It’s a Good Good Friday

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Art, atonement, crucifixion, Jesus, religion, Zoology

I am aware of course that many of you are not believers, at least in a traditional way. And because of that, I try not to spend too much time on things having to do with faith, especially denominational faith. I leave that to my other blog, Walking in the Shadows. However I found this article so compelling that I thought I would share it with you, in keeping with the day.

I have for a long time not believed in what is referred to as “substitutionary atonement” or the tenet that God sent Jesus to earth with the express purpose of suffering and dying for our sins, the sin we carry from Adam’s original sin. It doesn’t comport with my view of God quite simply. As Kenneth R Overburg, SJ suggests, it takes Jesus out as Plan B, and replaced Him with the Word, foundational in creation, planned from the beginning to dwell among creation in the fullness of time.

It is the Incarnational model and centers Jesus as love offering, come among humanity at the right moment in time to offer the WAY to unity with the Godhead. Overburg writes a beautiful and compelling explanation of this interpretation which I think allows many who have rejected Christianity specifically because of the implications of the substitutionary atonement theory. Please enjoy, The Incarnation: Why God Wanted to Become Human.

♦

Isn’t he cute?

And aren’t they lovely?

Blessings to you all!

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Holy Righteousness

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forgiveness, Jesus, love, Paul Tillich, Pharisee, Prodigal Son, sin, Sinning Woman

Today’s gospel is the story of the Prodigal Son. Yes, I know, the picture at left, is not that, but bear with me.

Paul Tillich paired the story of the Prodigal Son with the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. I think it is a good match.

But, as did Tillich, I focus on the elder son in the Prodigal story, and the Pharisee in the sinning woman story. (And you should assume that the kernel of what I relate is pure Tillich.)

In both cases, we deal with righteous individuals. The elder son is so familiar to us, and frankly I’ve always had a soft spot for him. He’s the obedient one, the one who doesn’t get in trouble. If he were a girl, he’d be called a goodie-two-shoes.

What is often missed is that the Pharisee by all accounts is an obedient one as well. Although we are wont to think of Pharisees as those who spout what they don’t preach, actually they did. They defined things in their own way, and then lived them to the letter. Much of Jesus’ condemnation of them had to do, not with their lack of piety, but that they often missed the point of piety. It was form over substance that was their problem.

Here, there is no complaint that this Pharisee was not righteous. He was, by all accounts. Jesus thinks well of Simon it seems and Simon has honored the Lord with an invitation to dinner, a clear sign of hospitality.

In both cases, the rule-follower gets no respect. The sinner is upheld and pampered with praise. And you have to ask why.

Jesus suggests the answer. In both cases, the sinner has sinned hugely, gigantically in fact. One is a whore and the other a frequenter of whores. And God, in his immense graciousness, has forgiven them. Yet this is not the real point either.

Both ASK for and receive forgiveness, and their gratitude is immense. Jesus in fact says this:

It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love.

What does this mean?

Tillich suggests and I certainly concur, that Jesus tells us that both the elder son and Pharisee are technically righteous, and what’s more they know it. And they expect to be acknowledged as such. They are quick to point out the flaws of others.

Yet, they are not comfortable in their righteousness, and that is why they struggle so hard to be righteous or more properly perfectly obedient to the letter of the law in the Pharisee’s case, and obedient to a father’s home rules in the other.

Tillich sees this psychologically as suggesting that for such a person, there is no feeling of being forgiven, they feel constantly unappreciated, unloved, and unrewarded. This expresses as a lack of ability to love on their part.

They cannot love greatly, and they thus are always judging others as coming up short. The acknowledged sinner, however, is overwhelmed by the graciousness of God’s forgiveness and loves God, and themselves finally precisely because God loves them. They realize they are worthy. Such people invariably can turn that self-love and God-love outward to a greater world. They love greatly.

The woman who wept over Jesus’ feet did not in fact love first, she accepted that she was loved by God, and thus accepted the forgiveness offered. She is to be commended.

The Pharisee and elder brother? They are still locked in their anger and feeling that somehow they still don’t measure up, simply because they are not accorded the blessings they feel they would receive if God truly found them acceptable.

The lesson for each of us I think is to explore the Pharisee/elder brother in ourselves. Are we doing all the “stuff” of righteous behavior? Are  we always attending to our prayers and our rosaries, and our church attendance, our acts of charity, and then wondering why God isn’t blessing us more? Are we concluding that we have not been deliberate enough, focused enough, pious enough, faithful enough?

Are we feeling less than worthy of God’s love, and thus are we more prone to point to others as appearing to do less than us. At least we are not them! we think.

Does this explain the mind of the fundogelical? The bible pounding, “amen” “Praise God” types who can explain in detail why this person, this group, this whatever are not what God wants them to be? Does this explain why certain people want there to be a hell where all those they think are not as good as they, will find themselves?

I rather think it explains them. But they are but the extreme side of the equation. We all, as I said, have to fight down that urge. We all need to accept, really accept God’s gracious love, and not connect our forgiveness with some “sign” of blessing, leaving our lives free of stress and trouble.

We, perhaps, shockingly, would all be better off to have been the whore than the goodie-two-shoes. We might have the capacity to love more, forgive more, and be joyous.

Amen.

Oh, How Much More?

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climate change, environment, God, hatred, Iowa, sin

Things are quite bad here in Iowa. Rains continue at the rate of 4-5 days a week. We have gotten here an additional three inches plus in the last few days. It did not rain yesterday, nor is it supposed to today. Friday, more rain.

In northern and western Iowa and in Des Moines, the situation is more dire. Des Moines has flooding; Ames, home of  ISU is having it much worse, with drinking water now out. The University is flooded badly and they say the worst has not yet come.

Here, the temps hover in the low 90’s and humidity is unbearable. Water is still standing everywhere from our last storm on Tuesday night. I’ve made the pasta salad that will last until this ends, which is supposed to be Saturday. Humidity that is. Rains are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in the long forecast.

We have mail from Iowa Telecom and we are thinking it may be a hookup for high speed Internet. They were recently taken over by something called Windstream or something which has as one of it’s avowed promises “to bring high speed Internet to rural America.”

I expect to drive part way down and walk the rest of the way, picking up that package and the mail. If it is as we hope, we might be high speeding sometime Saturday when the humidity has dropped sufficiently to work around the house a bit.

Flooding is rampant in Poland I hear. Uncontrolled forest fires continue in Russia, more are dead and dying in Pakistan and millions are displaced due to abnormally high flooding.  A piece of ice the size of four Manhattans has broken off Greenland and may threaten shipping lanes and oil rigs. Of course it cannot be steered.

And yet people too despicable to be called humans continue to claim that climate change is a left wing lie, much like general relativity, evolution, and separation of church and state. I attempt, but fail to find Christian charity to pity these utterly oxygen deprived persons whose brains have long atrophied. No appeal to their shriveled souls will work. Their hearts are dried up prunes of self-righteous selfishness.

I don’t appeal to God to change things, for He did not cause them. We did. We all bear the guilt of things left undone, and things done. It is we who have been more interested in planning the trip to Disney world when we should have been standing at the door of our congressional delegations, demanding that they actually legislate on the public’s behalf rather than to dance in the minefield of re-election politics.

I appeal to God change hearts and minds. He is always ready to do that, assuming one’s mind is willing to set aside one’s petty self-serving beliefs and desires.

We are a people filled with hatred at a world gone amok and we are sadly prone to listen to those who tell us it’s not our fault by X’s or Y’s or Z’s. Plug in your favorite ethnic, religious, or class.

I read a meditation today that in essence said: We will never grow more compassionate toward the world and each other until we are willing to admit our own sin.

It’s so deeply true.

All of us who have a place to sleep, adequate food, have been educated, have worked, have attained, have TV’s, IPods, computers, washing machines, and all the other accoutrements of the “good” life, all of us, are guilty. We have done this. We have let this happen. We have fiddled while Rome burned.

And we now reap the whirlwind.

Oh yes, this too shall pass. The humidity will break, the heat will dissipate, the fires will go out, the waters recede. We will shake our heads and talk about the Summer of 2010. We will have our stories.

Our thoughts will turn to fall, and pumpkins and Thanksgiving dinners and what to buy for Christmas.

And we will nod a bit puzzled, just barely remembering, as some new and fresh assault on the planet occurs somewhere, not here. It will be the poor folks of the Balkans or Thailand, or Argentina. Not us, we forget.

We have our own troubles. Mortgages, and job security, and tuitions, and credit card debt. We can’t be faulted for taking care of our own. After all, we elected those congressmen and women to care for all that other stuff. Except they don’t, because they have their own set of personal issues and frankly, being a congress person is just another paycheck.

And so, next year, or the next, it will hit us between the eyes once again, and we will promise to do better. Yeah.  And we will look for people to blame. And we will listen to the demigods, the demagogues, the puerile pundits who too are only making a living telling us what we want to hear.

And nothing will change.

Unless, You actually listen, open, confess, and act. Will you? Will I? You tell me.

Good for the Soul?

Tags

Anglican, confession, religion, sacrament of reconciliation, sin

Sin is not a big topic these days from the pulpit. In most pulpits anyway. People think such sermons are a downer, and church hierarchy theorizes that it keeps people home. Who wants to ruin a perfectly good Sunday being told you’re lower than a polecat in a chicken coop?

Sin is a big topic in some pulpits when it has to do with preaching about what others are doing wrong. Plenty of time is spent nodding as the preacher intones how this or that group is doomed to hellfire for practicing this or that thing. That packs them in, and makes most people feel good by comparison.

We had a sermon on sin today. And it wasn’t a sermon that made me feel bad, rather I found it enlightening, and a good reminder. Sin: Self Ish Ness. Sums it up pretty darn good doesn’t it? That’s what our rector said. And I think she is very right here. So what to do? How about Soul in Need? Yep, that works too. Or self image needy? Uhuh.

None of these were my thoughts. But they all are worthwhile in describing what is gone amok when we sin. We are not trusting God, not listening, not acting. We are stubbornly thinking of ourselves.

What to do? Confession is, as they say, good for the soul. We, in the Episcopal Church, generally do a community confession each week. I do one daily with the Office. The Episcopal Church has a rite of reconciliation, and provides for private confession. If one asks that is.

The Roman Catholic church is big on confession. Strike that. They used to be. By the time I joined in 1994, they had pretty much stopped regular confession. The priest was ostensibly there on Saturday afternoon, before Mass to hear them. He probably would have been shocked has anyone made the request.

Most parishes had a communal confession sometime during Advent and during Lent. You walked up to the priest (usually a few extra priests volunteered to help out) and you gave one sin, and then you all got a communal penance.

So in reality, TEC does more with confession than most Roman Catholic parishes, at least all the ones that I ever attended. One Our Father, three Hail Marys.

I don’t know what Lutherans and Methodists and Presbyterians do. I am pretty sure Baptists don’t do much in that vein. I don’t know about Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.

Many don’t consider it a sacrament. Many are especially against the concept that you confess to anyone other than God herself. I can pretty much understand that. I don’t think it’s required. But I’m still not sure it’s not useful.

My rector says she makes a private confession twice yearly. She thinks it is valuable. The more I think about it, I think I agree.

What stops most of us I suspect is that we develop relationships with our priests and pastors. We don’t want to tell them of some of the things we think and do. We’re ashamed. We’re not worried they will “tell” but we are concerned that they will think less of us. And most of us want our religious leaders to think well of us.

Yet, our clergy are trained to receive our confessions, at least those that use the sacrament. They have as they say, “heard it all before” and are all too aware of the foibles of the human being. After all, they know only too well their own sins, so I suspect they judge us a good deal less than we might think.

It is hard still to speak openly about our failures. It is painful.

But, I think it should be hard and it should be painful. As I sit at the kitchen table each morning and recite:

Most merciful God, I confess, that I have sinned against you,

In thought word and deed, by what I have done and by what

I have left undone.

I have not loved you with my whole heart, I have not loved

my neighbor as myself.

I am truly sorry and I humbly repent.

For the sake of your son Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, and forgive me,

that I may delight in your will and walk in your ways,

to the glory of your name, Amen.

I confess, that sometimes I recite without thinking much. And that’s no confession at all.

Our rector says we are going to pause before recitation from now on, to give us all time to think of our sins. I think that helps. But I agree with her, that forcing yourself to sit and speak to another person is of greater help.

It has little to do with the absolution given. It has everything to do with being forced to confront our own culpability head on. I recall the very few times I made private confession. I felt ever so much more at peace with God. I felt reconciled. I felt forgiven. This is not to say that it is required to be done this way to be effective–that would be silly.

What it means is that the process is not for God–he knows without our saying a word whether we are truly contrite. The process is for us. And the process of private confession lifts a burden from us in a way that simply doesn’t happen in our private admissions of guilt.

I wish my church would return to a practice of private confession as normative. Being a Christian is serious business, and we don’t seem to take it as such all too often. This seems a good way to start.