This is a fascinating conversation that explores the role of Progressive Christianity in the life of the church.
Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rev. Dr. Jay Emerson Johnson, Dr. David Hollinger and Rev. Byron Williams discuss the mainline church and liberal Christianity at the Pacific School of Religion.
Two years ago, the Strange History of Transfiguration Sunday inspired this sermon. I offer it here because the words of Desmond Tutu speak volumes as I work on this year’s Transfiguration sermon.
When our images of God are tied to the idol of a supernatural sky-dweller who has the power to solve all our problems, despair is sure to follow as our super-hero fails time after time to impress us.
When I was a very little girl, I was absolutely convinced that I had the power to change the mind of God! Confident that I held such power, I never missed an opportunity to exercise it. Now, I’ll grant you that like most children, I was also convinced that the universe itself actually revolved around me, so believing that I was powerful enough to change God’s mind, wasn’t exactly much of a stretch. In fact, when I was a child, it wasn’t all that difficult to change God’s mind. For instance, I could stop God from breaking my mother’s back simply by leaping over a crack in the pavement. “Don’t step on a crack and break your mothers back.” Now, in my young mind the only one powerful enough to crush my mother’s powerful spine, must be God. I also knew that God wasn’t particularly fond of ladders, and that if I refrained from walking under them, God would smile upon me.
I had no idea why black cats, or spilling salt, or breaking mirrors, or opening umbrellas inside, or leaving hats on the bed, or putting new shoes on the table, would annoy God, but I knew enough to avoid doing such things. I was absolutely sure that God would respond positively if I managed to pull a turkey’s wishbone apart in just the right way so that I was left holding a piece larger than the piece my brother was left with. God also responded well if I knocked on wood, or caught sight of a falling star, or if I crossed my fingers and hoped to die.
I didn’t need to understand why my activities worked to influence the heart and mind of God, I simply knew that they did and would continue to do so just as long as I continued to avoid the necessary evils and indulge in an apple a day, and managed to blow out all the candles on my birthday cakes.
The universe that revolved around me might have been full of all sorts of rules, but it would continue to revolve exactly the way I wanted it to if I managed to placate the old guy up in the sky who was pulling every body else’s strings. I never once considered that that old God in the sky was pulling my strings because I was absolutely confident in my ability to do what was necessary to pull God’s strings.
But as I grew up, I began to learn that despite my best intentions, the universe did not revolve around me. Little by little I learned that I didn’t have what it takes to influence all of the things that were having an impact upon my life. And just as surely as my powers waned, so too did the powers of God.
I can still remember sitting in the back seat of the car and wondering why God despite the fact that I always lifted my feet up each and every time my father drove over a railroad track, my parents simply couldn’t find the money we needed to buy our happiness. Surely God must know that I was doing my part to do what was necessary to make God shine his smile upon my family.
So each and every time God failed to do exactly what I wanted God to do, God’s power was diminished in my eyes. As I grew, I gave up trying to influence God and I took off after God’s son. After all Jesus was far more fun to be around than his old doddering Father. For starters Jesus actually liked children. And Jesus had way better party tricks than his Dad. Jesus could turn water into wine, make the blind see, and the lame walk. And if the cupboard was bare, no need to worry, cause Jesus was even better than my Mom at turning nothing into something. Where Mom could make a meal out of almost nothing, Jesus could make enough to feed 5000. And there was always that trick to beat all tricks, cause in all my young life, I never heard tell of anyone else who ever came back from the dead and brought tons of chocolate with him. I mean that old doddering guy in the sky simply didn’t stand a chance against Jesus. Santa Claus was about the only one who could come close, and everybody knew that Santa would be nothing without Jesus.
So, somewhere along the way, that I had no need to worry about stepping on a cracks, or spilling salt, or dropping forks, because these things were nothing more than superstitions. Besides, who needs to worry about superstitions when you’ve got Jesus for as your friend? My buddy Jesus was all I needed to keep my world on an even keel. So, I walked with him and I talked with him and we were so happy together, until stuff started to happen that made me begin to doubt Jesus ability to change the world.
A few weeks before my eleventh birthday, Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy and for the second time in my life, I saw my father cry. I was only six-years old when the shooting of Bobby’s older brother made the adults in my life cry. Their tears changed something in me. I listened more intently to what was going on in the world around me. I needed to know what was happening so that I could do something to change it. A year after Bobby Kennedy was shot, I went to my first protest march. I was just twelve years old, but I knew that Vietnam was wrong and had to be stopped. I believed that my presence together with the presence of hundreds of thousands, could make a difference.
I left my buddy Jesus playing in the garden. I began to listen to the radical Jesus who spoke truth to power and called us to follow him so that we could change the world. As a teenager I knew that we had to end the war in Vietnam and even though the sixties were drawing to a close, and the flower children would soon be trading in their incense and beads so that the could find jobs and climb the corporate ladder, we marched. And when in 1975, the Vietnam war ended in defeat, I actually naively believed that public opinion had caused the powers that be to change their minds.
So, I continued to work for peace, only this time it was nuclear proliferation that we needed to stop. It was somewhere during the Regan years that I gave up the notion of changing the world by marching in the streets. Iran Contra put an end to my naiveté. Jesus and I retreated. Literally. I mean we literally retreated. A few friends and I worked together on a retreat center. Seabright Farm was a Christian retreat centre designed to nourish people who were trying to live their lives in the world. Jesus was our guide. We wanted to live in this complicated world of ours, the way that Jesus might live. So we dedicated ourselves to learning. Learning all we could about Jesus, Christianity, the church, theology, living responsibly, ethically. Our attempts to change the world took on a more modest approach. We set out to change the world, by changing ourselves.
Eventually, my work at Seabright Farm, brought me into seminary, where I suppose I thought I could change the world by changing the church. Along the way, I must confess that over the years I’ve become more than a little jaded and cynical. There are days when I don’t really believe that anything will ever really change. But there are moments, moments when I actually believe that it’s possible not only to change the world, but to actually change God.
Transfiguration Sunday is a strange festival in the Church calendar. The story of the Transfiguration is the story of Jesus climbing a mountain with his closest friends. On the mountaintop Jesus has a profound experience. There is a dazzling light, a cloud that overshadowed them, and the cloud terrified them. That same cloud appeared generations earlier and overshadowed one of the fathers of the Jewish people. That same cloud appeared generations later and overshadowed the father of the people of Islam.
As we read of that cloud today, we should do so with the same fear and trembling of our sisters and brothers who over the generations have encountered that cloud. For Transfiguration Sunday may be a festival of the church, but it’s history is steeped in the political and religious intolerance of the world. Before the fifteenth century, only a few Christian communities kept the feast of the Transfiguration. The festival hadn’t caught on like other festivals.
In all of Christendom only a handful of congregations marked the day and we would not be celebrating it today if it weren’t for a terrible battle. On the sixth of August 1456 news was announced in Rome that John Hunyady had defeated the Turks near Belgrade and the bells of churches rang out in celebration of the slaughter of some 50,000 Muslims. Overjoyed, Pope Callistus ordered the whole church to commemorate the victory against the infidels by celebrating the feast of the Transfiguration.
For generations the church commemorated the battle by celebrating Transfiguration Sunday on August the sixth. Some church’s still celebrate Transfiguration on the sixth of August. However, shortly after the end of World War II protestant churches discretely decided to move the festival of Transfiguration to the last day of Epiphany. They did so, because of the infamy of August 6. In 1945 a slaughter of a different sort was inflicted on a different people.
On August 6th 1945, someone climbed not a holy mountain, but into the cockpit of a plane—a machine of war. There had been a lull of a week in the fighting between the Allies and Japan. The Allies had a new secret weapon and they wanted to us it with the maximum psychological effect. They had prepared three atomic bombs. On the 16th of July, the first bomb was tested in New Mexico.
As a terrifying cloud rose up from the earth, the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheim quoted from the Hindu Scriptures a line from the Bhagavad-Gita, “Now, I am become death the destroyer of worlds.” On August 6 the second bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and three days later the third one was dropped on Nagasaki. 150,000 people lay dead. Thousands more died later from the effect of atomic radiation. 75,000 buildings were destroyed. Two cities were devastated. The world will never be the same. The date for the festival of Transfiguration was moved.
The shape of that awful cloud hangs now forever in our sky. If you close your eyes you will see that cloud; rising up from the earth; a mushroom more poisonous than anything created by God. It is the new tree of knowledge of good and evil. We have eaten of its fruit and we shall never be the same.
We live in fear of everything that emanates from that terrible cloud. Is it any wonder that the vision of that cloud was invoked by the leaders of our neighbours to the south as they tried to convince the world to go to war against the people of Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction! Yesterday, the memory of the cloud hung over Iraq. Today, the memory of that cloud is being used to isolate Iran and Korea.
Has the memory of that poisonous cloud obliterated from our minds the memory of another cloud? Do we no longer remember the story of another climb, another light, another voice, another cloud? Jesus was there speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Jesus was speaking of his death, his destruction by another tree. Do we not meet on Transfiguration Sunday today under the shadow of that tree, to break bread and to proclaim the victory of Christ’s death over every evil, even the total annihilation by human evil.
Friends, I trust that we will be led out of this morass of fear and hatred by a pillar of cloud; a cloud that transformed Moses and a band of refugees in the desert into a people; a cloud that rested upon Jesus declaring Jesus to be the embodiment of all that God had tried to say for generations; the same cloud that carried on Mohammad into the heavens, leaving behind a people who would take on the name Islam, which itself means peace.
Memories of clouds… Sorry, but I’ve looked at cloud’s from both sides know and like the song says I really don’t know clouds at all. I’m still wondering if its possible to be the people God created us to be? I’d given up wondering whether or not it’s realistic to hope, but rather whether it’s even possible to hope that the world can be changed. The poor will always be with us. Wars will keep breaking out just as surely as the sun rises in the east. Bad things will continue to happen to good people. And just when I think that hope is pointless…that the powerful will always abuse the powerless…just when I’m about ready to join the ranks of those who say live for today and forget about tomorrow…some people half a world away, begin to turn the whole world upside down…and dictators begin to loose their grip…and I begin to wonder, what if? And I feel the hope begin to stir in me.
In his book, God Has A Dream: A Vision of Home for Our Time, Desmond Tutu tells about a transfiguration experience that he will never forget. It occurred when apartheid was still in full swing. Tutu and other church leaders were preparing for a meeting with the prime minister of South Africa to discuss the troubles that were destroying their nation. They met at a theological college that had closed down because of the white government’s racist policies. During a break from the proceedings, Tutu walked into the college’s garden for some quiet time. In the midst of the garden was a huge wooden cross. As Tutu looked at the barren cross, he realized that it was winter, a time when the grass was pale and dry, a time when almost no one could imagine that in a few short weeks it would be lush, green, and beautiful again. In a few short weeks, the grass and all the surrounding world would be transfigured. As the archbishop sat there and pondered that, he obtained a new insight into the power of transfiguration, of God’s ability to transform our world. Tutu concluded that transfiguration means that no one and no situation is “untransfigurable.” The time will eventually come when the whole world will be released from its current bondage and brought to share in the glorious liberty that God intends.
Just over a week ago, many of you followed Jesus out of your comfort zone and down to the Inn From the Cold. You worked very heard to prepare over 200 meals to feed the hungry. But you did so much more than just feeding your neighbours. I believe that you actually achieved a transfiguration of sorts. Shortly before that evening, some of us watched Desmond Tutu talk about the need to change our image of God. I’d like to read back to you the words that Tutu said: The images that we have of God are odd because God—this omnipotent one—is actually weak. As a parent I understand this. You watch your child going wrong and there’s not very much you can do to stop them. You have tried to teach them what is right, but now it is their life and they are mucking it up. There are many moments when you cry for your child, and that’s exactly what happens with God. All of us are God’s children.
I frequently say, I’m so glad I’m not God! Can you imagine having to say, “Bin Laden is my child. Saddam Hussein is my child. George Bush is my child.” Oh! All of them, including me. Can you imagine what God must have felt watching the Holocaust? Watching Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Watching Rwanda? Can you imagine God watching Darfur? Imagine God watching Iraq and saying, “These are my children here, and they are killing my other children. And I can’t do anything because I have said to them, ‘I give you the space to be you and that space enables you to make choices. And I can’t stop you when you make the wrong choices. All I can do is sit here and cry.’” And God cries until God sees beautiful people who care, even if they may not do earth-shattering things.
There is a fantastic story of a so-called colored woman who was driven from her home and ostracized by her family because she had HIV/AIDS. She came to live in a home for people who suffered from the disease, and there were white men there who would help her because she couldn’t do anything herself. She was all skin and bones. They would carry her like a baby and wash her, bathe her, feed her. Then they would put her in front of a television set and hold her. And this was during the apartheid years. I visited this home and said, “What an incredible lesson in loving and compassion and caring.”
It was transfiguring something ugly, letting something beautiful come from a death-making disease. When God sees that, a smile breaks forth on God’s face and God smiles through the tears. It’s like when the sun shines through the rain. The world may never know about these little transfigurations, but these little acts of love are potent.
They are moving our universe so that it will become the kind of place God wants it to be. And so, yes, you wipe the tears from God’s eyes. And God smiles.” You people have transfigured the face of God on more than a few occasions. By following Jesus out into the world, to reach out to your sisters and brothers, you have transfigured the face of God.” (see the video below for the full context of this quote)
So, on this Transfiguration Sunday, let me remind you of God’s ability to Transform the world precisely because God dwells in with and through you! Do not give up hope: no one and no situation is “untransfigurable.” The time will eventually come when the whole world will be released from its current bondage and brought to share in the glorious liberty that God intends. Continue to give hope to the hopeless, reach out and love the world that God loves, and always remember that you have the power to transfigure the face of God!
A Benediction: Always remember that you have the power
to transfigure the face of God!
You can wipe the tears from God’s eyes.
You can make God smile.
Reach out with love.
Be the compassionate people God created you to be!
Receive the blessing of God whose love knows no boundaries,
Christ whose peace you embody,
And the Holy Spirit, whose power breathes
in with and through you,
To transfigure the world with love!
Here’s an Ash Wednesday homily for the 21st century!
We’ve all been there. Driving down the road – distracted by thoughts of this and that, when all of a sudden it happens, a car comes at you out of no where and you slam on the breaks or you quickly swerve to avoid a disaster. You could have been killed. You could have killed someone. Your life or someone else’s life could have been radically changed in an instant. As you pull back into traffic you are ever so conscious of the weight of you foot on the accelerator and you swear that you’ve got to be more careful. You begin to scold yourself. What were you thinking? Why weren’t you paying attention? Wake-up you could have been killed.
Welcome to Ash Wednesday. What have you been thinking? Why weren’t you paying attention? Wake-up — you are going to die!!! Ash Wednesday is your mid-winter wake-up call. Some of you may not need the wake-up call. Some of you know all too well that death is all around us. Some of you have lost someone dear to you. Some of you have felt that fear in the pit of your belly when the doctor suggests a particular test. Traditional Ash Wednesday worship would require us to focus on the brevity of life and remember that none of us will get out of this life alive. Our ancestors in the faith, entered into a morose season of Lent by via the awesome reminder that they came from dust and soon they shall return to the dust.
Lent was a season of lament and repentance based on a particular understanding of what it means to be human. Since the 11th century most of Christianity has understood the human condition as that of those who have fallen from grace. But we live in a post-modern world. We no longer believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans. We read Genesis not as history but as myth. We understand that humans evolved over millions of years. There was no perfect human condition for us to fall from.
What happens when you reject the theological construct of original sin? What happens when you embrace the idea that we are fiercely and wonderfully made? What happens when you see humanity as originally blessed?
Once you open up Pandora’s box you can’t just walk back out of the room and pretend that the theory of evolution doesn’t have something to teach us about what it means to be human. If we see our selves as incomplete creations rather than fallen sinful creatures, how then do we deal with our mortality?
Perhaps we can begin to express what it means to be human in terms that reflect our need to evolve in to all that we were created to be. Perhaps the brevity and uncertainty of life can begin to wake us up so that we can seize each and every moment. This is the day that God has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!
All that we love and care for is mortal and transitory, but mortality is the very reality that can become the inspiration for celebrate life and to love. Ash Wednesday reminds us of our human condition of mortality. But we should also remember the reality of creation itself is transformed by death and is constantly renewing itself. There is an eternal quality to creation, just as there is an eternal quality to life.
Tonight we embrace the promise that in death we are transformed into a new way of living on in God.Trusting that here and now we are living in God, we delight in the knowledge that in God we share in eternity. We are constantly dying, but we are also constantly living as we reflect God’s vision in the world of the flesh. This day, this moment is eternity for God is here, revealed in the wonders of creation; in the face of our neighbours, in the beauty of the earth, in the magnitude of the universe and in the miracles of sub-atomic particles. Tonight is our wake-up call.
We will not pass this way again. If we’ve been hibernating its time to take a deep breath and let ourselves be filled with the Spirit so that we can live fully, love extravagantly and be all that we were created to be. Yes we are dust, but we are earthly dust, springing forth from a multi-billion-year holy adventure.
Dust is good, after all; it is the place of fecundity, of moist dark soil, and perhaps we are as various scientists are suggesting: “star-dust” evolving creatures emerging from God’s intergalactic creativity. We are frail, but we are also part of a holy adventure reflecting the love of God over billions of years and in billions of galaxies.
So, how can we fail to rejoice in the colour purple, or pause in wonder at a baby’s birth? How can we fail to enjoy the beauty of a sunset or the splendor of a mountain range? How can we fail to embrace the sorrows that surround us with love? How can we remain deaf to the cries of our neighbours, or the pleas of our enemies? Tonight is our wake-up call?
Life is here for the living. This is eternity; right here, right now!!! Let the ashes we receive be the ashes of transformation; of awakening to the beauty and love of seizing the moment and living it to the fullest.
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Let the memory of your incomplete humanity awaken you to the wonders, joys, sorrows, and pain of life.
Let it be said of you that here in this little part of eternity that you lived fully, loved extravagantly and helped humanity evolve into all that God dreamed we can be! Amen.
An Ash Wednesday Benediction
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Let the memory of your incomplete humanity
awaken you to the wonders, joys, sorrows, and pain of life.
Let the ashes you wear be the ashes of transformation;
of awakening to the beauty and love of seizing the moment
and living it to the fullest.
Let it be said of you that here in this little part of eternity
that you lived fully, loved extravagantly
and helped humanity evolve into all that God dreamed we can be!
You are fearfully and wonderfully made
In the image of the ONE who is was and ever more shall be
Creator, Christ and Spirit ONE, AMEN
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” are the words that are spoken during Ash Wednesday’s Imposition of Ashes. I have always thought of the dust of the earth, funerals, and death during this age-old ritual. But last year during our worship, we added a new reading to our Ash Wednesday Liturgy. This new creation story embraces a perspective on reality that is all together different than that of our ancestors in the faith. This new perspective turned my thoughts toward life and eternity.
More and more I have come to believe that unless our worship together can embrace reality as it is viewed in the 21st century, we will fail in our efforts to make worship relevant in the 21st century.
The Star Within
a creation story by Dr. Paula Lehman & Rev. Sarah Griffith
In the beginning, the energy of silence rested over an infinite horizon of pure nothingness.
The silence lasted for billions of years, stretching across aeons that the human mind cannot even remotely comprehend.
Out of the silence arose the first ripples of sound, vibrations of pure energy that ruptured the tranquil stillness as a single point of raw potential, bearing all matter, all dimension, all energy, and all time: exploding like a massive fireball.
It was the greatest explosion of all time!
An irruption of infinite energy danced into being. It had a wild and joyful freedom about it, and like a dance it was richly endowed with coherence, elegance, and creativity.
The universe continued to expand and cool until the first atoms came into being. The force of gravity joined the cosmic dance; atoms clustered into primordial galaxies.
Giant clouds of hydrogen and helium gases gathered into condensed masses, giving birth to stars!
Generations of stars were born and died, born and died, and then our own star system, the solar system, was formed from a huge cloud of interstellar dust, enriched by the gifts of all those ancestral stars.
Planet Earth condensed out of a cloud that was rich in a diversity of elements.
Each atom of carbon, oxygen, silicon, calcium, and sodium had been given during the explosive death of ancient stars. These elements, this stuff of stars, included all the chemical elements necessary for the evolution of carbon-based life.
With the appearance of the first bacteria, the cosmic dance reached a more complex level of integration.
Molecules clustered together to form living cells!
Later came the algae, and then fish began to inhabit the waters!
Thence the journey of life on land and in the sky.
Insects, amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals: all flourished and diversified and elaborated the themes of life. And now it is our time, too.
This is our story.
The story of our beginning, our cosmology.
And so we commence our Lenten Journey this night – this Ash Wednesday, with open hearts in the midst of our Creator.
As we partake in our daily things of life may we see them as sacred.
May we be empowered to perform simple acts of concern and love, and real works of reform and renewal.
Let us love deeply the earth which gives us air to breathe, water to drink, and food to sustain us.
May we remember that life is begotten from stardust, radiant in light and heat.
We are all one – all of creation, all that now live, all that have ever lived.
Remember we are stardust, and to stardust we return.
Remember we are part of the great mystery.
Feb.3/2013: Richard Dawkins Loses Debate Against Former Anglican Head Rowan Williams at Cambridge University
The debate motion that “religion has no place in the 21st Century” was well-defeated at the event held yesterday at the Cambridge Union Society. Dawkins lost the debate by 324 to 136 as he failed to convince the gathering that religion has no place. Also taking part in the debate were Andrew Copson and Arif Ahmed.
The Story of God
Imagining the unimaginable and describing the indiscribable – the human endeavour to capture the nature of the divine in words, images, stories and myths is the subject of this excellent BBC documentary series. Robert Winston, (medical doctor, scientist and Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College London) examines the roots of religious beliefs and the various ways in which humanity’s sense of the divine have developed.
Professor Winston says: “However you define God, and whether you believe in God or not, the world we live in has been shaped by the universal human conviction that there is more to life than life itself; that there is a ‘god’ shaped hole at the centre of our universe.“We have come up with many different ways to fill that hole, with many gods or just one, with gods of hunting, gods of farming, gods of war and gods of sea and sky.”
Looking at the Bible as “literature with a religious agenda which distorts the past,” Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou (University of Exeter) challenges some long held assumptions about monotheism to ask the question: “Did God Have a Wife?” Her BBC documentary explores the early roots of monotheism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Last week, as part of my preparation to teach a class on myth-making I spent some time exploring the creation myths from cultures other than my own. What I rediscovered was the power of story to help us make meaning of and in our lives. It is an exercise that I highly recommend!
Sand Artist – Marcus Winter is an indigenous artist of New Zealand who brings the Maori Creation Story to life with his performance painting of sand art.
“When God Was a Girl” “Handmaids of the Gods” & “War of the Words”
So much of the history of women has remained hidden and when it comes to religion the suppression of the stories of women has produced a kind of misogyny that shapes modern cultures. This splendid, sumptuous, and provocative BBC series explores the stories of goddesses, priestesses, saints, martyrs, and ordinary women and men that reveal the power of the divine feminine. It is well worth watching! First telecast as part of a partnership between the BBC and the Open University this series features historian Bethany Hughes quest to uncover our forgotten history.
Session TWO: Creation Myths – Myth Making
Myths are created in the context of a culture – shaped by the characteristics of the culture in which they are born. Over time myths have the power to shape culture. However, as our cultural context changes we must continue the process of making meaning and creating new myths.
Here are the video clips we used to explore the process.
Since becoming a pastor, the questions that I hear more frequently than any others concern the subject of prayer. “How do I pray?” or “What should I prayer?” used to be the most often asked questions. However, since speaking and writing about giving up the idol of the “Big Santa-God-in-the-Sky” who grants requests or doesn’t answer prayers as if they were wishes, people have added “To whom should/do/can we pray?” to the list of most the asked questions. While I am tempted to offer answers to these questions, I suspect that my answers will not satisfy those who insist that there must be some secret formula that will make their prayer life successful.
I can say that when prayer ceases to be a laundry list of wants and desires, it has the power to open us to the awe and wonder of being a part of something far greater than ourselves. When we allow ourselves to be opened to more than what and who we are, the sense of gratitude that wells has the power to make us lovers of creation and partners with our sisters and brothers in this grand endeavour we call life.
In the stories handed down to us of Jesus of Nazareth, we are told that his followers asked him how they should pray. When I read these stories I see a frustrated Jesus whose followers insist that John the Baptist’s followers have a formula for prayer and Jesus ought to give them one as well. In these stories its as if Jesus says, “Oh well if you insist, then when you pray pray like this.” The prayer that results has become known as The Lord’s Prayer, and although there are many translations and interpretations of this Abba Prayer, these days the one I am becoming fond of is the one provided by Neil Douglas-Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus. The video below provides a beautiful interpretation of this interpretation. Enjoy. May it move you toward prayer without words so that you can pray without ceasing and let your life be your prayer!
Dare we give up God for Lent? Are we ready to expose ourselves to critiques of Christianity so that we might move beyond “God as a crutch” toward an experience of the absence of God? I find myself intrigued by Peter Rollin’s attempt to move us beyond our carefully held images/idols toward a deeper understanding of Christ’s experience on the cross. Atheism for Lent is a daring idea; a real journey into the wilderness.
Back in November, I had the privilege of attending a series of lectures given by Phyllis Tickle who describes the current reformation that the church is experiencing as part of a cultural phenomenon that happens about every 500 years, which she calls “The Great Emergence”. When asked what skills religious leaders will need to navigate the information age, Tickle insisted that the best advice we could give to anyone considering a religious vocation was that they should study physics. Inwardly I groaned, remembering my feeble attempts to come to grips with the most rudimentary theories of quantum physics. But I also nodded in agreement, knowing that so many of our religious narratives strive to make meaning of the cosmos as it was perceived by ancient minds. When our ancestors looked into the heavens they had no way of knowing the wonders of the cosmos that we are beginning to discover. While physicists can ignore theology, theologians who ignore physics will find themselves stuck atop Job’s dung-heap impotently shaking their fists at the Divine. Perhaps Tickle is correct and the clerics of the future will out of necessity need to be physicists. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku speculates that the universe is “a symphony of strings” and the “mind of God would be cosmic music resonating through eleven dimensional hyper-space”. If you have the courage to climb down from the dung-heap, take a look at Michio Kaku’s “The Universe in a Nutshell”. If the Divine bollocking that Job endured makes you wonder if ignorance might just be bliss, then take a peek at “Is God a Mathematician?” or “The Mind of God”. Who knows, maybe if a few more of us dare to dwell in the questions we might just come up with imaginative narratives to help us fathom what it means to be human.
Having worked our way through the Living the Questions 2 and Saving Jesus dvd series, our Adult Education Class is using the book: Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity as a frame for our review of progressive Christian theology. Each week I will post the video clips that were used during the class. This week’s class consisted of an introduction as well as an exploration of what it means to move beyond definitions of the Divine toward the reality of unknowing.
Thinking Theologically
“We must get away from this theistic supernatural God that imperils our humanity and come back to a God who permeates life so deeply that our humanity becomes the very means through which we experience the Divine Presence.” John Shelby Spong
Bill Moyers’ six-part series exploring the work of Joseph Campbell on the Power of Myth first aired back in 1988 and remains one of the most popular series that PBS has ever aired. I still remember watching it for the first time in 1992 in a Religious Studies 101 class. It opened my mind to a whole new way of understanding our desire to make meaning of our experiences. I post it here for the benefit of the class I’m currently teaching on Progressive Christianity. As we attempt to move beyond the doctrines and dogmas that have held the church captive to a new way of being church, it is helpful to understand that so many of the mysteries we encounter in life cannot be contained in thoughts, ideas, or doctrines precisely because they transcend words. To speak of eternal mystery we must use the language of myth.
The video below is the one in the series: The Hero. I suspect that once you’ve watched it, you’ll want to search out the other videos in the series.
The written version of the sermon I preached the last time Luke 21:25-36 came around in the Lectionary. As always the written word is but an approximation of the Word preached.
We have learned to ask questions. Why did the followers of Jesus tell the stories they told about him? Why did the followers of Jesus they tell the stories about Jesus in the way they told them? These questions have revealed new insights into the scriptures and we helped us to understand how Jesus followers understood the life death and resurrection of Jesus.
As we begin a new church year, there is another question that we need to learn to ask. Why did the designers of the church lectionary decided that on this the first day all over the world church goers should read from this particular text from the Gospel according to Luke? It is the first Sunday in Advent, why not read something from the first chapter of the Gospel according to Luke? What are we doing in the 21st chapter of the Gospel According to Luke and why do we have to listen to Jesus going on about the end? Why did the designers of the lectionary decide that we needed to hear what has been described as Jesus’ mini account of the apocalypse? Why take us into this particular darkness?
“Signs will appear in the sun, the moon and the stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish, distraught at the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the earth. The powers in the heavens will be shaken. After that, people will see the Chosen One coming on a cloud with great power and glory. When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, because your ransom is near at hand.” And Jesus told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, or any other tree. You see when they’re budding and know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things happening, know that the reign of God is near. The truth is, this generation will not pass away until all this takes place. The heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
We know that the writer of the Gospel according to Luke wrote very near the end of the first century, some 50 to 70 years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Some 20 to 30 years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and for all intents and purposes put an end to the world as Jews and the followers of Jesus had known it. Scholars tell us that in all likelihood the writer of the Gospel according to Luke created this story to reassure the followers of Jesus that even in their present darkness, even though it looked as if the heavens and the earth were passing away, Jesus words will not pass away. But why did the designers of the Revised Common Lectionary decided to begin the church year with this story of Jesus’ apocalyptic vision?
Well the Luke part is easy. This new year is the third in the lectionary’s 3 year cycle and so the mainline churches, that is the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, United, and many other denominations who get their weekly readings from the Revised Common Lectionary read primarily from the Gospel According to Matthew in year A, Mark in Year B and Luke in year C. (John does not have it’s own year and is only read during Christmas and Easter of years A,B, and C.) But why begin with chapter 21 of Luke? Why not Chapter One? Why not begin with that wonderful story of Elizabeth and Zechariah and the birth of John the Baptist? Surely a birth story is more fitting for the first Sunday in Advent when preachers are supposed to preach about hope?
I must confess that I am tempted to ignore the lectionary and skip the darkness of the apocalypse. But the more I read about darkness and the foreboding, the more I realize that at a time of the year when all the world wants to sentimentalize, trivialize and retailize the Christmas story, perhaps we who follow Christ ought to begin our preparations with a sojourn into the darkness.
We do well to remember that even now, for a great many of our sisters and brothers and perhaps even for us the world is coming to an end. And in even in the darkness we need not fear, for God is with us. In the darkness the realization that Christ is coming provides the hope we need to venture forth.
This year, I find myself venturing into Advent not dreading the end, but with the longing for the world to come to an end. I’d very much like the world as we know it to end. I’d like the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine to come to an end. I long for an end to the regime in Iran that insists on escalating the tensions between our two cultures with their ever-expanding nuclear program. I’d like our own government to live up to its own mandate to put an end to poverty and homelessness here in Canada. I’d like to see the end of an economic system that enslaves 80% of the world’s population in poverty. I’d like to see an end to violence, hunger, plagues and war. But I’ve long since given up the hope that we will be rescued from systemic evil that causes so much grief in the world by a divine rescuer swooping in from somewhere above the clouds.
My hope for the future does not in an apocalyptic vision of Jesus returning to sort out the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff, rewarding the former and barbecuing the latter. This super-saviour that has long been the hope of Christian communities weighed down and oppressed by savage governments and their policies. While destruction, pain, and oppression are a part of our global reality, a spaceman-saviour is not. We know that, despite our wishes and projections, hope does not come from outer-space. Hope has to be found in our here and now. It has to be worked for, discovered, accepted and developed. This doesn’t mean that as so many pundits and pseudo-intellectuals would have us believe, that God does not exist and we should abandon all hope and run screaming from the church. This does mean that rather than looking to the heavens for salvation, we should look around us, and see that our God is located within our experience, our struggles, our communities and our hearts. Christians believe that God is love.
We believe that permeating our lives, our land, our communities, and all that is beyond us there is a powerful love that can touch our lives. That love is on our side, is for us, and can hold us. That love reaches out to us in a neighbour’s smile, in the strident concerns of a protester, the embrace of a lover and even in a government handout. Love comes in a myriad of ways. Just like hope. That love we call God. That love called God is with us. We are sacred, blest, and loved. The Holy Spirit of love is within us, like a seed waiting to grow and flourish.
Advent is the season pregnant with possibility, when we nurture that love within and prepare to give it birth. The seeds of love are waiting to grow and flourish. Even in the angriest person, in the most arrogant businessman, in the most ridiculous politician, in the toughest tyrant, or the worst murderer, there is a holy seed of love waiting. Those seeds need tending, they need nurturing and they will grow. Hope is not a mental exercise. You don’t just stand up and decide that you are going to be hope-filled. Hope is the result of a combination of encounters with others, our personal receptivity, and our awareness of the spiritual power of love that infuses all of life. Seeds will grow out of the darkness. Advent is a time to build hope. Advent is a time to prepare for Christmas by tending the hope-filled seeds within each other.
Advent is pregnant with possibility, a time to anticipate the coming of Christ by opening our eyes to the Christ growing within us. Advent is a time to acknowledge that at the heart of our world there is a power of love that reaches out to us, believes in us and sustains us, and that power of love is God.
We need not fear the darkness. For it is in the darkness that we will find the seeds. Hope lies in the darkness of our experience. The light of the Holy One is within us. And so this advent, as in all others. we will tell the stories of our experience. And in those stories we will discover the stirrings of Christ who waits to be born in us.
Many of those stories will begin in song. I don’t know what it is about we humans but we tend to sing our best stories. Music opens us in ways that mere words cannot. So let me begin our Advent journey with a story about songs sung in the darkness.
It was a dark and dreary time filled with fear and anticipation. Many years have past, but I can still remember her excitement at being chosen to play the part of the Angel Gabriel in the Sunday School Christmas pageant. Anna was just nine years old and never before had she been well enough at Christmas to take on a role in the annual church extravaganza. When she was just eighteen months old, Anna was diagnosed with leukemia and had spent most of her little life battling the disease.
But this year was different, this year Anna was ready she knew her lines and she must have tried on her angel costume about a million times. My memory is a little fuzzy but I believe that, that year, Christmas fell in the middle of the week.
The pageant was scheduled to take place the Sunday before Christmas Eve. On the Saturday before the pageant was to take place, Anna’s mother called me with the bad news. Anna was in hospital. Her white blood count was dangerously low and it didn’t look like Anna was going to make it home in time for Christmas let alone for the performance of the pageant. Anna’s mother asked me if I would help out with the hospital visiting.
Over the years, a group of us had become all too familiar with this particular routine. Anna had two siblings that kept her parents very busy. Anna didn’t like to be alone when she was in hospital and so friends of the family used to help out when needed. Because I lived only a few blocks from the children’s hospital and because Anna liked my bedtime stories I often found myself taking the night shift with Anna.
Bedtime at the hospital was quite the routine. Anna loved to be told the same bedtime stories over and over again. It sometimes took a couple of hours to get her to the point where she would even consider closing her eyes. And when she got to this point Anna always insisted that I sing to her.
Now you are all too well aware of the fact that my abilities as a chanteuse are severely limited. I’m simply not a great singer. God clearly didn’t see fit to grant me the ability to carry a tune. But this didn’t seem bother Anna. For some unknown reason – perhaps she was tone deaf— or maybe she just had a warped sense of humor—but Anna loved to hear me sing. And so on the Saturday evening before the pageant was to take place, I found myself at Anna’s bedside.
I had already told her several of her favorite bedtime stories when Anna asked if I would read her a story. She pointed to a brand new picture book that lay on the cabinet beside here bed. The book had no words, just pictures. The pictures told the story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and the shepherds who were watching their flocks out in the fields.
As I turned the pages Anna and I took turns telling the various parts of the story to one another. When we got to the part where the Angel Gabriel appeared before the shepherds, Anna took over and she knew her part well. “Do not be afraid, for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
Anna delivered her lines perfectly and then went on with the story. “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying”Anna signalled to me to join her in the angels’ lines: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours!”
As I spoke the all too familiar lines, a huge lump rose up in my throat. I wanted nothing more than to curse God. What kind of God allows a beautiful little angel to be stricken with a cruel disease? What kind of God allows the dreams of a beautiful little girl to be destroyed by lousy timing? What kind of God, promises peace on earth and then disappears for 2000 years leaving us to our own devices?
I managed to keep my questions to myself as we continued to turn the pages. When we got to the last scene of the book, Anna declared how wonderful it was that the baby Jesus and the shepherds and the wise guys and Mary and Joseph all got to hear the angels sing. I said that according to the story only the shepherds heard the angels’ song. But Anna told me not to be silly because surely the angels would have started singing again when they saw that everyone had finally arrived at the stable. I asked Anna what she thought the angels might have sung. Anna got a wicked little grin on her face and insisted that they probably sang her favorite bedtime song. I just laughed at the mere thought of angels singing that particular song to the baby Jesus.
You see, over the years of tucking Anna in, I was forced to try to sing quite a few lullabies to her. And with my limited abilities, I can assure you that it wasn’t easy. Not for me and not, I’m sure for the nurses who may have overheard my feeble attempts. But of all my crappy renditions, Anna’s absolute favourite was “You are my sunshine.” And so staring down at the picture of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, the shepherds, wise guys and assorted angels, I began to sing Anna’s favourite lullaby for the baby Jesus.
In order to spare the other people in the ward, I sang ever so softly. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear how much I love you please don’t take my Sunshine away.”
When I’d finished singing, Anna sang a lullaby for the baby Jesus. And I’ve never heard Away in a Manger sung so sweetly. By the time Anna got to the last verse, a few others had joined in.
That’s how it began. A couple of nurses and some of the other children and their parents joined us in an impromptu caroling session. We sang all the Christmas carols we could think of. And when we couldn’t think of another carol Anna asked me to sing her other favorite.
I couldn’t remember what her other favorite was. Anna just smiled and said you know the one where I get to pretend to play the drum. I thought she meant the little drummer boy and I said that I was sorry but, I don’t think I ever knew that that was one of her favorites.
But from the expression on Anna’s face it was clear that I’d guessed wrong. Anna began to beat out a rhythm on the table by her bed.
And I remembered. Kum by Ah My Lord …someone’s crying lord;… someone’s fighting lord; ….someone’s hurting lord;….someone’s praying Lord;….Come by here
Little Anna didn’t win her battle with leukemia. She died that following spring. But like Christ, Anna lives. She lives in me and she lives in the lives of every life her little life touched.
In a world gone mad, in a world where we have yet to learn just how to love one another, Christ comes to us. When we are hurting or in pain, when our world is darkest, Christ comes to us. When we are sick and tired. Christ comes to us. When we have given up and can no longer bear to hope. Christ comes to us. Because our God is the one who takes on flesh and dwells among us.
Christ is Emmanuel, which means God is with us. Christ, laughs with us, cries with us, rejoices with us, suffers with us, heals with us, walks with us, shouts with us, struggles with us and loves with us. Christ dies with us and we are raised with Christ and born again. And because Christ is with us, death has lost its sting. Because our God is always with us, we will live forever more. And so, today God stands with us and speaks to us a word of hope a word that is the hope of the world.
Come by here my lord, come by here. Come by here and help us to bring the good news of great joy for all the people. Come by here and help us to sing Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace good will to all. Come by here my Lord. Come by here. Amen
Leftover People – Pastor Tom Doherty
Listen to the sermon here
Leftover People our Hymn of the Day: Leftover People
This Sunday I tried something new: introducing a video clip into the sermon! You can view the video within the written text of the sermon below or listen to the audio version provided. I am indebted to the work of James Rowe Adams for much of the New Testament Scholarship in this sermon.
The Scripture texts were John chapter 20:19-31 and Acts 4:32-35
Audio Version of the Sermon click here
Practicing Resurrection
Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
So, Christ is Risen! So What???
What can it possibly mean to you and to me, that a rag-tag bunch of Jesus’ followers gathered together in an upper-room and talked about their experiences of Jesus and decided that not even death could extinguish the life that they experienced in Jesus? What difference does it make to you or to I that Christ is risen?
The truth is that it can make absolutely no difference what so ever. Now there are a whole lot of people who will tell you that the important thing about resurrection is that you believe it. Those same folks absolutely love the story of doubting Thomas. And so every year on the second Sunday of Easter we read the story of doubting Thomas as a kind of inoculation against Thomas’ disease.
I sometimes think that the designers of the lectionary were trying to build up our resistance to doubt. Having problems believing in resurrection, well don’t do what Thomas did, don’t doubt, because you’ll be proven wrong. Jesus is alive, the wounds in his hands proved that to Doubting Thomas, so have no doubt about it the resurrection happened! Believe in the resurrection!
The trouble with believing in stuff is that it belief can make absolutely no difference what so ever. I can believe in justice for all, but unless I’m prepared to seek justice, to be fair, or to resist injustice, it makes absolutely no difference what so ever. You can shout, “Christ is risen!” all you want but unless you are willing to live it, the resurrection means very little at all.
In order to live the resurrection you have to begin practicing resurrection. In order to practice something, you have to know what it looks like, what it sounds like, or what it feels like.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to show you what resurrection looks like in the flesh. Then I remembered a video that’s been doing the rounds on the internet, so I want you to watch this modern miracle of resurrection.
WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP FROM: Alive Inside
Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
2000 years ago a bunch of rag-tag Jesus followers were huddled together in fear. Their beloved leader had been brutally executed by the powers that be and they were terrified that they would be next. Paralyzed by their fear, hiding behind a locked door, something happened that gave them the strength to burst forth from their own tomb and change the world.
Ever since they began to practice resurrection, people have been trying to figure out exactly what happened; what could have changed these bumbling, terrified, betrayers, abandoners, who seemed to be always getting things wrong, into a bunch of leaders who began a movement that spread through out the Empire within their own life-times and then based on the power of their witness, spread throughout the world and continues to nourish and sustain millions of people from generation to generation?
Now there are those that insist that it was the power of Jesus having been physically resuscitated from the dead that motivated his followers to change their lives and the lives of millions who have come after them. But we live in the 21st century and we have access to all sorts of information that the generations who have gone before us did not. Most of us, myself included, are not swayed by arguments about a physical resuscitation of Jesus’ body. But I can tell you without a doubt that I do believe in resurrection and I know that Christ is risen and I also know that the same power that the early followers of Jesus used to change the world is available to you and to me. And now more than ever the world needs us to start using that power. It’s long past time for us to start practicing resurrection.
So, if they weren’t talking about a physical resuscitation when they spoke of Jesus’ resurrection, what did the early followers of Jesus actually mean when they spoke of Jesus having been raised from the dead? During the first century many Jews had adopted a vision of the future that dealt with the prevailing question of the day: “How could a just God allow his people to suffer endlessly at the hands of their enemies?” Or as Dom Crossan puts it: When was God going to clean up the world so that justice could prevail?
An emotionally satisfying answer was found in a fantasy expressed in one of the visions attributed to the prophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones: “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones re dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”
The idea that God would one day raise up the dead was not particularly popular with the priestly party in Jerusalem, perhaps because they had come to terms with the occupation forces of Rome, but it appealed strongly to some Pharisees who insisted that God would see to it that ultimately justice would prevail.
Biblical scholars suspect that Jesus and his followers shared the Pharisees’ hope for resurrection. Each of the synoptic gospels tells a story about how members of the priestly, party known as the Sadducees, came to Jesus with a trick question that was intended to show the absurdity of the resurrection, but in each story Jesus cleverly avoids their trap.
That the editors of the first three gospels chose to include these stories, suggests that at least by the end of the first century resurrection imagery was important to the followers of Jesus. But exactly what they meant by resurrection is not clear. In the Christian writings, two Greek words are translated as “resurrection”. Each of these words evolved from a verb that translates into English as “raise”.
The first word, “anastasis” comes from the verb, which meant to stand up. The second word, ‘egersis” is from the verb that meant to wake up. When early Christian writers used these terms they may have been thinking like Pharisees and insisting that God would prove to be just.
Many New Testament scholars see the stories about the risen Christ as examples of hymns of praise or poetic expressions of the faithful whose lives had been transformed b their encounter with the Jesus story.
The apostle Paul never mentioned the empty tomb and his own description of his encounter with the risen Christ is one of a vision of Christ rather than an actual physical encounter. Paul uses the Greek verb for “appeared” when he describes both the apostles’ encounters and his own with the risen Christ.
But New Testament scholars can parse the words of the gospels forever and they are never going to be able to tell us exactly what the early followers of Jesus meant when they said that Jesus is risen. What we can know about their understanding of resurrection can be found in the events that followed Jesus’ execution. Crucifixion was designed by the Romans to terrorize the nations they occupied. Corpses were left on display so that the people would understand that if they stepped out of line in any way, the horror or crucifixion was all they could hope for. The terrorizing of the population worked well for the Romans. For a while Jesus’ followers were terrified. But death could not contain the power of their experiences with Jesus. And it wasn’t long before they were living not as terrorized citizens of the Roman Empire, but as liberated followers of the way, banding together in communities of compassion, sharing their wealth, ensuring that none were needing among them. Risking it all, for the sake of Jesus vision of God’s reign of justice and peace.
When I read the accounts of those early followers of the way who abandoned the tomb of the upper-room to gather together to build communities of compassion it is clear to me who was raised up by images of resurrection. The followers of Jesus were lifted up from a crouching or cowering position as they boldly proclaimed what they had learned from Jesus. The followers of Jesus stood up and got on with the business that was begun by Jesus. The followers of Jesus began to understand themselves in a whole new way. The Apostle Paul wrote: “We who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
By merging the pharisaic image of resurrection with the image of the body of Christ the first Christians could declare with confidence that Christ is risen. When followers of Jesus in the first century and in the twenty-first century talk about the resurrection of Christ we are proclaiming that death did not have the last word in the Jesus story because his followers were raised up to be his now body.
When we say that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, we are proclaiming that no matter how dead someone may appear to be, new life is always possible. Practicing resurrection begins when we huddle together refusing to let our fears entomb us. Practicing resurrection happens when we gather together to build communities of compassion.
Our friend in the video came to life not through any power of his own, but through the compassion of his caregivers who struggled to reach him. Caregivers are empowered to do their work by the gathered community. Resurrection is not a solitary endeavour. Practicing resurrection requires that we gather together sharing our gifts, talents and treasure for the good of all. Practicing resurrection happens when we build communities of compassion that live fully, love extravagantly and empower people to be all that they were created to be.
Let it be so among us. Let us be a community of compassion. Let us always seek ways to empower our neighbours and ourselves to live fully, love extravagantly be all that we were created to be. Let us practice resurrection here and now!
As our Easter celebrations continue, the readings for this coming Sunday quickly move our attention to the story of Thomas. Poor old doubting Thomas. It’s the same every year. Thomas’ doubts greet the faithful on “low Sunday”. But before you let Thomas’ doubts capture Easter’s hope, consider exploring the resurrection of Mary. Perhaps my not-so-long-ago encounter with a visiting New Testament scholar will entice you to follow Mary out of her tomb and beyond the streets to her place at the head of the fledgling community that became the church:
He just said it for the third time! “Harlots!” He keeps calling them “harlots”, while I rack my brains to come up with one harlot. Then he points to the text and his charges become clearer, he says, “she is a “prostitute!”
My carefully reigned in anger is unleashed. “Where? Where? Where? Show me where it says this woman is a prostitute!”
As he refers to the Gospel text and insists that, “It is there, right there in the text”,
I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to wipe the bemused expression from his face. I want to rub his nose in the damned text. Instead, I begin the uneasy process of reigning in my anger. I slow my speech, I try to erase the tremor from my voice and I ask him to, “Show me, show me where it says this woman is a prostitute.”
He consults his text and says, “a woman in the city who was a sinner.”
“A sinner not a prostitute.” I respond.
He insists, “Yes a prostitute.”
“Where?” I ask.
Again he insists, “A woman who was a sinner.”
I demanded to know, “Where does it say she was a prostitute?”
He insists, “The author means that she was a prostitute.”
I lose control, “How do you know? What words does the author use to say that his woman was a prostitute? Show me in the text where it says she was a prostitute?”
He still doesn’t get it, “What do you mean? It is clear that this woman was a prostitute.”
Once again I push, “Show me. Show me where?”
He continues to say, “She was a woman from the city who was a sinner.”
I know that the text says that, so I implore him to tell me, “The Greek… What does the Greek say?”
He replies, “amartolos”.
I push, “Does that mean prostitute?” We both know that it does not.
He replies, “Sinner. But the context clearly shows that she was a prostitute.”
Still pushing I ask him to “Show me. Show me how the narrative says this woman was a prostitute. Show me where it says her sins were sexual. Show me where it says so in the narrative.”
He says, “It’s clear.”
Clearly we disagree, so I try again, “Clear to you. Show me. Show me!”
As he fumbles through the pages, I offer him a way out, “Okay. Even if I concede the point that her sins were sexual, show me where it says that these sexual sins were nothing more than lust or adultery, show me where it says that she was a prostitute. Show me!”
He couldn’t show me. It’s simply not there.
Nowhere in the New Testament does it ever say in Greek or in English that Mary of Magdala is a prostitute. But over and over again scholars, theologians, popes, preachers, and dramatists, have continued to cast Mary of Magdala as a prostitute.
In the years that have transpired since than day in seminary, when a visiting New Testament scholar insisted that “the context clearly shows that she was a prostitute,” I’ve delighted in being able to participate in the phenomenon of Mary’s resurrection as the first Apostle.
I’ve gobbled up all the many books that have recently been written about the woman commonly known as Mary Magdalene. Some of them have been great scholarly texts like Jane Schaberg’s tome entitled “The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene.” While others have been little more than a salacious romp like Dan Brown’s: The Davinci Code. But whether its scholarly speculation on the nature of Mary’s leadership in the Early Church or scandalous speculation on her sexual exploits with none other than Jesus himself, what these books hold in common is their ability to touch an insatiable curiosity about this enigmatic biblical character whose feminine attributes have ruffled the cassocks of those patriarchs of the priestly persuasion for centuries.
The recent resurrection of Mary has offered up portraits of a character whose historical roots go all the way back to a relationship with Jesus of Nazareth. And that relationship situates Mary at Jesus’ right hand. Now you’d think that someone whom all four gospels declare to be so very close to Jesus, ought to be someone your hear about in the church all the time. You’d think that someone who the gospels record as having supported Jesus fledgling ministry out of her own resources, someone who if the gospels are to be believed, followed Jesus all the way to the cross and to whom the risen Christ first appeared and who is the first to be sent by Christ to proclaim the good news of the resurrection, you’d think that such a someone would be heralded down through the centuries, from pulpit to pulpit across the length and breadth of Christendom as the First Apostle. For indeed the literal definition of apostle is “one who is sent”. And if the gospels are to be believed, Mary was sent by none other than the Risen Christ, so you’d think she would be honored by the very church that professes to follow Christ.
But there’s just something about Mary…. that has made priests and preachers down through the centuries abhor her. That the historical evidence clearly points to Mary’s role as a leader, perhaps the foremost leader of the first, fledgling followers of Jesus Christ, has not seemed to help Mary’s case. Indeed, it may be that her leadership position as the Apostle to the Apostles, the first witness to the resurrection and the first to proclaim that Christ is alive, is the very thing that set the proverbial cat among the priestly pigeons.
Now I know that there are those who would say that the swirling conspiracy theories that abound around any discussion of Mary are little more than the rumblings of ill-advised detractors who seek to undermine the teaching authority of the church. But the evidence is clear that dear old Pope Gregory the Great, whether it was by accident or design actually misrepresented the Scriptures when he pontificated in a way that only popes can, about a woman’s sexuality. That this particular woman happened to be a close confidant of the one his holiness Pope Gregory called, “Lord and Saviour” did not save her from falling (pardon the pun) falling prey to his holiness’s foibles as he confused Mary Magdalene with the woman caught in adultery and made the perilously, presumptuous leap from adultery to prostitution. And low and behold for 14 centuries after Gregory’s not so great condemnation, Mary has remained relegated to the ranks of those whose bodies are bought and sold for the sake of those who care little for the female gender. And despite biblical and historical evidence to the contrary, Mary has been denied the titles that befit her rank.
But if you want to believe that it is merely a coincidence that the denial of Mary’s rank coincides with the church’s adamant denial down through the centuries that women could ever hope to enter the ranks of the priesthood, well I’m sure that God will forgive you, I’m just not sure Mary or her sisters will.
So what do the scriptures tell us about the disciple whom Jesus loved? Well for starters Mary was a woman whom Jesus healed. The gospel according to Luke tells us that:
“With Jesus went the twelve, as well as some women he had healed of evil spirits and sickness; Mary of Magdala, from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons; Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza; Suzanna; and many other women who were contributing to the support of Jesus and the Twelve with their own funds.”
Evil spirits and sickness; 7 demons, no mention of sex. No mention of prostitution. Now I don’t know about you, but if a prostitute showed up at your church tongues would be wagging. And whoever wrote the gospel of Luke was more than capable of passing on a sexual tidbit or two. In fact just before he tells us about the women who support Jesus’ ministry, the writers tells the tale of a woman caught in adultery. But the writer never mentions that Mary was a prostitute.
Now there are some who insist that Gregory the not so great was simply confused by this story and so we should understand that it was an easy mistake to make. But to accept this is to accept that adultery and prostitution are the same thing. Now I get that popes are not well versed in matters of sex, but sadly that’s never stopped them from pontificating.
What irks me more is that a 20th Century New Testament scholar, who ought to know better, could suggest that adultery and prostitution are the same thing or indeed that one woman is the same as the next.
Okay, I’ll admit that I have an ax to grind. Many women do. But can you blame us?
Gentlemen. I know that I have the rare privilege of serving in ministry with the most enlightened generation of men any woman has had the privilege of serving. You guys are great! So, please don’t hear this as some sort of angry tirade against men. Because sadly, the attitudes that have confined Mary to walking the streets at night are not confined to men. The entire church culture is steeped in antiquated attitudes that will take all of us, women and men together, decades to recover from.
But recover we will. We will recover the witness of St Mary of Magdala, whose dedicated faith in Jesus, helped her to follow Jesus, despite the fact that all of the Twelve Disciples abandoned him, Mary stayed and followed Jesus all the way to the foot of the cross and beyond. Even in her grief, while the disciples remained locked behind closed doors because they were afraid, Mary ventured out to perform with her ointments ready, not knowing how she would be able to roll the stone away, only knowing that they could not fail to do what she thought would be the last loving act for her beloved Jesus.
It is long past time for the church to celebrate the resurrection of Mary of Magdala, the Apostle to the Apostles.
Mary faithfully ventured forth, not knowing how; only knowing that she must. And it was Mary who recognized in the face of someone she thought was just a gardener; Mary recognized the face of Christ. In Mary Magdalene we see a woman whose love of Jesus pushed her to keep going in the face of torment and death. It was Mary’s love of Jesus that sent her into the garden alone. Even though she though that her beloved Jesus was dead and gone, her love helped push her forward and she discovered that everything old has been made new through love.
So, looking back to Mary, I wonder what it would take for us to proclaim, “I have seen Christ”? Where can we find God in our lives and thereby find new life, new hope, new love? Where can we find what Mary found; Mary who when she found this new thing, was able to go on to found a community of followers of Christ who endured despite the odds against them. A community who although their writings were suppressed by the powers that be, they could not be kept silent. A community whose gospel lay buried for centuries, and whose restoration preserves the traditions if not the words of Mary who encourages us down through the centuries with these words:
“Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be troubled. For Christ’s grace will be with you all and will shelter you. Rather we should praise Christ’s greatness, for Christ has joined us together and made us true human beings.”(Gospel of Mary and no I won’t supply the exact reference, in the hope that you might just read the entire Gospel)
Mary saw the risen Christ in the face of a gardener. Were can we find the face of Christ? Can we begin to see the face of Christ in the human beings that surround us? Perhaps when we begin to share Mary’s faith that the risen Christ can bee seen, we will begin to see the ace of Christ in those around us; in face of the stranger we meet on the road, in the face of the homeless man as we sit and share a meal with them, in the face of a child we reach out to lift up out of poverty, in face the woman upon whose shoulders we stand, in the face of our opponent as together we struggle for understanding, in the face of our enemy as we work for peace, in the face of our tormentors as we strive for justice, in the face of the sick as we seek healing, and in the face of the poor as we offer aid.
When we can look into the face of those we meet and see the face of Christ then perhaps we can follow in the footsteps of Mary and all the world will know by our love, that we too follow Christ.
St. Mary of Magdala, the first Apostle, the Apostle to the Apostle, the one in whom the Risen Christ entrusted the good news of eternal life.
May the power of Mary’s witness inspire you to see the face of Christ in the world.
pastordawn 