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November 2020

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Re: [Dialogue] 10/29/2020, Progressing Spirit, Matthew Fox:The Astounding Accomplishments of Julian Norwich; Spong revisited
by RICHARD HOWIE 08 Nov '20

08 Nov '20

I was also. On-going thanks Ellie. Love to all, Ellen Sent from my iPad > On Nov 8, 2020, at 8:32 AM, Ken Fisher via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > Hi Ellie, > > Today seems to be a good one for catching up on email. What a wonderful day it is! > > As ever, thank-you for forwarding Progressive Spirit. > > From time to time I loop back into the words and experience of Julian of Norwich. Growing up Anglican gave me my first minute window into her witness. It grows through the years. > > This time, I was deeply struck by Mathew Fox when, 10 days ago in Progressive Spirit he writes: > > On Oct 29, 2020, at 11:40 AM, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > On non-dualism > Julian also deconstructs Patriarchy by insisting on non-dualism. Rosemary Reuther and many other feminist theologians identify dualism as lying at the heart of patriarchal consciousness. Says Julian: > > There exists a ‘true oneing between the divine and the human.” > “In our creation we were knit and oned to God.” It is a “precious oneing.” > A “beautiful oneing was made by God between the body and the soul.” > “God has forged a glorious union between the soul and the body.” > “God willed that we have a twofold nature: sensual and spiritual.” > “God is the means whereby our Substance and our Sensuality are kept together so as never to be apart.” > “God is in our sensuality.” > > This experience is not at all mundane nor metaphysical. > > Grateful as ever, > > Ken > > > >> On Oct 29, 2020, at 11:40 AM, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: >> >> View this email in your browser >> >> >> The Astounding Accomplishments of Julian Norwich >> Essay by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox >> October 29 2020 >> Most people, if they know anything about Julian of Norwich, know two things. First, that she said “all things will be well, every manner of thing will be well,” a testimony to hope or what Mirabai Starr calls “radical optimism” that arises near the end of her book Showings and ought not to be understood as “spiritual bypass” or denial of suffering. Second, people have heard that she talks about the “motherhood of God” quite often. >> >> It has been my privilege to know Julian for at least forty years as I was instrumental in publishing her in our series of “Meditations with” books that Bear & Co. published in the 1980’s to get the mystics into everyday peoples’ hands in a straight-forward manner. Her book, Meditations with Julian of Norwich, authored by Brendan Doyle who translated her work very wisely and carefully from the original fourteenth century English (she was, after all, the first woman writer in English), was only our second book in the Meditations with series. And I wrote a Foreword to it. I frequently taught her over the years. >> >> What I did not know then and learned this year while writing my new book on Julian, working from both Doyle’s translation and that of Mirabai Starr who translated the entire Showings, is not only what a powerful and creation-centered mystic Julian is, but also what a prophet she was. This helps to explain why her book was not published for 300 years after her death—partly explained by her being a woman—but also by how thoroughly she resisted the zeitgeist of her time and of what transpired in centuries following her death. >> >> I am referring to the utter pre-occupation with redemption that dominated the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and that completely imbued the religious invasions and destruction of indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas, the Pacific islands. All of it charged up by three notorious papal bulls of the fifteenth century that collectively we know as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” >> >> In a nutshell, Julian thoroughly represents a creation spirituality. That lineage thoroughly grounded her during the midst of the worst pandemic in European history. The Black Death first struck in England when she was seven years old and then returned in waves throughout her long lifetime. She remained sane and focused even though she surely lost friends and family members all around her as she continued her life work of writing and rewriting her book over a fifty-year period. While she is very much a pilgrim in the lineage of wisdom literature (which formed the roots of the historical Jesus’ spiritual tradition), St. Benedict, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Mechtild of Magdeburg and Meister Eckhart, she is the only one among this rich heritage that practiced and preached creation spirituality during an on-going pandemic. >> >> People around her were freaking out—after all, estimates are that between 35% and 50% of Europeans died from this plague and, lacking science, all sorts of causes for the pandemic were put forth, one of them being that it was a punishment for the sins of humanity. Other excuses included scapegoating Jews and outsiders but Julian shows not a hint of anti-Semitism in her work. The punishment-for-sin trope inspired a number of men to take up flagellation, going from village to village (three villages per day was their goal) and beat themselves publicly for their sins. Is there a connection between this sense of guilt and certain politicians today going from town to town gathering hundreds and thousands of people for rallies to gather without masks and risk illness and death in the process? >> >> When one considers the context of belief that nature is wrecking its revenge on humankind for its sins, it is all the more remarkable to read Julian’s profound teachings on the goodness of nature and the godliness of nature. One must read her teachings within the matrix of fear and suspicion of nature that was all around her to realize her amazing courage and independent thought and theology. >> >> The rupture between nature and humanity was so traumatic in her time that geologian Thomas Berry says it was the Black Death that effectively ended creation spirituality in Western religion. I propose that this rupture between trusting nature and fearing and blaming nature set the stage for 1) the doctrine of discovery and the invasion and destruction of indigenous religions that was to come in the next two centuries (Columbus set sail in 1492, as we all know) and 2) the prominence of redemption over creation in Protestant and then Catholic theology and 3) the rupture of science and religion that I trace back in a special way to the year 1600 when Giordano Bruno, an ex-Dominican, was tortured (his tongue was cut out among other things) and burned at the stake by Cardinal Bellarmine and the Inquisition for trying to bring Copernicus into the faith (as his brother Aquinas had tried to do with Aristotle in the thirteenth century). Soon after came the Galileo attacks. >> >> How might history have been changed—the history of slavery and the stealing of Africans to work plantations in the Americas; the history of indigenous genocides in the Americas and the Pacific islands; the dominance of patriarchal ideology and control fetishes and misogyny; the divorce between science and religion; even the eco-destruction and extinction spasm we are currently undergoing because nature is no longer considered sacred—if Julian’s theology has prevailed? Let us now consider some of Julian’s teachings. >> >> On the sacredness of nature >> “The first good thing is the goodness of nature.” >> “God is the same thing as nature” and God is “the very essence of nature.” >> “The goodness in nature is God.” >> “To behold God in all things is to live in complete joy.” >> One sees here not only a theology of original blessing and “original goodness” (Aquinas’s term) but a veritable metaphysic of goodness. Julian is urging us to stay focused on goodness—even in and especially in dire times. >> >> On Oneing of God and Nature, God and Us >> There is a oneing (Julian invented this word just as she also invented the word enjoy) between God nature, God and us. >> “Nature and Grace are in harmony with each other…Neither works without the other.” >> “God is the Ground, the Substance, the same thing as Naturehood.” >> “God is the true Father and Mother of Nature.” >> Faith is “trusting that we are in God and God whom we do not see is in us.” Here she is identifying faith itself both with trust and with trust in pantheism. >> “The sky and the earth failed at the time of Christ’s dying because he too was part of nature.” A deep cosmic Christ awareness is revealed in this understanding of the crucifixion—it was a cosmic event. >> >> On the Motherhood of God >> “God feels great delight to be our Father and God feels great delight to be our Mother.” >> “A Mother’s service is nearest, readiest and surest.” >> “Compassion belongs to the motherhood in tender grace” and “protects, increases our sensitivity, gives life and heals.” >> “Jesus is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly carried and out of whom we will never come.” >> >> Julian does much more theologically speaking than praise God as mother. She applies that concept not only to God the Creator but also to God the Liberator or Savior (developing Christ as Mother) and also to God the Holy Spirit and to the Trinity as a whole. This is a complete deconstruction of the all-patriarchal God—and she is blunt about the implications. “I saw no wrath or vengeance in God” (q.v.). She displaces a hierarchical Deity and a punitive Father God with a motherly and compassionate Deity. Wrath and vengeance come from humans, not from God. >> >> Julian doesn’t just deconstruct Divinity but reconstructs it in terms of motherly characteristics which she names explicitly as: compassion, justice, caring, inner strength, service that is “nearest, readiest and surest.” Julian is not just speaking of God as Mother. >> >> On non-dualism >> Julian also deconstructs Patriarchy by insisting on non-dualism. Rosemary Reuther and many other feminist theologians identify dualism as lying at the heart of patriarchal consciousness. Says Julian: >> >> There exists a ‘true oneing between the divine and the human.” >> “In our creation we were knit and oned to God.” It is a “precious oneing.” >> A “beautiful oneing was made by God between the body and the soul.” >> “God has forged a glorious union between the soul and the body.” >> “God willed that we have a twofold nature: sensual and spiritual.” >> “God is the means whereby our Substance and our Sensuality are kept together so as never to be apart.” >> “God is in our sensuality.” >> >> This brief introduction to Julian’s genius helps explain why she was essentially ignored for 700 years but also why we are ready for her earthy mysticism and feminism and prophetic teachings today. “It is in our nature to reject evil,” she says. She offers us real medicine to stand up to the evils of Misogyny, Matricide (killing of mother earth) and Patriarchy with the “fatalistic self-hatred” (Adrienne Rich) that accompanies it. Clearly, she is a mystic-prophet for our times. >> >> ~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox >> >> >> Read online here >> >> About the Author >> Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 74 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and started Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox. >> >> Matthew Fox's upcoming book: Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic – and Beyond along with his book: The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times are the basis of his Virtual Retreat and Teach-In 10/30/20 - 10/31/20 - see details below. >> >> >> Dialogue mailing list >> Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net > > Hi Ellie, > > Today seems to be a good one for catching up on email. > > As ever, thank-you for forwarding “Progressive Spirit”. > > From time to time I loop back into the words and experience of Julian of Norwich. Growing up Anglican gave me my first minute window into her witness. It grows through the years. > > This time, I was deeply struck by Mathew Fox when, 10 days ago in Progressive Spirit he writes: > > On Oct 29, 2020, at 11:40 AM, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: > > On non-dualism > Julian also deconstructs Patriarchy by insisting on non-dualism. Rosemary Reuther and many other feminist theologians identify dualism as lying at the heart of patriarchal consciousness. Says Julian: > > There exists a ‘true oneing between the divine and the human.” > “In our creation we were knit and oned to God.” It is a “precious oneing.” > A “beautiful oneing was made by God between the body and the soul.” > “God has forged a glorious union between the soul and the body.” > “God willed that we have a twofold nature: sensual and spiritual.” > “God is the means whereby our Substance and our Sensuality are kept together so as never to be apart.” > “God is in our sensuality.” > > This experience that she describes is completely relatable to me. Not at all metaphysical. > > Grateful as ever, > > Ken > > > _______________________________________________ > Dialogue mailing list > Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net > http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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10/29/2020, Progressing Spirit, Matthew Fox:The Astounding Accomplishments of Julian Norwich; Spong revisited
by Ellie Stock 08 Nov '20

08 Nov '20

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p{ font-size:16px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7037928153 #yiv7037928153templateBody .yiv7037928153mcnTextContent, #yiv7037928153 #yiv7037928153templateBody .yiv7037928153mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;} }@media only screen and (max-width:480px){ #yiv7037928153 #yiv7037928153templateFooter .yiv7037928153mcnTextContent, #yiv7037928153 #yiv7037928153templateFooter .yiv7037928153mcnTextContent p{ font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;} } | | | | View this email in your browser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Astounding Accomplishments of Julian Norwich | | | | | | Essay by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox October 29 2020 Most people, if they know anything about Julian of Norwich, know two things. First, that she said “all things will be well, every manner of thing will be well,” a testimony to hope or what Mirabai Starr calls “radical optimism” that arises near the end of her book Showings and ought not to be understood as “spiritual bypass” or denial of suffering. Second, people have heard that she talks about the “motherhood of God” quite often. It has been my privilege to know Julian for at least forty years as I was instrumental in publishing her in our series of “Meditations with” books that Bear & Co. published in the 1980’s to get the mystics into everyday peoples’ hands in a straight-forward manner. Her book, Meditations with Julian of Norwich, authored by Brendan Doyle who translated her work very wisely and carefully from the original fourteenth century English (she was, after all, the first woman writer in English), was only our second book in the Meditations with series. And I wrote a Foreword to it. I frequently taught her over the years. What I did not know then and learned this year while writing my new book on Julian, working from both Doyle’s translation and that of Mirabai Starr who translated the entire Showings, is not only what a powerful and creation-centered mystic Julian is, but also what a prophet she was. This helps to explain why her book was not published for 300 years after her death—partly explained by her being a woman—but also by how thoroughly she resisted the zeitgeist of her time and of what transpired in centuries following her death. I am referring to the utter pre-occupation with redemption that dominated the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and that completely imbued the religious invasions and destruction of indigenous peoples in Africa, the Americas, the Pacific islands. All of it charged up by three notorious papal bulls of the fifteenth century that collectively we know as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” In a nutshell, Julian thoroughly represents a creation spirituality. That lineage thoroughly grounded her during the midst of the worst pandemic in European history. The Black Death first struck in England when she was seven years old and then returned in waves throughout her long lifetime. She remained sane and focused even though she surely lost friends and family members all around her as she continued her life work of writing and rewriting her book over a fifty-year period. While she is very much a pilgrim in the lineage of wisdom literature (which formed the roots of the historical Jesus’ spiritual tradition), St. Benedict, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Mechtild of Magdeburg and Meister Eckhart, she is the only one among this rich heritage that practiced and preached creation spirituality during an on-going pandemic. People around her were freaking out—after all, estimates are that between 35% and 50% of Europeans died from this plague and, lacking science, all sorts of causes for the pandemic were put forth, one of them being that it was a punishment for the sins of humanity. Other excuses included scapegoating Jews and outsiders but Julian shows not a hint of anti-Semitism in her work. The punishment-for-sin trope inspired a number of men to take up flagellation, going from village to village (three villages per day was their goal) and beat themselves publicly for their sins. Is there a connection between this sense of guilt and certain politicians today going from town to town gathering hundreds and thousands of people for rallies to gather without masks and risk illness and death in the process? When one considers the context of belief that nature is wrecking its revenge on humankind for its sins, it is all the more remarkable to read Julian’s profound teachings on the goodness of nature and the godliness of nature. One must read her teachings within the matrix of fear and suspicion of nature that was all around her to realize her amazing courage and independent thought and theology. The rupture between nature and humanity was so traumatic in her time that geologian Thomas Berry says it was the Black Death that effectively ended creation spirituality in Western religion. I propose that this rupture between trusting nature and fearing and blaming nature set the stage for 1) the doctrine of discovery and the invasion and destruction of indigenous religions that was to come in the next two centuries (Columbus set sail in 1492, as we all know) and 2) the prominence of redemption over creation in Protestant and then Catholic theology and 3) the rupture of science and religion that I trace back in a special way to the year 1600 when Giordano Bruno, an ex-Dominican, was tortured (his tongue was cut out among other things) and burned at the stake by Cardinal Bellarmine and the Inquisition for trying to bring Copernicus into the faith (as his brother Aquinas had tried to do with Aristotle in the thirteenth century). Soon after came the Galileo attacks. How might history have been changed—the history of slavery and the stealing of Africans to work plantations in the Americas; the history of indigenous genocides in the Americas and the Pacific islands; the dominance of patriarchal ideology and control fetishes and misogyny; the divorce between science and religion; even the eco-destruction and extinction spasm we are currently undergoing because nature is no longer considered sacred—if Julian’s theology has prevailed? Let us now consider some of Julian’s teachings. On the sacredness of nature “The first good thing is the goodness of nature.” “God is the same thing as nature” and God is “the very essence of nature.” “The goodness in nature is God.” “To behold God in all things is to live in complete joy.” One sees here not only a theology of original blessing and “original goodness” (Aquinas’s term) but a veritable metaphysic of goodness. Julian is urging us to stay focused on goodness—even in and especially in dire times. On Oneing of God and Nature, God and Us There is a oneing (Julian invented this word just as she also invented the word enjoy) between God nature, God and us. “Nature and Grace are in harmony with each other…Neither works without the other.” “God is the Ground, the Substance, the same thing as Naturehood.” “God is the true Father and Mother of Nature.” Faith is “trusting that we are in God and God whom we do not see is in us.” Here she is identifying faith itself both with trust and with trust in pantheism. “The sky and the earth failed at the time of Christ’s dying because he too was part of nature.” A deep cosmic Christ awareness is revealed in this understanding of the crucifixion—it was a cosmic event. On the Motherhood of God “God feels great delight to be our Father and God feels great delight to be our Mother.” “A Mother’s service is nearest, readiest and surest.” “Compassion belongs to the motherhood in tender grace” and “protects, increases our sensitivity, gives life and heals.” “Jesus is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly carried and out of whom we will never come.” Julian does much more theologically speaking than praise God as mother. She applies that concept not only to God the Creator but also to God the Liberator or Savior (developing Christ as Mother) and also to God the Holy Spirit and to the Trinity as a whole. This is a complete deconstruction of the all-patriarchal God—and she is blunt about the implications. “I saw no wrath or vengeance in God” (q.v.). She displaces a hierarchical Deity and a punitive Father God with a motherly and compassionate Deity. Wrath and vengeance come from humans, not from God. Julian doesn’t just deconstruct Divinity but reconstructs it in terms of motherly characteristics which she names explicitly as: compassion, justice, caring, inner strength, service that is “nearest, readiest and surest.” Julian is not just speaking of God as Mother. On non-dualism Julian also deconstructs Patriarchy by insisting on non-dualism. Rosemary Reuther and many other feminist theologians identify dualism as lying at the heart of patriarchal consciousness. Says Julian: There exists a ‘true oneing between the divine and the human.” “In our creation we were knit and oned to God.” It is a “precious oneing.” A “beautiful oneing was made by God between the body and the soul.” “God has forged a glorious union between the soul and the body.” “God willed that we have a twofold nature: sensual and spiritual.” “God is the means whereby our Substance and our Sensuality are kept together so as never to be apart.” “God is in our sensuality.” This brief introduction to Julian’s genius helps explain why she was essentially ignored for 700 years but also why we are ready for her earthy mysticism and feminism and prophetic teachings today. “It is in our nature to reject evil,” she says. She offers us real medicine to stand up to the evils of Misogyny, Matricide (killing of mother earth) and Patriarchy with the “fatalistic self-hatred” (Adrienne Rich) that accompanies it. Clearly, she is a mystic-prophet for our times. ~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Read online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 74 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and started Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox. Matthew Fox's upcoming book: Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic – and Beyond along with his book: The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times are the basis of his Virtual Retreat and Teach-In 10/30/20 - 10/31/20 - see details below. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader With the restrictions of gathering because of COVID-19 what are your thoughts on other ways to worship? Can you experience the same benefits by attending an online service or in an outdoor service where everyone is spread out safely? A: By Rev. Matthew Syrdal Dear Reader, I believe COVID-19 will prove to bring many ‘disruptive innovations’ to the church and culture in general. As a pastor, it really overturns and clarifies the usual malaise and lack of imagination (my own included) regarding worship, liturgy and preaching. For one thing it creates space and opportunity to push us beyond our walls into the online social space. The ‘message’ can no longer be for insiders only but outsiders to the theological rubric and habits of a closed loop, insular, church culture. Most religious leaders I know have experimented with shorter, punchier, more meaningful music and messages. I wonder if more religious and spiritual leaders are feeling more emboldened in this liminal, pandemic time, to speak truth to power, to confront issues of systemic racism, and ecological devastation, regardless of the consequences, and if technology can assist that courage? Hybrid forms of online and in-person are pushing us to experiment, innovate, and build our tolerance and learning for creative failures. Online groups and practices can still have a powerful effect, but the flatness of the technology makes it more challenging than in-person community, in my opinion. We have worshiped outdoors all summer in a park and community garden space we developed a couple years ago. Worship went immediately from a private experience with people ‘like us’ to a visible and public experience, right in the middle of our neighborhood witnessed by people of all sorts of different backgrounds, beliefs, and socioeconomic factors. Our first Sunday outdoors, early this summer, I got angry calls from neighbors who said we were too loud. A week later we had neighbors walk across the street to thank us and give us pastries. Some neighbors started attending worship with us because of the need for human connection, belonging in the neighborhood, and a desire for justice and to be meaningfully involved during this pandemic. I have a smaller wilder gathering called Church of Lost Walls, which is affiliated with the Wild Church Network that has been working on an alternative vision for spirituality and community for a number of years before the pandemic. Our gathering is designed for greenspaces, open spaces, parks, and wilder places. Opportunities for more immersive experiences in nature can help people reconnect with a life and world deeper than our frenzied, unraveling human culture. Time outdoors, particularly immersed in wildish places, even if it is a well-touristed State Park or greenspace can help cultivate a certain level of psychological healing and spiritual wholeness in these pathological times. ~ Rev. Matthew Syrdal Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Matthew Syrdal, MDiv. lives in the front range of Colorado with his beautiful family. Matt is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian church (USA), founder and lead guide of WilderSoul and Church of Lost Walls and co-founder of Seminary of the Wild. Matt has been coaching, and guiding since becoming a certified Wild Mind nature-based human development guide through the Animas Valley Institute and is currently training to become a soul initiation guide through the SAIP program. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | | | | | | The power to improve the lives of others is to many a sacred privilege and one we take seriously at ProgressiveChristianity.org and Progressing Spirit. For well over two decades we have provided an alternative perspective to what much of Christianity has become. Modern Christianity has become more about judging your neighbor and less about loving your neighbor. That reality makes us an essential resource that points back to, and is inspired by, the actual teachings of Jesus. Our resources enrich the spiritual journeys of countless people, provide theologically sound liturgical materials for progressive churches, and broaden the spiritual outlook of 100s of thousands of people. Help us to continue our work by becoming a supporter - donate today! | | | | | | | | | | | | This Week's Featured Author The Church Is Like A Swimming Pool… T’s & Sweats & Hoodies & Tote Bags Want to support the work of our organization while also wearing some great progressive Christian gear? Check out this quote by Bishop John Shelby Spong: The Church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end. * Another way to support us is to leave a bequest in your Will and/or Trust designating us a beneficiary. | | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origins of the New Testament, Part XIV: What Does Salvation Mean to Paul? Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong February 4, 2010 Paul was a person who discovered in his Christ experience new dimension of life unknown to him before. In that sense he was a classic mystic. Every human experience, however, in order to be shared must pass through the medium of words. There is no other means of communicating content to another. In that process the wordless experience inevitably takes on the dimensions of the human mind with all its limitations. Human beings always reflect the presuppositions of the cultural wisdom of the day. They reflect the level of knowledge that the speaker has achieved. Inevitably they become limited and warped by that transition and are rendered finite and mortal. An experience of God may well be eternal, but no human explanation of that experience will ever be. That is a fact that religious believers in all traditions constantly forget. All sacred scriptures, developed creeds and complex theological doctrines cannot help but compromise truth because nothing about the time-bound words they have to employ can ever be eternal. In a similar way God is by definition beyond the scope of the human mind, which is always captured in time and space. Since a horse cannot escape the limit of its “horseness” to describe what it means to be human, neither can a human being escape the limits of humanity in order to describe who or what God is. Paul wrestles with this reality constantly. Paul talks about his experience of encountering the Christ as that which enabled him to transcend all of his limits and to cross all of those boundaries that separate him from others. In this newfound sense of an expanded humanity he came to a new sense of oneness. Because he was quite sure that this new wholeness resulted from his encounter with the risen Christ, he desperately needed to find the words to explain just how that worked. He was a Greek-speaking Jewish man living in the Mediterranean world of the first century of the Common Era and had no other categories of thought to use except the ones that his world provided. Our task in this column is to search through the time-bound words that he used in order to find a way to separate the eternal experience, which was so obviously real to him, from the pre-suppositions of his time and place in history that he used to explain his Christ experience, most of which have been dismissed by modern knowledge as no longer believable inside our world view. That means that, as students of the New Testament, we must always be engaged in an activity that is not unlike delicate surgery and we will find it a never-ending task. The world does not slow down to give any of us time to adjust. We begin with an analysis of Paul’s view of human life. Paul’s writing reveals a person who is very much aware that something is wrong with humanity in general and with his own humanity in particular. He is quite sure that whatever this distortion is, all human life somehow shares in it. Paul expressed this in his ever-present sense that he was alienated from God, from all others and even from himself. There was indeed a war, he said, that is going on in his members. His Jewish tradition affirmed this sense that human life is somehow separated from God. The Jews, over their long history, had developed an annual fast day, which they observed with great solemnity and which they believed enabled them to acknowledge liturgically what their human reality was. They called this day “Yom Kippur” or “The Day of Atonement.” The observance of “Yom Kippur” involved the slaughter of a carefully chosen sacrificial lamb, the blood from which they then smeared on the mercy seat in that part of the Temple called the Holy of Holies, which they believed was God’s earthly dwelling place. A second Yom Kippur ritual occurred when they symbolically piled their sins on the back of a goat, known as the “scapegoat,” and then drove this sin-bearing creature out into the wilderness, thus leaving them purified and newly at one with God. Similar doctrines of atonement are found in almost every religious tradition the world over because there is a universal human sense of being separate and alone that I believe is born in the emergence of self-consciousness, which only human beings possess. It manifests itself in the idea that none of us is what God intended us to be. The content of that statement varies widely, but the experience is part of what it means to be human. The Jewish version of it was based on the idea that God was the creator of all things and that nothing God made could itself be defined as evil. They had, therefore, to find a way to account for this human definition without blaming God. The ancient creation story in the beginning of the book of Genesis served this purpose well. In that story the goodness of God was upheld by the assertion that God looked out upon all that God had made and pronounced it good. The problem of human alienation and its resultant human evil, therefore, had to be something that human life brought upon itself. In that ancient Jewish story the perfection of God’s creation had been broken by the disobedience of Adam and Eve. As a direct consequence, Adam and Eve, and through them all future human beings, were condemned to live not in “Eden” but “East of Eden,” to borrow a phrase from John Steinbeck. Human beings, this story asserted, were not so distorted that they did not remember their original glory, so they still possessed a yearning to return to the mythical garden where before being expelled they had once lived in the oneness of God. The story asserted, however, that the gates to that garden were forever locked and were now even guarded by an angel with a flaming sword. Human life, the story suggested, could never return to its original status. So in this world of imperfection Cain killed Abel, Jacob cheated Esau out of his birthright, Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egyptian slavery, the Jews escaped starvation by moving to Egypt only to be cruelly treated by their Egyptian overlords and ultimately God was said to have intervened in history to bring these Jews to freedom. That is the way the biblical story unfolded. That story, with that understanding of human life, shaped the liturgical life of the Jewish people. That is what created Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to provide an annual occasion for the Jews to recall the glory of their creation and to face liturgically the fact of their alienation from that original goodness. The perfection of the sacrificial lamb, both physically, in that it could have no blemishes or broken bones, and morally, in that it did not have the power to choose to do evil, represented to them what human life was created to be. So the perfect lamb was offered to God as a substitute for the human life, which was not worthy to be that offering. Human beings, out of their sense of alienation had to come to God only when they had been cleansed by “the blood of the perfect lamb of God.” Paul, shaped by this Yom Kippur understanding, interpreted Jesus under the symbol of Yom Kippur’s the “Lamb of God” who had the power to “take away the sins of the world.” He saw the death of Jesus on the cross to be analogous to the slaughter of the lamb on Yom Kippur. It offered a doorway back to God for all people. This is not only what salvation was all about to Paul, but that is also what Paul believed he experienced in the person of Christ. He accepted this gracious gift, undeserved and freely given, as that which had rescued him from “the bondage of sin.” Thus he climaxed his theological argument in Romans by proclaiming that now “nothing in all creation can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” To offer this compelling gift to the world was what fueled his missionary fervor. We live today, however, on the other side of Charles Darwin, whose thought has destroyed most of Paul’s presuppositions. For Darwin there never was a perfect creation. Life rather evolved over billions of years from a single cell into self-conscious complexity. Without original perfection there could have been no human fall into sin. If there was no human fall, there was no need for a divine rescue. No one can be rescued from a fall that never happened or be restored to a status one has never possessed. So the basis upon which Paul has constructed his concept of salvation has become inoperative. The universal experience that Paul sought to address may well still be real, but his explanation has been destroyed by the march of time. Students of the life sciences have identified the drive to survive as a universal characteristic present in all living things. Survival drives adaptability. It is seen when plants gravitate to the sun, when vines snake across the forest floor in search of the tallest trees to which they then attach themselves, when desert cacti develop a capacity to store water, when fresh water plants develop elaborate systems to filter salt in tidal rivers and when wasps and ants in the jungle develop mutual defense alliances. This drive for survival is instinctual, not conscious in plant or animal life. In self-conscious human life, however, this drive to survive rises to our awareness and is installed as the highest human value, making us the world’s first self-conscious, survival-oriented creatures. Everything in human life is bent to the service of our survival and that in turn inevitably makes human beings self-centered. This is not the result of some prehistoric or mythological fall, this is in the nature of our biology. Out of this survival mentality all of our fears about “others,” our xenophobia and our prejudices arise. It is out of our survival needs that we fight wars, enslave and segregate those who are different, denigrate women, abuse homosexuals. That behavior religion has dubbed “sin,” the result of “the fall.” Can one find salvation by being rescued from this, as Paul seemed to believe? I do not think so. We can, however, find wholeness in the experience of being lifted beyond these boundaries. I am now convinced that this was the heart of what the Jesus experience was. Next week, in our final column on Romans, we will seek to tell the Christ story as Paul experienced it, but against the background of this analysis of what it means to be human. It still rings for me at least with authenticity and integrity. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements There is still time to sign up! Aquinas and Julian of Norwich: Applying Creation Spirituality to Politics, Pandemics and Preserving the Earth 2020 Teach-In and Virtual Retreat with Matthew Fox and Friends Friday Evening Oct 30th - Saturday Oct 31st, 2020 Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers to a Teach-in and Virtual Retreat with Matthew Fox and Friends: Three Lectures, Q and A with Matthew Fox 1. Politics and Spirituality: Thomas Aquinas on the Common Good (Fri eve) 2. Julian of Norwich: Deepening Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic (Sat) 3. Julian and Aquinas on the Future of Mother Earth and the Human Species (Sat) Purchase the book here. Register for the event here. When you register you also receive a recording of the entire event. Read On... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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Global Buzz for November
by ICA International 06 Nov '20

06 Nov '20

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.... And please click the link below for the latest issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: November 2020 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://globalbuzz.icai-archives.org/7dayreport-20/2020-11-01.php Read the latest ICAI Winds & Waves Magazine brought to you now on Medium.com See here: https://medium.com/winds-and-waves ICAI Communications

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11/05/2020, Progressing Spirit, Rev. Mark Sandlin: Eternal Totality: On a More Rational God; Spong Revisited
by Ellie Stock 05 Nov '20

05 Nov '20

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Mark Sandlin November 3, 2020 Religion prefers a definable God. By definition, one of the purposes of religion is to draw us closer to God. The way religion has typically been practiced, this implies some degree of “knowing” God. To know God we must be able to define God. The problem is, in the act of defining God, we are limiting God. What kind of god is a limited god? Is that even a god at all? For me that is one of the downfalls of most religions. They tend to be rooted in our need for a personal god. One that actually is knowable. Ultimately, a knowable god is a slippery slope. If we know God, we can begin to define God. Those who are tasked with defining God can then begin to shape God. In shaping God, we control certain things about God. What kind of god is a controllable god? Is that even a god at all? It seems to me that religion, by its very nature, is predestined to feed us a less than nuanced, less than thorough, less than authentic understanding of God. In short, a god that is less than god-like. Our need to personalize, understand, and (ultimately) control God removes much of the divine from God. I am left to wonder if Jesus told parables to teach us about God because they are more open-ended than just stating “facts” about God and defining God. Could it be that that is the reality that Jesus' Jewish ancestors are trying to teach us with the story they told about finding God in a burning bush. A story in which God itself proclaims the divine name to be, יהוה – YHWH, “I am” or “I will be what I will be.” The scene is rooted in nature and the name of God is open-ended, practically undefinable. I'd even argue that the storyteller(s) made them so intentionally undefinable that it should preclude much of the anthropomorphizing of God that happens throughout the scripture as well as throughout history and religions. Perhaps, that is the God Albert Einstein said he believed in, “Spinoza's God.” Buruch Spinoza was one of the most important philosophers of the early modern period of philosophy. At the age of 24, his religious leaders excommunicated him for “monstrous deeds” and “abominable heresies.” No one is quite certain what these “monstrous deeds” and “abominable heresies” were, but based on his later writings, it doesn't take much imagination to surmise that they had to do with his early philosophical and theological ponderings which ran heavily against the teachings of the religion and the leaders that gave him the boot. Spinoza's God stood over and against much of what traditional Judeo-Christian theology taught. Creation was not something separate from God which God caused to happen out of freewill. Rather, Creation was God in that it was of God and from God and of the substance of God. It formed because it could do no other. Creation flowed out of the nature of God, out of the all-ness of God, the everything-ness of God. The philosophical/theological impact of that understanding is massive. Creation just is. It wasn't created with a specific purpose as traditional Judeo-Christianity taught, rather, its full purpose was being. Extending that a bit further, it should no longer follow that an anthropomorphized understanding of a god who stands in judgement over us is necessary more or less a rational presumption. Would God need to stand in judgement of godself? In terms of modern religion, much of our teachings and time are spent in the space between hope and fear. It is in those very spaces that much of our beliefs/superstitions are born. The tension between hope and fear gives rise to some extremely problematic and hurtful emotions. Those very emotions can become prohibitive to fully experiencing joy and peace and love in this life. I have to say, Spinoza's God seems much more rational and life giving than the version of God that has been grown out the space between hope and fear by organized religion. Unlike the god of many religions, Spinoza's God is not a God of judgement in need of adoration and obedience. Instead, Spinoza's God is the substance from which all is formed, from which all flows. It is to be experienced, not feared. It calls for our curiosity and fascination, not our adoration. In that, Spinoza's God is understood through philosophy and science, rather than through religious institutions and “personal relationships” with God. For some, that god flies in the face of some of the attributes they associate with God. As an example, that understanding of God has no room for miracles. All that flows is from God. The laws of reality (physics) stem from and are of the substance of God. How then could we expect God to bend the laws of reality just for us. Or, worse yet, for us and not for others? That also implies that the way many modern prayers approach God are useless. Flinging out wishes that ask for reality to be altered to the source from whom reality extends is futile at best. For Spinoza, rather than asking for favors from God, our focus should be on understanding what God wants. We do this through science, philosophy, and psychology. A rather creative and beautiful meme written by Michelle Fortes that made its way around social media over the last several months provides what I believe to be an imagined, contemporary quote from Spinoza on what that looks like. For me, it leans a bit heavily toward the writings of Neal Donald Walsh and ironically anthropomorphizes God, but I appreciate the extrapolation of what understanding Spinoza's God could look like and what that God might tell us: “Stop being praying and giving you blows in the chest, what I want you to do is to go out into the world to enjoy your life. I want you to enjoy, you sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve done for you. Stop going to those gloomy, dark and cold temples that you built yourself and that you say to be my home... “Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you you were a sinner. Stop having me so scared. I do not judge you, nor criticize you, nor anger me, nor bother me, nor punishment. I am pure love... “I have made you absolutely free, there are no prizes or punishments, there are no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one carries a record. You are absolutely free to create in your life a heaven or hell... “Respect your peers and don’t do what you don’t want for you. The only thing I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that your alert status is your guide. This life is the only thing there is, here and now and the only thing you need.... “Express your joy! That’s the way to praise me.” It's a beautiful expression of what life can be or even what life should be. The difficulty comes in our humanity. We have two approaches to life that pulls us in very different directions. Spinoza defines them as the “aspect of time” and the “aspect of eternity.” Our immediate, experiential life encourages us towards a time-bound, more person centered view of life. A great deal of religious teachings about God are based on this here-and-now perspective. On the other hand, our intellect and ability to reason draw us toward a fuller understanding of existence and our place in it. Or, as Spinoza poetically puts it, they invite us to take part in “eternal totality.” As it turns out, approaching life through an aspect of eternity rather than an aspect of time, will actually guide us in a way that makes it easier to follow the lessons of great spiritual teachers like Jesus. When we focus our attention too finitely on the here-and-now, the things that bring us the most joy, happiness, and satisfaction tend to be things that impact us the most positively as individuals. They also tend to be based more on emotion than on reason. Conversely, when we focus on the eternal nature of Creation and the divine, the things that bring us the most joy, happiness, and satisfaction tend to be the things that impact the universal good the most positively. They also tend to be based more on reason than on emotion. I'm not arguing for a purely logical theological outlook, but I am suggesting that a more rational theological outlook is much more likely to enable us to follow the lessons of Jesus and other great spiritual teachers. As Spinoza put it in his Theologico Political Treatise, “I have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men, should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith.” This more rational, eternal understanding of theology should not only lead us to more readily put into practice things like equality, love, peace, and joy, but should challenge us to dig deeper in our understanding of God. In the end, for me, Spinoza's God is a god that is much more likely to be the god to which Jesus was trying to point us toward than the God that is professed and praised in far too many religions. ~ Rev. Mark Sandlin Read online here About the Author Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.” Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His work has been published on “The Huffington Post,” “Sojourners,” “Time,” “Church World Services,” and even the “Richard Dawkins Foundation.” He’s been featured on PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” and NPR’s “The Story with Dick Gordon.” Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin. | | | | | | | | Question & Answer Q: By A Reader I embrace today's "new age spirituality" where Mind, Body and Spirit are aligned under a new paradigm of oneness with all - that no longer supports the dogma of traditional religious institutions. My question is whether there is still room for my bible from which I have found so much comfort and wisdom? A: By Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Dear Reader, Of course there is room for the Bible, properly treated and understood, in a more “new age” philosophy—after all there is plenty in the Bible, especially the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible that nurtured the historical Jesus and the mystical meanings of the Cosmic Christ in the New Testament; and that supports the sense of “the all” (a term used by Paul) and the holiness of all things. (Consider my and Bishop Marc Andrus book on The Stations of the Cosmic Christ to see the mysticism behind all the great events recorded in the life of Jesus and the “I am” sayings of the Christ.) In addition, much of the prophetic tradition recorded in the Bible offers a needed balance to “new age” which often suffers from too much basking in the “Light” and not enough acknowledging of darkness and suffering—a “Cosmic Christ” that is all light and no wounds. A weakness of new age is that it can sometimes withdraw from acting for justice - the prophets of Israel, Jesus included, did, stood up to injustice and distorted power of their day. Remember what Gandhi said: “I learned to say No from the West.,” meaning, from Jesus and the prophets of Israel. “No” is what prophets do, they “interfere” as Rabbi Heschel puts it. So the prophetic tradition of the Bible is very important. So too is the Wisdom tradition important at this time in history, because the wisdom tradition is about finding the sacred in nature. It is understood to be the spiritual lineage of the historical Jesus. “Taste and see that God is good,” as the psalmist sings. At this time of climate emergency (climate change has provided the incubator for the coronavirus and many other viruses that will be coming), of racial reckoning and Black Lives Matter, of the demise of Mother Earth and the untold extinction spasms of millions of species, of misogyny and matricide (the killing of Mother Earth), clearly a prophetic lineage is necessary to go along with the mystical (which new age is more at home with). A mature dialectic between the two, the mystical and prophetic, makes for a truly spiritual gifting to the world. The Biblical tradition has something solid to give the East and to New Age. “The prophet is the mystic in action,” said American philosopher William Hocking early in the twentieth century. Much of “new age” appeal has been, as you point out, moving beyond dogmas and stale doctrines from another era and worldview. And its willingness to be open more to the body, to science, and to mysticism than has mainline religion of late. It is also open to wisdom teachings from an interfaith or deep ecumenical perspective. To begin with the experience of awe, wonder and goodness (the via positiva of the mystics) is a necessary counterweight to so much of western religion that begins with anthropocentric sin and redemption, guilt, shame, patriarchal pessimism and “fatalistic self-hatred,” to use Adrienne Rich’s strong words. Addressing the via negativa, including the dark night of our souls and the dark night of our species and the suffering of so many beings on earth today, is very important. Hopefully, the new age movement can mature and face the shadow and address it. The Biblical tradition, with its insistence on standing up to injustice and developing warrior energy along with mysticism, can assist in that process. ~ Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox Read and share online here About the Author Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox holds a doctorate in spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and has authored 35 books on spirituality and contemporary culture that have been translated into 74 languages. Fox has devoted 45 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship (called The Cosmic Mass). His work is inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and has awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. He has helped to rediscover Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas. Among his books are A Way To God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey; Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times; Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times; Stations of the Cosmic Christ; Order of the Sacred Earth; The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times; and Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic – And Beyond. To encourage a passionate response to the news of climate change advancing so rapidly, Fox started Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox - See Welcome from Matthew Fox. | | | | | | | | Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community - join us on Facebook! | | | | | | This week's donation request | | | | | | | | Authors who have broadened our understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Think back to the moments when your ideas of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus began to expand. Who helped to broaden your horizons? Diana Butler Bass? Marcus Borg? Phyllis Tickle? John Dominic Crossan? Yvette Flunder? John Shelby Spong? How have you nourished your search for truth since those first moments? We hope that the resources that ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit provides have helped you continue to expand your definitions of what Christianity is and should become. The truth is that in order to continue the momentum of the Progressive Christian Movement, we need your help and support. Unfortunately, fundamentalist Christians often have the loudest voices and it is more important than ever before to have an organization like ProgressiveChristianity.org/Progressing Spirit that proclaims an authentic, intellectually honest faith. Over the next year, we would like to expand our resource offerings and continue to help you hear from established and emerging Progressive Christian thinkers, but we need your help to be able to do so. If you believe in the work that we’re doing, we invite you to consider becoming a supporting member. Your gifts really do make a difference. | | | | | | | | Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited The Origins of the New Testament, Part XV: Who Is Christ for Paul? The Gospel in Romans Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong February 11, 2010 It was Paul’s experience-based conviction that somehow and in some way everything that he meant by the word “God” had been met and was present in the life of the one he called Christ Jesus. “God was in Christ” was the way he referred to it rather ecstatically in one of his earlier epistles. Of course, as a citizen of the first century, Paul believed that God was a supernatural, external being who had by some means been met in human history in the person of Jesus. Part of what this Christ experience meant to Paul was that “in Christ” all human boundaries disappeared. As Paul wrote to the Galatians several years earlier, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free.” That was for Paul “a new creation” that had overcome the deep-seated human sense of being separated, alone, broken and in need of restoration or healing. In Paul’s mind only God could do this act of healing or be the healer to bring about this sense of a new wholeness. Because he believed that he found this healing in Jesus he was driven to the obvious conclusion that through some means or by some process God must be uniquely present in this Christ. This was in a nutshell Paul’s thinking process. How did the holy God become present in Jesus so that this gift of salvation in Jesus could be offered? That was not so clear in Paul. He gives no evidence that he had ever heard of the late-developing (9th decade) tradition introduced by Matthew that Jesus was miraculously born of a virgin, who had conceived by the Holy Spirit. Of Jesus’ origins Paul says only that “he was born of a woman,” like every human being is born, and that he “was born under the law” like every other Jew. The word Paul used in this reference had absolutely no connotation of “virgin” in it. Paul also appears to have no knowledge that Jesus was a miracle worker. He never mentions a miracle attributed to Jesus in the entire Pauline corpus. Miracles appear to be an 8th decade addition to the developing Jesus story introduced primarily by Mark, then copied by Matthew before being developed in more detail in both Luke and John. For Paul, Jesus was not a deity masquerading as a human being or a divine visitor to Earth; he was rather a human life in whom God had been experienced as present. As I mentioned earlier in this series, Paul seems to say in the first four verses of Romans that God actually incorporated Jesus into God at the time of the resurrection. Whenever Paul talks about the resurrection, he describes it as an act of God, not an act of Jesus. God raised Jesus from the dead for Paul; Jesus never rises from the dead by his own power. Paul did speak in Philippians, in a passage that I will get to soon, about God somehow emptying the divine presence into Jesus of Nazareth, but the words there do not mean preexistence as they are so often interpreted to suggest. There was, however, a God presence that was in Christ of which Paul was certain, and in that God presence he rested his claim for the salvation that he was certain Jesus came to bring. Can we translate Paul’s experience of being made whole in Christ Jesus into an explanation that is appropriate to our time, when to speak about God as dwelling above the sky violates everything we have learned since the days of Galileo in the 17th century? Can we speak of God as intervening in life and history in a supernatural way without violating everything we have learned about how the universe operates since the days of Isaac Newton? Can we still speak of the original perfection of human life and its subsequent fall into sin without violating everything we have learned about human origins from the time of Charles Darwin? That is our task in this column. We begin by turning the religious question around. What was there about Jesus that caused the people who had experienced his presence to explain it in supernatural terms? What was there about him that caused people to assert that human life alone could never have produced what it was they met in Jesus? That was what virgin birth traditions were designed to do. What was there about Jesus' life that caused them to attribute miracles to him; nature miracles, healing miracles, raising of the dead miracles? In the climax of the Jesus story, what was there about Jesus' life that caused them to believe that death itself, what Paul called the last enemy, was overcome byhim? Paul was certain that wholeness was the gift of Christ, that in this Jesus the world that had long been separated from God was now reconciled, that in Jesus God and human life had come together and that humanity and divinity had entered one another. The eternal and the temporal had in the life of Jesus touched each other. In seeking to understand how the disciples of Jesus tried to communicate this truth, we have to look at the way the Jesus experience was described in the later gospel tradition. First, tribal boundaries were transcended. The call of Christ was to a new humanity in which tribal identity mattered not at all. We see this all over Mark's Gospel, as he has Jesus heal the daughter of a Syrophoenician Gentile woman and then raise back to life the daughter of a Gentile named Jairus. It is Mark who has Jesus feed a Jewish crowd of 5000 people with five loaves on the Jewish side of the lake and then feed a Gentile crowd of 4000 with seven loaves on the Gentile side of the lake. It is Mark who puts a Gentile soldier underneath the cross to watch Jesus draw his final breath and then to pronounce that truly God was present in this life. "Surely this man was the Son of God", he is quoted as saying. This soldier was not engaged in a 4th Century Christological debate, as he is so often interpreted to be doing. He was rather describing the new God-filled humanity found in the human ability to give life away, to escape the survival-oriented reality of humanity. It was Matthew who has Jesus' final words be the divine commission to carry the meaning of Jesus, the life-giving love of God, beyond the boundaries of our tribal security by going into all the world - to those who are different, unbaptized, uncircumcised, unclean, but still not beyond the love of God, as this Jesus revealed. It was Luke who suggested that the story of Jesus was not complete until it had rolled from Galilee, where it began; to Samaria, the home of those who were the objects of the deepest Jewish prejudice in the 1st Century; to Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish world; and finally to Rome, which was then the center of the world itself. The Jesus experience that would ultimately dominate the gospels would set aside human prejudice against Samaritans, against lepers, against women, because human wholeness can never be found in the denigration of another. The Jesus of the gospels would transcend the boundaries of religion in the name of humanity, best symbolized in the words attributed to him that all religious rules are finally in the service of expanded humanity. Even the Sabbath day laws must always be set aside if they ever diminish human life. These were the things that seemed to flow from the life of this Jesus, bearing witness to the fact that his humanity was full, complete and free. He did not need the sweet narcotic of human praise in order to be whole. He did not have to build himself up by tearing down another or even lording it over another. He embraced everyone just as they were, from the rich young ruler to the woman caught in the act of adultery. He loved them into being all that they could be. This quality of the life of Jesus is more profoundly recorded in the story of his crucifixion than anywhere else. Jesus was betrayed and he loved his betrayer. Jesus was denied and he loved his denier. Jesus was forsaken and he loved his forsakers. Jesus was judged worthy of being condemned, mocked, persecuted and murdered and he loved those who condemned, mocked, persecuted and killed him. That is not the picture of a broken human life, but of a whole life, a complete life, one free to give life away because that one possesses life so fully. The quintessential essence of his life comes in the portrait of his dying. Jesus is not pictured as grasping at life or seeking to extend it another minute; rather as his life is draining away, he is still portrayed as giving life and love to others. As he dies, he is pictured as speaking a word of forgiveness to the soldiers, a word of hope to the penitent and words of consolation to a grieving mother. That is a life power in him that death cannot overcome. Those who do not know how to live cling to life with a desperation born out of fear, but those who possess life are free to lay it down because death no longer has dominion over them. That is what people saw in Jesus. These were also the things about Jesus of Nazareth that grasped at the heart of the fragile, self-denigrating Paul, the Paul who felt fragmented, who experienced a war between the law that governed his body and the law that governed his mind, the Paul who cried out in anguish, "O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" In and through Jesus, as Jesus had been presented to him, Paul experienced the healing presence of the love of God, a love that accepted him as he was and called him into being all that he could be. That was the meaning of salvation for Paul and since only God could bring that salvation, so Jesus must be of God. Paul opened himself to that experience and lived into it. That is why he claimed that he lived in the glorious liberty of the children of God. That is why he could write that nothing could separate him from the love of God. It was out of Paul's sense of having found wholeness, reconciliation and atonement in Jesus that he wanted to bear the Jesus message to the world. All human life, he believed, quite accurately, must find a way to be lifted beyond its survival mentality into the ability to live for another, to give life away to another. Paul found that power in Jesus. The Christian Church lives today but for one reason: To make people aware of the love of God that accepts us as we are and then calls us to life fully and to be all that each of us can be. Then we give that gift away to all. That is what it means to say God was in Christ. ~ John Shelby Spong | | | | | | | | Announcements Cultivate a Resilient Heart in Times of Suffering Seven hundred years ago, a woman named Julian of Norwich lived through circumstances closely resembling what we’re experiencing today: a raging, never-ending war, tumultuous social unrest, and, on top of it all, a plague. You can register here for "November 5th Event: Cultivate a Resilient Heart in Times of Suffering: Finding Hope, Courage & Joy in the Truth-Telling Teachings of Julian of Norwich". | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

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