Shuck and Jive

Rev. Jacqueline Luck and Unitarian Universalism This Week on Religion For Life

2012-01-31T14:12:00.004-05:00

My colleague, friend, and co-conspirator, Rev. Jacqueline Luck, is the minister at the Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Gray, Tennessee. Among many projects, Rev. Luck is active with United Religions Initiative and the Green Interfaith Network. She talked with me about the history and commitments of Unitarian Universalism, and practicing a liberal faith in East Tennessee. She is my guest on Religion For Life.

Listen...

Monday, January 30th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Thursday, February 2nd at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, February 5th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, February 5th, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Via podcast beginning February 6th.

Living, Life-Giving Water--A Sermon

2012-01-29T13:26:00.001-05:00

Living, Life-Giving Water

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

January 29th, 2012

John 4:1-42
Scholars' Version (SV)

We are making our way through the Gospel of John during Winter. Episcopal Bishop and biblical scholar, John Shelby Spong, wrote this about the Gospel of John in his latest book, Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World:

If I had to give my readers one clue and one clue only that would unlock the Fourth Gospel and allow its honesty and wonder to flow forth, it would be that the author is constantly poking fun at anyone who would take his message literally, misunderstand his use of symbols or attempt to literalize the words he has attributed to Jesus. P. 387

Spong goes on to say:

Time after time, the author of the Fourth Gospel asserts that this book is an interpretive book, not a literal one. It is a symbolic book, not a historical book or a biographical story. To read the Fourth Gospel with literal eyes is to miss the essence of its message. Yet throughout Christian history, this book has been read with literal eyes and this literal misreading has been used to buttress the case for orthodoxy, binding creeds and the rationally incomprehensible ecclesiastical doctrines that stand at the heart of what people assume is essential Christianity. P. 389-390.

I don’t know about you, but I agree with him. A literal, supernaturalistic reading of John’s gospel has kept the church mired in superstition. We are supposed to read Jesus as if he really did all these things and said all these things. Then we are supposed to believe it is all true. To the degree that we can believe and not doubt, we supposedly have faith. I don’t think that is faith. I think those mental gymnastics serve to make people credulous and obedient. Or they dismiss the whole thing as silly.

What might we gain from reading the Gospel of John critically? The interesting thing about reading John, is not Jesus, the symbolic character, but the author. Why did the author present Jesus in this way? Why did he have Jesus say and do all of these things?

One of the realities that the Gospel of John reflects is a late first century conflict between two siblings. This past week I spoke with Rabbi Rob Cabelli on my radio program. It will be broadcast sometime in the next couple of months. He is a rabbi at a Congregation Beth Israel in Asheville. I asked him what he would like Christians to know about Judaism. What do Christians get wrong and what would he like them to get right?

He said that people often confuse biblical Israel with contemporary Judaism. He said that Judaism and Christianity are not parent-child but sister-brother. They both arose at the same time from a common parent which was biblical Israel.

When we read the Gospel of John, we are reading one side of a bitter sibling conflict. Jesus is being used by the author as a mouthpiece for the movement that would become Christianity. Last week, we looked at the conversation with Jesus and Nicodemus. In the text itself, Jesus addresses Nicodemus as a plural. Listen to the text.

"You are a teacher of Israel, and you don’t understand this? Let me tell y’all this: we tell what we know, and we give evidence about what we’ve seen, but none of y’all accepts our evidence.”

This isn’t the historical Jesus. This is the author using the character Jesus to say what the author wants to say. This is obvious. It is a plural. It is as though the author is telling all readers,

“Look how obvious I am being. I am making this up!”

Through the character Jesus and his conversations with opponents, the author is replaying the argument between these two siblings. One sibling will find a home in the synagogue and the other will find a home in the church. Two thousand years later, we know that one sibling became more powerful and numerous and we have a legacy of anti-semitism that has been fueled by the gospels and a misunderstanding of who Jesus was and who killed him.

In chapter four, Jesus meets this woman at Jacob's well. A Samaritan woman. This one is a third party. Samaritans did not make animal sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. They had another holy place to make sacrifices. She asks who worships on the right mountain, the Samaritans or the Jews? Jesus, representing the author John, says in effect, “Neither.”

“But the time is coming—in fact, it’s already here—for true worshipers to worship the Father as he truly is, without regard to place.” (Scholars' Version)

The place is important. By the time John’s gospel is being written, the temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Romans. That is the crisis event that started these new religions, what has become modern Judaism and Christianity.

In this first century literature we see these movements trying to figure out where they are going and what they are about. Jesus is the symbolic figure who represents this new movement, a movement without a place. There is no Temple, no place for animal sacrifice, and that is true for the Jews and the Christians. They both have to figure out who they are without a place. What is worship if you don’t sacrifice animals? That is what ancient religion is. They have to figure out who they are and what they do now.

The answer from John’s gospel is that the mystical presence of Jesus is the place and the focus of worship. He is the living water, he is the bread from heaven. Just to make sure you don’t get too literal about that, John invents these conversations between Jesus and these other characters in which the characters don’t get it.

The woman at the well says:

“Sir, give me some of this water, so I’ll never be thirsty or have to keep coming back here for water.” (SV)

Later his disciples tell him to eat something and Jesus replies that he has food they know nothing about and they say to one another,

“Has someone already brought him food?” (SV)

John has Jesus speak in these lofty spiritual metaphors and nobody gets him, including his own disciples. The author is continually looking at us and shouting,

“Hey, this is a metaphor!”

The Gospel of John is one side of an ancient sibling rivalry that became calcified in canon and creed. A critical reading can loosen that up, but I recognize that it can also take the magic out of it. Nevertheless, I think that faith can become stronger when it dances with doubt. A faith, critically engaged, can develop into something more liberating and lasting. It isn’t always easy at first. I think, speaking personally, that it is worth it.

There is another gospel in which Jesus functions as a character. I should say that Jesus functions as a character in all of the gospels. Perhaps buried in them is an historical figure. But for the most part, Jesus is like the shape of water in Pat Boran’s poem, The Shape of Water:

Even when I cup it in my hands,

Trying to see it for what it is,

It takes my own shape, if temporarily;

It gives my own reflection back to me.

In the Gospel of Thomas, the author has Jesus say:

Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will rule over all. (SV)

I heard a quote the other day that says the same thing in another way. This is from Gloria Steinem.

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

Yes, a critical reading of the gospels may be disturbing. But it just might set you free.

What happens if we go ahead and read the gospels critically?
What happens if we realize that the figure of Jesus is a character the authors (and especially John) use to tell a story particular for their time?
What happens when we challenge the voices of loud, red-faced preachers in our heads warning us that if we start thinking for ourselves we are paving our own road to hell?
What happens if we allow this story from John not be something we had to believe but instead allowed it to flow through us like “living, life-giving water?”

The truth will set you free.

When I read any other literature, I don’t read it worrying over whether or not I need to believe it. I let it be and allow it to speak freely and I give myself freedom to hear it. I read John’s Jesus now as a story for what it means to live a life that is authentic, free and life-giving, like water.

Jesus said to the woman at Jacob’s well:

“If you knew what God can give you, and who just said to you, “give me a drink,’ you would ask him and he would give you living, life-giving water.”

Mister, you don’t have anything to draw water with,” she says, “and the well is deep; just where will you get this ‘living, life-giving water?’ Can you do better than our patriarch Jacob? He left us this well, which used to quench his thirst and that of his family and his livestock.”

Jesus responded to her, “Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but all who drink the water I’ll provide them with will never get thirsty again; it will be a source of water within them, a fountain of unending life.”

The woman says to him, “Sir, give me some of this water, so I’ll never be thirsty or have to keep coming back here for water.” (SV)

We, the readers, know that as long as she is alive she will still have to drink real water, no matter what living, life-giving water she gets from Jesus. The spiritual life doesn’t replace the physical life. The question the text asks me is what is life like when living, life-giving water is within like a fountain of unending life?

For me, it means first of all that life still happens. I need to eat and drink and do the things of life. I still need to go every day to Jacob’s well. I still live with the contingencies of life, a body that will age and eventually die, grief and loss, change and more change. But, the water within is an awareness that allows me to kiss life as it goes by. It is a fountain of refreshment from which I can draw. It is the living water of authenticity and integrity that is stronger than my fear about the contingencies of life.

It is an ocean of courage to take a risk, to try a new thing, to stand with someone who hurts, to be honest, to open my own self to a larger experience of life. When I feel afraid, anxious, awkward, out of place, or ashamed that I am not all I am “supposed” to be, I can draw from the river, that ocean, that fountain, that well of life-giving authenticity that says speak your truth, live your truth, find joy, and be the master of your thoughts and feelings. You are loved. You belong. The very elements of the universe are in you.

John’s portrait of Jesus is a portrait of a person with a deep center of peace that nothing could disturb. The living, life-giving water flowed so clearly and robustly that others thought he must have been “born from above.” The point of the story as the author tells us again and again is that that water, that living, life-giving, born from above water is within you.

Jesus is the reflection of who you are.

Again from Pat Boran’s poem:

Great telescopes and simple mirrors

Water leaves for us everywhere

To show the connections between things,

To show us what we really are.

This coming September will mark my 20th anniversary as an ordained minister. Over the years, I continue to find that folks, including myself, have a thirst for belonging and for being OK. It is a thirst for love. I have also learned that that thirst for love will not be satisfied for waiting for others to give it to us. The greatest gift we can offer another is not to give the living, life-giving water. We cannot do that. The greatest gift is to give others permission and encouragement to lower that bucket, swim in that river, dive in that ocean, dance in that fountain, and open that spigot within.

Because my friends, it is the Holy Spigot.

Amen.

What is Religion?

2012-01-27T17:49:00.002-05:00

We call it "Science And Religion" this conversation or, at times, contest. I think the two terms are loaded and imprecise. I hear people say that science can't explain everything. I don't disagree, but I am not sure what they mean by saying that. I don't know if the terms are science and religion so much as knowledge and meaning.

The broader meaning of science is public knowledge. What can we know about the universe and how do we know it and how do we communicate with each other about it? This public knowledge is available to anyone who can develop the skills and learn how to use the tools. An assertion to be valid must be able to be proved wrong. This knowledge builds and corrects itself.

Religion, or its new cousin, spirituality, traditionally has been based on special revelation or private revelation. You go to the cave and a supernatural being gives you the meaning of the world. You take it on faith. For those of us who didn't get called to the cave, we are required to trust the messenger. The Bible, Qur'an, or a contemporary spiritualist provides answers that are not able to be disproved.

I find this understanding of religion to be problematic. It does nothing to advance public knowledge or meaning. It is simply a matter of power. If you cannot make a reasonable argument that can withstand the critique of public knowledge, then attempt to speak for God and require that people trust you. Thankfully, this notion of religion (and "spirituality") is being exposed for its fraudulent claims.

Religion is no longer legitimate as a depository for special revelation. If it has anything to say about the natural world and its meaning for us, then we can use public knowledge to test its claims. If it tries to protect its claims from a public test, then it has no legitimacy.

When someone says to me that science cannot explain everything, I ask what the alternative might be. Outside of public knowledge, what can be explained and how is it done? If the answer is some version of "the gods told me" I call it either delusion, wishful thinking, or abuse of power. I trust no one whose claims cannot be tested.

I think it is time to do away with any claim to special revelation. This goes for our texts and creeds. They are products of a time that relied on special revelation to answer life's questions. This method has proven to be inadequate to describe the universe. Instead I advocate that religion fully embrace the principles of public knowledge and devote itself to making life meaningful in a public way.

What can religion be and what is its role? I think the task of religion is to further the possibility of survival of the human species and to preserve our ecosystem for future generations. It is time to embrace the story of the universe that we are learning via public knowledge and work within that story to inspire a meaningful present and future for human beings.

Some may argue that for them, religion and/or spirituality is about escaping this universe. They may suggest that their identity is outside of it and the purpose of life is to transcend their earthly existence via immortal souls and what have you. I have no argument. What argument can possibly be given? This is private revelation and folks are welcome to it. I have no interest in it and find no value in it for our public life (except that I think it is in our public interest to respect the freedom of private belief).

I think religion has so much more to offer than private or special revelation or speculation about matters that cannot be disproved. We are in a unique and perilous position. Humans have stretched Earth's limits to their breaking point. We are not living sustainably. Human beings may become extinct. Earth will spin for 100s of millions of years whether humans are on board or not.

The amazing thing is that the universe has evolved consciousness. We are it. We are literally the universe's eyes, ears, and thoughts. That is valuable. Far more valuable than we may realize. It is worth preserving. We have a great work at hand and that is to survive. We need the best of ourselves. We need to tell the story of the universe that we are learning through public knowledge and we need to work together to find meaningful images and metaphors that will inspire us to do this courageous work. That, to me, is religion.

I make this post in gratitude to two people who I think will be the inspiration to many, Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack. Check out their book, The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Can Transform the World. I will give them the last word:

What would it take, and mean, for Earth's citizens to become a cosmic society, a society capable of thinking in, and acting for, the extremely long term? The possibility of becoming a cosmic society may seem abstract, even pie-in-the-sky silly right now -- but in fact, it may only be possible now. There may be freedoms and resources available today that in a generation or two will disappear unless changes occur. How can we seize this opportunity? How can we help the world's people to recognize that the new cosmos is everyone's home, its origin story is everyone's story, and that sharing the unique place of intelligent life in this universe is a bond that unites us all?

Our goal in this book and this website is to inspire readers to imagine what a cosmic society that accepts and lives by the new cosmological concepts could become, and to start becoming it. We believe this may be humanity's best chance for a very long and successful future. And our best chance for infusing today with the hope and optimism necessary to get there.

Doing My Best to Undermine the Authority of Scripture

2012-01-26T18:25:00.000-05:00

A new Presbyterian break-off has been formed. I wrote about it here, ECO? Seriously? According to this chart, this latest denomination would be the tenth Presbyterian denomination currently active in the United States.

Why so many? It is about Truth of course. It is about the Authority of Scripture.

That is why in 1861 the PCUS broke away because the Truth of Scripture was clear that slavery was ordained by God.
That is why in 1932 the OPC broke away because the Truth of Scripture was clear that "Modernism" (ie. Historical Criticism of the Bible and Evolution) was wrong.
That is why in 1973 the PCA broke away because the Truth of Scripture was clear that women should stay out of the pulpit.
That is why in 2012 the ECO broke away because the Truth of Scripture was clear that gays should stay out of the pulpit, too.

As with the other break-offs it is not slavery, evolution, women, gays or other worldly reasons. It is about how the Truth and the Authority of Scripture have been compromised by the main body of Presbyterians who are chasing after that harlot "Culture" and her wicked ways.

Now the cynics might say that it isn't the Authority of Scripture at all, just unwillingness to change with a dash of prejudice. But that wouldn't be fair. I believe them. It is about the Authority of Scripture. Not only that, the PC(USA) is awash in heresy and it refuses to do anything about it.

Take for example, me. I think the Bible is wrong about most everything. It is wrong about evolution, slavery, women, and gays. It has no authority on those topics. I think the Bible is wrong about cosmology, history, our future, Jesus, and God. The texts were all written by human beings without any supernatural or special revelation. Yet I preach in a PC(USA) pulpit. Run! Flee! Escape while you can into the refreshing waters of pure doctrine!

Ten denominations aren't near enough. We will need plenty more break-offs before we finally give up on the oppressive notion of the Authority of Scripture. The Bible contains no truth outside of what we can discover through public means of inquiry. Don't misunderstand. I enjoy the Bible. It is a marvelous human book. I read it and study it with all the critical means at my disposal. In so doing, I will do my part to undermine its Authority which I think is the next important step for religious freedom.

Music For Our Mountains

2012-01-24T16:35:00.000-05:00

Join us Saturday for a great concert at FPC Elizabethton. We are bound and determined to save Tennessee's mountains. Do get the word out about this concert!

Go here for more information.

If you can, come early and join our afternoon of action. At 4 p.m. our Peacemaking Team will host an afternoon of action on behalf of our mountains. There will be discussion, action planning, letter writing, and phone calls to Tennessee legislators' offices.

Here is a packet with information about MTR and what we can do.

Today, January 24th, is the day to call governor Haslam and ask that he show leadership in the effort to end Mountaintop Removal Mining in Tennessee.

The number is 615.741.2001.

Ask him to support legislative efforts to pass the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act.

If it is too late today, call him tomorrow, and the next...

Here is my interview with Jennie Young about preventing MTR.

And read her article in the Elizabethton Star, Green Around the Hills

Born From Above--A Sermon

2012-01-22T13:48:00.000-05:00

Born From Above

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

January 22, 2012

John 3:1-36

During Winter, the season we have designated to explore the via creativa, the way of creativity and imagination, I am preaching a series of sermons on the Gospel of John. Theologian Matthew Fox coined the name Creation Spirituality to speak of a way of living that embodies a certain authenticity toward life. Creation Spirituality is Earthy spirituality. It is a friend of science. It is a friend of the body. It is a friend of Earth and all who live on Earth, that is all of life including more than human life. Creation Spirituality affirms that we are from Earth, we are bios or life, and that Earth is home.

Creation Spirituality is not a religion. While its roots are in Christianity, it transcends it. It also isn’t just what I say it is. This certainly isn’t about dogma or having the right beliefs about things. It is about a way of living more than requirements to believe. Creation Spirituality has four paths. The Latin term for path is via. These four paths or vias are:

Via positiva – the path of awe, wonder, and celebration

Via negativa –the path of letting go and acknowledging loss and limits

Via creativa—the path of creativity and imagination

Via transformativa—the path of compassion, justice-making, and transformation

These paths are not a ladder climbed, but a spiral danced. Connecting a path to season of the year is a way of acknowledging Earth’s changing seasons and a way of appreciating Earth’s rhythms. To connect the via positiva with Summer and the via creativa with Winter does not mean we are only creative in the Winter and celebratory in the Summer, any more than as Christians we live resurrection only on Easter. Attaching a path to a season (such as creativity with Winter) is a way of intentionally exploring this path even as in our own life we may experience bursts of creativity throughout the year.

I find it helpful to structure worship around the four seasons and the four paths of Creation Spirituality. Creation Spirituality, as I see it, is a way of living that embodies a certain authenticity toward life and Earth. It is an Earthy spirituality. It is a way of being authentic, of being human. Religion does its job when it encourages, invites, and provides means via ritual, reflection, community, and practice to live lives that matter.

If you are interested in learning more about Creation Spirituality, I recommend Matthew Fox’s book, Original Blessing. Or you can google Creation Spirituality or Matthew Fox. I am no purist or apologist for it. I borrow what I like from it and shape it in a way that makes sense to me. I think in doing so, I am honoring creativity. I make my own theology.

Religious experience for many has not offered that freedom. For the most part, religion is fixed. It is waking each morning and believing six impossible things before breakfast. It includes rules and weirdness and a whole lot of guilt. The idea of making up or creating your own religion or spirituality might seem to be an odd notion. Surely you’ll go to hell for that. Then again, maybe you won’t. Care to take a chance? Or is it safer to follow the rules and believe in a punitive god even though that god is like an abusive spouse?

We inherit our notions of God just by living in the culture. Our culture’s god is a mean old cuss. He is a male, first off. Then he’s tribal. He favors one group over another. He is always starting wars. He is racist. Look at the yokels running for president. They are all about god. Each one is just as holy and pure as mama’s Bible. Their god doesn’t want equality for gay people. Their god doesn’t believe in evolution. Their God doesn’t care about poverty and inequality. Their God’s long-term plan is to destroy the planet to get the fossil fuels as fast as we can by any means necessary. There is no reason to care about future generations because Jesus will be coming back and he’ll make us a new heavenly home. Hallelujah.

It may be an odd notion to create a new religion, but the dominant religion of our culture sure doesn’t seem to be working for us. Care to take a chance?

The via creativa is the spiritual path of exploring and imagining new ways of living in this world. And the creativity comes when we finally give up. We want to run out the door screaming into the darkness. More than one person this week has told me that they have given up on the political process. I wonder if maybe we are getting to a point where something new and unexpected is about happen.

You know what creative moments are like. You have been going through the motions, or stuck in a rut, or have a block, all of those metaphors we use. Suddenly, it seems, we get an insight, something breaks through. That is creativity. You know that you can’t force it. It happens when it is ready. The via creativa is a path of nurturing creativity. It is trusting creativity. You can empty a space for it, but creativity is serendipitous. It is surprising. It is unexpected.

It happens when you allow yourself permission to let go of old ways, the via negativa is letting go, and to be willing to try something new.

A teacher of the law, Nicodemus, comes to Jesus in the night (night is the symbol for the via negativa) and he acknowledges that Jesus is of God. Nicodemus says to Jesus:

“Rabbi, we know that you’ve come as a teacher from God; after all, nobody can perform the signs you do unless God is with him.”

Jesus replied to him, “Let me tell you this: no cone can experience the empire of God without being reborn from above.”

That is the Scholars’ Version, a translation by the Jesus Seminar.

You may have heard the phrase,

“You must be born again.”

There is a certain type of Christianity in which people call themselves “born again” believers. It comes from this text in the Gospel of John. The word translated as “again” is the Greek word, anothen. It also means “above.” Was Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born again or that he must be born from above? Nicodemus thinks he means “again” and asks how he can go back into his mother’s womb. Can you be much more of a literalist than that?

It is like the woman at the well later in the gospel. Jesus says I have life-giving water so you will never thirst. She says, “Great! Give me it and I won’t need to keep coming to this well.” No. That isn’t what Jesus means. Another time, Jesus says you must eat my body and drink my blood. They think he really means it.

The Gospel of John is not an account of the historical Jesus. The Gospel of John is the work of a creative author offering a poetic portrait of the authentic life. A life he saw in the historical person of Jesus. Then he wrote a parable about him.

Bishop John Shelby Spong has written a new book, Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World. The book is based on his weekly column in which he wrote about the different books of the Bible. It is a great summary of the background of each book of the Bible from a critical perspective. This is what John Shelby Spong writes about John:

“If I had to give my readers one clue and one clue only that would unlock the Fourth Gospel and allow its honesty and wonder to flow forth, it would be that the author is constantly poking fun at anyone who would take his message literally, misunderstand his use of symbols or attempt to literalize the words he has attributed to Jesus.” P. 387

In our story with Nicodemus, the joke is on him. Jesus says, “You must be born from above” or perhaps “reborn from above” as the Scholars’ Version translates it, to get both senses of that word. Nicodemus, the religious teacher, the leader, the smart guy, is as literal as a stump. “You mean I need to go back to my mother’s womb?” The joke is on him. But it is more than that. The joke is on us. We have been literalizing Jesus for centuries.

Every time we read one of these weird stories in John, it should be a clue that this is tongue in cheek. It is a koan, a parable, in which the character Jesus happens to be the protagonist. And it is an invitation at every step to live an authentic life.

What does it mean to live an authentic life, or to use some of John’s metaphors, what does it mean to

Be a branch of the vine,

To drink living water,

To eat Jesus’s flesh,

To hear and follow the shepherd’s voice,

To know the way, the truth, and the life,

To see the light in the darkness,

To rise from the dead,

To be reborn from above?

John just piles on the metaphors and images and the other characters in the story misinterpret them. The joke John says to us is, “Will you miss it, too?”

It is pretty much an historical consensus that the historical Jesus was executed by the Roman Empire. He died not of disease, or old age, or accident, but by a deliberate act of torture and spectacle by the most powerful empire in the known world. His execution according to Roman law was legal and legitimate.

The Roman Empire wasn’t a bad empire. To use a phrase by religious scholars, Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, Rome represented the “normalcy of civilization.” To keep the peace and to keep order sometimes you have to crucify people. Jesus and thousands of others like him were collateral damage.

The author of John’s Gospel and the authors of the other gospels each in their own way, saw something in this. They saw that this “normalcy of civilization” is dehumanizing. Jesus represented a human being and what it means to be human in a dehumanizing world. John wanted to tell a story of the powers of this world, this normalcy of civilization, exposed for what they are and for what it is. He found in the story of Jesus a way to tell it.

This part is still true today. When we are told

that war is inevitable,

that destroying our planet for non-renewable resources is essential to life,

that infinite economic growth is possible or desirable,

that corporations are people,

then we live in a very similar world to the one John’s Gospel exposed as the power of darkness,

“the world”.

What does it mean to be a human being in “the world”? That is what I think John’s invitation is.

Jesus tells Nicodemus, “

You must be reborn from above.”

In 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told Americans the same thing. A nation that enslaved people for 244 years and said it was normal, even God-ordained, then today goes to endless war all over the globe and makes war an economic essential, exploits the poor, consigns our children to environmental catastrophe, and fills our every moment with white noise from the media, that nation needs to reborn from above.

King said, “America, you must be born again!”

He was right.

It isn’t just America. It is everyone.

The author of John’s gospel by creating this exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus was saying to his readers,

"It is time to raise your consciousness. It is time to be reborn from above."

The way we are going is not sustainable. But it is not hopeless.

Now is the via creativa.

The human brain is more complex than the galaxy. We have more neurons in each of our brains then there are stars in the galaxy. They are connected in ways the stars are not. Life is incredible.

The possibilities for imagining and creating a new way of living with one another and with Earth in sustainable ways are out there and in here. Being born from above means to raise our consciousness and to become more aware of who we are and what life is and what it can be. Given the chance, we can share and create and cooperate and collaborate. We can survive and thrive for many, many more generations. Life as the Domination System has structured it is not inevitable.

Yeah, the world knows how to make crosses.

But the Gospel of John ends with resurrection, rebirth, and a new start.

Amen.

Sarah Sentilles Broke Up With God and Tells All on Religion For Life!

2012-01-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Sarah Sentilles broke up with the Creator of the Universe just as she was about to be ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

She tells all in her book, Breaking Up With God: A Love Story.

In this interesting and thought-provoking interview on Religion For Life, Dr. Sentilles shares her theological journey and demonstrates why if the church is going to have any relevancy to educated and inquiring minds, it is going to need to challenge its patriarchy and its outdated images of God.

I wrote about her book on my blog here and here and posted an excerpt from her book here.

Listen...

Monday, January 23rd at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Thursday, January 26th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, January 29th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, January 29th, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Via podcast beginning January 30th.

ECO? Seriously?

2012-01-20T15:25:00.001-05:00

Planet Earth needs another Presbyterian denomination. Here it is. This one is "a bold church unafraid." OK, unafraid, but yet a bit squeamish about gays. So squeamish in fact, that they could no longer function in the PC(USA) and simply had to form a brand new denomination because someday, somewhere another congregation or presbytery in the PC(USA) might ordain a gay person, and well if that happened, then, gosh, we couldn't be bold and unafraid any longer. We would have to be very afraid.

So this new, bold and unafraid denomination calls itself curiously enough, ECO. That might mean that the new bold and unafraid denomination might be bold about responding to climate change, unafraid to speak out against mountain top removal strip mining, bold in raising awareness regarding fossil fuel depletion, and unafraid in working toward sustainability. With a name like ECO, a denomination must have as its central focus care for Earth. Right? If that was its focus, I would consider jumping ship and signing on.

Well, it is not literally ECO. Not that kind of ECO. Here is the logo:

It seems they like the image of ECO (notice the green leaf), but it is recycled fundamentalism and homophobia with green lipstick. It is not unlike calling creationism "intelligent design". I perused their theological statements and outside of a brief and tame statement on "stewardship of the goods we've been given" I didn't see anything about caring for Earth.

I get that they don't want theological innovation (or "heretics" like me nor do they want gays). Whatever. But to rip off and co-opt the image of the ecological movement for their narrow ideology is shameful. The only hope is that maybe they will be shamed by the people they attract with this false image to live into it.

Iraqi Peacemaker on the Next Religion For Life

2012-01-16T20:29:00.001-05:00

International Peacemaker of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Mazen Alsaqa is my guest on the next Religion For Life.

He is a Christian refugee from Iraq now living in Michigan.

In the Fall of 2011 he visited East Tennessee to tell his story of the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq.

Read more about him at Shuck and Jive, here, here, and here.

Here are articles about him in the Johnson City Press, the Tusculum College News, the Greeneville Sun, and here is information about the situation of Christians in Iraq.Listen...

Monday, January 16th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Thursday, January 19th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, January 22nd, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, January 22nd, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Via podcast beginning January 23rd.

No Greater Love--A Sermon

2012-01-15T13:57:00.000-05:00

NoGreater Love

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

January 15, 2012

Martin Luther King

John 15:1-26

Todaywe honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle for equality. We do so in the context of worship because weknow the sacred nature of this struggle.

Themarches across the south were holy marches.

Thesit-ins at lunch counters were divine epiphanies.

Thewillingness to walk rather than to ride segregated buses was to follow thecloud by day and the fire by night through the wilderness.

Thosewho participated in the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s knewthey were involved in something much larger than what they could see orhear. It was a movement for dignity. A movement for dignity is a movement ofSpirit. The struggle for equalitywas cradled in the language of faith. King was a preacher who used the stories and teachings of Christianityfor inspiration and for clarity.

Itcan be dangerous to do that even as it is necessary. We know the dangers of fanaticism when peopleclaim that their cause is God’s cause. That assuredness that “God is on my side” has caused pain and sufferingas well as healing and hope. Those inpositions of leadership and influence have to take care when they invokeSpirit, the Holy, and the Sacred in their cause. When someone speaks with certainty thattheir cause is God’s cause, it is a good time to watch your wallet and to watchyour back.

Evenso as Reinhold Niebuhr said, ‘justice cannotbe approximated if the hope of its perfect realization does not generate asublime madness in the soul. Nothing but such madness will do battle withmalignant power and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ Moral Man, Immoral Society, p. 277.

Ittook a “madness in the soul” to resist entrenched and institutionalizedracism. How could freedom rides evertranslate into real freedom? Weren’tthose who suffered these injustices each and every hour of every day too small,weak, and poor? Weren’t the powers ofthe economy, culture, and government too large, strong, and rich? Yes, they were. The “world” to use the Gospel of John’s term, hated them. They needed an identity and a purpose that was not of this world.

Theworld as John uses the term refersto the unequal and unjust powers ofracism, economic inequality, political oppression, and misuse of natural andhuman resources on behalf of a few over the many. It is all sanctioned by the dominantreligion. That is the world. Another phrase for it is the DominationSystem or even Civilization.

Itis no surprise then what started as a civil rights movement grew in King’s mindto be connected with the war in Vietnam and the cause of the pooreverywhere. It is all connected. We know today that the connections areeven larger and include the struggle for dignity and equality for all peopleregardless of gender and sexual orientation, and now for Earth and the systemsthat sustain life itself.

Weknow that these assaults on people and on Earth are the result of entrenchedand institutionalized injustice that is pervasive and consuming. Are we not too small, too weak, and toopoor? Are not the powers of thisworld—namely, the global corporations to whom our elected leaders bow down andworship—too large, too strong, and too rich? Yes, we are and they are.

Weneed an identity and a purpose that is not of this world to do battle with this“malignant power and spiritualwickedness.” Perhaps, dare I sayit? We need Jesus.

Weneed Jesus the truth teller.

Partof the malignant power of spiritual wickedness is spin. That is the ability of the powerful, rich,and connected to get you to deny what you see with your own eyes. These representatives of the world wear nicesuits, are clean shaven, and speak in complete sentences. They are so skilled at deception that theycan convince us that destroying the top of a mountain that has been there for500 million years is a good thing. Soskilled are they that they have done this trick 500 times. In Appalachia, 500 mountains have beenflattened.

Soskilled are they, that they can convince us that clear-cutting all the forest,literally blowing 500 feet of elevation off a mountain and dumping rock anddirt into the valleys and thus poisoning streams is perfectly normal. To do so, they say very calmly as theygently pat your hand, is a necessary thing. That destroying human and animal habitats not just for today but formillions of years in the future is the onlything that is rational. It has to bedone. It is the only way.

That, is to useNiebuhr’s phrase, “the malignant power ofspiritual wickedness in high places.”

Segregationin King’s time and before was normal. Itis just the way it was. Smooth talkingpeople who wore nice suits, were clean-shaven and spoke in complete sentences,told the rest of us how normal and good and important it was for society to besegregated, separate, and they assured us, “but equal.” It took a long time for that tochange. That change didn’t come bysitting down calmly with the powers and negotiating. That was tried to be sure. Again and again and again. Change only happened when the small, weak,and poor realized that the large, strong, and rich were never going tochange.

Theyrealized that if change was going to happen, it would have to be done byforce. Pressure would have to beplaced on the powerful from every angle and at every opportunity. That pressure and force would need to comefrom the outside. They found ways toexpose the truth. Thanks to television,people around the country and around the world could see the violence ofinstitutionalized racism in their living rooms. Peaceful marchers attacked by dogs and firehoses led people to ask, “Is this America?”

Yesit is. That is the truth. Now, is this the America you want? For you who are in church, is a segregatedJesus the Jesus you worship? They wereforced to wrestle with the very core of their identity. Who are we? The country was exposed to the truth and it needed to make adecision. Jesus as truth-teller was amodel for resistance. We need a littleJesus.

Ithink there is a similarity between mountain top desecration in 2012 andsegregation in 1950. The similarity isthat it both were hidden. Neitherinjustice was hidden to the people who suffered of course, but their sufferingwas hidden from the rest. I wasn’t awareof mountain top desecration until a few years ago. Thespin to the wider world was that everything is OK. No problem here. Public relations is one of the mostlucrative careers you can get into these days. Good spin doctors are in high demand, especially when there is a lot tokeep hidden.

Buttruth from the mouths of the small, weak, and poor can conquer the spin of thelarge, strong, and powerful.

Truthfrom the mouths of the small, weak, and poor can conquer the spin of the large,strong, and powerful.

Youhave to believe that.

MartinLuther King didn’t just lead one march and call it quits. He didn’t think that he just needed topreach one sermon, offer one eloquent speech, go to jail one time, and peoplewould get it. He had to do the samedarn thing again and again and again. Remember, he was dealing with the world, “the malignant power of spiritual wickedness in high places.” You don’t just do that as a weekendhobby. It is a life commitment. If you get discouraged, well duh, you aredealing with “the malignant power ofspiritual wickedness in high places.”

Youcan’t do this alone. You need others andyou need a strong spiritual core. Youneed a center, a rock, a fire, a baptism of spirit. You need to know who you are. That no matter what happens on the outside,you are still and undisturbed at the center.

The Jordan River is chilly and cold.

It chills the body but not the soul.

Thosespirituals are all about this. They areall about knowing who you are. I don’ttell others the way they need to find that spiritual core. For me, though, it is through my man,Jesus. The Gospel of John’s Jesus is not literal or historical, I don’t think,anyway. It is a portrait, and a valuableportrait of who Jesus was on the inside.

“I am from above,” hewould say. As if to say, “You can’t touch this.”

Thatis not a cocksureness or an arrogance. It is a statement of identity. I know who I am and who I am is not defined by the values of this world. Thus John’sJesus is the invitation to discover yourself. Who are you? What do you livefor? What matters?

Theworld says you are a consumer. You liveto consume stuff. The more thebetter. What matters is that you don’tquestion that and you just keep on buying useless crap as fast as you can. The world says to us:

“We, your caretakers, your providers, your gods, “themalignant powers of spiritual wickedness in high places” will provide you withthese shiny things in exchange for keeping your mouth shut.

“Don’t talk about the mountains or streams. Don’t talk about the factory farms. Don’t talk about climate change. Don’t talk about the people that need to bedisplaced because they are in the way of the stuff. If you don’t let us do what we want, youwon’t get the shiny things.”

Wesay, “Well…if you put it that way, OK.”

No,we don’t say that. We say, “No!”

Wesay, “It is not worth it. We don’t want what you are selling. We are not consumers. We are human beings. We are Earthlings. This is home. We will not allow you to destroy it. We will fight for it. We will fight for our children’s future. We will tell the truth about it. We won’t stop.”

And…“We are willing to sacrifice for it.”

InMontgomery, throughout 1956, for over a year, African-Americans stopped takingthe bus. The bus was their lifeblood. It was their transportation. They had to find ways to get people to andfrom work and to and from the grocery and to and from church and to and fromwherever they needed to go.

Itrequired of them sacrifice.

Itrequired of them creativity, organizing, and sharing.

Theydid it.

Theybuilt community.

Theyfound their strength in nightly meetings.

Theyendured the KKK and bombs and daily indignities.

Thesacrifice didn’t kill them.

Itmade them stronger.

Theyknew that there was no greater reason to exist,

nogreater love,

thento give up their lives for their friends.

Theyknew who they were.

Theyknew what mattered.

Theyknew what life was about.

Changerequires speaking the truth, finding our spiritual center, endurance, and itrequires of us the willingness to sacrifice and to change our patterns—to giveup the trinkets. The world, “the malignant powers of spiritualwickedness in high places” are betting that we won’t do that. That is their ace in the hole. They think all we can do is a talk a goodgame, but when it comes down to it, we will always come crawling back to themfor our treats.

Thatis where we need to prove them wrong.

Weprove them wrong by knowing who we are, what we live for, and what matters.

Itbegins with a decision.

Itis a decision to be a human being rather than a consumer.

Ahuman being like Jesus was.

LikeMartin Luther King.

LikeRosa Parks.

Likethe tens and hundreds of thousands of people who history will never rememberbut who make up that cloud of witnesses,

whoresisted,

whospoke their truth, again and again and again,

andwho demonstrated the greatest love,

togive up their lives for their friends.

Andwho through it all, changed the world.

Amen.

Three Jesuses

2012-01-14T16:38:00.001-05:00

During Thursdays With Jesus, we are reading Deepak Chopra's, The Third Jesus. Join us Thursdays at 10:30. I like Chopra's Jesus more than the "send you to hell" Jesus of default Christianity. But Chopra's Jesus is kind of spooky. Chopra talks about "God consciousness" and what all. His Jesus is kind of a Hindu Jesus. It is a good Jesus. He is all about love and you can be like him. But something isn't working for me. It is the metaphysics that doesn't resonate. Here are three theories.

1) Orthodox Christianity. After death we go to Heaven or Hell. Jesus is the unique son of God who gets you to God and to heaven via grace (usually with some kind of action or belief on our part). Salvation is "to love God and to enjoy God forever."

2) Chopra. Mind encompasses matter. We are not our bodies. We have bodies. Jesus is enlightened being that we can become (presumably after enough reincarnations). Salvation is becoming enlightened and developing "God consciousness."

3) Naturalism. No heaven. No hell. No reincarnation. We are our bodies. We do not exist outside of them. Matter produces mind. Consciousness arises from biology. Jesus is a model of a life that matters. Salvation is being at peace in one's own skin through life's contingencies.

Personally, my religion is behind door number three. But I don't insist. Naturalism makes sense to me and I happen to like it. I find happiness with it. Which of the three makes you happy? You can quibble with me that I didn't describe yours correctly. Fine, describe it in a way that satisfies you. But overall, how many choices really can there be? Thoughts:

I think there are good people in each belief system.
I don't think any view is worth freaking out and going to war over.
I think this stuff is fun to talk about, but then I am just weird that way.

You might enjoy this debate between Leonard Mlodinow and Deepak Chopra, The War of Worldviews: Exploring Science Vs. Spirituality.

Because I Know You Want Me to Do More Self-Promotion...

2012-01-10T15:57:00.001-05:00

I post my first podcast of my new radio show, Religion For Life for you and your loved ones and for those who will inherit this mess we left them. This is an interview with Anthony Flaccavento about building local, ecologically sustainable economies.

You can hear and subscribe to podcasts by going here. I post them after they air on WETS and WEHC.

This week catch my interview with local rabble rouser, Jennie Young, as she encourages us to take on the powers who want to destroy Tennessee's mountains. Be sure to read this article Jennie wrote for the Elizabethton Star, Green Around the Hills, There's Nothing Like a Mountain.

Baptized With Spirit--A Sermon

2012-01-08T13:25:00.000-05:00

Baptized With Spirit

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

January 8th, 2012

John 1:19-51

“Let me tell you this: you’llsee the sky split open and God’s messengers

ascending and descending on theHuman One.”

John 1:51 Scholars' Version

During the season of Winterwe are going to explore the Gospel ofJohn. When the Jesus Seminarcombed through the gospels to determine what sayings and deeds might have goneback to the historical person of Jesus and what were later traditions createdby the gospel writers, they found virtually nothing in the Gospel of John that went back to the historical Jesus. Thatcan be deceptive. That does not meanthat John is not important. It does notmean that John’s gospel did not capture the impulse or the spirit of thehistorical Jesus. I think the gospel diddo that in its own way.

In the synopticgospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus speaks in parable and aphorism. In John’s gospel Jesus speaks in longdiscourses. In the synoptics, Jesusspeaks about the “kingdom of God.” In John,Jesus's favorite topic seems to be himself. But that can be deceptive too. Itisn’t Jesus for the sake of Jesus, but as a human being that we all can become.

Jesus has a mysticalquality in John. He floats throughreality. It is as though he is saying to followers andopponents alike,

“You can’t touch this.”
“You don’t crucify me. I laydown my own life and take it up again.”
“You are from below. I am fromabove.”
“I and the Father are one.”
“Before Abraham was, I am.”

And, he promises hisfollowers that they will soon see that,

“I am in the Father, and that you are in me and that I am in you.”

I think John is a fascinating and important gospeland with the assistance of biblical scholar Walter Wink, and particularly hisbook, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man,we are going to explore what this gospel might say to us about what it means tobe human.

The passage I readtoday concludes with a strange image:

“Let me tell you this: you’llsee the sky split open and God’s messengers ascending and descending on theHuman One.”

Part of our explorationof John will be what the phrase translated here as the Human One means. A moreliteral translation of the phrase in Greek is the awkward, “the son of the man.” That is Jesus’ favorite title forhimself. Not messiah or christ, not sonof god, not second person of the trinity, but “the son of the man.” The human being.

That is the phrase thatWink discusses at length in his fascinating and important book, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man. Wink was a participant in the Jesus Seminar,although his conclusions directed him on a different path than that of themajority of the Fellows. Wink writes inhis book that the quest for the historical Jesus is more than an academic,historical study. It was he says thesearch for the human Jesus. That is fora Jesus who matters. It is a search for a Jesus we can believein. The search is for the myth of thehuman.

Wink sees in the phrasethat Jesus used for himself more than any other, “the son of the man”, thearchetypal human being. That is the humanbeing that we are invited and empowered to be. Wink writes:

Lo, I tell you a mystery:

God is Human,

and we are to become,

like God. P. 257

The Gospel of John is fiction. The character Jesus in John is a product ofthe imagination of the author. It isnot made up of whole cloth, of course. Somewhere in there was a real person who did and said things. John’s Jesus is an interpretation, aparable, a presentation, or a symbolic representation.

If what I just saidsounds scandalous and heretical it is only because we have been bullied by the churchand its dogmas, creeds, and theological sophistry. Jesusis not the property of the church. Heis both a figure of history and a product of imaginative creation.

The authorof the Gospel of John wanted to showus something. He saw in the person of Jesussomething empowering. He told a storyof Jesus that made sense to him and that empowered him to embrace life and notbe afraid of the powers of this world.

Another important wordfor John is world or cosmos. Depending on the context, it can mean earthlyexistence, life, or more often than not, it is a word for what Wink calls the “dominationsystem.” Jesus says, “I am not of thisworld.” What does he mean? I do not think he is saying that he is fromanother planet or from another place like heaven, or that he is of anotherspiritual incarnation or some spooky notion like that. It means that he does not conform to thevalues of the dominant system. What is this dominant system, this world?

Here is anillustration. The late Thomas Berry,described the values of the domination system, what the Gospel of John calls world in two sentences.

“The ideal is to take the greatest possible amount of naturalresources, process these resources, put them through the consumer economy asquickly as possible, then on to the waste heap. This we consider as progress.”

I can’t think of a moresuccinct expression of “the world” than that. Thomas Berry encapsulated the death and insanity of industrialcivilization and its handmaiden, infinite economic growth, with those twosentences. It is so true, I’ll read itagain:

“The ideal is to take the greatest possible amount of naturalresources, process these resources, put them through the consumer economy asquickly as possible, then on to the waste heap. This we consider as progress.”

You wonder why “theworld” is blowing the tops off of mountains? Over 500 in Appalachia so far andthe Cumberlands in Tennessee are next. If that isn’t enough, we will simply mineCanada and “process“ its tar sands. Itis a foreign country. Nobody lives in Alberta. Or we’ll frack the gas. Don’t worry about what it might do to thewater. Gas is more important than wateranyway, right? If that isn’t enough tolive up to our ideals, we can start a skirmish with another middle easterncountry in hopes that that will somehow keep the oil flowing.

The "world" has to liveits ideal. In the "world", you are not ahuman being. You are a consumer. You role is to consume everything in sight untilEarth is a wasteland. That is normal. That is progress. That is the domination system. That is what the author of John’s gospelcalls “the world”. Obviously, in John’s time and in Jesus’stime, they weren’t talking about modern industrial civilization, but they weretalking about the unsustainable dominant civilization of its time, one whose mode of operation was to divide, destroy, conquer and grow.

Lest there be anydoubt, when I care about Jesus or about the Gospelof John it is not because I care about heaven or hell or reincarnation orresurrected corpses or supernaturalism or any of that stuff. I think all of that is a distortion of theoriginal impulse of Jesus and of those who caught what he was saying anddoing. We haveliteralized first century symbolism and thus distorted it.

The historical Jesusand the imaginative creation by John’sGospel is an invitation and anexhortation to respond to the "world" by becoming a human being. I don’t want to be anything less or more than a humanbeing. Being a human being means thatwe expose the values of “this world” for what they are—death values.

I respect everyone's freedom to explore their religion. My personal religion isEarth-based. I am an Earthling. I am ahuman being. From Earth I was born and to Earth I shallreturn. If by chance, I am completelywrong and the whole point of this exercise of life was to get to heaven or tobe reincarnated, then at my death, I will say to whatever supernatural magicianwho offers these prizes the following:

“No thank you. I have lived mylife. There is nothing more I need. You can have your afterlife. I don’t want it. Instead, if you have the power, providefor my children and their children and the creatures of Earth. Give them a chance to live on Earth. Can you make it so the waters will be pure,and the mountains covered with trees?”

To me, religion isabout being a human being. It is aboutliving a life that matters.

We aregoing to be ordaining elders and deacons later in the service. We will ask of them to say, “Yes” to a numberof questions. Those questions for me, at least, need to beinterpreted. I see them as the willingnessto honor and to wrestle with the tradition and to serve with integrity. One of the questions I don’t have to reinterpretin my mind when I say, “Yes” that I can regard at face value is this one:

“Will you pray for and seek to serve the people with energy,intelligence, imagination, and love?”

Where do I wish to putmy energy, intelligence, imagination, and love? Is it for an afterlife? Do I wantto live for that? Not me. I would argue that neither Jesus nor thegospel writers were about that either. No, my energy, intelligence,imagination, and love needs to be at the service of life on Earth as it is andfor our children that they may have the opportunity to breathe clean air, growand eat healthy food, and drink clean water.

Part of saying “Yes” toour descendants and saying “Yes” to Earth is to say “No” to “the world” and itsvalues of domination. The issueI have with much contemporary spirituality is that it allows us to escape intospiritualism rather than to be baptized by Spirit.

John the Baptist says that Jesus is the oneto baptize by Spirit. He is the one whoshows us what it means to be a human being. Being a human being requires us to stand up and to resist the powers. The promise of John’s gospel is that we cando it.

Jesus says to Nathaniel, youthink the parlor trick, the little psychic trick of me seeing you under thetree was interesting? You ain’t seennothing yet.

“Let me tell you this: you’llsee the sky split open and God’s messengers ascending and descending on theHuman One.”

That is symboliclanguage of course. It has to do with thedignity of humanity. Human beings arenot slaves, or cogs on an assembly line, or consumers, or cannon fodder.

And you stop being those things when youstart being a human being now.

When wewake up and when we stand up and when we speak up for the dignity of life webecome transcendent. The angels ascend and descend upon us.

To recap and concludewith something to take home:

The Gospel of John’s Jesus is a humanbeing. He is the archetype of HumanBeing. He is the Human One. The Human One is who we really are asopposed to what “the world” or the domination system says we are. This is not spiritually spooky stuff nor isit elitist. It is for anyone. We can all be human in our owncontexts. It requires the choice on our end to decide tolive a life that matters.

A life that matters isnot big, or is it the same as someone else. A life that matters is saying,

I matter.

I don’t matter morethan anyone else or any less.

I count.

I am not aconsumer.

I am not a cog on theindustrial gear.

I am not collateraldamage.

I am not a problem tobe solved.

I am not who “the world”says I am.

I am a humanbeing.

I am creative.

I can live withintention and with integrity.

I choose to becompassionate.

I choose to be happy.

I choose to be hopeful.

I can find a way tobring compassion, joy, and hope, into my life and into the lives ofothers.

I can care aboutsomething.

I want Earth to be herefor my descendants.

I can fight forit.

I can expose the liesof the powers and speak my truth.

I am baptized by Spirit.

I am a human being.

We human beings canstart a revolution.

We human beings canchange this world.

Amen.

Faithful Resistance to Mountain Top Removal Mining on the Next Religion For Life

2012-01-06T17:34:00.001-05:00

500 mountains in Appalachia have had their tops destroyed in order to get to the coal seams. Many within faith communities see this destruction as an assault on God's creation. Coal companies have their sites set on Tennessee's mountains.

Jennie Young of Elizabethton, Tennessee talks to me on Religion For Life about efforts to alert people, particularly in faith communities, about mountain top removal strip mining, and to encourage them to tell our political representatives to take action.

Jennie Young was featured in the Elizabethon Star, Struggle to Protect State's Mountains is a Moral Issue at Heart for Activist

Jennie Young and others from First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton speaking out for Appalachia's mountains.

Listen to Religion For Life...

Monday, January 9th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Thursday, January 12th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, January 15th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, January 15th, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Via podcast beginning January 16th.

Updated Schedule for Religion For Life

2012-01-06T16:47:00.001-05:00

Here is the schedule for Religion For Life. New programs will be aired in this order:

Mondays 1 p.m. WEHC, 90.7
Thursdays 8 p.m. WETS, 89.5
Sundays noon. WEHC, 90.7
Sundays 2 p.m. WETS, 89.5

You can listen via live streaming to all the broadcasts on both stations.

After the show has been broadcast the four times, podcasts will be available. Please subscribe!

Please "like" Religion For Life on Facebook
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More information about Religion For Life and my congregation can be found at First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton!

Be well!

Religion For Life Begins Tonight

2012-01-05T12:39:00.001-05:00

My radio show, Religion For Life, starts tonight. My guest will be Anthony Flaccavento of S.C.A.L.E. regarding building local, sustainable economies.

The program starts at 8 pm (Eastern Time) on WETS, 89.5. You can listen via live stream anywhere in the country.

So if you are in Winthrop, Washington tune in at 5 p.m.
If you live in Twodot, Montana, you'll hear Religion For Life at 6 p.m.
If you hang your hat in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, it will be 7 p.m.
and if you live Soddy Daisy, Tennessee catch Religion For Life at 8 p.m.
The Pope in Rome will tune in at 2 a.m.
and folks in Auckland, New Zealand will enjoy Religion For Life with their morning tea at 8 a.m.

No matter where you are, we have you covered via live streaming.

The program will be rebroadcast on Sunday at 2 p.m. (Eastern) WETS and Monday at 1 p.m. on WEHC, also available via internet live streaming.

Follow Religion For Life on Twitter and Facebook too!

Presbyterians, Evolution, and Darwinmas

2012-01-03T14:41:00.000-05:00

I have been elected to be a delegate for the 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I have never been a delegate before so I am looking forward to the week in Pittsburgh this summer. One of my hopes for the General Assembly is that they will endorse the Clergy Letter Project like the United Methodist Church has done.

It is too late to send an overture to General Assembly from my presbytery as we will not meet again until March and it will miss the deadline. My questions to my Presby friends are these:

Has any presbytery submitted an overture affirming the Clergy Letter Project?
If not, do you know of any plans to do so?
Still no? Anyone game to work with me on getting this going?

Meanwhile, I hope that you have Darwinmas on your liturgical calendar. Evolution Weekend is February 10-12. I hope it is a sacred time for you as it is for me. And may you experience the joy of natural selection not just during one weekend but the whole year long.

Presbyterians Profit from Israeli Occupation

2012-01-03T13:40:00.002-05:00

This is a well-written and accurate letter in the Layman by Will McGarvey regarding Alan Wisdom's attack on the stated clerk of the PC(USA).

I see that Alan Wisdom is up to his old tricks again (“GA set to tangle again over Israel divestment” 12-15-11). For anyone who has followed church discussions and policies on our hope for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians for any amount of time, to read Wisdom’s latest piece, is an insult to our faith and intelligence.

Since 1967, when Israel invaded and occupied the West Bank and Gaza and began colonizing those territories with permanent settlements and economic controls against international law, it has been the policy of the PCUSA’s predecessor bodies and our church today to stand by our Christian partners in the region who were displaced and forced off their land. Wisdom doesn’t use the term “occupation” once in his own narrative, but only includes the term so crucial to understanding what is going on in the quotations of those he is attacking. The corporations that MRTI has finally voted to divest from are profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. Their products are being used to destroy Palestinian homes, olive orchards, roads and build walls between these same peoples and their farmlands and orchards, while allowing an occupying army to regularly invade Palestinian controlled areas and detain or jail Palestinians without habeus corpus rights. The whole point of a “phased-selective divestment” process was to study who was profiting from the dispossession of those in the West Bank and Gaza so as not to do so any longer. It took less than 12 months for the PCUSA to divest from Talisman Oil in Sudan when they were profiting from the selling of oil futures to the government of Sudan to buy armaments to be used against their own people. Why is it so hard for us to stop profiting from the occupation of Palestine? MRTI has resisted taking a stand since 2004, and now that corporate engagement has proven ineffectual in between four General Assemblies, they cannot pretend that another chance exists that appealing to these corporations will change their behavior. They have proven that we need to add them to the list of those we would rather not invest in – or be in open contempt of our own policies of socially responsible investment.

We are a denomination whose Scriptures call us to the ways of Jesus of Nazareth, who resisted the Roman occupation of Jewish lands in his own day. Our own confessions compel us to be reconcilers, not appeasers, to the injustice we see in our own day. And yet Wisdom, and others have succumbed to a form of Christian Zionism that doesn’t know how to question the harmful actions that the state of Israel continues to enact against the Christians and Muslims in Palestine. There is not an “anti-Israel alliance” in the PCUSA. Pretending that the stated clerk does anything but express the policies of the General Assembly is more than an ad hominem attack, it is slander. To me, Wisdom owes Parsons a public apology.

What this article points out is that there is a growing pro-peace, justice movement of members, ruling elders and teaching elders who have studied this issue, and who hold to our constitutional forms of mission, action and solidarity – even with that slim minority of Palestinian Christians who continue to live out their faith in the cradle of Christianity. That Wisdom and his organization is so quick to work against their survival is its own testament to his position and work.

Rev. Will McGarvey, pastorcurrently serving Community Presbyterian Church of Pittsburg, Calif.

The Way, the Truth, and the Life--A Sermon

2012-01-01T12:40:00.000-05:00

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

New Year’s Day 2012

John 14:1-31

I am excited about mynew radio program, Religion For Life,that begins airing this Thursday. Ihave recorded and produced several interviews already. AnthonyFlaccavento is this week’s guest and then our own Jennie Young will be on thefollowing week talking about mountain top removal strip mining as a moralissue.

This past week Iinterviewed Carol Delaney, professor emerita at Stanford. She is now a research scholar at Brown. I used her book Abraham on Trial as aresource for my series of sermons on Genesis. Her latest book is about Columbus. It is called Columbus and The Quest for Jerusalem.

Do you know whyColumbus sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred 92?

It wasn’t to prove theworld was round.
That was commonknowledge already.

It wasn’t to be greedyor imperialistic.
Nor was it a matter ofcuriosity.

It was because ofreligion.

He wanted to get to China toget gold and spices, not just for the sake of gold and spices, but to fundsomething else. He needed to get enoughcapital to fund a crusade to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. Why?

Only when Jerusalem was in Christian handscould the temple could be rebuilt. Thenthe stage would be set for Christ’s return. Columbus saw himself as part of adivine plan to wrap up the end of time for Jesus. Lest anyone think thatreligion is not a powerful motivator look to Christopher “Christ-bearer” Columbus.

Columbus was notunusual. He was unusually bright, gifted, and creative. His beliefs were not unusual. He was devout. He acted on his beliefs. His beliefs would have been common for the medievalperiod. In his world, there was onetrue faith. Muslims, Jews, and othersects were mistaken, wrong, and false. Religious diversity was not a value or even apossibility.

Columbus and those ofhis time saw Earth as the center of the universe. The sun, moon, stars moved around it. Christ,the Father, and Spirit, sat on the heavenly thrones just beyond these heavenly bodies. The universe wasn’t particularly old, 6,000years or so and it would end, Columbus believed, less than 200 years from hisown time. He had calculated the end for himself byreading the Bible.

Changes were happening around them and Columbus saw these events as signs of the end. The clock was tickingand the faithful had work to do. They neededto prepare Earth for Christ’s return. That meant making sure that the false believers were not in control ofthe holiest of places, Jerusalem. Columbus wanted to finance a holy quest, a holy war, to take backJerusalem. That is why the rhyme tells us:

He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

Why tell this businessabout Columbus? In part, because I wantyou to listen to the radio program when it airs. I also want to illustrate how foreign hisworld is from ours. That foreign aspectis not just in terms of technology, that we have fancier ships and googlemaps.

His world is differentfrom ours on multiple and significant levels. When you enter his world both in terms of time, space, and theology, youcan see how his views at least fit his universe. His view of Earth was small, contained in timeand space and central to existence and human beings were the apex ofcreation.

For us, Earth is notthe center of the universe. It is a paleblue dot in the suburbs of a galaxy that is one of billions of galaxies. Theuniverse is 14 billion years old. Homosapiens are so late to arrive it is difficult to plot our arrival on the timescale. The universewill do its thing billions of years after the last of the homo sapiens has breathed herlast. There is no “end”, certainly in humantime.

In terms of the time and spaceof what we even know of the universe, we are a speck of sand on a beach. Humanbeings are evolved not created and not above but related to all other forms oflife. We areonly beginning to imagine what “meaning” is in that universe. We need to catch up with the universe as wediscover it and explore ways of creating meaning in it.

Columbus’s theology,philosophy, and motivation are not possible today, except in the minds of thedeluded and there are plenty of those. It is a good thing that the majority of us do notembrace his world-view. Imagine startinga holy war to win back Jerusalem from the Muslims so that Jesus willreturn. How insane is that? The insanity is that there are people whostill believe that today. We donot want those people to have access to weapons of mass destruction.

Columbus is 500 yearsbefore us. If his world is foreign tous, go back another 1400 years to the Gospelof John. Yet there is less difference, far less difference,in terms of world-view between the time of Jesus and the time of Columbus thanthe time of Columbus and our time.

The modern symbol ofColumbus, imperialism and genocide, is a myth. As professor Delaney discovered from herresearch, the historical Columbus was actually a devout, good person. His beliefs were not unusual for his time. They were just really wrong. It didn’t happen. It is important to state that obviouspoint. The purpose, the goal, the whole reason forhis voyage never came true. He neverstarted a Crusade and Jesus didn’t return. He was wrong. History took adifferent turn.

Here we sit in churchreading a text 1900 years old that was written by people who had a view of theworld far closer to that of Columbus than us. A text in which Jesus says,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life…no one gets to the Father unlessit is through me.”

And he says,

“If I go to prepare a place for you, I’ll return and embrace you, sowhere I am you can be too.”

Columbus read that sametext. He thought it meant that Christand Christendom is the only way and the goal is getting to the place thatChrist prepared, a new Earth that will be created by Christ who is now inheaven just above the stars. Christ will return, destroy the old Earth andmake a new Earth. That is what Columbus thought. Columbus was wrong.

He wasn’t the only onewrong about that. The Apostle Paul waswrong. As was John the Baptist. While there is debate regarding the historicalJesus, as to what he thought, it is possible that he thought he lived in theend times too, and if so, he was wrong. A plethora of prophets predicting the end ofdays since then all have one thing in common. They were wrong. The guy whopredicted the rapture this past May and again in October, was wrong. Those who want to search the mysteries of theMayan calendar and predict that “the end” will occur on 12/12/12 or 12/21/12 orwhenever, will be, you guessed it, wrong.

What is the point ofthese sacred texts if reading them leads us to do some really strange things? Things that are wrong and potentially harmful? If you really believe the end of theworld is coming, what is your ethic? Columbus’ethic was crusade and holy war. I am going to go out on a limb and say that isnot good.

If you are stillsearching for a New Year’s resolution, I will offer an option: resolve not to believe wrong things. Even if, especially if, these wrong thingsare shrouded in sacred tradition and holy hoopla. Be blasphemous. Blasphemy may be the only thing that will saveus from those who think they are divinely inspired to start holy wars.

This season is the via creativa, the spiritual path ofcreativity and imagination. I do thinkthat we need creativity and imagination to face the task before us as humanbeings at the start of 2012. One of thetasks is to create meaning and to find a goal, a reason, and a purpose.

Columbus and medievalChristendom lived in a world of meaning and purpose. It was wrong, but cozy. Our challenge is more difficult in somerespects. Our world is not cozy and tidyin terms of time and space. How do welive in a universe that will exist long after we as individuals and as aspecies are gone? How do we live acceptingthat we are not the center or the goal of the universe? Our religious traditions don’t prepare usfor those questions.

Columbus had a grandscheme. He thought he was part of adivine plan to end the world.

What if we lived asthough we were not part of a grand plan but rather something quite otherentirely?
What if we trusted the truththat we are the eyes, ears, and voice of the universe right now, in our ownway?
What if we valued our purpose on on thatscale?
What would happiness, peace, justice, and contentmentlook like if our god was a god of small things?
What if our goal was not to end the world orto live forever on a new Earth, but to be authentically human in this one?
What if our purpose was to be comfortable inour own skin?

I think that Jesus wasmuch smaller than the tradition wanted him to be. The Gospel of John said that his smallnesswas cosmic. I read this gospel as an invitation to be real and present tolife as it comes to us. The discipleswant “the Father.” They want the big deal. Jesussays you have seen the Father when you see me.

I don’t think the historical Jesus saidthat, that is John’s creation, however, the point is that it is in thehistorical person of Jesus and in his life in the present that we see the Father. That is what the author of John's gospel saw in Jesus. It isin the everyday doing and being that we find the holy. For Jesus, it was a life of compassion forothers, for himself, and a profound respect for life.

Hispurpose was to love.

If you are like me atall, you spend more time thinking about what will happen or might happen orwhat has happened than about what is happening. We might spend a lot of time judgingour past and our future. We over-think things. We allow our emotions to control us and thatcan tend to make us anxious about life. The truth is that while we havethoughts and while we have emotions we are not those things. We can step back and be conscious ofthem.

So when Jesus says heis the way, the truth, and the life, I see it as an invitation to live here andnow with awareness. The only way to be authentically here andhuman is to be here.

And the place that "he has prepared for us" is right here and now

when we give ourselves permission and time tobe here and now

and to accept who we are here and now

and to love ourselves here and now

as we are here and now.

There is nothing else wehave to be.

Nothing else we have todo.

I said that a possibleNew Year’s resolution is to resolve not to believe wrong things.

A second one is tobelieve something about yourself that I think is right.

You have been throwninto this world, now, in this time, for a purpose.

That purpose is tolove.

Love yourself.

Love others.

Love life.

Love this moment.

Love it all.

Amen.

Blessings at Year's End

2011-12-31T15:26:00.000-05:00

This is from Howard Thurman. I post it for you on this last day of 2011.

Blessings At Year's End

I remember with gratitude the fruits of the labors of others, which I have shared as a part of the normal experience of daily living.

I remember the beautiful things that I have seen, heard, and felt—some, as a result of definite seeking on my part, and many that came unheralded into my path, warming my heart and rejoicing my spirit.

I remember the new people I have met, from whom I have caught glimpses of the meaning of my own life and the true character of human dignity.

I remember the dreams that haunted me during the year, keeping me ever mindful of goals and hopes which I did not realize, but from which I drew inspiration to sustain my life and keep steady my purposes.

I remember the awareness of the spirit of God that sought me out in my aloneness and gave to me a sense of assurance that undercut my despair and confirmed my life with new courage and abiding hope.

Religion For Life in Today's Johnson City Press

2011-12-31T13:56:00.005-05:00

Thanks to Madison Mathews and the Johnson City Press for this article in today's Faith Section, "Faith on air: Weekly radio show takes look at religion and society."

Religion is a complicated thing. Talking about religion and how it ties to various aspects of society is often even more complicated. But a new half-hour program on WETS-FM/HD will explore the role religion plays in society and how it intersects with social justice and public life.

The weekly program, “Religion For Life,” will be hosted by the Rev. John Shuck, pastor of First Presbyterian of Elizabethton. It begins airing on WETS Thursday at 8 p.m.

Shuck said the show is designed to be an educational program that looks at religion from an academic perspective rather than a sermon-based program. In each episode, he’ll interview local and national figures from a variety of religious traditions and perspectives.

“So in some cases it will be how people of faith or a religion or spirituality are motivated to do good things and sometimes it’ll be a more academic analysis about how religion affects things,” he said.

Those effects — both the good and the bad — will offer a variety of talking points to be discussed during each show.

Initially, Shuck was approached by Teresa Keller, manager of Emory and Henry’s WEHC-FM, to host a religious-themed program for their radio station. After talking with both Keller and WETS director Wayne Winkler, Shuck decided to broadcast “Religion For Life” from the station in Johnson City.

The program will be re-broadcast on WEHC in Emory, Va. on Mondays at 1 p.m.

Although Shuck has been in the ministry for nearly 20 years, he started out as a radio broadcaster in Seattle and Boise, Idaho. He’s excited to have an opportunity that will allow him to utilize both his training in broadcasting and work within the ministry.

“I’ve often thought about ways to integrate these two loves of my life — broadcasting and religious study and religious issues — and, so, it seems like a great way to do that,” he said.

The first episode will feature a discussion with Anthony Flaccavento of SCALE, a private consulting business dedicated to catalyzing and supporting ecologically healthy regional economies and food systems, about building local and sustainable economies.

Other upcoming programs will feature discussions with author Sarah Sentilles, whose book “Breaking Up With God” recounts her disillusion with the church and its patriarchy; local activist Jennie Young, who has been working on informing Tennesseeans about the effects of mountaintop removal mining; and Mazen Alsaqa, a Christian refugee from Iraq who now lives in Michigan.

Shuck said he hopes discussions with these people and others will allow him to present listeners with people whose religion inspires them to do good for the world.

“Religion, however, in practice, does not always lead to the good. I will also present voices who provide a critique of religion especially when it leads to violence, exclusivity and injustice to others and to our Earth. Sometimes, it is the people who are not religious who show us what true religion is to be about,” he said.

“Religion For Life” will broadcast on WETS every Thursday at 8 p.m. and re-broadcast Sundays at 2 p.m. Podcasts will be available at www.fpcelizabethton.org.

For more information on the program, visit Shuck’s blog, www.shuckandjive.org, the program’s pages on Facebook and Twitter or at www.wets.org.

Bookmark, subscribe to, and otherwise read my new blog, religionforlife.me for all the news about upcoming programs and how you can listen via live streaming or download podcasts.

New Blog for Religion For Life

2011-12-30T16:18:00.003-05:00

I put together a new blog for Religion For Life, check it out at www.religionforlife.me That blog will be strictly about upcoming shows and what not.

The broadcast begins Thursday, January 5th. My first guest is Anthony Flaccavento of S.C.A.L.E.

He is an incredibly bright, articulate, and visionary person.   The program will focus on building local and sustainable economies.

Thursday 8pm and Sunday 2pm on WETS, 89.5.
Monday 1pm on WEHC, 90.7.

Religion For Life on WETS and WEHC

2011-12-28T17:20:00.000-05:00

I am hosting a new radio program on two local public radio stations, WETS in Johnson City, Tennessee and WEHC in Emory, Virginia. Here is the press release:

The role of religion in society will be explored on a new program, a joint production of public radio stations WETS-FM/HD (89.5 MHz) in Johnson City, Tennessee and WEHC-FM (90.7 MHz) in Emory, Virginia. Religion For Life will be heard on WETS Thursdays at 8 pm with a rebroadcast Sundays at 2 pm. It will be heard on WEHC Mondays at 1 pm following "Fresh Air"

This half-hour educational program will focus on the intersection of religion and public life and religion and social justice. The locally produced program will feature interviews with local and national figures from a variety of religious traditions and from a variety of perspectives, and will address the effects of religion – both positively and negatively -- on public life.

The host of the program is the Reverend John Shuck, a Presbyterian minister for 19 years and currently the minister at the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, Tennessee. Prior to entering the ministry, Shuck was a radio broadcaster at stations in Boise, Idaho and Seattle, Washington.

Upcoming programs include author Sarah Sentilles whose latest book, “Breaking Up With God” recounts her disillusion with the church and its patriarchy. She took leave of the church and let go of a belief in a personal god just as she was about to enter the priesthood. Another program focuses on local activist Jennie Young, who is alerting Tennesseans about the encroachment of mountain top removal mining. She sees this destructive mining practice as a moral issue and shows how faith communities are taking the lead in resisting it.

In other programs, Mazen Alsaqa, a Christian refugee from Iraq now living in Michigan, talks candidly about the violence against Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and the causes of this violence since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Shuck also interviews Carol Landis, the chair of the board of directors for the Green Interfaith Network or GINI in the Tri-Cities. GINI is a coalition of faith communities taking an active role in care and advocacy for the environment and communicating accurate, scientific information to the public.

WETS-FM/HD is a service of East Tennessee State University, and WEHC-FM is operated by Emory and Henry University. Podcasts of Religion For Life will be available at www.fpcelizabethton.org and more information about the program will be available on Shuck’s blog, www.shuckandjive.org as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Other interviews include

Rev. Jacqueline Luck of the Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Gray, TN about Unitarian Universalism,
Anthony Flaccavento of S.C.A.L.E. about building local and sustainable economies,
Sandy Westin of United Religions Initiative about religious cooperation,
Thomas Hill of NYU about peacebuilding in the U.S. and Iraq, and
Carol Delaney, professor emerita at Stanford, about her books on Abraham and Columbus.

If you don't live near our mountain, you can still listen live via live streaming both to WETS and WEHC. I am looking for interesting people (local and national) to interview for this program. Contact me with your suggestions.

The Light of the World--A Sermon

2011-12-25T12:21:00.000-05:00

The Light of the World

John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church

Elizabethton, Tennessee

Christmas Day 2011
John 1:1-18 (Scholars' Version)

Light was shining in the darkness,

And darkness did not master it.

Is that true?

Is that true for you?
Is that true for our world?

We all know aboutdarkness in our world and in our own lives. You can fill in the blanks regarding specifics. We know the darkness is powerful. Whether it be the darkness of greed, war,cruelty, or our own personal sadness and loss. We can feel lost in the dark and withouthope.

We can even make areligion out of darkness. Apocalyptic religionis based on the belief that our world is a lost cause. Itbelieves that the forces of darkness are so powerful that they control theworld and that to destroy the darkness, the world must be destroyed with it. It is a tempting religion for those who havelost hope or who have had engrained in them the belief that humanity is fallen,sinful, and evil.

I don’t think that wasthe belief of Jesus or Buddha or Muhammad or of other great spiritual leaders. They saw instead that there is light in thisworld and that it shines and that it shines in you and in me. This is not a matter of will or ofmoralizing or of claims that some people are more special and enlightened thanothers. It is a matter of promise andhope and trust. It is a matter of beingin a position to see, of letting our eyes adjust so that we can see enoughlight to take another step.

During the season of Winterthat started a few days ago, we will find each day get progressively longer. More light each day. Christmas borrowed from more ancienttraditions and placed the birth of Jesus near the winter solstice. Jesus took on the role of the sun god whobrings light to the world. It shouldn’tbe a surprise to anyone that symbols change and that our sacred stories areborrowed. It is only when we getliteralistic about it and think our symbols are facts or historical events thatwe develop a tin ear.

When we allow symbol,myth, and legend to become a kaleidoscope of light, we can see that our ancientstories and symbols are true in a deeper sense than we previously thought andthat our various religious traditions are more alike than different. The symbol of light shining in thedarkness is a universal symbol that is as old as the old star watchers who hadenough time to spend figuring out the patterns of the night sky and the rhythmsof Earth.

Our modern era based onthe magic of fossil fuels gives us light 24-7. With that we have lost the need and the skill to watch with eyesadjusted and open to the patterns of Earth and sky. Those who have insight are alerting us thatwe may be needing those skills again.

I have borrowed fromtheologian Matthew Fox and his four paths or four vias. For each season of the year we honor aspiritual path.

During summer we travelthe path of awe and wonder, the via positiva.
Fall is the path of letting go and lettingbe, the via negativa.
Spring is the way of compassion and justicemaking, the via tranformativa and
Winteris the path of creativity and imagination, the via creativa.

There is nothingabsolute about any of that. I justdecided to arrange our celebrations and rituals that way. I have chosen for this season of Winter, thevia creativa, to read the Gospel of John in a new way. For the next thirteen weeks we will bereflecting on scenes from the Gospel ofJohn from a naturalistic or mystical perspective.

The Jesus Seminar wholooked through all the traditions of Jesus to separate what they thought went backto the historical person of Jesus found virtually nothing in the Gospel of John to go back to Jesus. That doesn’t mean the Gospel of John is bad or doesn’t have value, it is just that it isa creative, imaginative reconstruction.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus the historicalperson was transformed into the cosmic Christ. This process happened before John, but you really see it in John. Whatthat means to me is that the author of John felt that he had permission to castthe Jesus story in this way. If he hadpermission to tell the story of Jesus in a way that made sense, inspired, andtold his truth, maybe we do as well.

Since it is Christmas itis a good time to tell the truth, or at least to be honest about what we thinkis truthful. To regard Jesus in a firstcentury way as a supernatural being who comes to Earth, dies for sins, comesback to life, and goes back to heaven in the sky with the promise that he willcome back again, is less than compelling for many of us. If wedon’t find it compelling it isn’t because we are bad or that we don’t havefaith. It is that we don’t live in thatworld and the symbols of that world don’t translate easily.

That supernatural storyfits the Gospel of John’s world. Helived in what he thought was a geocentric universe and he saw the godsinhabiting the heavens and breaking into the world. The scandal of John’s gospel is not thatJesus was a supernatural being and so forth, but that all of that elevatedlanguage was attributed to Jesus, as opposed to say, Augustus.

Jesus was a nobody whowas executed by the government as a criminal. The elevated supernatural godlanguage and miracles and what have you is not the scandal or the interestingpart. That all of that was applied toJesus is the interesting part. That isthe scandal. It can be life-changing ifwe let it.

I have been a ministerfor nearly twenty years preaching on these same texts and talking with people. I find the same thing again and again. We have been told all our lives that faithis about believing stuff, virgin birth, miracles, Jesus dying and rising, and thatGod is a supernatural being. We end upwondering what is the least amount of stuff we have to believe and be OK. I say none of that stuff matters. Defining faith as belief in impossible thingsmisses the point. At least I thinkso.

I see Jesus as Johnpresents him as the myth of the authentic human. Jesus 'shows us the Father" which I take tomean Jesus shows us how to become human, how to become real and authentic, howto live a life that matters. That wecan live a life that matters takes a great deal of faith.

Here is the deal. If Jesus represents the light that comes intothe world at Christmastime, a light that the darkness does not overcome, whatkind of light is that? Further, ifJesus said that we are that light, what does that mean for us? What does it mean to be light in theworld?

What I know of thehistorical person of Jesus is that he stood up for people who were put down. He was accused of eating with sinners. He knew that sinners were more fun. Helived courageously. He saw the wool thatwas being pulled over people’s eyes by those who were in charge. He challenged the pretensions of the elite,and he told people who were nobodies like him, that they mattered.

“You are the light of the world,” he said tothem.

He talked aboutsharing, giving your coat and your shirt, going the second mile, turning theother check. He said to give to thosewho beg from you. He said live life as apasserby and travel lightly. He talked about loving neighbors and lovingenemies and forgiving people who wrong you. He congratulated the poor. He valued fairness, mercy, andcompassion.

The world said that is noway to run a government. He said it isin my world. He got on the wrong sideof somebody and ended up being executed along with thousands of other “disturbersof the peace”.

Then something strangehappened. His life and teachingstouched a nerve, warmed a heart, transformed a mind, and people who rememberedwho he was and what he stood for wouldn’t let him go. They decided to live his vision of a lifethat matters. They felt his presencewith him when they decided to live counter to values that they saw as darknessand injustice. They felt empowered bythe light of compassion and hope for the least of these. They collected what they remembered of what hesaid and did. They made a bunch ofthings up, but in many cases they were good things. They attributed miracles to him because thatis how they honored people then.

After years had passedhis life was put in story form. Thegospels were written including the Gospelof John. The scandal of John’sgospel, like the others, is that they saw in this counter-cultural figure, thissocial prophet, this teacher of a strange kind of wisdom that the elite calledfoolish, they saw in him the way the world could be and really is at itsheart.

They decided that thisis the light.

This is the light thatis in the world.

This is the light thatdarkness cannot overcome.

It is the light of joyat every child’s birth.

It is the light ofcompassion for those who hurt in mind, body, and spirit.

It is the light ofconcern for those mistreated.

It is the light oftruth for the lies that are told to keep the powerful in power.

It is the light oflaughter.

It is the light ofdelight in simple things like lilies and sparrows.

It is the light offriendship.

It is the light ofsimple decency.

It is the light ofChrist.

It is in us.

They decided to livethe light.

It will never go out aslong as we never forget who we are.

That was their faith.

That is the light wecelebrate at Christmas.

Light was shining in the darkness,

And darkness did not master it.

Is that true?

My faith says yes it istrue.

That light may belittle more than a single candle.

But it is enough lightto take the next step.

A book about Christmas thatI particularly like is Howard Thurman’s, The Mood of Christmas. I have taken anumber of passages from it during this season as prayers and reflections forthe bulletin. Howard Thurman died in1981. He was influential in the life ofMartin Luther King. Thurman understoodChristmas and its symbols as well as Christmas as a symbol. I will let him have the last word on thisChristmas Day.

The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds areheavy with foreboding. It is the cry oflife in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims itsright to live. It is the broodingPresence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough placessmooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close ofevery day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance thatlove is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that goodis more permanent than evil. P. 3

Amen.

I Will Light Candles This Christmas

2011-12-24T14:19:00.006-05:00

Merry Christmas, Beloveds.

Where ever you may be this holiday I wish for you deep peace and joy.

If you are in the area, I invite you tonight to participate in our Christmas Eve service at ten p.m. We will have candlelighting, music, dance, poetry, and story.   We will take an offering to be divided between the Shepherd's Inn, Food for the Multitude, Community Day Care, and Assistance and Resource Ministries.

On Sunday, Christmas Day, join us for worship at 11 a.m. We begin the via creativa with a ritual to embody the Light!

If Christmas finds you in a time of unease in mind, body, spirit, or relationship, I light my candle for you.

I Will Light Candles This Christmas

Candles of joy, despite all sadness,

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.

Candles of courage for fears ever present,

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,

Candles of love to inspire all my living,

Candles that will burn all the year long.

--Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas

Spong and Universal Consciousness

2011-12-21T16:49:00.001-05:00

Our Thursday study group (Thursdays with Jesus) finished reading John Shelby Spong's, Eternal Life: A New Vision, Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell. His thoughts were well-received by most of the group. Some hadn't read him previously. We watched a few on-line videos of his speeches and interviews when we discussed his book.

I have great admiration for him, so much so, that I even named my dog for him, "Shelby." He takes seriously modern scholarship, challenges outdated dogmas, and is a strong advocate for equality. The church could use more like him in my opinion.

In this book he takes on the issue of whether or not there is an afterlife. Most of the book is a fun deconstruction of religious claims. He rejects supernaturalism, theism, eternal rewards and punishments and much more. He advocates living fully in this life. At the end of the book he embraces something he calls "universal consciousness." With this concept he says he believes in life after death. He writes:

The goal of all religion is not to prepare us to enter the next life; it is a call to live now, to love now, to be now and in that way to taste what it means to be part of a life that is eternal, a love that is barrier-free and the being of a fully self-conscious humanity. That is the door way into a universal consciousness that is part of what the word "God" now means to me. This then becomes my pathway and, I now believe, the universal pathway into the meaning of life that is eternal. p. 204

I agree with most of what Spong writes especially his deconstruction of religious supernaturalism. I do find myself befuddled regarding this universal consciousness business. If I had him in the room with me I would ask him to explain to me what the difference is between universal consciousness and no consciousness.

Beginning January 5th we will be reading, Deepak Chopra's The Third Jesus. I have never read anything by him so I am looking forward to the adventure.

If you are interested in stimulating conversations, order the Chopra book and join us Thursdays from 10:30 to noon at FPC Elizabethton.

Gospel of John from a Naturalistic Point of View

2011-12-21T16:06:00.001-05:00

The worship guide for Winter is on-line. Read it in pdf. With this you will know what the services will be like for the next 13 weeks. If you have a creative idea to go with one (or more) of the services, let me know! Here is the prelude:

The path of creativity and imagination is the result of the dance between awe and sorrow. From the darkness ignited by wonder comes creativity. We know two truths. It is amazing to be alive and life is painful. We know that we are and that we are not. Life is here. Life is temporary.

What words can we find, what language can we borrow that can express what it means to be alive? How do we both cheer and grieve? Religion is designed to help give us language. What of our religions and their symbols? What are their limits? What do we do when the language we have inherited has become stale? What permission do we need to challenge what we thought was absolute? After we deconstruct and let go of images that have become cracked idols, what will we create? Welcome to the via creativa.

Moving beyond religion, what about life? What about your life if I may ask? What will you make of the awe and the pain? What are you creating or what is being created in you? Can you give yourself permission to read an old text in a new way? Can you allow yourself to make an error? Are you afraid you might get God wrong? What would happen then? What energizes you? What is important? For what or for whom do you live? Are you on an adventure? If not, why not? Can you create your own life? The via creativa says you can.

During the Winter as the days get longer, we will acknowledge creativity and imagination. To spur this creativity, we are going to read an old text in a new way. We are going to read the Gospel of John from a naturalistic or mystical point of view. In this view, Jesus is a human being who was a mystic and had elevated sense of self-awareness.

As with many figures who are larger than life, stories get told and written. The Jesus Seminar concluded that virtually nothing that Jesus said or did in John’s gospel went back to the historical Jesus. John’s gospel is a reading of Jesus, a creation by its author who lived perhaps as much as 70 years after Jesus. This vision of Jesus has been read as a supernatural being who comes down to Earth, performs miracles, dies for our sins, rises up from the dead, and flies off to heaven to return someday. If we believe this story we go to heaven. If not, oops, off to hell. The story for most of us has long lost credibility.

But as a parable for the authentic life, it has meaning. This season we are going to try some different readings and we will refer to some thinkers who see new possibilities in this old story. John Shelby Spong, author of Eternal Life, A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell will spur us along as will Walter Wink, author of The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man. Both books are in the library.

We will read Jesus and the Gospel of John in a natural and mystical way as opposed to a supernatural and dogmatic way. In this reading Jesus will be a parable for the authentic life. He is what it means to be an authentic human being, the Human One. Rather than be different from us, he is the real us.

The point is so what? What does that mean for me and my life or for all of us and the life of our planet? How might we become authentic? Hopefully, these worship services will ignite our own creativity. It should be fun.

Saving Tennessee's Mountains

2011-12-21T13:36:00.000-05:00

I am honored to be a part a congregation that takes an active role in environmental justice. Here is an article in the Elizabethton Star about a church member, Jennie Young, raising awareness regarding mountain top removal strip mining.

“We will lose our mountains, adding our own number to the 500 already blasted away,” Young said. “We will poison our waterways, and who knows the human impacts on the communities at the base of those mountains. There are already 18 surface mines in the state, mostly small and most, excepting Zeb, Leach, Double Mountain, Bull Ridge, Mingo and Cross, still with their tops.”

However, Young noted that eight new permits are currently in the pipeline.

Do read the whole article and forward it to friends. Please join us at the Bonnie Kate on January 2nd and fight for our mountains!

Happy X-Mas: The Iraq War Is Over

2011-12-20T16:39:00.002-05:00

The Iraq War has finally ended.

What were we fighting about again?

R. Crumb for Christmas

2011-12-20T14:14:00.000-05:00

Our congregation had its annual Christmas dinner on Sunday. It is always a fun event. The congregation gave me a gift. Readers of this blog are aware that I have been preaching from the myths of Genesis through the Fall. You can find those sermons here and the audio on our webpage.

They gave me The Book of Genesis: Illustrated by R. Crumb.

It is fantastic. All 50 chapters. He doesn't leave out a word. He uses a combination of translations from King James and Robert Alter. These ancient earthy stories come alive when illustrated in graphic novel form. Even the genealogies are interesting.

The problem with the Bible today has to do with its thick veneer of piety. Crumb's Genesis strips that veneer away. What shines through is ancient story filled with unabashed patriarchal myth, sex, violence, and ancient superstition. It is fascinating literature.

He did his homework regarding scholarship of Genesis. I highly recommend it.

The Myth of Power: Two Josephs--A Sermon

2011-12-18T14:38:00.001-05:00

The Myth of Power: Two Josephs
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 18, 2011

Today I finish my sermon series on the myths of Genesis.   We have been working our way through these patriarchal myths through Fall. We finish with the story of Joseph, Jacob’s favored son from his favored wife, Rachel.     It is a long story in terms of Biblical space.   It spans 13 chapters.   It took only eleven chapters to get from the creation of the universe through Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, the scattering of the people at Babel up to Abraham.     But it takes 13 longer chapters to tell the saga of Joseph.

When we get to Joseph, God, who is a literary character in our text, becomes more removed from daily life.    He doesn’t swoop in sending fire and brimstone down on bad cities. He does not negotiate like he did with Abraham, or wrestle with people like he did Jacob, or walk in the garden in the cool of the day as he liked to do with Adam.   By the time we get to Joseph, God is distant.   He is not directly involved in human affairs.   He acts behind the scenes. He communicates through dreams.

Joseph dreamed that his brothers would one day bow down to him. They didn’t like his dreams. So they sold him to some traders and told their father he had been killed by an animal.    Joseph’s dreams came true. He became the most powerful person in Egypt next to the Pharaoh himself thanks to dreams.

He interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh about the seven skinny cows eating the seven fat cows.   Joseph said the dream meant that there would be seven fruitful years followed by seven lean years. So he engineered a plan to store up grain when the sun shined and sell it to all the poor saps who didn’t get in on the dream.    Those saps included his brothers who during the lean period came to him to buy grain. They bowed down to him, not recognizing who he was. After a lot of manipulation, Joseph finally revealed himself to them.    He said to them:

“And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

This is the heart of the patriarchal myth, brothers reconciled.     Patriarchal mythology is not all negative.    It resides in the hope that brothers will make amends and live in peace.    Joseph has his father and brothers all come to live with him in Egypt.     The irony is that Joseph is the one responsible for buying up all of the land and the wealth in trade for this grain. Through this process the people lose their land and become slaves.   This eventually leads to the slavery of his own descendants.     That is the setting for the next series of stories, with a new hero, Moses.

We are familiar with another Joseph in our scriptural tradition. He takes the stage at Christmastime. He is Joseph the wife of Mary and according to the mythology he is the surrogate father of Jesus.     In Matthew’s gospel, angels communicate with Joseph in dreams.    The angel tells Joseph to take Mary as a wife.   Later when Herod kills all the boys under two years old, angels communicate to Joseph to escape to Egypt and then to return when all is safe.   This is an echo of the Exodus story, where Pharoah tries to kill the Hebrew boys and Moses is hid in the bulrushes.

These are birth of hero stories and divine providence stories.    It is more than coincidence that both characters are named Joseph and that they are dreamers.    They both participate in this divine plan of salvation.   The dreams are about providence, destiny, and power.    I am going to talk more about power in a bit.

I should say something about the virgin birth.    As far as the gospels are concerned, it is a minor event really.   It is like the pagan birth of the hero stories.    Miraculous births were common in mythology.      Why was Augustus such an incredibly gifted and powerful ruler? Well, he must have been born of a god.   Stories were created of his miraculous birth.

In the Hebrew tradition as well, a miraculous birth indicated the hand of God’s providence.     The birth of Isaac was miraculous.   Isaac was born to Sarai who at 90 was long past child-bearing age.    Moses, too, was miraculously destined to be a hero.   The whole point of these myths is to call attention to the hero or to divine guidance.    The storytellers, Matthew and Luke in particular wanted folks to know that Jesus was important and used the storytelling device of miraculous birth to make that point.

Christianity made much more of the virgin birth than was warranted in the texts. It became a doctrine of faith.   The reason it was important for Christianity is because of the sin of Adam and Eve.    According to the dogma, because they disobeyed God they brought punishment upon themselves and the entire human race. Their sin is passed down through procreation.

The Virgin Birth allows the hero, in this case, Jesus, to save the world from sin because he is not tainted by sin. He is the seed of God who is planted in Mary’s womb.   This is pre-modern patriarchal procreation.   In this understanding, the woman contributes nothing to the child.   She is the fertile ground, the vessel, the oven.   Jesus is thus the son of God in a literal sense.

Christianity ran with that.   From the Apostle’s Creed to the Fundamentalists at Princeton in the early 1900s, belief in the virgin birth was an essential of the faith.    Fundamentalists today still insist that unless you believe that the virgin birth is an historical event (as opposed to a legend) you can’t be a true Christian.    O.K. Others of us think the whole notion is rather silly.   Although we still like to sing Christmas carols.

The other day my Lovely asked me if I experienced the magic of Christmas. I lied to her and said I didn’t.    But I really do.   I love it. I love it all.   I do love the stuff of it and the busy-ness of it.   I love the music.   I love the mythology and the legends. There really is something magical about it. There is a feeling that something might break in to our mundane existence at Christmas.

At Christmas, if we allow ourselves to get beyond our “bah humbugs”, we notice that maybe people are nicer than we give them credit for being.    And maybe we are not so bad ourselves. Perhaps there is hope for humanity after all.   There is something beyond us that we cannot see or touch that is on the side of goodness.   Therefore we can trust.

I also like the radical message of hope for the powerless in the Christmas texts.    Mary when she learns she is pregnant sings a song with some very radical lyrics.     Listen to this:

My soul extols the Lord,
Ad my spirit has taken notice of the low status of his slave girl.
So behold, from now on every generation will congratulate me.
The Mighty One has done great things for me,
And holy is his name,
And his mercy will come to generation after generation
Of those who fear him.
He has shown strength of this arm,
He has routed the arrogant, along with their private schemes;
He has toppled the mighty down from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And sent the rich away empty.

--Luke 1:46-55 Scholars' Version

Sounds like she was part of the Occupy Nazareth movement.

The scandal of Christmas is not that Jesus was son of God.    Images of the son of God were seen everywhere. The Roman Imperial cult was filled with son of God propaganda.   Lest there be any doubt, Caesar was the son of God and he had the standing armies to prove it.    That is what a son of God has—power.   Power to fund armies. Power to move populations from one place to another.    Power to build. Power to destroy. Power to feed and power to let starve.

The scandal is not that Jesus is son of God as if that is something supernatural. No, the scandal is that Jesus, the nobody,
the one without any army,
who wrote nothing,
who held no office,
who owned no property,
who was nobody in his own lifetime,
whose legacy is
welcoming and offering dignity to the marginalized,
pointing out and poking fun of the hypocrisy of the elite,
and resisting evil with non-violent transformative love,
that nobody who was tortured and executed by authority of Caesar, the son of God,
was the son of God.

That is what the gospel writers claimed. And everyone laughed at them for making up such preposterous stories.   These stories weren’t preposterous and scandalous because of the legendary material, such as the virgin birth or other miracles like walking on water, turning water to wine, and rising from the dead.   Those stories in that culture were a dime a dozen.   Those stories were preposterous and scandalous in the gospels because they were attributed to a peasant not a king—to Jesus and not Caesar—to the 99% not the 1%.

The scandal of Christmas is a choice.   It asks us where is divine power? Which side will we take? Where is the sacred? Where is the holy? Is it found in the powerful, the wealthy, and the 1 percent?    Are the powerful ones those with the most weapons? Are the powerful ones those who control buying and selling?   Are the powerful ones those who have the politicians in their pockets?   Are they the sons of God?

In a world in which divine favor was seen as power over, it would be obvious who the son of God was. It sure wasn’t Jesus.     The scandal of Christmas says no, not Caesar, not the 1%. It is in the 99% that we see holy, sacred, liberating, transformative power.    It is power with.     I am not making this up.   If you think it is not seemly to be political at Christmas then listen to Mary, the virgin mother of God:

He has routed the arrogant, along with their private schemes;
He has toppled the mighty down from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And sent the rich away empty.

You know those politicians who love to court the “Christian vote” and wear their Christian jewelry and hold up their Bibles while they allow corporate greed to destroy our mountains, I say to them, “Merry Christmas.   By the way, whose side is the son of God on?”

The scandal of Christmas is a choice.
The choice is not whether or not to believe that Jesus was historically and biologically born of a virgin.

The choice is where do we want to put our energies.
To whom do we want to share our lives?
It isn’t about judgment and heaven and hell.
It is about what is sacred for you and what matters.
Where will you put your energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?
Where do see sacred power?
Power that shares, strengthens, liberates, and sustains.
Power for everyone including Earth and our more than human relations.
Christmas is that magic time.
It is time to allow that sacred power to be born in us.

It is in the interests of the powerful to turn our religious texts and traditions into superstitious trivia.       That is why I sound so critical of Christianity.    Much of it is superstitious trivia.   Despite that, I find that its message, its scandalous message is far deeper and far more interesting than believing in life after death or supernaturalism. It is about the possibility of living a life that matters here and now. Not a big life, just one that matters. In fact, Jesus, more than anyone, was one who didn’t matter in the scheme of things.   The story of Jesus is the story of a non-person who is every person who was no person.

Historically, we know virtually nothing about him, but his legacy is the legacy that giving your life to good things is a good thing.   Jesus, the son of God wasn’t great.    Augustus was great.   Jesus was instead good.

That is the calling isn’t it?
To be decent.
To be good.
To be on the side of those who are hungry and without health care.
To be on the side of our mountains, trees and streams.
To value intelligence over greed.
To think of the future in terms of generations of lives not just next quarter’s profits.
To provide a decent wage for decent work.
To not blame the poor for being poor.

Being good is a powerful force.

The two Josephs have a common theme.   That is providence.    Through their dreams both are guided by Divine Providence.    I don’t always know what to make of Divine Providence. I am suspicious because it is so trivialized.   God led me to score this touchdown.   It can be used to justify the status quo.    In the Christmas story, in Joseph’s story, in Mary’s story, and in Jesus’ story, Providence is on the side of the poor and the hungry.    Providence is on the side of those who have been put down.

Providence means that there is something beyond us that we do not know and cannot touch and see, but yet it guides.   Intellectually, I am not sure I know about that. But my heart says, “Yes.” There are times when we feel urged, called, and guided.   There are times that I know what I need to be doing and that it wasn’t my own doing that put me here.    Most of the time I don’t know. I don’t have a clue.   I just show up.

You may wonder what your life is to be about, what it is you want to be.   It could be a transition time for you.    Enter the magic of Christmas and the magic of the Winter Solstice. It is one of those times when the fabric between the divine and the human is thin, and that we might get a notion, a dream, a nudge, a word that all will be well and that the Sacred is guiding us,
so we can trust,
and try to be on the good side.

Amen.

Annie at D-B

2011-12-17T13:22:00.001-05:00

Another Christmas treat. My lovely is the musical director for Annie playing at Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport. I saw it last night. They did a great job. I mean really good! Check it out 2 and 7 p.m. today and 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The musical is strangely relevant taking place as it does in the Depression. The scene of the homeless people calling out Hoover reminded me of the Occupy movement. It ends with the hope of a New Deal for Christmas!

Tickets are $8 at the door.

Here is more information.

Christmas/Solstice at FPC Elizabethton!

2011-12-17T12:48:00.001-05:00

If you are near our mistletoe, join us this week for our Christmas/Solstice celebrations. It begins tomorrow with worship at 11:00 a.m. for the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

I finish my series on the myths of Genesis with a comparison of Joseph of Genesis and Joseph of Matthew. Two Josephs. Two dreamers. The myth of providence and power. Our bell choir will lead music. We have a lot of Christmas carols to sing! Here is the rest of the schedule:

December 18--Sunday: Christmas Dinner and a presentation by the youth entitled, "Christmas In Elizabethton 2011." Dinner at 5:30!

December 19--Monday:    Tidings of Comfort at 7 p.m. A special service to acknowledge the "blue" in Christmas.

December 22--Thursday:   Winter Solstice celebration. Elaine Kolp will lead us in a ritual to welcome the Winter Solstice at 6:45 p.m.

December 24--Saturday:    Christmas Eve celebration with music, story, candlelight.   The service is at 10 p.m.

December 25--Sunday:     It is a special service when Christmas falls on a Sunday.    It feels--dare I say it?--magical. The service is at 11 a.m.

Telling the Truth for Christmas

2011-12-15T16:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a noble challenge to my colleagues in ministry. The challenge is not shrill or insistent. It is a noble challenge, take it up if you feel like it. The challenge is to tell the truth this Christmas. Not my truth. Not John Shelby Spong's truth. Not Al Mohler's truth. Your truth.

Tell the truth during worship on this upcoming Fourth Sunday of Advent or Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (that conveniently happens to be on Sunday this year) about the Christmas stories. What do you really think of them? The challenge is to come clean.

Here are a few questions to get you started.

Do you think Jesus was born of a virgin?
Do you think a star stopped over the place where Jesus was?
Do you think wise men followed this star from the east?
Do you think angels are real and that one of them spoke to Mary?
Do you think angels told shepherds about Jesus?
Do you think the Hebrew Prophets (ie. Isaiah) predicted Jesus' birth?
Are these stories historical or legendary?
What do you think? Where do you stand?

I am not saying what to think. I am offering a challenge to tell the truth as you see it. If you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and the angels and shepherds and star and wise men tell pretty much what happened then go ahead and tell the church folks that on Christmas. I bet your folks would like to know. I know I did. I wanted to know what my minister thought about these stories. I rarely got a straight answer (except from fundamentalist preachers).

Al Mohler and his type rely on the timidity of educated mainline clergy. Mohler and his fundamentalist friends know that we are so scared of our congregations and of somehow offending them that they can get away with their bullying (by saying "a true Christian will not deny the virgin birth" and other bizarre crap) and know that rarely will it be challenged.

If your seminary experience was anything like mine and my guess is that it was, you learned biblical criticism of the historical-critical variety and you also got the message that you shouldn't talk about it with your people because it might hurt their faith. You might have heard something like, "Don't take away something without replacing it." Whatever that means. Or you heard, "Just tell them the story and they can come to terms with it by themselves. You'll please everyone that way."

I call BS on that. I think people deserve to be treated like adults. They deserve to know where we stand and how we understand the texts about which we teach and preach. I am not saying that there are not valuable nuances in legendary material and I certainly enjoy Christmas carols as much as the next person. I don't always tell the truth. I fudge as well. Although I do it less than I used to.

The challenge could have consequences. I lost my last church for telling the truth as I saw it not only about the Iraq invasion or LGBT rights but because of my views on Jesus, too. People were especially pissed about Jesus. I have lost members in my current church for being honest about my views. But we are doing OK. I don't regret any of it.

In fact, I think that many people have the same doubts as we do and are looking for someone to validate them. They have outgrown their childhood religion with its magic potions, virgin births, and unicorns and are searching for an intelligent evaluation of their tradition. For sure, some folks don't want you to go there. I think it is those folks who have kept the church from maturing.

I do think there is a danger of handing this rich tradition over to the fundamentalists. I think we should fight for our tradition. We do so by telling the truth about how we understand it.

That is my challenge if you care to take it up. Tell the truth this Christmas. In the words of Mary:

Me, I'm just a small-town woman,

a carpenter's wife, Jewish mother, nothing

special. But listen,

whenever I told my baby a fairy tale,

I let him know it was a fairy tale.

Go, all of you, and do likewise.

The Virgin Birth Is Fiction

2011-12-14T14:56:00.003-05:00

This is why Christianity has virtually zero credibility. Enter Al Mohler:

This much we know: All those who find salvation will be saved by the atoning work of Jesus the Christ — the virgin-born Savior. Anything less than this is just not Christianity, whatever it may call itself. A true Christian will not deny the Virgin Birth.

This much we know? Seriously?

The "Virgin Birth" is medieval superstition. It was based on a translation error and a patriarchal understanding of where babies come from. The virgin birth is a quaint leftover from a pre-modern past. Yes, at Christmas, we sip our eggnog and we sing lovely carols with lines such as this: "Lo, He shuns not the virgin's womb." But only the most tone-deaf and gauche literalist would think we should take that legend literally.

Nothing takes the magic, delight, and hope away from Christmas as much as someone who mistakes legend for history. It makes Christianity nonsensical and it makes Christians dumber. To insist that everyone needs to be as stupid as you in order to be a Christian is the raisin in the plumb pudding.

For Christmas Eve, I think I will share with the folks Phillip Appleman's poem, "Mary" that concludes with the following:

Me, I'm just a small-town woman,

a carpenter's wife, Jewish mother, nothing

special. But listen,

whenever I told my baby a fairy tale,

I let him know it was a fairy tale.

Go, all of you, and do likewise.

Fighting for Our Mountains

2011-12-14T13:07:00.004-05:00

And it is a fight. Big Coal has big plans to destroy Tennessee's mountains as they have done in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is time for Tennesseans to become informed and to be effective at resistance.

The vast majority of people in Tennessee are against mountain top removal strip mining. The politicians need to know this and be threatened with loss of office if they do not comply with the wishes of the people. We need to find ways to communicate with politicians and coal executives on a personal level that this is not a Christian thing to do. Most of these Big Coal people are "church going" folks and it will be "church going" folks who convince them that Jesus is not about destroying mountains and habitats and livelihoods.

In other words, get the word out to churches.

Thanks to the Bonnie Kate Theater in Elizabethton, the word is getting out. There will be a special screening of the documentary, The Last Mountain at the Bonnie Kate January 2nd at 7 p.m. Here is the Facebook invite.

A special screening of the Academy Award™- nominated documentary "The Last Mountain" will be given the Historic Bonnie Kate Theater in downtown Elizabethton on Monday, January 2nd at 7:00pm.

Introduced by special guest, Honorable Kent Williams, R-District 4 — Carter County.

Sponsors and Supporters: The Elizabethton Star, Bonnie Kate Theater, Reedy & Sykes Architecture and Design, The E.D.G.E. Ministries, First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, the Green Interfaith Network, Inc. (GINI), and more.

Synopsis:
"In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America’s struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns. Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal."

That battle is coming to Tennessee. We need to fight it, and we need to fight it before Big Coal gets one more mountain. No other state has attempted legislation to stop MTR mining BEFORE the irreparable damage is done. We have that opportunity, thanks to the Scenic Vistas Protection Act. That bill was defeated in committee, thanks to the efforts of Ron Ramsey, who, with donations from Big Coal of almost $200,000 to his election campaign, held the bill in committee for 3 YEARS until he had the legislature he needed to kill it.

The fight isn't over. The bill is being reintroduced when the Tennessee State Legislature returns in mid-January. We need to get the word to our legislators that we expect them to work for the people of Tennessee, not the coal interested of Texas and West Virginia.

Eastern Tennessee once again stands at the door of history. We have the opportunity to drive this effort to save our scenic vistas, protect our natural resources, and protect the health and welfare of the people of East Tennessee.

Our people beat Ferguson at Kings Mountain. We can beat Big Coal on all the others.

Take action by downloading and distributing this action packet.

No Gays in Presbyworld

2011-12-13T12:48:00.005-05:00

The big 5,000 member First Presbyterian Church of Orlando decided to split the sheets with the rest of us sinners and move to a fantasy church where only heteros are allowed to ride the merry-go-round.

It is not official until the congregation votes to leave and take the presbytery's property for themselves.

The FPCO website says, "In preparation for the congregation's vote regarding The Session's recommendation that FPCO be dismissed from the PC(USA) in order to be received into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, scheduled for Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 10:00am, we ask that you please take a moment to check the status of your membership at FPCO."

FPC Orlando says, "So long, PCUSA, and thanks for all the fish."

Occupy Is As American as Old Glory

2011-12-13T12:10:00.002-05:00

This simply is an excellent letter in today's Johnson City Press.

I’m a former law enforcement officer from North Carolina, so was my late father. Together we have served the community for 52 years.

I hang the American flag on my front porch, attend a Christian church and I’m a member of the PTA.

In short, I’m as American as Old Glory itself.

I’m not a rich man. You can’t get rich working for the government unless you’re a dirty crook. I’ll need Social Security and Medicare in my golden age.

I’m concerned about people because I care about the least of these in my community. I’m concerned for the elderly, because I saw my grandmother struggle to pay her utilities and buy food on her small Social Security check.

I’m concerned for the teacher who spends years in college and then finds their benefits reduced to provide more corporate welfare for Wall Street or to bail out a bank taken down by greed.

Misinformation and propaganda has caused a great deal of Americans to support ideas that were not for their own benefit. One great misinformation is about the occupy movement and Occupy Johnson City. This is not a group of “unemployed hippies” unwilling to work.

As a former police officer, I’m not sure what is defined as a hippie. Could a hippie be the lawyer, doctor or college professor with a ponytail?

If I had to choose an American citizen to defend my rights, protect my family and teach my children, I would want him or her to be someone who believed in our core values enough to speak out in defense of the majority of Americans — the 99 percent.

Some may say they are not in the 99 percent and don’t support this occupy movement. That’s OK, they don’t have to support it.

I do find it wrong, however, to spread hate, lies or misinformation about American citizens who are concerned and exercising their right to free speech.

I support Occupy Johnson City and the occupy movement and I’m very proud of it.

R. REGION ARRINGTON
Jonesborough

Meaning of Life, Part 75

2011-12-12T10:38:00.003-05:00

Seven Deadly Social Sins

Politics without Principle
Wealth without Work
Commerce without Morality
Pleasure without Conscience
Education without Character
Science without Humanity
Worship without Sacrifice
--Ghandi

Icons of Sorrow--A Sermon

2011-12-04T10:24:00.010-05:00

Icons of Sorrow
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

December 4, 2011
Second Sunday of Advent

Genesis 35:8,16-20; Jeremiah 31:15-17
And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So it was called “The oak of weeping.”

Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had a difficult labor. When she was in her difficult labor, the midwife said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; for now you will have another son.’ As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar at her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day.

Thus says the Lord:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
Thus says the Lord:
Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears;
for there is a reward for your work,
says the Lord:
they shall come back from the land of the enemy;
there is hope for your future,
says the Lord:
your children shall come back to their own country.

"Rachel Weeping for Her Children"

We are nearing the end of our series on the myths of Genesis. Next week our choir will present an Advent musical celebration. On the 18th we will look at a tale of two Josephs, the dreamer Joseph in Genesis and another dreamer named Joseph who according to the gospels was the husband of Mary who was in turn the mother of Jesus.

Today we are going to honor Rachel and the other women of Genesis, but particularly Rachel, because she is the icon of sorrow. She is mentioned again in Jeremiah and in Matthew as one who weeps for her children and refuses to be consoled. Sorrow is the work of the via negativa, the way of letting go and letting be. It is appropriate, or to use liturgical language it is “meet and right” to make space for sorrow during Advent. Advent is about hope, but the first word is longing for what is not. It is recognition that things are not as they might be, that a future of promise awaits.

As we move to the end of the via negativa and into the via creativa with the coming winter solstice there is a coming together with these myths of Genesis--these the sorrows of patriarchy--and Advent.

With Advent we can become conscious of patterns of living that we need to let go so that a new creativity might be born within us. It is no accident that the myth of the birth of Jesus is placed near the winter solstice. In the northern hemisphere at the darkest time of the year, Divine Creativity dispels the darkness in the cry of a tiny babe.

Before we get to that cry, we have to journey through some other tears first.

As I have been saying during this series of sermons, the myths of Genesis are patriarchal myths and that fact should not be understated. Patriarchy or father-power is based on a particular theory of procreation. It is a pre-modern theory to be sure, but it is not just pre-modern as if all pre-modern societies had the same theory.

The patriarchal theory of procreation is seen in the myths of Genesis and in the myth of Jesus in the metaphor of the seed. In this theory of procreation, the male possesses the seed that contains the identity or the creativity of the human that is planted in the womb or “the ground.” The ground or womb does not contribute identity to the new life that is formed. The womb, like ground, nurtures the seed.

The seed belongs to the father in a way it does not belong to the mother. Thus father has father-power, that is power-over the seed and the womb. Thus Abraham is allowed to “sacrifice” his own seed, Isaac, without even needing to consult Isaac’s mother. It is a deal between the males, Father Abraham and his Father God.

This Father God promises Abraham seed as many as there are stars in the sky. He also promises Abraham, land, ground, in which he might plant his seed. This promise is extended to the other patriarchs, Isaac, and Jacob, and their sons. When you own both seed and ground you own the world. Just ask Monsanto.

It is a patriarchal notion that the promise to Abraham and the patriarchs is land and plenty of seed. This is the promise of a patriarchal god. One could imagine other versions of hope and the good life other than the males of a particular tribe owning all the land and seed.

Genesis is not the way it has to be or the way it always has been everywhere. It is the way of a particular and peculiar patriarchal way of understanding and organizing life that ended up becoming the basis for three monotheistic and patriarchal religions and the dominant mythology of western culture. (Carol Delaney, Abraham on Trial)

The myths of Genesis and the characters that are constructed in these stories including "God" have an agenda. That agenda is to sustain father-power and make it sacred. Now I do think that at times these stories transcend that and at least offer a self-critique. Nonetheless, these stories on the whole serve to make father-power or patriarchy normative. The god of Genesis and of pretty much the whole Bible is a male god. As theologian Mary Daly pointed out in her book, Beyond God the Father, when god becomes male, the male becomes god.

It is important to say here that this isn’t about males being bad and females being good. We are talking about patriarchy or father-power which is a particular way of organizing society. While father-power can give some males privilege and material advantage, father-power ultimately is sorrowful for men and women alike as well as sorrowful for Earth and its creatures. Advent hope, in my view, is about re-ordering power. If we can provide a critique of power structures we can also imagine and create new power structures.

Where might we begin? The myths of Genesis contain interesting subtleties that challenge this father-power agenda. These subtleties are seen in the cracks of the stories, at the seams, in what appear to be throwaway verses or asides. These subtleties appear in some cases in the stories of the women. When we read the stories of the women of Genesis we might ask ourselves some questions.

Do they have voice?
If they have it, how do they use it?
How do they exercise agency?
How do they exercise and manipulate power?
What are the limits of their autonomy?
How do they access the sacred?
How do the storytellers utilize them and view them?
To what extent are they stereotypes and part of the storyteller’s agenda?
To what extent do they speak back and undercut the storyteller?
How does the overarching promise of seed and land relate to them?

One of the critiques in the father-power agenda is found in the epitaph of Deborah, Rebekah’s maid. Another is in Rachel’s naming of her son, Benoni. Peter Pitzele, in his book, Our Father’s Wells, does a magnificent midrash of Deborah. He creates a story from her point of view that is his own critique of the patriarchal myths. Pitzele introduced me to these two verses.

Deborah’s first:

And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So it was called “The oak of weeping.”

That is it. That is all we know about her. Yet there is a sense in which that verse speaks volumes. Rebekah, the wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau had a nurse, a slave, that appears only here in her death, but has been with her throughout the whole narrative, including that of Jacob, Rachel, Leah, and all the birthing of the 11 sons and one daughter, to Jacob, his wives, and their slaves.

What is the weeping? Who was Deborah? What is her story? We don’t know. We have to tell it.

The second series of verses:

Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had a difficult labor. When she was in her difficult labor, the midwife said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; for now you will have another son.’ As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar at her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day.

Rachel dies in childbirth. Rachel previously had a son Joseph. This is her second son. She names him Benoni, which means, “son of my sorrow.” But that isn’t the name we know. Rachel’s husband, Jacob, re-named him Benjamin, which means “son of the right hand.”

I have two questions for these stories. Questions that I won’t get answers to except that I make them up. The first question is why the weeping? What are they weeping over? Why weep over Deborah, a character who we don’t know and who says nothing? What is Deborah’s sorrow? And what is Rachel’s sorrow, a sorrow so deep she wants it remembered in the naming of her son? The first question is why the weeping and the second question is why did the author include these verses?

We might say, there you go, Jacob the heel, doesn’t even honor his dying wife’s freedom to name her own son. Yes, that is right. But, why does the author tell us that? Why does the patriarchal storyteller keep that detail, or create it?

I don’t know. But my answer is the point of my sermon. I think the weeping, the sorrow that is seen in the epitaph for Deborah and in Rachel naming her son is sorrow over the wound of patriarchy. The storytellers include the weeping, perhaps in spite of themselves, because something is not right about patriarchy and they know it.

The women of Genesis, Eve, who gets blamed for original sin, Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, Bilhah, Rachel, Zilpah, Deborah, Dinah, Tamar, are windows into the wounds of patriarchy. They show us the dark side of father-power in large part by what they don’t say.

As her soul was departing she named him ‘son of my sorrow’.

That sentence is enough to unravel all the pretensions of patriarchy. Rachel becomes the icon of sorrow. In the period of Exile, she is used by the author of Jeremiah as a symbol for the reality of exile and defeat and the symbol for hope for return and restoration. In Matthew’s gospel, she is used in the story of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod. That is a fictional story. But I think Matthew is using that story and that icon to reflect on the sorrow of the destruction of Jerusalem that occurred just a decade or so before he wrote his gospel.

The sorrow and the weeping is not weakness. The sorrow and the weeping of Rachel is strength. You cannot save, you cannot advocate, you cannot give your life for that which you cannot weep. When we stop weeping, we stop caring.

When I am talking about father-power I am talking about power over. It is not just about gender. It is about a way of living that owns, controls, and ultimately exploits, abuses and destroys. It is about who gets to speak and who must remain silent. It is about who controls the land and the seed and who gets slaughtered and removed from it.

I joked earlier about Monsanto and the seed and land. But it wasn’t really a joke. It isn’t about Monsanto alone. It is about father-power, empire-power, corporation-power, militaristic-power, exploitative power that wants all the land and all of the seed for itself. That is patriarchy and women can be patriarchal as well as men.

Our hope is in the weeping.

About five years ago, in March, I remember waking up in the middle of the night sobbing. For several months previous to that night, I felt like had taken a crash course in everything that was wrong with the world, from Peak Oil, to oceans filled with plastic crap, to species going extinct by the thousands, to the religious sanction of prejudice, and wars without end, amen and amen, and it overwhelmed me. I wept. Through it all I was anxious about my own self. And I felt ashamed for being so self-absorbed. But that is what depression is. I struggled with this depression for some time.

Slowly, I have come to regard this depression and this weeping as a calling. It is an invitation from Spirit to compassion. It is an invitation to use my voice while I have it to speak for Rachel and her son, Benoni, son of my sorrow. If we cannot weep, we cannot care. If we cannot care, we cannot act. Sometimes even when we care we cannot act. That is when we wait and we watch and we let our mortal flesh keep silence. We allow Rachel to weep for her children and put off consolation.

I also know there is a light. I have felt it and seen it. I see it in my fellow weepers, who weep for our mountains, for children, for justice, and for the 99 percent. I see that light of creativity, courage, and compassion. I know no more and probably no less than the experts know what is coming in regards to the foundations that are shaking. But I don’t lose hope. My weeping has made my hope stronger, not that everything will turn out as I want, but that the light, the light of creativity that we honor and anticipate in Advent will shine in us and in our world.

That light will change us. That light will open up ways of living and sharing power that we had no idea were possible. We will find ways to share and care beyond our imagination.

Unexpected things happen.
That is the Advent hope.

In Jeremiah, to the weeping Rachel, the Holy One speaks:

Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears;
for there is a reward for your work,
says the Lord:
they shall come back from the land of the enemy;
there is hope for your future,
says the Lord:
your children shall come back to their own country.

That to me is a hope embedded in these patriarchal texts that transcends patriarchy. There is hope for our future and for our children that will come as we care to weep and to allow those tears to open our minds and hearts for the creative, life-giving, Earth-sustaining, dignity-granting, peace-enabling power of the Sacred.

May this Advent season transform your tears into a calling and into hope.

Amen.

Time for Equality

2011-12-03T13:24:00.002-05:00

The argument is over now isn't it?

Marriage equality. It is time.

War on Christmas

2011-12-01T17:46:00.003-05:00

I am proud that Snickers is taking the lead in the war on Christmas.

He refuses to say "Merry Christmas" to anyone. He only says, "Awwwrrooooh."

And he peed on the tree.

A Godly Stand Against Interracial Marriage

2011-11-30T21:18:00.004-05:00

My friend, Southern Beale, alerted me to this article about a church in Pike County, Kentucky that has refused membership to interracial couples. The pastor of the church wanted to go on record

...saying that while all people were welcome to attend public worship services there, the church did not condone interracial marriage....

The proposal also said "parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services" or other church functions, with the exception of funerals.

The recommendation "is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve," the copy supplied to the Herald-Leader read.

Southern Beale in her post makes the obvious and correct comparison with the church in Pike County, Kentucky and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that still refuses to recognize marriage equality for same-gender couples.

The difference between the church in Kentucky and the PC(USA) is about 60 years. That church today is where we were 60 years ago. The same arguments used against interracial marriage then are used today against same-gender marriage. You've heard them: peace, unity, purity and standing firm for the Bible and Jesus Christ against cultural accommodation. The only difference is the target of discrimination.

At the congregational meeting, the vote was 9-6 in favor of the godly separation of the races. The following sentence is chilling:

There were more people in attendance, but some didn't want to take a stand....

That is precisely where we are in the PC(USA). Sure it is easy to mock this church in Kentucky. It is easy to take a stand against yesterday's prejudice or against a church that is still lost in the past. Integrity requires us to take a stand in the present against present-day prejudices.

It is educational to see the hateful yet slick language of the past used in exactly the same way today by those who "welcome and love" gay people but "Oh no, we can't condone their marriages." Meanwhile, the rest, like magazine editors and stated clerks, wring their hands because the haters might not be happy if we dare make any changes.

...but some didn't want to take a stand...

Southern Beale points out that this is a bigger issue than clergy. It is a bigger issue than churches, too. It is about what kind of people we think we are or think we want to be. It is about simple fairness, decency, compassion, and justice.

This is not hard.
This is not difficult.
This is not complicated.
It is a simple matter of doing what is right.

And if you think it is right to hide your prejudices behind the Bible, then take another look at the church in Pike County, Kentucky, because that is exactly who you are.

World AIDS Day Events at ETSU

2011-11-29T15:59:00.013-05:00

I stopped by the third floor of the Culp Center at ETSU today and dropped off some brochures for the PFLAG Tri-Cities table.

There are four panels of the AIDS quilt on display today and tomorrow.

On Thursday, December 1st, the First United Methodist Church, 900 Spring Street in Johnson City, will hold a World AIDS Day service at 7 p.m. The public is invited and a free-will offering will be taken for the HIV Network of Johnson City. More details on Facebook.

Stop by the Culp Center until 8 p.m. today and 6 p.m. tomorrow. Watch the film, "A Closer Walk" at 7 p.m. tomorrow in the Culp Auditorium.

Volunteers from the FMLA (Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance) made this possible.

That is Laura Terry of Multicultural Affairs and Sterling and Sara of FMLA. Sara played a big part in getting this going including being willing to be interviewed on TriCities.com.

Here are pics of the quilt panels:

What will you do this World AIDS Day?

Test the Waters Saturday!

2011-11-29T13:18:00.008-05:00

Next Saturday (December 10th) is an opportunity to Test the Waters and see what our progressive congregation has to offer. Our church is unabashedly the most progressive Christian congregation in East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. We are all about...

caring for Earth (we are a Green congregation),
welcoming all people (we are a More Light congregation),
working for peace and social justice,
encouraging critical thinking regarding religion (ie. Jesus Seminar, The Center for Progressive Christianity, Adult Forum),
participating in creative worship opportunities (ie. Dances for Peace, Drumming, Meditation, Wheel of the Year celebrations, oh and provocative sermons!)
enjoying one another and building community,
educating and encouraging children and youth to be open-minded critical thinkers and to develop a compassionate faith.

Curious? Find out more by reading our church news and join us Saturday, December 10th from 10 am to 1 pm. Lunch and childcare will be provided. Let me know if you can attend so we can get an idea of how much food to prepare.

What Is Honorable?

2011-11-28T16:12:00.010-05:00

I am not in favor of gay marriage. I am in favor of marriage equality. See poster below for clarification...

My sphere of influence is the Presbyterian Church (USA). The PC(USA) has inched toward ordination equality (not gay ordination). It is about time. It is long past time for marriage equality.

Because marriage equality is not a reality in Tennessee, my congregation and I provide holy union services for same-gender couples. They aren't marriages as the same-gender couples cannot (yet) get marriage licenses in Tennessee. Someday this will change as it has in New York, New Hampshire, Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut.

We provide this pastoral care as a witness to justice and to provide support and care for these couples and their families. They are every bit as holy and sacred as marriages for opposite gender couples. I am proud of my congregation.

This should be a "no-brainer."

Many of my colleagues in the states where marriage equality is a reality sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples in their capacity as Presbyterian ministers. In their minds and in mine it is the right thing to do. It is not clear whether doing so is in accordance with the Presbyterian constitution. It seems the logical solution is to change the constitution to make the right thing to do the constitutional thing to do.

The General Assembly will meet this summer. I am certain that there will be overtures to change the constitution so that clergy can sign marriage licenses for same-gender couples and officiate at ceremonies that celebrate them.

The Covenant Network advocates for ordination and marriage equality but they do not advocate for overtures to change the relevant documents in the constitution at the upcoming General Assembly. They do advocate for an authoritative interpretation to allow for PC(USA) ministers in marriage equality states to sign marriage licenses and to celebrate these services without being punished by the church police. Here is that statement.

I don't particularly agree with them. The right wing is not appeased by any attempts on our end to go for anything less than justice. So why try to appease them? Then again, political niceties are not my strong suit. I never understand the logic of throwing in the towel before you begin as if doing so will make the opposition like you more. Nevertheless, CovNet is on the right side of the issue.

I advocate always for as much justice we can get whenever we can get it. I am in favor of changing the constitution. Send in those overtures, Beloveds. I am in favor of the AI change. I vote yes. Go for it. Go for all of it. You get what you can get when you can get it.

Enter Jack Haberer. He doesn't like the Covenant Network's plan. He calls it Bad Medicine. He calls it "poisonous". He doesn't think it is "honorable". It would be more honorable, he thinks, if we sought to change the constitution rather than to make an AI allowing clergy to sign marriage licenses.

In regards to Jack Haberer and to Ed Koster, who I wrote about earlier, one can only marvel at privilege. What gall to tell a group fighting for basic equality what is "honorable."

You know what would be "honorable", Mr. Haberer? To care about equality, that's what. To fight for equality and justice for real people and their families. That would be "honorable". The PC(USA) has been wrong about LGBT people. It has been wrong about what constitutes a family. What is "honorable" is to turn a wrong into a right.

It would be nice, "honorable" in fact, if you folks who actually have power and influence in your positions as magazine editors and stated clerks to use your power and your influence to do the right thing rather than scold those in the trenches who are fighting for justice for not being "honorable".

Neither of you comes across as very credible to those of us fighting for justice in the PC(USA). I wait with eagerness for you to take the lead on behalf of marriage equality and to use your positions as editor and stated clerk, respectively, to advocate for changing the constitution to reflect this equality. Until then, you are no different than the white preachers that King took to task in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Wombs, Babies, and Christmas--A Sermon

2011-11-27T10:21:00.009-05:00

Wombs, Babies, and Christmas
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

First Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2011

Infancy Gospel of James, 1-5

Genesis 29:31-30:24
When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben; for she said, ‘Because the Lord has looked on my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.’ She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also’; and she named him Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons’; therefore he was named Levi. She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘This time I will praise the Lord’; therefore she named him Judah; then she ceased bearing.

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I shall die!’ Jacob became very angry with Rachel and said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?’ Then she said, ‘Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees and that I too may have children through her.’ So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife; and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, ‘God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son’; therefore she named him Dan. Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, ‘With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed’; so she named him Naphtali.

When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, ‘Good fortune!’ so she named him Gad. Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, ‘Happy am I! For the women will call me happy’; so she named him Asher.

In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’ But she said to her, ‘Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?’ Rachel said, ‘Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.’ When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, ‘You must come in to me; for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’ So he lay with her that night. And God heeded Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, ‘God has given me my hire because I gave my maid to my husband’; so she named him Issachar. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, ‘God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honour me, because I have borne him six sons’; so she named him Zebulun. Afterwards she bore a daughter, and named her Dinah.

Then God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘God has taken away my reproach’; and she named him Joseph, saying, ‘May the Lord add to me another son!’

Welcome to the First Sunday of Advent.

It is a season “pregnant with possibility”. One of the leading metaphors for Advent is pregnancy. Pregnancy is a condition that lends itself to metaphor as shown by Sylvia Plath’s poem, Metaphors:

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

The hope of Advent traditionally is realized in the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus’s mother, Mary, was considered to be Theotokos or the Mother of God. The Divine Spirit passed through her womb. She was pregnant with God. The spiritual life is conceived (conceived!) as re-birth. We are to be like Mary, a vessel, or in the words of Sylvia Plath, “a means, a stage, a cow in calf” for Christ to be born in us. The spiritual life is not mine, but Christ in me.

“Not my will, but thine be done,” so goes the expression.

The early Christians were clever enough to appropriate Winter Solstice as the time this divine birth occurred, making Jesus the Light of the world, born in the darkest hour. Wombs, babies, and Christmas. Advent is full of it.

During Autumn we have been exploring the myths of Genesis. These myths are patriarchal myths. You may wonder why I keep bringing up patriarchy. The reason is that if we don’t acknowledge that these stories are patriarchal stories, we may conclude that they are universal human stories, or even supernatural or divinely created stories. They are human stories created by human beings within the context of patriarchy. Patriarchy literally means father-rule or father-power.

Patriarchy is one answer to the question, “Where do babies come from?” That is an important question. How that question is answered determines how power is managed and who manages it. Who has control over babies and birthing? Whose womb is it? All of these debates that we are having regarding abortion are about power. Who controls the womb? Christianity’s answer is that the Holy Church controls every womb. Christianity, Islam and Judaism were formed, birthed, if you like, in the context of patriarchy—“father—power”. That is based on a particular answer to the question, “Where do babies come from?”

“Father-power” influences our contemporary discussions on sex and marriage. Who gets to have sex with whom? Who gets to be married? Who decides what marriage is? Who decides what the appropriate living arrangements are for human beings? Who decides gender roles? Who is responsible for reproduction? In short, who controls the womb?

We ought to be reading these stories, these myths of the Bible with great care. Not just the myths of Genesis, also the myths of Jesus. We ought not on one hand appropriate their spirituality into our lives without discernment. Nor should we on the other hand dismiss and ignore them. Because they have power, we need to understand them.

The church is obsessed with sex and wombs. Why is reason, rationality, and equality met with so much resistance by the church? The power structures of the church have advocated for a certain power arrangement, namely, father-power. These defenders of “traditional marriage” and “family values” claim that God is the one who set all of these laws in His Bible. When we begin to actually read these stories in the Bible and we begin to unravel these claims we discover that at least in part, probably in large part, the “God” who supposedly made up all of these rules is a projection of patriarchy itself. It is patriarchy writ in the heavens.

Patriarchal spirituality is taking human power arrangements and projecting them onto the heavens as if these arrangements were absolute, divine truth. So Jesus being born of the Father to a virgin is most definitely a story only patriarchy could create.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Where do babies come from?

In pre-modern societies, that is before the modern science of reproduction, there were and are many theories. Anthropologist, Carol Delaney, in her book Abraham on Trial suggests a few:

In Australian aboriginal society the male opens the passage for a fetus to come by other means. Repeated intercourse is a process by which the male feeds the fetus. Delaney writes that in “China and some African societies, the male contributes a particular substance such as bones.” P. 27

Only in patriarchal societies, is the “male imagined as the primary, engendering, creative agent.” P. 27

That is the way Genesis and the Jesus mythology understand procreation. The male has the seed which is the identity and creative agent or the life that is planted in the womb, like a seed is planted in the garden. The womb or ground nurtures the seed.

In this theory of procreation, the father owns the seed, and ultimately, the child and the womb. Marriage was the process of trading wombs from one man to another. The key here is that the male has the life-giving role and the male is symbolized as divine creativity. (Delaney, p. 28)

In this very odd story of Rachel and Leah, we can see what is at stake for these two sisters competing for the affections of their husband by having as many sons as possible. The story assumes that wombs, like ground, can be barren as opposed to fruitful. There is status on behalf of the women to be able to nurture the patriarch’s seed. Jacob owns these two women. He controls their wombs for the most part.

But there is also a hierarchy of control. For instance the slave women of Rachel and Leah have children on behalf of their mistresses. Rachel and Leah have some control over “the ground” or the wombs of their slaves, so the seed planted in the slave belongs to the owner, as much as the seed can belong to the female.

God in this view is imagined as the ultimate Father, the primary patriarch. He speaks for the most part to the men. He makes promises and establishes covenants with the men. He has the men be circumcised as a sign of this covenant. The sign of circumcision reminds everyone that all seed belongs to him. All seed belongs ultimately to God the Father. Not only that, but God the Father owns all the wombs. He opens them and closes them as he is wont to do.

It is a set up for conflict. The sibling rivalry between Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and Rachel and Leah is about who will win the Father’s favor. The stories are written such that God the Father simply chooses who he will favor and who he will not. The power arrangements are seen as “the way it is supposed to be” and divinely ordained. I find this story of Rachel and Leah to be comically depressing. That is it? The value of your whole life is to please a man?

When we get to the New Testament and then into the speculations of the early church, not much has changed. Jesus comes to be seen as the Divine Son of God, the Divine Seed that passed through and is nurtured by Mary’s womb. Mary, even though the church bestowed upon her the title of Theotokos or Mother of God, did not contribute anything to Christ’s identity. Jesus is not part Mary and part God. Her role was to be a pure, receptive, vessel.

The story in the Infancy Gospel of James, created likely in the middle of the second century, is concerned that Mary was pure enough to be the ground so it tells the story of Mary’s birth as miraculous. The “barren” Anna gives birth to Mary. This makes Mary pure enough to be the holy ground that nurtures the divine seed. Now, Jesus is absolutely "untainted" by humanity. Still, Mary contributes nothing to the creativity or identity of Jesus.

This is all mythology, of course. Jesus would turn over in his grave if he were to know the religion that was made about him. Nevertheless, the mythology is what captures our interest especially during seasons like Advent and Christmas. I am not suggesting that we do away with the mythology. What I am saying is that the mythology might be richer if we challenge the patriarchal assumptions behind it.

Christians are called to the spiritual life of being a vessel for the divine. We are to be like Mary and give birth to divine creativity. We are to deny ourselves so that Christ lives in us. As Mary says to the angel:

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

That comes from a patriarchal understanding of God that is not necessarily bad. But before we jump into it, before we decide that our wills and our identity ought to be replaced, we should consider what we are doing.

There is an assumption in this spirituality that human beings are by nature sinful and bad and that our salvation requires a total replacement of our will by God’s will. We have nothing to contribute except to be a vessel. I grew up with that and my guess is that you have as well and to challenge such a notion might be seen as arrogant or rude. As always, you have the freedom to accept or reject anything I say.

My spirituality is changing in that if God and I are going to have babies together then I will contribute equally to this birth. My life or my identity is important and it is part of me and it has value. I will be a partner with Christ but I won’t merely be a vessel. I am playing with metaphors, of course. But metaphors shape who we are, how we live, and what we value. Humans created these metaphors. We can create new ones.

The consequences of human beings giving up their identity, saying that we are all bad and in need of replacement, are not always so good. Think of the whole Christ vs. Culture thing. In this view, culture is bad and is in opposition to and inferior to Christ. This has led to the aggressive nature of Christianity that needs to take everything over. In this view, the secular and the material is nothing but inert ground, barren, lifeless until the divine seed of creativity, male creativity at that, impregnates it.

One of the insights of science and reproduction is that we might imagine spirituality in a different way. As men and women can be equal partners in reproduction, we are co-creators with the Divine, not just vessels. A spirituality that imagines the Divine not just as a seed or a spark within us, but as totally mixed with us is far more appealing to me. Everything is divine. All is sacred. Every cell is holy.

When I think of Advent hope, I don’t think of myself as a lowly vessel giving birth to God. Rather, I am an active participant in this creative work. Each of us is an active participant in this creative work. Earth itself is an active participant in this work. We are less in need of a divine savior to take us over and to whom we must submit. We are more in need of taking responsibility for our lives and for our future.

Advent hope is not sitting around waiting for Jesus to come again and make everything right. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

This Advent we can take responsibility for the future we hope to see. We are giving birth and what is being born is a product of our intelligence, energy, imagination, and love as it interacts with divine creativity, or as the late theologian Gordon Kaufman called it, serendipitous creativity.

What are your hopes?
Advent is a good time to dream them.
--our personal hopes, hopes for our relationships, and our global hopes.
As we dream them we create them.
We, women and men both, are creative agents in this holy work.

Amen.

Gratitude

2011-11-23T23:20:00.004-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, Beloveds.

This is from Mary Oliver.

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

When Church Gets Dull...

2011-11-21T14:39:00.004-05:00

...you can just ask people to come up front and get it going on the communion table for Jesus.

Check this story...

NEW YORK (UPI) -- A New York City pastor is delivering sermons on how to keep marriages alive that feature public kissing contests during service.

Pastor Maurice Johnson of the non-denominational Winners Church in Queens gives sermons, titled "The Power and Pleasure of Romance," to highlight the importance of marriage in the African-American community, the New York Post reported Saturday.

"Some people were like, 'It seems strange to do at church,'" he said, but they thought it was very creative.

During services, held in the PS 38 gym in Rosedale, Queens, four married couples are asked to approach the pulpit. Then, accompanied by R&B music, the couples demonstrate their passion by making out for five minutes.

The congregation then chooses a winning couple by applause. The most amorous pair wins $50 to spend on a date.

"You see kissing in all kinds of contexts, but you don't necessarily see it in a marriage context," said Frantz Cochy, 39, who won the contest with his wife of 13 years, Makeetah, 36. "I wasn't embarrassed, but I guess I felt a little awkward."

Johnson, 39, told The Post that showering your spouse with physical affection is a good way to strengthen a romantic partnership.

"God created a desire for love and romance," Johnson said.

"Any society that celebrates marriage, romance and love is going to be a free society," Johnson said. "Public displays of affection aren't wrong. Adam and Eve were naked, and they were not ashamed."

It is great entertainment if the kissing couples are hetero, in their 30s, and good looking. If Pastor Johnson really believed in Jesus he'd push the edge and have an 80 year old gay couple share some tongue on the chancel.

Blame Bill

Wrestling With God--A Sermon

2011-11-20T10:46:00.013-05:00

Wrestling With God
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

John Shuck
November 20, 2011

Genesis 32:22-32
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’

But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’

So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’

And he said, ‘Jacob.’

Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’

Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’

But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’

And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’

The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

During the season of Autumn we are working our way through the myths of Genesis. If you haven’t recently, I invite you to take an hour or two and read Genesis. Skim the genealogies so you don’t get mired in them and move on to the narrative portions. They are our stories. When I say “our” I mean Western Culture’s stories.

All the way through the 19th century in academic circles (and it is still the case for most people) Genesis told the story of Earth and human origins. Since Galileo, Newton, and Darwin, we know intellectually at least, that Genesis has been replaced by science in regards to Earth’s and humanity’s story. Rather than the Bible telling the story of the universe and the human condition, it is now one part of a human story that is encompassed by a much larger story that grows larger each day through use of the tools of science.

Those of us for whom the Bible has been our book, the Word of God, wrestle with this. Like Jacob at River Jabbok, we have been wrestling with this new story and we are not going down easily. Why Creationism for example? There may be a number of reasons but I think one is the anxiety over the loss of the Bible as the grand narrative. Their beliefs will not allow that. "The Bible is the only book God ever wrote." So they try to fit the universe into the Bible. That could go on for some time especially as the guardians of the texts, the church and its theologians, priests, and preachers, continue to operate as if nothing has changed.

Those of us who know this change wrestle too. We know the Bible no longer contains the grand narrative but it does say something about us. We wrestle with what it does say. We turn to the literary critics who tell us about myth, irony, and motif, and to the depth psychologists who can tell us about archetypes, shadow, and projection and to anthropologists who can tell us about patriarchy.

We turn to these stories as myths, not universal human myths, but myths forged from patriarchy that still have a hold on us, our values and our drives, regardless of whether we identify as religious or not.

When I read these stories and enter them I see myself in them in surprising ways, not unlike when I realize that I have become my father or my mother. You know that experience don’t you? Someone else might make the observation, “You are just like your dad” and it is not meant in a positive way. But it often isn’t good or bad, just what is. These stories, like our parents, are part of us. Even as much as we might like to move beyond them, we may find it is not so easy.

I also see my spirituality in these stories. Even in the stories from which I recoil, such as Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, I see myself. What parent does not look back and ask “What have I sacrificed for my ideals or some code or script written or unwritten that I am compelled to follow? Who did I sacrifice for it?”

I see myself in Jacob, wily, charming, cunning, deceitful, and yet naïve, ambitious, needy, and in love. Reading Genesis can be therapy. We find here the stories of wives and husbands, fathers and mothers, sons, daughters, siblings. Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah. These stories can be doorways into our own psyches. As we give these characters voice, our voice, we can recognize our wounds and perhaps even honor these wounds and allow healing.

We have to be careful. These stories are raw. They are not politically correct. They are patriarchal. Carol Delaney, author of Abraham On Trial, pointed out that patriarchy is based on a theory of procreation in which the seed belongs to the male and is planted in the female who is like the ground. The identity, the soul, is the father’s. Thus the father has control over the sons and daughters. They belong to him in ways they do not belong to the mother. This is a theory of procreation that belongs to patriarchy and it is not universal. Nevertheless, patriarchy is the dominant mythology in Western culture.

What about God? How does patriarchy imagine God? The sacred or the holy is presented as other. For Genesis and the myths of patriarchy, God is not Mother Earth. Not a She. God is not seen in every flower. I and God are not one. Those notions of the sacred and the holy are very different traditions. For Genesis, the sacred is wholly other. W-h-o-l-l-y as in completely and H-o-l-y as in set apart.

I am not saying that that view of the sacred is right or wrong, it is what it is. That Holy, that Other, that Sacred, intrudes itself, uninvited and unexpected. “And God said to Abram, “Go!” And after that, no communication for a long while. That is the myth of the call. The myth of giving up everything and following. The Holy intrudes when you don’t want it and is absent when you call for help. The spirituality of this is the constant struggle, the wrestling with this intrusive absence. That is the experience of the patriarchal sacred. God is on his own time. He has his own agenda.

And he owns your seed. That is the mark of circumcision. You, Father Abraham, your seed, your children, your sons and daughters belong to the Holy. Within the tradition that is the test of Abraham. Will he or will he not acknowledge that Isaac is not his but belongs to the Holy? If Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son to the Holy and give him back to the Holy, then he is faithful to the Holy. In the story the Holy acknowledges the faithfulness of Abraham and gives him back his son. I provided a critique of that story last week. I won’t go into that again.

Now we enter into the sibling cycle. This is the story of Jacob. His story begins in the womb when he is struggling with his twin brother Esau. God tells their mother, Rebekah, that two nations are wrestling within her. When they are born, Esau is born first but Jacob grabs Esau’s heel. The name, Jacob, means “heel” and it also means “one who supplants.” Jacob, the heel, is going to take Esau’s position.

Jacob is the smooth man and Esau is the hairy man or the red man. Esau is an outdoors guy and he hunts. He is his father Isaac’s favorite. But Jacob is a smooth man. A smooth operator. He is his mother’s favorite.

One day Esau comes back from the hunt and is hungry and Jacob prepares some stew and Esau trades his birthright for the stew. That is where we get the image for making a bad deal. Foolish Esau traded something valuable for a bowl of pottage. That isn’t the only trick that Jacob "the heel" will play.

Isaac is old and he can’t see. He is about to give his final blessing to Esau. Rebekah tells Jacob that he needs to get that blessing instead. She puts animal skins on him and he brings in some mutton and offers it to his father pretending he is Esau. Isaac has his doubts but is convinced enough to bless Jacob thinking he is blessing Esau. Here is the blessing:

May God give you of the dew of heaven,
And of the fatness of the earth,
And plenty of grain and wine.
Let people serve you,
And nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
And may your mother’s sons
Bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
And blessed be everyone who blesses you.

These words have power. These blessings are prophecies. The blessing is like an arrow that has been shot. Once it is sent, it is no longer under control of the sender. Isaac cannot take it back. When he realizes that he has been duped, there is nothing he can do for Esau except give him a second-rate blessing:

See, away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be,
And way from the dew of heaven on high.
By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother;
But when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck.

Esau is pretty upset. He vows to kill his brother. Jacob heads for Haran.

One night Jacob camps out and he has a dream. He dreams of a ladder that goes to heaven and angels go up and down it and the Lord speaks and tells him that he is the God of Abraham and Isaac and he will make Jacob a great nation.

Jacob’s response is tepid. He says yeah this is cool. He performs a lightweight spiritual ritual by pouring some oil on a small rock and says to himself:

If God will protect me and give me bread and clothing and peace at my father’s house, then the Lord will be my God.

We know enough about these stories to know that that isn’t what you do with the Holy. There are no conditions. We know that Jacob has some things to learn.

He goes to Laban’s home--his mother’s brother’s house--and falls in love with his cousin, Rachel, who is the younger sister to Leah. The lovestruck Jacob makes a deal to work seven years for Rachel. Jacob is the Bible's first romantic. Here is the text:

“So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.”

But on the wedding night, the cunning Laban who was even more cunning than Jacob, sends Leah to the marriage bed. How Jacob didn’t know I never could fathom. Maybe too much wine? Anyway, he is tricked and has consummated a marriage with Leah instead. Laban says you can have Rachel, too, but you will have to work another seven years.

Seven years and more and eleven sons and one daughter later between his two wives, their slaves, and plenty of loot that he tricked from Laban, Jacob leaves. He has a destiny. He must meet his brother, Esau. The dream of the patriarchal myths is brotherhood. One day brothers will live in peace. This is the dream of patriarchal spirituality. This is the hope.

Psalm 133:
How very good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!
it is like the precious oil on the head, running down the beard of Aaron,
running down the over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

While on the journey, Jacob gets word that his brother Esau is coming to meet him and he has 400 men with him. Jacob sends him gifts and flattery and bribery, one bunch of them after another after another, and he divides his family and sends them on ahead in different groups so that if Esau attacks one the other might escape.

He waits alone on the River Jabbok. He does the one activity that is the last refuge of a scoundrel. He prays. He prays that God will protect him like God is supposed to and deliver him from his brother. Jacob, all alone, has what we call the dark night of the soul. Solitude is most certainly a centerpiece of patriarchal spirituality. You have to walk that lonesome valley. Ain’t nobody gonna walk it for you. You have to walk it by yourself.

Jacob is all alone. He has no more tricks left. Jacob is alone with his sins. Been there? That night a man wrestles with him until daybreak. Out of nowhere. That is how patriarchal spirituality works. It is dusty and bodily and sweaty. It is violent and erotic. Jacob wrestles a man until daybreak.

Jacob proves not to be just a smooth mama’s boy after all. He is a good match. So good that the man can only get away by wounding him. He touches his hip. The word for hip is yarekh. It also means loins. There is a sense in which the wounding is the wounding of the sexual power and drive, the source of the seed. It is another sign that the holy controls the seed.

Even when wounded, Jacob will not let go until he gets a blessing. The man will not tell him his own name, but he does rename Jacob. He calls him Israel, one who struggles with God. With the name Israel, he comes to represent in his story the people of Israel. His twelve sons become the twelve tribes of Israel. Christianity supplanted that tradition with its twelve apostles. Both traditions go back to the founding figure, Jacob, who wrestles with the Holy. Peter Pitzele in his book, Our Father’s Wells writes of wrestling:

Wrestling is a metaphor for the patriarchal sense—and my own—of the soul’s existential reality. Soul is made by grappling with ultimate things: with one’s own nature, with one’s kin, and with God. As a poetic image and as a way of life, wrestling seemed to me the unique contribution of the patriarchal tradition, its splendid excess. P 191

I identify in many ways with Jacob. He is not an admirable person. He is a chess player and a schemer. He calculates and deceives. The fact that God picks him makes me question God’s judgment. Adonai is not always a good judge of character. Adonai picks who he wants despite their character. I don’t think Jacob ever really trusts God like his grandfather Abraham did. Jacob always wants something. But that maybe is the point.

God is not easy for Jacob. This is why I identify with him. Jacob does things the hard way. God is a struggle. His spirituality comes from lonely nights wrestling. I am putting on Jacob things that aren’t in the text now. I am taking him over. Jacob is for me the one who simply won’t stop doubting and struggling. Faith is not simple for Jacob. It is not trust and obey. It is

Fight me all night long, God, and I won’t give up.

This spirituality, the myth of wrestling allows for putting it all out there. There is nothing to hold back. This is a spirituality to which you can give all of your doubts, all of your shortcomings, your anger, your battle with authority, your addictions, whatever you got. There is no place for being politically correct or pious or nice. The Sacred, the Divine Wrestler will take you on as you are. You wrestle in the dirt with this God and you don’t ask for permission. You take it.

“I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

You wrestle until you are wounded, even then you hold on. You will get renamed.

That is why Jacob gets the story and not Esau. Esau is a better man. Esau is a moral human being. He is simple. He trusts. He forgives. They meet and they embrace and Esau kisses him and hugs his neck. Esau is good. He doesn’t have that ambition. Jacob is not a good man. But Jacob is chosen because he is a son of a gun who will not give up. Jacob is the survivor. That is the heart of the patriarchal tradition that still lives with us and still has its value.

Life, the Holy, the Sacred, God, whatever you call it is a struggle.
You don’t have to love it.
But don’t let go.
Wrestle with it until you are blessed.
Wrestle with it until dawn.

Amen.

Still In Good Company

2011-11-16T11:06:00.005-05:00

Police Crackdowns Reach Epicenter

“This is much bigger than a square plaza in downtown Manhattan,” said Hans Shan, an organizer who was working with churches to find places for protesters to sleep. “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”

Sex and the Presbyterian Obsession

2011-11-15T11:31:00.004-05:00

Michael Adee of More Light Presbyterians recently wrote an essay entitled Marriage As Commitment. It received a couple of Facebook comments including the following from Ed Koster of Detroit who also posted it on Presbyweb:

Dear Editor:

I have posted the following Facebook response to Mr Adee's article:

"The article you cite proposes that the characteristics of marriage are commitment, permanence, exclusivity, and public declaration.

If the proposal to "legalize" the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians had been to require that the individual be in a publicly declared relationship characterized by commitment, permanence, and exclusivity, then a lot less damage would have been done to the church than has been done by the strategy that was used. I suggested this to you and other leaders in the movement over the years and was ignored.

I am saddened. While I believe our prohibition was wrong from the beginning. I cannot believe the prohibition could have been removed in any way more destructive to the Presbyterian Church than by the way this was accomplished."
Edward Koster
Stated Clerk, Presbytery of Detroit

As I understand Mr. Koster, he thinks that More Light Presbyterians should have advocated for marriage equality before ordination equality.

My first response to that is to ask what gives him the right to tell a group that has experienced hostility, prejudice, and exclusion at the hands of the church the appropriate way to fight for equality? LGBT people owe an oppressive church nothing. They have graciously given the church the opportunity to follow Christ. Removing prejudicial barriers is a start in the right direction.

The second response is, "Really?" You think the folks upset about gay ordination would have celebrated gay marriage? The idea that there is a nice, step by step process to end oppression can only come from privilege.

My third response is the obvious: not everyone is married or should be. Believe it or not there are people who are not married who have sex--and ethical sex at that. I am happy to have them as elders, deacons, and ministers.

The church would do well to end prejudice and its obsession over people's sex lives.