I was truly blessed yesterday when I had the opportunity to attend a writing workshop sponsored by the Craddock Center in Cherry Log, Georgia. You are saying, “Whur’s Cherry Log?” Well, Cherry Log is between Elijay and Blue Ridge off Highway 575 in the foothills of the beautiful North Georgia Mountains. God often hides in strange little out-of-the-way places. Continue reading
Mark’s account of Jesus’ rebuke of Peter is probably a shorthand account of what really may have taken place. Here is an attempt to recount what really happened.
Jesus. You folks know how all this is going to end up. If I keep challenging the dirty-rotten system of Roman imperialism and priestly collaboration, I will be tried and crucified. They will not think a second thought about taking me out. My message of the Kin-dom of God is so counter to their climbing, consumption, and competition culture that they cannot sit idly by while the crowds flock to me. Continue reading
Sermon on the Mount
Beginning with Bultmann, scripture scholars have discovered that the Bible, like other sacred literature is myth. When we hear the word myth we get out the fact checker or truth meter, especially during election season. We are inclined to define myth as something that is untrue. We should be defining myth as symbolic stories that lead us to deeper truth. In this sense, the Bible is myth. As we read the words, we look for deeper meaning, deeper significance for living authentic lives. Continue reading
God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.” This scripture for the First Sunday of Lent jumped off the page and into my heart when I read it. I knew God fashioned a new rainbow covenant with Noah; I never grasped the fact that God established a covenant with every living creature.
Rising oil prices impact our bloated-do-what-we-want-when-we-want life styles. Care for the environment is a major political sticking point epitomized by the battle cry, “Drill, baby, drill.” Drill now. Drill everywhere. What lies hidden beneath the earth is ours and we have a right to get it whatever the peril to the planet and to every living creature. If wolves have to be killed and if natural gas and water have to be deleted to get at the Tar Sands dirty oil, so be it. If we want more red-meat beef which is not really that good for us, we can clear cut rain forests and create more pastures for grazing. The litany could go on.
The Bible itself says that God gave humans dominion over the earth and all creatures. Patriarchal Society misunderstood this granting of dominion as the right to dominate and exploit. And we have done a good job of destroying our nest in rain forests, and seas, and wildlife. Fortunately, dominion does not mean domination. The New Living Translation, Life Application Study Bible, has this annotation for Genesis 1:28, “Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all animals that scurry along the ground:”
To “reign over” something is to have absolute authority and control over it. God has the ultimate rule over the earth, and he exercises his authority with loving care. When God delegated some of his authority to the human race, he expected us to take responsibility for the environment and the other creatures that share our planet. We must not be careless and wasteful as we fulfill this charge. God was careful how he made the earth. We must not be careless about how we take care of it.”
Commenting on Genesis 2:15, Richard Rittenbaugh says:
Certainly, God did not give man the authority to degrade and destroy His earth. Environmentalists are correct in saying that mankind should consider and address environmental concerns. They are quite wrong, however, to blame God for the earth’s ecological problems; He is not responsible for man’s destruction of the natural world.
To think that God gave man carte blanche to plunder and destroy the earth is simply ludicrous. He is its Creator! Why would He immediately command Adam to ruin it? Would any woodworker, upon just finishing a beautifully stained piece of furniture, tell his son to break it up for firewood? No! Just as God desires for His creation, the woodworker would put his handiwork to use and also care for it by keeping it waxed and dusted to prolong its life.
This is exactly what God told Adam. Genesis 2 contains a parallel account of creation, adding detail to certain parts of the narrative of the first chapter. Notice God’s expanded instruction: “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend [dress, KJV] and keep it” (verse 15). This greatly modifies the force of “have dominion” and “subdue it” from Genesis 1:26, 28!
Tend (Hebrew ‘abad) means “to work or serve,” and thus referring to the ground or a garden, it can be defined as “to till or cultivate.” It possesses the nuance seen in the KJV’s choice in its translation: “dress,” implying adornment, embellishment, and improvement.
Keep (Hebrew shamar) means “to exercise great care over.” In the context of Genesis 2:15, it expresses God’s wish that mankind, in the person of Adam, “take care of,” “guard,” or “watch over” the garden. A caretaker maintains and protects his charge so that he can return it to its owner in as good or better condition than when he received it. (http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/2164/Subdue-Earth.htm)
The covenant with Noah should make us realize that we are one with all flesh and, indeed, with all of creation. Creation as it unfolds is gift—gift from the Creator who continues to flare forth. Noah’s covenant requires that we repent and turn things around. Our planet and its creatures and ecosystems are fragile. We are called to care for creation, not to dominate and destroy.
GreenFaith is an organization committed to “inspiring, educating and mobilizing people of diverse religious backgrounds for environmental leadership.”
Green Faith believes that:
For a detailed description of these core beliefs, see http://greenfaith.org/site-help/greenfaith-believes.
Lent is a time to repent, turn our lifestyles around and believe the good news about the gift of creation.
Isaiah (58:9b-14) makes God’s message quite clear. Oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech bring darkness and gloom. In a more positive vein, bestowing bread on the hungry and satisfying the afflicted bring the light of God. Gloom shall become like the brightness of midday.
On May 13, 1961, Merton wrote in his journal:
The great work of sunrise again today.
The aweful solemnity of it. The sacredness. Unbearable without prayer and worship. I mean unbearable if you really put everything aside and see what is happening! Many, no doubt, are vaguely aware that it is dawn, but they are protected from the solemnity of it by the neutralizing worship of their own society, their own world, in which the sun no longer rises and sets. Continue reading
Is 58:1-9 talks about fasting and prepares the way for Jesus. Fasting is much more than an external practice. It is a practice of the heart. In Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton discusses things which get in the way of contemplative prayer—alcohol, television, and unchastity. His point is that we need to purify our hearts. We need to remove from our lives the obstacles to union with God. We need to move from the false self into the true self which reflects the image of God within our hearts. Few Christians seem to be aware of St. Paul’s condemnation of greed. Certainly, in these troubling financial times, Merton would have added greed to the list. All too often we fall into consumerism and amass goods and creature comforts at the expense of others. Yes, we save at Wal-Mart and text on our IPhones but who pays the real price? People who work for substandard wages in sweatshops in far away countries pay the price. Nature pays the price when retailers sell too many fish from endangered species. We pay the price when we eat arm-bred shrimp and salmon that are produced in contaminated waters. Continue reading
“Shimon his son said: All my days have I grown up among the wise and I have not found anything better for a man than silence. Studying Torah is not the most important thing rather fulfilling it. Whoever multiplies words causes sin.” (Avot, 1:17 http://www.shechem.org/torah/avot.html) This is a passage from the Ethics of the Fathers, a mishnaic commentary–”Pirkei Avot (Hebrew: ???? ?????), which translates to English as Chapters of the Fathers is a compilation of the ethical teachings and maxims of the Rabbis of the Mishnaic period. Because of its contents, it is also called Ethics of the Fathers” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirkei_Avot). Continue reading
In the beginning of his letter to the scattered Christians, James urges them to pray for wisdom. Paul Knitter, in his book, Without the Buddha I Could not Be Christian, talks about pranja and karuna –wisdom and compassion. Continue reading
Panorama from Lake Chatuge Dam
This is from a Chapter in Paul Tillich’s New Being that has been posted online. Tillich writes after returning from Germany where he witnessed much brokenness:
But we read that in this nation almost 40 per cent of all those young men who are rejected by the Armed Services are unacceptable because of mental disturbances and maladjustments. And we hear that of all illnesses mental illness is by far the most widespread in this country. What does this mean? It is a symptom of serious danger for our health. There may be something in the structure of our institutions which produces illness in more and more people. It may, for instance, be that the unlimited, ruthless competition which deprives everybody of a feeling of security, makes many in our healthy nation sick; not only those who are unsuccessful in competition, but also those who are most successful. And so something surprising occurs: We have fought victoriously against many forms of bodily sickness. We have discovered drugs with an almost miraculous power. The average length of our lives has been stretched beyond any former expectation. But many in our nation cannot stand this health. They want sickness as a refuge into which they can escape from the harshness of an insecure life. And since the medical care has made it more difficult to escape into bodily illness, they choose mental illness. But does not everybody dislike sickness, the pain, the discomfort and the danger connected with it? Of course, we dislike our sickness with some parts of our souls; but we like it with some other parts, mostly unconsciously, sometimes even consciously. But nobody can be healed especially of mental disorders and diseases who does not want it with his whole heart. And this is why they have become almost an epidemic in this country. People are fleeing into a situation where others must take care of them, where they exercise power through weakness or where they create an imaginary world in which it is nice to live as long as real life does not touch them. Don’t underestimate this temptation. The basic insecurity of human existence and the driving anxiety connected with it are felt everywhere and by everyone. It is human heritage and it is increased immensely by our present world, even in this country full of vigor and health. (http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=18)
Tillich wrote these words druing the Cold War in 1955. I dare say the forces in our country that foster mental illness as an escape from reality are even greater today. I need just cite the partisan political discord that is shredding our society before our very eyes. Continue reading
In the Gospels, Jesus often has hard words for those who want to follow him. He attacked the debt and purity codes which held the crowd in bondage. Now he is attacking the very heart of the Middle Eastern social order—the extended family as the unit of socialization.
Jesus’ family—his mother and brothers and sister—were worried about his safety. I believe they were real flesh and blood brother and sisters. When I read stories about the miraculous birth of the Buddha, I am reminded that miraculous birth stories are concocted to elevate the status of the messenger of God. That aside, it is not uncommon for people to see demons in people who are challenging their practices and values. Jesus just had that discussion with the Judean (not Jewish) leaders and cleverly turned the tables on them. The encounter reminded me in some way of the attacks in the Republican debates—the labels of lobbyist and corporate raider undercut the credibility of the candidate. In Mark the charge of being possessed by a demon is intended to discredit Jesus; however, the leaders would fail to undercut Jesus’ credibility and would have to crucify him. This is what his mother and brothers are worried about. He is shaking up the establishment and will ultimately pay the price. Continue reading