Author: Southwest Conference Blog

Life Led From an Inner Space

I love spending time watching videos when I am supposed to be doing something productive as much as the next person. It is rare that a video comes along and really speaks to the issue of life led from an inner space; life lived for the passion that will not go away or necessarily make sense to others. Yet the video at the end of this article speaks to this in a way I could never do with words alone.

Why is this inner life, this passion, so important? It’s because we live in a time where the external circumstances scream so loud we can hardly hear or believe this still small and mighty voice. It’s an individual with a notion to do or be a certain way in the world, or an organization, like a church, being called to move into the unknown and mysterious in a world that is telling them the sky is falling and church is dead.

This voice is deep and compelling. ​This inner drive that we sense is the voice of the Divine calling us to the bigness of life. Even if we follow that voice, the external voices will dictate what success looks like. Such as more people in the pews, a business that makes $1,000,000, etc. Yet the success is in the just showing up whether the outcome is seen or not. The success is trusting this beautiful small voice and living from that place regardless of what it looks like or even if it makes sense. That also means not controlling what God will do with it. This woman plays her cello in the middle of nowhere to no one but herself, yet I can’t help wondering how the beauty of that music affects the trees, rocks, and life around her. Or how that sound might travel to someone’s ears and cause a major shift in their lives. She isn’t doing it for those reasons, yet even on her hike up the mountain, her single act has a community effect. In fact just my knowing she is doing this encourages me in my journey. She doesn’t even know who I am. Following that voice, no matter how scary, crazy or inconsistent it may seem, allows the power of God to move in ways it might not have before.

For myself, Pathways of Grace was born of listening to the still small voice and following where the voice has led me. It hasn’t been easy at times and like this woman climbing the mountain with the cello on her back there was plenty of time to wonder and decide to keep going. Not for the sake of the end of the trail, but for the sake of the inner spark that draws me closer to God.

Everyone has that spark. As we journey in Lent, learning what it means to walk with Jesus, we are learning to listen, acknowledge, and trust that voice. We get to practice living from that space and not the external voices that try to define and lead us. Whether that spark is to spend more time in prayer, start a business, or let go of a building in favor of community, the “what” is not as important as the willingness to act.

May this video inspire you to follow Christ this Lent from that space deep within yourself.

Andante‘There’s not a ticket stub, there’s just a memory.’Andante (a musical term meaning ‘at walking pace’) follows the cellist Ruth Boden as she climbs 10,000 feet to a peak in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for a deeply personal, yet breathtakingly public solo performance. An Aeon Video editor’s pick: http://ow.ly/XXE9r

Posted by Aeon on Saturday, February 6, 2016

Here’s the thing…

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

Are you ready for the thing?

The thing is for every living being on this earth, there is risk and there is beauty.

The thing is for every person who harms someone, there are a ridiculous amount of people who do not.

The thing is that we are constantly recovering from something because that is the nature of living. Our bodies, our families, our friendships, our world are adjusting and healing in ways we could not imagine.

The thing is if we turn toward and walk through the dark nights of the soul, we are fostering an internal and external world that is truly healing.

The thing is if you are recovering from trauma the best thing to do comes from Anne Lamott: “Go only as fast as the slowest part of you.”

The thing is, we heal, we love well and fully.

The thing is we step into the stream of life and it gradually, ever so slowly returns us to the present moment and opens us to life in ways we cannot fathom.

The thing is… Life takes a lifetime and we have so much life ahead. The best is yet to come. I know that and honor that in you.

The thing is love.

Musings on Spiritual Health

by Kelly Kahlstrom

“To heal, a person must first be a person”

As some of you know, in my Monday through Friday 8-5 life I am a nurse case manager for one of the state Medicaid programs. I work with women who have high risk pregnancies. These risk factors can be physical, like diabetes or high blood pressure; it can be emotional like anxiety/depression or other mood disorders; or social, like being homeless. Bella* is typical of many of the women with whom I have the privilege to speak. She is a 22-year old who is 3 months pregnant with her second child. Her oldest child, Rocky, is 15 months old. Bella’s pre-pregnancy weight was 215 and she was just diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. Her mother is her primary support both emotionally and financially while she stays home to care for her son. Bella and the father of the baby are not getting along since the news of this second, unplanned pregnancy. She has a history of anxiety but has never sought treatment for this. She has had one year of college and eventually would like to go back to school but her first pregnancy interrupted her studies.  Historically my conversations with her would center on her diabetes and how it affects her pregnancy. I would offer behavioral health support and most of the time the offer would be declined by saying “I can manage it on my own; I just need to stay positive”. And I would leave it at that.

Recently however there has been a push within Medicaid to “integrate” disciplines so we do a better job of addressing more domains of health, noting that physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, and social health are all interrelated. Statistically, patterns have emerged which indicate that symptoms in one domain usually cascade through the other domains in fairly predictable ways. For instance, if one has a food addiction like Belle, it can be predicted that one might also suffer from physical limitations such as obesity and diabetes. Prescription drug use from back or joint pain is likely. Often there is a history of untreated anxiety/depression or other mood disorders and maintaining close relationships with others can be difficult. As you can see, an illness in one domain affects all domains of health. Illness is a spiritual event.

Now if we visualize the domains of health on a horizontal axis, as a snapshot in time, it is also helpful to remember that health throughout a person’s lifetime lies on the vertical axis. There is good reason to believe that two-thirds of us experienced at least one traumatic event in childhood. We now know that the more trauma a child has experienced, the greater the change to the neurobiology of the brain. This affects the body’s ability to process and recover from stress, especially chronic, unpredictable, toxic stress. Chronic exposure to this type of inflammation correlates significantly with auto-immune diseases, mood disorders, as well as substance use in adulthood decades after the initial exposure. So, with Belle, like many of the women I talk to, it is best to assume a history of trauma rather than not. This information radically broadens the conversation. The starting point may indeed be in the physical domain but, as rapport is established, the conversation can move across to other domains or backward to previous experiences and how these experiences might affect present and future health. It is here that I learned she was ridiculed as a child for her weight and she witnessed her older brother die of a heroin overdose. Often interpreted in childhood as a defect in their character, these types of experiences contribute to an ongoing angst in adulthood, pushed from thought by “being positive”, belied by reaching for the 8th cookie on the plate.

Which brings me to my real area of interest…spiritual health, and alas, it is the one domain of health I cannot talk openly about at work so I’ll muse about it here instead. Spiritual health is the point of origin, in my humble opinion, of both the horizontal dimensions of health and the vertical history of “how your biography becomes your biology”.

What exactly is Spiritual Health? Spiritual health is something that we all have a sense of but it is not always easy to articulate. I am drawn to Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s quote “To heal, a person must first be a person”.  Could it perhaps be said then that spiritual malaise looks like a forgetting of what it means to be human?  Without a protracted discussion with the philosophers amongst us, I would argue that one aspect of personhood is the need to make sense of the experiences in our lives. As Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminds us, “religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live.” When we have forgotten who we are, what we are put on earth to do, and are unable to live up to our identified values, we have experiences but often miss the meaning of these experiences in our lives. Experiences without meaning leave us feeling empty, anxious, apathetic, conflicted, hurried or harried, self-absorbed or feeling we have something to prove. These disembodied feelings can originate from events that have occurred on either axis.

So if spiritual malaise is a forgetting of who we are, either from not recognizing that each domain of health affects the others, or by not understanding how events from childhood shape our adult health, what is the prescription? How do we recover the meaning by which we are able to re-interpret our experiences? “To heal, a person must first be a person” and awaken (again) to their own identity.  I offer these as possibilities but this hardly represents an exhaustive list.

  • A remembrance can happen through engaging in activities of quietude such as meditation, prayer, visualization, stretching, yoga, dream work, labyrinths, and mandalas.
  • A remembrance can happen through a flash of insight while engaged in the profane or mundane tasks of our lives.
  • A remembrance can happen when we take our faith seriously and actively work to deepen our spiritual life.
  • A remembrance can happen through the development of strong social ties to a community that makes room for questions about identity, purpose and ethics.
  • A remembrance can happen through consciously seeking ways to exercise each domain of health every day, i.e., eating well, participating in the spiritual practice of your choice, reaching out to a friend, or volunteering with an organization.  
  • A remembrance can happen when we work with professionals like spiritual directors and counselors who help us recognize and name the patterns of our experience.

Spiritual health opens up space to fully claim our humanity in the moments when we are awake. It allows us to be more fully in relationship with God or the Divine. It allows us to feel grounded in our purpose, to live with a sense of wonder and joy, to befriend death, to be a global citizen, and to practice forgiveness, compassion, and unconditional love. Not too shabby, huh?

I would argue that Bella is not unique to the population I work with. Her story, while uniquely hers, has elements that ring true for many of us. In fact, she is our colleague, our neighbor, our fellow congregants, and committee members. Perhaps even ourselves.

To heal a person must first be a person. Blessings on your journey!

* Names have been changed.

Restacking the Stones: one prophet’s lessons for revitalization

by Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons, Designated Conference Minister

Preached February 14, 2016 at Congregational Church of the Valley, Scottsdale, AZ

“On the tenth of Tevet, 425 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar [King of Babylon] began the siege of Jerusalem.

“Thirty months later, in the month of Tammuz, after a long siege during which hunger and epidemics ravaged the city, the city walls were breached.

“On the seventh day of Av, the chief of Nebuchadnezzar’s army, Nebuzaradan, began the destruction of Jerusalem. The walls of the city were torn down, and the royal palace and other structures in the city were set on fire.

“On the ninth day of Av, toward evening, the Holy Temple was set on fire and destroyed. The fire burned for 24 hours.

[Jewish] “Sages taught: When the first Holy Temple was destroyed, groups of young priests gathered with the keys to the Sanctuary in their hands. They ascended the roof and declared: “Master of the World! Since we have not merited to be trustworthy custodians, let the keys be given back to You.” They then threw the keys toward Heaven. A hand emerged and received them, and the priests threw themselves into the fire (Talmud, Ta’anit 29b).

Everything of gold and silver that still remained was carried off as loot by the Babylonian soldiers. All the beautiful works of art with which King Solomon had once decorated and ornamented the holy edifice … [t]he holy vessels of the Temple that could be found… The high priest Seraiah and many other high officials and priests were executed. … Many thousands of the people that had escaped the sword were taken prisoner and led into captivity in Babylon, where some of their best had already preceded them. Only the poorest of the residents of Jerusalem were permitted to stay on to plant the vineyards and work in the fields.

“Jeremiah, [who prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem], also promised that the Jewish people would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.”

Today’s reading from Ezra 1:1-4, 3:1-4, 10-13 is the beginning of that story.

2 “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of those among you who are of his people—may their God be with them!—are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild

God works in and through people not like me.

I notice first in today’s text that God speaks to people of different political and religious and ethnic and cultural heritages than the ones described in Scripture as Israel. God’s speaking isn’t limited to me, or people like me, or my religion, or my country, or my friends.

God has a long history of transforming people once enemies into friends. God has a long history of speaking through people and nations that appear on the list of ‘not God’s people,’ people we may have placed on the list of ‘not friends’ or even ‘enemies.’ God is at work in people not like me, in nations, cultures, and religions not our own, in circumstances apart from the expected!

Ezra 2:59ff tells the story of a group of people who wanted to go with the Jews to Jerusalem – people whose spirit God had stirred for the endeavor – but who could not prove that they were Jewish. These people, too, became part of the most important resource in accomplishing God’s tasks: people. Think of it, the all-powerful God who spoke into being the universe, the earth and everything in her, repeatedly chooses to work through people to accomplish the divine will rather than to speak it into being. And God was willing that any person who responded to the Spirit’s stirring should be included in the work of rebuilding the Temple.

What a powerful lesson for us in today’s world! In this time of hate and discrimination disguised as religious freedom, in this time of anti-Muslim vitriol, God’s speaking isn’t limited to us – to Christians, to evangelical Christians, to Americans.

In Ezra’s day, God proved that God is not limited to the religion or the followers of the religion revealed in the Judeo-Christian sacred texts. What would have happened if Ezra had taken the position that God could only speak through him, or people like him, or people of his cultural, religious, or national heritage? God’s activity in the world to bring us Jesus, divine activity that we celebrate this Advent season would have been halted in its tracks!

Essentials need immediate tending; everything else can wait awhile.

8 In the second year after their arrival at the house of God at Jerusalem, …10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord,

In the second year, not the first, not immediately. Later. After a time for adjustment. Lesson #2: Essentials need tending to immediately. Everything else can wait awhile. Sacrifices burned on the altar from the very beginning; in fact, sacrifices by ones who remained in Jerusalem probably never stopped. But the extras, like maintaining the building that was the Temple itself, could wait. 70 years it waited. And 2 more years it waited. Finally, after folks had established themselves in the new land, the new culture, the new religion, in their homes with their families, then they began work on the structure that was the Temple.

The first thing the returned exiles [did was] rebuild their own lives. They [did] not go straight to the task at hand. This is significant because it implies that God is interested in re-establishing people’s homes before God’s own temple. The priority is not to focus on the bricks and mortar of our faith, but in the re-establishing of right relationships with each other. [Families and the] community come first.

There is always a debate in doing mission work as to whether to fix people’s relationships with each other, with the land, with health or with justice before doing any work reconnecting people with God and faith. This story of Ezra seems to suggest that grounding ourselves in good relationships with each other comes before whatever the task at hand might be.[1]

The future isn’t supposed to be like the past.

The future cannot be like the past; it’s not supposed to be. Most of the people who had been taken into exile by the Babylonians had long died. Their children had children. And those children had children. While some of the exiles returning had seen Jerusalem in its last days, the majority of the people returning with Ezra were one or two-generations-removed from the Jerusalem and the Temple they were hoping to rebuild. Most of them had never lived in Jerusalem or sacrificed at the Temple or even seen the house of God they were commissioned to rebuild! It had been 70 years!! In terms of the Exodus story, that’s twice as long as it took the generation whom Moses led out of Egypt to die in the wilderness.

In that 70 years, without access to the Temple or the Altar, the Israelites had become the Jews. New traditions that weren’t in their Bible had developed. New theology and interpretations of Scripture had arisen. Judaism had been conceived. Of course the future was going to be different.

But that didn’t stop some people from grieving a past they couldn’t recreate instead of celebrating the future that they had the chance to birth.

10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the Lord with trumpets, and the Levites…with cymbals, …11 and they sang responsively, “For [God] is good, for [God’s] steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, 12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.

Ones who were grieving their inability to return to the past forgot that rebuilding is never about returning things to exactly the way they were. Rebuilding is about being sure the best of how it was shapes how it will be. And in our text the author says the ability to make that distinction is what separates ‘old people’ from ones who remain ‘young at heart’ forever.

The Jews in Ezra’s day were called to determine what it meant to live into a new future that God was actively creating in their midst. But what that future would look like was only beginning to emerge when the exiles returned, and with mixed results. The former glory of God’s presence and of the temple was lacking in this new iteration of the temple according to some. The new temple, moreover, was to be under the patronage of a foreign ruler (Cyrus), not an autochthonous ruler like Solomon or David. And finally, whereas Solomon’s temple was built while his kingdom was militarily strong (2 Chronicles 1:14-17), the new altar was established while this small band of Jews was still under threat (Ezra 3:3). The future, indeed, would not be the past. What gives continuity to the past, present, and future, however, is the faithfulness of God.

To be vital, to be faithful to the person and work of God, Ezra and the exiles had to see themselves and the events in their lives as God at work in their midst for their day.

Rebuilding is resource-intensive.

Rebuilding is a resource-demanding endeavor. Vv. 2-3 list people as the most important of those resources; v. 4 reminds us that rebuilding takes money and goods. Cyrus’s decree is honest about the investment rebuilding requires:

4 and let all survivors, in whatever place they reside, be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold, with goods and with animals, besides freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.”

5 …everyone whose spirit God had stirred—got ready to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbors aided them with silver vessels, with gold, with goods, with animals, and with valuable gifts, besides all that was freely offered. 7 King Cyrus himself brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. 8 King Cyrus of Persia had them released into the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar …All these Sheshbazzar brought up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

Churches evolve over time. People who are a church mature and die, and join as new members and move away. Children grow up. Pastors leave and pastors arrive. With those events, the ways in which a congregation relates to one another and relates to God evolve too. And every so often a decree comes forth, a door open for a church, in a big way, to be reconsidered, revalued, repurposed, reorganized, revitalized, re-resourced, rebuilt, and yes, sometimes even reposed. Every so often God stirs spirits for a new work. People are called to make choices about how they will, or if they will, participate in the make-over. Choices need to be made with intention and with prayerful discernment about what parts of the past and its traditions are so important they will be carried into the new future, and what parts of the past are ready to be laid to rest in order to realize that new future.  The question, then, is if and how you will be a resource for what God is actively doing among you.

God is at work in people not like me, in nations, cultures, and religions not our own, and in circumstances apart from the expected!

Essentials need immediate tending; everything else can wait awhile.

The future cannot be like the past; it’s not supposed to be.

Rebuilding is a resource-demanding; it takes everything all of us bring to the table.

How are these lessons from Ezra playing out in your life? In the life of your church? How can these lessons empower us to do new ministry that leads people to life-transforming experiences?  Will you be a contributor or a complication to the rebuilding effort? Amen.

 

[1] Spill the Beans. Issue 17, p. 23

 

 

Is Christianity an Albatross?

by Amos Smith

I have heard my peers talk about how Christianity is antiquated. In one video I saw, an author referred to Christianity as an albatross. In other words, it seems to be out-of-step, problematic, and unwieldy. Maybe it has had a great role in history. But how will it fit into the twenty-first century?

When I hear such rumblings, I think of one of my favorite quotations from the Swiss Psychologist, Carl Jung:

“This is not to say that Christianity is finished. I am, on the contrary, convinced that it is not Christianity, but our conception and interpretation of it that has become antiquated in the face of the present world situation. The Christian symbol is a living thing that carries in itself the seeds of further development. It can go on developing; it only depends on us, whether we can make up our minds to meditate again, and more thoroughly, on the Christian premise.” -Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self

I think Jung is correct. Christianity is unfinished and it is up to each generation to make it accessible and relevant to our times. Each generation has the responsibility to take this tradition and make it their own. It is true that this is a big challenge given the questions raised by science, the technological age, interfaith dialogue, and environmental degradation.

Yet, Christianity speaks to our highest human endowments, which include intuition and faith. Christianity’s profound premise to that:

  1. God is real
  2. In the fullness of time, out of love for us, God came to us in Jesus to show us the exquisite paths of justice and inclusive compassion.
  3. Each of us is of profound worth to God and we each have a part to play. Our choices matter.

When these truths sink in, individuals and communities experience greater dignity, self-worth, meaning, and purpose.

Serenity and Happiness

by Don Fausel

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

This well-known prayer expresses some guiding principles for our living a happy life here and forever, as the last four lines of the prayer proposes. Although there has been some controversy about whether the theologian-philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr, who perhaps was the greatest political-philosophy of the 20th century, was the original author of the prayer, those concerns have been settled. It’s not because it was adopted by the worldwide Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs, but by years of disciplined research. If you’re interested in learning more about how the controversy was solved, I suggest reading a four page article by Fred R. Shapiro titled Who Wrote the Serenity Prayer.

I was aware of The Serenity Prayer from several friends who were going to Twelve Step Programs, but It was sometime in the late 1970s that I really took the prayer seriously. To my surprise, one of my stepsons who was in his early teens became addicted to drugs. First he was abusing alcohol, then marijuana, and he soon “hit bottom” as they say in addiction programs.  It was at that point when my stepson started his recovery in AA that I started to go to Codependents Anonymous a “…fellowship of relatives and friends of the addict and is composed of non-professionals, self-supporting, self-help groups.” From that point on, The Serenity Prayer became one of my everyday prayers.

Like all 12 Step Program meetings, they either start or end with the Serenity Prayer, and sometimes the group leader or one of members would “breakdown” each word of the first part of the prayer. In preparing this blog, I looked through some of my dusty files and found a handout written by hand that I vaguely remembered. I have no idea who wrote it, so I can’t provide the author’s name. It would have been one person’s interpretation of the prayer, and not necessarily something everyone agreed with, but the group would acknowledge the individual’s thoughtfulness. The meetings are about sharing thoughts, feelings and experiences. Here’s the example:

GOD—By saying this word I am admitting the existence of a Higher Power; a being greater then I.

GRANT—With the repeating of this second word I am admitting that his Higher Power is an authority who can bestow and give.

ME—I am asking something for myself. The Bible states that if I ask, I shall be given. It is not wrong to ask for betterment of myself for the improvement of my character, people around me will be happier.

THE SERENITY—I am asking for calmness, composure, and peace in life which will enable me to think straight and govern myself properly.

TO ACCEPT—I am resigning myself to conditions as they are right now.

THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE—I am accepting my lot in life as it is. Until I have the courage to change any part of my life, I must accept it and not accept it grudgingly.

COURAGE—I am asking for conditions to be different.

TO CHANGE—I am asking for help to make the right decisions. Everything is not perfect in my life. I must continue to face reality and constantly work towards continued growth and progress.

WISDOM—I am asking for the ability to form sound judgments in any and all matters.

TO KNOW—not just to guess or hope.

THE DIFFERENCE—I want to see things differently in my life so there can be some distinction. I need to sense a definite value in love over selfishness.

If you want to learn more about Codependence, here is a website titled A How To  Guide to Recover from Codependency it starts off by giving the three C’s of recovery:  

You didn’t Cause your loved one’s addiction.
You can’t Control it.
You can’t Cure it. (Believe me; I learned that the hard way.)

Guidelines for Finding Happiness and Serenity

Here are just a few suggestions for connecting Serenity with Happiness. The first one is the The Spiritual Serenity Series: 7 Steps to Inner Peace and Happiness . This is an eight-page article by Jared Akers. He breaks the process into seven steps:   1. Awareness  2. Acceptance  3. Identification  4. Self-Searching  5. Confession  6. Action  7. Maintenance. What I liked about Akers’s approach is that he has gone through all of the seven steps himself, and passes it on to anyone who thinks it’s might be helpful.

Perhaps you’ve read this article. It was the feature article and on the cover of Time Magazine in July 08, 2013.  The title was The Pursuit of Happiness and the sub-title, Why Americans are Wired to Be Happy—and What That’s Doing to Us.  If you only read what’s on the cover of the magazine, it’s worth checking it out.

Here’s one of my favorite TED TALKS on the future of our nation’s happiness:  The title of Nic Marks’ TALK is The Happy Planet Index. As the blurb reads, “Nic Marks gathers evidence about what makes us happy, and uses it to promote policy that puts the well-being of people and the planet first. He is the founder of the Centre for Well-Being at the UK think tank New Economics Foundation (NEF).” His premise is that rather than having our Gross National Product measure everything, accept what makes life worthwhile: happiness.

Shalom.

The Three Great Pathways that Jesus Chose but Many Christians Have Missed

by Kenneth McIntosh

pew religious landscape 2007 vs 2014 pie charts

I came across this pair of pie charts on Facebook last week and immediately noticed that those who are “religiously unaffiliated” claim as much of the pie as any other group. At 23% they are virtually tied with Evangelical Christians (24%), just ahead of Catholics (21%) and decidedly ahead of Mainstream Christians (15%).

Despite this trend, I still hear respect for Jesus—in popular culture, on social media, and in private dialogue. It would seem that much of the world agrees with that famous saying of Mahatma Gandhi, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike Christ.”

As people who identify by that word “Christian” it behooves us to ask: Where do the two part ways? Why do so many people like Christ but not those who bear his name?

The passage of Scripture that begins this season of Lent—the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke—may be one good place to answer those questions.  When tested, Jesus chose three great paths to freedom—ways of living that characterized his life. When similarly tested, many of his followers have failed to choose the same pathways; and I have to confess that I also have at times failed to choose these directions of freedom.

When we hear the word “temptation” most of us think of various vices; the temptation to have an affair, or to become an addict to alcohol or—less severely—the temptation to eat donuts for lunch. This Gospel story corrects that notion. Vices, per se, are not the greatest evil. The real temptation in life is to forget who we are. The devil keeps challenging Jesus, “If you are God’s child.” And he keeps challenging on this point just before Jesus is about to set about his great life work.

You and I need to keep our eyes on the prize, to remember what the real goal of life is and what real failure is. Failure is not downing shots of vodka, watching dirty pictures or emptying a box of Twinkies (although we may be prone to all three of those things if we believe that we have already failed). Failure is forgetting that we are God’s children and failure is forgetting that we have an incredible mission to love and restore all of God’s creation. To forget our identity in God, and to forget our glorious mission in the world—that is what it means to give in to temptation.

The first temptation is for Jesus to turn stones into bread (which is rather compelling after fasting for weeks on end). It is the allure of materialism, the belief that our happiness comes from things. Of course, physical things are not bad in themselves; we are indeed material beings inhabiting a material world. Food, clothing, shelter—these things are good. For that matter jewelry, perfume, a membership at the gym, or a prize collection of baseball cards can all be good as well. The problem is when we forget the relative importance of things versus love; when we forget that the things we own say little about our Divine identity and purpose.

We in the wealthy developed nations fall most easily into this pitfall because we have managed to attain so much. It’s been calculated that if everyone on earth used up the same amount of raw materials, fuels and so-on that the average American consumes, it would take four worlds to sustain the earth’s population.

When Jesus retorted to the tempter, “Humans shall not live by bread alone,” he affirmed the pathway of Simplicity –of being content with fewer things, and with things that matter more. That’s a great recipe for a life that depends on a vital connection with God, and that enables all of God’s other creatures to live in peace alongside of us.

The next temptation is that of coercion. The devil says, “I’ll give you power—let me show you how.” This is upping the temptation scale; the first temptation is rather lame, materialism appeals to humans at the level of the reptilian brain stem, the animal nature. Coercion is a better temptation for brighter people, because bright people know the world is askew and wish to change it—and if we can knock the world into shape then everyone will be happier. That’s how the devil presents the case.

Beginning with the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, Christians have chosen the way of coercion. Today, half of the candidates for the US presidency in 2016 embrace that same path of coercion. We will make America a Christian nation…we will make people follow Christian principles. The way of coercion—this is what Gandhi had in mind when he said “I like your Christ…but your Christians are so unlike him.”

Jesus, in contrast, chooses the path of Service. God knows that people transform not because they are forced to do so, but because they see examples of sacrifice. Ultimately, the way of Jesus is the way of the cross—the way of costly love. This is why Mother Teresa is so well loved, and Franklin Graham…less so.

The devil’s final assault is the temptation of privilege. Can’t you just hear the devil saying, “Hey, Jesus, why don’t you throw yourself off the top of this tall building? Ordinary folk, they’d fall and end badly. But you’re special. Angels will catch you—won’t that be cool? Won’t people just be so impressed with you?”

You don’t have to spend long in the corridors of Christian influence before you can spot the temptation to privilege and fame. It may not be stated so bluntly, but I’ve sure caught the tone of Christian messages that say, “I’m really exceptionally cool and successful—and you can be too if you come to my church.”

But Jesus responds by choosing the way of Humility. We are called to the spirit of Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7, ESV).  No one in history has had a more perfect God-consciousness than Jesus, yet he chose to live as a very ordinary Middle Eastern peasant, subject to all the hardships of common humanity. And today, despite the increase of those who are spiritually unaffiliated in North America, some 2 billion citizens of earth still own the name Christian, having been influenced by the suffering servant.

As we begin the season of lent, perhaps we should not think so much of what we can “give up,” as much as we should think about the life-ways that Jesus chose. Take a moment, and cement in your mind the three choices that Jesus made in the wilderness: Simplicity, Service and Humility. Ask yourself: what can I do to walk on these paths during this Lenten journey?

Lent: a time for fast living

by Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons
Designated Conference Minister
Southwest Conference UCC

This year I’ve decided to make Lent a time of fast-living.

The Urban Dictionary’s definition of fast living (no hyphen) describes patterns of behaviors that “lack morals, … dangerous, reckless activity that endangers their own well-being and safety as well of others.” The season of Lent offers some of us an opportunity to interrupt our fast living and invites us to pursue more settled, healthy choices. That’s not the fast living I’m embracing or choosing to surrender this Lent.

For others of us Lent has become a season during which to reign in our overindulgences, or to abstain from a benign pleasure in favor of a more spiritual pursuit – no alcohol, no chocolate, no you-fill-in-the-blank, more prayer, more giving to the poor, more you-name-your-spiritual-practice.

That’s not the kind of fast living I’m choosing either.

I’m choosing to make this Lent Isaiah’s kind of fast living. Nathan Nettleton’s translation from Isaiah 58 explains it best.

Listen to what God has to say about your sins: “Do you really think this is what I like to see:
……..a day of pious misery?
……..black clothes, long faces and crocodile tears?
……..giving up chocolate and ice cream?
Do you think that’s worship?
……..Do you think that pleases me?
…………….Give me a break!

“Do you want to know what I’d really like to see:
……..dismantle the structures of injustice;
……..take your feet of the throats of the poor;
……..stop jailing the victims of unfair laws;
……..and quit plundering nature’s resources.

“Do you want to know what else I’d like to see:
……..open your tables to the hungry;
……..open your hearts and your homes to the refugees;
……..open your wardrobes to those without clothes;
……..and don’t go hiding every time you see someone in need.

“Do that, and I’ll put your name up in lights!
……..Do that and our relationship will be healed in an instant!
I’ll put you under my personal protection;
……..anyone who attacks you will have to deal with me, the LORD!
I’ll be on hand to respond whenever you need me;
……..just say the word, and I’ll be there for you.

“If you abandon all forms of exploitation,
……..and avoid bad-mouthing others to gain an edge;
if you share what you have with those in need,
……..and respond to the real needs of suffering communities;
then you’ll find that the world will light up for you
……..and life will be one beautiful day after another.

“I, the LORD, will always be there to guide you;
……..even in the grip of drought,
……..I’ll keep you healthy and well fed.
You’ll be like an irrigated vineyard with it’s own deep bore,
……..green and lush and full of life!

“Your ruined houses will be renovated and new;
……..you’ll be able to restore the homes
…………….that have been in your families for generations.
You’ll get a reputation for making dreams possible,
……..for enabling everyone to find a good place to live.

Go ahead. Make Lent a time for fast living Isaiah-style. Just imagine the kind of new life we’ll be able to celebrate this Easter if we do!

God, help me – help us – find meaning in Isaiah’s kind of fast living these next 40 days. Amen.

Holding on to God, Part 2

by Amanda Peterson

On this Ash Wednesday it seems appropriate that we continue this look at holding on to God.  The gift of Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent is the gift of recognizing there are many handles we could hold on to and the importance of learning to let go.

Learning to let go of the handles of isolation, shame, image, control and that death is to be feared and seen as a failure.  Ash Wednesday begins the journey of coming together and admitting in community that we are all in the same boat of clinging to handles that will eventually fail us and God knows it.  There is no reaching a certainty other that the certainty that the One Who Holds Us is the one we are invited to hold.

In order to hold on to the Love we must admit and practice releasing all the other things one clings to instead.  Realizing that neither life nor death, nor anything deemed more important than clinging to God can separate us from that Love.

The importance of this is monumental.  Why? Because the culture wants us to believe that nothing is enough.  There will always be a need for something more, something is always missing and no one is okay until it is found. It is everywhere, daily, minute by minute calling us into a sense of isolation.  Once isolated, it is much more challenging to grasp the handle on life that is Love. The way out of isolation is to admit that someday being enough is a fantasy because right now, this space, this time is enough.  Being connected to Love is enough, rich, poor, young, old, alone or together.  From this idea of enough then miracles happen.

Admit that for some poverty, ageism, bullying, depression exists, then it can be seen.  One can, from this place, move into it not as one who is out to end it or shun it but enter into the reality of what it means to be poor, discriminated, and lonely and bring Love to it. Admitting that joy, success, wealth and healthy relationships exists then one can be see and move into it not as one seeing the rich, healthy and whole families as the ultimate ring to grasp or as the enemy of all who do not have these things but instead bring Love to it.  Holding the handle of God highlights connection and the isolation separating groups ends.

The gift of days like Ash Wednesday is to remind us when we cling to God there is no “other”.  Ultimately drawing closer to God is learning to let go and draw closer to each other in the commonality of Love.

Are Followers of Jesus the Kind of People Who Put Someone to Death?

by Ryan Gear with Greg Parzych, Esq.

In the most recent Democratic debate, Rachel Maddow asked Hillary and Bernie if they support the death penalty. Each, an agnostic and a Methodist, presented thoughtful but differing answers. As we approach the season of Lent, Americans who desire to practice a Jesus-inspired spirituality are once again presented with the opportunity to consider whether or not we should support the death penalty.

The U.S. is among the last countries on earth to retain the death penalty. Of the 195 countries in the world, the United States is one of only 36 countries (18 percent) still enforcing the death penalty in law and practice. In 2013, the U.S. was the only country in the western hemisphere to carry out an execution. Pharmaceutical companies in the European Union are no longer supplying U.S. states with certain chemicals after they discovered their medicines were being used to put inmates to death.

We are known by the company we keep, and the list of 10 countries executing the most persons annually is one many Americans are not proud to make. The U.S ranked fifth in the number of executions worldwide in 2013, behind China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The other countries rounding out the top 10 are Pakistan, Yemen, North Korea, Vietnam, and Libya.

The majority of executions in the U.S. take place within a small number of states. In 2014, U.S. states executed 35 persons, with 80 percent of these executions taking place in Missouri, Texas, and Florida. Texas has executed, by far, more inmates than any other state (522 since 1976), comprising 37 percent of all executions in the U.S. Since 1976, 81 percent of all U.S. executions have taken place in the South.

It is worth noting that the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty, as do most mainline Protestant denominations. Evangelicals, not so much. The National Association of Evangelicals continues to support capital punishment.

There is a difference between denominations and the people in the pews, however. As of November 2014, 67 percent of white evangelicals and 64 percent of white mainline Protestants support capital punishment, compared to 36 percent of Black Protestants. While only 13 percent of the U.S. population, African Americans make up 41 percent of death row inmates, calling into question the racial fairness of the entire justice system.

Among U.S. Christians who support the death penalty, however, there is a startling disconnect. When asked, “Would Jesus support the death penalty?” only five percent of Americans said He would. This means that a significant portion of Christians in the U.S. approve of doing something they don’t think Jesus would do.

In addition to this, there is one other glaring reason Christians should ask serious questions about the death penalty —

Jesus, Himself, was executed.

The cross was the Roman equivalent of our electric chair or lethal injection. Rome wanted to be tough on crime, and Jesus was a poor man from a nowhere town who noisily cleansed the Temple as an act of protest against religious corruption. Pontius Pilate viewed Jesus as a disruption of his iron-fisted order and quickly handed down the sentence of death. What killed Jesus was a lethal cocktail of politics and religion.

My friend Greg Parzych is a criminal defense attorney in Arizona. Greg regularly feels the weight of another human being’s life in his hands, as he often represents clients who are facing the death penalty. He feels the burden of knowing that a jury will decide whether his client lives or dies based (hopefully) on the evidence and mitigating circumstances he presents to them. Therefore he has a unique, up-close-and-personal view that many of us will never experience.

I asked Greg to share his thoughts about capital punishment, and I’m thankful that he obliged:

Renewed discussion regarding the death penalty is occurring in the United States after the botched executions of Clayton Darrell Locket on April 29, 2014 in Oklahoma and Joseph Rudolph Wood III on July 23, 2014 in Arizona. Death Penalty discussion often focuses on the possibility of the execution of the innocent, or the method of execution, or the pain and suffering of the condemned vs. the pain and suffering of the victim.

However, any discussion of the death penalty cannot ignore two factors that have always been involved in the imposition of the death penalty — politics and religion. Both play a major role, and both present inherent dangers.

In 1972 the United States Supreme Court, in effect, suspended the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia. The Supreme Court held that the imposition of the death penalty was wantonly and freakishly imposed, comparing it to being struck by lightning. The suspension of the death penalty was short-lived, however.

In 1976 the Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, held that the state of Georgia’s new death penalty scheme was constitutional. Since Gregg v. Georgia, the United States has executed over 1,400 individuals. Georgia’s revised state statute in Gregg legislated objective criteria to direct and limit the imposition of death and allowed consideration of the character and record of the defendant. It is in this consideration of the character of the defendant where the inherent danger of religion and politics is most prevalent.

In a normal guilt or innocence phase of a jury trial, jurors are to determine facts, and, from those facts, determine if the state has proven a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In the sentencing phase of a death penalty case, however, jurors are to determine life or death.

In doing so, jurors are instructed to consider aspects of a defendant’s character to determine if there are any factors in fairness or mercy that may reduce the defendant’s moral culpability.

Determining who should live and who should die is a moral decision, an individual and personal moral decision. And as such, religion plays a major part. Unlike a guilt or innocence phase of a jury trial, in the sentencing phase, jurors are told that they should not change their individual personal beliefs solely because of the opinions of the fellow jurors. Each individual juror must make his or her own moral decision. Terms and phrases such as fairness or mercy and moral culpability inevitably invite religion into the life or death consideration.

The problem in death penalty cases is that a person whose moral and religious beliefs forbid them from imposing a death sentence cannot serve on a death penalty case. Yet those whose religious and moral beliefs allow for the imposition of death routinely sit on death juries. “Death qualification” as it is called, stacks the deck for death. “An eye for an eye” may not necessarily prohibit you from serving on a capital case but a belief in the sanctity of all human life most certainly will.

Despite the use of objective criteria in determining who should live or die, the decision of who lives and who dies is obviously subjective. The question becomes, “Should we as a society be making the decision of who lives and who dies?” Who is smart enough to not only decide life or death, but to decide what should be considered in making that determination?

Research is actually being conducted to determine a “Depravity Standard” in an effort to give jurors “guidelines” to help them make the life or death decision. Researchers are actually trying to quantify and qualify “evil” to aid jurors in imposing death sentences. In effect, they are trying to give scientific validity in death sentences and thereby add a level of comfort to those who impose a death sentence knowing “science” backs their moral decision.

Politics, of course, also plays a major role. The death penalty has and always will be politicized. It can certainly be argued that the higher the media attention in a murder case, the greater chance the state or federal prosecutor will seek the death penalty. “Tough on crime” wins elections, from local elections to presidential elections. In 1992, then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas returned to his home state in the middle of his presidential election campaign to make sure the execution of Ricky Ray Rector took place.

Many in Arkansas opposed the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, not because of what he did, but because of who he had become. Ricky Ray Rector was convicted of killing two men, one of whom was a police officer. Before being apprehended, Rector shot himself in the temple. He survived his self-inflicted gunshot wound, which in effect destroyed his frontal lobe and severely impaired his mental capacity.

For his last meal, Rector put his dessert, pecan pie, aside, telling guards he was saving it for later. Despite Rector’s clear impaired intellectual mental capacity, he was executed on January 4, 1992. Then Governor Clinton used the publicity of the execution to show he was not “soft on crime.” Many believe that this may have been a turning point in the presidential election.

The debate and discussion of the death penalty must continue as long as the United States continues to execute its citizens. But the debate and discussion must be an informed one. The debate must include the practical effects that politics and religion play in the imposition of the death penalty — and the inherent danger of both.

As we approach Lent, Americans who claim the Name of Jesus must ask ourselves how the crucified Lord views capital punishment. When considering the use of the death penalty, perhaps the question is not, “Does the convicted deserve to die?” Perhaps the question is, “Are followers of Jesus the kind of people who will put someone to death?”

Gregory T. Parzych, Esq. is a graduate of Marquette Law School and has practiced criminal defense in Arizona since 1992, representing capital defendants for two decades.