CrossWalk Community Church Napa

Renewing Faith: Letting False gods Die, Letting God Live

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. Some people believe God is angry and ready to kick our butts if we get out of line. Some people believe God is primarily known by love and is constantly working to help all of creation thrive in health, wellbeing, and harmony.Both of these images appear in the Bible.Jesus was clearly motivated by God’s love, probably because he experienced it powerfully and couldn’t stop talking about it. It changed his mission away from what his cousin John the Baptist was promoting toward wooing people into the loving arms of God. His teaching challenged the religious and civic authorities who preferred a God and paradigm that employed domination to control its subjects. Those authorities worked together to kill Jesus, but the Spirit that animated and motivated Jesus also resurrected Jesus after death - he was experienced alive (albeit in a new way). This gave his followers great confidence that what Jesus said was true. They went on to promote a loving, inclusive God. They couldn’t stop talking about it, probably because they kept on experiencing the love of God in their lives.Maybe it’s time to let the God of wrath die, because maybe that God never existed. Perhaps that image in the Bible says far more about the culture it was written in and for, and far less about God’s character.Maybe it’s time to let the love of God transform us more fully. When we do, we just might begin following Jesus more naturally, which will lead to a more abundant, thriving life for everyone.

Renewing Faith: From the Mountaintop to the Valley

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. The Transfiguration offered an abundance of fodder for Jesus’ disciples (then and now) to chew on. The experience was one of those thin place moments when the veil was lifted and all involved could see and experience the nearness of God. When people (including myself) have had thin place moments, they are left with a sense of awe and wonder that we cannot put into words. Peter’s suggestion is sort of a reactive, “I should say something” example of this very reality. Joining Jesus in the scene were two of the greatest characters from Israel’s past: Moses (leader of the Exodus and representative of the Law) and Elijah, considered the greatest Jewish prophet. These two lives were separated by hundreds of years, and many more hundreds of years passed before Jesus was born. The past and the present faded into one scene. The “more to come” is experienced, and the vision of being present at one time with those who precede us from earlier times is introduced to our imagination. More humbling. Jesus is there, of course, now representing the combination of the two – a teacher and a healing prophet – while God is heard saying, “This is my son.” This alone doesn’t mean that God worked or works exclusively through Jesus. Appreciate this statement as an incredibly powerful direct endorsement of Jesus. Such a powerful designation would be increasingly important as Jesus was entering a season that would take him through the valley of the shadow of death. The disciples would need to continually remind themselves of this scene as doubts crept in: apparent defeat in the world says much more about life here and now that it does about the hereafter. The scene ends with Jesus’s countenance filled with the glory of God – a final nod to his association with Moses. Soon after this incredible experience – for all of them, I am sure – Jesus got right back into teaching and healing. This passage instructs me on three levels. First, it affirms what I already know to be true, that there is more to our lives than our flesh and blood – there is another dimension that is eternal, marked and inhabited by all that is God, which is identified as love. Love awaits us. Our last struggling breath here will give way to endless breathing of the source of life itself. Especially when we are facing struggles of many kinds, we need not lose hope, for the best is yet to come. Whatever meal may be set before us in life, a dessert fork is part of our place setting, signaling that something delicious is coming. The second take away for me in this story is that hard parts of our journey do not indicate God’s absence but may be proof of God’s presence in our lives. The disciples were very aware that Jesus wasn’t like all the other self-proclaimed messiahs in their day. He wasn’t calling for a violent revolt, but rather a nonviolent, subversive approach to change. Especially when things got ugly in Jerusalem, there would be innumerable voices calling Jesus’ veracity into question. This scene and its implications would remain in the memory banks of the disciples: doing what God wants done in the world sometimes comes with sever pushback, which is itself sometimes a sign that we’re on the right track. The third thing about this scene is that soon after this celestial experience, Jesus got right back to work. Right up until his last day on earth, Jesus was living his faith. The practice of the faith is what keeps faith alive and growing, culminating in a robust sense of partnership with God. Living out his faith also meant making the world a better place for those he touched. We are all on this ride together, and the Good News really lives up to its name. Faith was never meant to make us “so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.” Quite the contrary, we are called to liv out our faith, because faith taps into the source of life itself. As Paul so aptly put it to his beloved church (Phil. 1:21), “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Questions to think about...1. How has the thought of the afterlife affected your approach or response to life?2. What do you make of the Transfiguration and what it means for life beyond flesh and blood? If you were a witness to it, what would your take-away be?3. Knowing that this experience preceded Jesus’ final chapter of suffering and death, how does this shape your expectations of what faithful living and God’s blessing might be like? How does the reality of struggle change your outlook?4. How do you mitigate from becoming “so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good”?

Renewing Faith: Nonviolent Resistance

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. This week’s lectionary text (which I have switched to Matthew’s version of Jesus’ sermon) provides an excellent opportunity to remember some important issues whenever we read the Bible. First, it was not written by Americans living in 2022. We are 2,000 years and a world away from their context. Second, it was not written in English. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Jesus spoke Aramaic (a version of Hebrew), and never wrote any of his teaching down to be passed on. His followers recorded their best recollection of his life and teachings in what we call the Gospels. These biographies were written in Greek, as was the rest of the New Testament. Aramaic doesn’t always translate well into Greek. Greek doesn’t always translate well into English. Third, when we read anything from our American perspective, we read from a position of great power given our nation’s military and economic strength. Ancient Israel had not ruled their own homeland for centuries when Jesus lived. The lived and dreamed not from a place of power, but oppression and despair. Fourth, because of all of the above, while a casual reading of biblical text is always welcome, academics are especially helpful in helping us understand the ancient world and ancient language and context. The particular passage we will investigate today is a great case in point, as we could casually read what Jesus taught and completely miss the critical undertone of what he was instructing. Jesus did not live primarily to die one day so that we could be forgiven. This is an unchecked heresy of Evangelicalism and Christian Fundamentalism. Jesus did not come to initiate a “nice” campaign. The Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire didn’t orchestrate capital punishment for people guilty of being too nice. Crucifixion was reserved primarily for those guilty of insurrection. Jesus was on a world-changing mission that required great courage on his part, and on all who dared to follow. The invitation still stands. Today, let’s get under the hood a bit and see what he was teaching and what it meant. Remember the context. Jesus was terribly poor, hailing from a region of Israel known for its poverty in culture and power. Under Roman occupation, Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries had little hope for a brighter future. Jesus knew the emotional toll that comes with lack of food, lack of housing, lack of employment, lack of respect – his life in so many ways was lacking.Something happened later in his life that completely changed his perspective, however, and he emerged as the leader of a movement that appeared to be empowered by God. His mission? To help usher in the Kingdom of God increasingly into all the world. The primary value and goal of the movement was shalom – a Jewish notion of deep peace that represents wellbeing, harmony and wholeness among individuals, in community, and even between varying cultures and their governments, and between humanity and creation itself. The Way of the Kingdom of God was different than the ways of the world – the only way Jesus sought to usher more shalom into the world was with shalom. He invited his contemporaries to get in on the project. Most of the people he knew were in a similar lot. Poor, oppressed, weary, hopeless, mourning, etc. Because he saw with Kingdom eyes, he didn’t see them the way the world did, as losers or stupid, but as blessed, especially loved by God because the powerful did not. What we call the beatitudes were expressions of love and hope to hurting people who felt powerless. Jesus’ “campaign speech”, the Sermon on the Mount, laid out some basic principles of the Way of God which, when read casually, are inspiring and thought provoking even today, with some helpful, challenging ideas to consider. What we often struggle to see, however, is that the sermon was laden with calls to be politically savvy with the goal of resisting the Roman Empire (and the corrupt Jewish leadership) in order to bring about change. Every time Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God – and he did a lot – he was offering a contrast and inherent challenge to the Roman Empire and usually the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. The phrase shows up 122 times in the Synoptic Gospels, of which 92 were directly attributed to Jesus. John’s Gospel used different language for it – salvation and eternal life, for instance – which were its dominant themes. In addition, any time the phrase “good news” was used, and any time Jesus was referred to by others as “Son of God”, the Roman Empire and its emperor were directly challenged. Rome’s Good News was a peace that came by military force: everybody toe the line or face the brutal consequences. Such tyranny created a hatred toward Rome from the Jewish people, and every now and then some Jewish groups would rise up to try and regain some ground, only to be trounced and often crucified. Naturally, as a people who had been occupied against their will by force, they wanted to return the favor. Defeating Rome with military force – turbo-charged by the Spirit of God like what they remembered of the Exodus – was their dream and prayer. It is very important to sit with this reality. Jesus was very aware that he was oppressed. And his primary audience? Oppressed. If you have experienced oppression, Jesus’ words are going to resonate with you more than those (like me) who have not. By the way, white men have been studying and teaching Jesus for most of Christianity’s existence. Could it be some things were missed because they were generally seeing the world through the eyes of the oppressor and not the oppressed? Of course! Oppressors generally never see all the ways they oppress, and likely minimize or rationalize or trivialize aspects of the oppression they force on those with less power than themselves. Oh, and oppressors hate being called out. You can almost always count on some serious retaliation when accountability comes. I mention this because Jesus is not speaking from a white, American, middle class (or wealthier) perspective. More likely, he speaks from the perspective of those who feel overlooked, underrepresented, used and abused. That’s who he was. This is not the perspective of most scholars who have influenced Christianity since its inception. Take a minute and let that really sink in. For most of you reading this, Jesus did not look like you – he looked like those who have much less than you. Jesus was nonviolent and taught nonviolence. As you will soon see, Jesus was extremely savvy in the way he taught his followers to encourage change. While so many wanted to try and pull off a military coup to regain their land, Jesus taught against it, saying plainly that if one lives by the sword, they will die by the sword. The only way you get shalom is with shalom…I learned a lot from Ronald J. Sider’s book, If Jesus is Lord, where he addressed a handful of texts within the “stump speech” that, at first glance, seem really wimpy (which couldn’t be further from the truth). If you have time and are up for a more academic read, check out his thoughts from a portion of his chapter on the Sermon on the Mount “below” my post. Let’s focus on this part of his speech this week: Matthew 5:38-48 (NLT)38 “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also.40 If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. 41 If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. The “eye for an eye” text was a nod to the standard rule of law in the Ancient Near East across many cultural lines that existed for many centuries, showing up in the Old Testament and in other cultures’ legal codes. The law was meant to work two ways. First, it provided some sort of justice for those who had been harmed by another (if you killed my cow, you owe me a cow). Yet it was also there to prevent over-reaching retribution (I’m really mad that you killed my cow, so I’m going to take your cow and kill your donkey). The prevailing attitude among Jewish people in Jesus’ day was that since they had been treated violently by the Roman Empire, it was their legal right to resort to violence in return. Whenever they did, they were immediately crushed. The worst of it was long after Jesus died – a four-year’ish standoff when some Jews revolted and took Jerusalem back. They held out for quite a while, but Rome could afford to be patient. When the food ran out for those inside the walled city and some of the Jews inside were freed, they were slaughtered in plain sight for those on Jerusalem’s walls to witness. Eventually the city was leveled, and the Jews inside killed. The Temple was demolished and was never restored. Violence begets violence, and when you’re outmatched, lasting peace-as-the-absence-of-conflict will not be yours for long. When have you resorted to violence? How did that work out for you? Jesus’ instruction to people who felt wronged was to resist nonviolently. The Greek word from which “resist” comes is specifically in reference to violent resistance. Jesus is saying that a violent approach – an eye for an eye – will not work and is not the Way. Shalom begets shalom. In his next few statements, he gives examples of how to pull off non-violent resistance. When Jesus said to offer the left cheek after being struck on the right, he is talking about something very specific. At that time, one of the most insulting, demeaning public acts you could do was to give someone a back-handed slap across the face (not a fisted punch). In fact, if you slapped an equal in this way publicly, the penalty you would face would be double the fine if you punched the person in the nose because it was so dehumanizing. Such a degrading act was reserved for wives or slaves who were considered “less than.” Jesus is speaking to a lot of “less thans” who had been utterly humiliated by people with greater power. The thought among scholars is that offering the left cheek was a statement of strength, almost demanding the offender to throw a punch instead of another slap, and thereby treating the oppressed person as an equal. It was a not-so-subtle way of standing up for one’s dignity without resorting to violence (which would likely result in defeat). Nonviolent protests in the street regarding police brutality, or women’s rights to equality, etc., are examples of speaking truth to power. John Lewis was beat up and left for dead by police officers when he marched across the bridge in Selma. By not acting with violence, they were shining a light on the brutality they were protesting. The systems of the world want to keep such actors silent. A nonviolent protest is one way to shine a light on what the system would prefer to keep in the dark. Such publicly uncomfortable acts are statements that more shalom is needed. How have you used your voice or presence to make it known that more shalom is needed? When Jesus offered an example of being sued in court for one’s shirt, it is another case of highlighting degrading, dehumanizing treatment. The shirt being referenced would be the only shirt a person owns and would likely resemble a long night shirt you can find today for pajamas. It was forbidden to take someone’s outer coat because that would serve as their blanket for sleeping. To offer one’s coat means to become completely naked in court, which in that culture would seem incredibly embarrassing for everyone present and shine a bright light on the person who was suing for the shirt in the first place. Perhaps, legally, the plaintiff had a right to sue for the shirt. But should he? No, if the shirt is all the person has left, to take it is to treat the person as “less than”. The defendant is already humiliated. Going full commando draws attention to the inhumanity in a nonviolent, yet inescapably noticed way that would make everybody share in the discomfort. Sometimes such publicly discomforting acts are exactly what is needed to wake people up. Did you know that black WWII vets did not receive the GI Bill that white vets did, and also were not “eligible” to receive low interest mortgages with low down payments like white vets were, and were only allowed to purchase homes in less desirable locations (read this article)? What do you suppose might be the long-term impact of such policies? How much education was refused – and therefore advancement in careers and income? How much generational wealth was prohibited – the impact of which lasts, well, generations? How many people are ignorant about just these two critical pieces of our history that have impacted the shaping of an entire race of people in our country? When Jesus instructed people to go the extra mile, it likely went over like a lead balloon. At that time, Roman soldiers could demand local people carry their gear for one mile. Surely many in Jesus’ audience had been humiliated in this way. What they really wanted to do was refuse to play along, but that would only result in more (likely violent) oppression. The Roman military enforced this law and did not permit soldiers to force people to carry their gear beyond one mile. At the end of the mile, for a Jewish person to willingly keep carrying the gear would make the soldier extremely uncomfortable. If his commanding officer found out the Jewish person went a second mile, the soldier would be in trouble. Can you imagine the scene? Upon taking a step toward a second mile, the powerful soldier is now insisting on carrying his own gear! This simple nonviolent act leveled the playing field, and again shined a light on the lack of dignity Jewish people were experiencing at the hand of their oppressors. This is a far cry from our common understanding of just being nice. I am imagining a person who is being treated more like a servant than a fellow human being. Perhaps one way to shine a light is to draw attention to the indignity by going over the top with the “service” in such an exaggerated way that the one served begins to see how awful their behavior has been. Maybe it’s represented by hospitality workers laying it on incredibly thick for guests so that complaints about the often-inhumane culture get brought to the management (and above) by the guests. What do you imagine? What have you done? In each case, the point is to declare, “more shalom needed here!” When Jesus instructed his listeners to give to those who ask, he is telling them to drop the “eye for an eye”, quid pro quo thinking even in terms of economics. The key idea is to be generous as Kingdom of God people. Some people won’t give anything to others because they are sure the people are going to spend it in ways the donor would not approve. In Jesus’ context, the overwhelming majority of people are extremely poor. The people asking need to eat and are hoping to avoid getting into a common debtors agreement just to get some bread. If you have some extra to share, share. When have you chosen to give with no strings attached to someone who needed help? When Jesus taught his audience to love their enemies, you could likely hear a pin drop, followed by a handful of people vomiting. This idea was not common. The normal line of thinking was that you should love the people on your “team”, and it was perfectly okay to treat those not on your “team” with great contempt. To love as Jesus instructs is not to dismiss harmful behavior or deny justice. His words are not meant to go give an axe murder a big hug while the axe is still swinging. What he is saying is that our attitudes and behavior should not be dictated by the prevailing culture around us, but rather by the Kingdom of God which calls us to a different way, a way of shalom. Jesus’ stump speech at times brought incredible comfort to his listeners and also empowered them to see their lives and their potential differently. He was telling oppressed people that they could make a difference. At minimum, they could live in a way that was dignified even when the world around them treated them as less than. In community, these Jesus followers could experience an equality and equity that was unparalleled, which would provide immense support and be a conduit of shalom’s eternal love. To follow his instructions, however, was to seek discomfort, because the nonviolent actions required courage. Systems like staying the way they are, large and small. To mess with it is to invite instability. To follow Jesus is to measure our current reality against shalom, and, when necessary, shine a light on it, bringing disorder where there was once flawed order, all with the goal of ushering in shalom-shaped reorder. Where is there a lack of shalom in your world? How are you going to be shalom, with shalom, in order to usher in shalom?If Jesus is Lord, Ronald J. Sider (66-72): A careful study of the verb used in this text shows clearly that Jesus is not recommending passivity. Anthistēmi is a variant of the word antistēnai (used in v. 39) and anthistēmi appears in the Greek Old Testament primarily as a military term. In forty-four of seventy-one uses in the Greek Old Testament, the word refers to armed resistance in military encounters (e.g., Lev. 26:37; Deut. 7:24; 25:18; Josh. 7:13; 23:9; Judg. 2:14).32 Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, uses the word fifteen of seventeen times to refer to violent struggle. The Greek lexicon by Liddell and Scott defines the word to mean “set against especially in battle.”33Ephesians 6:13 uses the word antistēnai to refer to the spiritual battle against Satan when Christians are armed with the full armor of God. “In short, antistēnai means more in Matt. 5:39a than simply to ‘stand against’ or ‘resist.’ It means to resist violently, to revolt or rebel, to engage in an insurrection.”34 N. T. Wright summarizes the meaning of the word this way: “The word ‘resist’ is antistēnai, almost a technical term for revolutionary resistance of a specifically military variety. Taken in this sense, the command draws out the implication of a good deal of the sermon so far. The way forward for Israel is not the way of violent resistance. . . but the different, oblique way of creative non-violent resistance... Jesus’ people were not to become part of the resistance movement.”35 In his new translation, N. T. Wright translates verse 39 this way: “Don’t use violence to resist evil.”36 After prohibiting a violent response to evil, the text describes a proper response in four concrete situations. In each case, the commanded response is neither violent nor passive. Jesus calls his disciples not to turn aside passively or hit back but rather to confront the evil nonviolently.37 “By doing more than what the oppressor requires, the disciples bear witness to another reality (the kingdom of God).”38 Walter Wink has proposed an interpretation of verses 39b–41 that, if correct, greatly strengthens the claim that in these statements Jesus is suggesting a vigorously activist (although certainly nonviolent) response to evil and injustice.39 Some scholars agree with Wink.40 Others do not. But his argument merits careful evaluation. Turn the other cheek. The text says, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (5:39b). Hays notes that there is widespread acceptance by commentators that someone could strike a person on the right cheek only with the back of the hand and that such an action would be the kind of insult that a superior would deliver to an inferior.41 (To test this theory, face someone and notice how much easier it is to slap that person’s right cheek with the back of your right hand than it is to hit the right cheek with your right fist.) We know from documents of the time that a backhanded blow to the right cheek was a huge insult, “the severest public affront to a person’s dignity.”42 Ancient documents also show that the fine for striking an equal with the (insulting) back of the hand was double that for a blow by one’s fist.43 But no penalty followed for striking slaves that way. A backhanded slap was for inferiors, like slaves and wives.44 If that is the proper context for understanding the saying, then Jesus’s advice to turn the other (left) cheek conveys a surprising suggestion. Normally, an inferior would simply accept the insult (or on occasion fight back). But by turning the left cheek to the person insulting one, one almost forces the attacker to use his fist if he wants to strike again. (It is much harder to hit the left cheek with a backslap than with a fist.) The effect, Wink believes, is that the inferior person astonishes the superior by a dramatic act that asserts the inferior’s dignity, not by striking back but by forcing the attacker either to stop or use his fist and thus treat the inferior as an equal. Thus, Jesus is urging a nonviolent but nonetheless activist response to evil. One cannot assert with certainty that this is Jesus’s intended meaning.45 But that conclusion is certainly plausible. Sued for one’s coat. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt [inner garment], hand over your coat [outer garment] as well” (Matt. 5:40).46 The setting refers to a typical first-century context where debt was widespread among the poor. Jesus tells many parables about people in debt. Rome’s client king in Galilee, Herod Antipas, taxed the people heavily to pay tribute to Rome. Many poor people fell into debt.47 In Jesus’s example, the person taken to court for an unpaid debt is obviously very poor, owning nothing of worth to repay the debt except clothes. Such an impoverished person has no hope of winning against the richer person and so loses the inner garment as payment on the debt. Probably the reason the text says the person is being sued to give up the inner garment is because the Old Testament specifically forbade taking the outer garment as collateral for more than the daytime, because the poor person needed an outer garment to use as a blanket while sleeping.48 But why would Jesus tell this kind of poor person who has just lost an inner garment to give the person who is owed money the outer garment as well? Since many poor people had only one outer garment, that would mean stripping naked in court. And nakedness was a terrible disgrace in Palestinian Jewish society.49 Wink’s explanation is certainly plausible. The disgrace for nakedness fell not only on the naked person but also on those viewing the naked person.50 By stripping naked, the debtor exposes the cruelty not only of the creditor but also of the oppressive system the creditor represents. “The entire system by which debtors are oppressed has been publicly unmasked.”51 Rather than recommending a passive response to injustice, Jesus urges a dramatic nonviolent protest. The second mile. “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles” (Matt. 5:41). The context for this saying is clearly Roman imperialism. The word translated “mile” is a Roman word, not a Jewish word.52 And the word translated “forces you” is the verbal form of the technical term (angareia) widely known in Roman law to refer to the legal right of Roman soldiers to compel subject people to carry their packs for one mile.53 Matthew 27:32 uses precisely this word to describe the way Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry Jesus’s cross. There is also a large literature that demonstrates both that Roman soldiers often abused this right and that colonized people hated this burdensome obligation. Earlier, in chapter 1, we saw how angry, violent rebellion against Roman rule and its collaborators kept erupting among the Jews in the century around the time of Jesus. These violent revolutionaries certainly urged fellow Jews to refuse to carry the baggage of oppressive Roman soldiers.54 What Jesus recommends “is the precise opposite of what the zealots advocated doing in their revolutionary sedition against the Romans.”55 The words used and the context demonstrate that Jesus is clearly rejecting a widespread, popular attitude toward the oppressive Roman imperialists. But is he recommending passivity? Is he urging fellow Jews to affirm Roman oppression? Again, Wink’s interpretation is intriguing and plausible. The soldier knows the colonized person has a legal obligation to carry his pack one mile. He also knows the law forbids the Roman soldier forcing the person to carry it more than one mile. And he knows his commander may punish him severely for breaking this law. So when they reach the end of the first mile, the soldier asks for his pack back. “Imagine then the soldier’s surprise when, at the next mile marker, he reluctantly reaches to assume his pack and the civilian says, ‘Oh no, let me carry it another mile.’” Now the soldier is in trouble. He may be disciplined by his superior. So he begs to be given back his pack. “Imagine the situation of a Roman infantryman pleading with a Jew to give back his pack! The humor of this scene may have escaped us, but it would scarcely have been lost on Jesus’ hearers, who must have been regaled at the prospect of thus discomfiting their oppressors.”56 With this action, the oppressed Jew seizes the initiative and asserts personal dignity—all in a nonviolent way fully compatible with loving the oppressor without endorsing the oppression. Economic sharing. “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matt. 5:42). It is important to note that Jesus does not say give whatever a person asks. Rather, he teaches his followers to respond in love to those in economic need. On occasion, a loving concern for the best interests of the other may prompt rejection of some of the specifics of the request. Jesus is not urging some idealistic, impractical, utopian behavior that ignores practical reality.57 But here and elsewhere he does call his disciples to doable, albeit costly, economic sharing that reflects the fact that the messianic kingdom has already begun. In that new kingdom, Jesus’s followers abandon every rigid eye for an eye, even in the economic realm. “Love Your Enemies.” There is no dispute about the source of the traditional summons to “love your neighbor,” which Jesus mentions in verse 43. It is a verbatim quote from the Greek translation of Leviticus 19:18. In his scholarly analysis of pre-Christian Jewish thinking on love for neighbor, John Piper has shown that the neighbor whom one was obligated to love was normally understood to be a fellow Israelite.58 A different attitude toward gentiles was expected. But who are those who call people to “hate your enemy”? Who does Jesus have in mind? We know that the Manual of Discipline of Jesus’s contemporaries the Essenes (known to us from the Dead Sea Scrolls) explicitly says, “Love all the sons of light . . ., and . . . hate all the sons of darkness.”59 And for some of the Jewish revolutionaries of Jesus’s day, “the slaying of the godless enemy out of zeal for God’s cause was a fundamental commandment, true to the rabbinic maxim: ‘Whoever spills the blood of the godless is like one who offers sacrifice.’”60 But might Jesus also be thinking of Old Testament passages? There is certainly no Old Testament text that explicitly commands hatred of enemies. In fact, there are Old Testament passages that urge kindness toward enemies. If you find your enemy’s lost donkey, return it (Exod. 23:4–5). If your enemy is hungry, feed him (Prov. 25:21).61 But a number of scholars argue that there is material in the Old Testament that does teach hatred of God’s enemies and hatred of the enemies of the people of God.62 Speaking of those who hate God, the psalmist says, “I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies” (Ps. 139:21–22). And Psalm 137 says of Babylon, an enemy nation that conquered Judah, “Happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (137:8b–9). Thus Guelich concludes, “Matthew 5:43 in one sense stands in continuity with the teaching of the Old Testament. . . . The premise of 5:43 sets forth the common understanding of the Law in the Old Testament.”63 It is impossible for modern readers to be certain whether Jesus is thinking of his contemporaries or Old Testament texts. Perhaps he is thinking of both. But in any case, his command represents a radical challenge to virtually every person and culture. It urges the very opposite of the reciprocity principle embedded in the norm of an eye for an eye. But who are the enemies Jesus summons his disciples to love? It is interesting that in Matthew 5:43 (“love your neighbor and hate your enemy”) the words for “neighbor” and “enemy” are singular. But verse 44 uses the plural: “Love your enemies.” Every class of enemy seems to be included.64 Richard Horsley has argued that the word for “enemies” (echthroi) used by Jesus refers not to foreign or military enemies but to personal enemies, because of local squabbles in small Palestinian villages. Therefore, this summons to love one’s enemies has nothing to do with the question of whether Jesus opposes killing violent enemies.65 Duke New Testament scholar Richard Hays, however, argues convincingly that Horsley is wrong. There is nothing in Matthew’s text that suggests the kind of precise social situation in small villages that Horsley imagines. Furthermore, the lexicographical evidence does not support Horsley. “The term echthroi is generic. It is often used in biblical Greek of national or military enemies.”66 For example, in Deuteronomy 20:1 (LXX), the text says, “When you go to war against your enemies [echthroi] and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them.” (It is also interesting that this verse follows immediately after Deuteronomy 19:21, which commands an eye for an eye—the principle that Jesus specifically rejects.) After a major review of recent scholarly literature on the topic, Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn concludes that the enemies Jesus calls his disciples to love include everyone. “The directive is without boundaries. The religious, the political, and the personal are all meant. Every enemy is meant.”67 Martin Hengel, one of the leading scholars on the nationalist, revolutionary Jewish movements of Jesus’s time, thinks that Jesus’s command to love one’s enemies “was formulated with direct reference to the theocratic and nationalistic liberation movement in which hatred toward an enemy was regarded as a good work.”68 There is no way to prove that decisively. But the fact that, in the immediately preceding section, Jesus has urged his followers to carry the packs of Roman soldiers not just the legally mandated one mile but also a second mile demonstrates that Jesus is thinking about the situation the violent Jewish revolutionaries hated. If in verse 41 Jesus is talking about how to respond to Roman imperialists, it is very likely that his command to love enemies includes the people the revolutionaries seek to kill. Jesus’s stated reason for loving one’s enemies is important. His disciples should act that way so “that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:45). Since God sends the sun and rain on both good and evil people, Jesus’s disciples must act in love toward everyone, both friends and enemies. As one of the beatitudes says, the peacemakers are “called children of God” (5:9). The final verse of this section (“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; Matt. 5:48) could be understood to demand an impossible ideal that drives us to repentance rather than calls us to discipleship. But the word translated “perfect” (teleios) is used by Paul and often translated “mature” (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:6; Phil. 3:15). In 1 Corinthians 14:20, Paul uses this word to urge Christians to stop being children and instead think like “adults” (teleioi).69 “Jesus is not frustrating his hearers with an unachievable ideal but challenging them to grow in obedience to God’s will.”70 But we dare not minimize Jesus’s costly summons. His words echo the Old Testament call to “be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2). “The community of Jesus’ disciples is to reflect the holiness of God in scrupulous obedience to the will of God as disclosed through the teaching of Jesus, who has taken the place of Moses as the definitive interpreter of the Law.”71 The messianic kingdom has begun, and it is now possible and imperative for Jesus’s disciples to demonstrate (imperfectly but powerfully) the character of God. And that, according to Jesus, includes loving one’s enemies. The same teaching about loving enemies appears in the Gospel of Luke. There too, as in Matthew, it is a major part of Jesus’s first ethical teaching.72 It is hard to exaggerate either the originality or the importance of Jesus’s direct command to love our enemies. It contradicts the practice of every society known to historians. No precise parallel to Jesus’s words has been found. New Testament scholars point out that the saying appears in both the earliest sayings tradition of Jesus’s words (scholars call it Q) and then Luke (6:27, 35) as well as Matthew. This leads Hengel to say that “this Magna Charta of agape” is what is “actually revolutionary in the message of Jesus.”73 John Howard Yoder notes that there is no other ethical issue about which the New Testament says Jesus’s disciples are like the heavenly Father when they act a certain way.74 Also striking is the fact that Matthew 5:38–48 is probably the most frequently cited biblical text when one collects all the statements about killing from the early Christian writers before the time of Constantine. Ten writers in at least twenty-eight different places cite or refer to this passage and note that Christians love their enemies and turn the other cheek. In nine instances, they link this passage from Jesus with a statement that Christians are peaceable, ignorant of war, or opposed to attacking others. Sometimes they explicitly link Jesus’s saying to a rejection of killing and war.75 In every single instance where pre-Constantinian Christian writers mention the topic of killing, they say that Christians do not do that, whether in abortion, capital punishment, or war.76 And Jesus’s statement about loving enemies is one of the reasons cited. Note: Sider’s book is a winner. If you choose to read it, be prepared to get uncomfortable (and likely defensive). Let it stretch you to think about things you may not have thought about before.If Jesus is Lord Footnotes…32. Wink, “Neither Passivity nor Violence,” 114.33. Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon; quoted in Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence, 107.34. Wink, “Neither Passivity nor Violence,” 115. The related word stasis is used in Mark 15:7 to refer to Barabbas’s violent insurrection and in Acts 19:40 to rioting. See also the use of variations of the basic word to refer to violent revolt (Acts 5:37) and attacks on Christians by Jews (Acts 16:22; 17:5).35. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 291. Wright (291nn179–80) cites and agrees with Walter Wink’s basic analysis of antistēnai. Guelich has argued for a more narrow understanding of verse 39a, saying the text only condemns opposing an evil person in court (Sermon on the Mount, 220). But Richard Hays points out that although antistēnai can refer to a legal setting, this word is “not a technical term for legal opposition” and it does not normally have this sense in the rest of the New Testament. Furthermore, the narrow meaning does not make much sense of either 5:39b or 5:41, 42 (Hays, Moral Vision, 325–26). Bruner (Matthew, 1:248–49) also rejects Guelich’s view.36. N. T. Wright, Kingdom New Testament, 9. So too Glen Stassen and David Gushee, who translate the verse: “Do not retaliate or resist violently or revengefully, by evil means” (Kingdom Ethics, 138). There is another ambiguity in verse 39a. The NIV translates, “Do not resist an evil person.” But the Greek word translated “person” is in the dative, and therefore it could equally be a masculine or a neuter. In the latter case, the word refers to evil generally, not an evil person.37. Bruner, Matthew, 1:251.38. Hays, Moral Vision, 326.39. Wink, Engaging the Powers, 175–84; Wink, Powers That Be, 98–111.40. E.g., Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 139; Fahey, War and the Christian Conscience, 35–38; Kraybill, Upside-Down Kingdom, 182; Neufeld, Killing Enmity, 23–25.41. Hays, Moral Vision, 326. Hays himself is not fully convinced.42. Keener, Gospel of Matthew, 197.43. Gundry, Matthew, 95.44. Wink, Engaging the Powers, 176.45. Bruner disagrees with Wink’s argument about the slap on the right cheek but agrees that Jesus is calling the person to confront the evil, not run away or hit back. See Bruner, Matthew, 1:251.46. The words for “shirt” and “coat” are chitōn and himation, respectively, which Liddell and Scott say mean the inner garment worn next to the skin (chitōn) and the outer garment (himation). Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 829, 1993.47. Wink, Engaging the Powers, 178.48. See Exod. 22:25–27; Deut. 24:10–13, 17. The word for “garment” in the LXX is himation. Luke 6:29b has the debtor being sued for the outer garment. Matthew’s version corresponds better with Old Testament law. Gundry, Matthew, 95.49. Keener, Gospel of Matthew, 198. 50. Gen. 9:20–27.51. Wink, Engaging the Powers, 179. Stassen and Gushee agree with Wink; see Kingdom Ethics, 154.52. France, Gospel of Matthew, 222.53. See the massive literature cited in Wink, Engaging the Powers, 371–72nn17–19. There is no extant Roman law limiting the right to one mile, but scholars have generally believed that was the law (371n17).54. Rome’s client king, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee in Jesus’s day, so it is possible Matt. 5:41 refers to Herod’s soldiers. See Wink, Engaging the Powers, 373n28.55. Schweizer, Matthew, 130. So too Bruner, Matthew, 1:255.56. Wink, Engaging the Powers, 182.57. Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 132–37, make the point that Jesus’s ethical demands in the Sermon on the Mount are realistic and doable.58. Piper, “Love Your Enemies,” 30–32. See also, Schweizer, Matthew, 132.59. Quoted in Schweizer, Matthew, 132. See also Josephus, JW 2.139.60. Quoted in Hengel, Victory over Violence, 75.61. See also 1 Sam. 24:5–7, 18; Job 31:29; Prov. 24:17.62. So Bruner, Matthew, 1:268; Gundry, Matthew, 96–97; Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 227; Keener, Gospel of Matthew, 203. Old Testament texts certainly command punishment of enemies (e.g., Deut. 25:17–19).63. Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 226–27.64. So France, Gospel of Matthew, 225.65. Horsley, “Ethics and Exegesis.” See also Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, esp. 261–73.66. Hays, Moral Vision, 328.67. Quoted in Klassen, “‘Love Your Enemies,’” 11. So too Schrage, Ethics of the New Testament, 76.68. Hengel, Christ and Power, 19.69. See France, Gospel of Matthew, 228–29; Bruner, Matthew, 1:276.70. Blomberg, Matthew, 115; so too Yoder, War of the Lamb, 146–47.71. Hays, Moral Vision, 329.72. Luke 6:27–36. There are some differences from Matthew in the Lukan version, but the call to love enemies and thus be children of God is central to both.73. Hengel, Was Jesus a Revolutionist?, 26–27.74. Yoder, War of the Lamb, 79.75. Sider, Early Church on Killing, 171–72.76. Sider, Early Church on Killing, 163–95, esp. 190–95.

Renewing Faith: The Way of Being

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. Garrett Morgan saved lives. It is impossible to calculate just how many lives he saved – not just in his time, but even up until now. He will continue saving lives into the distant future, too. He invented the precursor to the modern stoplight that featured not just a red and green light for stop and go, but the yellow light, warning that the red-stop was seconds away. Some interpret the yellow light as instruction to slow down, while others as a challenge to put the pedal to the metal before the red. He invented the “stoplight with a warning” in response to deaths caused by people not being able to stop in time or others entering an intersection too soon. Morgan also invented the smoke hood, the precursor to gas masks. His hood was instrumental in saving lives when a tunnel collapsed on workers constructing a water pipeline under Lake Erie. His initial design led to more and more ideas that have resulted in better and better aspirators, including, of course, the ones you are used to wearing throughout the pandemic. Morgan invented other things as well, but these two are so easy to recognize for their global impact. We have a way to know to avoid crossing into an intersection. We have a way to breathe when the air is toxic. Health faith is like that. It acts as a guide to keep you alive and well, and also helps you breathe when it feels like you can’t. The lectionary’s scriptures for this week are related, I think. The prophet Jeremiah and the psalmist agree that those who choose the way of life aligned with the Spirit of God find themselves rooted, nourished, strengthened, at peace in the face of trial. Jesus, in his great sermon, began with a related series of statements that do not make any sense at all to anyone except those who are fully invested in the way of the Spirit. The poor are blessed because they are more likely to live in the Kingdom of God. The hungry are blessed for they will be filled. Those who weep will laugh. Even those who are persecuted for living in the Way may rejoice, for it associated them with the great heroes of faith who “got it right.” There is a way that leads to life abundant – yet a different abundance than the world offers. So different that the world doesn’t know what to do with it. The Way that we’re talking about is life lived by faith. As Marcus Borg notes in his book, The Heart of Christianity, the dominant way the word faith is defined does not reflect how it was understood by our ancestors. He provides a broader historical understanding of the word that goes far beyond what is popularly referred to as faith:· Faith as Assensus. The closest English equivalent for this would be mental assent. This is how most people in the Western world interpret what it means to have faith: we believe in a particular doctrine, creed, dogma, etc. While this feels like the way faith has always been understood, it actually developed over 500 years ago from two contexts. First, Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, detailed beliefs that needed to be challenged. Many new expressions of Christian community arose from that moment all the way up to today, with each group identifying what key beliefs represent their group. Faith equates with belief, and belief is in the intellectual positions of the group. The second context comes from science. Until the Enlightenment, science and religion were BFF’s. That all changed when science used its methodology on scripture and related doctrine, challenging heliocentricity and the story of creation itself. Sensing its beliefs being challenged, the Church double-downed on its commitment to its creeds. The idea of inerrancy and infallibility were born, and we’ve been stuck with it ever since. Belief came to include ignoring scientifically based reality. Luckily, faith as assensus was not the primary understanding for Jesus.· Faith as Fiducia. Perhaps the best dynamic equivalent for this word is trust. Not trust in statements of faith, but trust in God to be God. Metaphors are helpful here (yet always limited). We trust God like we trust the ever presence of gravity, or the buoyancy of water if we don’t flail around too much, or that seasons will come and go, or that there will be air for our next breath, or in the love of a mother for her child, or the love between two lovers who know the other’s love will not fade. With this faith, we trust that God is with us, in us, surrounding us, and we trust that the character of God can be trusted as well. God, defined by a deep understanding of love, can be counted on to be loving in God’s presence with us, care for us, guiding of us – everything. We trust God to be fully God, which can give us a great sense of peace, strength, and hope.· Faith as Fidelitas. The English equivalent here is faithfulness. Not to statements about God, but in our lives centered in God. The opposite is idolatrous infidelity – a choice to not be in or with God. It’s about loyalty. About living in healthy, united relationship with God. Loving what God loves – not simply loving God. We probably have an idea about what engaging in the opposite of faithfulness looks like – the Ten Commandments offer a good starting point. But what does loving what God loves look like? I grew up with older sisters who controlled the TV remote. On weekends when other boys were getting groomed to love sports, I was getting groomed to love musical theater. My sisters loved musicals, and I came to love them, too. My wife, on the other hand, grew up watching sports with her dad and became a true sports fan. I like sports, and grew up watching a certain amount of football, basketball, and baseball. Lynne’s exposure to musicals was minimal, but the few she saw, she liked. When we got married and our kids were old enough to play on their own, the battle of the TV remote was on. Except it wasn’t a battle at all. I love Lynne, and I know she loves to watch sports. So, we watch sports together and I have learned to love it more than I ever did. Lynne loves me, and has learned to love musical theater, too. Our motive was love for each other. When we love God, we learn about what God loves and learn to love it, too. It is a life of living in loving relationship with God.· Faith as Visio. Vision, you might have guessed, is a close equivalent of this word, and refers to how we see reality. According to Borg, there are three ways we can see reality. First, we can view reality as hostile and threatening, which leads us to live defensively. Second, we can view reality as “indifferent” – the universe doesn’t care about your wellbeing one way or another – which will also lead us to live defensively (though not as paranoia-filled as the first). The third way is to view reality as life-giving and nourishing, which leads us to be more open, trusting, and giving with our lives (without being naïve). The last three ways of faith are all more relationally focused than the first, although the assensus matters a lot because it tends to dictate the way we interpret the rest – especially in the Western world. Believing and beloving are deeply related – what we believe in is what we belove. To believe in God is to belove God. Jesus said that faith can be distilled to loving God and loving what God loves. This way of embracing faith, for me, is incredibly invigorating. It provides a basis for ethical living and is a breath of fresh air. Sermon on the Plain and Jeremiah. The words of Jeremiah and Jesus are words of hope, especially for people going through difficult times. What makes the words especially powerful, however, is that they really are true in the experience of people who have been through the most difficult circumstances that life can throw at us. Jesus’ audience was extremely poor – almost everyone was – and worse, under Roman occupation. How about some salt to the wounds? The prevailing idea at that time – and now, too, in large measure – is that God’s favor could be recognized by material blessing. The wealthy and powerful were obviously favored by God given their wealth and power. This is still with us today, and some branches of Christianity promote it, too, with their leaders living in excess luxury as proof that God has blessed them. The power of this worldview is pervasive and is inescapable. I am sure that everyone reading this has felt it’s power at one time or another. We feel a little better about ourselves if we have a certain amount of money, or wear the right label, or drive the right car, or have the right address, or have the latest phone, or... And we feel a little less good when we don’t as the cultural pressure continues to rise. For many caught in this trap, Jesus’ words simply don’t make sense in the real world. One popular podcaster was simply puzzled by Jesus’ statements about the meek inheriting the earth, and after researching a bit concluded that Jesus was talking about people who chose to leave their sword in its sheath – an act of self-control. That helps some, but it needs to be recognized that the restraint noted isn’t because of some level of maturity on the part of the powerful holder of weapons, but the opposite – in Jesus’ context, a common person with a knife would not dare lift a finger against Rome lest they be immediately squashed like a bug. There is no making sense of Jesus’ statement based on a worldview that primarily sees life’s value measured in performance, material, prestige, status, etc. There is no reconciliation because it cannot be reconciled. Jesus is talking about another way of being, oriented from a different foundation and guided by a different star. He is saying that those who don’t have what makes for success – who are left out and cannot even begin to build their lives around such things – have a capacity to experience the better, higher, deeper, truer way of the Kingdom of God because of their lack. We see glimpses of what he was talking about in the scriptures – disciples in a dungeon due to their faithfulness singing hymns to God out of their joy, for instance. This doesn’t make sense. Paul wrote that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21) – this only makes sense if we understand that the Kingdom operates on a different level. We see it expressed in the songs born from slavery in America’s history – a hope for the more of God out of desperation. Indeed, we actually experience such divine seeing at certain times in our lives – moments where we are very aware of the importance and power of love, and that at the end of the day, nothing else really matters. Garrett Morgan invented the modern stoplight and the earliest version of a gas mask, both of which served to help people live. Good theology is like that, providing constructs to help us live, and fresh air to breathe when it feels like we’re suffocating. When we find ourselves (and God) living in the Way that Jesus taught and modeled, we are grounded and guided, we are consciously aware that we are not alone, we are motivated toward loving behavior and attitudes because we are aware of how much we are loved. To live in that space requires discipline, however, because it is not the dominant way in our world, even though there is support. The more we remind ourselves and build practices in our lives that foster the Way, the more we will know we are in the Way, live in the Way, and be sustained by the Way – no matter what is happening to us. This is not a way of denial, this is the Way of truth and life, of reality itself. It is the Way that turns the world upside down because it needs to be turned upside down. May you grow in confidence about your intellectual faith, but may you so much more grow in the Way through being faithful to God, loving what God loves, trusting God’s nature and presence, and choosing to see the world the way God sees the world. Such are the things of true and lasting faith.

Renewing Faith: Introduction

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. Today I begin a new series, Renewing Faith, where we will examine some key concepts that serve to form Christianity, determining which pieces are timeless and need to be honored and kept, as well as those parts that clearly need to be left in their historical context – appreciated to some extent, but no longer key to our belief. February, being Black History Month in the United States, affords us an interesting intersection which I hope to take advantage of: how we think about race in our country also needs to be examined in ways similar to our theology. I am going to work to make this a practical and helpful series that also assists with our ongoing deconstruction and reconstruction faith project. May it be so! Charles Richard Drew (1904-1950) is a man I don’t remember knowing anything about until I sat in on a Black History Month event. His research and development of ideas led to our capacity to store blood. How many WWII soldiers lived beyond their otherwise lethal wounds because his discovery allowed for blood to be wherever the wounded were tended. Unfortunately, he was never admitted to the American Medical Association. He also chose to part ways – in protest – with his association with American Red Cross. Both of these were due to the fact that he was African American. The AMA didn’t allow him membership, and the Red Cross didn’t allow the blood’s integration. Yet his work and legacy impact lives now and forever. Thank God for Charles Richard Drew! He honored his passion, which served as a call of sorts that led him to make a massive, long lasting impact on our world. This week’s collection of passages has us looking at Isaiah’s vision, hearing the call and passionately responding “Here am I”! It also has Paul speaking of his vision, call, and response to God – an unlikely character given his previous vision for his life. Finally, there is a scene of Jesus, first teaching the large crowd from a boat offshore, then instructing Peter and company to put out again and fish after they were exhausted and disheartened. They honored Jesus’ request and were blown away by their experience, which led them to humbly bow before Jesus, when they heard their version of the call, followed by their decision to follow. Three characters all blown away by different kinds of visions of God that brought them to their knees. Paradigms blown. New ways of thinking about how God was at work in the world. All called. All responded affirmatively. All led to incredibly important, but also extremely challenging work that would alter their sense of themselves and the world. God is still showing up in various ways – at the right moment, in the right way according to the person. Are we aware of the presence of God right where we are? God is still putting out the call to go forth, proclaiming the Good News, which truly is good but can come across as bad news to those who need to change. Who will hear? Who will go? Sometimes the call seems very small an ordinary, yet exactly what we’re called to do. Being willing and open to do what may or may not feel uncomfortable – to make the phone call, have the cup of coffee, to be honest about how you’re feeling with someone about something, to heed the call to introspection, to heed the call to action, to be humbled, to stand for something that makes you feel really vulnerable, to stand with someone who needs to know they are not alone, to clearly state when something isn’t right... The list of how God is at work and inviting us into the work is endless. It seems that in each instance there is a recognition of God’s presence. A humility in light of God’s presence. An understanding of God’s call in some way. A decision to say yes. A discovery that it was going to be different than we thought, tougher than we imagined, yet more compelling and important than we could dream. May you be inspired by the stories of Isaiah, Peter, and Paul who heeded the call to move forward with God even though it was very hard and met with resistance. May you be inspired by Charles Richard Drew who lived at a time when he was not fully appreciated, yet used his skills to serve humanity in ways that far outlived him, even while challenging the status quo.

Open and Relational Theology Author Tom Oord on Love

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. Hear from the author of Open and Relational Theology talk on the central, key component of this theological perspective: love.

Open and Relational Theology: God is Present

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel.Theology matters. What we believe manifests itself in what we do. If what we believe is off, what we end up doing will be off, too. Conventional Theology separates God from creation, quite literally, even if paradoxically. The creation poem found in the first chapter of Genesis has God creating the heavens and the earth out of a formless void – chaos, actually – breathing-speaking all of creation into being. While the description of creation being good every step of the way with humans being very good was in sharp contrast to other theologies competing for allegiance, it was still primitive. God was “up there” beyond the metal-dome-firmament that God would occasionally open to pour down rain in its season. Or not open it for a long time, if people were especially naughty, or keep it open way too long if people were really, really, really naughty for a long period of time. And yet, it was the breathy word of God that made creation, creation. God was necessarily infused into all of it as animating, life-giving presence. Chasms. Conventional theology gave us the Four Spiritual Laws used for evangelism. The first law? We are separated from God because of sin. Two: the wage of sin is death. Three: while we were sinning, Jesus died as a final sacrifice to pay for our sins (somehow it makes sense). Four: all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Apart from a literal interpretation of Jesus’ death as substitutionary atonement, the metaphor can be good and helpful. Unfortunately, conventional theology took it in the wrong direction – a path Jesus would not have directed. Paul, whose writing is used to generate this Roman Road, would not agree with its application. He was writing primarily to Jewish Christians, who naturally assumed God was intimately with them, who needed to see that God was equally with Gentiles. Instead, we weaponized the verses to create a binary which can very easily get off track and even cause significant destruction, distinguishing some as “in and loved” and others “out and damned”. Who moved away? We feel the distance of God not because God ever left, but because we have shut ourselves off. Sometimes willingly, sometimes due to misunderstanding. If God is Spirit, and we experience God when we open ourselves to God, we can very easily understand why we feel the absence of God when we are closed to God. It also makes sense that when we open ourselves to God after a long time of being closed, it feels as if God has come back, come near. But not because God ever moved. God was simply welcomed back into our consciousness, our inner dialogue, our lives. Creation care. When God is viewed as a “removed other” and we are viewed as totally depraved creation, we very naturally disregard creation – the planet itself and its inhabitants great and small. Throw into the mix a horrible, non-metaphor-respecting approach to interpreting the book of Revelation that prophesies that God will destroy the earth and create a new heaven and earth, and a massive group of the Church no longer cares what we do with the planet because “it’s all going to burn anyway...” A good friend of mine who I respect a lot shared a quote from highly influential now-retired mega church pastor, Rick Warren, regarding the COVID pandemic. He said that we need to remember that we are all in God’s waiting room. While hope is the obvious truth Warren wanted to communicate, there is an insidious dark side to the theology behind the statement. Nothing happens in the waiting room except waiting. And the waiting room has no value or purpose except to hold people until their appointment. The ugly truth that the statement also communicates is that this place sucks and all we can do is wait. I’m sorry, but that’s unbiblical nonsense that I am certain is insulting and offensive to God and in no way reflects the life, teaching, and mission of Jesus or the fullness of the Jewish tradition that formed him. Isms. This rendering of God also sets up a framework that allows people with power to subjugate people with less power. Women. People from other races. People with differing sexual orientation from the majority. People with developmental disabilities. People with less money, education, citizenship, etc. It’s a long list of people who have been treated poorly by those who hold power. I know people of faith who live with conventional theology who declare devotion to Jesus and at the same time diminish others based on any number of criteria. Panentheism, which is deeply biblical, corrects the errant view that God is removed and that we and creation itself are totally depraved. It states that God is deeply part of all creation, and is in a unique relationship with sentient beings, namely humans. Panentheism means that all is in God, and therefore God is in all. While most of creation simply operates based on their design, human beings are afforded the capacity to be aware on the relationship between ourselves and God. Jesus certainly recognized that God is a present Spirit everywhere when he spoke to a Samaritan woman at a well boldly declared that true worshippers worship in spirit and truth – not tied to a particular Temple (or religious tradition). Immediately before Jesus began his public ministry, he endured a spiritual battle that forced him to come to grips with the internal egocentric forces that would demand allegiance and radically change his trajectory. In another space, Jesus told his disciples that wherever two or more were gathered he would be present, and that he would somehow be with them even after his death, suggesting that there is relational interplay between each other and the divine. He said that the Spirit would be a source of comfort and guidance after he died, which certainly came true. The whole point of what we call the incarnation of Jesus is that God’s location was no longer to be understood as separate, but as deeply entwined in Jesus, and the same is possible for us. Far Reaching Implications. How might we live differently if we really believed that God was all around us and in us and in all others as well? How might this radically shift us toward compassion toward all other human beings and creation itself? How might this change the way we think about worship and prayer, and how we speak about God?Questions.How did you understand God’s location throughout your life? How did the language of your prayers serve to shape your understanding – what does referring to God as “Heavenly Father” do to our placement of God?How have you been impacted by a theology that supports God’s separation from us?How were you taught about creation – was it damned or divine? How was your view of creation supported (or not) by your religious influencers?How have you recognized the abuse of creation (physical earth or inhabitants) rooted in a view influenced by total depravity?What parts of panentheism resonate with you? What parts are hard to integrate?How does panentheism affect the way you think about the impact of your life choices?

Evil, Suffering, and God

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel.We are in the middle of a series based on Tom Oord’s book, Open and Relational Theology. Today we are going to talk about God’s power and control, which will quite naturally take us to the subject of evil and suffering as well. Should be a fun time. But first, a brief recap. The first week we talked about the idea of God being open. While we have a lot of popular language that affirms the idea that God is unchanging, which we tend to equate with unshakable strength that can be relied upon, the idea comes with some problems. If God is unchanging, it means that the future is essentially fixed, which means we don’t have free will whatsoever. It also means that God is in no way affected by creation – including us – which means praying to God for help is pointless because God will not be moved. An open stance views things differently. Because creation – including us – are not living predetermined lives, the future is open, not-yet-written, and therefore unknowable. An open stance also allows God to be lovingly responsive to creation, which is an expression of change. God’s essence is a constant, yet God’s experience is in related response to whatever creation is doing. More like a jazz combo playing with-and-in-response to each other than a symphony playing notes written centuries ago. Like a parent who loves their child but interacts and responds to them based on their developmental needs. The second week we talked about God being relational, that God is in dynamic relationship with all creation including humanity. This means that God is affected by us and that God seeks to influence us as well. Most people who are reading this are comfortable with this idea of God, even though it does conflict with some major writers and thinkers from antiquity. When people say they are spiritual but not religious, they are supporting the idea of a relational God. The Bible is full of stories when they experience God being with them, nudging them, and responding to them. I have experienced this personally and am confident that God really is at work in us and all creation, influencing everything without controlling anything, which brings us to our next topic. We humans have free will – more than any other creature given our level of conscious awareness. Obviously, there are limitations to what we can choose. Oord gave a lecture talking about our free will and pointed out that we cannot wake up one day and decide to be a chicken, or the President of the United States, or the reigning three-point shooting champion in the NBA. Also, none of us are truly working with a blank canvas – we all have lots of layers of background that has shaped us into who we are, how we think, and therefore the choices that we will see and consider. Oord, in another lecture, noted that Richard Dawkins once wrote that we have no free will because we are simply programmed to do everything that we do based on our genetic make-up. Dawkins, however, as Oord points out, concluded his book encouraging everyone to choose wisely for their sake and the sake of the world... Hmmm. The voices suggesting that we do not have free will are waning. For more on the logic regarding free will, read Oord’s chapter which we are looking at today (“Amipotence,”Open and Relational Theology).· God is loving. God is referred to as being the very essence of love, and honors love above all.· God honors free will for every human being. Let the fullness of what that means sink in. Free will is directly tied to God being loving because love without free will isn’t loving.· God is the most powerful presence in the universe, yet God’s loving nature which drives everything God does including supporting free will means that God does not override free will, because it would no longer be free, and such a move would not reflect love even if it is painful.· God, being driven by love, is always nudging everyone and everything that is capable of choosing toward choices that reflect the best outcomes. That’s what love does. Yet God cannot force a decision from us – only influence us.· Beautiful things happen when we choose among the best options toward which God influences. God therefore influences all that is good and beautiful in the world.· Not-so-beautiful things happen – even awful things – when we choose varying degrees of lesser options. God therefore is not a party to the awful and evil things that happen in the world – these things are a result of a combination of choices that depart from the best options God always supports. This framework helps make sense of why evil exists in the world and why God does not appear to be doing anything about it. The truth is that God is always influencing toward the loving best, but those who have agency to respond choose otherwise. God does not choose or allow evil – God loves and honors our freedom to choose, even if we choose so poorly that other people suffer. God is present all the while, always loving, always supporting, even joining us in our suffering. This framework makes sense to me and makes sense of my take on how the world actually works. This framework also describes my own life. I can identify times when I have chosen the loving best and beautiful outcomes ensued, and I can remember times when I defiantly chose at times among the worst options which created pain and suffering. All of this means that my life and my choices matter – not just to and for me but for everyone and everything I influence (which is broader than I can imagine – same goes for you). I can be aware of all the shaping forces that made me and influence my decisions. To ignore or deny such forces is irresponsible, immature, and ultimately destructive. I am 100% responsible for the choices I make. Will I choose among the loving best that God continually nudges me toward, or will I be more apathetic and unconscious about my decisions, or worse, willfully choose the destructive path? The story of Joseph in the later chapters of the Bible’s book of Genesis is a great case study of this phenomenon – lots of people making choices that determine how the story unfolds, at times causing immense despair but also joy and hope. By the way, the story isn’t simply about one brother among twelve. It’s about a nation. And it’s about us. Take time to read the story with this framework in mind, wondering about what influences were present, what God was influencing, and what ensued. May you wake up and realize that you have always been influenced by many, many forces from the moment you were born. May you also realize that God has been there with you all along, nudging you toward the loving best. May you, with your eyes wide open, choose to follow the nudge of God. Extras... Conventional Views of God’s Power· God is in absolute control of everything. You really don’t have free will, and everything is predestined. This is John Calvin’s view and some local churches completely embrace and teach it. Why do bad things happen? It’s all part of God’s plan, and once we see it we will all agree with God about it. This is hard to swallow, but, if you really buy it, what choice do you have except to be glad you were one of the lucky ones to make the cut for heaven. Keep your mouth shut to avoid problems.· God sometimes decides outcomes singlehandedly, but not very often. Sometimes God nails it, sometimes God doesn’t. It’s a crapshoot.· God exerts no power at all. This is called deism and is reflected in Bette Midler’s song From a Distance. There is no relational love from God in this view, and no love, either.· God’s actions are radically unknowable. God’s actions are totally incomprehensible – don’t even try! St. Francis’ PrayerLord, make me an instrument of your peace:where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seekto be consoled as to console,to be understood as to understand,to be loved as to love.For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.Amen. For those who want the world to remain as it is have already acceded to its self-destruction and, consequently, betrayed the love of God and its restlessness before the status quo. – Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

God is Relational

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel.Last week we looked at the idea of God being open. While we have a lot of popular language that affirms the idea that God is unchanging, which we tend to equate with unshakable strength that can be relied upon, the idea comes with some problems. If God is unchanging, it means that the future is essentially fixed, which means we don’t have free will whatsoever. It also means that God is in no way affected by creation – including us – which means praying to God for help is pointless because God will not be moved. An open stance views things differently. Because creation – including us – are not living predetermined lives, the future is open, not-yet-written, and therefore unknowable. An open stance also allows God to be lovingly responsive to creation, which is an expression of change. God’s essence is a constant, yet God’s experience is in related response to whatever creation is doing. More like a jazz combo playing with-and-in-response to each other than a symphony playing notes written centuries ago. Like a parent who loves their child but interacts and responds to them based on their developmental needs. This week we will consider the relational aspect of God. Some people claim to experience God in such weird ways that I wonder what they may have been smoking prior to their experience. I’m not sure that is a God I am interested in being in relationship with, and definitely not if I have to get it through a substance. Some people claim to experience God in ways that affirm their ideologies that support hatred, violence, and injustice, to the point that they feel that God is endorsing them. If God is like them, I don’t like God and don’t want to be in relationship with such a God. Some people claim to experience God in ways that just don’t add up with science. If God is real and true, it seems that God would largely abide by the laws of nature that God apparently brought into being. Frustrated by the lack of logic, some folks simply walk away from the pursuit of spirituality and faith altogether. Some voices from antiquity, like the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas and the Jewish theologian Maimonides suggest that God, being unchangeable/immutable, is not relational in any way whatsoever. Most people nowadays don’t agree with them. As part of the name suggests, Open and Relational Theology supports that idea that God is relational, involved in a personal way with creation. Evangelical pastors have promoted the idea of having a personal relationship with God – supporting this idea. And yet the “personal” denotation has some downsides that need to be addressed. What do you think? Is God relational? Does this matter? The Bible is a collection of books that serve as the core documents representing the beliefs of ancient Jews and the earliest Christians. These beliefs were in flux – not fixed – which is itself an encouragement for us to keep “fluxing”! There are many accounts in these texts of people experiencing God relationally. God apparently wanted to be known and discovered relationally rather than dropping a multi-volume written systematic theology on us. Thank God for that! Here are just a few examples of when God was experienced relationally.· Adam and Eve experienced a graceful, loving, nurturing God after they ate the forbidden fruit.· Noah experienced a God who cared about creatures and the survival of humanity through the flood.· Abraham sensed God calling him to a new location, and along with it a new way of thinking about God.· Hagar experienced God as a loving, providing being who saw her in her despair after she was mistreated by Sarah and Abraham.· Jacob experienced God in a vision that helped him see that God was more interactive in creation than he could have imagined.· Moses experienced the presence of God in burning flame to call him to return to Egypt to demand freedom for Israelite slaves.· Elijah experienced God in silence when he was overwhelmed by the noise of his fear, and also learned that he was not as alone as he thought.· Jesus experienced a relational God as his baptism – the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove (not an eagle!). During a solo retreat, Jesus experienced temptations to help him clarify who he was and what he would be about (he was going to be driven by his principles and not his passions, he would remember that he was following God and not telling God what to do, and that his goal was not personal power and glory but to simply follow God).· Peter experienced a vision from God that blew his mind and blew open the doors for Gentile inclusion.· Paul experienced a vision of Christ as a blinding light, transforming him from an enemy of Christians to their greatest champion. Christian history is littered with stories of people experiencing God relationally, showing up in all sorts of ways. Christian orthodoxy tried to make sense of it by inventing the idea of the Trinity and codifying it as a way to express the relationality of Godself. Unfortunately, we went too literal with it and largely missed the point so much that other monotheistic traditions called us out for creating three Gods. Let’s remember that the Trinity was a metaphor that was meant to help, and that’s what it should remain. Far more than anything else, it has been my experiences with God that have kept me in the faith. God has shown up at times to first open my eyes to God’s relational aspect. God has shown up as grace and love when I felt like Adam and Eve. God has shown up as encouragement as I have taken leaps of faith personally while leading the church at the same time. God has shown up as affirmation when I have stood up for others. God has come alongside when I have felt weak and given me strength. God has been with me when I was convinced God should not, blowing away my binary mindset that would restrict God from gracing the unworthy with God’s presence. God has been a source of hope in the face of despair. God has been a giver of a Merton-like unitive vision that only later I would be able to name as panentheism. For a lot of people of faith, the relational aspect of God is an easy sell. For those who are on the skeptical side, I would encourage you to not be dissuaded by some of what you’ve heard that sounds like nonsense. It’s possible that for some of the stuff you’ve heard or been encouraged to believe that it is, in fact, nonsense! And yet there are voices from the scientific community that are beginning to have fresh perspective on how connected everything is relationally. In fact, the essence of creation is relationship at the smallest level we can see. Perhaps this relationality is part of a greater whole that we call God? Perhaps there are people just like you that can be instructive for you on this journey. I would recommend a couple of titles that may be helpful in this regard. Andrew M. Davis’ and Philip Clayton’s how I found GOD in everyone and everywhere is a wonderful collection of “testimonies” of discovering God from a wonderful range of people including scientists and spiritual leaders alike. Rob Bell’s What We Talk About When We Talk About God is also holding up well, in my opinion, for those who geek out on the science side of things. Don’t give up – there is good reason not to believe in the God you don’t want to believe in, but what if much of that is erroneous constructs? Maybe there is more to be discovered that you haven’t heard of. It seems that the scientific mind is one of endless, humble curiosity – confident in what is known and yet open to what remains to be discovered. Oord provides a really cool metaphor about God’s relationship with creation that I found to be quite provocative and helpful in his book, Open and Relational Theology: Imagine an empty room large enough to seat five hundred people. Fifty people enter and space themselves at varying distances, in no particular order. Bring to this room an enormous ball of string made of a single strand. Ask the fifty people to pass the ball among themselves in random order so everyone holds a point on the string. Eliminate slack. The result might look like a spider web or Native American dream catcher. Now have one person in this interconnected web give a firm tug on the string. Ask others if they felt the tug. If the string is tight, dozens of people would feel at least something. If we added sensitive measuring devices, every point on this interconnected web would feel some movement. Now imagine someone capable of touching this string at every point on the web. This person could touch 100,000 points, maybe millions. If she had a sensitive touch, she could feel every vibration. Only someone able to touch all points simultaneously could feel the full influence of the one tug. Of course, touching all points at once would require the toucher to be in all places. The only one capable of this amazing feat would be omnipresent. And the One who feels every movement would be the most influenced. An omnipresent, relational God is the most moved of all. God is literally in touch with all of creation! Aware of all that we are feeling at all times, everywhere. God feels the tug from us when we find ourselves experiencing every kind of emotion and therefore is experiencing them with us. How can God not be moved as one who is tied to absolutely everything and everyone? Since we are all tied to God, we are, therefore, connected to each other. Let your mind go for a while with the yarn ball image – it’s pretty amazing. Relationships are two-way streets. Sometimes I wonder if we treat our faith more like a one-sided relationship where God may as well be a fence post or a journal, where we are saying everything that comes to mind and then leaving no time to listen or receive from God. There are things that God wants to “say” to you – are you able to receive the message? If you are receiving the messages, are you embracing them? God speaks through all sorts of means – the Bible, community, circumstances, etc. – yet will be generally consistent with the mega themes found in sacred text. God will not ask you to jump off a cliff (unless you are well equipped and are doing it for sport). God will tell you that you are deeply loved (every day, in fact). Do you have room to hear that you are loved by God? On that last note, be aware that we human beings have a tendency to believe that we were created in the image of God as is stated in Genesis, and then we turn it around and create God in our image. When left unchecked, we can create a God who supports us in our ugliest, least godly attitudes and behaviors, further justifying some of the worst evils ever deployed. I still hear to this day justification of atrocities based in such thinking. American Slavery and Manifest Destiny are a couple of beauties from American history, and it’s effect is still with us to this day. The holocaust is another. The crusades another. And there are personal evils that are largely unspoken that are carried out every day. I say this simply to remind us to beware of our tendency to create our own echo chambers and eventually conclude that God was endorsing us when God has been left out of the conversation. Is your god a fence post or an alive and responding benevolent Being?

Open and Relational Theology: God is Open

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. Synopsis: Why does openness matter? If God is not open to an unknown future, then we have no true freedom as everything has been predetermined. We are stuck on a ride we didn’t choose and can never get off. People use phrases that are based in predestination to explain things, to bring comfort: when people die it’s their appointed time; when people meet and fall in love it was God’s will that they meet then and there; accidents, bad medical diagnoses, etc. are often met with this type of language. It does bring some level of comfort. When we feel out of control, such words can make us feel secure. “God is in control” brings a sigh of relief in the moment. For many, over the long haul of life, the phrase loses its power, and we don’t really live like it’s true with all our dreaming, planning, deciding, etc. Deconstructing this aspect of faith will allow a new component to be appreciated in the reconstruction processes which can result in a more meaningful, purposeful, impactful life. Are you a sun worshipper? Not the kind that refers to trying to get a tan, but in a religious sense, where you worship the sun as God. Why or why not? My guess is that you do not worship the sun as God because you are aware that the sun is a star and not a magical being that flies across the sky each day. This is related to the same reason why you don’t worship the moon. Yet sun worship was not uncommon in antiquity, when they simply watched as a massive orb watchfully visited them each day. More information and experience have freed us from such notions, which is a very good thing. This series on Open and Relational Theology based on Thomas Oord’s book by the same name is meant to introduce you to the life-changing ideas the subtitle suggests. New ideas usually haven’t surfaced because older ideas dominate. An older, conventional idea we will look at now is that of God as a being who does not change, and who also knows the future with great specificity. The two issues are quite related, because only a God who does not change can possibly know a future that is certain. If the future changes, that requires a change on God’s part. If God doesn’t change, neither can the future – it all must be known in advance. Some folks are very comfortable with this, especially when they go through major shifts in their lives like falling in love, having a child, the death of a loved one, etc. These are times when it can really feel like God is in control of every part of creation: all the timing had to work out to meet that someone special; more timing had to be right to get pregnant; and how many times have you heard that when a person dies, it was their time appointed by heaven? There is a certain level of security and comfort with this way of thinking. I wonder though, especially considering our moving into 2022, do you have any goals for the upcoming year? Notice I didn’t say resolutions – nobody imagines keeping those, right? But how about goals? We all do, whether we can articulate them or not. To wake up another day. To survive. To get ahead. To be healthier. To take care of some things we’ve been putting off. To successfully go to the bathroom every day. To wash your dishes and clothes as needed. Eat. Sleep. Binge some Netflix. Goals. Note that if everything is already written – a requirement of a future that God already knows – what’s the point of any of our dreams and plans? Some take this to heart and sort of give up on caring about the larger world around them and even some things close to home because they conclude that “what’s going to happen is going to happen.” This is a resignation to a worldview that sometimes feels accurate, and yet might not be as airtight as is popularly taught. There are verses in the Bible where God appears to be “quoted” as saying that God does not change (such statements coming from the pens of prophets and poets and other biblical writers or groups). A strong and popular modern view of the Bible asks us to believe that the Bible is without error and incapable of being wrong (at least the original copy which no longer exists – so helpful!). This means that if we read in the Bible that God never changes, we should simply take it at face value. But what if that position itself doesn’t tell the whole story? We don’t have to go very far in the Bible to find an example of God changing. Below is a lift out from the very familiar story of Adam, Eve, and forbidden fruit: The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” – Genesis 2:15-17 NRSV But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. – Genesis 3:4-13, 20-24 NRSV Do you see how God changed? In the instruction to Adam, God says that if he eats the forbidden fruit he shall die. Pretty straight forward. The tempter/test-your-mettle-antagonist suggests otherwise, Adam and Eve take a bite, and... nothing. They are still very much alive, and very much aware that they are naked and for some reason feel ashamed about it. Their innocence died, for sure, but they still had a pulse. When God shows up to talk about it, God does not kill them on sight, but walks them through what it will mean for their future. Life in the garden is dead and gone, but their lives will continue. God changed God’s mind in favor of grace. This pattern shows up throughout the entirety of scripture: God threatening doom if people don’t change their ways, followed by God being merciful when they do. This clearly provides an important truth: God is not fixed, but rather flexible depending on what we do. As Oord notes in his book, in describing how our relationship with God works, we may be better served with the metaphor of jazz than a fully written musical composition. Especially for a jazz combo with just a few artists, the music is fluid as the artists respond back and forth to each other. The chord structure and melody line is fully present, but is being expressed in the moment, never to be repeated exactly the same way. Human relationships are like this, and it appears that this is how God is with us. God moves with us responsively. We respond and/or react to God’s influence in our lives (wittingly and unwittingly), and God is affected by what we do as is clearly the case throughout the Bible. This raises an unsettling question: if God is responsive, changing based on what’s happening in creation, can we trust God? What if God changes God’s mind about being loving or graceful? Doesn’t introducing an open framework destroy the foundation for God’s faithfulness? Process philosophers and theologians helped solve this problem by distinguishing essence from experience. Essence refers to core character, while experience refers to how that character is expressed. With this in mind, we can see that God’s character of holiness, love, grace, etc. – God’s essence – remains unshakable. For example, we don’t see any major themes in the Bible where God chooses to go off on a weekend bender causing major messes for our lives. How God’s essence plays out experientially is always in response to creation. Oord uses an analogy from parent-coaching his daughters about soccer. In their earlier years, he interacted with them on the most basic levels of soccer skills because that’s the most they could handle. Over time, as they grew in skill, Oord interacted with them at higher levels of play based on their capacity. Oord’s love for his girls never changed, but his experience with them did, based on their capacity and responsiveness to him. So it is with God and creation. God’s character remains solid and trustworthy, yet God’s expression of character is quite fluid, improvising along with the other members of the combo who are responding in like manner. We can count on God’s character, and we can count on God’s response to be related to our own (but always based on who God is more than who we are). This is why we can feel comfortable saying that God does not know the future with great specificity without taking anything away from God. This also takes God off the hook for a lot of things we blame God for. This also makes a lot of sense in our human experience. The primary thing holding us back may be fear of violating some long held conventional ideas that should have been taken out of circulation a long time ago, but their “holy cow” status kept them intact. If you feel anxious about dropping the conventional view of God as unchanging and therefore foreknowing, where is the angst coming from? Intellectual argument? Or fear? Personally, as I have shifted, fear has been a primary force keeping me tied to ideas that need to die. As a pastor, I can say the same for many others – we are afraid to let go of the conventional because of the threats levied by those who maintain the conventional structures. The threats are very real. The fear is justified. But the threat is not coming from God. God’s essence is reflected in the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, and self-control. This is God’s core, God’s heart, God’s ultimate foundation, God’s goal, God’s way of being in the world. Shalom is a single word-basket that incorporates and holds all the fruits of the Spirit. God is represented by shalom, is necessarily driven to create and foster more shalom in the world and does so reflecting shalom. Founded in shalom, toward shalom, with shalom. All of this has implications for our lives. We’re not chess pieces on a game board. We’re not robots. Nothing is predetermined except that God’s essence and MO will not change. What we do with our lives and with God is our choice, and our choices have consequences. What we do with our lives matters more than just to us. Creation matters. God influences and responds to creation, which includes us. When we pray, when we choose to deepen our understanding, when we serve others, when we advocate for shalom, when we walk deeply with others in joy, grief, and the mundane, we have an effect. Would you like to see more shalom in your life and in your world? You can affect that. You can trust that the qualities of shalom are rooted in God and that when you pursue shalom, God is with you, responding in ways we cannot fully comprehend and making the most of it. Therefore, as we enter 2022, be filled with great hope! The foundation of God’s shalom is unshakable and can be trusted. God’s desire to bring more shalom is well attested throughout history. God’s responsiveness means that when we choose to embrace shalom in our prayers, learning, service, advocacy, and intimacy with others, we can count on more impact than we might expect. Despite the gloom of COVID’s Omicron strain, have hope and get going. There is no time to waste. You, for your own life’s sake, would be greastly served by leaning into shalom as it comes with all the fruit of the Spirit! And the world needs you to lean into shalom, trusting God’s responsiveness, because hope is bigger than despair. We are not alone, and we can make a difference. The music is playing, and we have our lives as instruments to join in. Let’s make some beautiful music together.“God who began a good work in you will bring it to completion...”Quotes and Thoughts from Chapter 2, Open: Making a difference: meditation and prayer, study, service, advocating for the Kingdom, and genuine friendship bring their effect on ourselves, God, and creation. Your life and your decisions matter, and not just for you. We have agency. While we can be victimized by others’ choices, we are not victims because we can make decisions. Oord asks, “is life more like a vinyl record, each groove cut, and all songs prerecorded? Or an extemporaneous jazz session whose musicians improvise, exploring uncharted motifs?... “To explain ‘open’ well is to talk about the flow of time and the openness of the future. Open and relational theology says life is more like the jazz session. Nothing and no one – not even God – prerecords history. The future is open and yet to be determined. We’re all in process.” “Over forty times, biblical writers say God ‘repents.’ This doesn’t mean God turns from sin; it means God has a change of mind. The Lover of us All planned to do one thing but alters course to do something else in response to creation. A timeless God can’t alter course, but a Living Go can. Scripture passages saying God chooses mercy, responds to needs, and liberates the oppressed make little sense if God is timeless... “Conventional theologies portray God as timeless, so they can’t portray God as a relational actor. These theologies don’t fit the way God is portrayed in sacred scriptures. They don’t fit our experiences as living beings. And they don’t fit the reality and ways of love.” On Foreknowledge: “God can only be certain about some future even if that future has already been settled, fixed, or complete. It doesn’t matter how it was settled. Maybe it was the atoms, [cultural conditioning], evolution, or fate. Or some combination of these. What matters is that the matter was somehow settle beforehand... If God foreknows all with certainty, what we think is an open future must be closed. Instead of a realm of live options, the future must be complete, decided, and settled. Instead of being able to make free decisions about life and love, we’re merely experiencing a simulation, like the Matrix. A settle future is inconsistent with our freely choosing... Knowing doesn’t force anyone. Instead, God can only be certain about some future event if that future has already been settled, fixed, or complete. It doesn’t matter how it was settled. The point: God can only be certain about a future event if it has already been determined.” If God changes, doesn’t that impact our confidence and require us to limit our faith? “The solution [to this problem] distinguishes God’s essence from God’s experience. God’s essence is eternally unchanging; it’s stable and steadfast. But God’s experience changes moment by moment; it’s flexible and forming. The divine experience is like the growing universe. It changes. God is unchanging in one respect but changes in another.” “Although the steadfast love of God never ceases, Lamentations also says it’s ‘new every morning.’” “In sum: conventional theologies portray God as timeless, so they can’t portray God as a relational actor. These theologies don’t fit the way God is portrayed in sacred scriptures. They don’t fit our experiences as living beings. And they don’t fit the reality and ways of love. By contrast, an open and relational God experiences time’s flow.” What do we do with this? Does the fact that God changes make God unreliable and untrustworthy? No. “The solution distinguishes God’s essence from God’s experience. God’s essence is eternally unchanging; it’s stable and steadfast. But God’s experience changes moment by moment; it’s flexible and forming. The divine experience is like the growing universe. It changes. God is unchanging in one respect but changes in another... God has an everlastingly unchanging essence and an everlastingly changing experience.” Prayer. If the future is essentially fixed, there is no point in praying. Yet most people believe prayer has some effect on God and circumstances. An open view believes that what we pray makes a difference to God and creation. Unanswered prayer: Go dis always influencing and influential but never controlling. Note: most people already pray as if God is open and relational – why not make it official and name it as such?