eschatology

Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.

          Jurgen Moltmann

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The Christian Faith

Is hope

But hope for what?

One wonders

There is that all-pervasive hope

Of resurrection

Of rescue

That has congealed around a fear of eternal torment

This is a hopeless hope

That leads us to creep through life

Afraid

Afraid of failing

Afraid of others

Afraid of God

Afraid of everything

We slink along, looking over our shoulders

Regretful

Peering forward

Fretful

Trying not to offend the Sacred

Trying to please God

We are not free but burdened

By creeds and rituals and rules

We are not open but closed

To change

We are not welcoming but protective

Excluding equaling safety

We are not loving but hateful

Hoping that at the end of this dysfunctional journey

There will be rest at last

Safety at last

Is it not instructive that when Jesus came

He blew apart the system?

That he came with a new way of thinking about God

A new way of looking at other people

A new way of doing life?

We have separated eschatology

The final destiny of this world

The final destiny of our individual souls

From “this side of the end” (Moltmann)

This world is hopeless

We are hopeless

The only hope is somehow outside of history

On the other side of “the end”

But our hope is not just about some existence

Beyond this life

Some world beyond this world

It is about NOW

It is about being “forward looking and forward moving”,

and

“therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.”

It’s about more

More grace

More life

More inclusion

More generosity

More love

How have so many gotten it so wrong

And made it about less

The Nature of God

… Despotic theology.. leads directly to despotic theocracy.  Tyrannical Gods breed tyrannical humans, and vice versa.

          Richard Kearney quoted by Brian McLaren

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Our God

Is

But what is God like?

It’s confusing, really

We say God is great

We say God is good

We say God is love (and loving)

But we also say God is demanding

At times angry

Wrathful

We say God is over all

And then we claim God as our own

We claim that God tells us how to live

And we have our lists

Of what is good, and what is bad

What is righteous and what is sin

Which soon becomes a list of who is righteous

And who is sin

But is our God, God?

The cynical suggest God is simply

A figment of our imaginations

An extension of our egos

They suggest that we do not reflect who God is

But that our God reflects who we are

And that God is merely our excuse

Our justification

For our desire, our need

To control

To dominate

To punish

Which comes first?

A cruel God, or cruel people?

Is God a jerk?

Or have we created a God in our own flawed image?

Does God transform who we are

Or reflect who we are?

God is

But if Jesus is an indication

Then God is

Inconvenient

Disruptive

Challenging

If Jesus is any indication

Then God is

Forgiving

Kind

Loving

Restorative

Healing

God is

But we do not allow God to be

God

And so we hate

And judge, and oppress

And minimize and marginalize

And go to war

We crucify God with our fear and hate

We bury God in our constructs

In our ideologies and creeds, our rituals and rules

We need a resurrection

We need to have God show up in our lives

Incarnate

Present

We need to have God show up

And disrupt our lives

And change our priorities

And transform us

Into people

Who forgive and restore

Who give, generously

Who welcome unreservedly

Who fight for justice and equity

Who love radically

For that is who God is

Sacred Presence

Sometimes we think about Christ dwelling in us

It’s a nice thought

The idea of the sacred camping out in our souls!

The secret is this !!!

Christ in us

But more often than not Paul (and others)

Talk about us being in Christ

It’s an interesting dichotomy

Is it more a matter of the transcendent being imminent,

or is it a matter of us participating in

becoming one with

something massively bigger than ourselves?

There is a danger in the first concept

Jesus and me!!

Jesus in me

Jesus is mine

It’s all about me!

I know we don’t have to go there

But we do!

We hear it all the time.

“It could have been awful, but it turned out good!  That’s MY God.”

Yep, God came in and took care of things for me!!

There is truth in the reality that the Sacred makes a difference.

But I struggle with the idea

That Sacred chooses to help one person and abandon another

Faith seems to have nothing to do with it.

Good faithful people have horrible things happen to them

Awful people flourish.

Is it a private collaboration?

Or think about the phrase that is often uttered

Sometimes shouted

“God Bless America”

God bless US

God bless ME

There is something wrong here.

Something that takes us (thank you Brian McLaren)

Into the world of US

It’s us (God and us) against the world!

God is in us

With us

For us

And therefore we are protected, blessed, empowered

And you?

Not so much

Not if you aren’t one of US

How soon we forget it is not about US

Not about our wisdom or righteousness

Not about our creeds

It is about Jesus

Who is in ALL, and over ALL

And so perhaps it is better to think of Being in Jesus

To see ourselves as participating in something greater

To have our own little (teeny, tiny) selves broken open

Expanded

We are part of a whole

All creation

All people

We are in Christ

And thus we not only participate in Christ

But in one another

It is like a spiritual “big bang”

Where our souls go “boom”

And newness happens

And reality expands outward

And just keeps getting bigger and bigger

World without end

Amen

I love the idea of being “in Christ”

More than the idea of being “in Christianity”

Or “in Islam” or “in Judaism”

Or

(thanks again to Brian McLaren in Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road)

Yes Christ comes to me

But comes not to merely camp out in my soul

But to break open my soul

So that I am open not only to God,

But to all those around me

McLaren quotes a Jewish friend who was reflecting on the current situation between Israel and the Palestinians.  He believed that Jesus came to the Jews and that the church was born among Jews.  But that some, in wisdom, understood that Jesus came to blow apart the walls that divide, and thus the faith moved out of the confines of Judaism. 

But the key lines in this Jew’s missive were these:  “Jesus as a Jew came as a reformer, as one challenging who “Us” had become.  So that’s why we need Jesus today.  I mean we Jews need Jesus.  Not to become Christians but to become better Jews”

I think we need to be in Jesus

To be better Christians too

We’ve got too much “me”

Too much “us” in our faith

This faith pushes us out of our safe little rooms

Out of our armed encampments

Into the world

The Spirit, like wind and fire

Drives us out

To intermingle with all

Welcome all

Work with all

Love all

Do I believe Christ is in me?

Yes

But more, I believe I am in Christ

That the Sacred presence I experience connects me

Irrevocably,

To all others

And that I must move beyond a concept of “US”

That denies that Jesus is

Over all and through all and in all

So help us

God

Absolutes

Ah there it is

That absolute certainty

That absolute vanity

That leads to absolute blindness

And absolute rigidity

Everything now is subject

To this bias embraced

Deviations are not tolerated

Doubt is not allowed

Diversity is a sin

Deviation from absolute loyalty is betrayal

All resistance is persecution

Everything must fit the narrative

That comes from above

From Party

From Pulpit

From “the great leader”

All must fit into the framework that has been chosen

One must close one’s mind

One’s ears, eyes, and heart

To facts

To inconvenient truths

To “the other”

One must be right

One must win at all costs

AT ALL COSTS

I do not know what to do with this

I do not know how to crack the certainty

Penetrate the cultic bubble

How do I respond?

How do I engage with this without being

Sucked into a dark abyss

And becoming what I resist?

How do I not entrench in my own certainty?

Engaging with this

Extremity

Is like talking to a wall

Being greeted by a person-less voice on the other end of the line

That cannot respond

Outside of its programming

I feel anger rise

At the falsehoods that are held as truth

At the fearful lack of faith that has become counterfeit faith

At the cold rigidity

But beyond anger

I feel despair

And emptiness

A “Meta/Facebook just did something weird” and there is no one to go to

Kind of hopelessness/helplessness

I have never felt this powerless before

It is like holding on to something precious

Holding on desperately

Hoping to keep this precious thing from sliding over the edge

To its destruction

And feeling the rope slowly slip and slide

Through fingers that cannot stop the inevitable

The death of justice

The destruction of equity

The rise of fascism

The slow and painful death of a planet

I remember the video clips

Of massive crowds

Fervent salutes

Seig Heils

Blind worship

Idolatry

The dead of all that is good

Of the trains, creeping toward Iron Gates

Where smoke rises behind the words

Arbeit macht frei

And the air is filled with the stench of death

Are we headed there again?

God!

Save us from ourselves

Wake us up!

Open our eyes, and our minds, and our hearts

Do not let us exchange the truth for a lie

Keep us standing

Keep us proclaiming love

Keep us speaking the truth

Keep us going

Keep us resisting

Keep us hoping

But above all

Keep us on the path of love

When we are angry

When we are despairing

Give us love

Breaking Points

… we all have our breaking points, and when we break we say more about ourselves than about the one who is the victim of our breaking.  I will fall and, in my falling, I will drag you with me, and I will drag you to my own hell with me… hello to what we hate.

          Padraig O’Tuama (In the Shelter)

Why is it that the choice among churches always seems to be the choice between intelligence on ice and ignorance on fire?

          Diana Bulter Bass (Christianity after Religion)

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Anger works

Hate works

Creating enemies works

Ah, the power of enmity

Of having “those” people out there who are

Dangerous

Less

More

Wrong

Scary

We have seen that it is true

A “nice” church

A church that seeks to “play well with other children”

Falters and fails

Its fire gone

We have seen that those churches that

Who are hostile and superior toward all others

Burn hot!

Is there something about us human creatures?

Something wrong

That forces us into hostility and

Defensiveness?

Why does hate motivate

And not love?

Why do people gather

Excited and worshipful

In crowds fueled by resentment

To follow those who preach hate

Retribution

Domination

Punishment?

Why do they cheer and laugh

As people are demeaned and ridiculed

Torn down

Robbed of their humanity?

It is undeniable

And those who talk peace?

And compassion

Inclusion

Those who seek to be kind?

They are lost in the conflagration

Snowflakes

Who simply melt away in the fire of hate!

What does it say about us?

That we need enemies?

Our need for things to fight against

Rather than things to fight for

(we often pretend we are fighting for things when we are really fighting against)

What does it say about us that we need to be motivated

By a fire without?

Have we forgotten that being a Sacred child

And working for the Kingdom of Love

Is about having a fire within?

The Fire of the Spirit

Have we forgotten how Jesus lived?

And taught

And related

And loved

And gave up power

And went to a cross?

Perhaps the cross looked like a defeat

Perhaps it looked like the end

Perhaps it looked weak

Perhaps

But there was power there

In those words, “Father, forgive them”

There was power in Jesus building bridges of love

Even as he was being killed

A power that became apparent

When love conquered hate

And life conquered death

And an ending became a beginning

How have we left that all behind?

To become those cheering Herod,

Those caught up in the power of the mob

Crying “crucify Jesus”

Give us Barabbas?

We do not want to be insipid

But neither do we want to rely on the power of hate

How do we keep the passion alive

For justice, equity, inclusion, truth

Respect?

It takes the Spirit

It takes wind and fire

It takes God

It takes us being connected, deeply

With the power that set the stars in place

And created the beauty around us

And

Paradoxically

became incarnate as a human baby

And died an ignominious death

We must be fueled by a fire from within

Rather than by a fire from without

And even then

Even then we will struggle

Not to move toward either hostility

Or dullness

God help us!

This path is not easy

Nor logical

But it is

The way

Seems Right

Most people do what seems reasonable to them at the time,

Most of the time…

          Padraig O’Tauma, In the Shelter (reflecting on Judas)

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Most people do what seems reasonable to them

At the time

Most of the time

“It seems logical!”

We say to ourselves

“It is a no-brainer!”

Even Judas

The betrayer had his reasons

We guess but do not know

It seemed logical to hand Jesus over

Just as later, it seemed illogical

Thus we have

Judas the repentant

Judas the penitent one

I am sure, for those who follow the way of domination

For those who fly the flag

Of this cause or that

It seems logical

To embrace power and wealth

Logical to storm the capitol

And perhaps too

That AR 15 seems logical

Or that handgun in the bedside drawer

It seems logical to reject

And minimized

And oppress

Those different from us

Those we do not understand

Those who stagger to our borders, desperate

They are odd, dangerous, costly

I too have embraced the logical

Said this

Done that

And sometimes it worked!

And sometimes I ended up

Repenting

It is a curious thing

How often Sacred calls us to do the illogical

But then again

Is not the illogical Sacred space?

Was the incarnation logical?

Or birth in a stable?

Was Kenosis logical

Or the cross?

Is agape love logical?

Is loving our enemies

Blessing those who curse us

Welcoming the stranger

Giving all we have and following

Forgiving, and then forgiving some more?

Is any of that

Logical?

Ah!

Let us hear it for the illogicality of God

Which calls us into wild spaces

Into the wilderness

Not so we might die

But so that we might be transformed

Which calls us to give so we might receive

To let go of ourselves so we might find ourselves

That calls us to die so that we might live

God’s way is not our way (thank God)

It is not logical

It is as foolish as the cross

I’m Tired

I am tired

I am tired of saying “Love wins”

And then watching as hate wins

Time after time

I am tired of myopic extremists

Who in their certainty and arrogance

Are dividing the world into armed camps

I am tired of politicians who grab cheap and shallow talking points

And use them to exploit the vulnerabilities

Of a frightened and struggling populace

And then use their power

To both profit and control

I am tired of the lies

The hate

The racism

The resentment

I am tired

Of people who say they follow the Prince of Peace

Clinging to guns

And choosing the way of violence and intimidation

Who would rather caress an AR 15

Then keep a child alive

I am tired of the rich manipulating the system

To get richer

I am tired of seeing people without homes

hungry children

objectified and minimized women

oppressed minorities

tormented immigrants

I am tired of watching the planet burn

For the sake of profit

I am tired of the arrogant certainty

Of extremist liberals

And extremist conservatives

Who insist upon total capitulation to their ideals

And reject collaboration and comprise (which is not always bad)

I am tired of war

Tired of tyrants who abuse their power

Hate-filled groups like Hamas

Cruel leaders like Netanyahu and Putin

Tired of watching children, covered with dust and blood

Mourning over the shattered bodies of their fathers

And mothers

I AM TIRED OF PEOPLE ALIGNING THEMSELVES WITH THE WORST VALUES IN THE WORLD AND THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD

Hoping that somehow

They will profit

They will become secure

They will have power

They will get even

They will dominate

We are far from Eden Lord

Far from the Kingdom of God

It is not on earth as it is in heaven, not even close

And we are not being your people

We are not bringing the Kingdom closer

We are denying it day by day by day

Choice by choice                                 

Vote by vote

The foul beast of hate slouches toward Jerusalem

And Moscow

And Washington DC

Yeats had it right

The Best Lack All Conviction, while the Worst

Are Full Of Passionate Intensity

May we hear your voice O God of Love

May it thunder in our hearts

And echo in our souls

May we hear you calling

As we struggle through this wilderness

Of hate and fear

“prepare the way for the Lord

make straight in the desert a highway for Love

May every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;

May the rough ground become level, and the rugged places a plain.

May the glory of the Lord be revealed, and all people see it together (Isaiah 40)

May we make the way

By walking (McLaren)

I may be tired Lord

We are all tired

But you can renew our strength

so that our souls might soar on wings like eagles;

so that we can run and not grow weary, and walk and not be faint.

Or at least

Make it through today

No Observers

We are not the observers of history, but participants

As close to home as the love we share,

As far as the most distant village, our choices count.

We make hope happen.  We turn the wheel of time.

          Steven Charleston

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We make history

We make and re-make

The world around us

Sometimes I doubt that

It all feels so hopeless

And I feel so powerless

I watch toxic people escape justice

I see the rich use the existing systems to exploit the poor

I see racism ooze out of people’s souls

I read comments that are nothing but hate

Vomited on a Facebook post or page

And it seems inevitable

As if evil wins, and wins, and wins

I have a friend

A black person

Who when he was six

Saw his father violently pulled from his car by the police

For driving in the “wrong” neighborhood

He says it has always been this way

This world

Full of racism and hate

Full of people who want to dominate

Get even

Humiliate

Oppress

Exclude

Eradicate

It has always been this way in American

For him, for his people,

But he functions from hope!

Because?

Because?

God!

God is

God is love

God is love incarnate

And with God in us

And God in us

God working through us

Can do more than we can even ask or imagine (Eph 3)

We can hit the streets

We can feed the hungry

We can welcome the unwelcome

We can clothe the naked

We can be a cup of cool water for the thirsty

We can

Make hope happen

It is easy to despair

Despair is where we are at

The answer?

God’s people living as God’s people

Being God’s people

It is time for hope

Night Prayers

Night is drawing near. 
Soon the night prayers will begin

The after-hours prayers

The prayers without the need for words

Spoken from the heart

The language of those who work the late shift of sorrow

 

Night prayers turn bar rooms into churches

Motels into temples, truck stops into shrines

Night prayers are first-time prayers

Last-change prayers, prayers tossed up into the stars

To see if anyone is there to catch them.

Prayers without expectation

          Steven
Charleston

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Welcome to the fellowship of the lost

The lonely

The scared

The anguished

 

Welcome to that desperate space

Where all hope is gone

And expectation has been sucked into the vortex

 

We are the people who sit

In the eerie glow of computer screens

The flickering light on televisions

 

Who linger on the fringes of the light

Peering out of the darkness

Of fear and hate

 

We are those manipulated by those

With small souls

And big needs

 

We are those who go chasing after solutions

That are not solutions

Who think power and wealth will make us

Powerful and wealthy

Instead of small and impoverished

 

We are the night prayers

Who pray prayers of desperation

Who pray for things we should not pray for

Power

Revenge

Retribution

Affluence

 

We do not know how to pray and yet we pray (Romans 8)

Tossing our tortured words heavenward

Hoping against hope

 

May you catch our prayers

And may the anguished groans of the Spirit

(for we must make you weep)

Embrace our fear,

Our selfishness

 

May the Spirit transform our prayers

And return them to our hearts (Psalm 35)

 

and thus returned

transform our hearts and minds

and make us new

 

so let us pray

The danger of certainty

I walked through an earthquake once

as the ground shifted beneath my feet

and the world swayed

and all seemed undone

I breathed deeply

when the ground was once again

solid

and I stood on solid ground

certain

Certainty

I long for certainty

It would be nice to know

That God is there

That Love will win

I would love to be certain

About what is right and wrong

I envy, sometimes

Those who say with certitude

The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it

However

It has been said that the opposite of certainty is not doubt

It is openness

It is faith

And I have become certain that certainty

Can be a curse rather than a blessing

And that it is better to question

And struggle

To seek

And explore

Bertrand Russell once said

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

There is a strength to certainty

But weakness too

The strength of conviction, perhaps

The passion that comes from believing one is right

But with certainty closedness

Stuckness

A refusal to think, to challenge

To change

we indeed need a degree of certainty to get by

but it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal

For with the sureness of certainty comes

What can only be called

Arrogance, conceit, haughtiness

I know the truth, you don’t

I am right, you are wrong

I am saved, you are cursed

The earth is 6000 years old

LGBTQI+ people are sin

God hates all who do not believe the way I do

It is unintentional

Perhaps unseen

But it is there

A stolid, cold, cruelness

Blind faith is truly blind

Blind to people

To pain

To the radicality and irrationality

Of that power we often call God

Certainty stops us in our tracks

It keeps us from learning

Growing

Changing

From seeing God’s new thing

Give us uncertainty, God

Do not allow us to ever, ever

Believe we understand you (beyond that you are love)

Or to believe we speak for you

Or are the repositories of truth

Or the gatekeepers of the kingdom

Keep us questioning

Searching

Doubting

Struggling

Hoping

Loving

Changing

Growing

Let us join the man

Who on his knees in the dust

Cried to Jesus

Lord, I believe!

Help my unbelief

Help us believe

Help us question our beliefs

And lead us forward

always

Into uncertainty

And a fresh and beautiful

newness