Vulnerability is Strength | Third is the Series, "Novel Attitudes: Eight Ways We Can Help Rebuild the World"

The Beatitudes of Jesus are eight wisdom sayings that stand at the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. They are not moral teachings as much as they are soulful riddles that invite the hearer into a new way of being human. They are an invitation to see, from the inside of our lives—from our souls—what it could mean to be truly human. At this time of such a massive reassessment of human life on this planet, the Beatitudes, what I call, "Novel Attitudes," could point the way to a better way of life for our communities and our world.

This sermon reflects on the overwhelming challenges we face today, not only the COVID19 crisis, but also the travesty of ongoing white privilege and its affect on violence against black and brown people and the disproportionate suffering in those communities. In the midst of outrage and fear, here is a timely call for another way forward in order to create a world our children and our children’s children will want to inherit.

1.

It’s been a grim week. I won’t catalog the statistics. It doesn’t help. Not really. We’re all aware to one degree or another of the mess we’re in. Some of us feel it acutely; others among us are defended against it or deny it.

I found myself near tears talking to one of you this week, recognizing the enormity of the problems we face. The revelations about the racially motivated killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and the failure of the criminal justice system to confront this chilling act, highlights the dangers and disparities and injustices so many Americans face, the complicity of those in power, and the polarization and powerlessness we feel. Outrage is building for so many reasons.

And now we sit with this biblical text, this saying of Jesus: “Blessed are the meek.” Jesus’ words seem outrageous. . . .

Mothers, Dear Champions of Life

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

This is a repost from the past.  I've so many comments over the years that it bears another read.  Blessings to all mothers this week and all who "mother" in one form or another.

I get invited into some of the most raw and intimate moments of people’s lives.  I’m a pastor; my work is soul work.  The work sometimes breaks my heart.  Other times it breaks it open, expands it, makes it soar with wings I doubt I’d have found in any other way.  The work, frankly, is saving me from losing hope when there are so many reasons losing hope seems like the right thing to do.    

Several years ago, I walked with a mother whose courage, frankly, pressed my face to the ground in awe—an awe-full sense that there is something at work in this woman’s life, and in this world, that is way, way, way beyond us both.    

It’s not the first time I’ve beheld a mother who’s found what seems to me to be superhuman courage.  Despite her doubts, her weakness, her tears, her prayers that there could be some other way to move forward, this mother clawed her way toward a way to love the fruit of her womb, her very flesh and blood, when loving her child demanded that all her hopes and dreams must die for the sake of letting her child go.  It felt to her that a part of her was dying.  But she did it anyway.  And I was awed.

Courage is one of the many things that marks motherhood.  Not all mothers, of course.  Some mothers walk away from the courage demanded of them, the fierce love needed by those they’ve brought into the world—those who need their protection, their advocacy, their fight for their children’s lives, those who need someone to champion the flourishing of life that is the divine right of us all.  Some moms can’t, for a number of reasons, do all this. I won’t judge them.  Motherhood’s tough work.  Rewarding, yes, but let’s not lose sight of the real human courage that all mothers must find deep within themselves at various times over the course of their lives.  

So, while there are a few mothers who are, well, rats and scoundrels, the rest are trying, one way or another, to muster whatever courage they can to do what life needs from them.  And when you consider what wasn’t passed on to so many of them by their role models, and when you add the trauma and lack of support and pain so many of them live with, we ought to bow before them all in awe.  I realize that this might be really hard for some who’ve been so terribly neglected and hurt by those whose wombs bore them.  But regardless, today, I’m struck by the different degrees of courage all mothers—despite their hangups—have had to muster.  And I’m in awe. 

So, 

on this Mother’s Day, 

I’ll bend my knee

and bow my head 

in reverence 

before the mothers

of the earth.  

 

All of them.  

 

The good ones 

and the bad ones.  

Those who love children 

who are easy to love,

and those who weep over 

those who aren’t.  

Those who’ve given birth 

to their own flesh and blood, 

and those who mother 

the children of another.  

 

The mothers who’ve 

had to bury the child 

who ought to have buried them;

those whose children 

gather round them 

this Mother’s Day in praise,

and those whose children don’t;

those who rise 

to the courage demanded of them,

and those who won’t.  

 

Mothers, all, 

agents of life,

each and every one of you,

no matter what you’ve done

or haven’t done—

I revere you.

 

Mothers, yes, 

especially you mothers,

who’ve broken open 

the hardened places 

in your hearts, 

you who’ve dug deep, 

through pain

and confusion

and blinding longing,

and found the courage 

and selflessness

and fierce loyalty 

love requires—

despite your doubts 

and fears, 

your weaknesses 

and tears,

and done what you thought 

was too hard for you to do,

what you feared would undo you . . .

 

I salute and praise you,

 

Dear Champions of Life.

TWO TYPES OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY and the implications for 21st century religion | by Dr. Jim Goss

Introduction

At the risk of oversimplification, I will portray two types of Christianity that emerged in the first two centuries of its existence. The first, an extroverted type, finally became dominant in the fourth century and continues to have significant influence up to the present time. The second, an introverted type, enjoyed popularity for four centuries, was eventually declared heretical but was never completely eliminated. Both types are concerned with the nature of God, the role of Jesus, evil and the dilemma of human existence, and the final hope of salvation. But they developed each of these issues from an entirely different point of view.

Extroverted Christianity: External Forms of Faith

Extroverted Christianity accepted the Genesis account of creation where God speaks and a world separate from God comes into being. God names the various elements of the cosmos, creates male and female humans, and announces that everything is in order and good. Finally, the establishment of the Sabbath ensured the value of a liturgical week honoring God. Yet the world, as lived, seemed to be filled with disorder and evil. . . .

“Good Grief” | Second in the Series, “Novel Attitudes: Eight Ways We Can Help Rebuild the World” on Matthew 5.4 and a poem by Ranier Maria Rilke

“The Beatitudes of Jesus are eight wisdom sayings that stand at the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. They are not moral teachings as much as they are soulful riddles that invite the hearer into a new way of being human. They are an invitation to see, from the inside of our lives—from our souls—what it could mean to be truly human. At this time of such a massive reassessment of human life on this planet, the Beatitudes, what I call, "Novel Attitudes," could point the way to a better way of life for our communities and our world.

The sermon reflects on the necessity of embracing our more unwelcome feelings, and especially grief, as a way to open ourselves to what has never been before, liberate our creative energies, and help rebuild a better world. The readings are taken from Matthew 4.23-5.4 and a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29 (translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows).

1.

The Bible likes to talk about the “light,” but it’s also full of light’s opposite. It has as much sadness as it has joy. In fact, I think it meanders through more of the so-called negative emotions than it does the more positive ones. For all the love, compassion, joy, wonder, happiness, and courage, there’s also an abundance of fear, anger, doubt, pessimism, despair, loneliness, and grief in the Bible. That’s because the Bible is utterly human; it bears the Word and Wisdom of God, but it also testifies to the full anatomy of the human soul.

The Bible is a sign that one of the main purposes of religion is not only to make good feelings possible, but to help us through the ones we don’t necessarily like. . . .

Let Go | 1st in a series of sermons called "Novel Attitudes: 8 Ways We Can Help Rebuild Our World"

Let Go | 1st in a series of sermons called "Novel Attitudes: 8 Ways We Can Help Rebuild Our World"

The Beatitudes of Jesus are eight wisdom sayings that stand at the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. They are not moral teachings as much as they are soulful riddles that invite the hearer into a new way of being human. They are an invitation to see, from the inside of our lives—from our souls—what it could mean to be truly human. At this time of such a massive reassessment of human life on this planet, the Beatitudes, what I call, "Novel Attitudes," could point the way to a better way of life for our communities and our world.

1.

We are, despite the troubling realities of our world right now, in the season of Easter. Easter usually fills us with a sense of vitality, newness, and progress. In the northern hemisphere, it comes during the spring, when life in all its forms is bursting from the earth. It is the annual renewal of our lives in the light of the annual renewal of life.

But this year, Easter’s muted, if not suppressed entirely by the realities of this global pandemic that’s shut just about everything down, and made life challenging for just about everyone . . .