I Can't Say It Better

My title is a confession that there are times when scripture needs direct absorption without the filter or interpretation of a writer or speaker or “official” biblical scholar, let alone a blogger like me. I don’t think readers of this blog will believe I’m shirking my duties if I share directly with you a psalm that has grabbed my attention and contemplation this week as I, like you, cope with the challenges of a pandemic and a charged political atmosphere.

Those who know me directly or through my work will not need me to point out how and to whom I believe the following verses may apply. You know my mind and my heart and my passion and compassion well enough without need of explicit comparisons to current events and public figures. And both those who don’t know me and those who do have their own counsel at hand to find the following verses comforting and encouraging and applicable to our current situation.

Carl Jung’s synchronicity or the Holy Spirit or both would have it that when I turned to my NRSV last week for solace, I found stuck in its pages a slip from a notepad from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital whose very name welcomes the blessings of both faith and science. Saint Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes and is often depicted with a flame around his head, reflecting his presence at Pentecost to receive the Holy Spirit.

As I write this, I glance at Ganesha sitting on the bookshelf beside my desk. Ganesha is the Hindu god of arts and sciences and fresh beginnings, one who removes obstacles (one of the reasons I keep it close to my computer!) and so strikes me as a complement to Saint Jude’s desire to help the hopeless.  

On the side of the slip of paper that bears the logo and name of St. Jude Hospital, I long ago wrote down the lectionary readings for a particular Sunday, but on the back I wrote Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40. So last week I turned to Psalm 37 and ruminated on it during my morning prayers on the days since. I encourage you to read the entire psalm, but here are some of its verses with few and minor inclusive language changes. If the title “Lord” troubles you, feel free to substitute another metaphor, such as “Holy One.”

Do not fret because of the wicked;

  do not be envious of wrongdoers,

for they will soon fade like the grass,

  and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;

  so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.

Take delight in the Lord,

  and you will be given the desires of your hearts.

Commit your way to the Lord;

  trust in God, and God will act.

Yahweh will make your vindication shine like the light,

  and the justice of your cause like the noonday.

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for God;

   do not fret over those who prosper in their way,

   over those who carry out evil devices.

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath.

  Do not fret—it leads only to evil.

For the wicked shall be cut off,

  but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

The wicked plot against the righteous,

  and gnash their teeth at them;

but the Lord laughs at the wicked,

  knowing that their day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows

  to bring down the poor and needy,

  to kill those who walk uprightly;

their sword shall enter their own heart,

  and their bows shall be broken.

Better is a little that the righteous person has

  than the abundance of many wicked.

The wicked borrow, and do not pay back,

  but the righteous are generous and keep giving.

Though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong,

  for the Lord holds us by the hand.

For the Lord loves justice

  and will not forsake God’s faithful ones.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord,

  who is their refuge in time of trouble.

I will be leading a virtual, at-home retreat open to the public for Columbia Seminary’s Spiritual Formation Program September 17-19, 2020 entitled An Open Receptive Place: Henri Nouwen’s Spirituality. You are invited!

Donations to this blog ministry may be given securely 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 © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Scripture copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Spiritual Stretching

Our neighbor, Luna, stretching against the edge of our driveway.

Put your hands over your head and stretch. Take a deep breath.

Doesn’t that feel good?

And don’t you vicariously feel good when you see your dog or cat or another person stretch and perhaps yawn?

Many years ago I learned that, to prevent my back from seizing up on me, I needed to do a simple stretching exercise before getting out of bed in the morning.  I also do a coordination exercise a holistic chiropractor once taught me that’s supposed to help me think more clearly. And then I’m ready to, as the camp song goes, “Rise and shine and give God my glory…”

A few summers ago, Wade and I attended a yoga class that was all about stretching and breathing, led by our friend and neighbor José Blanco. It was surprising how challenging and tiring stretching and breathing can be, as well as how wonderful it can feel. Yoga, of course, is a spiritual discipline developed in Hinduism to focus body, mind, and spirit.

A lot of Christians don’t like to stretch. Orthodox literally means “straight thinking,” and many Christians like to keep to the straight and narrow, within the confines of what they consider proper belief and behavior.

Progressive Christians like to stretch our minds. That means we can stay in our heads way too much. That’s preferable to not going there at all. As they say, many people are lost in thought because it’s such unfamiliar territory.

Thankfully, stretching our mind may stretch our hearts as well, especially if we can catch our breaths.

Stretching is an antidote to confinement, an answer to tension, a solution for paralysis that is not permanent. It helps tissue lubricants flow, as well as the life-giving, oxygenating, vitality-inducing blood that we need to be nurtured and grow. 

Our spirits and our spirituality need stretching too.

Jesus did not teach yoga positions, but he was still a kind of yoga instructor, because he taught spiritual stretching. His spirituality stretched the religion of those around him to move out of ossification—which means to be make rigid, callous, or unprogressive—to move beyond laws written in stone and temples made of stone.

Anyone who has endured an obnoxious neighbor will know that “loving your neighbor” is a stretch. Anyone who has struggled with an image of an angry or distant God knows that “loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind” is a stretch. Those raised on negative self-images know that “loving your self” is a stretch. Those taught to fear or hate a stranger realize that Jesus’ urging to greet even those we don’t know is a stretch.  And “loving your enemies” is obviously a stretch!

By stretching, a spiritual community becomes expansive and inclusive and nimble. A breath is a stretch, and Jesus was said to have breathed on his disciples his Spirit. That Spirit stretched their ability to share his story in the languages of strangers. That same Spirit has, throughout history, stretched at least parts of the church to welcome those it formerly resisted, excluded, marginalized, or persecuted.

And God’s mystery stretches our spiritual imaginations. In the apostle Paul’s words to the Athenians, God “does not live in shrines made by human hands” but causes us “to search for God and perhaps grope for God.”

Breathe. Stretch.

Doesn’t that feel good?

This was my post on March 12, 2014, and I thought current blog readers might like to read it.

Progressive Christian Reflections is an authorized Emerging Ministry of MCC supported solely by readers. Please click here for more information or to make a tax-deductible donation. Thank you!

Consider using a post or quotes in personal reflection, worship, newsletters, and classes, referencing the blog address when possible: http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com.

Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite.

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

Jesus Breathed on Them

Wildflowers along our morning walk.

Very early Sunday morning, I felt Wade’s breath on my bare shoulder. That simple touch begat my morning meditation. The sensation reminded me that he was there, but also, that I was there.

And I began to think of the Gospel of John’s version of Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit. “Peace be with you,” Jesus said, after appearing to his disciples despite their doors locked against the authorities, religious and political. After showing his wounds to make clear he was not a ghost, Jesus simply breathed on the disciples, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” With this breath they (and we) are sent into the world.

Less dramatic and sparser sermonic fodder than the Acts’ story of Pentecost, but this is probably how most of us encounter the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of God embodied in Jesus and passed on to those who attempt to live God’s will for justice, mercy, and compassion. A breath that reminds us God is with us, even within us, and reassures us that we are here.

It’s the breath of creation and evolution, of meditation and inspiration, of sensuality and spirituality. In troubled and busy times, it’s the breath we catch to find peace.

John’s Gospel is thought to be the most mystical of the four in our Bible, but it is arguably also the most physical and sensual, after all, it begins with God’s Word becoming flesh. In it, Jesus is referred to as the bread from heaven, living water to quench all thirst, the vine that sustains us branches, the source of our second birth, a good shepherd who calls us by name. He elevates physical well-being above religious rules by healing on the sabbath, disassociates disability from sin in healing one born blind, and offers us abundant life. He appreciates familial intimacy with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and is crushed by the latter’s death, prompting him to call him back to life. He cradles an especially beloved disciple at the last supper and washes his disciples’ feet, and appears first to a grief-stricken (lovesick?) Mary when resurrected.

That his breath outpours the Holy Spirit fits the sensuality of this Gospel and, of course, parallels the breath Yahweh breathed into the chest of the first human creature. Biblically, breath and spirit are used interchangeably, as the same word may be used for either.

All of this did not come in my Sunday morning meditation, of course, but something I did ponder is the role of Jesus in my life. I’ve been re-reading Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out about prayer and the spiritual life and noticed his reference to the ancient and traditional “Jesus prayer,” which he renders, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me,” leaving out the end, “a sinner.” I guess that’s how I came also to leave out that self-disparaging ending, because this particular book came from his notes for my first course with Henri at Yale Divinity School. I always associated the prayer with those in the Bible in need of healing who cry for mercy, a broader application of the principle.

In this way, I’ve been occasionally praying this prayer, in that, as I age, I am feeling more vulnerable, more fragile. And though it’s comforting to address it to Jesus, my theology prompts me more often to pray, “Lord God, have mercy on me.” During my morning meditation this past Sunday I concluded that it doesn’t really matter to whom I address the prayer, as Jesus best represents God to me and I doubt that neither really care!

As I enjoyed Wade’s breath on my shoulder, I thought how comforting to think of Jesus’ or God’s breath on me.

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.

Mary Doesn't Do It Alone--Neither Do We!

Light shines in darkness...

In these uncertain times, we may feel overwhelmed by the needs of the world and the deficits of our leaders. The biblical story of Mary metaphorically tells us what to look for from God, “however we understand” our Higher Power.

For additional posts for the Christmas season, click on this link or copy and paste in your browser and scroll down: http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com/search?q=Christmas

How did God help Mary—the Mary we seek to emulate in her willingness to bring something new into the world?

God first sent an angel, a messenger from God who told her not to be afraid, explaining what was happening, how God was working out a purpose in her life, giving her vision of her sacred worth, as well as calling her out as an instrument of God’s in-breaking kingdom, or commonwealth.

God sent her a kinswoman, Elizabeth, visited by the same angel and experiencing the same miracle of giving birth to a new order, pregnant with the forerunner John the Baptist. She affirmed Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

God gave Mary a religious tradition in which nativities of the Spirit were recognized and valued: Sarah with Isaac, Hannah with Samuel. Mary knows her tradition well because she is able to sing a song of praise to God that parallels Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel.

God gave Mary a theology that included the feminine: Sophia, Wisdom, without whom creation wasn’t possible.

God provided Mary Joseph. In a culture that did not permit women to earn income, his resources would be needed to sustain and protect the young family. Joseph could also serve as cover for an unwed pregnant girl for whom tradition might have required stoning.

God gave Mary shepherds, common folk, as well as Magi, foreign religious leaders, to assure her that what was being born was of great significance to people at every level of society, in every part of the world, in every faith tradition.

God gave Mary an indifferent leader, Caesar Augustus, as well as a threatened, insecure leader, Herod, to soberly realize that what she was doing might not be recognized or welcomed as God’s inevitable work. Such opposition would give her an inkling of the revolutionary nature of God’s working.

God gave Mary the prophet Simeon and the prophet Anna who, in the temple, bore witness to her child’s sacred worth and divine calling.

And God gave Mary the Holy Spirit, empowering her to conceive, carry, birth, and rear a child of God who would remind us that we are all children of God.

“Somebody’s gotta be Mary!” last week’s post proclaimed. But no one has to be Mary alone, because that first Mary was not alone.

As we give birth to a new order, a fresh understanding of the Gospel and of scripture, a reformed understanding of the church, a revolutionary critique of all “powers that be,” we are not alone. God has given us what God gave Mary:

Angels who tell us to “fear not” and help us understand our individual callings.

Kinswomen and kinsmen of like spirit who bless us, affirming the fruit of our movement. 

A spiritual tradition whose expansive nature has overcome walls that unnecessarily divide us, reconciling us as one people in the midst of great diversity, standing on the side of the oppressed and underprivileged, yet understanding that such a stand also redeems the oppressor and privileged, proclaiming an in-breaking commonwealth of redeeming mercy and grace, saving justice and righteousness.

A theology whose wisdom understands a greater and larger and more compassionate God than ever before.

We have Josephs, without whose defenses and resources we would have no buffer between us and the Caesars and Herods of our time.

We have every day folk as well as leaders and scholars who have assured us that we are doing the right thing; those who have seen angels singing of peace and goodwill among all or witnessed and followed the star of God’s hope for the world.

We have indifferent leaders and we have hostile leaders to remind us that anything worth devoting our lives to requires more than our lifetimes to achieve, to amplify a quote from Reinhold Niebuhr. They remind us that movements transcend not only geographical, cultural, and religious boundaries, but generational boundaries as well.

And we have prophets—a great cloud of witnesses, living and dead—who, like Anna and Simeon, sing of God’s salvation in every nativity of the Spirit.

And God has given us the Holy Spirit, who has conceived in us a more inclusive spiritual community that would remind the whole earth we are all children and creatures of God.

We are not alone. God is with us in so many ways. The story of Jesus’ nativity reminds us of that.

An astute follower of my writings noticed something familiar in last week’s post. Indeed, last week’s and this week’s posts are adapted from a sermon I delivered to Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 15, 2002.

You may 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.  

"Somebody's Gotta Be Mary!"

India, January 1983. 

Happy to report that, as of last week, this blog has had 200,000 visits (not including 600 free weekly subscribers) and contains more than 300 reflections. Donations for this year totaled $1,912. After credit card deductions and 10% to MCC in gratitude for handling donations, my portion was $1,658. Thank you for your support!

Once upon a time, respectable members of a respectable church decided to perform a Christmas pageant, and congregants were vying for parts. The big competition was around the roles of the Magi, the Eastern religious scholars bearing gold and frankincense and myrrh. Many were taken with their absolutely fa-bu-lous costumes, reeking of wealth and privilege and prestige.

But there were also many who wanted to demonstrate their own humility by playing the poor shepherds watching their flocks by night, knowing that they’d get to see a sky full of angels singing of peace on earth, goodwill toward all, as well as visit the baby Jesus lying in a manger with a halo for a hanging playtoy.

Others wanted to be those high and mighty angels, who, in our contemporary, secular times seem to represent only themselves, cutely and cherubically and all-too-benignly making guest appearances on wrapping paper, greeting cards, and Christmas films, instead of being the fierce and frightful presence of God they are in the Bible—so terrible, they often had to say “fear not!”—awesomely calling individuals to radical action rather than offering sentimental appeasement.

For the manger scene itself, as you may have guessed, it was easy among the staid and high-end church members to cast the roles of the ox and of the ass and of the many docile sheep. Easy also to cast the unwelcoming innkeeper and King Herod frightened of losing power and the indifferent Caesar Augustus only interested in the bottom line, the church budget.

A few were at least willing to play one of the pageant’s two leading characters, Joseph, who at first wanted to put his pregnant betrothed away in a closet somewhere to avoid public disgrace. You will recall that Joseph had a change of heart after having his own vision of an angel, then choosing to serve as a kind of behind-the-scenes partner to the inevitably unfolding will of God, a ferocious will contrary to decency and order, a decency and order Joseph wanted to at least appear to uphold by his outward compliance.

But nobody wanted to play the role of Mary in the Christmas pageant. “Somebody’s gotta play Mary!” the stage manager Gabriel shouted out, sounding very much like the gravelly voice of Harvey Fierstein. “No Mary, no Jesus!” he cried bluntly.

You see, nobody respectable wanted to play Mary because of the shame of her unwed pregnancy. And absolutely no one wanted to go through the bloody and painful job of giving birth to a new thing.

Mary’s fidelity to God, her willingness to say, “Here I am the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”—all of this counted for naught in the eyes of these good people. The Holy Spirit was knitting together in her womb the new thing for which the prophets hoped, yet, like all nativities of the Spirit, “the powers that be” trembled, including these dignified religious types. Mary’s birthing this child would be an unsettling and unclean act, embarrassing rather than admirable.

“Mary is not a good role model for our children,” someone said.

Stage manager Gabriel again implored the crowd, “C’mon! As Mary, you get to magnify and rejoice in the Lord and be called blessed by generations to come, though admittedly not this generation. You get to serve as God’s instrument to scatter the proud in their presumptuous imaginations, lifting the downtrodden even as the powerful are taken off their high horse. Your mission is to fill the hungry with good things, and to remind the privileged of their own poverty. This is a good thing. Really.”

Visiting the church for the first time, a timid and small young girl came forward, a recent immigrant with olive skin and dark brown eyes and thick black hair, and simply said, “Here am I.” Gabriel, exasperated by everyone else’s resistance, asked, “So—ya wanna be Mary?” And because his language was new to her, she simply quoted Mary’s line, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

And so the respectable church filled with respectable members was able to put on its pageant, reliving the Christmas story, but they did not live happily ever after. For the nature of all nativities of the Spirit humbles those with privilege and uplifts the underprivileged, shaming the proud and bringing mercy and justice to the oppressed.

But that can’t happen unless someone is willing to be Mary.

Related Post: Put Yourself in the Nativity Story

You may 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.  

Find Your Lonely Place

A Midrash on Mark 1:21-39

Jesus has had a busy Sunday. What was supposed to be a day of rest had him teaching in church, confronting old ways of interpreting scripture, challenging dogma, and bringing fresh spiritual insights to the congregation he was visiting.

The congregation thought he had a lot of chutzpah to teach as if he knew what he was talking about, because he wasn’t trained or ordained or in any way approved by the powers that be. Who is this guy anyway? He’s too sure of himself, too cocky. How dare he speak with such authority?

And then the embarrassment of the congregation shows up—that guy with the unclean spirit, called unclean because his weirdness includes a lack of personal hygiene and social skills, a loss of a place to call home, a loss of family and friends.

This odd-man-out and Jesus speak as if they know each other, and suddenly the man is in his right mind, leaves to get a bath and shows up again in clean clothes. Now who’s the congregation going to have to make fun of or feel superior to or exclude? The congregation again is astonished, “Who is this guy that he can clean up this guy’s act with mere words?” And just as suddenly, Jesus’ fresh teaching and healing touch start trending on social media.

Jesus and his buddies go to the house of Simon’s mother-in-law to crash, but she’s sick. So Jesus takes her by the hand and she feels better and gets up and makes them all matzo kosher pizza. But she’s in for a surprise. Jesus has become such a celebrity that not even the paparazzi can get close. Surrounding her door that evening were people with all sorts of ailments, trials, and tribulations, hoping for a glimpse of Jesus, hoping for his healing touch.

After everyone goes home, Jesus opens his laptop and checks his e-mails and finds thousands of messages. He deletes the ones promising a flat stomach, an improved website, a better sex life. He deletes the ones that promise a cut of an estate and others soliciting financial support for their ministries. (Spam filters of ancient times weren’t so good.) Then he works through the remaining e-mails one by one. Some are critical of him healing the man with the unclean spirit on a Sunday. Others disputed his teaching and orthodoxy.

Still others are complaining about the traffic in the neighborhood where he’s staying. “Can’t you heal these people somewhere else?” they question. But most are just seeking some type of healing for themselves or someone they love, and he sends them his prayers and his love.

It’s past midnight when he turns in. He’s sleeping on the foldout sleeper sofa in the living room, which means he’ll be the last to go to sleep and the first to get up in the morning. He wakes in the middle of the night, thinking about all that he needs to do, all that he intended to do the previous day, and the people who think he’s making a big mistake, perhaps possessed himself.

He thinks about the uncertain, even dangerous political situation, and all the injustice and suffering in the world. And then he considers ways of talking with people, devising parables about the kingdom of God—about a sower with seeds, about a lamp hidden under a bushel basket, about faith as small as a mustard seed. He considers a list of beatitudes for tweeting later, kind of his “to do” list for the day.

Jesus gets up while it’s still dark and in the light of the moon walks to a lonely place, and there he prays. Giving everything up to his Higher Power gives him the rest he has needed all day and all night. His soul rests in God. He’s home being rocked in God’s arms again. He remembers where he came from and where he’s going; he remembers who he is; he remembers that his only calling is to proclaim the reign of God—not to bring it in himself. God will take care of that in God’s own good time. Jesus has finally caught his breath, a breath of Holy Spirit.

Then his cellphone rings—his ringtone is the sound of cathedral bells. (For those who don’t believe Jesus had a cellphone, remember, he calls his disciples earlier in the chapter.) It’s Simon Peter on the phone, “Where are you, Jesus? Everyone’s been looking for you.”

Jesus lets out a big sigh, his prayer time interrupted, and replies, “Yeah, okay, let’s go on to the neighboring towns and rural areas and preach the good news of God’s reign there too, because that’s why I came out.”

You may 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.  

New Meaning in the Cross

“Don’t you believe in the Trinity?” a friend asked last week, after I reacted negatively to a stranger saying that Jesus is God. I admit, I overreacted a bit, calling the latter belief idolatry, though discretely not to the person who asserted it. The person declaring Jesus their God did not affirm this in the context of Trinity: Jesus apparently stood as “Lord” all by himself in this man’s view.

I believe Jesus would be horrified. As a good Jew, he might at best have believed himself part of a chosen people, the children of God, and as a uniquely called prophet. To the person who asked about the Trinity, I rather lamely replied that I believed Jesus awakened us to the understanding that we are all beloved children of God. I added that the Trinity wasn’t devised until centuries after Jesus lived.

If I had had my wits about me, I would’ve explained further that the Trinity as three separate persons is not how I understand God. Previously on this blog I implied that early Eastern Orthodox mystics’ Trinitarian thinking was more about God’s activities than essence or personhood. To the extent we “see” the face of God, it is by God’s activities in the world. This was also the understanding of some Judaic and Islamic philosophers and mystics.

I believe we may see God in creation, compassion, and inspiration—the actions corresponding to what is designated Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. And the writer of 1 John saw God as love, and I see God there too.

The Romans thought of the first Christians as atheists because they didn’t believe in the many gods that filled up their pantheon and the many cultures they ruled. The Christian “pantheon” came to be populated in popular imagination by Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

But to me, this limits our experience of God. Every time I write about God, I realize how much I limit God. God has more than three “faces,” as evidenced by the wide variety of religions and faiths there are on our planet alone.

Remembering that in religion “myth” is—in the words of a child—“a story that is true on the inside,” the cross may be seen as a story of how “the powers that be” seek to diminish God’s activity in the world. The resurrection may be viewed as a story of how God’s activity in the world is renewed and refreshed. And Pentecost may be understood as a story of how transforming God’s presence can be, making us able to speak in the languages of strangers, share our possessions, and proclaim God’s love to the world.

Over the past year or so I’ve experienced a series of physical “issues” that remind me I am not always going to be this body. Not going anywhere soon, mind you, but I decided finally to read Sherwin B. Nuland’s 1993 book, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter, which has sat on my bookshelves unopened since a friend left it to me.

I like Nuland’s frank admission that, though society and the medical profession like to assign “causes of death,” sometimes we simply die of old age. The body was not designed to last forever. It wears out!

And I was fascinated to read a quote from Michael Helpern, the former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City: “Death may be due to a wide variety of diseases and disorders, but in every case the underlying physiological cause is a breakdown in the body’s oxygen cycle.”

This brought new meaning to the myth of the cross, that God incarnate suffered and died. Crucifixion, as is commonly known, achieves its end by suffocation: as the body weakens and sags, air flow is cut off, and the crucified dies by asphyxiation.

Many Christians have believed that Jesus or God suffered for us or in our place, which to me diminishes the fact that we too suffer and we too will die. Others of us have seen Jesus’ death on the cross as God’s suffering with us, the literal meaning of “compassion”= “to suffer with.”

Now to know that lack of oxygen is the cause of every death is to see the cross in every death—to believe that, in compassion, God is with us as we part this world.

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.  

Watch Your Language!

A memorable episode of the old sitcom Frasier featured a scene from the dog Eddie’s perspective. The human conversation about him was unintelligible except when he heard his name or the few words in his vocabulary like “treat,” “walk,” “food,” and so on. A parallel scene from the father Martin’s perspective listening to his psychiatrist sons using psychological jargon revealed the same babble interspersed with words he understood.

This is the way I feel about 100 pages into Stephen Hawking’s (with Leonard Mladinow) The Grand Design. I experienced the same thing 95 pages into his book, A Brief History of Time, and I was reading the illustrated version! Suddenly everything gets more complicated as he connects QED with QCD and GUT (Grand Unified Theory), quarks and Feynman diagrams, baryons and mesons and asymptomatic freedom.

There are too many subatomic particles in the air! I can’t keep up!

I got a laugh when I mentioned in a workshop at a Unitarian Universalist Church that in Christian worship I hear traditional jargon, and say to myself, “Why did they say that? What does it mean?” My subtext is: How does it enhance the experience? Is it intelligible to an outsider?

Some like to mock Scientology’s terminology, but Christianity’s lingo is just as weird to the novice, yet because those in our culture have heard it so often, we take it in stride. I’d like to avoid specifics, because each example will offend someone for whom the phrase has taken on positive connotations. But at the risk of losing you, here goes one example…

What does it mean, for instance, to say, “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost”? When I was baptized at the tender age of six and asked, just before my full body immersion, if I believed in this trio, I was stumped. I thought baptism meant I would belong to God and Jesus forever. I wasn’t certain who the Father and Son were, and I’m not sure I knew of the Holy Ghost.

I know some of you will now think, well, he was too young to be baptized, to give consent. Blessedly my pastor knew better, and told the congregation so before he dunked me. He knew I wanted Jesus in my heart and God in my life. More sophisticated theology would come later. And besides, I gave more consent than infants who are baptized.

But why do we need to do everything in the name of the Trinity? Why is it said so often, as if this incantation sacralizes everything? First, it excludes other possible manifestations or faces of God. Second, it’s an exclusively male grouping, unless you know that the Spirit is feminine in one testament and neuter in another. And why not include Mary, the mother of Jesus? Who gave God sole custody?

(I myself used to reduce the Trinity to their functionality: Creator, Reconciler, Sustainer, but that too seems unsatisfying, incomplete and much too impersonal.)

I know, I’m just being difficult, like a parishioner who puts an anonymous petty criticism in the church suggestion box.

Progressive religious intellectuals have a similar problem with holy gobbledygook. I was given an article by a scholar for publication in a magazine I edited. I could make out what was being said (I can read academese). But I thought it could have been said in a paragraph rather than the 20 pages I received, and I doubted my readers would appreciate the author’s complicated and convoluted reasoning with multi-syllabic words that sounded recently devised. So I published an intelligible excerpt!

Okay, so now I’ve offended everyone. Undoubtedly someone will say, take the beam out of your own eye before addressing the splinters in others. Mea culpa. But we need some kind of modern day Pentecost to proclaim a gospel that others can grasp. Come, Holy Spirit!

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here or 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!

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.

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