked off the Pharisees.  So the Pharisees invited the Greek king to come and take over Jerusalem. He said, “Great! I’ll be right over” and he brought all his troops to take out Alexander the High Priest and to take over Judea.  The Pharisees realized that he was pretty much overstepping their request, so they joined Alexander and the Sadducees to take out the Greeks. Thousands of people died, but they pushed the Greeks back. When it was all done, Alexander decided to punish the Pharisees by crucifying 800 of them.  About a decade later when Alexander’s wife, Salome had taken over as queen after his death, the Pharisees convinced her to kill of a number of Sadducees in revenge for the crucifixions. Politics was terrible and bloody in those days.

After about a hundred years of this infighting, some Jews invited the Roman general Pompeii to help them.  He came in and never left, taking control of Jerusalem and the Romans from that point on appointed the office of High Priest, ruler of the Jews.  Herod the Great came up later and, with Roman permission, took over Judea, Galilee, Idumea and Syria. He called himself “King of the Jews,” but since he was not of the nation of Judea, many Jews didn’t accept him as a real king.  The High Priest was still the real political ruler of the Jews.

And then comes Jesus in this complicated political situation. You have Pharisees, Sadducees, Herods and Roman governors and you also have Essenes in the countryside, stirring up trouble.

All this is essential, because everyone thinks that in their action, in their party, in their communities, in their temple, in their battles— this is all, they think, building the kingdom of God.  Sure, some people get killed, some people are exiled or destroyed. But that is all part of the work of God.

And Jesus is saying, “Listen to the gospel: the kingdom of God is here, repent and believe in the good news.”

When Jesus said, “gospel” he used the Greek word, “Euangelidzo” from which we get the word “evangelism”.  This is the word that Greeks and Romans used when they were proclaiming a new king or emperor was coming up.  He was proclaiming a new king.

For most people, they think that this is the last thing they need.  There have been so many kings and governors and upstarts and rebels all trying to rule, all trying to tell everyone what to do.  The last thing they need is another one.

But Jesus also said something else, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”  

This means two things, right off the bat.  First, that all these priests and kings and parties— everyone thought they were working in the kingdom of God, but they weren’t.  Jesus is saying, “All the politics and religious action and building of the Temple and setting up compounds and battles and fighting— none of this, none of it is the kingdom of God.”

Jesus rejects all the political parties, all the battles, all the maneuverings, all the arguments, all the legal battles— none of it represents God or his will.

Secondly, Jesus is saying that at his voice, at his speaking, it is time for God’s kingdom, God’s will, God’s politics to begin.  Now is the time. It begins right now. Not in a little bit, not in a few years, not in 40 years, not in 1000 years, but now.

When Jesus was saying this, what was he talking about?

He is talking about all the healing.  All the uplifting of the poor. All the changed lives.  The deliverance of the mentally ill. The offering hope and love to people who have had nothing.  A politics of giving, not of taking. A politics of love, not of demands. A politics of listening to the impoverished and not the wealthy, or even the middle class. A bottom-up politics.  

This is the kingdom Jesus demonstrated early on.  His first actions were healing and restoring the mentally ill.  His first teaching was, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of god.”  He spoke to the Jews no one listened to in Galilee, instead of the important ones in Jerusalem.  This is the politics of God— the kingdom of God. Start with love. Start with the weakest. Start with offering hope, real, practical hope.  That’s the kingdom of God.

So when we see politics today, arguing about which wealthy person will be in charge.  Or which army will win. Or which god is more important than the other god. We who stand with Jesus— this is not the politics of God.  This is not the kingdom. The kingdom is with the lowest, with the poor and we know what it looks like, not by who is beaten, but by who is healed.

That is the only politics that counts.

Lepers: Jesus the Outreach Worker

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Today we get to read Leviticus!  “Is this the kind of preacher that reads Leviticus to us?”  No, I am the kind of preacher that reads Leviticus for you so you don’t have to! (Sometimes— I guess today is your lucky day!)

1. Leprosy: The True Story
   Leprosy was a series of ailments.  What used to be called leprosy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and often today has nothing to do with the ancient ailments called leprosy.  What we used to call “leprosy” is now called Hanson’s Disease, but that is not what the Bible talks about. Perhaps leprosy was a long term infection, or eczema or even mold or fungus (because it could be seen on clothes and walls).  Today, if a doctor saw the specific and detailed symptoms in Leviticus 13 and 14, he would label the various symptoms as different ailments or not an ailment at all, just something that looked bad.
   
   Leprosy was not a disease.  It was an indication of impurity.  And impurity had nothing to do with sin, or with evil, it was an uncleanness.  And what is uncleanness mean? It is something that disgusts a community.
   
   Many lepers had nothing that would infect anyone else.  They just gave the impression to the community that they did, and so they were rejected.  They were separated from their family, from their society, from their friends, from their God, because, through no fault of their own, they were suddenly declared to be a target of disgust to the community.
   
   Did you know that disgust has to be learned?  When we are infants, we have no problem eating our poop.  Someone had to teach us that poop wasn’t okay to play with or to taste. Seems hard to believe, at this point. We have to learn that Tellytubbies is really, really weird.  We have to learn that we can’t trust a person with a darker shade of skin than we. (This is sarcasm. My sarcasm font is out of comission, otherwise you’d know that I wasn’t saying that a person of a darker shade of skin isn’t less trustworthy. Unless they use a tanning bed too often. Can’t trust those people. This is also humor.)

Well, it’s a good thing that we are past that.  (Note: Sarcasm button is still not working.) We don’t have anyone in our communities that we consider disgusting just because of an opinion they hold or because they belong to a certain group.  We don’t have any trouble with someone because they said they voted for Trump or because they belong to Antifa. Of course, that’s not true. We are disgusted and separate from people just the same as the ancients did. Some things never change.

So if I brought a Nazi flag here, who is ready to hold it up for everyone to see?  Who wants to have a picture taken with it? Why not? There’s nothing wrong with it.  It’s just a piece of cloth. It doesn’t mean anything. If I brought you a coat that was worn by Hitler, who would be willing to try it on for size?  That study has been done and found that very few people would wear Hitler’s coat, because there is something inherently wrong with it. It’s disgusting.

Even so, we see certain people as inherently disgusting, through no fault of their own.  Dr. Susan Fiske-- one of those nasty sociologists (I actually secretly adore her)-- tested people’s instinctive reactions to different social groups.  She put people in a noisy MRI machine and told them to look at people while she examined their brains. Sociologists like things like that. She found that certain groups were considered automatically disgusting, horrible, ready to reject with a strong rejection.  Undocumented immigrants. Women supported by welfare. Felons. Addicts.

But one group, she found, far in a way had a stronger reaction than any other.  So much, she said, that she couldn’t put the measure of disgust on the chart she made up, because the data was so extreme compared to others. That was the homeless.  Dr. Fiske said that when the average American saw a homeless person, they saw a pile of garbage. Which makes sense, considering how we treat them. As something to dispose of.  To move along. To get out of our sight. This shouldn’t be.

That is how lepers were treated.  People who weren’t really infectious, but who were so offensive to the community that they were driven out. Not just unwelcome, but given bus tickets to the next town over.  Their children were separated from them so they would know that they weren’t acceptable. Kinda like how immigrants are (mis)treated.

2. Jesus teaches us how to clean up our act
So along comes Jesus into our society, filled with disgust for people who did nothing wrong.  A man approaches him who has been labeled and isolated, rejected by society. He comes up to Jesus and says, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

What was he saying?  “Jesus, I know I’m disgusting.  Frankly, you shouldn’t even look at me.  I am a horrible piece of work. But I come to you to stand at a reasonable distance from you in order to beg you for help.  Because if there is anyone who can take this horrible mark off of me, it is you. You can make me a person acceptable to others again.

And so Jesus touches him.  And cleanses him. His mark is removed.  And Jesus tells him to follow the law and go to the priest and get officially diagnosed as clean.

But Jesus is a hypocrite in this passage.  I know, I shouldn’t be saying things like “Jesus is a hypocrite”, but he commanded the man to follow the law.  And Jesus just broke the law:
He, on purpose, touched an unclean human.

According to Leviticus 5, if you accidentally touch an unclean human and realize it after, then you have to make an offering to the Lord because you have just sinned and you need the guilt cleansed from you.  But there is no sacrifice for intentional sin. And Jesus intentionally sinned. He touched an unclean, disgusting person. On purpose.

In fact, Jesus action was so radical that a gospel that didn’t make it into our canon, declared that Jesus didn’t touch the leper.  But the leper touched a bunch of other lepers, which is how he became sick. And Jesus conclusion to the matter was to tell him to sin no more.  Some Christians aren’t comfortable when Jesus sins.

At the time, there was an argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  Suppose there was a dead animal and a trickle of water passed under the animal and then into the street.  If a person accidentally stepped in it, would they be required to make a sacrifice or not? This was a huge argument.

We have no record of Jesus making a comment on this argument.  But I think that Jesus would have a completely different point of view on the matter.  “It is not” Jesus says in Mark 7, “what goes in you, or what touches you that makes you unclean.  It is what comes out of you-- your words, your evil actions.”

Even so, when Jesus touched this leper, he showed that he didn’t expect to be made unclean.  Because love can’t be made impure.

Jesus did an act of love by touching a man who hasn’t been touched in years.  He loved him and that pure act of love, without selfishness-- in fact, an act that could have got him in a lot of trouble-- did not make Jesus unclean.  Jesus did not become disgusting because of love. Instead, love cleans. Love makes the disgusting person acceptable, whole, even wonderful. This leper was no longer an object of scorn, but of amazement and admiration.  Just because Jesus loved him.

Jesus is teaching us the same thing.  If we love the “disgusting” people around us, we can transform them.  Perhaps we can’t change them. Perhaps they don’t need to change. But we can transform who they are in the eyes of society.  Love makes “disgusting” people lovable.

That is how we deal with uncleanness.  We battle it with open, clear acceptance and love.  Not just from afar. But by touching, and treating the disgusting person like family.

JUST TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS:
There is no such thing as disgusting people. Disgust is learned and it is awful if we learn that some people are “disgusting”. But almost all of us have learned that habit. We can unlearn it. In the meantime the disgust that is applied to people can be erased if we love. That’s the point. It’s a good point, I think. Of course I think it. It’s important enough for me to write it. Anyway, perhaps we should move on to the next point.

3. Generosity is a Lonely Business
One last thing I want to point out from Jesus’ interactions with lepers

Jesus told this leper to not tell anyone what happened to him.  What did he do? Tell everyone.
Jesus told the ten lepers to go to the priest.  Did they? We don’t know.
However, only one out of ten came back to even say “Thank you.”  

Look, helping people is a thankless business.  Literally.

Occasionally we get a thank you.  Sometimes years later. And almost no one takes the good counsel we give them and straightens up their lives and lives happily ever after.  They will often have to come back to be healed and helped again and again. And sometimes they will even attack us for not giving them more than what we did.

When you sacrifice for others, don’t expect them to do the same for you.  They might, but more likely they won’t. Giving is, more often than not, a one way street. That’s part of the task.

That’s a depressing way to end the sermon.  So let’s leave it on this note: Love transforms the world.  If we show welcome and mercy and family intimacy with the people that others find disgusting, then the world will see them differently.

White Jesus

There are many Jesus' that people worship.  But the one I hear about most frequently is the Jesus of most American churches, the one that is followed by the majority of White American Christians. 

I heard Aisha Harris call him "White Jesus" on Code Switch the other day.

White Jesus loves his enemies and then kills them.

White Jesus seeks to obtain and stabilize power, making excuses for what it costs others.

White Jesus denies racism exists, but escalates a war on Christmas.

White Jesus tells his leaders to draw more power so that they might spread His name.

White Jesus says “Blessed are you who are rich, for you can make the world wealthy.”

White Jesus pushes his eschatology into existence, even if it means people are oppressed because of it.

White Jesus teaches, “Love yourself first and your neighbor if you feel led.”

White Jesus prioritizes worship over healing.

White Jesus says the world must love, but don’t help people survive, because that just draws more poor people around.

White Jesus demands the oppressed forgive, allowing the powerful to punish.

White Jesus has one good religion and all the rest are evil.

White Jesus says, “Buy more possessions and forsake the beggar, because this is what improves the economy.”

White Jesus says, “Cause others to suffer in order to bring your eschatology to pass.”

White Jesus establishes ritual, ignores compassion.

White Jesus upholds authority, even when they do evil.

White Jesus worships the Liar for the sake of ruling the world.

I am with Aisha Harris.  I deny White Jesus, my former Lord and Savior.  I stand with the Real Jesus, who stands with the oppressed. 

Experience Jesus Today

Jesus seemed really cool, dying for us and all, when he was a long time ago

But I don’t appreciate him in my neighborhood.

First thing, he tells a guy with AIDS that he’s healed.

I mean, you KNOW what that guy is going to do and pretty soon it’s disease everywhere.

He tells a couple people who have local markets to quit and become mystics.
Great.  Where am I going to get my fish now?  They had good fish.

He walks into a mental health ward, says some mumbo jumbo and then sets them all free,

Telling them to go downtown and tell everyone what God did for them.

So the town is full of psycho fanatics now.

Worst of all, he went to every drunken bum, every lazy chick in an RV, every single mom on welfare, every illegal stealing jobs from good folks and he told them that the mayor is a rat, the local CEOs are immoral, the bishops are corrupt and that THEY should be in charge instead.
I mean, I don’t like the mayor either,
But what I hate
Really HATE
Is to see these good-for-nothings walking around town as if they own it.

I preferred it when Jesus was meek and mild.

6 Reasons the Bible Sucks (but is Essential as well)

Ever pick up a full Old-and-New-Covenant Bible lately?  It’s pretty heavy.  Now, think about how big and weighty it would be if the book had normal pages, instead of the thin ones you can’t turn and single columns with normal margins and a normal font size instead of the tiny-omg-who-could-possibly-read-this-text monstrosities?  By the way, you know that complaining about text size is the primary sign of aging? 

Anyway, the point is, the Bible is a big, big book.  Bigger than we generally think.  And that’s because it’s not a single book. It is a bunch of books, a library of ancient texts, collected over a thousand year period of time. We don’t actually know how many authors it had, because many of the texts had a number of writers and editors.  The book divisions have a complex history, as some books are clearly a number of shorter texts (Genesis and Psalms, for example) and some books wouldn’t have been divided if they could have fit on a single scroll (I and II Samuel).  These texts are thrown together because of their history of being read together in synagogues and churches and because of a general theme of people influenced by Jewish culture and their experience of God.

Not creepy at all.  Thanks for the flowers, though.

The Bible isn’t exactly unified in theme, though.  While each text seems to present God as a unique person, when put together, God seems like a schizophrenic nation-abuser.  He speaks of his loving  kindness and mercy in one chapter and in another he is killing off masses of people because they ate the birds he gave them to eat. Sounds like God should be walking around in boxers and a wife-beater some of the time and at others he is dressed in a tux, waxing eloquent.

Perhaps we just don’t understand God’s ways?  Perhaps we need to look at God throughout the Bible to get the whole picture? Or perhaps each writer is just expressing their opinion of God, based on their limited experience?  And perhaps the authors of the Bible only understood the bits and pieces of the spirit world that they could comprehend in the midst of their difficult, struggling existence?

I think we need to give the Bible a break.  Putting on it such words as “inerrant” or “infallible” are heavy words to a text that we tend to see in it the likeness of our own opinion.  That’s the convenience of having such a big book written over a thousand year period of time, is that we can find most opinions somewhere hidden in there, both loving and racist, both philosophical and inane.

I have intensely studied the Bible as the word of God and the source of devotion for almost 40 years now, and I have studied it enough that I have a few concerns that I just can’t shake.  Like these:

1. The Bible Teaches that No Woman is Good
Ecclesiastes is a pretty on-the-edge text, one that’s tough to accept in the canon at times, but this passage is really disturbing:

“I have searched and found one upright man out of a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.”

Certainly the viewpoint that people generally suck is found occasionally in the pages of the Bible, and especially in the pages of patriarchal theology.  But we don’t find this point of view very often: Men generally are pretty bad, but every single woman is just plain evil.  “A hundred percent of women are the dust of the ground that I walk, but I found seven and a half million men that are pretty okay”
This theology is disputed in other parts of the Bible, which have people like Tamar, the daughter in law of Judah, and of course Mary the mother of Jesus, but it is just crazy to say that women are absolutely worse than men.  But there it is, right there in your Bible.

What did Luke REALLY do?

2. The Bible says a Woman’s Hand should be cut off
If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.  (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Again, it’s not if anyone touches a person’s genitals in a fight, but if a woman does it.  According to the Bible, women are special.  Here’s another example:

3. The Bible Says its Okay to Rape Women after Battle

In Numbers 31, the Israelites were battling the Midianites and whooped their butt.  But they kept all the innocents alive, you know, the people who weren’t fighting.  Moses smacked his generals around, “What were you thinking of?” He gave very specific instructions.  “Kill off all the boys and all the sluts… I mean women who have been with a man. But any virgins—go ahead and keep them.  Sleep with them for a while.  If you want to keep them permanently, then marry them.  Otherwise, send them away to do… whatever.”  According to this passage, there were 32,000 young women who were raped and then treated this way.  In general, this is the policy for women of an opposing nation in every battle, according to Deuteronomy 21.

"These are real beards, yeah, sure they are"

4. The Bible says prove a bride is a virgin or kill her
In Deuteronomy 22, there are some regulations about marriage.  One of the first is that right after the “bridal night” the couple must present “proof of virginity” to the community—meaning, blood from a woman’s genitals due to first intercourse.  We now know that the hymen can be broken in everyday activity and that intercourse does not always result in a bleeding hymen.  But even so, the consequence of a non-virgin bride is the death of the bride.  “The community shall stone her to death.”

5. The Bible says genocide is required

The Bible doesn’t only abuse women, although they are their most frequent target.  The Canaanites were also supposed to be killed, without exception.  The Canaanites were descendants of Canaan, a huge portion of the world, as he was the grandson of Noah.  So there were a number of peoples who fall under this blood pact, including the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  These nations were supposed to be burned, every man, woman, child, cattle, building… not even the virgins were spared, so they must be pretty bad.

Of course, if these folks looked back in their own history, they’d see that their own genetic line was full of Canaanites (wives of Judah and other sons of Jacob).  So if they’d kill all the Canaanites, they’d have to kill themselves.  And one nation that they are sometimes friendly with, Edom (decendents of Esau and his Canaanite wives).  But hypocrisy didn’t seem to be a big deal in the early part of the Bible.

6. The Bible has a hard time distinguishing between God and Satan

In II Samuel 24, David is tested by God putting the desire for him to take a census so he knows how big his army could be.  It’s a minor sin of a king to number his army, a sign they are not trusting in God to defeat their enemies.  So, according to Exodus 30:12, any census must include a ransom for the life of the person counted, the money, it is assumed, would go into the priestly treasury.  But David, it seems didn’t take the tax, and his conscience pained him, so God gave him an option of punishments, all of which results in a massive loss of life.  David took a plague. But that’s not the point.

The point is that the same story is told again in II Chronicles.  That’s not unusual, as Chronicles and Samuel/Kings often tell the same tales with few variations.  But the variation here is that in Samuel it was God who tested David, while in Chronicles it was Satan who tested David.  Same sentence, different subject.  Now, theologically it isn’t such a problem because Satan is the prosecuting attorney of God.  But it feels weird that in Chronicles, as well as Job, that Satan, the enemy of God, is the representative of God in some places.  It’s a part of the Bible I wish would just go away.

***

The point is this: there are many parts of the Bible which disturb me and just about everyone in our modern society.  Parts of the Bible that feel very tribal, very hateful and about as unloving as one can get.  There are aspects that feel that they would reflect the worldview of a serial killer rather than the God who is Love.  I’m not using this as proof that the Bible is wrong or evil.  I’m saying that a clear look at the Bible recognizes that we can’t just accept it, point-blank, for what it says.  That idea, if truly pursued, goes into some very dark pathways.

I think that the Bible shouldn’t be accepted, swallowed like a multi-vitamin, as if it will all be good for you.  Because even if most of it IS good, there’s still the cyanide put in the mix that is destructive.

Why I Still Accept the Bible

I accept the Bible, but not as a whole.  I pick and choose what I like.  And frankly, so does everyone else.  I haven’t seen any religious group march on Washington demanding their rights to rape virgins (only virgins, mind you).  In fact, that seems pretty monstrous.  Even though it was a pretty common right in the ancient world, post-battle.  Today, slavery seems generally counted as an evil, and no one is demanding that their slave submit to them, despite both biblical and legal precedent.   Jews follow the Rabbinic interpretation of the Bible, which is a softer, more kind version of Moses.  Catholics follow church teaching, which even softens the ten commandments (like pointing out that wives aren’t possessions, for example).  This is just what Muslims have done with their Qur’an, providing a layer of teaching which helps us interpret the Scripture in a kinder way, which is easier to fit into modern morals.   This doesn’t compromise the basic teaching of the Scriptures, but it does strip away the stuff we can clearly see as evil.

For me, I don’t go for complex teachings over centuries.  I’ll just stick with Jesus, and work with his interpretation of the Bible.  Which is exactly what the New Testament says to do, anyway.

“No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him..”

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things…”

“You are not to have teachers, for you have only one teacher and this is the Messiah.”

“Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”

In summary, these passages are saying that the Bible, as a whole, is inadequate to represent God.  Only Jesus accurately represent God.  Which is why I think that having a general Bible approach to theology or truth about God is misbegotten.  The Bible is a bunch of people like us, writing down their experiences of God.  Only Jesus-- the gospels, the teachings that tell us what Jesus did and said while on earth-- can show us who God is really like.  The rest is all guesswork.  And sometimes pretty shoddy guesswork at that.

Some will say, at this point, that I’m using the Bible in a willy-nilly, non-objective manner.  And I am.  I’m okay with that. As long as I keep Jesus central. 

 I have Jesus as my savior, not Moses, David or Paul or John.  And so I might ignore some things you might think I should pay attention to.  On the other hand, you might ignore some things I think are essential.  But that’s one of the great things about life.  We get to figure things out.  I’m trying to understand and follow Jesus, not anyone else and certainly not the Bible as a whole.

I’d be happy to have you join me in this quest. 

11 Ways Jesus Fought Patriarchy

Patriarchy is the system of a society which grants a male perspective, power and principles greater pull than women’s, even though both are equally human.  In the Jewish tradition Jesus grew up in, both equality between sexes and a male-centric view was available, but his society was focused on the male.  Only men were granted places of authority, only men were allowed to interpret law (which gave them control over politics and ethics), and men alone were allowed to conduct family business.

It must be admitted that Jesus upheld the patriarchy at points.  Only men were allowed to be in the inner 12, and he allowed men to buster and command as if they were really in charge of his community.  Nevertheless, there are a number of ways that we can see that Jesus was trying to undermine the male-centric society.

1.  Jesus took on female disciples

Jesus was running a religious/political school, and there were some rules about how these schools worked, one of which is that no female students allowed.  They would distract the men, and women wouldn’t be allowed to interpret the law or wield influence (If you aren’t sure on this, watch Yentl).  But Jesus welcomed female students.  There was a small group of women who “followed” him just like the male disciples.  And Jesus openly encouraged Mary, the sister of Martha, to participate in his teaching sessions, saying, “She has chosen the better part.”

2. Jesus defended women over men
While a teacher might approve of something a woman said, in a patriarchal society they wouldn’t support a woman over a man, because this would shame the man.  Jesus, however, publicly rebuked men when they were on the wrong side of an argument with a woman.  Jesus sided with the woman anointing him over his disciple, Jesus even sided with a prostitute over a high-standing politician in the politician’s own party.  In fact, we have no example of Jesus siding with a man over a woman. 

3. Jesus promoted "feminine" virtues over "male"

Most teachers of Jesus’ day upheld the principles of law and justice in judgment was the most essential principle.  Jesus, on the other hand, upheld the more “feminine” or relational, gentle virtues.  He told the Pharisees to learn this verse: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”  He spoke of love, humility and compassion as the principles which causes one to be right with God and to build a spiritual community on.

4. Jesus defended “non-feminine” roles for women

Jesus found himself in an argument between two sisters, Mary and Martha.  Martha insisted that her sister not be lazy, but to take on her proper role in the patriarchy, which was to serve the men.  Jesus took Mary’s side, claiming that her role of being a student is better than her traditional female role.  I’m sure Martha was fuming that she didn’t have help doing the dishes.  If Jesus had been on the ball, I’m sure he would have sent Judas to help her.

5. Jesus taught equality between husband and wife

In Genesis, there are two creation stories of the forming of men and women.  One supports men and women being equally created and unified in marriage.  The second promotes patriarchy, teaching that women were created from the “side portion” of men.  Jesus never mentions the second story, but quotes the whole passage of female equality in relation to a matter of divorce, in which women got the worst end.

6. Jesus kicked the businessmen from the woman’s court

It was the policy of the high priest of Jesus’ day to allow people to exchange image-filled money with temple-approved money for sacrifices.  But Jerusalem was short on space, so the high priest allowed the money-changers to conduct their business in the “women’s court”, which was the only part of the temple women were allowed to worship and pray in.  Jesus threw the businessmen out, changing the high priest’s policy, reserving the space of women’s worship to be for them.

7. Jesus called himself a mother hen

In his sorrow over Jerusalem, Jesus proclaimed, “How I longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks.”  Not a great blow for feminine equality, but his heart is in the right place.

8. Jesus defended a woman caught in adultery

The famous story about Jesus and the woman caught in adultery is often placed in the book of John, but it doesn’t really belong there.  Some old manuscripts place the same story in Luke, but it doesn’t really belong there, either.  We don’t know where it goes, or if it’s really something Jesus did.  But we think it sound like something Jesus would do.  Why?  Because he defends a woman, who was “caught in adultery”, but the men who brought her didn’t bring the other culprit she was caught with.  Again, Jesus in this story promotes the female principle of forgiveness over punishment.

9. Jesus gave a woman primary place in his gospel

There is only one person whom Jesus guarantees a place in his story: the woman (some say Mary) who anointed his feet and who got yelled for it.  Jesus said, “Wherever the gospel,” (gospel =  good news of victory) “is taught, what this woman did will be told.”  This woman’s act is central to Jesus’ victory over the society of the world.  Partly because it was a woman who did it.  Without women, Jesus recognizes, his story would never be told.

10. Jesus recognized a woman’s gift over the wealthy

In looking at the givers to the Temple, Jesus recognized one person over the rest—a woman who had no standing in society, no way to make money because she had no husband to stand for her.  She gave a small coin, but because it was all she had to live on, Jesus proclaimed her gift the greatest.  (He did not, however, say it was just, as he rebuked those who collected the money as “devourers of widow’s homes.”)

11. Jesus’ first resurrection witness was a woman

The greatest thing for woman Jesus did was for Mary Magdalene.   She was the first--and for a while, only—witness of Jesus’ resurrection.  This was in a society in which woman couldn’t be a legal witness, where men didn’t have to believe women’s testimony.  But Mary was the one Jesus trusted to tell the story without twisting it.  No matter what, every man who told the story had to admit that a woman knew about Jesus’ resurrection before anyone else.  That she had to tell them, because they were in the dark.  This is a fitting beginning to a society built upon equity.

Too bad it fell from that lofty position so quickly and firmly.