[Dialogue] 4/23/20, Progressing Spirit: Lauren VanHam: Befriending an Intruder; Spong revisited

Thu Apr 23 07:50:41 PDT 2020

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Befriending an Intruder
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|  Essay by Rev. Lauren VanHam
April 23, 2020
 When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into [our] lives, don’t
resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!  Realize that they
come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance.  But
let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find
you have become [humans] of mature character with the right sort of independence. 
New Testament, Book of James 1:2-4 
Rumi, the beloved 12th century Sufi poet wrote, “Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”  And in a letter to the early Christians, James the Apostle wrote, “When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into [your] lives, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!”  Since early March, a poem[i] by Kristin Flyntz has been circulating widely wherein she imagines what the Covid-19 virus might be saying.  More than once it says, “Just stop. Be still. Listen. Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well. We will help you, if you listen.”

In any number of ways, we are being encouraged to treat Covid-19 as a holy prophet.  In exponential fashion, this microbe has arrived to remind us of everything that is broken: our capitalist economic system, our healthcare system, our social-caste system.  In exponential fashion, this microbe is pointing to all of the places we try to create separation between ourselves and Creation, between the powerful and the disempowered, and between ourselves and the Divinity that lives in each one of us. Very uncomfortably, this holy prophet is showing us that we are intimately connected.  This intruder traveled from one of our animal relatives into our airways, and transmits its life-threatening-self through direct contact and – in record time – it has spread itself around the globe.  We can no longer deny that we are one breath!  Furthermore, we are so inextricably connected that we are under orders to isolate!

This startling moment of awe and recognition has also brought fear and panic.  On the frontlines, this intruder holds hundreds of thousands in its grip, some fighting for their lives, and others tragically surrendering.  In the marketplace, this intruder has halted everything that is not essential; it calls into question everything we have perceived to be normal activity or business as usual.  And for a great many of us, sheltering in this sea of uncertainty, this intruder presents itself as a continued onslaught of information, a density of numbers, maps and metrics coming at us, 24/7.  In our hope for control and greater understanding, we attempt to take it all in, to assimilate it in some way that will offer instruction and clarity.

But this is not the whole picture of this moment.  We are being invited to something much bigger still. This moment is not only about reacting to the intruder, it is about how we respond to the intruder, as prophet and friend.  In his provocative and helpful article, “Covid-19: A War Broke Out in Heaven,” professor, philosopher and theologian, Zachary Stein says it this way:
 “This is it: we have arrived at the end of the world. Finally.
Now we can start to build a new one. This is our chance to
reshape ourselves as spiritual, scientific, and ethical beings.[ii]”
 Instead of the blind hope that one leader can fix this, or the delusion that our country or economy will recover by throwing money at it, we are being asked to re-imagine ourselves and our civilization!  And so, here we are in a giant moment of reset and it’s happening in our lifetime!  What does the new world look like – you know, the one in which God created us, to love and to tend and to care for?  And how now, in our physical distancing, might we move through the fear to a place of ingenuity and action?  I want to offer three ideas:

First, honor the Sabbath.  This in an unprecedented time on Earth – a planet-wide “time out.”  The Sabbath is about connecting with God through family, walks, prayer, rest and other life-affirming activities so that when we return to life’s other demands, we feel renewed and ready to engage. So, let’s agree to protect ourselves and one another from the seduction of alarmist media.  In the ways we can, let’s retreat from the world that was.  Yes, we are working from home, or finishing a semester.  We are on-hold with un-employment offices and home-schooling children.  Let us also be thoughtful and dedicated about the ways we want to return to life’s demands in a more integrated way – spiritually, scientifically and ethically.

Second, love one another.  Every Faith Tradition teaches this.  Let’s focus our lives and lifestyles on the nurturing of relationships: We help small farmers when we eat organic and buy locally.  We fund community resiliency when we move our finances away from mega banks and into community banks and micro-lending efforts.  We direct the future economy when we divest from fossil fuels.  And if you don’t need the stimulus check that is coming your way, give it to the person or cause who does.  These acts of care and compassion are transformative, both for the recipients and for us.

Third, hold space for what is changing: our feelings, our thoughts, the people around us, all that is crumbling, and all that is trying out new ways of being.  In no way can we befriend this intruder without feeling our fear, our anger, our grief.  We must feel it.  All of all it.  And after that, there is the outpouring of anger and grief that comes from everyone else.  Breathe….  Let’s ask ourselves again and again, who will I become because of this loss, grief and upheaval?  Another breath…  Let’s encourage and invite the changing, so we don’t get blinded by the deception of putting things back the way they were.  There is no safety there for us!  It was already broken and running on borrowed time.

In his letter, James instructs his fellow followers to undertake the quality of “endurance,” to become, “mature.”  In the Eastern traditions, this maturity is called, “enlightenment.” Enlightenment is not an end point but rather an alive and dynamic state where wisdom and compassion conspire, each informing the other, and acting together.  Exercising enlightenment is not always obvious or straightforward. 

For example, when the voice of Covid-19 (Flyntz poem above) says, “Ask us about what might be required so that all may be well.”  It does not say so that “some” may be well.  It says “all.”  The voice of the virus reminds us that it has been trying to get us to stop for some time –with floods, with fires, and we can add with hurricanes, and oil spills, and refugee camps and detention centers.  “All” doesn’t mean the country where we live, or the hemisphere we’re in.  “All” doesn’t mean humans living everywhere.  “All” means All – the insects, the rainforests, the cheetahs, the Chihuahuas, the oceans, the people we love, along with the ones we don’t and the ones we will never even know.

Bringing both wisdom and compassion to the multiplicity of demands is very challenging.  It requires practice, and the support of community.  Our individual actions matter enormously, and when performed along with others, their potency multiplies!  Together, we become an even more powerful – bear with me – a more powerful virus; a force that takes in the reality of all that is unraveling, and responds with enlightened action – together, we can bring wisdom and compassion as we apologize to all the ones we have “other-ed,” and offer reparations widely. Together, we can bring wisdom and compassion to Earth as we re-tool ourselves for a life that is tenable for humans to continue for generations to come. 

An intruder is in our midst. 

If we only react, we will be inviting further retaliation.  If we respond, we will taste enlightenment. We will demonstrate our willingness to learn from our mistakes; we will honor the indigenous and ancient wisdom within us and around us; we will act compassionately and firmly, so that each of us becomes that which is required so that ALL may be well.  

This is what befriending an intruder looks like.  It is not without fear, grief and confusion.  But in our response, we will grow and learn, we will listen and create, and ultimately, we may celebrate with relief that we found the courage to bring the medicine so that ALL are well.~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham

Read online here

About the Author
Rev. Lauren Van Ham, MA was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest, Lauren holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University and The Chaplaincy Institute.  Following her ordination in 1999, Lauren served as an interfaith chaplain in both healthcare (adolescent psychiatry and palliative care), and corporate settings (organizational development and employee wellness). Lauren’s passion for spirituality, art and Earth's teachings have supported her specialization in eco-ministry, grief & loss, and sacred activism.  Her essay, "Way of the Eco-Chaplain," appears in the collection, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women; and her work with Green Sangha is featured in Renewal, a documentary celebrating the efforts of religious environmental activists from diverse faith traditions across America. Her ideas can be heard on Vennly, an app that shares perspectives from spiritual and community leaders across different backgrounds and traditions. Currently, Lauren tends her private spiritual direction and eco-chaplaincy consulting practice; and serves as Climate Action Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative (URI), and as guest faculty for several schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.[i] The full poem may be found here: “Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans,” by Kristin Flyntz[ii] The full Zachary Stein article, “Covid-19: A War Broke Out in Heaven,” may be found at whatisemerging.com  |

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Question & Answer

Q: By Dr. Wally

Why have Christians abandoned the sabbath established by God?

A: By Toni Ann Reynolds
 Dear Dr. Wally,I fear I have more questions in response to your question. Mostly because when I think about the biblical rules “established by God” it seems that very few people currently abide by them in the way they were initially prescribed. I do not think this is a bad thing. Good faith, practical faith, adapts and metabolizes as it needs to. I wonder what your idea of keeping the Sabbath looks like? I also wonder what kind of growth you had to endure in order to learn that keeping the Sabbath means what it means to you. What gentle, and graceful help can you be to others as they volunteer their struggle of keeping the Sabbath?

I’m tempted to go into a short diatribe about a potential reason being the dysfunctional culture of congregational life. The same culture that means pastors have no time for a spiritual practice of their own because of the excessive, and often absurd, expressions from congregations. I’m wondering if some of the reasons the Sabbath keeping practices look different now has to do with our culture. We can click buttons and have just about anything done for us, delivered to our door, cleaned up, etc. Are we expecting faith leaders to do our spiritual work for us, the way that hired people in our Monday-Saturday lives do other difficult work for us?

I do not agree with you completely- that Christians have abandoned the Sabbath. I don’t know all Christians, and I don’t know how all Christians actually do/don’t observe the Sabbath, nor how they have adapted their readings of scripture to make sense in a world where boxes talk to us and we can see our living rooms from the other side of the world. The prescription given to the people who wrote the bible, again and again before it reached the NIV or NRSV, was not this world you and I now occupy.

This is a moment where my former Christian self would envy Judaism and Islam for the way they value successive interpretations of scripture for each generation of followers. Despite their controversies, these collective attempts to make sense of scripture in an ever-changing world are models of metabolizing faith practices as the world around us evolves. Since Christians don’t have this aspect, I like to think that it’s an invitation to healthy freedom. Freedom to decide what element(s) of your weekly life hinder, or simply strain your relationship with God. Whatever the answer is, that’s the thing that should be put on rest. If not for a full day, then after 5pm; or before noon each day. Ultimately, rules aside, it is up to each of us to govern ourselves in a way that keeps us moving in the Light of Love. Regardless of what all other Christians are doing, perhaps it is most advantageous to become lovingly disciplined about your personal respect for a day that is of utmost importance to you. That way your presence can speak and people can learn from you as they witness the power of your practice.~ Toni Anne Reynolds

Read and share online here

About the Author
Minister Toni Anne Reynolds is committed to singing flesh onto the bones of the Christian tradition by incorporating recently found texts of the ancient world into liturgy, sermons, and poetry. Toni’s Christianity forms a holy trinity with the psychological medicine of Tibetan Buddhism and the eternal Life found in Yoruba traditions. Balanced in an eclectic faith and focused in theology, Toni’s ministry offers a unique perspective on life, theology, and spirituality.  |

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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

Masada, the Jewish-Roman War of 66-73,
and the Writing of the Gospels

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
June 4, 2009The most impressive memory I have from my last trip to Israel is not of a religious site at all but of a military site, one that played an enormous role in Israel’s history. I refer to our visit to the desert fortress of Masada where, according to Josephus Flavius, a first-century Jewish historian, the war against Rome that began in the hills of Galilee in 66 came to an end in 73.

Masada, an almost impenetrable fortress located near the Dead Sea, had once been a winter palace for Herod. Rising sphinxlike out of the desert, it was destined to be etched into Israel’s proud military history, not as the place of a great victory, but as the site of one of its most tragic, if noble, defeats. It is also not far from Nag Hammadi, where so many of the scrolls were discovered that were destined to revolutionize biblical studies in the 20th century.

Most people are not familiar with the Roman-Jewish War, though I suspect it shaped the writing of the gospels as dramatically as anything that happened in the life of Jesus. In Jesus’ day, “freedom fighters,” which was what the Jews called them, or “terrorists,” as the Romans referred to them, were active in the hills of Galilee. One aggressive and uncompromising group was called the “Sicarii,” which means “political assassins.” From this word many scholars believed the name of “Iscariot” was derived. Generally, these guerillas were designated “the Zealots,” a name that was attached to Simon, one of the Twelve, in Luke’s Gospel. Whether these titles reflected a reading back into the Jesus story of memories from the Jewish-Roman War or whether this long-simmering Jewish hostility toward the Romans simply boiled just beneath the surface at the time of Jesus before finally erupting into open warfare about two generations later, is still subject to debate, but clearly there is some connection.

The fact remains that in the year 66 CE, some thirty-six years after the crucifixion, and probably as much as five years before the first of the gospels was to be written, an open and full-scale war on Rome was begun by the Jewish Zealots in Galilee. Deciding that they had absorbed all of the Roman oppression that they could endure, these patriots took to arms. It was a hopeless quest for glory, because the might of Rome was unmatched and it was surely not going to be toppled by these roving bands of armed Jewish guerillas hiding out in the mountains of Galilee.

Despite the odds, however, the Jews enjoyed great success with their hit-and-run attacks. They would swoop down on an outnumbered band of Roman soldiers, destroy them, take their weapons and armor and disappear, as if by magic, back into those hills. These successful attacks happened so frequently that they finally got the attention of Rome, arousing considerable anger. The Jews had always been a difficult conquered province for Rome to govern, so that no love was lost between them, but now they were becoming so costly in terms of both military lives lost and equipment stolen that Rome could tolerate them no longer. So Rome decided to act. First, they strengthened their presence in Galilee, requiring that their military personnel travel in larger units and in battle-ready stances. When that failed to diminish their losses, Rome decided that this war would no longer be fought on the turf chosen by the Jews.

Reasoning that no enemy is destroyed by attacking its extremities, Rome decided to strike at the Jewish jugular. First under a general named Vespasian, and later under his son Titus, a Roman army was moved into siege positions around Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish nation. In the year 70 CE, the city of Jerusalem fell and the Romans legions, filled with a loathing for these troublesome people, decided to show the Jews how costly defiance of Rome could be. That city was laid waste and the Temple was leveled. The Jews were treated with great hostility, justified, Rome felt, by their willingness to enter this war with Rome. The Temple authorities, primarily the strict constructionist Sadducees, were publicly persecuted. The Jewish nation was stricken from the maps of human history. Except for a brief revival in the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-135, it would not reappear on those maps until 1948. Jerusalem was repopulated with non-Jews. A temple to Jupiter was built where the Temple of Solomon had once been. For all practical purposes, Rome believed that they had ended the existence of the Jewish people in history.

A few of the defeated defenders, however, managed to escape, and with some new recruits picked up on their retreat into the desert, they marched to join the Jewish defenders in the fortress at Masada. There in that remote place this war would continue.

Rome pursued, but not vigorously, until their opponents were isolated in Masada, where cisterns caught and held enough rainwater to sustain life and where great amounts of grain and food were stored to help the defenders maintain themselves during a siege. There could be no retreat from Masada. This place was designed as the ultimate last stop.

Rome seemed content at first simply to bottle up their enemies and wait, so the Masada siege held out for three years. Finally, with supplies of both food and water all but exhausted, with weapons in short supply — a spear or a rock once thrown could never be recovered — the moment of defeat was at hand.

Ultimately, the Roman legions constructed a ramp with a tower that would lie against the side of that fortress mountain enabling them to attack the defenders from the same height and finally to leap over the walls. The Jewish commander, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, urged a suicide pact on the remaining defenders, still numbering in the hundreds, as a better alternative to crucifixion or slavery at the hands of the Romans. The pact was agreed to and so, by lot, ten of the men among the defenders were chosen to be the executioners. With their swords they struck the bared throats of the defenders until all were dead. Then again by lot, one of the defenders was chosen to execute the remaining nine then to fall on his sword in an act of suicide. It was in this manner that the Jewish-Roman War ended, and only a strange quiet greeted the Romans when they finally entered the mountain fortress.

We rose in Be’er Sheva at 4:00 a.m. on the Wednesday after Easter to make the trip to Masada, in order to climb by foot into this mountain stronghold to view the rising of the sun over the Dead Sea and to examine the various rooms within this fortress where that ancient drama had been lived out. Above all, we sought to relive that dramatic moment in world history.

Christians need to know that the first gospel, Mark, was probably written between the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of Masada. Its apocalyptic end of the world chapter 13 describes the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the persecution that enveloped the Jews, including those Jews who were followers of Jesus. It was written as if this devastating destruction was a prelude to Jesus’ second coming and the expected dawning of the Kingdom of God. That is why Mark portrays Jesus as the messiah at whose second coming the world would come to an end. That is also why Mark wraps miracles around the memory of Jesus because the Jews believed that when the Kingdom of God arrived in human history, it would be accompanied by acts of healing. The prophet Isaiah had written that the messiah would be recognized by the fact that at his coming the blind would see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the mute sing. That is also why in the ninth chapter of Mark a story is told in which Jesus is made translucent by the light of God that previously was said to fall only on the Temple. It further suggests that Israel’s two greatest heroes, Moses and Elijah, not only share that light, but also find their fulfillment in him. It is clear in this “transfiguration” narrative that Jesus was being presented as the “New Temple,” the new meeting place between God and human life, an idea that would have been unthinkable if the Temple had not already been destroyed by the Romans. That is also why the activities of both Moses and Elijah are wrapped around Jesus throughout the gospels. Mark, Matthew and Luke all included accounts of Jesus taken directly from the Elijah-Elisha cycle of stories. Matthew in particular would develop these Markan themes to portray Jesus as the new Moses. That is why Matthew has Herod, like the Pharaoh of old, try to destroy the male messiah at birth. Then he parallels Jesus’ baptism with the Red Sea, Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness with Moses’ 40 years in the wilderness, and the trials of Moses are retold as the temptations of Jesus. Then Matthew puts Jesus on a new mountain to deliver a new interpretation of the Torah, which we today call “The Sermon on the Mount.” Luke, on the other hand, portrays Jesus as the “New Elijah,” retelling Elijah stories about Jesus as if he had actually replicated Elijah’s life. This culminates in Luke’s account of both the ascension of Jesus and the Pentecost story, both of which are little more than Elijah stories adapted to Jesus.

This context may also explain why Mark, the first gospel to be written, introduces the traitor as a man named Judas. My study has convinced me that Judas Iscariot is a Christian creation, not a figure of history. The idea that Jesus had been betrayed by one of his own was unknown before Mark. After the fall of Jerusalem, Jewish Christians, seeking to separate themselves from the Temple Jews, who were being blamed for starting that war, decided to show that they had a common Jewish enemy, just like the Romans, so they made the anti-hero of the Jesus story a man who bore the name of the Jewish nation. Judas is nothing but the Greek spelling of Judah. Increasingly, while both Mark and Matthew were making the Jews the villains of the Jesus story, they were also portraying Pontius Pilate, the Roman official, as sympathetic to Jesus. The fall of Jerusalem in 70 and Masada in 73 became the context in which the gospel tradition was formed. If you ever get to Israel, spend some time at Masada and then read the gospels through the context of those days in which the gospels were written instead of pretending that they describe the time of Jesus. It will be a new lens, a powerful and accurate lens, and the gospel stories will never be the same. I recommend a visit to Masada if one wants to be a serious New Testament scholar.~  John Shelby Spong  |

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