The Call and the Lesson of Good Friday

 

In a time of profound injustice, when the distorted moral narrative of authoritarianism and Christian Nationalism  are speaking loudly, and wars in Gaza and Ukraine rage, the need for the Christian to commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is more important than ever. It is a holy and sacred means for the sincere Christian, who appreciate God’s grace, mercy, and radically inclusive hospitality to recenter themselves in the love of God. While Good Friday is a day to reflect on the deep and enduring hope of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of humanity, it is important that Good Friday be a mindset that inhabits every facet of the Christian journey.

The experience of Good Friday must not be a time of “special occasion” or "High Holy Days" but an opportunity for the transformation of values that reflect the deep justice and love encountered in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Mindful of Simone Weil, a French philosopher, mystic and political activist who said, Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity, Good Friday, which comes at the end of the Lenten season, and before Easter must continue to the process of shifting the Christians attention from those things that deny or are antithetical to the interests and concerns of the Gospel to those which are of Jesus Christ.

The proliferation of the interlocking injustices of poverty, systemic racism, militarism, ecological devastation, and a distorted moral narrative, is an urgent call to those who sincerely and genuinely seek to follow in the footsteps of the Jewish Rabbi to radically shift their attention to social and political policies that reflect a care, compassion and a salvation, not of empire, that alleviates the struggles of millions impacted by these five interlocking injustices. As I write this reflection on Good Friday, the sacrifice of Jesus upon the Cross for our sake, the words of American author, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde come to mind. Lorde writes, “For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”

I suppose I am arguing that the Lenten Season, Good Friday, and the Resurrection call for a radical break from those systems that enrich the few and those who benefit from their policies, represented by the interlocking injustices, at the expense of 140 million poor, low wealth and working-class people.  For as much as those who value empire as a means to power, privilege, and profit, i.e. generational wealth, who adopt Jesus, some serious idolatry, as an affirmation of their ill-gotten gains, i.e., selling the bible for $59.99 to raise money for their legal fees, Jesus Christ was clearly for the people and profoundly against empire as evidenced by his crucifixion at the hands of empire. I can’t help but reflect on the justice work of the abolitionist movement, including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. The justice work of  Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Dorothy Day, and those of the Civil Rights movement such as the Black Panthers, SNCC, Fanny Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King who fought the good and I would add sacrificial fight for the interest of the Gospel.

As I close this reflection on the day of Good Friday, 2024, I invite you, the reader to ask, “What Good Friday means to you at this time? How will Good Friday motivate you to do the work of justice and the interests and concerns of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Blessings,

Monica

The Living God

 

 

Today, I would like to share on the topic, “The Living God.” This topic arose as I reflected on the multiple global tragedies happening in the world today. Wars, poverty including hunger, mental health challenges including depression, rampant hatred and violence, and the rejection of Jesus and his teachings by evangelicals, compel a deep and persistent hope and longing for the living God. These three words present us with a blessed assurance that is the integrity of our faith and witness. Jeremiah 10:10-12 (NRSV) says, “But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation. Thus, shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”

The words of Jeremiah are a reminder that there is the world’s agenda that it affirms by creating its own god. This is an ideological god, or a tribal god, the kind that justifies the power to dehumanize millions of people.  This god is made in the image of the human ego, its fears, hubris and limitations. It is a very, very small god. Karen Armstrong, a British journalist and former nun, investigates the 4000-year history of God. Her book shows the reader that the definition of God is constantly being repeated, altered, discarded, and resurrected through the ages, responding to its followers' practical concerns rather than to mystical mandates. The book shows us how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have overlapped and influenced one another, gently challenging the secularist history of each of these religions.

 The key words are, “responding to the practical concerns rather than mystical mandates.” In other words, this tribal god responds, throughout human history, to the agenda of those in power. This god becomes a projection of Make America Great Again, the slaveholder’s religion, and a religion-politics that is antithetical to the life and teachings of Jesus. This god advocates for a new kind of Jesus that validates capitalism and its politics while denying the needs and concerns of the poor, working class, those on the margins of the faith community, society and the environment.

I have been reading a book titled, The Door of No Return, The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade” by William St. Clair. The author tells the grim story about the Cape Coast Castle, located in Ghana, West Africa, as the greatest symbol of forced migration. For hundreds of years western nations used religious doctrine to justify places such as Cape Coast Castle and the enslavement of Africans. I’m talking about a dehumanization, affirmed by the ideology of a tribal god, on a massive global scale which became the accepted foundation of a new world in which we live today. This same tribal god was used to affirm what was eventually called manifest destiny as well as Jim Crow and lynchings. I mean how else can we make sense, if that’s possible, out of a people who go to church, receive communion and then go out and lynch another human being except that they worship of god of their own making. In his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman writes about being confronted at the University of Columbo in Ceylon about the involvement of Christianity in the slave trade on his pilgrimage of friendship to India, Burma, and Ceylon, present day Sri Lanka.  For those who Thurman met the question was, “How could Thurman justify being a Christian in a Christian nation that worships a small, tribal god?”  This is the work of the prophet.

The Old Testament prophets Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Joel and Amos dealt with a stiff-necked culture and society that rejected the living God for a tribal god and its many trinkets. The prophet could only speak what the living God had called them to speak and experience. They suffered because of this calling. Typically, somewhat like today, this was a minority theological position and not well funded. This is further affirmed by Jesus the Christ of Nazareth, son of the living God, who, according to scripture, had no place to lay his head, was crucified and then resurrected.  

So, what or who is the living God? In a book titled, Christian Mystics, Mattew Fox, American priest and theologian and former Dominican, looks at Meister Eckhart, a German Theologian, who prayed to God for forgiveness and to help him move beyond a human projection of God. “Have you ever prayed God to rid you of God? The work we do in our fields of calling requires that we follow the prayer of Eckhart and rid ourselves of those projections of God that get in the way of the grace and mercy necessary to transform the work we have been called to do. Further, the living God could care less about our biases Oh yes, God loves each of us, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but the living God does not cater to the human biases that seek to diminish a diverse humanity. This is most vividly seen in racism, antisemitism, transphobia, homophobia, political thought, gender and sexual diversity. God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do regardless of how comfortable or uncomfortable it might make us, and God has no need for us to believe. And I’m pretty sure this includes Jesus. The sooner we move beyond a projection of God the sooner we will experience a genuine grace that overcomes all our fears. In second Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul speaks of praying to God three times to rid him of the thorn in his flesh and in the end, God does not remove the thorn but says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (vs. 8-9) The thorn in the flesh of the Apostle Paul was there to keep him from arrogance and projecting his profoundly strong ego on to God. This is Paul’s story, not yours. The text does not condone suffering, but it does ask us as Christians to look at suffering from a different perspective. Ridding ourselves of the projections will enhance the experience of God encountered in the Frederick Buechner quote.

Biblical scripture flows out of a spirit filled real-life experience with the one true and living God. The writers, such as Paul, have experienced the all-pervading presence and desire that has transformed their life. The scriptural readings of Exodus 20:3, Isaiah 43:10-13, the Pauline Epistles including Ephesians 4:4-6, and 1 John 5:20 are an invitation, even a longing for each of us, to live into a relationship with the living God of love. To experience an unnerving and unwavering hospitality that rids us of shallow preconceived notions and makes us free in Christ.

Let us pray!

Seeking Peace

The topic for consideration is, “Seeking Peace”. The text for today is Psalm 34:14-18, Luke 19:41-42, John 14:27, and Hebrews 12:14. As I begin this discourse on peace, I am mindful of Matthew 5:9, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. It is important to share on this topic because the times in which we live call us to focus on what it means to seek peace or to ask the question, “Is peace something to be desired or is it actually possible with the present social and economic order in place?” The question emerges as a response to those spiritual disciplines that awakens us to our collective profound need for God’s grace and mercy. For some, the times we are living through become an invitation to weep as they encounter the spiritual blindness, its moral deficit, and lack of peace encountered by Jesus in the gospel of Luke 19:41-42.

The implication of engaging spiritual disciplines is the nurturing of a prophetic consciousness that becomes the ground of a new vision for peace. A vision not defined by or exclusively in the purview of powerful political, economic, and religious interests but a justice-oriented vision grounded in Psalm 34:14-18, that puts the desires of the righteous, those who have turned from evil to good, who pursue peace, the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit at the center of cultural and societal concerns.  I speak of a peace, attentive to God’s ears, that delivers and saves the global poor, oppressed working class, and those on the margins of a global society from all their troubles. This kind of peace requires a new global structure of peace that decenters and/or displaces the former global structures of peace built after World War II.

The Dai Lama says, “Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways.” Peace first and foremost is about seeking understanding. It is about recognizing the image of God as distinct in the other person and community.  In this sense, peace is about dignity, recognition, hospitality, and an appreciation for historical concerns, as recognition that all of humanity is made in the image of God. What I have been talking about is strategies that address an ever-increasing longing for a society that exhibits a deeper depth of capacity for love, justice, enlightenment, and the basic needs that sustain life.

The implication of such a strategy is a power that emerges from a love for all God’s people expressed in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. In the book, A Call to Conscience, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes, “Power is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change…Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” This kind of power, exemplified by Jesus, is ethical, sacrificial, compassionate, and non-violent. Attentive to the all-pervading presence of God, it seeks peace through understanding, radically inclusive hospitality, and the uplifting of a diverse human society.

Hebrews 12:14-15 says, “Pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and through it, many become defiled.” The writer of Hebrews is calling us to do everything humanly possible to be at peace with everyone, even those who benefit from violence and conflict, and see the kind of peace that Jesus gives as of little use. The peace of the Hebrews text is anathema to those who revel in injustice to power, wealth, and domination. Isaiah 10:1-4 “Woe to those who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, to make widows their spoil and to plunder orphans!  What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.”

            The sincere follower of the teachings of Jesus, living critically in an immoral society with its evil structures, that uplift conflict and violence, as a norm, where hate speech and hate crimes are on the rise, this includes anti-LGBTQ legislation, with 474 million guns in the US alone, according to Alcohol Tabacco and Firearms data, this is on top of a US military budget of 715 billion dollars in 2022, should be mindful of John 14:27 that says, Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

The Christian must grapple with the reality that the world is incapable of the peace that Jesus leaves. They recognize that the current state of US and global affairs including the latest situations between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine, is no different than when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his Beyond Vietnam, Time to Break Silence Speech on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City.  The sincere Christian considering what might seem to be a hopeless situation, asks the question, “How does the Christian, in the present environment, share the light of peace that Jesus gives?”

Mahatma Gandhi said, “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” –  The Christian witness, emerging from a place of religious humility, must be first and foremost about peace as a spirit-filled, overwhelming outpouring of love. The peace that Jesus bestows must be how the Christian moves in the world. Peace must be a reality of embodiment. It must be a way of life.  Only if peace is a way of life can it be the primary concern and not a secondary concern of peripheral importance. This embodiment of peace must be received as an invitation of authenticity that emerges as an outpouring of the Good News. Peace must be an ongoing concern of all people at the personal intimate, communal, national, and global levels inclusive of the United Nations and a global conference on peace grounded in the sacred texts of all religions.  While these structures and strategies may be in place, it is of great necessity to reassess these structures to rejuvenate the purpose, meaning, engagement, and foundation of peace. 

Extravagant Attention to God’s Grace

 

I would like to share on the topic, “Extravagant Attention to God’s Grace.” I speak on this topic from a lineage of faithful Christians who know the Gospel of Jesus Christ and stay focused on its transformative message of love as a matter of necessity.  It is important to share this topic because the times in which we live call us to focus even more on giving extravagant attention to God’s grace. This is a time of heightened spiritual warfare with the concepts of focus and attention, formerly used to identify strategies to acquire knowledge, education, and enlightenment now characterized as avenues for the acquisition of political and economic power and influence.  Mindful of the Simone Weil quote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”, extravagant attention to grace means to be generous with our faith, to do those things that nourish and deepen our faith.  It is this generosity that reveals the depth of God’s great grace and radically inclusive hospitality amidst a time of a great falling away. The implication of this generosity is awakening your potential. Receiving God’s love within is key! The texts for today are Psalm 119:15-16 (ESV), Philippians 3:12-14 and the life of Saint Irene of Macedonia. The last message was on “Harvest time”, a season of gathering things planted, a natural time of reaping in joy what has been produced during the year in an agricultural community. From a theological perspective Harvest time is a time of reckoning regarding the affairs of humanity, be it for good or for evil. It is the end of a season, the ending of an age, it is time as set forth by God and not the responsibility of the servant.  

        The Psalmist says “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. The Psalmist is focusing their attention on the precepts and statutes of God. This is their spiritual practice. The Book of Psalms shows us the depth of the Psalmist's extravagant attention to their relationship with God.  The Psalmist's desire is for God. Psalm 42:1-2 says “As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?” O How many times have I been comforted by the extravagant attention of the Psalmist. Our second text, Philippians 3:12-14, attributed to the Apostle Paul says, 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,[a] but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ[b] has laid hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold[c] of it, but one thing I have laid hold of forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly[d] call of God in Christ Jesus. When I read this text I see a man so focused on Jesus Christ that he is completely sold out. The Apostle Paul, having met Jesus on the road to Damascus in the book of Acts 9:1-8 acknowledges his humanity, his need for growth, his shortcomings and growing edges, those unspeakable things that would deny the Good News of Jesus Christ in his life, yet it is his complete and uncompromising focus, that extravagant attention to God’s grace that sets aside those things that would hinder God’s Call upon his life. The Apostle Paul’s faith became bigger than his fear. The Christian faith is about fully apprehending the grace of God through Christ Jesus and allowing that grace to transform our lives and implications for the love and glory of God. Grace will not leave you where it found you.

            Extravagant attention to God’s grace is about cultivating loving intimacy with God. From that intimacy, there emerges a gradual and persistent deep hope and freedom in Christ that avails a prophetic imagination formerly unseen that overcomes structures, systems, and agents of injustice and the evil perpetrated to seize the day for the Good News of Jesus Christ. The spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, studying scripture, Christ-centered covenantal relationships, being a part of a community of faith, being active in your faith so your faith would be fresh and not risk becoming hard and stale, and most importantly self-care, are essential in this spirit filled endeavor. This process has the potential to awaken the Christian to what Gary Cummins, author of If Only We Could See, Mystical Vision and Societal Transformation, calls the “God Realm or the Kindom of God for which Christians work and wait and pray, and God’s revolution.” Amidst a social order that struggles to embrace the fullness of humanity        

        Thirdly we have Irene, known as St. Irene of Macedonia in the Eastern Church. According to the writings of the scribe John the Stylite, Irene was baptized in the first century by Timothy after he received a letter from the Apostle Paul and became an evangelist. She was initially betrothed to be married but the call of Christ was so heavy upon her that she chose not to get married but to be baptized with oil and water and to preach a defiant sermon to her father, the King of Magedo and other high-ranking men, proclaiming herself to be the bride of Christ. Here is a woman who defied the norms of her society and her father’s desire to give her complete and total life to the call of Christ Jesus. When her Father was killed, she turned to the east, lifted her hands high, prayed, and like the male Apostles who raised the dead in their acts – she raised her Father to life. St. Irene converted 10,000 pagans, by traveling to various cities, “preaching about Christ and working miracles, healing the sick and she baptized 130,000 souls by her own hand.

            She made the deaf hear, she opened the eyes of the blind, she cleansed the lepers, and healed all who were in pain. The narrative concludes with Irene dying in the city of Ephesus where she did many cures and miracles in the name of Jesus Christ. Similar to other Apostles St. Irene was incarcerated, tortured, and martyred. In all of this, there is an extravagant attention that is unwavering. Today the Church continues to be steadfast and focused as it moves forward in the everlasting hope of Christ Jesus because there are Christians who focus and refocus as needed, and who don’t succumb to the desires of this world. While there are those who have fallen for Christian Nationalism and its rejection of Jesus Christ as left-wing and woke, who cause American Christianity to be characterized as antithetical to the Good News of Jesus Christ there are many more whose eyes are fixed on the call of God through Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. They focus and refocus on the teachings of Jesus Christ; they do the spiritual disciplines, they engage in a covenant community of faith, they take time out for their faith and what Civil Rights Icon and member of Congress Rev. John Lewis (1940-2020) called “Good Trouble.” For those engaged in “Good Trouble,” the words of John Lewis become a meditation on the life of Jesus Christ. They are an invitation to encounter the overwhelming attention of a God who responds to the many needs of humanity.

            I find the Advent season, the six weeks of Lent ending with Holy Week and then Easter Sunday, taking time out of our busy schedules to nurture and strengthen our faith to be necessary ways that focus and refocus our attention on God’s grace. Amidst the unsettling time we are living through we should make this a priority.  I invite you to engage in three things, (1) Nourish your soul If possibly make it a priority in your life. Be careful to feed your soul with good nutritious spiritual food (2) Reflect on what keeps you engaged and active in Christianity? and (3) Reflect on the Spiritual Disciplines.

              

            

What about LGBTQIA2+ People of Faith

I am mindful that posting about controversial topics can be dangerous yet there are times when one needs to express a truth that recenters an important and critical conversation.

I take issue with those who frame LGBTQIA2+ Rights as being against religion or anti-religious. As a Black transgender woman who is ordained clergy in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, I find it problematic when faith and religion are positioned in an exclusive heteronormative cisgender manner. I ponder a distorted moral narrative that sanctions this theologically dubious argument affirmed by those who push anti-LGBTQ legislation.  Are religion and faith only credible when a conservative Christian baker or website designer has the desire to discriminate based on their religious beliefs? I know plenty of same-sex couples who are just as religious and faithful as those Christians who use the Bible primarily as a tool to give credibility to their desire to hate, discriminate, and dehumanize.

This continues a long and tragic strain of "faith" and "religion" used to legitimize the evil and its productions of the genocide of the American Indian, the enslavement of the African Americans, Jim Crow, lynching, Japanese Internment, the school-to-prison pipeline, and housing discrimination, ie., red lining. just to name a few. These represent twisted biblical interpretations founded in the slaveholder religion. Slaveholder religion was designed to give legitimacy to the enslavement of Africans for economic gain. This is the "faith" and "religion many conservative Christians profess. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court necessarily expresses this "faith" and "religion: founded on the backs of the enslaved and genocide.

I cannot and will not separate the latest decisions of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court from this history they and their benefactors would soon have me and others forget. Their decisions bolster a "faith" and "religion" rooted in the slaveholder religion making life more precarious and less free for those on the margins such as the LGBTQIA2+ community. Their decisions give cover to those who desire to practice hatred, bigotry, and evil reminiscent of the Klan and Bull Connor. I ponder where these decisions come from. What is in their hearts?  In this time of immorality, when care and concern, even hospitality is not welcomed and diversity and equity are shunned by many I ponder where the law begins and its purpose. 

Does Anyone Hear Me: Listening at the Well, The necessity of Listening in difficult times

Considering the time we are living through, with its moral and ethical catastrophe as well as a prophetic hope rooted in an uncommon faith, the ground of justice, it is important to examine three components of the Christian tradition. The first one is our relationship with Jesus Christ of Nazareth the only begotten son of the Living God, secondly, our relationships with family, friends, coworkers, church, and those we may have a disagreement with and thirdly listening to the voice of God which may manifest in unexpected places. The voice of God is in creation, its God’s word, it is in the prophets and apostles, it is in God’s ministry.  Of the three components, I want to focus on is active listening. Active Listening is important because our relationship with God and community, that is our communion, is made alive with active listening.  
        Active listening is an invitation to encounter the humanity of the person first as a child of God, God’s sacred pleasure. It is about radically inclusive hospitality that opens hearts and minds to the spirit of God. It can be a most intimate and intoxicating affair if the Christian chooses to put their desires for power and privilege, assumptions, biases, preconceived notions, and socialization aside to know the person beyond societal and class structures that seek to dictate much of the human experience and condition. An example of this happens in John 4:1-42. The biblical text depicts Jesus, traveling through Samaria on his way to Galilee, sitting down at the well in Sychar, and talking to an unnamed Samaritan woman at the well.  After Jesus talked to the woman at the well, she appeared to have been astounded at how Jesus knew such truths about her. As she told the other Samaritans, “He told me everything I ever did” (v. 39). Intrigued, they approached Jesus, and He stayed in their town for two days talking with them. Here is a woman and her community that felt heard. This would seem to be the underlying question of our time, “Do you feel heard?” 
        This is the model of listening I seek to follow as a Christian. Active listening requires time, patience, humbleness, a desire for healing, and a heart of generosity. Most of all, the Christian must want to listen. “Do you want to actively listen?”  Many of the issues and concerns of church and society could be addressed if active listening, to encounter humanity were practiced. I suppose what I am arguing for is the reception of humanity as a primary call to listen and the issues and concerns to be secondary. The first question of church and society should be, “Do You See Me?” “Do I have your attention?” I am mindful of the words of Simone Weil, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” which engages these questions.  What I glean from the text is both Jesus and the woman are courageous in their attention to each other. This is not a one-sided conversation but an intimate sharing that breaks strict cumbersome boundaries that maintain the marginalization and oppression of the unnamed Samaritan woman and her community. The conversation at the well violates the boundaries which represent unjust cultural assumptions, and a politics, rooted in patriarchy, that denies a full and thriving Samaritan humanity. 
        It would appear, that if we are to live fully in the Christian faith, that is to humbly seek to walk in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, active listening more so than speaking would be a primary calling of the Christian. James 1:19 says, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” Saint Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the Gospel Always, and if necessary, use Words.” Amidst a fast-paced society where trauma is a norm, where desires for instant gratification, the rise of Christian Nationalism, culture wars, authoritarianism, extreme individualism, and the war against a woman’s bodily autonomy and the LGBTQIA+ community are legislative imperatives, the words of James and St. Francis would be wise council. The biblical text for today calls us to develop an appreciation once again for active listening amidst a society where there is great fear of active listening, particularly active listening practiced by the Woman at the Well and Jesus. Failure to actively listen becomes an opportunity for weeds to flourish and thrive, choking out the grace and mercy provided through the cosmic sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. 
        In a time when theological malpractice is rampant, when injustice and cruelty, for many Christians, have become an article of faith, the confessing Christian is called to be mindful of what and who they are listening to. The art of listening keeps the Christian attuned to the Holy Spirit. I long for a time when listening is embraced and appreciated more so than speaking. This may be a long wait. I imagine a time when everybody takes on the responsibility to listen, with intention, to their family members, neighbors, coworkers, friends, and most importantly, those they might have a disagreement with. To be inclusive in their listening is a hallmark of the human experience. A pandemic, an insurrection, rising suicide rates, a politics unhinged more than usual, and mass shootings, are reminders of the importance of listening to hear the voice of the divine amidst those lost in fear, loathing, depression, pain, and hatred. If the Church is going to successfully navigate a process of spiritual and religious renewal, listening must be an essential element.  

The Call to Prophetic Spirituality

 

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. My last message I shared was Freedom in Christ. It began with Albert Camus’ statement, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence becomes an act of rebellion.” It was about overcoming stultifying norms that deny an awakening that transforms ones understanding of God’s love, community and most importantly themselves. Freedom in Christ Jesus is necessary if the sincere Christian is to courageously face the cold hard realities of life and to act to alleviate the burdens of this life. Today’s message is “The Call of Prophetic Spirituality.” Prophetic Spirituality, according to St. Jerome’s University, is visionary and yet practical, evades no reality but embraces the possibility of newness. It enables us to live with faith and energy, somewhere between hope and despair.  It is about an honest assessment of where we are in our own journey as well as church and society and those emerging possibilities of transformation that keep our hopes and dreams alive. It is within these complex, at times complicated relationships and intersectionality's that our Christian faith is deepened and defined becoming a resource of wisdom, assurance and a radically inclusive hospitality.  It is a Christian faith exemplified by the poem, Come Yet Again Come written by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.  Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving and come, come, whoever you are this isn’t a caravan of despair. (2x) It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vows a thousand times before. And yet again, Come, again, come.  

    Amidst these challenging times when Christian Nationalism, a committed partner of white supremacy and its particular brand of theological malpractice the words of Rumi’s poem are a reminder that the Church of Jesus Christ is about radically inclusive hospitality today and has been about historically and globally, even in its many shortcomings and growing edges. The radically inclusive hospitality embodied in Rumi’s poem are about seeking what Gary Cummins, author of If Only We Could See, Mystical Vision and Social Transformation call the God Realm. Seeking the God realm is the underlying importance of diversity and looking at history from a prophetic perspective as one means to live fully into the Matthew 5:1-12, the Beatitudes, the manifesto of Jesus. Matthew 5:1-12 presents a radical and liberating shift in the autobiography of those communities on the margins of Roman and Jewish society.  

    The implication of the word “blessed” within the autobiography of those on the margins is a tectonic shift in the meaning of their lives that made Jesus even more of an existential threat to those in power. Evelyn Underhill, Victorian student of mysticism, retreat leader, writer and spiritual director says that “At the heart of Jesus’ Spiritual teachings she found seeds of social revolution.”  She concludes her analysis of the Lord’s Prayer by teaching that the real Christian is always revolutionary, belongs to a new race, and has been given a new name and a new song.” We should give careful consideration to the Lord’s Prayer to encounter a new transformative vision for Church and Society. 

There is something about Jesus that gives new and revolutionary meaning to all who would choose to be in communion with the Savior, no matter the sacrifice.  This concept of meaning was something that Howard Thurman dealt with in his own life.  A motivating question asked repeatedly by Howard Thurman according to Luther E. Smith, author of Howard Thurman’s essential writings, is, “How can I believe that life has meaning if I do not believe that my own life has meaning in a new and revolutionary way and that it is the ground of liberation and freedom in Christ Jesus?” 

  Howard Thurman’s motivating question amidst the daily demands of this life, the joys, concerns, and the many growing edges of our life's is a reminder that each of us must see our life and the life of our neighbor as meaningful and valuable. One way to discover the meaning and value of our lives is through journaling our autobiography. This is something I began to do at the advice of my therapist as I grappled with life’s changes. Journaling our autobiography is a way to see how our life is connected to spirituality.  It is about finding ourselves and how the spirit of God is moving in our lives. For many people of faith journaling their autobiography is important in developing an inner awareness, and a different more liberated consciousness as a matter of religious experience, as they seek to know life in its fullest possible grace or significance. 

In the face of unjust and inhumane legislation and policies we read about in Isaiah 10:1-3 and put forward by those who embrace an authoritarian church and political regime statements such as Black Lives Matter, Trans Lives Matter, statements on diversity which are reminiscent of “I am Somebody” and an fuller accounting of America history are about meaning and value.  Our present national tragedy and its brand of politics is about what lives matter, what lives have value and in this sense it is about who holds the power in church and society. This is an age old question which made Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and William Barber, Liz Theoharis and the Poor People’s campaign for some politicians an existential threat.  

This takes us back to Matthew 5:1-12 and the process of social transformation and how the Holy Spirit moves. The Holy Spirit was and continues to be on the front lines of social, religious, and spiritual transformation. This is how we can remain hopeful in the face of circumstances and situations that seem hopeless.  Prophetic Spirituality puts forward a compelling radical truth that God is in solidarity with those who are poor, low wealth, the working class, those who are houseless and living in poverty and many more who are struggling, some in silence.  This is the central tenant movements like the Poor People’s Campaign, A National Call for a Moral Revival and the environmental justice movements like the Sunrise movement.  

Yesterday, I was in conversation with a good friend who lives in Virginia who is just beginning to awaken. They’ve come a long way in their thinking regarding cultural, religious and economic concerns. It was a conversation I never could have imagined. The conversation let me know that the Holy Spirit is at work. It reminded me to trust God amidst an awakening that is the ground of God’s revolution. Gary Cummins writes, “the revolution of God seeks the complete transformation of all that is –unjust systems and the chaotic, twitching, random movements and countermovements of politics and economics – into all that can be: God’s will done on earth.”  This is God’s work and we are blessed to be a part of what God is doing in the world today. 

In closing, I would like to leave you with some questions I’ve reflected upon. You can  reflect on these questions at your convenience (1) Are you sensitive to God’s presence? Have you ever felt that you’ve encountered God, (2) Do you feel that your life has meaning and value and (3) Have you ever journaled your autobiography?  If so, what did you discover.  

Let us Pray