Ron Cole : unplugged, unorthodox, sacrilegious

Bill Dahl...mythic storyteller rekindles the human imagination

" When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged. We live in an age when news consists of Snooki’s pregnancy, Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and Kim Kardashian’s denial that she is the naked woman cooking eggs in a photo circulating on the Internet. Politicians, including presidents, appear on late night comedy shows to do gags and they campaign on issues such as creating a moon colony. “At times when the page is turning,” Louis-Ferdinand Celine wrote in “Castle to Castle,” “when History brings all the nuts together, opens its Epic Dance Halls! hats and heads in the whirlwind! Panties overboard!" ( Chris Hedges: Welcome to the Asylum 2012 )

We live in an age of immense knowledge yet we seem to live in the moment of absurd reality. We are content with fantasy to create the illusion everything is OK.  More from Chris Hedges in Empire of Illusion, “Most of us speak at this level, are entertained and think at this level. We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys — a symbol, in Italian culture, of ignorance and stupidity.”

It was Einstein that said, " “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” We are living in the midst of a global crisis and somehow we are able to play in the sandbox of humanity, as the world around us falls apart. We have erected our building blocks of knowledge that teeter precariously as the earth quakes around us. Who will awaken us? Who will re-boot the human imagination to move forward?

Will it be science? Will it be religion? Will it be politics? I believe it will profound imaginative storytellers. People who can capture the human imagination to see clearly the seriousness of the moment. But rather than drown people in despair these storytellers will kindle a fire of " hope " that will engage, attract people to see and talk about new possibilities.

 

Bill Dahl is one of those unique engaging storytellers. I had the wonderful opportunity to read a draft of Bill's " untitled " soon to be published book, likely in November 2012. It was funny talking with Bill after reading the draft, which was loosely titled, but as we talked there were two very mysterious objects that weave their way through out the story. They may in the end, shape the book's title.

This is one of those books that pulls you in from the start. It is fascinating how Bill shapes the characters in the book. From seemingly distant and isolated locations within the global village, the characters are moulded and hued from life's circumstances. Huntley a research ecologist in the amazon jungle haunted by his past, frozen in the moment by the sense of failure, he finds condolence in a bottle.

Amos who tragically finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time is left blind. Mysteriously as the story unwinds the characters emerge and find their relationships are deeper and more profound than any of them imagined.

It is a story of global and human consequences. It will make you think deeply of where we find ourselves to day in the midst of capitalism run wild, in the midst of global warming and as we continue to rape mother earth for her resources. Bill paints a picture of the future that is like having ice water thrown in a drunk man's face. It should sober us to our core, it should send a shiver down our spine.

It is an earth in which the gas tank is empty, immense solar panels drift around the skyline casting long ominous shadows in our lives. Extinction becomes more real than ever. Reproduction will produce no more. Eco terrorism is a constant threat.

Bill Dahl, makes us confront " now." We can no longer ignore truth, the facts that stare us in the eye. But Bill talks as a wise sage, a storyteller and prophet. This is story that is profoundly human. It should engage us " all " beyond religion, and beyond race. This is an urgent story about life.

In the epilogue of the book Bill says this...

" Clearly, an essential part of the answer involves the terms we use in the stories we tell ourselves; new narratives about this place; our earth, this time - the generations currently inhabiting this planet; this species - mankind. Our challenges - the inertia and magnitude of threats to the survival of our species, and the sensitive environmental balances we as caretakers are responsible to nurture, defend and protect. Our hearts  - the capacity to compassionately come together. Our minds - the belief that we may honor our differences and come to believe that we must and can collaborate in ways that currently challenges demand. Our feet and hands - to mobilize coordinated action with other, arm-in-arm dedicated to the creation of a constructive force for the common good. A force that is woefully insufficient; mired in the mayhem that " me and mine " manufacture; marginalizing the impetus that " us " so desperately demands."

Consider the possibility, the distinct possibility - that sometime has evolved into the reality if sum time - the moment that time has selected our current generations to live today as the one. We are the body that must come to a new appreciation for this thing we refer to as human civilization. Could we be living in the place in time where the choices we make regarding what, how and way possess unalterable consequences for the survival of a myriad of species - including our own? Perhaps as Reinhold Niebuhr has observed, a shared sense of faith and hope can be laid hold of by the innumerable flavors of believer and non, whereby we harness the brutal reality of " a sense of life - by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but lives on.."

This book has everything; tragic broken lives redeemed; the profound interconnectedness of humanity and all creation; mystery; good and evil; terrorism; science; futuristic; humour; faith; suspense...and filled with hope.

This book captured me from the start, the urgency, the suspense, and Bill's incredible storytelling created a gravity that wouldn't let go of me. I told Bill, when I put the draft down and looked out the family room window into the woods, everything looked different...profoundly different with a clarity I had not seen in a long time.

Great storytellers have a way of capturing mind and heart. Thank you Bill Dahl for awakening that human spirit...may we all set it free, and let it fly.

A Jesus to worship...but to Godly to imitate

The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am claiming that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap, at a crossroads so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. At the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died and that is what he died about and that is where christians ought to be and what christianity should be about. 

- George McLeod ( founder of Iona Community 1938 )

 A mysterious star navigates through the dark space of infinity, through the star fields that God told Abraham would be as numerous as his descendants. It stops on the fringe of humanity and it illuminates the spot where God will become one of us, taking on flesh and bones. I am always captured by the profound reality in the gospels that Jesus the God man is birthed on the periphery of humanity and religion and dies in the same place...abandoned by religion and humanity. Even in the gospel of John when the writer pens that he pitched his tent in the midst of humanity, into our neighborhood...Jesus lives on the margins.

It is easy when your stuck in the " church bubble " to forget what Jesus was all about. We have been indoctrinated to believe that Jesus is all about personal salvation, he died to forgive your sins, guaranteeing a ticket in your hand for flight and accommodation in that eternal retirement home called heaven.

We forget that Jesus was the culmination of the prophetic voices that still echo along the corridor of history. Like resonating sound waves that join in unison and finally collide with Jesus he speaks with crystal clear passion about one thing...the Kingdom of God, and his passion for justice.

We need pause, to be still and listen deeply to the prophets. They speak about God's passion, and Jesus is the fullfilment of the passion.

"The Lord is exalted", proclaims Isaiah. " He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness." ( 33:5 )

" I am the Lord " announces Jeremiah in the name of God. " I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." ( 9:24 ) 

Again Isaiah, " Is such the fast I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and lie is a sack cloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this fast that I choose; to break the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? ( 58:5-7 )

From Micah, " He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. ( 6:6-8 )

Lastly from Amos, " I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ( 5:21-24 )

 We forget Jesus the God-man lived on the margins of humanity. He lived amidst its poverty, its injustice, its oppression, its sickness and its sin. He lived so deeply in the midst of the human wreckage that the Pharisees could not really tell him apart of the sinners. As profoundly strange as it sounds he was one of them. We as christians have a real problem with a fully human Jesus, it's extremely uncomfortable to wrestle with that reality. We like a Jesus that is 90% God and about 10% human. That is a far more comfortable Jesus. We keep our distance from that kind of Jesus. We can worship that Jesus without having to imitate his life, and live out and reenact his profound mysterious parables.  

We have pulled Jesus out of the world, out of the stench, out the filth and brokenness of humanity and put him under house arrest in the church building convincing ourselves that Jesus is far more concerned about the sterile vacuum of a sacred holy space. Do we imagine him wandering around a church that stands empty most week days eagerly waiting for Sunday morning when he can inhabit the praises of "his" people?

And when did this Jesus of the gospels all of a sudden aquire an appetite for worship music to appease him, and keep him happy?The prophets seemed quite clear on the type of worship God desired and music didn't seem to make the cut. Jesus profoundly seems to inhabit a more worldy, a more human...a more secular worship space.

   I was hungry and you fed me,
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me a room,
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
   I was sick and you stopped to visit,
   I was in prison and you came to me.'

 "Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me." ( Eugene Peterson's The Message; Matthew 25 )

We come to the profound conclusion that we worship Jesus in the face of broken humanity, not before the altar of the temple.

As christians we are very good at compartmentalizing life and people. We draw lines all through life, barriers, the boundaries of sacred and secular. We draw circles around people, groups of people...we have insiders and outsiders. Life in the context of the profound mysterious reality of Jesus is seen different way.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. ( Eugene Petersons The Message; Colossians 1 )

Jesus is the intermolecular force, the gravity that holds all reality together, sacred and secular. Despite how tarnished, filthy, broken and cracked the human image was, Jesus could always see past it...and see the image of God hidden in everyone.

I want to encourage people to really think, reflect deeply on that reality...of finding Jesus in the midst of life. When I hear people say, " I wish we had a space where we could sing christian songs, worship songs." Or, " I can't sing those songs because there not christian." It saddens me deeply.

We forget in the gospels Jesus wasn't speaking christians. He didn't speak christianeze, theological garble when to talked to people. He used a mysterious language, of parable that captured the imagination of humanity. People had to wrestle with them, moving them into a liminal space where they saw God and humanity differently. Often it wasn't the obvious black and white, it was more color that spilled out over the lines...it was more mystery as truth. It gave people a glimpse of a new world, of abundant life. It left people in awe.

I think of how often I listen to music today, so called " secular music " and a line of lyrics will awaken me like a flash of light.  And at the same time the neurons in my brain begin to spark, and the harddrive in my mind begins to whirl...and I think. You could almost say it's an " epiphany."

1. a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; 2. an intuitive grasp of reality through something; 3. an illuminating discovery; 4. a revealing scene or moment; 5. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a divine being.

 

03 God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Is it only in christian music, worship music that this can happen? I don't think so. There is so much good music out there, with profound, mysterious spirit-filled lyrics...deeply human and divine. We just need to have the same redemptive imagination as Jesus and engage people in conversation. Draw them into that mysterious place where the Psalmist proclaims. " deep calls to deep ", where spirit talks to spirit.

 

 

 As long as the church retreats, stays in the building, reinforcing and protecting itself, our culture will never experience an epiphany. 

Over the last few decades, the church has been pushed further and further onto the periphery of culture. Or in many instances, the church has retreated to the comfortable confines of its Christian subculture. So we are inside our churches looking out, but we really find ourselves on the outside looking in. God is calling the church out of the church and back into the midst of humanity that Jesus lived " in." 

Lost...explosive parables, and the fall out

 

 

 I was reading the "lost " parables last evening ( Luke 15 ); the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son. And slowly in my mind I could feel things shifting, I tried to reach for something, a handle, anything...but it was too late. Here I was upside down, all perception had changed, I had to reorient myself. Now I was " lost " ... initially I saw from the point of view of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son.  Now, it's this awkward view from being in the midst of the ninety-nine sheep that God doesn't seem to rejoice over, the nine coins that the woman just seems to take for granted, and the older son who humanly speaking seems somewhat justified for being overlooked.

 

In his home town of Nazareth, Jesus gives an inaugural sermon (Lk4:16-28) that gained him applause at first...until the people understood what in the heck he was saying! Then they tried to throw him over the nearest cliff.

 

Jesus began by quoting the familiar prophecy from Isaiah, about God's mission being aimed at poor people, the oppressed, the blind and the broken. Everybody said, " Right on! preach it brother." But Jesus made the "mistake" of turning the message around. He couldn't have jammed his foot any further into his mouth had he got up to address a white middle-class suburban congregation and said, " God doesn't care about this church,"

 

The " punch " of these lost parables comes when we turn them around, upside down. The parables are kind of like Trojan-horses. Jesus wasn't about to take the same approach that he took before the hometown folks. He wanted to make the same point to these cozy and comfy, " white middle class, suburban " church folk ", and to the " pastors " who came asking why he spent so much time with the out casts.

 

Jesus wanted to show them, " they " were the real " outcasts ", the prodigals that stayed at home. So Jesus lit a stick of dynamite, covered it with a parable, and tossed it into their midst. By the time the " good " people got the parable unwrapped, Jesus and his disciples were a few miles down the road. Perhaps they were still able to here the explosion. 

 

Maybe Sunday morning, between one of the worship songs...pause, and reflect. Maybe you'll here an explosion, and ask yourself. " whose more lost, the poor and homeless in the inner city, the addicts, the mentally ill...the marginalized community of divine nobodies...or is it the ??????

The slippery slope from believing into...living

 

I am told, that Jesus only directly answers 3 of the 183 questions that he himself is asked in the four Gospels! This is totally surprising to me who has grown up assuming that the very job description of religion is to give people answers and to resolve people's dilemmas. Apparently this is not Jesus' understanding of the function of religion because he operates very differently.

Jesus' questions are to re-position you, make you own your unconscious biases, break you out of your dualistic mind, challenge your image of God or the world, and present new creative and redemptive possibilities.  He himself does not usually wait for or expect specific answers.  He hopes to tweak, or ignite a person's imagination.

 

Reading the gospels moves you into this profound liminal space. Some people call it the " slippery slope ", but maybe it is more circumventing obstacles around struggling with truth and suddenly loosing your footing. In reading the gospels you come to the reality what once made sense no longer does. What caused the fall might have been that for years, and years there was only one way to look at something. But, in your pursuit for something deeper you stated looking at the obsatcle from different angles...and you slipped.

And you thought, Sh........it! now I've done it, I've lost my faith. All the questions like lightning begin to strike you from all angles. How long will this free fall last ? Will I land on anything solid?

Christianity for years has been about " orthodoxy ", right belief. You read the gospels and you can't miss the only thing Jesus was orthodox about was living. It wasn't really " what " to believe it was " how " to believe. And today more and more people don't really care about " what " you need to believe...they want to know how. After we let go of the " what ", we are left with the " how." We grab the profound mysterious " how " and throw it into the midst of life. There its, " how do I believe?" How did I ever believe that? " How does believing this change the world around me?

It is the " how " of belief, that is more about " orthopraxy " the right practice of belief...Or simply how do I live like Jesus, and believe in the things he believed in. "How", is a question that is far more profound and far more life giving than " what ." " How ", implies a sense of purpose and pushes us into a deeper engagement with the world in which we live.

Diana Butler Bass says, " What is a conventional religious question, one of dogma and doctrine; how is an emerging spiritual question, one of experience and connection." How is the struggle of a new way to belief.

 

You read the gospels and you simply see, it becomes blindingly clear Jesus doesn't fight for anyone to believe anything. All through the gospels it is Jesus telling profound redemptive stories, acting out the drama of abundant living in the midst of a broken world. Jesus simply fights for us to " live " differently as " on earth as in heaven."  It is simply about living a radical scandalous redemptive love to the point of self sacrifice.

It became apparent for me when Jesus is arrested by the Roman soldiers in the garden of Gethsemane, when Peter grabs the soldiers sword and cuts his ear off. Jesus tells Peter to put down the sword...and replaces and heals the soldiers ear. We will never convince the world to believe in Jesus by defending, and fighting about right belief. We will convince the world of Jesus when we are willing to put down our swords, and willing to sacrifice our lives...for Love. 

 

I NO longer care or focus on what I beleive...I only care about how I believe...how that might change my neighborhood, and world...and how it will reveal Jesus and his kingdom.

 

 

Being Jesus in Nashville...Jim Palmer

 If we we've hung around " church-ianity " for awhile we've heard the term " born again ". Jesus talked about it to Nicodemus during their roof-top meeting in the dark of night.

Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind-hovering-over-the-water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.

Somehow, this became another commodity of church dispensed only under the right conditions, by the " right " people. Some hands and some God manipulation, Abracadabra! It's interesting think about birth, the 9 months inside the " mother ship " floating around in this deep dark void, our life supported by the umbilical cord. Suddenly the contractions of birth start and we are literally squeezed and pushed out into the world. The doctor grabs the scissors and cuts the cord, and there is that brief anxious moment...when the baby inhales that first breath of the world outside.

I think if anything, I didn't understand " born again " until I left the church. Inside the womb of the church, faith-life is pretty much supported by the nutrients it provides...it can become very comfortable. But when you leave the church, and you grab the scissors and cut the cord yourself it's that same anxiety...can I survive, and breathe...can faith-life survive outside the womb of the church. Many, many people are finding, yes it can...abundantly.

Jim Palmer said this in a recent interview with my good friend Bill Dahl...

Through religion people have absorbed a bunch of ideas and beliefs about themselves, God, others and life that govern their identity, relationships and way of being in the world. It’s as if we’re trapped inside a story that is rigged to never lead to the freedom, fulfillment and abundance that people want and Jesus promised.

 

I devoted a year of my life to being Jesus in Nashville, where I live. What I thought that would mean and what actually happened were two totally different things. That year flipped the religious script in my head, and gave me a new courage to be a fully expressed human being in ways I never imagined possible. I started the year convinced I needed to live the life of Jesus and then discovered that the life I needed to live was my own. Free at last! My story almost never made it to print. Despite two near-death experiences and being branded a heretic by my Christian publisher, the book came to fruition as a result of the encouragement and support of my divine nobody friends. 

You can read the full interview ( here ).

 Diana Butler Bass says this in her new book, " Christianity After Religion: The End Of Church And The Birth Of A New Spiritual Awakening."

" Have we lived the majority of our lives in the context of this awakening, struggling towards a new understanding of God, how we should act ethically and politically, and who we are deep in our souls? What if this awakening is not exclusively a christian affair, but rather a certain form of christianity that is playing a significant role in forming the contours of a new kind of faith beyond conventional religious boundaries? Is America living in the wake of a revival gone awry or a spiritual awakening that is finally taking concrete...albeit...unexpected...shape?

Strange as it may seem in this time of cultural anxiety, economic near collapse, terrorist fear, political violence, environmental crisis, and partisan anger, I believe that the United States ( and not only the United States ) is caught up in the throws of a spiritual wakening, a period of sustained religious and political transformation during which our ways of seeing the world, understanding ourselves, and expressing our faith are being, to borrow the phrase, " born again." Indeed, the shifts around religion contribute to the anxiety, even as the anxiety gives rise to new sorts of understanding of God and spiritual life. Fear and confusion signal change. This transformation is what some hope will be a " Great Turning " toward a global based community on shared human connection, dedicated to the care of our planet, committed to justice and equality, that seeks to raise hundereds of millions from poverty, violence and oppression.

This awakening has been under way for sometime now and has reached a crucial stage, as a new " Age of the Spirit " has dawned. Theologian Harvey Cox points out that this turn toward spirituality as the new form of faith started in the previous century. The 1970's were a significant period in a long process of moving away from old-style religion towards new patterns of faith. In the last decade, this shift has accelerated exponentially, sweeping millions more into both discontent and the longing for change. " ( Chapter One )

Millions of people are leaving the church searching to find real faith, and it is in this sea of discontent and longing for change that Jim Palmer pastors. Through his two previous books, " Wide Open Spaces " and " Divine Nobodies " he has strummed a chord that resonates with many many people. Jim is doing alot of life coaching, counselling, talking...helping people navigate these unchartered waters. Jim commented in a recent e-mail, " I feel like my upcoming book has the kind of message that could effectively be taking a stand on something that really matters. A lot of folks have shared this journey with me the last several years. They are ordinary people, many from a Christian background, who have been shedding religion and no longer support the view of Jesus promoted by the institutional church – one that leads to condemning people of other faiths, forces Christians to adopt beliefs and practices they often cannot live up to or support in good conscience, and requires people to promote a message that divides human beings in the name of Jesus, in the name of God. Jesus stood for the worth and value of every human being. What if this was our starting premise and we  courageously worked towards a world that works for everyone. I started the Occupy Religion effort because I believe that the 99% of those who follow Jesus want to embrace him as central to their relationship with God and spirituality without it creating division and hostility in the world. "

And again, from Bill Dahl's interview with Jim...

What I learned in my year of being Jesus is that Jesus was special, not because he was more divine then the rest of us, but because he was courageously more human than most. I wish I could convince people that they are born into this world as complete and whole human beings with equal worth to God as Jesus of Nazareth. In the eyes of the religious establishment we might be nobodies but we are divine nobodies, as much a child of God as that nobody Nazarene carpenter. This is the message I would like to get through to fellow survivors of childhood abuse. It’s the message I would have wanted to express to the 10-year-old girl sex slaves I encountered in brothels in Southeast Asia in my work as a human rights activist. As an ordained minister, it’s the message I wanted to deliver to a Christian friend who said, “I am a piece of shit to God, which is why I need Jesus.” It is very difficult to convince people that they are good and beautiful human beings when religion has sufficiently convinced them that they are “sinners” and despicable to God. It’s also difficult to deliver this message when institutional Christianity has convinced us that acknowledging the divine in every human is a betrayal of God.

 

People have Jesus so wrapped up in layers of religion that he and his truth are virtually unrecognizable. The prostitutes and notoriously irreligious people of Jesus’ day got Jesus better than anyone else, and were the people Jesus preferred to associate with. I think I’m going to go into the streets of Nashville today and beg the tattoo artists, single moms, waitresses, artists, and all the nobodies who wouldn’t be caught dead inside a church and beg them to share with the world who they know and have experienced God and Jesus to be.

I have been blogging here for almost ten years now. I think most readers will have seen my journey evolve to exactly where Jim Palmer is. I have written 1,774 posts on this blog, I have had 2,211 comments and 185,947 page views...I have never asked for anything, nor should I expect to get anything. But here's the thing, I really really believe in what Jim Palmer is doing. There are very few pastors that are in Jim's place helping people find faith, retain faith and live faith in the " Wide Open Spaces." Jim also said this to me last night...

Hey; it's Jim. I wanted to touch base with a few folks about, Being Jesus in Nashville. So, suddenly it was up on Amazon! Wasn't expecting that. I haven't broadcasted it publicly that the book is technically available for purchase because I am still working out the details with the International Justice Mission and the Tourette Syndrome Associationabout donating a portion of each book purchase to their efforts. As you might remember, for a season I traveled abroad with the IJM, and I have TS. But in anticipation of the official book release, I wanted to give you a heads up.

You can help me, you help Jim, you can help International Justice Mission and the Tourette Syndrome Association by buying Jim Palmer's " Being Jesus in Nashville "...it will challenge you to live your faith to it's fullest in the midst of your Nashville...your neighborhood.

 

wrestling with God, and pulling the fire alarm...

“To deal with the word of Jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and to say No to his word...That is why as soon as the hurricane begins we lose the word, and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not Christ's, but a word we had wrested from him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think there is only one outcome from wrestling with God...it is to be left limping, permanently. It is to be left exhausted in the struggle of clinging to the things that you thought were important. In the deepest and most profound sense, it is to be stripped naked.

For me , it has been about a 40 year wrestling match, and it's only been that past few years that God had pulled the last bits from my clenched fingers. I could have avoided the wrestling match altogther has it not been for John Dear, convincing me to spend a couple of years of reading nothing but the gospels.

I was told, for example, that Jesus only directly answers 3 of the 183 questions that he himself is asked in the four Gospels! This is totally surprising to me who has grown up assuming that the very job description of religion is to give people answers and to resolve peoples' dilemmas. Apparently this is not Jesus' understanding of the function of religion because he operates very differently.

Jesus' questions are to re-position you, make you own your unconscious biases, break you out of your dualistic mind, challenge your image of God or the world, and present new creative and redemptive possibilities.  He himself does not usually wait for or expect specific answers.  He hopes to tweek, or ignite a person's imagination.  He wants to engage a person, with the image of the Kingdom confronts the person, and with the process of transformation itself.  Thus his questions are worth examining because they, along with the parables, reveal his basic style of encounter with humanity.

It is to reboot imagination to an alternative subversive world, the Kingdom of God; to get people to reorient there lives as to live in the Kingdom now; to get people to redeem, and rebuild the world around them in the redemptive imagination of Jesus' Kingdom...on earth as in heaven; and lastly to draw humanity into this Kingdom exactly as Jesus did.

Instead, Jesus asks questions, good questions, unnerving questions, re-aligning questions, transforming questions.  He leads us into liminal, and therefore transformative space, much more than taking us into any moral high ground of immediate certitude or ego superiority. He subverts up front the cultural or theological assumptions that we are eventually going to have to face anyway.  He leaves us betwixt and between, where God and grace can get at us, and where we are not at all in control.

This was the reality of my wrestling match, I hobbled away limping...my forty years of, " yeah, you don't need to tell me, I've got it all figured out. " " Doctrine, I know it all front to back, side to side." All of this stuff in confronting Jesus in the gospels was ripped from my hands and vanished before my eyes. Because the reality was, I was more secure in the " stuff " than I was in Jesus.

I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in our doctrine, our theological correctness...that it becomes a blind fold from seeing the real Jesus, rather than the one we imagine.

Now I hobble around the neighborhood with nothing more than the Jesus of the gospels, his whole radical scandalous love-filled life ( all his actions, all his words ), and his relentless passion for the Kingdom of God. That is faith for me.

I know why the church avoids the gospels. Yes, I know it will read bits, and pieces, but to spend a great amount of time in the gospels is extremely dangerous. It's like pulling a fire alarm without no real evacuation plan. People only know one thing, " they need to get out of the building fast, there life and lives depend on it."

We have turned it into a bed time story. A comfortable story that lulls people to sleep to dream filled place that everything thing is all right and when they wake up " all " will be heaven. There is no where in the gospels where you come to the conclusion that Jesus came to tell a story to believe in. That we would just keep telling it over, over, over and over again almost like a hypnotic pendulum going back and forth. It was an earth shattering story that could only be lived to discover its profound mysterious eternal truth.

It's in living the gospels that we confront anew the questions of Jesus and his actions; unnerving questions, questions that move us out of our comfort zones into that liminal space where everything is realigned...in the laboratory of life it's in this reaction chamber where we are transformed. All the certitude, and concrete trite answers on which we stand crumbles under our feet. It's here living the gospels we confront our God assumptions, our cultural and humanity assumptions. It's here we are left to wrestle in the context of living life, where in that awkward space we are left teetering where we can only reach for grace and love.

If we read the gospels for a season, immersed ourselves into " all " of it...I have no doubt someone would have the courage to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building...and live the fullness of Jesus and the gospels. 

life beyond the belief meter...

 

One wonders if there isn't one of these parked at the entrance of " heaven's gate ", or on the front porch of that mansion with many rooms. We are led...maybe not led, coerced into believing that an absolute positive outcome on the belief meter is what gets you " in."

What's the pass mark going to be? I don't know. I would assume 50% would just being lowering the bar to much. Heaven forbid, that low, someone could trip over it and accidentally fall in. But, I'm sure you can imagine the hooting and hollering, and high-fiving on the "right side " of the divine gated community, and the jeering and laughing at the folks that will have to take the elevator down to the eternal fire in the basement of existence.

You read the gospels and you wonder, " how in the heck did we come up with a faith that has such an emphasis in absolute belief. If anything Jesus mission was not about belief. ( You might want to read that again really slow ) It wasn't about what you must believe or how you must behave in order to get "in " heaven. Rather his mission was about the character of God, away of centering in God, and the Kingdom of God. It was a mission far more concerned about " living " than " believing."

From the outset after Jesus has collected his band of " Divine Nobodies", his rag-tag band of " Ragamuffins" he doesn't head to a classroom in the local synagogue for a three year course in Hermeneutics, Epistemology...the proper way to cook lamb on an altar. He took his disciples on the road, into the wide open spaces of their world, their neighborhoods not to construct a new religion around a whole new set of rules...but to rediscover a simple faith of living and becoming fully human.

The first place Jesus takes his disciples, he immersed them into the midst of life, the wedding at Cana. It was a microcosm of the world, there were friends, family, the town...the black sheep of the family, weird uncles, all the little family clicks...and all the messy dysfunction of real life. It was the good, the bad and the ugly. And just when the party starts to fizzle out, Jesus makes wine, gallons from water...new wine poured extravagantly into the midst of life. It wasn't " certain " guests that received this extravagance...the " in " crowd, the " correct " believers...it was for everyone, all you had to do was accept it. Many likely started rubbing their eyes in disbelief as to what was going on. You kind of couldn't put it in words. Whatever truth came out was from simply living in the moment.

Jesus had to reboot peoples imagination to what the character of God really is. After God being out of the picture for some 400 years, the proprietors of religious goods and services ( aka Pharisees, Scribes, Priests, Religious Scholars ), sort of cherry picked through the old texts and came up with a God that...well, lets say, served them quite well. Here you might insert many proprietors of the religious goods and services of our day.

It was the God that was pretty well disgusted with us, really couldn't bear to look at us. The only way we could get close to him, even in the tiime of Jesus was to create a smoke-screen. It was buying your pound of flesh from the temple priest ( yes I think they sold it by the pound ), and through it on the temple BBQ and create enough smoke that God couldn't see you.

It seemed the only people this God liked was the religious proprietors of goods and services and if you wanted God to like you, you bought what these salesmen sold. It was a life in which the average person lived while being tethered on a short leash to the temple. It was life dictated by rules, and amendments to the rules, and amendments to the amendments. It was living life as a ritual, eating off a menu where the content never changed.

It was also a God that didn't seem to give a crap about the poor, the homeless, the marginalized, the oppressed; the sick, lame and blind...another faith, an outsider...a foreigner. It was a God who likes the people we like. And there was no getting around it, God had his favorites...he loved some, and hated his enemies. It was the prosperity God, the God of investments...if you put 10 danari in the temple offering basket Sunday, God gave you double or triple back Monday morning.

It's not hard even to look around us today and see that this is the same God many churches project into the world. But Jesus, becomes God in the flesh and bones, the God-man and moves into the " hood." This is the God who doesn't need a smoke screen to draw a curtain between himself and humanity. This God moves right in, no, he jumps in heads over heels into the messiness and brokenness of humanity. He doesn't wait for an invitation, for people to repent...shave their heads, wear sack cloths and roll around in ashes. He invites himself, to eat with, to drink...to rub elbows with the sinners, the outcasts, the marginalized. Simply he is a friend of sinners. This is the God of extreme, scandalous grace and love. This is the God that says love your enemies. This is the God that says never tire of forgiveness. This is the God that tears down all the fences, the walls and barriers that are erected in the midst of humanity. This is the God  who says the profound reality to abundant life can be found in something as small as a Tweet, " Love God with absolutely everything you have, and Love your neighbor the same way " #extreme love @God.

This was the character of God that Jesus came to reveal...a God a world away from the god the proprietors of religious goods and services were selling. But, a God that was infinitely and intimately close to humanity...camped in the midst of the worst of it.

And what's this mission of God. Well we get a really good idea from where Jesus pitched his tent. He was camped out on the extreme fringe of society...it was with the people of no worth. It was the sick, the lame, the blind, the oppressed, the poor, the homeless, the sinners...on the ladder to success these people were stepping stones for others to reach that first wrung. This was the God of the Old Testament prophets that continually tried to reboot the imagination of humanity to justice, and mercy...for the very people Jesus camped out with. This missional strand of justice weaves itself through the whole story and is connected the very DNA that is the reality of Jesus' life. These prophetic words still echo down the corridor of history...

"The Lord is exalted", proclaims Isaiah. " He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness." ( 33:5 )

" I am the Lord " announces Jeremiah in the name of God. " I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." ( 9:24 ) 

Again Isaiah, " Is such the fast I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and lie is a sack cloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this fast that I choose; to break the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? ( 58:5-7 )

From Micah, " He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. ( 6:6-8 )

Lastly from Amos, " I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ( 5:21-24 )

But the reality, the truth is, Jesus starts telling these wild scandalous redemptive parables, mysteries to capture the imagination of humanity...to God's justice. It was not just loving your friends, it was about loving people you can't stand, people you hate...your enemies. It was not just making sure your rights were protected...it was about becoming a voice for the widow, the orphan, the most marginalized people around you. It was about forgiveness, seventy times seventy...it was scandalous. It was about setting the captives free. It was universal health insurance where as humanity we tried to heal everyone...not the ones who could afford to pay. It was the miracle of feeding the masses...to the point of sharing your last scrap of food knowing you'd go hungry.  There was no in crowd; Jesus knocked down all fences, barriers and borders...as humanity we were one, and we were in this all together. And no one had ownership of God...it didn't matter where you worshipped...it was about doing it in a profound sense of truth. And well, right living, righteousness came down to...loving, God with all your heart, mind and soul...and loving your neighbor as yourself, almost echoing Micah's words.

This is the essence of the " Kingdom of God " stuff...it is the very heart-beat of the Gospels, and Jesus life pulsated with passion for the Kingdom. God's mission is establishing the Kingdom of God, on earth as in heaven.

And lastly Jesus came to show us how to center our lives in God...Jesus called it abiding. You sense in abiding that it is effortless, you just had to rest in the profound reality that Jesus is...simply as branch on a tree. Life comes from Jesus, pure and simple. I love Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well and her struggle of trying to get it right...of connecting with God. Do we need to go to some mountain, or do we need to go to the temple? She is asking God standing right in front of her, Jesus, " how do I do it right...give me the formula?" Jesus says it simply doesn't matter, it is about doing it, living life in a spirit of truth...these are the people God is looking for."

I don't know how we read the gospels and come up with the idea that Jesus came to make us believe. That somehow he came to pound the " word " into us. Profound as it seems God came to reveal the " word " to us not by writing it out on a scroll, or in a book...but by making the word " flesh " and placing it in our midst. I know that for a lot of people absolute belief is important. We need doctrine, we need creeds...we must have a statement of faith. It's not that I don't believe them, I just don't believe in them in the same way. I am not willing to waste my energy, and exhaust myself fighting to get people to believe. I don't think Jesus was about belief...I think Jesus was about living. The more and more I read the gospels I find something " beyond belief ." I find something that must be lived, something that must be discovered. Jesus said, " follow me." One thinks if he wanted mere belief he could have just set up shop like the rest of the proprietors of religious goods and services. But it's only in following Jesus into the midst of the world, our neighborhoods, the inner city...and love our neighbor as much as we love God. It's in this divine redemptive reactive interaction I find truth...something I can believe in beyond mere words.

In the gospels, I find the greatest story ever told, I am consumed by Jesus and it's cast of characters. It is truly beyond belief, but yet I know for certain, without out a doubt if we dared live the story in our own lives the world would change. It is in this incredible profound mysterious truth that I have come to believe...this incredible power and redemptive imagination that creates new possibilities. I don't believe in the simplicity of doctrines...I believe in the greatest story ever told..."all" of it. If you want to know what I believe, it is the whole gospels, and only as much as I live it. The world will know Jesus not by what I say I believe, but by how I live. So please don't ask me simply what I believe anymore...because I've moved some where way beyond that.

AIDS...and confronting the terminal illness of judgement

 

Last night, working in the emergency department we had a woman maybe in her seventy's come in with her forty year old son. To look at him you would never guess he was forty. He looked older than his mother, he was thin, gaunt and literally wasting away. He didn't have to say a word, you could see pain, suffering, shame and guilt written all over him. He was in the end stages of AIDS. Ravaged by the disease, he was severly dehydrated and dying of malnutrition...and his mom wasn't coping with it all.

Around her neck, I could see she was wearing a cross, so I asked her if she was a part of a church and if she was getting help and being supported there. At this point it was as if I had touched an open wound. Tears started to stream down her face. Handing her some Kleenex she told me, no, that she couldn't tell anyone about her son.

Even if it is not blatantly obvious, it is overt...maybe in her church, tucked in the corner you can see it ...judgement. This lady knew it. Homosexuality she has been told is a sin, and it will be judged, and AIDS is the consequence, the earthly judgement. If that's not bad enough her son still has the eternal torment of hell to face yet. And, of course this judgement I'm sure in her mind is partly about her. I mean, homosexuality is a choice...perhaps if she was a better parent her sons outcome would have been much better.

Who is " this Jesus " that many churches worship...I do not see him anywhere in the gospels ?

And, all the time tumbling around in my mind is this image of Jesus...hanging out with the most marginalized in the world. Somehow, he always seemed to be in the midst of sick, the blind, and crippled beggars...those possessed by demons. He touched the lepers, he kissed and healed them. He touched prostitutes, he came to their rescue...they washed his feet with tears and perfume.

And here is this woman whose gay son is dying of AIDS and there is no one in her church that she can tell. I think, I know Jesus would embrace and love this man without any judgement...and then I see a church, the body of Christ unwilling to move it's legs, to wrap its arms around this young man...or to move its lips and kiss him.

I know some one is going to say the trite, " love the sinner, hate the sin." Sorry, I'm gonna have to cry bull shit on that one. You can't love and judge at the same time...that is a very tainted kind of love. Jesus says we are to simply love...the way he did. The gospels are permeated with this kind of radical scandalous redemptive love. Can we please just learn to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE and LOVE till it kills us...a love that you sacrifice everything for.

the other side of the fence...

For the longest time, it was certainty of fact, staying within the chain-link fence of the doctrinal playground. But, it was weird, I started seeing Jesus on the otherside of the fence waving at me. It was like he was calling me away from my certainties to meet him in a new way. So I went. In the midst of the inner city it was like he was saying, " 'if you love me a lot...love these people the same'.... ' Do not love them even one ounce less than you love me." I can't express this " new way " of meeting him as a statement of certitude. But, in this collision of the least, the most marginalized, and Jesus...I have discovered a profound truth that has changed my life forever. I can't tell you exactly what it is...I can only say, " come see for yourself."

...So we cancelled it all!

This is a very telling video that I hope you'll take the time to watch, and really listen to. Shes is very distraught on the one hand about the things that aren't happening...but, in her conversation there are some beautiful vistas that we get a glimpse of...things that are really happening without her. And things, in which the people are learning far more.

 

 

 Well...any thoughts ???