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With God On Our Side 090424

My deepest theological roots were watered by the poetry of Bob Dylan. As a youth I spent hours each day in the presence of two-sided LPs by BD, JB, K3, AG, S&G, and PPM. Meanwhile, each unrhythmic Sunday sermon was sort of listened to one time only. Baez’s rendition of Dylan’s song “With God On Our Side” inspired a lifetime of resisting religious justification for the conquest of violent victories. “If God were on our side, he’d stop the next war.”

As I matured, I learned that the third commandment was not about childish cussing. Using the Lord’s name in a “wrongful way” (or in vain) was more about misrepresenting God. Thou shalt not use God to justify actions that actually go against God’s desire for us. Thou shalt not say God is on our side and against them — when we proclaim “there is no them”. Thou shalt not use God’s name to justify violence, oppression, racism, sexism, pyramids over tables, to name a few.

Later still I was taught that the worst wars and most violent acts in human history have been done in the name of God — and the times aren’t changing today. The song “With God On Our Side” revealed the importance of learning lessons from history instead of ignoring or distorting history; after all, every LP has 2 sides. How many times can a preacher proclaim the all-powerful prefers “his” politician? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

Which song lyrics have influenced your beliefs and impacted your life? What songs inspire you,, lift you up, and bring you joy? Which genre of music spoke to each age and stage of your life?

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Serendipity  August 9, 2024

A friend at Emory had dreamed about and saved for buying her first car — a Cadillac to be precise.  When she entered the dealership in Atlanta, she was shown into a salesman’s office to choose a car to test drive.  Without rising from his chair or removing his feet from the desk, he asked her, “Now little lady, honestly, do you think you can afford to buy one of my cars?”  She replied, “Mister, I may not be able to afford two but I sure as hell can afford one!”  

She sought a better salesman.

In 1977 I was told her Cadillac had been ruined in a wreck, but she was not seriously injured. I called her and said, “I’m so sorry to hear what happened. How are you doing?” She replied, “We’re all devastated and doing the best we can; the family is gathering together to meet his plane. I so appreciate your call..…”  I knew we weren’t talking about her car, so I just kept listening.

Her uncle, Bert Lance, was flying home after resigning as the director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Jimmy Carter. He had been accused of mismanagement while serving on the board of a bank in Georgia, and had resigned from OMB to avoid even a hint of scandal so soon after Watergate. (He was later found not guilty).

Three lessons I learned: 

  1. If you call to ask about one thing and the other person wants to talk about something else, go with their topic; don’t insist on yours.  After all, it was Bert Lance who popularized the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
  2. Serendipity is when you seek one thing and find something else, and God is involved in the difference.
  3. Timing is everything.

How does my experience remind you of allowing the needs of the other person to steer a conversation? Who do you know who experienced a reputation slowly gained and quickly lost by trumped up charges?  How have you found serendipity in seeking one thing and finding another thanks to God’s involvement in the discovery? 

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Supreme Court July 2, 2024

In 1972, I visited the office of a United States Supreme Court associate justice. My boys’ high school field trip to Washington, DC included the public small but tall courtroom where 8 white men and the honorable Thurgood Marshall sought justice together. We were privileged with a rare session with Byron White, associate justice of the supreme court — a half hour in his private office —the wood panels, the desk, and the chairs where we freshmen fidgeted.

It takes connections to gain the ear of a justice. Our class association with the associate justice came from our history teacher being the punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1965-1966. Byron “Whizzer” White led the league in rushing his rookie year of 1938 with the then-named “Pittsburgh Pirates”. Pro football brought us in the room where we learned about The Court and a few Steeler stories. 

Justice White did not align with liberal or conservative rulings. He advocated desegregation in public schools and affirmative action. He opposed Roe.v. Wade and wrote the opinion for Bowers v. Hardwick which would be later overturned.

We didn’t get to influence his decisions; we hadn’t given him 3-4 million dollars after all. We just had a unique ally which allowed our personal encounter to influence us. I came to respect and trust the ideals of the rule of law for all people in our country. Two years later in the United States v. Nixon — with one justice’s recusal for personal relationships — White joined the unanimous ruling that the president doesn’t wield great power without legal consequences.

When has a connection invited you into a relationship you would’t otherwise have? How do you use your privilege for personal gain? How do you respond to opportunities in life to do acts of love for others? 

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Sitz Im Leben June 12, 2024

Our Houston hotel received about 40 letters from Louisville in one day. We read them a few hours after learning I did not have bone cancer but a harmless benign tumor. Our shared surreal experience was that the cards we were reading with relief and elation were written from dire, drastic, deadly perspectives.

At 18 I was watching myself read what my parents’ friends write to give love, hope, and support in horrible situations, but I wasn’t needing what they were offering. They believed I was facing arm amputation, horrendous treatments, and an abbreviated lifespan when they wrote. I was evaluating their word choices, because of the evolution of my reality when I read.

Early in the last century, German Biblical scholars used the term “Sitz im Leben” — “Situation in Life.” In interpreting texts from the Bible, we need to understand the perspectives of the writers in their times, places, and worldviews. Their situations were different than ours; understanding their backgrounds helps bring their words forward into our lived experience.

As Marcus Borg wrote: “the Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things.” I’d add that the Bible is a conversation over thousands of years; the different perspectives on life and the Divine reveal the “sitz im leben” of the storytellers. We also read a passage in different ways depending on our own “situation in life” which evolves and changes in the passage of time.

How does knowing a person’s background help you better understand their perspectives? When have you read the same words in a different way because of a transformation in life? How does understanding the matrix of his time help you come to know the historical Jesus?

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Neglect  5/10/2024

Brian McLaren taught me: “What you focus on determines what you miss.”

I have compassion for those who neglect the gifts of leadership that God gives women by focusing on a letter written in reaction to Paul decades after Paul’s death — 1 Timothy — “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” When men want to grasp power, this regressive line is their battle cry of patriarchy. 

I’m thankful for those in my life who continue to widen my angle of focus. I’m grateful I don’t have to miss….

women who were leaders in the Hebrew Scriptures 

ways Jesus raised and praised women he encountered

female disciples who faithfully witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion by the empire

every first Easter sermon in all the gospels preached by women

the women Paul named as interpreters, ministers, apostles, prisoners, financial backers, co-workers

“In Christ there is no longer male and female” for all of you are one Galatians 3:28

I am inspired by the vision of women scholars, healing my limited sight with new perspectives. I am transformed by the voices of Sophia/wisdom that defeat my deafness and open my ears to cries and whispers. My lameness is being healed as I learn to walk beside and not over other human beings. I’m emboldened by women who teach me to “speak the truth in love” and not remain mute/dumb.

At some point in the evolution of my church, a group of men in suits, ties, and wing-tipped shoes discussed, prayed, and voted to heed God’s call to allow women to be servant leaders as deacons, elders, and ministers of the word and sacrament. “Do you believe in miracles? YES!”

Who are the most significant women in your life? Where have you seen the pendulum swing toward and away from equality? How have you been transformed by women’s wisdom?

Mother’s Day extra credit: read the prophet Hosea, chapter 11 to listen for maternal images of God. (If you don’t have a Bible, various translations are free online — not just from a salesman)

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Split Second

We’ve just returned from visiting the north rim of the Grand Canyon. If we visited it 1.5 billion years ago, we’d cross flat land and a river. If we visited a thousand years from now, we’d see one yard cut larger than today. I guess we went at just the right time – “be here now”.

Staring five miles across to the south rim and one mile down to the Colorado River continuing creation, you can see layers of history in diversified art. Since our little planet was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, we were seeing over one fourth of earth time.

Brian McLaren writes in his book “Do I Stay Christian?” – “the universe isn’t in a hurry by human standards. It has been unfolding and expanding, diversifying and beautifying in its current form for 13.7 billion years. If we compressed the universe’s whole existence into one year, our planet doesn’t even form until September 11. The first forms of life don’t emerge on Earth until around September 30, and no multi-cellular organisms evolve until December 14. The dinosaurs rule the earth from December 27 to 30, and the first humans don’t appear until December 31 at 11:39 p.m. Jesus comes on the scene at 11:59:56, which means that all of Christianity has existed for a mere four seconds. Four seconds!”

We are small infants who need this creation and each other to survive. We have the ability to destroy our species all by ourselves. We have the ability to be partners with the creator and all other creatures to save it. In the split second we have to decide, what will we do? Where are you called by a creator to do love for this creation and all creatures in it?

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Good Enough

I’m always looking for a good daily devotional. Allow me to share with you one that was shared with me. “Good Enough: 40ish devotionals for a life of imperfection”, written by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie last year. 

I figure, when I underline half the preface the non-Roman numeral pages must be meaning-full, too. 

Pg xi – Truths to start loving more:

  • We are made for interdependence.
  • We are fragile… and so is everyone else. But we can learn to live beautifully inside our limited bodies.
  • Yes, our stupid, imperfect, ordinary lives can be holy.
  • Life will break your heart, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you know that.
  • Sometimes joy and laughter and absurdity are the exact medicine we need, but also we need actual medicine. We love actual medicine, too.

Pg xv – A Blessing for a Joyfully Mediocre Journey

  • Blessed are you when you realize there is not enough – time, money, resources.
  • Blessed are you who are tired of pretending that raw effort is the secret to perfection. It’s not. And you know that now.
  • Blessed are you who need a gentle reminder that even now, even today, God is here, and somehow that is good enough.
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Whopper War

A seminary summer in Clinical Pastoral Education was at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta. In three months, I encountered more situations than in three years of ministry. My peers and I received supervised reflection on our pastoral care that helped us mature three years in three months.

One encounter was not with a patient but with another student chaplain from an evangelical college. Here’s the verbatim between me (M) and the other chaplain (OC).

M: I just had a Burger King Whopper for lunch and I’m a happy man.

OC: Wait until you have a Hardee’s burger; you’ll change your mind.

M: I’ve had a Hardee’s burger; I just prefer a whopper.

OC: Oh you couldn’t; Hardees makes the best burgers, period. Maybe they didn’t cook it right that day.

M: Actually I’ve had several Hardee’s burgers. It’s not that I don’t like their burgers; it’s that I like a whopper more.

OC: I don’t believe you. If you really had a Hardee’s burger, you’d know they’re the best. They’re the only way to go.

M: (Long pause) I’m confused.  Are you calling me a liar? Are you saying I don’t have your permission to have my own taste? Or are your refusing to acknowledge that it’s possible I could prefer something you don’t? “Have it your way.”

Actually I didn’t say “have it your way” then, but I couldn’t resist the irony now.

A few days later, that guy visited a bed-fast patient — talk about a captive audience. He tried every manipulation he had to get the man “saved” — with his limited definition of what “saved” meant to him. When he was questioned in “group” if that was ethical for a chaplain, he said: “If I don’t save them; they’ll go to hell.” That’s a lot of responsibility — to be in charge of who goes to hell and Hardee’s.

A week later he quit the student chaplain program and entered Pharmacy School. I hope and believe God has used his gift of exactly seeing things one way to save lives as a pharmacist. 

18 years later, Burger King began using the ad line “if you ask us, it just tastes better.” No royalties came my way.

Where do you see signs of only seeing things “my one way” in the media, politics or religion? How do you respond to the growth of white Christian nationalism in our midst? How do you receive different perspectives from other people?

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Dialogue (Part 1 & 2)… & 3 & 4

Last night our three sisters and brothers-in-law got to see Chicago in concert in Kansas City. The second song was led by the author Robert Lamm — Dialogue (Part 1 & 2). As I “sang” the lyrics I could recall screaming the words with Terry Kath’s voice and guitar on the LP at full volume in our Frat house in college. I still want to shout down war, starvation, and “repression closing round” as I hear others say, “if you had my outlook your feelings would be numb — you’d always think that everything is fine.”

A few years before, the inserts and posters of “Chicago Live at Carnegie Hall” set read: “we can change the system”. Dialogue Part 2 proclaimed “we can change the world now, we can save the children, we can make it better, we can make it happen.”

I wonder what parts of Dialogue 1 & 2 I need to hear today? I wonder what Dialogue Part 3 might be about?

One option could be the dialogue in churches about whether the kingdom of God that Jesus talked most about is someplace you go after you die, or is it a vision for the world now? As Brian McLaren writes in his new book “Do I Stay Christian?”, is the church a refrigeration unit before shipment to a final destination, or does following Jesus mean actively working to change our systems that are leading to the violent or climatic destruction of our whole ecosystem. Is God’s goal to throw away our world like garbage (after pulling “my tribe out”), or is God showing us ways to save creation now?

I believe and I hope Dialogue 4 would repeat 2: “we can change the world now, we can save the children, we can make it better, we can make it happen.” What dialogues do you see going on? When have you heard, “Will you try to change things with the power that you have: the power of a million new ideas”?

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Skyhook

Friday’s story was about our three-year-son driving our minivan with minimal damage to objects or persons. How fleeting life can be. The way I saw things at the time, I wondered if God had helped to guide his little hand to shift past catastrophic reverse and into a safe drive of a few inches forward. I don’t see it that way today.

I see God as present in and loving his/her/their entire creation—including me. I don’t see our creator as operating some skyhook that rescues some people from the actions of themselves or others, while leaving others behind. From my tradition, I agree with Jesus: children, your Father in heaven “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45)

Skyhook rescue theology raises concerns for me. I can never answer the “why” question. Why would I be rescued while another suffers who is not rescued?—or the reverse of course! It’s the temptation to act like I am so special, God will rescue me from hitting the ground if I jump off a building (Matthew 4:5-7 and the other accounts of Jesus’ temptations).

Seeing a skyhook is dangerous. The “rapture” conspiracy theory (that is neither Biblical nor faithful as I see it) says God will skyhook people like my tribe before destroying the world. If God doesn’t care about this world and people who are “other” than me, then why should I? Why would I care about others, the environment, or climate change if God is going to throw it all away like garbage?

A divine skyhook takes away our human responsibility to seek answers to rampant violence, including the threat of nuclear destruction. Because God does not and will not rescue us from the consequences of our actions, we might want to reconsider our behavior.

How has skyhook rescue theology been a part of your journey of faith? When have you been reassured by seeing that way? What stumbling blocks came in your path from that perspective?