Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/religion-spirituality/christianity-religion-spirituality/page/17/)
If you go seeking the seat at the low place; if you follow the example that was set; if you cease scraping to save your life and let go, suddenly an infinite horizon for freedom and action opens. Your energy, intelligence, imagination, and love will never exhaust the possibilities for refreshment as you find the right way to kneel for the other in perfecting humility.
I urge us to consider, in the face of the banal predictability of the national election campaigning, to discern whether voting is an expression of civic duty or is a form of collaboration with a corporate scam. Our future and the future of our planet are at stake.
The best facts are often the least known. Here is an example: Most are unaware that the late and renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens had a great-grandfather who defended religion! Revd Edward Athanasius Hitchens (1839-1906) was curate of St. Guinefort the Holy Martyr, an Anglican parish in Gloucester, England. He was also an active participant in debates on religion as publisher and editor of the Anglo-Catholic newspaper The Invincible Aspergilium.
Listening to this latest example of a prominent American evangelical Christian leader declaring a natural disaster a punishment from on high for America’s sins, I reflect on how selectively political red lines are applied post-9/11. As I wrote elsewhere a while back in connection with the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, I don’t find this genre of dime-store theodicy credible – indeed, I have to admit that atheists often have a point when they complain about how religionists seem to only detect God’s hand in events that happen to conveniently reinforce their own worldview; is God not equally in charge when the “wicked” prosper on the other side of the globe, or even right next door? – but on the other hand I don’t find such sermonizing, simplistic though it may be, inherently threatening, provided it doesn’t cross the line into demonizing those with whose moral choices one disagrees with. For people who subscribe to traditional religious values, believe that God has expressed his preferences for our lives in no uncertain terms, and prefer their homilies to be tame and intellectually bite-sized, viewing history through such a black & white prism is near self-evident and perhaps even inevitable. I don’t think respectfully admitting to harboring such beliefs is–or should be viewed as – a political matter (not that this is all that Robertson has done historically).
As a Jew in the pew for the last two decades, I think I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of what being “Christian” means. Most of that experience has been gained in the midst of a particular group of Christians who believe that their actions, the way they live their lives, speak much louder than any words. But it is also a church where the pastors follow the lectionary most Sundays, meaning that those gathered are hearing exactly the same scripture readings from the Bible that most other Christians are hearing on those same Sundays. Frankly, from my two decades of listening to those passages, the message is pretty clear to this possibly distant relative of a nice Jewish boy from Nazareth. To be a Christian means that you are called to follow “the way” that Jesus lived.
“Go from your land, and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” (Genesis 12.1-2)
That Jesus was not a “Christian” startles many, although it is simply a fact. However, it is equally true that Abraham was neither an “Israelite” nor a “Jew.” The Genesis narrative returns to a time before such categories to tell the story of a person responding to the Voice that calls him to leave all traces of “empire” behind.
Christianity was about the last place I expected to end up. I grew up knowing nothing at all about Jesus or the New Testament. All I “knew” were rumors and suggestions. Discovering Jesus was an exciting surprise. And, of course, he was Jewish, from the day of his birth until the day of his death.
Sometimes in the midst of the mundane or the profane of the day, I find myself musing about the meaning of it all. My friend Rev. Jim Burklo just sent along his latest musing, and while it doesn’t answer all the questions about life, the universe, and everything, it did bring a smile to my face and some peace to my morning. May it do some of the same for you too. Read on! Musings by Jim Burklo
1/17/12
www.tcpc.blogs.com/musings for current and previous articles
(This “musing” appears inThe Interfaith Observer online magazine this month.)
How I Make Meaning of Life
My wife and I drive out of the city.
Blindness and sleep are figures for ignorance and denial in all the people. A group who cannot face their crisis is sleeping; most of its members are blind. The word of the LORD is rare—not because the Eternal ever ceases from communicating, but because so few are awake and able to discern the word.
When John comes down to the Jordan river saying God is on the move, the kingdom of heaven is near — hundreds of years have passed since any prophet offered a word worth keeping about God’s power to save. So far as the Hebrew Bible tells it, after the Jews headed home from exile in Babylon, God pretty much retired from the mighty works business, a.k.a. politics.