Nita's Book Club

Jesus Shows Us What God Prioritizes

2026-03-17T09:35:00.000-05:00

Jesus said, 'When you see me, you see the Father'. Through his actions and words he was and is continually reinterpreting what we humans understand about God.

One way in which God has been badly misunderstood is in his relationship with the law. Often Jesus bumped up against the religious system and its leaders because their interpretations of the law misled the people. An example of this was Jesus' teaching about the sabbath: 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' His actions backed up this teaching; he would often break the religious rules about keeping the Sabbath by healing and helping people on the Sabbath.

This simple statement by Jesus carries profound meaning for our understanding of God. His priority is the well being of humans while religious systems are preoccupied with keeping the rules at all costs. The commandment to honor the Sabbath as a day of rest was intended to serve humans, not to burden us. But the maintainers of religious systems turn the Creator's loving care for humanity into a heavy yoke by making obedience to the rule the issue rather than the well being of the humans.

In his book, Jesus Before Christianity, Albert Nolan says, "Jesus was not opposed to the law as such, he was opposed to the way people used the law, their attitude to the law. The scribes and Pharisees had made the law into a burden, whereas it was supposed to be a service...They were using the sabbath against people instead of using it for them...for Jesus it (the law) was supposed to be for the benefit of people, to serve their needs and genuine interests...Jesus' attitude led to permissiveness whenever the needs of people would not be met by observance of the law, and to strictness whenever this would best serve their needs. The law was made for us, we were not made to serve and bow down before the law."

Jesus' approach to the law reveals God's approach to the law and shows how important human beings are to God. This not only helps us understand what God is like but it empowers us to approach the law in the same manner, seeing humans' well being as more important than adherence to the law. This requires genuine care for people and discernment of what God's care should look like in a particular instance so is a challenge to us who want to maintain a religious system or who want an easy quick black and white answer to people's problems.

Good News for All!

2025-12-13T13:53:00.000-06:00

The dramatic announcement made to the shepherds is truly good news about what God is like! Unfortunately, in much of her history Christianity has lived and interpreted the story of Jesus in such a way that it doesn't come across as very good news for all but instead a story of exclusive qualifications in order to belong. Let's listen once more to the angelic announcement:

Luke 2^- "And in the same area there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And then an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were very afraid. But the angel said to them, “Listen! Do not fear. For I bring you good news of great joy, which will be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: You will find the Baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” Suddenly there was with the angel a company of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

                                                                 Glory to God in the highest,
                                      and on earth peace, and good will toward men.”

As I reflect on this beautiful portion afresh, I see the following truths about God in the highlighted phrases:

First, "Do not fear." This suggests that God knows we humans are fearful people and wants us to understand that, unlike the intimidating gods of the nations, he is coming to us in an unaggressive way as a weak and helpless baby. Rather than fearing him, he desires that we trust in his loving kindness towards us.

Second, "good news of great joy." Our God is a joyful God with good news for us. This announcement isn't that of a vengeful, vindictive God but One, who like loving parents, is eager to surprise their children with gifts of pure love and affection.

Third, "to all people." This God is not tribal. He isn't coming for only one particular group of people but for all people, all nations. This is staggering news for humans whose bent is toward thinking that God has favorites or a favorite religion.

Fourth, "the Baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger."  This God comes in the most vulnerable form possible and is born into the poor of society, underscoring his desire to identify with the lowliest and the disenfranchised of society and to come in the most non-threatening way possible.

Fifth, "peace on earth." This tells us that his nature is peace-loving and non-violent. He comes, unlike all other gods and kings, with no rivalrous nor competitive agenda, no need to prove himself nor to dominate anyone. The rule of His kingdom is a rule of peace.

Sixth, "good will toward men." This God comes with good will, good intentions towards all people. All other gods and rulers view people as a means to accomplish their agenda and glory. Our God is all about good for everyone with no need for dominance and glory.

This is an astonishing announcement! Everything about it shouts that this God has no animosity towards humanity but rather is in love with humans and will do anything to come to our aid, and because he is how he is, he won't assert and force himself and his ways on anyone. I can respond to such a God...

A Free and Fearless Space

2025-08-05T10:28:00.000-05:00

Henri Nouwen summarized our calling (as followers of Jesus) this way:

"That is our vocation: to convert the enemy into a guest and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced."

In my opinion, the dismantling of western evangelicalism of our day is a good thing. Over time, organized western Christian religion has become more about setting boundaries to determine who's in and who's out than about the kingdom (commonwealth) of God which is open to all, according to Jesus.

A number of young adults have come to me these days disillusioned with the "gospel" they were given and long for "a free and fearless space" to be part of.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, I want to challenge the generations after my generation to do the hard work of finding and/or creating "free and fearless spaces" where anyone who sincerely cares about the outlandish message of Jesus (which includes the outsider and those who aren't 'productive') can experience genuine brotherhood and sisterhood. This will require a living imagination, hard work, perseverance, willingness to make mistakes, willingness to disagree, lots of inconvenience and humility....and more.

The more "free and fearless spaces" that are created (no matter how small), the more the ways of Jesus' commonwealth society will permeate the earth.

God's Splendor Appears in the Crucifixion and in a Society of Equals

2025-04-18T08:38:00.000-05:00

Matthew's account of Jesus' crucifixion in Matt. 27:45-54 includes the following dramatic and frightening happenings:

"At noon, a darkness fell over the whole land..."

"...the curtain in front of the Holy of Holies was ripped in half..."

"...the earth quaked"

"...boulders were split"

"...tombs were opened"

"Many bodies of holy ones who had fallen asleep were raised."

"(Those) standing guard over Jesus' body were terror-stricken at seeing the earthquake and all that was happening..."

Jesus' solidarity with those on the fringes of society resulted in his crucifixion; the impact of this radical face-off with man-made hierarchies and barriers caused the earth to quake in response. His refusal to bow to the oppressive religious and political powers made possible a new community of equals on earth; this new community was birthed out of the terrifying confrontation between Humility and Dominance, resulting in the Seed of humility dying and falling into the ground to bear fruit, and in the upheaval and ineffectiveness of the systems of dominance.

The prophet Isaiah alludes to this by declaring that the splendor and beauty of God will be seen when the systems of inequity and hierarchy are leveled/disrupted - the low will be raised and the high will be brought low:

A voice is crying out:
“Clear the Lord’s way in the desert!
Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!
4 Every valley will be raised up,
    and every mountain and hill will be flattened.
Uneven ground will become level,
    and rough terrain a valley plain.
5 The Lord’s glory will appear,
    and all humanity will see it together;

the Lord’s mouth has commanded it.” (Isaiah 40:3-5 CEB).

In Jesus' crucifixion we see the splendor of God (his humility, compassion, solidarity with society's 'undeserving') on full display.

In our world today, the expression of the splendor of God is wherever a community of equals demonstrates compassion, humility and solidarity with whoever society labels as undeserving.

May his Common Society come, and his will be done on earth as in heaven... Amen.

Lent - Day 10

2025-03-14T08:30:00.001-05:00

"Faith is not a matter of certainty but of courage...Nothing important can be imposed by coercion."

-- Catherine Keller

Lent - Day 9

2025-03-13T07:59:00.001-05:00

"Popular Lent is too occupied with guilt and repentance...Lent is rather seeing how to take steps into God's future so that we are no longer defined by what is past and no longer distracted by what we have treasured or feared about the present..."

--Walter Brueggemann (A Way Not Our Own)

Lent - Day 8

2025-03-12T10:48:00.000-05:00

"The only way to make rapid progress along the path of divine love is to remain very little and put all our trust in God."

--Therese of Lisieux

Lent - Day 7

2025-03-11T10:08:00.001-05:00

LOVE

JOY is Love revealed

PEACE is Love received

PATIENCE is Love waiting

KINDNESS is Love extended

GOODNESS is Love shared

FAITHFULNESS is Love present

GENTLENESS is Love listening

SELF-CONTROL is Love suffering.

--Nita Steiner (Galatians 5:22,23)

Lent - Day 6

2025-03-10T07:40:00.003-05:00

"God's affection for you runs deep

...and you will never be forsaken."

---Jonathan Foster

Lent - Day 5

2025-03-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Love is patient and kind

Love is never jealous

It does not brag or boast

It is not puffed up or big-headed.

Love does not act in shameful ways

Nor does it care only about itself

It is not hot-headed

Nor does it keep track of wrongs done to it.

Love is not happy with lies and injustice

But truth makes its heart glad.

Love keeps walking even when carrying a heavy load

Love keeps trusting

Never loses hope

stands firm in hard times.

The road of love has no end.

I Corinthians 13:4-8. (First Nations Version)

Lent - Day 4

2025-03-08T10:55:00.000-06:00

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God...

It is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through stages of instability...

...and that it may take a very long time."

--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Lent - Day 3

2025-03-07T07:45:00.001-06:00

"...we are called to depart, to trust the new life, and to find space and energy for a life of full shalom, to live apart from the system of pharaoh. This story has many futures..." (Exodus 8:16-18)

--Walter Brueggemann (A Way Not Our Own)

Lent - Day 2

2025-03-06T07:36:00.000-06:00

"The crescendo of the New Testament is the statement in 1st John that GOD IS LOVE.

...the mystery of God is the excess of divine love, so you need not fear what you don't know and understand..."

--Eberhard Jungel

Lent - Day 1

2025-03-05T08:44:00.000-06:00

"We are being chased by God's powerful love...

Lent is a time to quit running, to let ourselves be caught and embraced in love, like a sheep with safe pasture...

(Our life) is to be an embrace but that entails being caught by God."

---Walter Brueggemann in A Way Other Than Our Own

Selling Water by the River (5) - Gardeners, Not Guards, Needed in the Society of God

2025-02-03T15:37:00.002-06:00

This will be the last of a series from Shane Hipps' book, Selling Water By the River.

In the chapter about gardening Hipps contrasts the special treatment that the famous Mona Lisa painting receives (encasement in a temperature controlled glass box and security guards, etc) and the treatment that a good gardener gives to plants in a botanical garden. These are both very different kinds of jobs.

"Trees don't take kindly to small sealed glass cases that prevent moisture and the sun from getting in. An ancient painting would not take kindly to a whole lot of tampering, touch, and exposure. The key to selecting the proper method of care is understanding the object so the wrong methods are not applied...The same is true when it comes to our relationship to the message of Jesus - the gospel. We must accurately understand the nature of the gospel if we are to treat it with proper care..."

In Acts 8 we read one of many conversion encounters found in the book of Acts; this one is particularly fascinating. Obeying God's direction to head to the Gaza desert from Jerusalem, Philip comes across the "treasurer of Ethiopia", a eunuch, who was in his chariot reading from the book of Isaiah.

In the ancient world there were a number of reasons why a man was castrated; in this case it was because he served in the queen's service and had to become a eunuch so as not to "cause trouble".

"Some eunuchs would develop feminine characteristics because they no longer had as much testosterone coursing through their bodies. Many dressed in women's clothes with women's makeup and adornments, so they could serve powerful women without too many questions asked. They were considered a third gender and were often outcasts in society. People didn't know where to put them..."

The fact that this man had traveled all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship and had acquired a scripture scroll indicates courage on his part since eunuchs were prohibited by Jewish law (Deuteronomy 23:1) from entering the assembly of God.

"God told Philip to go and share the gospel with a person who is not acceptable according to the Bible. He is from another land, another religion, and has chosen a lifestyle that is both irreversible and strictly prohibited in the Bible. And yet, God sends Philip far out of his way to share the good news with this person. Then Philip baptizes him without any precondition other than the eunuch's desire. So while the eunuch might be excluded from the religious assembly of God, he is welcome in God's kingdom."

Another fascinating thing is going on in the midst of all of this related to scripture - Isaiah (56:3-5) directly contradicts the law of Deuteronomy. This shows the trajectory of the Bible - it's a story of ever-expanding love that moves beyond the original established boundaries.

And there's more that is not recorded in the scripture about this story...now 2,000+ years later, "over half of all Ethiopians are Christians and a number of them trace the origin of their faith back to this first convert."

Shane Hipps finishes this wonderful chapter with words about the nature of the kingdom of God, proposing that perhaps when Jesus compared it to a mustard seed in Luke 13, He was suggesting that not only would the kingdom grow numerically, but that its nature includes change and reshaping...

"Perhaps the kingdom does more than transform us; it also transforms itself for our sake. There may be dimensions of God's love that have yet to be revealed to us...it is possible that the gospel takes shapes necessary to better penetrate the hearts of people. A mustard seed in no way resembles the look, feel, or function of a mustard tree...

"Like a seed that becomes a tree, (the gospel) changes, grows, and is renewed in each culture, context, and generation. The good news began as a message to Abraham of the blessing of land and descendants for an ethnic group. But through the course of history it became the blessing of an abundant life beyond land and children, beyond ethnicity. It became good news for anyone who wanted it...The good news grows and in that sense, changes. And yet...its basic DNA does not change. It both changes and is somehow unchanged."

Finally, Shane Hipps suggests that the kingdom of God is more like a plant than a painting. It's not an ancient artifact that needs protecting: "The kingdom is a lot more like a tree. God is looking for gardeners, not guards. A guard is trained in a defensive stance of fear and suspicion. A gardener is motivated by love and creativity...A friend, who is a landscape architect, once told me about a special kind of cell in plants that is called 'meristematic.' It's a cell that is ever-growing, ever-changing, ever-living. Jesus proclaimed the meristematic kingdom of God. Are we prepared for this never-changing kingdom to change? Are we open to the ways we might understand it anew?"

Selling Water By the River (4) - Paralyzed or Pathological Because of Fear

2025-01-26T14:54:00.000-06:00

I've become aware over the years that we who claim to be the most ardent Christians are some of the most anxious of people, fearful of making mistakes or wrong decisions or of not believing the right doctrines or not being spiritual enough, etc, etc. In the chapter on "touching the stove" in Selling Water by the River, Shane Hipps says the following:

"Those of us raised in Christianity often live with a lot of fear. Fear that we are doing it wrong (whatever 'it' is). Fear that some unfamiliar idea might hurt us. Fear that God may not like who we are, or what we've done, or what we think. Fear that a particular interpretation of the Bible is hurting the Bible or even God. Fear that we, or others, might be offending God, who apparently has quite fragile feelings and a hair-triggered temper. Some religious people are even afraid that other people are not frightened enough."

Hipps goes on to say that fear has a legitimate initial role in our early formation in that it teaches us what is needed in order to stay safe. He uses the illustration of teaching his small daughter to fear the stove with the instructions to not touch the stove. However, as we mature we must "leave the fear behind or we become paralyzed or pathological. If a 20-year-old is frightened of stoves in the same way he was as a 2-year-old, we have a problem.

"Fear is a developmental ingredient in the life of faith. It is useful in learning to prevent harm and nurture wisdom...and helps us develop basic impulse control...But fear also has some serious limits...

"The first stage of development is a much safer place to be...But as we grow, we are more and more moved and opened by Love, or God...we could say that fear is about closure and contraction, whereas Love is about opening and expansion. Love by nature is free from fear. The process of becoming open by Love can be unnerving, and is not for the faint of heart. Doubts emerge when what we thought were solid foundations begin to feel like shifting sands beneath our feet. Love opens us more and more to a freedom that moves us beyond self-justification, self-protection, and self-preservation..."

"If we are to access the Living Water Jesus promised, ultimately Love must become the only thing that governs behavior, not fear...Love does not do away with all boundaries; instead, it makes use of them in ways that serve the purpose of Love.

"As we grow, the question we learn to ask moves from 'What is right or wrong?' to 'What does Love require?'"...fear is actually the absence of Love, not the opposite (of Love)...ridding ourselves of fear is as simple as letting Love in."

Selling Water by the River (3) - Jesus Does Not Bind Himself to any Religion

2025-01-19T09:59:00.000-06:00

In his chapter about "wind and sails" in Selling Water by the River, Shane Hipps shows how Jesus went out of His way to disregard the boundaries that religion had established. In His first miracle of turning water into wine Jesus "sets the stage for his way of operating in the world. It frames his entire ministry."

In this miracle what's astonishing is not only that Jesus changed the chemical composition from one liquid to another but that he flagrantly broke the ceremonial rules which insisted that wine not be put into vessels that were dedicated for ceremonial washing. This is exactly what Jesus did - he had the servants use the jars that were for ceremonial cleansing rather than use the empty wine jars. By doing this, he was mixing wine and water thereby defiling both and causing the people to be unclean.

Why would Jesus do such an offensive thing (and continue doing this sort of thing throughout His ministry)? Hipps contends that it was because He was always trying to get people beyond the banks of the river and into the great expanse of the river of God's love. "He kept moving people toward the vast ocean, beyond the narrow confines of the riverbanks."

"Religions have a tendency to get stuck. Institutions aren't made to stay limber...Thus the trajectory of any religion is always to become brittle. A basic law is at work in most things we humans create: whatever the intended purpose of our creation, when overextended, it can reverse on itself...when it (Christian religion) becomes overextended, the impulse is to preserve the institution rather than the message...Jesus consistently undermined the natural inertia of institutions. He was the embodiment of pure, unbridled creative force. Creativity is often disruptive. It has little interest in preservation; it is about making new things and making things new."

Jesus is not against religions. The author says that Jesus is the wind while religions are the sails. His own conviction is that the Christian religion is the sail that best catches the wind but adds the following, "Just because Christianity claims Jesus as its own does not mean that Jesus claims Christianity as his own. Christ does not bind himself to a religion any more than wind binds itself to a sail...We must never make an idol of the sail and thereby miss the wind. But it is also a mistake to say the sail doesn't matter. Without a sail, the wind is difficult to catch..."

We must continually be reminded that it is not the "sail" but the "wind" we are after. Jesus continually broke the rules and boundaries established by religion so that people could get to Him. To live and move in this reality as his followers will cost us...

Selling Water by the River (2): No One Comes to the Bible without a Lens

2025-01-14T08:47:00.001-06:00

In the second chapter of the book, Selling Water by the River, Hipps talks about the lenses through which we read scripture and life:

"No one comes to the Bible or life without a lens...A lens can be a set of assumptions or beliefs that we have...When it comes to the Bible, religious authorities usually tell us which lenses we should use. We learn what to believe about the Bible as a way to help us understand how to read it. We are also taught what to be afraid of or angry about..."

The author goes ahead to list the first set of biblical lenses he was given, which included such things as:

*The Bible is flat; no teaching or doctrine in the Bible is privileged above another...

*The Bible is unified in its message...

*God doesn't speak outside the Bible...

(Authority figures also taught him what lenses he should NOT look through at the Bible.)

"Our lenses - our assumptions, our way of seeing the world - shape the way we interpret the Bible and how we relate to God and those in the world around us...When we see our lenses, we can evaluate them consciously...An examination of our lenses is not a process of changing the Bible, the world, or truth; it is a process of changing ourselves.

"The most limited Bible interpreter is one who claims to have no lens."

"Even Jesus, the Son of God, made deliberate use of a lens..."

Hipps goes on to illustrate this by showing how Jesus elevated certain scriptures over others. The Pharisees tried to trick him by asking which was the greatest commandment, believing that the only correct answer could be that all of the commandments are the greatest. But Jesus didn't hesitate to respond in a way that shows his understanding that some commandments carry more weight than others and that all of them should be understood in the light of the two commandments to love God and our neighbor.

"The implications of what Jesus says here are enormous and often overlooked. He is actually showing us that he has a lens - a set of assumptions. He doesn't see the Bible as flat...

"We all have lenses, but not all lenses are created equal. Some help us see more, some cause us to see less...Perhaps this Jesus-centered lens is one we should adopt. One that elevates love of God, and love of neighbor and self as the interpretive keys to the Bible."

Selling Water by the River

2025-01-13T14:32:00.000-06:00

In the coming weeks I will share quotes from parts of Shane Hipps' book, Selling Water by the River, "a book about the life Jesus promised and the religion that gets in the way".

This book had a significant influence on my early years of unlearning and relearning and reworking much of what I was raised to believe about God and Jesus and Christianity.

The summary on the book jacket says of this book: "Work, sex, ice cream, religion - they all promise fulfillment. But what they deliver is fleeting...We want something that lasts, that doesn't rise and fall with the fate of the stock market. Jesus understood this quest. He came to show us that peace is possible in this life, not just the next one. Yet Christianity, the very religion that claims Jesus as its own, has often built the biggest barriers to him and the life he promised."

In this book Hipps shows how available the water of life is; it's a river available to all, but we have built our institutions next to the river to sell the water. In so doing, we often create hindrances for people to get directly to the river of life - Jesus.

"...problematic are the beliefs we are taught to adopt that truncate our imagination of God...Then there is...fear. Fear is one of the great barriers to this river...Ironically, religious Christianity is often the purveyor of the very beliefs and fears that get in the way of the water.

"...What we believe matters, but not for the reasons we may assume. Our beliefs (or lack of beliefs) do not qualify or disqualify us from the river. Instead, they determine how clearly we will see the river...Some beliefs clear the way and give us high visibility, while others create a thick fog..."

Uncontrolling Love (4) - When God is a Child, None Shall be Afraid

2024-12-08T11:16:00.000-06:00

In the chapter, "God is a Baby", of Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God, Ricardo Gouvea speaks about the coming of God as an infant from Luke 2:12. He challenges us to take seriously the manifestation of God in a baby and to realize that it is as much a part of God's story as is the crucifixion. It matters greatly that God manifested himself in this way if we are to better understand who he is and what he is like.

He argues that by bringing Easter themes (personal salvation) into the Christmas story (which American evangelicalism likes to do) obscures and takes attention away from the message of the birth and infancy of Jesus, and that message is that God is revealing his true nature. Gouvea says the following:

"...The inferences we can take from this are astonishing...first of all, a reconsecration of matter itself ...Matter becomes sanctified. It means the sanctification of time and history...time and history became the abode of God...it also implies the sanctification of the human condition...the annulment of the curse...

"That the Eternal Word became a baby also points to something even more shocking that goes against the grain of our accustomed theological conceptions: it denotes the sanctification of tenderness and fragility...God was revealed to us as fragile and tender.

"...The incarnation and the theophany (manifestation) of God in Christ speak to us, therefore, of God's own frailty, fragility, and...of God's interest in taking risks; for the tenderness of babyhood is very risky, and God took that risk, out of love.

"...When we see with the eyes of faith that God is a baby, we see God's love in its utmost depth...and we are absorbed by God's love and we love God back with the deepest love possible, and this perfect love drives out all fear, including all fear of God and of judgment and of punishment, for God is love (I John 4:8)...driven by the power of love, we can become disciples of Jesus Christ, followers of Jesus in his love...

"God is a child, and as such God calls for our help, for our tender love and care...God has revealed God's own being, nature, and character to us in Christ as a poor little baby who needs and wants to be tenderly embraced, who needs and wants to be loved, and who wants to become our friend and play with us. God is not a menace...

"...when God is a child, the last shall be first and the weak shall be strong, and none shall be afraid."

I will close this post with a quote from Leonardo Boff which Gouvea includes in this sermon:

"...every child wants to be an adult, and every adult wants to become rich and important like a king, and every rich, important person wants to be a god; but God wanted to be a child."

Uncontrolling Love (3): Earthquakes that Break Open Closed Minds and Hearts

2024-11-07T10:17:00.000-06:00

Continuing this series on the uncontrolling love of God (Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God), I'm quoting from Patricia Adams Farmer and her sermon on Matthew 28:1-10:

"I have always associated earthquakes with fear and destruction...in this passage in Matthew, we discover another kind of quaking -- the kind that wakes us up, gets our attention, jolts us out of our everyday assumptions about the world. These are the earthquakes that break open tightly closed minds and hearts--the kind of quake that issues forth new life and fresh possibilities.

"The Easter story in Matthew begins with this kind of earthquake: a quaking of pure wonder, awe, astonishment...(the text says that) 'they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy.'

"With this astonishing news (of an empty tomb), we are jolted out of our limited vision of ourselves and our world...This is the earthquake of Easter: it shakes us out of our everyday world with its heartbreaks, injustices, and might-makes-right philosophies; it cracks open an astonishing world of divine possibility and spiritual treasure...

"When the world values brute force and violence, we are astonished to see that, after all the destruction and suffering, it is love that survives -- love that triumphs. Love is the greatest power in the universe because God is love...

"But moving from death to resurrection, from darkness into light, from the world as it is to the world as it might be, is not as easy as it sounds...when fear becomes the master of our lives and lodges itself like a boulder inside our psyche, our worldview, even our religious life, it keeps us prisoners inside tombs of spiritual darkness. Such intrenched fear leads to depression and despair or mutates into hate and us-vs-them worldviews.

"Twice in this passage in Matthew, we hear the words: 'Do not be afraid.' Radical transformation can be a scary thing. Fear is more familiar so we cling to what we know best. But in order to meet the risen Christ...we must, like the two Marys, muster the courage to move past that heavy boulder of hard stultifying fear, and accept the divine invitation to enter a world of fresh imaginings..."

Uncontrolling Love (2): Power Exercised by the Beast in Contrast to Power Exercised by the Lamb

2024-10-31T14:37:00.002-05:00

In a similar vein as the previous post, this chapter by Ronald L. Farmer from Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God deals with Jesus' words in Matthew 22:15-22 in which he responds to the Pharisees and Herodians who team up to attempt to trap Jesus with a question about paying the census tax which had to be paid with a Roman denarius. (The denarius in itself was considered an idolatrous object by many Jews.)

While theologians have historically and correctly used this passage for guidance in the delicate dance between the state and God, Farmer brings out a third teaching and says,

"Most Christians are aware of the danger of 'rendering to Caesar things that belong to God,' but the danger of 'rendering to God things that belong to Caesar' is often overlooked...

"...This error occurs whenever people conceive of God in terms of Caesar, in essence creating God in Caesar's image, only 'bigger'. This all-too-common theological error results in Christians picturing God as exercising coercive, controlling, unilateral power like Caesar, except raised to the Nth degree (mathematically speaking).

"Herein lies contemporary Christianity's fundamental flaw, the nearly ubiquitous error that alters, or at least taints, every other theological and ethical teaching and practice--including one's assessment of and vision for the socio-political order...

"I write in my commentary on the book of Revelation:

'A person's conception of divine power greatly influences his or her understanding of power on the human level...Thus if divine power is viewed as coercive, all-controlling, and unilateral, then the corresponding understanding of the highest/ideal form of human power will be coercive, all-controlling, and unilateral--like the power exercised by the beast, the Roman empire. But if divine power is understood to be persuasive, all-influencing, and relational, then the corresponding understanding of the highest/ideal form of human power will be persuasive, influencing, and relational--like the power exercised by the Lamb.'

Uncontrolling Love (1): A Theology that Starts with Love Takes Us to a Different Place than One that Starts with Power

2024-10-23T10:41:00.002-05:00

Because love desires the full freedom of the loved one, it is not controlling. If God is Love, then God is not controlling.

The implications of this statement mess with the ideas/beliefs that many of us who call ourselves "Christian" have been taught about the nature of God. They force us to reconsider how we think about the One we call God and his way of relating with his creation and how we, who profess to follow his ways, live and act.

I have been working with this for a number of years and am delighted to find more and more material available to help give me language and to expand my heart and mind as it relates to God and others. Because this has been such a help to me, I want to do a series of posts about the uncontrolling love of God. These will be sporadic and short posts with quotes taken from the book, Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God. Each chapter is by a different author, giving a wide range of input on this theme.

The following is from Ignacio Castuera in his sermon on Hosea 11:1-4 and Matthew 7:7-11:

"(...in the passage from Hosea) the image of God saying it was God who taught Ephraim to walk is one that is filled with tenderness. Jesus (in Mt. 7) is building on that. Our faith...echoes that strong division in the Bible between the faith of the religion of rules, regulations, and rituals of the temple, and the faith taught by the prophets about a loving God, a caring God, a God who wants us to love each other and to spread that love...it started with the teachings of Jesus...and that image of Jesus when he says, 'if you, filled with faults as you are, can give good gifts, how much more your heavenly papito, your heavenly Abba...' That image is one that impels the church to become the force that it was in the Roman empire.

"But Constantine saw that that force could be used for his purposes...the Caesars of Rome hired the theologians of the church to create the images of power that have been passed down to us. All of the attributes of Caesar were assigned to God and the vision of tenderness that Jesus and the prophets had given us almost disappeared...

"The religion of the God with the attributes of Caesar is challenged by the religion of love, of a caring loving God. It is not omnipotence that is important for us as followers of Jesus. Instead, it should be love...

"A theology that starts there is going to take us to very different places from a theology that starts with images of power."

Brute Force, Cunning Strategy, Ruthless Competition, and "Winning"

2024-07-13T11:07:00.000-05:00

A short article by Kenneth Tanner, The Great Humility that Redeems the Cosmos, expresses well how wonderfully different God's ways are from ours and how far astray the church in the west is from God's ways. He writes:

The gospels upend every human (perhaps every rational) notion of strength.

The cosmos—superclusters of galaxies, delicate wildflowers on countless meadows, the waves of every ocean—thrives on one source of energy, a hidden force of charity that does not seek its own, a Person with an unremarkable face, who came not to be served by his creation but to serve.

...The biggest challenge presented to humanity by his gospel is our mistaken bedrock belief that what drives the universe is an unbridled might that rules by fiat. This is after all the only form of power we humans recognize: brute force, cunning strategy, ruthless competition, and, above all else, "winning."

It goes against everything that man has built and everything that man has ventured to accept the idea that the real power that sustains all movement and all life, that binds all things together—from subatomic particles to intergalactic distances—is a self-sacrificial love without measure.

"If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it." Jesus is not just talking about your life but is describing how *everything* works.

The losers in this scenario do not "win" but instead come to participate forever in the life of him who lays down his life for the life of the world and in so doing—by a great humility—redeems the cosmos and makes all things new, makes all things well.

This belief is not going to get you anywhere in the world that humanity has made but you can serve that world—this world that Christ loved before it loved him—by embracing this sacred path of humility and renouncing all the other ways and means and kinds of power.

All of them. Political. Military. Intellectual. Physical. All.

It is telling that almost every news story that compels the urgent attention of Christians these days can only do so because we have denied that we serve a Lord that rules by a mysterious humility that conquers all hearts by self-giving.

You Will See Jesus "There"

2024-05-01T16:22:00.001-05:00

In Matthew 26:31 Jesus promises his disciples that after his resurrection, he will go ahead of them to Galilee. In chapter 28, the angel at the empty tomb tells the women that Jesus has gone ahead of them to Galilee and that "you will see Jesus 'there.'"

God is always out in front of us moving forward; in the Christ we see him going ahead of the disciples with the promise that following him to the "there" is where they will see him.

This sounds appealing in theory but is disconcerting (to say the least) in practice because it implies that we leave behind the comfort/security of what we've known, whether that be our long-held belief systems or our long-held practices or our long-held relationships.

Our Shepherd is out ahead of us today bidding us to follow him to the "there." Just like sheep, we aren't good at following but at least we can tell him we want to follow and make our weak effort to go after him...

Dear Shepherd, we want to go "there" because "there" is where we will see you; help us as we clumsily attempt to follow you and help get us to the "there" where you are this day, this season, this era. May we find peace in the reality that you are moving on ahead of us always and wanting us to be with you in your present activity. Amen.