At Most a Lighthouse Can Beam an Instant

A friend caught my surprise when the congregation

applauded my ordination at Christ Covenant MCC, October 2, 2005.

I miss a custom I created for myself when living in Southern California. New Year’s Eve parties left me wanting some more meaningful way of observing the passing of an old year and the welcome of a new year. I did not want to “pray in” the new year as we did in my Baptist church with us kids keeping one eye open to see the sanctuary clock silently clap its hands together on the number 12. 

But the ticking of a clock or the descent of a ball in Times Square felt artificial, so I began watching the sun set as I walked along the beach in Santa Monica every New Year’s Eve. I would spend the time revisiting the events of the past year and imagining what the new year might bring, thanking God for the good and the bad as well as the possibilities. It was something I could do alone, well before the parties. And it felt more natural. 

This bit of shoreline is the sanctuary where, in college, I ruminated on my sexuality, spirituality, and call to ministry. This is where I thought I’d like to be reincarnated as a seagull so I could stay near the shore and see my friends on the beach occasionally! This is where I stumbled onto a gay meeting place long before I knew about gay bars. This is where, on a day off from my church work, I would do a long run and work out on the outdoor gymnastic bars. 

This is a walk I’ve shared with many friends, including some of you, and others you might know, such as John Boswell, Isabel Rogers, and Malcolm Boyd. This is the walk that Henri Nouwen declined, insisting instead that we sit down on my sofa and “have a really good talk”! 

This is where I walked weekly on Thursday evenings with a partner to share whatever was on our minds and hearts. This is where we walked one Easter after worship, ending up at Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy’s hangout, the S. S. Friendship, bumping into an old friend there whose partner we learned had died the previous week, who gave me the Easter message I needed to hear, “He died in my arms. I felt him leave his body. That’s why I’m sure I’ll see him again.” 

This is where I took my mom and her dog for her last walk along the shore a few weeks before she died, where she mischievously chose an ice cream cone over lunch. And this is where at least some of my ashes will be scattered. 

Though I live far from that shore now, I go there often. 

There is no lighthouse there, but in college I composed this poem using the metaphor, which feels all the more apt in later life: 

            To Be the Sea 

The sea beside, I stand alone,

By seasons, wait and search

To be discovered and to discover

In boundless quest.

The sea has all at any time—

No search nor wait.

 

At most a lighthouse

Can beam an instant

Before bowing to the sea.

 

This post originally appeared as “New Year” on January 1, 2014.

Please visit my website: https://chrisglaser.com  

My final post on my blog “Progressive Christian Reflections” will occur next Wednesday, June 30, 2021. More than ten years of posts will remain available to you on the blogsite, https://chrisglaser.blogspot.com and I encourage you to enjoy them. I regret that I never created an index of post titles, but the search engine in the upper left corner of my blog can help you find posts of interest by typing in a subject, topic, name, scripture reference, religious season or holy day. Or you may work through them by year and month listed in the right column. 

Though they may have been written with current events in mind, I intended them each to be read meaningfully at any point in time. You may continue to contact me at my email address used by the delivery service or by leaving a comment on a particular post. FeedBurner has announced it will discontinue all subscription services sometime in July, the occasion for my timing. It has been a pleasure writing this blog, but now, I believe, is a time for silence, something I considered when writing the Zen series. 

I assure you I am well, content, and thankful to God for this extension of my ministry. Thank you for your interest, comments, correspondence, and contributions. I am grateful to Metropolitan Community Churches for recognizing this blog as an “Emerging Ministry” and ProgressiveChristianity.org for reposting many of my reflections, as well as the dozens of Facebook pages that allowed me to provide links to particular posts. I am grateful for the free services of Blogspot, Google, Facebook, and the delivery service, FeedBurner. I am grateful for artist and friend Becki Jayne Harrelson and my husband Wade Jones for their technical and moral support. 

To date, the blog has had 512,000 visits, a count that does not include almost 500 free weekly subscribers. Once donations were possible, the highest annual income ever was $2,000. Subscriptions have always been free and the blog non-monetized (no ads). Permission has always been granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Donations may still be made through the links provided at the end of this post. Thank you! 

Copyright © 2014 Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Tax-deductible donations may be made safely to the “Chris Glaser Archive” through the Tribute Gift section of The Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion. 

Personal gifts may be made safely by clicking here.  Thank you!

How Did Jesus Let Go of His Cross?

"Christ Ascending from the Cross"

by sculptor Huberto Maestas.

I would have been angry. And exhausted. And resentful, bitter, unforgiving. And not just of those who tortured me verbally and physically, spitting in my face, nailing me to that cross, but all those who looked away, pretending it wasn’t happening or worse, that it wasn’t important, and fearful of a similar fate if they defended me. 

Those fair-weather multitudes I fed with spiritual truths and a little boy’s lunch: where were they? Those I healed with prayer and touch? Those I made glad with the egalitarian promises and parables of the kingdom of God among us? 

And my disciples, cowering in hiding! Betrayed, denied, abandoned by those dearest to me, who professed to “love” me. Worse yet, they never seemed to really “get” me, never seemed to understand what I was about, never fully bought into my passion for the world and my compassion for all the little ones in this world. 

No wonder I felt God-forsaken. 

If it weren’t for the women who followed me and that closeted disciple Nicodemus, I would still be up on that cross, to be devoured by the birds of the air and the beasts of the field as my muscles stretched to the breaking point in the heat of the sun, my lungs gasping for air. 

Now, thank God, I can rest in peace. The tomb is cool and dark, the strips of cloth hugging my wounds, the cold stone holding me, my mind and heart at rest, at rest in God. Will anything come of my sacrifice? The way I lived my life for others? The insights the Spirit spoke through my words and my ways? God only knows. 

I’m glad to be away from all the noise and chaos outside. I never want to go back there again. Though, there were moments of tranquility and comfort—going up on a mountain to pray alone with God, Mary anointing my feet with a fragrant oil, the beloved disciple cuddling on my lap during our last meal. I feel sorrow for them, but I can no longer help them. I can’t get out of here; this is it. 

But then to my surprise, God calls me into action again. I rise to the occasion. Each one who witnesses this resurrection is of two minds*, belief and doubt, from the first to the last. Belief will give them hope; doubt will cause despair. But this is how I let go of my cross: I choose to believe.

 

* Matthew’s description of witnesses to the resurrection that some believed while others doubted is better translated that each witness was of two minds. The word used literally means “standing in two places.” That is comforting. 

Thanks to Rev. Ashley Calhoun for today’s photo by Richard Tohline of “Christ Ascending from the Cross” by sculptor Huberto Maestas located at St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in Castlerock, Colorado.

FYI-I considered retiring from my blog on its tenth anniversary in February but didn’t want to “abandon” readers during the pandemic! My brother suggested I run “the best of” posts, and I decided to run past posts that still speak to current issues. This will also give me the opportunity to write a new post occasionally. Thanks for your continued support! Today’s post is from April 8, 2015. 

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Tax-deductible donations may be made safely to the “Chris Glaser Archive” through the Tribute Gift section of The Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion. 

Personal gifts may be made safely by clicking here.  Thank you!

SIGNS OF LIFE!

In the midst of the pandemic, I have been grateful to see these signs of life in our neighborhood:

Baby frog on our deck

Our neighbors across the street thank first responders.

The Atlanta BeltLine advises social distancing.

Neighbors Jonathan and Gabriela created a labyrinth on the BeltLine.

Church via Zoom

Luna our neighbor with Jenelle our pastor.

Lizard on our front porch pillows.

BeltLine art.

To Life, a toast for Passover!  To Resurrection, a toast for Easter! 

Be safe, be well, look for the signs of life in your neighborhood!

with gratitude for each of you, Chris and Wade

I was invited to contribute a meditation for Maundy Thursday to Ashes to Rainbows: A Queer Lenten Devotional that includes meditations for Ash Wednesday, the Sundays of Lent, and the days of Holy Week. Go to: https://justiceunbound.org/queerlent/

Coming Out as Resurrection

I realized how appropriate this earlier post is for National and International Coming Out Day October 11. Wade and I celebrate our birthdays and our anniversaries this week, both of first meeting in 2000 and of our wedding in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court recognized same-gender marriage. Atlanta, where we live, observes Pride this weekend, inviting us all to take pride in who we are, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, national origin, abilities, religion, and more!

Approaching Easter, I found myself in a kind of Holy Saturday malaise—you know, that dreary interim when Jesus is in the tomb, and all is lost. I read again the narratives around the empty tomb, the resurrection stories, one Gospel each day. I wanted to encounter the risen Christ. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

Then it occurred to me that I was looking for a literal resurrection, like Thomas demanding to see the prints of the nails in Jesus’ hands and feel the wound in his side. In truth, the stories that most appeal to me are the mystical ones, like the Emmaus disciples experiencing Jesus in the kerygma of “opening scriptures” and the sacrament of breaking bread.

The literal miracle I was overlooking was what came out of that empty tomb: a new faith and spiritual community that would attract much of humanity and change the world; a fresh understanding of God and, to take it personally, a fresh understanding of myself. “God brought us to life with Christ,” in the words of Ephesians 2:5 (NJB). I recognized the resurrection of Jesus in countless others, thanks to his passion and compassion.

Coming out of the closet helped me better grasp resurrection. I know how differently life and God and the world are experienced when free of confinement, restriction, and hiddenness. Everything is new and seen/felt/heard/smelled/tasted as if for the first time. It’s wonderful and terrifying, uplifting and burdensome. It calls for an entirely different way of being, acting, speaking, and loving.

It entails both freedom and responsibility. Its heights and depths make one soar and sink at the same time. It helps one focus and broaden all at once. Suddenly, when first coming out, I was in the “rapids” of my life excursion, exhilarating and frightening, both limiting and opening possibilities, tearing me away from safer shores and hurling me toward the unknown. “Thar be dragons there,” I feared.

In my 1998 book Coming Out as Sacrament, I used “coming out” as a hermeneutic for biblical interpretation. One reviewer groused about my introducing yet another hermeneutic, or lens, through which to view scripture, but I believe “the more the merrier,” the greater the opportunity for diverse populations to understand and apply the spiritual wisdom of the Bible to their own lives and the lives of their communities.

I boldly asserted that the Bible was God’s coming out story.  After all, in Christian tradition, self-revelation is how we know God. From the burning bush to Jesus of Nazareth to the Holy Spirit, all awareness and knowledge of God comes at divine initiative. I suggested God came out of the closet of heaven to dwell with us and even dwell within us.

The empty tomb may be understood as a kind of empty closet. “Do not hold on to me!” Jesus told the weeping Mary in another one of those mystical resurrection stories. “Do not hold onto me!” each of us says to peers and colleagues as Jesus calls us from confining beliefs, practices, prejudices, perspectives, and expectations.

Jesus goes before us into Galilee, or any region or culture or community or vocation or workplace or movement in which we live and move and have our being, if only we have eyes to see and hearts to feel. With his dearly beloved Lazarus, he challenges us, “Come out!”

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by reader donations. To support this blog: https://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!

Copyright © 2019 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

The Empty Closet

Jerusalem passageway, 1981 -crg

Approaching Easter, I found myself in a kind of Holy Saturday malaise—you know, that dreary interim when Jesus is in the tomb, and all is lost. I read again the narratives around the empty tomb, the resurrection stories, one Gospel each day. I wanted to encounter the risen Christ. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

Then it occurred to me that I was looking for a literal resurrection, like Thomas demanding to see the prints of the nails in Jesus' hands and feel the wound in his side. In truth, the stories that most appeal to me are the mystical ones, like the Emmaus disciples experiencing Jesus in the kerygma of “opening scriptures” and the sacrament of breaking bread.

The literal miracle I was overlooking was what came out of that empty tomb: a new faith and spiritual community that would attract much of humanity and change the world; a fresh understanding of God and, to take it personally, a fresh understanding of myself. “God brought us to life with Christ,” in the words of Ephesians 2:5 (NJB). I recognized the resurrection of Jesus in countless others, thanks to his passion and compassion.

Coming out of the closet helped me better grasp resurrection. I know how differently life and God and the world are experienced when free of confinement, restriction, and hiddenness. Everything is new and seen/felt/heard/smelled/tasted as if for the first time. It’s wonderful and terrifying, uplifting and burdensome. It calls for an entirely different way of being, acting, speaking, and loving.

It entails both freedom and responsibility. Its heights and depths make one soar and sink at the same time. It helps one focus and broaden all at once. Suddenly, when first coming out, I was in the “rapids” of my life excursion, exhilarating and frightening, both limiting and opening possibilities, tearing me away from safer shores and hurling me toward the unknown. “Thar be dragons thar,” I feared.

In my 1998 book Coming Out as Sacrament, I used “coming out” as a hermeneutic for biblical interpretation. One reviewer groused about my introducing yet another hermeneutic, or lens, through which to view scripture, but I believe “the more the merrier,” the greater the opportunity for diverse populations to understand and apply the spiritual wisdom of the Bible to their own lives and the lives of their communities.

I boldly asserted that the Bible was God’s coming out story.  After all, in Christian tradition, self-revelation is how we know God. From the burning bush to Jesus of Nazareth to the Holy Spirit, all awareness and knowledge of God comes at divine initiative. I suggested God came out of the closet of heaven to dwell with us and even dwell within us.

The empty tomb may be viewed as a kind of empty closet. “Do not hold on to me!” Jesus told the weeping Mary in another one of those mystical resurrection stories. “Do not hold onto me!” each of us says to peers and colleagues as Jesus calls us from confining beliefs, practices, prejudices, perspectives, and expectations.

Jesus goes before us into Galilee, or any region or culture or community or vocation or workplace or movement in which we live and move and have our being, if only we have eyes to see and hearts to feel. With his dearly beloved Lazarus, he challenges us, “Come out!”

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by reader donations. To support this blog: https://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!

Copyright © 2019 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

A Prayer for Holy Week

Michael Christman illustration for Coming Out to God.

You washed our feet, Jesus.

At first we objected,

but you made it clear that to be part of you

we need first to receive your gifts

and serve others the same way.

You gave us bread and wine, Jesus.

We took it for granted,

not realizing what it meant to you,

how it meant flesh and blood,

unity with you and with one another

and salvation for the world.

You said we would betray and deny you, Jesus.

“Not me!” we each cried,

but we all did

in our own way,

leaving you to face your destiny alone.

You asked us to pray with you, Jesus.

We fell asleep

and missed sharing your anguish,

not being compassionate to the Compassionate;

then they took you from us.

You continue to love us, Jesus.

We object, we take it for granted,

we betray and deny you,

and sleep

instead of pray.

Forgive us, Jesus,

for we know not what we do.

From Coming Out to God (Day 52) by Chris Glaser, 1991, Westminster John Knox Press.

Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men, Their Families and Friends was dedicated to those I knew who were living with or had lived with HIV/AIDS and became especially popular in the HIV/AIDS community. A friend who was an artist, who subsequently succumbed to AIDS, provided the cover design and the interior illustrations for the book. I love that his name was “Christ-man”: Michael Christman.

A related reading for Easter: Resurrection Today, Part Two

Your donations are my ministry’s only means of support:

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Be sure to scroll down to the donate link below its description. Or mail to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, payable to UFMCC and designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2018 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Resurrection Today - Part Two

Today’s post is adapted from the chapter, “Healing AIDS,” in my book, Come Home: Reclaiming Spirituality and Community as Gay Men and Lesbians (Harper & Row 1990, Chi Rho Press 1998).

During one Holy Week, I found myself immersed in grief at the widespread experience of death from AIDS in our community. A close friend infected with HIV and searching for spiritual hope commented on a 1989 Newsweek survey, “If half the clergy doesn’t believe there’s an afterlife, why should we?”

My pastor’s sermon on Easter Sunday was the kind of sermon I would have given, the kind that I have given in the past. Humorously confessing a desire to avoid heresy and controversy, she chose not to discuss whether there was a physical or spiritual resurrection of Jesus.

Instead, she focused on the question put to Mary Magdalene as she wept in the garden of his tomb. Jesus asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Mary’s grief blinded her at first to a vision of a living Christ. I recognized the connection with my present grief that was blinding me to a living God who is “God of the living, for all live to God,” in the words of Jesus refuting those who didn’t believe in resurrection.

Though my pastor’s Easter sermon was excellent, provocative, and comforting, it did not make me celebrative that day. Who was my friend infected with HIV looking for, and whom did I seek? Someone who would tell us that God loved us, loved us eternally, gave us life eternal.

My lover and I walked along the cliffs and beach of Santa Monica that afternoon. Santa Ana winds had cleared the sky, and the air was cold and crisp, the sea blue and choppy. But, unlike previous walks in this flood of God’s natural grace, the beauty did not heal my troubled soul.

At the end of our walk, we entered a bar named the S. S. Friendship to get some warming coffee. This had once been the gay writer Christopher Isherwood’s neighborhood hangout.  Sitting down, I looked across the room at a vaguely familiar face. “John?” I said, just as he asked, “Chris?”

We had not seen each other for over five years. Typically, on seeing an old friend in our community, I thanked God to find him still alive. George and I invited him and his friend to join us. He seemed relaxed and content, and I was happy to discover that he had been with a lover for five years with whom he had bought a home. With so much death in our neighborhood, I enjoyed finding him well and happy and in a relationship.

He shared his spiritual journey. He reminded me that he had begun as a Catholic. I remembered that he had been a Lutheran shortly before joining the Presbyterian Church. Now he told us that most recently he’d been attending the Church of Religious Science.

“I got something I needed in each church, without getting involved in the garbage of each denomination,” he admitted. I envied, admired, and resented his ability to avoid the garbage, myself feeling buried in the Presbyterian refuse of committee meetings, petty bickering, and outrageous injustice toward gays and lesbians.

As I asked him about his lover, he said simply, “He died last week.” “AIDS?” I asked, astounded that even this idyllic picture could be shattered. “Yes,” he said. “He was diagnosed two years ago, and he used what time he had left to help others. It was wonderful to see. We had a good time together. I have no regrets. He died in my arms. I felt him leave his body. That’s why I’m sure I’ll see him again.”

As we later took our leave and I hugged John goodbye, I whispered in his ear, “Thank you for giving me the Easter message I needed to hear today.” I had somehow heard the gospel in a gay bar. Just as Mary had been called by name and thereby recognized the risen Christ, so I had been called by name and thereby witnessed a resurrection.

Last week’s post: Resurrection Today – Part One 

Please support this blog ministry: 

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Be sure to scroll down to the donate link below its description. 

Or mail to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Resurrection Today - Part One

Beverly Wildung Harrison was a delightful twentieth century theologian that I held in high esteem. Our paths crossed occasionally, but the first encounter I remember distinctly was a cocktail party near New York’s Union Theological Seminary where she taught. I was finishing my service on a Presbyterian Task Force on Homosexuality that was split on the ordination of “avowed, practicing homosexuals.”

She laughingly asked me if it was true that a member of the opposition on the task force had been paid a million dollars to serve as consultant on a film about the antichrist, The Omen. It was the first I had heard of it. She was right about the consulting, I later discovered, but the compensation was greatly exaggerated.

I tell the story to set in context a later conversation we had over brunch when I served a congregation in West Hollywood. A relative of hers, knowing her as a renowned feminist and body theologian, had been quizzing her about whether she believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus. Finally, with her usual “cut-to-the-chase” practical style, she said to him, “Really, does it matter to you, living in the twentieth century, whether Jesus’ resurrection was a physical or spiritual encounter?” He allowed as to how it didn’t; that a spiritual experience of Jesus’ presence was satisfying enough.

One of my college professors recounted his ordeal seeking ordination before a church committee determined to discover if he shared their understanding of resurrection. “Tell me this,” one queried, “if you were present at the tomb on that first Easter morning with a Polaroid camera, would you have been able to take a picture of Jesus coming out of the tomb?” The professor thought a moment, then replied, “Yes, but only if the camera were equipped with the lens of faith!”

As Christians, we stumble over the resurrection when we confuse a confession of faith for a statement of historical fact. It is when we treat matters of faith as matter-of-fact that we miss the mystery, the meaning, and the extraordinariness of our faith. Peter pointed out that only people of faith were given sight of the resurrected Jesus: “God raised him on the third day and made him manifest; not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses” (Acts 10:40-41).

From the first Easter, Christians have held different views on the nature of the resurrection. The author of the gospel of John apparently believed that Jesus’ body was transformed spiritually, leaving his shroud in place. Several resurrection stories in the other gospels confirm this physical transcendence, reporting Jesus’ request not to be held, his appearance through locked doors, and his disappearance after breaking bread.

Others suggest Jesus’ bodily presence as he eats with the disciples or encourages Thomas to touch the wounds in his hands and his side. The latter story combines physical presence and mystical vision, for though the disciples are able to touch Jesus, he appears in their midst through locked doors.

With all these variant descriptions of the resurrection, it’s safe to say Jesus’ first followers were not nailed down to a bodily interpretation! If the early Christians were not of one mind as to the nature of Jesus’ resurrection, why should Christians today expect uniformity of belief?

Watch for next week’s post, “Resurrection Today - Part Two.” The final five paragraphs of today’s post are adapted from the chapter, “Manifesting Christ’s Glory,” in my book, Come Home: Reclaiming Spirituality and Community as Gay Men and Lesbians (Harper & Row 1990, Chi Rho Press 1998).

Please support this blog ministry: 

http://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/

Be sure to scroll down to the donate link below its description. 

Or mail to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

What Right-Wing Talk Radio Would Make of Jesus

Okay, listeners. Today we’re going to take on the myths surrounding this Jesus who has come to our fair city of Jerusalem to cause trouble. He’s ghetto trash that has fooled a bunch of illiterate peasants and bleeding heart liberals into thinking everyone deserves to be fed and healed and welcome in the temple.

What are his credentials? Does he have a degree? NO! Does he have a doctorate? NO! Does he come from a good family? NO! Rumor has it that he is the bastard son of an unwed millennial teen—born in a barn, no less.

Apparently his family headed south to Egypt, but migrated north again to Nazareth—that’s why we need that wall on our southern border, to keep out such refugees. And how do we know for certain he was even born in this country, anyway? Maybe he’s an Arab—after all, he came “out of the land of Egypt.”

He doesn’t come from the priestly class, and he prides himself on having no home and no financial stability. His followers smell of sheep and fish, fields and laundry—one of ‘em was a Roman collaborator, a tax collector for our overgrown government.  He declares we should turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile when it comes to those of the opposing political party—I say, hell no. They’ll get no hearings from this quarter!

He’s supported by feminazis—y’know, women who think they have as many rights as men, deserve equal pay and control over their own bodies, but are weak in the knees when it comes to orphans, widows, eunuchs, and the poor who only take from our society and contribute nothing.

He defended that adulterous woman, remember. And what’s going on between him and that unnamed “beloved disciple”? More than one woman has been seen anointing his body, kissing his feet, washing them with tears and even drying them with their hair! Now that’s twisted! And what’s with his deep love for Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha? Can we say “poly-a-mor-y”?!

Sunday he charged into Jerusalem, appropriately on an ass [braying sound effects], causing a riot as people cheered him on, tearing branches off our trees to lay before his feet, crying “Blessed is one who comes in the name of the Lord.” They act like he can do no wrong, even walk on water!

What crap! I’ve never heard such B.S. in my life. They acted like he was a king, God’s chosen one! The decent people of our city held back, so I challenge them, do something about this maniac before it’s too late, and he incites a revolution that brings Caesar’s armies down on us, let alone give power to those who have never worked a day in their lives.

Then he attacks the business owners in the temple, overturning their tables, claiming they are exploiting and profiting off worshipers, declaring the temple is to be a “house of prayer for all peoples”—wherever did he get that notion? Are we to let just anybody in there? He acts as if one of our great prophets said that, like Isaiah, but I can’t find it anywhere in my Bible. Next he’ll be bringing in the lepers, the lame, the unclean, and—God forbid—Gentiles. Makes me want to puke!

This, after all, is our holy week of Passover, not a time to get political. Our founding fathers liberated us from Egypt, to be sure, but that doesn’t give Jesus and his followers the right to make a scene. I’d say bribe one of his minions to betray him, and let’s hoist him up on the nearest tree. Then we’ll see if he is truly sent by God.

I’m not a religious man, but mark my words, neither is Jesus. He’s blasphemed everything that a true patriot knows to be holy, from the temple to the Sabbath to our religious and political systems.

He preaches compassion, but shows no mercy toward the rich, the privileged, the powerful, the job-creators. He tells us we must be “born again” as if our births did not confer privilege; that we must sell our possessions and give to the poor—folks, this is communism, plain and simple. He says the meek shall inherit the earth—I say, over my dead body. They’ll have to pry my possessions out of my cold, dead hands!

Once he’s dead, we’ve got to seal up his tomb lest his disciples steal the body and launch yet another hoax on us, as if his words will resonate forever in the scheme of things. Let me tell you, a few years from now, people won’t even remember his name!

Blogger’s note: I almost didn’t post this, because it’s not uplifting; but then I thought, Jesus didn’t have a very good week either.

A reading for this week of Lent:

“Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit.”

A reading for Maundy Thursday:

In the Company of Birds

Readings for Good Friday:

Where Is God?

“Faggot” Jesus

Readings for Easter:

What God Did for Love

Resurrecting Jesus

Whose Resurrection Was It, Anyway?

How Did Jesus Let Go of His Cross?

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here and scrolling down to the donate link below its description or by mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

How Did Jesus Let Go of His Cross?

I would have been angry. And exhausted. And resentful, bitter, unforgiving. And not just of those who tortured me verbally and physically, spitting in my face, nailing me to that cross, but all those who looked away, pretending it wasn’t happening or worse, that it wasn’t important, and fearful of a similar fate if they defended me.

Those fair-weather multitudes I fed with spiritual truths and a little boy’s lunch: where were they? Those I healed with prayer and touch? Those I made glad with the egalitarian promises and parables of the kingdom of God among us?

And my disciples, cowering in hiding! Betrayed, denied, abandoned by those dearest to me, who professed to “love” me. Worse yet, they never seemed to really “get” me, never seemed to understand what I was about, never fully bought into my passion for the world and my compassion for all the little ones in this world.

No wonder I felt God-forsaken.

If it weren’t for the women who followed me and that closeted disciple Nicodemus, I would still be up on that cross, to be devoured by the birds of the air and the beasts of the field as my muscles stretched to the breaking point in the heat of the sun, my lungs gasping for air.

Now, thank God, I can rest in peace. The tomb is cool and dark, the strips of cloth hugging my wounds, the cold stone holding me, my mind and heart at rest, at rest in God. Will anything come of my sacrifice? The way I lived my life for others? The insights the Spirit spoke through my words and my ways? God only knows.

I’m glad to be away from all the noise and chaos outside. I never want to go back there again. Though, there were moments of tranquility and comfort—going up on a mountain to pray alone with God, Mary anointing my feet with a fragrant oil, the beloved disciple cuddling on my lap during our last meal. I feel sorrow for them, but I can no longer help them. I can’t get out of here; this is it.

But then to my surprise, God calls me into action again. I rise to the occasion. Each one who witnesses this resurrection is of two minds*, belief and doubt, from the first to the last. Belief will give them hope; doubt will cause despair. But this is how I let go of my cross: I choose to believe.

* Matthew’s description of witnesses to the resurrection that some believed while others doubted, is better translated that each witness was of two minds. The word used literally means “standing in two places.” That is comforting.

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. “Progressive Christian Reflections” is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches.

"Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit"

Jesus’ Seven Last Words, sayings offered from the cross, may serve as guidance for the spiritual life. You have been invited to contemplate each saying during the seven Wednesdays of Lent and Holy Week. This is the final installment of the series.

As I read again the words surrounding this final exclamation from Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, I am struck with awe. “The sun’s light failed…darkness came over the whole land from noon to three…Jesus crying with a loud voice…he breathed his last… ‘surely this man was righteous’ praised the Roman centurion…the crowds returned home beating their breasts…the women remained watching from a distance.”

Executions are horrible scenes. And witnessing a person we dearly love pass the edge of life can feel like falling off a cliff ourselves.

The traditional final words of Jesus were the words that inspired his whole life. That seventh saying of Jesus on the cross, with its seven words, another quotation from the liturgy, the psalms, expresses trust—“into your hands,” purpose—“I commit,” and offering—“my spirit.” This is the beginning and conclusion of every prayer, every just act, every compassionate act, whether we say it or not:

“Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

It’s a recognition of something greater than us, greater than our needs for survival, reputation, and power—the very temptations Jesus faced in his forty day fast after his baptism, the period Lent commemorates.

It’s an affirmation that we live for meaning, communion, and compassion. A spirituality that doesn’t provide these three elements leaves us wandering in the wilderness.

A God who offers these values is worthy of our trust, our life’s purpose, and daily offering of our spirits. In other words, our faith, hope, and love.

“Into your hands I commit my spirit” is not just a transitional affirmation, it is a transformational affirmation.

This is not a once-in-a-lifetime conversion but a daily lifting of the cross of those who suffer personally, politically, economically, environmentally, and spiritually.

The Greek word pneuma is used for both spirit and breath.  Only recently has it been pointed out to me that in Matthew’s version of Jesus “breathing his last,” the word is not possessive, as in “gives up his spirit.” Rather, Jesus “releases the Spirit,” indicating an immediate Pentecost, manifested in Matthew by the tearing of the curtain veiling the temple’s holy of holies, earthquakes, the opening of tombs, and the resurrection of some saints.

The Greek word translated “release” can also mean “forgive,” as in being released from debt. Jesus’ first words from the cross, “Forgive them,” is now incarnated in his final action.

As in many a horrific event, there is more meaning in the crucifixion than meets the eye for those with faith, hope, and love.

For those who would like daily readings for the remaining days of Holy Week, click here and scroll down to the end of “Jesus Preaches in the Temple.”

Enter “Easter” in the search box on the blog’s upper left corner for additional readings for Easter. Here are three of them:

Better to Follow than Arrive

Whose Resurrection Was It, Anyway?

Why Can’t It Always Be This Way?

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Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers. This year, I offer a signed gift copy of my book, Communion of Life: Meditations for the New Millennium, to each one who donates $100 or more (at once or in installments) over the course of 2015.

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Whose Resurrection Was It, Anyway?

Christian scriptures make a point of saying that Jesus appeared only to believers after his burial. They may not recognize him at first, such as Mary Magdalene supposing he was the gardener, or they may have doubts, such as the story of Thomas, or he may become known to them only after offering him hospitality, such as the travelers on the road to Emmaus.  

A vision of Jesus is only possible with a willing “suspension of disbelief,” a participation in the story, a welcoming of “the anointed one” in our hearts and our minds and our lives, our church and our neighborhood and our world.

Last month, at a Benedictine monastery in Cullman, Alabama, I picked up a book, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis’ first apostolic exhortation, and began using it in my morning prayers. I have found it uplifting because, while Pope John Paul II emphasized the repeated biblical phrase, “Be not afraid!”, Pope Francis finds the central message of scripture to be “that your joy may be full.”

His emphasis is on evangelization, bringing good news over doctrine and rules. To quote Francis, “Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, [Christians] should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but ‘by attraction.’”

He points out that “there are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter,” later writing that in our preoccupation with the day-to-day business and preservation of the church, “a tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in a museum.”

This is what could have happened to those who followed Jesus had they dwelt on their absolute grief and dejection and disappointment. Mary Magdalene might have remained at the cemetery and the other disciples might have remained behind locked doors for fear of “the powers that be.”

But somehow, mysteriously, mystically, they recognized that Jesus was still with them, showing compassion as he did to Mary, breathing Holy Spirit upon his disciples.  If only we could hear Jesus speak our name, as he spoke Mary’s, if only we could feel Jesus’ breath and take that breath as our own, infused with his Spirit.

Of course we can.

I gave this post the rather cheeky title, “Whose Resurrection Was It, Anyway?” because Christians often forget the resurrection is not all about us—it’s all about Jesus. We get caught up in our fears of death, and want the promise of living eternally, and the resurrection seems to fulfill that promise. But the first Christians were not concerned for their own longevity.

In Jesus, the first Christians had witnessed the kingdom of God in their midst. His words and his deeds, his love and his hope, were alive in them. It wasn’t their lives they were interested in preserving, not even the life of the church—as witnessed by countless martyrs to Christ’s cause—it was the life of Christ they wanted to take into themselves, a life that gave them an eternal perspective, a spacious and gracious perspective that could love and transform the world.

Jesus wasn’t about simply redeeming us. Jesus was about redeeming the world, reconciling the world to its maker, to its lover, to its inspiration. The followers of Jesus, the first Christians, “got” that, and that’s what we need to “get” as well. They saw themselves as the Body of Christ resurrected for the world.

Just as Jesus, they discerned we were all children of God. And just as Jesus, they had the “ah-hah” that we were all God’s beloved children—even before conversion, even without conversion, thus we could love our enemies, we could love those who persecute us, we could love even those who mocked and tormented and tortured and executed Jesus in the most painful and humiliating way: the cross.

“Forgive them for they know not what they do,” Jesus prayed to God from that cross. And to his disciples on Easter he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

If we plan on retaining anyone’s sins, we’d better be prepared to have our own sins unforgiven, because Jesus taught his followers “if you forgive others their trespasses, your God in heaven will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will God forgive your trespasses.”

Pope Francis calls the church “to be like the father of the prodigal son, who always keeps his door open so that when the son returns, he can readily pass through it.”

If people are going to see the resurrected Christ today, they’re going to have to see it in us. They’re going to have to see it in those who follow Jesus, sharing and showing and celebrating his compassion and mercy, not just personally and spiritually, but politically and incarnationally, economically and globally.

“Do not hold on to me,” Jesus urged Mary. Jesus can’t be confined, whether to a tomb, to a church, to a doctrine, or even to this world.

But Jesus can be located—in our hearts, in our midst, in our service to the community, in our work for justice and equality and peace. Jesus can be located in the stranger and in “the least of these.”

And with God’s help, Jesus may even be located in church.

This is taken from my Easter sermon for Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.

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Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.