A Response to “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?”
In yesterday’s New York Times, op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat, published “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” My first reaction upon reading the article was to launch a strident refutation. Other people of liberal faith already have. But as I thought more deeply about Mr. Douthat’s indictments, I found more truth and realized that my own reaction was just that–a reaction to some of the unfortunate realities that liberal religion has brought upon itself. I’m not in complete agreement with all of Douthat’s criticisms. His final premise that liberal churches, “often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism,” is painfully accurate. However, I think Douthat misses the mark on why this is. There are, at least, other possibilities to consider. The foundation of Douthat’s concern seems to consist of liberal reforms, primarily in the Episcopal church (although he makes the connection to other liberal faith communities). I’m just not sure when reform became a bad thing. The slower moving Catholic Church certainly hasn’t been winning any awards for it’s resistance to and failure to adapt to the modern world. When I read Douthat’s words that the Episcopal Church:
is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths…
I wanted to swell with pride. These are bad things? I think where Douthat misses the mark is somewhere in his concept of “traditional” religion, which he mentions at least twice. He seems to equate “traditional” with conservative and unchanging, but doesn’t ever define the word, except to invoke foundational practices mentioned by liberal theologian Gary Dorrien. As a person of liberal faith, I have come the understanding that “conservative religion” is an oxymoron. To be religious is to be generous, especially in the Christian context of Jesus’ teachings. There was nothing conservative, traditional, or status quo about what Jesus taught. Quite the contrary, he challenged the religious and political authorities and laws of the time repeatedly and stridently. Jesus taught generosity. Jesus challenged tradition.
So which “traditions” is Mr. Douthat holding up as more sound than the liberal reforms that have been the norm in societies and religions across the globe since human history has been recorded and preserved? I don’t think he meant the tradition that Jesus taught or that his immediate apostles followed, or their followers in the early centuries of Christianity, which was a time of oppression from without and debate from within. The earliest traditions of Christianity were to be counterculture. I imagine, from his own words, that Mr. Douthat means the traditions of the Catholic Church, which rejects the reformations that have been challenging the church for at least a millinium, which still dogmatically calls itself the one true Christian church. I wonder if he also means the fundamentalist interpretations of Jesus’ teachings that have infiltrated many corners of Christianity and subsequently dictate that there is only one path to the divine, through Jesus as lord and savior, all others being damned?
I find none of this “tradition” in Jesus’ teachings, in the early church, or in the liberal faith that I practice today.
Nonetheless, as Mr. Douthat accurately describes, liberal Christianity has moved uncomfortably close to a secular liberalism, and liberal faith communities are declining. But as any good social researcher knows, correlation does not equal causation. The claim in this article that the decline and imminent death of liberal Christianity is inherent in liberalism itself, is unfounded.
So what do liberal faith communities need to do to survive and thrive? I believe, like Mr. Douthat, that we need to offer religion again. Not conservative, traditional religion that is unchanging and uninviting, but the inclusive, radical religion that Jesus taught in his first sermon. A religion that binds together all people in a single garment of destiny. A religion that does not change the law, but fulfills it by holding it accountable, and by breaking the status quo. A religion that invites and creates social change, not because it is becoming more secular, but because change is human nature (thank God), and because social issues are moral issues first, not political.
We also need to reintroduce discipline into our faith practices. As liberal faith communities have progressed we have lost focus, not so much of our history and traditions, but of our discipline. Religion is ultimately grounded in practice. Practice requires discipline. Discipline creates disciples. Not blind followers, but informed, radically-prepared change agents.
This week, I promoted increased discipline in the faith lives of my Unitarian Universalist congregants using the example of the coming month of Ramadan and the five pillars of Islam. Even modern adherents of Islam practice the discipline required in the five pillars. I asked my congregation how they could introduce a regular, practiced, discipline of more reverence, more restraint, and more responsibility in their lives. None of this is counter to the ideas of religious liberalism. All of it will be necessary for us to get back on track with being successful reformers.
So, I absolutely agree with Ross Douthat when he says, “What should be wished for, instead, is that liberal Christianity recovers a religious reason for its own existence,” we just see different paths toward that goal. His are grounded in an undefined tradition and conservancy, mine are grounded in an unabashed liberal spirit and generosity within a healthy practice of religious discipline.
There are many paths…
Being Good for Nothing
I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything. But letting these things slide is, shall we say, not my strong suit. So when a Facebook friend posted a picture of a gun mounted under a car’s steering 
wheel with a caption about it being an “an anti-carjacking device,” accompanied by her wish that this were legal, I just had to put in my $.02 worth. I suggested that, given the prevalence of road rage, maybe more guns in cars might not be such a good thing. Only maybe there was the tiniest bit of sarcastic edge to the way I phrased it.
And, as these Facebook conversations go, someone else responded: “Wouldn’t you be more polite if you knew everyone else had a gun?” I don’t know whether the conversation got more serious for the other folks viewing the exchange at that point, but it certainly did for me. We had just entered the realm of religion. Here’s the thing. No, I’m not polite because I’m afraid of people around me with guns. I’m polite (at least I’m generally polite) because I just think people should be nice to one another. I’m happier, they’re happier, the world in general is happier if people are nice to one another. It’s a basic religious principle. Like, you know, the Golden Rule.
But there are plenty of folks in the world who believe that we need the guns in order to make people behave. Deterrence is at the heart of their theology. They figure that the sure knowledge of hellfire and damnation is the only thing that can keep people on the straight and narrow. Without the threat of hell, surely utter licentiousness would prevail and we would be sucked down into a whirlpool of degradation.
It’s a point of view to which they are entitled, but a) there’s no particular evidence that the threat of guns or the threat of hell actually makes people behave better on the average and b) really, how depressing can you get? Would you rather live in a world in which people are polite out of terror for their lives or souls, or would you rather be part of a community of people who cared for one another because love is the great sustaining principle? Isn’t it better, really, to be “good for nothing,” to be good without hope of reward or punishment other than the pleasure of doing what is right, kind, honoring of our connections?
Sure, there are people who do terrible things, who break the bonds of community in devastating ways. Carjackings do happen. But is the world a better place when we assume that any person on the corner is a potential threat, or if we assume that the folks we see outside our windows are neighbors, human beings with worth and dignity equal to our own? Which perspective is likely to make you feel safe? Which perspective is likely to bring you joy? Which perspective is one worthy of sitting at the heart of your religion? Me, I’ll go with the love every time.
Going to the Movies
“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of the mind.” the DHAMMAPADA
This summer, I decided to use contemporary movies as the “texts” for the worship services at my congregation. Partly, this was because I hadn’t been to any movies for several months and this gave me an excuse to go to the movies in these hot summer months. But more than that it is because of the importance of stories, and movies are our contemporary shared stories.
Since humans have had consciousness and language, we have been telling stories. We all have stories; in some ways, we are stories. They are our memories; they are our dreams. Stories are how we share what is important and meaningful to us. They are how we tell each other who we are. Indeed, stories are how we tell ourselves who we are.
Some stories intrigue or entertain us and other stories distress or bore us. The first human stories were told, heard, remembered and re-told. Then the stories were written and collected. Some of those stories became sacred through re-telling. They gave communities identity and meaning. The stories explained the world, life and death. Some of those story collections came to be called scriptures which is a word that means writings. People still think about and learn from these old stories. We still tell, remember, write and read stories. But now a primary way of telling and receiving stories is through television and movies. We think about, talk about and learn from what we watch as well as what we hear. Film can be powerful and emotional. So, I decided this summer to talk about current movies, to see what we can learn from these films. What are the messages in these contemporary stories?
Of course, there can be many messages even in one movie, and as we watch a film, our own experience influences the message we receive. One theme that I experienced in the three movies that I have seen so far may well be part of every movie. The movies are The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Kid With A Bike and The Intouchables. In many ways, these are three quite different films, but all three show how we are transformed in relationships, especially in caring relationships. The movies’ stories are about love, courage and transformation, and because they are stories about life, they are also stories about loss and acceptance.
Authentic, open hearted and mutual relationships allow us to accept our sorrows and our joys and to become more of our own true selves. Even brief encounters if honest and open to the other can change us, and movies, too, have the potential to change us. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the brothers who made The Kid With A Bike, said of their films, “The moral imagination or the capacity to put oneself in the place of another. That’s a little bit of what our films demand of the spectator.” When we are our best selves, that “capacity to put oneself in the place of another” is the gift we give each other.
May your stories be heard and may you be open to others’ stories.
Looking Back to Look Forward
Last week, the Unitarian Universalist Association became only the second national religious body to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, the 15th century papal doctrine that declared that when Christian Europeans landed in a place inhabited by non-Christian people, the Europeans could claim to have “discovered” the land, and had the right to possess it and the people on it.
The Doctrine of Discovery became the theological justification for European colonialism, slavery, genocide and many atrocities of history. In 1823, it also, thanks to Chief Justice John Marshall and the US Supreme Court, became the legal justification for the United States’ treatment of the indigenous peoples of our continent. According to this doctrine, the native peoples who were here before the arrival of Europeans in North America have no right to own their traditional lands, to practice their traditional religion on those lands, or to self-determination.
If this were just a horrible chapter of history, however, there would be little need to engage entire denominations in the process of repudiating it. We could read about it in a book and move on. The Doctrine of Discovery, however, is living amongst us today.
The Supreme Court still refers to it, believe it or not, most recently in City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation (2005), in which the court ruled that the Oneida Nation was not entitled to the sovereignty granted it in treaties with New York State even if they purchased the land seized from them in violation of that treaty on the open real estate market. Writing for the 8-member majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the Doctrine of Discovery as legal basis for nullifying the Oneida’s treaty rights.
We tell the truth about our history so that we can do better in the future, and our nation can and must do better.
What can we do?
First, the United States can fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Adopted in 2007, this declaration asks UN member nations to negotiate, in full faith and with honor and mutuality, right relationship with the indigenous peoples among them. It says something that the United States was one of only 4 nations in the world to vote no. Since then, President Obama has declared his intention to follow the declaration, but his promise has not been acted upon. We can ask him to.
Second, the US can act to restore the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and their religions. Native Hawai’ian people are prevented from practicing their ancient faith because their sacred sites are “owned” by the Federal government. That can and should be changed.
And finally, we as people can seek right relationship with the indigenous people of this land and with our common mother, the Earth. Do you know whose ancient territory you sit upon as you read this article? If not, find out. Find out where those people are today. Seek healing with honor and openness.
We learn about the past so that we can do better in the future, and the United States was founded on the principle that when we learn a better way we can make it happen. Let’s work together to fulfill the promise of our nation instead of repeating its ugly past.
“The” Indefinite Article
Do you remember the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons and songs from the 1970s? Even my kids watch them today on DVD and reruns. There was a series about math, about politics, and about grammar. My favorites were “Conjunction junction, what’s your function,” “Interjection,” and “I’m just a bill, sitting here on Capitol Hill.” I think they remain one of the most brilliant television-learning tools ever created. But there was a serious gap in Schoolhouse Rock, for which I think America’s youth have suffered for too long. They never created an episode about the most important part of speech. The article. If Schoolhouse Rock had taught us the difference between the definite and indefinite article, English speakers would be a more enlightened crowd.
Okay, I know you are trying to remember what an article is. “The” is a definite article. “A” and “an” are indefinite articles. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” has a very different meaning than “I am a way, a truth, and a life,” or even “I am way, truth, and life.” Sometimes there is elegance in the indefinite, or even in the absence of an article.
John 14:6 is used often by Christian fundamentalists as irrefutable truth that Jesus and Christianity are the only path to salvation. I agree that the author of John, who most scholars do not believe would have been the disciple himself, had as his primary objective, making Jesus the Christ. Chapter 20 verses 30 and 31 even say, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name.”
And so, it is likely that the author meant exactly what he wrote. In the Greek original, the definite article “ho”, which is in the nominative singular feminine form (in case you were wondering), is clearly present. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” However, there is no other way to say this in Greek. The indefinite article is seldom used and specifically means “one.” No clarification needed here.
Of course, we have no way of knowing whether or not Jesus actually said these words, especially to that specificity. The best guess of modern day biblical scholars is that he did not. The Jesus Seminar, which is a group of scholars who systematically analyze the Christian scriptures toward the goal of determining the authenticity of Jesus’ words, have come to the conclusion that almost none of the words attributed to Jesus in John, were actually uttered. John is a persuasive story toward a specific goal.
For arguments sake, let’s say that Jesus did say something about being way, truth, and life. Jesus may have understood and spoken the Greek that John was written in, the common language of the occupied land. However, his native tongue was almost certainly Aramaic, which is a Semitic language closer to Hebrew, and very different from Greek. There is also the 50-80 year gap of oral tradition between Jesus’ death and the time that John was likely written. But even if Jesus spoke the words, definite articles in Aramaic are even more troublesome. The definite article doesn’t really exist in Aramaic, but is embedded and expressed in the noun itself, which has three forms. A definite article is expressed via the emphatic form of the noun, but is not really so definite as in English. If that isn’t enough, ancient Aramaic and modern Aramaic (like English and most living languages) are different. Noun forms have changed over time. For example, emphatic (definite) nouns are more used in modern Aramaic than they were in biblical Aramaic. Regardless of what, if anything was said, it seems impossible to know definitively how definite Jesus was being here.
It is also interesting to look at languages that have no articles at all, like Latin and Russian. In Russian (which I speak) this passage reads, “Ya yest’ put, i istina, i zhizn’.” Literally “I am way, and truth, and life.” Another interesting aspect of this is that, in Russian, the noun “to be” is usually not voiced in the present tense. If you and I were speaking to each other, I would simply say, “Ya put, i istina, i zhizn”…or “I way, and truth, and life.” The verb form “yest'” (I am) is likely included in the Russian Bible because it is also emphasized in the various Hebrew forms of the Hebrew Scriptures, and expresses more of an existential quality. One might say, “I exist as way, and truth, and life,” but even that wouldn’t be exactly correct.
The point is that, without any articles at all, languages like Russian are actually more robust because meaning cannot be so clearly defined, or misinterpreted, with a single qualifier. Meaning must be derived in other ways like nuance, word order, emphasis, and more in-depth conversation. The meaning of “Ya yest’ put, i istina, i zhizn’,” requires more information to be fully understood.
Liberal expressions of faith are more like the indefinite article. We are not the way, the truth, and the life. We are more of a way, a truth and a life. But even the singular indefinite article is limiting. Liberal faith can also be lived as faith with no articles at all. And in that absence, I find even more strength. The Bible loses so much of its power if we limit it to a singular and definite meaning. When we say that there is only “the way, and the truth, and the life,” we seal revelation, and there is nothing new to learn. When there is nothing new to learn, put me in my grave. I’m done.
The Unitarian Universalist principles, for example, don’t say that we are have the truth or even a truth. They say, “free and responsible search for truth and meaning—no articles—just truth and meaning. How we define truth and meaning then requires more discussion and explanation and interpretation and even debate. Unitarian Universalism requires nuance, emphasis and more in-depth conversation. I actually believe all religions require this, because I don’t believe any sacred text can be taken at literal face value. Doing so might make it easier on our brains, but would sell the authors short. And Jesus said,
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.
To be a person of faith who does not take the path of the definite article, one must have some comfort with ambiguity. One must be willing to work out truth and meaning with nuance, emphasis, and more in-depth conversation. Grammar matters.
A Moving Experience
My ministry in Philadelphia has led me to have two homes: a house in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and an apartment in Philadelphia near the church. This week, my husband came to Philadelphia to help me to move to another apartment. As with many things in my life, this moving experience has led me to reflect and to pay attention. It is a good change, but all change has consequences.
Neither apartment is large, but the new one is big enough to have a separate office space and to host small groups. I say this so that you will know that this move was not like changing houses. Still, there were boxes of books and papers, boxes of dishes and kitchen equipment, and the basic furniture. We are no longer young, so for the first time in our adult lives, we hired some men to help us move the furniture. They looked at the furniture and said, “Oh, this is easy it’s just furniture!” It would not have been easy for us. Moving reminded me of my need for help and my appreciation for that help, both volunteer and paid. Change often means that we need help. I am grateful for community. I am grateful for caring relationships.
Rick and I moved all the boxes and all my clothing. Did I mention that the new apartment is a second floor walk-up? There are actually four flights of stairs. Most of the time, this is nothing, and I prefer having stairs so that some exercise is built into my days. Did I mention that it was the hottest day of the year so far? The morning after we carried all these boxes, I wasn’t sure I could move my body at all that day. At first, walking across the room seemed out of the question! I could and did! Moving led me to pay attention to my body and to be gentle with myself about my physical limits. Change means that we do different things. I am grateful for what I am able to do.
How could it be that I had so much stuff in a one bedroom apartment in two years of being in Philadelphia? Do I really need all that stuff? The answer, of course, is no, I don’t really need all that stuff. Some of it I gave away before the move, and some of it, I am sorting and giving away after the move. Figuring out how to use things or where to put things in a new place helps me to see what I have. There is an inertia, a not seeing, that comes from having things in the same place. Moving overcomes that inertia. Moving reminds me of my desire to live simply. We have not changed houses for 18 years. I think now would be a good time to simplify. What is in o ur house simply because of inertia and not because we are using it or will use it? What is in my life simply because of inertia? Change allows us to see things in a new way. I am grateful to see new possibilities.
Another reminder in this move came from my cat, Annie. Annie was terrified by this move. Of course, she could not understand what was happening. When she arrived at the new apartment, she ran to a dark place and hid. She only emerged wide-eyed and jumpy when I opened a can of cat food. Annie saw where I put the food and took a bite. She ran to her hiding place again. She came out crying. I petted her and showed her the litter box. She hid again until we went to bed when she started crying, only stopping when she was held and comforted. Her reactions remind me that change can be distressing especially when we do not understand what is happening. By morning, Annie was fine. She stopped crying. She knew that her needs would still be met. Food, litter box and her people were all available. She found the windows for entertainment. She slept comfortably. Annie reminded me that we all need comfort. We may need time to become comfortable with change. We can accept change more easily when we understand what is happening. I am grateful for the comfort of caring relationships. I am grateful for understanding. I am grateful for awareness.
May we all be aware of gratitude.
The Problem with Evil
It is a strong word, evil… and one those of us of Liberal Faith have not always engaged well. I mean the word… people of Liberal Faith have
often come into contact with evil, we just have trouble calling it that.
This week, I am in Phoenix, attending the Justice General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Two years ago, when other denominations and institutions were being encouraged to boycott Arizona over the passage of the anti-immigration law known as SB-1070, our denomination was invited by both our Phoenix congregations and by our Arizona Allies for immigration reform to come to Arizona. We were invited to forgo much of our normal General Assembly business, and to come and allow their stories of facing the evils of our nation’s and this state’s current immigration policy to transform us. We were invited to stand in solidarity with them. We were invited to learn, grow, and transform with them.
And yet, in our desire to be present and to “make a difference” in this time of deportations and family separations and the dehumanization of being forced to prove your citizenship status because of your skin color, we of liberal faith who have come to Arizona this week also have the potential to cause harm, and to commit acts that would be viewed by some as evil… perhaps not in their intent, but certainly in their effect.
I believe in the ultimate unity of all things. That all of us are part of the greatest reality which I define with the name God. For me, God is all and is in all, the rocks and the trees, the birds and the bees, the smallest atom and the largest galaxy. All interconnected and interdependent, we are all a part of God. All of the divisions that we humans see or hope to see around us are coping mechanisms that we limited creatures have created to deal with an unlimited divine reality.
One of those coping mechanisms is the imagined division of good and evil. I am not saying that good and evil are imaginary, but rather that the division between them is. At their core, good and evil are human valuations of acts, intents, and events that happen within the wholeness that I call God. More than perception, naming something as “good” or as “evil” has a lot more to do with the values of the person doing the naming than it does being an inherent aspect of the thing being so judged.
Let me take immigration as an example. I believe that current federal and many state policies regarding immigration to be evil. I believe that the enforcement of immigration policies here in Maricopa County, Arizona, and in many parts of this state, is evil. And, that belief says a lot more about me than it does about the events here in Arizona themselves… or at least it says a lot more about the values that I hold at the center of my life.
I find immigration policy and enforcement, as it is currently being practiced in Arizona and beyond, to be contrary to by belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I believe that the arbitrary border of the United States forgets that this land was unjustly taken from indigenous peoples, some of which are my ancestors. I believe that this nation depends upon the labor of many who are undocumented, and not recognizing them and regularizing their immigration status is a new defacto form of slavery. I believe that human rights are being violated every day in the name of border enforcement. I believe that people are not being given the democratic rights to representation and self-determination.
And so, I believe that the current form of immigration policy and enforcement is evil. I believe that because my principles, values, and religious faith call me to that belief… and as such I am responsible to do whatever I can, in good conscience, to bring an end to that evil.
You see, neither good nor evil have a metaphysical reality. I do not accept that there is some metaphysical being who embodies evil and brings it into the world. I believe that naming a metaphysical nature to evil (like the devil) is a way for humans to name something as evil without having to take personal responsibility for working to end that evil. A metaphysical center for either good or evil has the effect of disempowering humanity for their responsibility for what is good, and for what is evil in the world.
Because each and every one of us has tremendous capacity for good, and for evil. And, because not all human beings agree on our foundational values, principles, and religious faith, many of the things I view as supporting good are viewed by someone else as supporting evil. There are those here in Arizona who believe that all of these religious liberals coming to stand with and bear witness with our local allies is a form of evil. We each also have the capacity to commit acts that might be evil in our own eyes, were we to see them clearly.
An example of such would be if we religious liberals came to Arizona like “saviors” and attempted to paternalistically take leadership in this long running struggle, instead of coming to learn from those who have been in this struggle for so long. We are here at their invitation, to learn from them and to stand with them. If we were to try and engage this struggle in any other way, we would be in danger of committing another evil, in our own eyes as well as theirs.
Evil exists, and it is in us. We human beings create it, even when we sometimes don’t intend to… and what we define as evil is one of the clearest expressions of what we value ourselves.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David
Summer Solstice
It’s always felt a little strange to me that summer begins at the solstice, the longest day of the year. Shouldn’t the longest day mark the middle of summer, the high point from which we begin the long slide toward winter? And yet, from here the days get warmer, if not longer, the grass drier, the trees dustier. Our children have not yet begun to get bored (with any luck), and (with any luck) we are moving toward times of vacation and respite, not looking back on them.
Somehow the summer solstice manages to be both a beginning and a mid-point, the start of the line and the apex of the curve. But isn’t that just the way of things? Don’t beginnings, middles and ends turn out to be far more muddled than we ever imagined? The loss of a job feels like the world is crashing to an end, but turns out to be the seed of a new career. The beginning of high school turns out to be the end of childhood. The middle part of our lives is already arriving when we feel like we’re just starting to catch on to what it means to be married or a parent or a person with a career.
And, of course, the endings, middles and beginnings all overlap. We become passionate about a new hobby at the same time that we are comfortably in the middle of a career path, or we welcome a new baby as a parent is coming to the end of their own life. Only in the calendar to we have the chance to neatly mark the seasons, to declare when exactly one thing starts and the other leaves off.
In fact, what the calendar does is merely to assign names and numbers to the fact that change is part of the natural order. The seasons will move along in their predictable courses, but on any given day the weather will probably be hotter or colder, calmer or stormier than you might have expected. Making patterns is what we do in hindsight. Living is what we do in the moment, dealing with the elements of each day as it comes along.
But the choices we make in each moment are what build the patterns, what allow us to look back and say “That was the summer of my life.” The poet Marge Piercy writes:
We start where we find
ourselves, at this time and place.
Which is always the crossing of roads
that began beyond the earth's curve
but whose destination we can now alter.
May this summer solstice find you on a road toward your heart’s desire.
Through the Roof
There’s a transformational story in the fifth chapter of Luke (verses 17-26). Jesus is teaching in a home (probably an upscale home, given the tile roof), and there are many people from Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. Even the scribes and Pharisees were there. They were always checking up on Jesus to make sure he wasn’t causing too much trouble. It was standing room only, and the door was blocked. A few guys brought a friend, who was paralyzed, in his bed to be healed, but the crowd was so big that they couldn’t get through the door to see Jesus. The people didn’t even make way to let these guys through. Maybe you’ve been to this church where newcomers weren’t even noticed, and where the members stand at the entrance talking to each other?
Not being deterred, these men actually went up to the roof and lowered their paralyzed friend in his bed through the ceiling tiles to see Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Of course, as they always did, the scribes and Pharisees jumped right on that one and challenged Jesus, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemy…only God can forgive sins.” Jesus answered, “Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk.’ I’m going to prove to you that the son of man has the authority to forgive sins.”
The translation “son of man,” “barnash” in Aramaic, does not necessarily mean the “son of God.” It is not exclusively a reference to divinity, but refers to humanity. Jesus isn’t talking about himself as a divine arbiter. He is saying, “I’m going to prove to you that mere mortals can also offer forgiveness,” which he had just done.
Back to the story, Jesus turned to the man in the bed and said, “Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And that’s just what the man did. Everyone there was amazed and said, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”
Suspend for a minute the idea that this was a literal healing. I believe that to take everything in the Bible literally actually limits its potential and power. When Thomas Jefferson cut the miracles out of his Bible, I think he missed the point. He was taking these miracles too literally and wasn’t open to the power of metaphor.
If we allow this story to be metaphorical, then it is even more instructive to us today—timeless in its power. Too often the members of congregations, ordinary people of all walks of life, sit around and do their own thing. This is the status quo. We do things the way they’ve always been done, and sometimes forget that there are others who are excluded and cannot do the things that we take for granted and do on a regular basis. The paralyzed man wanted a change. He wanted transformation in his life. His friends wanted it for them. Perhaps this was just an intervention. But they couldn’t even get through the door. They couldn’t even be part of the status quo. Most people would have just given up, but these guys decided to come through the roof. They changed the status quo by changing the rules. In the end, it wasn’t Jesus who healed the paralyzed man. It was his own faith. He came to that synagogue to be transformed. Jesus just said, “Your faith is strong. Your sins are forgiven.” Sin doesn’t always mean that we’ve done something bad, just that we’ve “missed the mark.” Whatever this man had tried to heal his paralysis hadn’t worked. Jesus just presented the obvious. “Get up. Walk.” Too often when we are stuck, stifled, and paralyzed in life, we forget to do the obvious.
What Really Matters
I recently conducted a memorial service for a young woman who had taken her own life. She left behind a loving husband and her five year old daughter, as well as her mother and siblings. It was, in every sense of the word, a tragedy.
I had only met this woman briefly on a few occasions, but she made a big impression in a short time. She talked about having just received an advanced degree and starting a new job. She said she was looking forward to becoming a part of our congregation and enrolling her daughter in our religious education program. She was one of those people you wanted to be around. She seemed so full of life and hope and dreams. That’s why I had such a disconnect when I received a call from her sister, telling me what had happened. “How could someone like that do something like this?” I asked myself. It made no sense. And then in conversations with her family, I discovered that she had been waging a life-long battle with depression and bipolar disorder, and I realized that all was not as it seemed on the surface.
As I have reflected on this woman’s life, and her death, these past few weeks, I’ve reached a simple, but perhaps profound, conclusion: All of our lives are incredibly complex. Each of us has much more going on than we like to admit, to each other and perhaps to ourselves. Every one of us has a story that we hold deep in our hearts, that is ever unfolding, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and we are much more than we appear to be. We all wrestle with our demons, and yet we present brave faces to the world. And even when we think we know someone well, there’s a lot we don’t know.
Knowing that every one of us struggles, every one of us hurts, every one of us is so much more than meets the eye, we must, in our every encounter, treat each other with kindness. Kindness is the healing balm of the soul. Kindness must be our “default” mode of interaction, because we don’t know what the other person is really going through.
In her poem “Kindness,” the poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes:
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
With this young woman’s death, I realize that it is “only kindness that makes sense any more.” It is kindness that we have been looking for. Kindness is the only gift we can give each other that will ever really matter.
This day, and every day, I wish you peace.
