I have found that one of the ways evil manifests itself is in the denial of “what is.” That is, in the denial of our concrete reality. Such often comes in the form of gaslighting or outright lying about a particular circumstance, situation, or person. What makes the denial of “what is” even more pernicious is when efforts are made to get other human beings to buy into a specific “take” even though it may have no basis in the concrete world. Such is particularly evil because it seeks to create a false reality. In many ways, it is a deep betrayal of the 8^th commandment as it bears false witness to what “is.” We see this play out often before our very eyes through the machinations of the mass media and Big Tech, but we can often identify such dynamics in our everyday lives “if we have eyes to see.”

One place that is particularly susceptible to this very dynamic is the church. In part, I contend that this is the case because the invocation of God into any situation can provide particular cover and specific denial to what actually “is.” God is used in a rather childish and magical way to deny reality or even to deny the evil that is taking place in that moment and its attendant consequences. There is an apparent disconnect between faith and works, as if how one lives doesn’t really matter, just that they believe Jesus is their Lord and Savior. All that matters is the messaging, not what the messenger is doing or how they live. After all, God provides the out because he loves us, died for us, wants what is best for us, despite how we might treat others. In a sense, it is to miss the forest for the trees. It is to be beholden to the gospel of cheap grace, which isn’t biblical at all.

In many ways, what is going on is a battle between what we want others to believe about us or a particular situation versus who we actually are and what really happened. That is, what we want reality “to be” versus what it actually “is.” In Jungian terms, we might say it is the battle between perpetuating the false self versus the true self. I believe the church is incredibly susceptible to such perpetuation. We can gloss things over with God language, visioning exercises, and using the 8^th commandment to silence questioning or any fraction of dissent. The presumption that God is on our side can, ironically, lead us to do some very evil things. It is no accident that psychiatrist M. Scott Peck wrote many years ago that “Since the primary motive of evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church.”

Certainly, we should work towards changing the concrete world for the better; that is part of the calling to be human. But to do so, we must first honestly appraise what “is.” If we can’t do that, we will continue to perpetuate falsehood and work against life and the dynamism of being.

We may recall this past Sunday’s gospel reading from Luke 4:16-30. It speaks to this very issue. Luke tells us that Nazareth rejected Jesus and flew into a murderous rage, trying to throw him off a cliff. This murderous rage was because Jesus had likened the Nazarenes to the Israelites of Elijah and Elisha’s day. Those Israelites then were apostate, corrupt, and faithless. Such was a pretty harsh condemnation of the people of his hometown. They believed that they were faithful; that was their image of themselves. That was what they decided to believe about themselves and what they wanted others to believe about them. In actuality, though, Jesus was right. They were faithless. Their concrete actions betrayed their claims to faithfulness. That “is” who they were rather than what they purported to “be.” Ironically, this was proven by their murder attempt of Jesus. Thus, “by their fruits, you shall know them.”

Sometimes because we have it so good, we quickly lose sight of just how bad things were throughout history. I don’t intend to lessen or invalidate the pain that any of us in the modern West have gone through, but the threat of famine or of violent hordes coming to destroy our villages is not something that ever crosses our minds. Such is a testament to the progress that we human beings have made in the modern world. Because we have it so good, I often wonder if that means our tolerance for pain and tragedy is greatly lacking. Rather than growing up in a world that is enchanted and full of tragedy, we grow up in a disenchanted world where we expect life to “work out” well.  I witness this in the various conversations I have in my role as pastor and teacher.  I recognize, too, that I am not somehow the exception to this thinking. It is within me, too. 

I write this because of the research I have done concerning the life and background of Jesus of Nazareth.  When thinking about the early life of Jesus, we tend to conjure up images of baby Jesus in a manger and of him getting lost in the Temple.  His father is a carpenter, his mother a dutiful wife, life is seemingly uneventful for them once they settle down in Nazareth.  That may not have been the case, though. Instead, plenty of evidence would suggest that Jesus grew up amid a serious traumatized people constantly under threat. He may have been very familiar with the darker side of humanity because of the unjust treatment of the Roman Empire.  In other words, there would have been plenty of reason to doubt God, to forsake him, and to curse him, but somehow, Jesus of Nazareth comes out of that darkness to do amazing things.  Here’s that world…

An Empire on the Rise

The Roman Empire’s ascendancy was well underway around the time of Jesus’ birth.  Some consider having taken place around 4 B.C.E.  Geopolitically speaking, Jewish Palestine was of considerable import to the Empire as it was on its eastern edges.  Such concern was due to the Parthian Empire, which was to the east.  In essence, Jewish Palestine was a buffer zone, and Rome wanted to maintain a firm grip on the area in light of the Parthian’s potential threat.  What is more, given the Jewish people’s history and the Maccabean revolt, it was known for being a challenging area to rule.  Thus, Rome spared no expense in maintaining control and dominance in that area of the Empire (Myers 2008, 56).  Nonetheless, Roman imperial rule was not looked upon favorably by most Jewish Palestinians for many factors, from harsh military rule to oppressive taxation.   

Rome’s dominance over the area would be made quite clear in 4 B.C.E. After Herod the Great’s death, his son Antipas went to Rome to have his father’s will ratified by Caesar Augustus and the Senate (Batey 2001, 40).  While gone, a widespread rebellion broke out in Galilee and Judea led by a rebel named Judas.  In retaliation, the Roman general Varus burned down and destroyed towns throughout the countryside and crucified about two thousand men believed to be rebels.   Going further, Varus would burn down the city of Sepphoris and the surrounding area enslaving thousands of its inhabitants (Horsley 2003, 29).  Bear in mind that Nazareth was four miles north.  Such a response was not simply physical warfare but also psychological warfare.   Rome knew that such brutality would serve to intimidate “the surviving populace into acquiescence in the reestablished Roman imperial order” (Horsley 2003, 28).  We can only imagine the traumatic impact Rome’s actions must have had on the people as they saw relatives, friends, and fellow villagers suffering under such brutality (Horsley 2003, 28).  When Herod Antipas finally returned in 3 B.C.E. he found Sepphoris mostly destroyed and decided to make it his capital city.  As a result, he embarked on a large building project that lasted for decades and employed many laborers and artisans from the surrounding villages like Nazareth (Batey 2001, 403).  Certainly, the child Jesus grew up in such trauma residue, hearing the pain and mourning of relatives and villagers.  Such would not have been quickly forgotten, especially considering that Roman military forces repeatedly enslaved the people and destroyed the villages around Nazareth (Horsley 2003, 34).  One wonders what kind of impact this had on the human subject Jesus of Nazareth.  Is this in part why in the face of constant calls to revolutionary activity Jesus develops his teaching on nonviolence?  After all, he would have understood quite well the futility of fighting the Romans on violent grounds.  Is this also why the cross is so central to his public teaching?  Growing up, the roads he traveled most likely had the rotting corpses of those crucified on them. Jesus would have understood firsthand the brutality of the Roman Empire.

We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus’ father, Joseph, was a carpenter or laborer (teknon). Based on the evidence, he likely worked in Sepphoris, given the proximity of Nazareth to the city. Instead of growing up in a small secluded village, Jesus grew up in what today we would call a suburb of a city.  Jesus probably traveled with his father to Sepphoris as he got older to learn their family’s trade.  This is significant because, by all accounts, Sepphoris was a cosmopolitan and sophisticated city since it was connected to a central road system.  There Jesus would have encountered all kinds of people from the surrounding Gentile territories and Greek cities (Batey 2001, 406).  Did Jesus’ experiences in this city have a strong influence on his later public ministry?  Shirley Jackson Case seems to think so writing,

“The unconventionality of Jesus mingling freely with the common people, his generosity towards the stranger and the outcast, and his conviction of the equality of all classes before God, perhaps owe their origin in no slight degree to the proximity of Nazareth to Sepphoris” (1929, 19).

Such was the world that Jesus of Nazareth grew up in…

Sources:

Batey, Richard A. 2001. “Sepphoris and the Jesus Movement.” New Testament Studies 47 no. 3 (June): 402–9.

Case, Shirley Jackson. 1926. “Jesus and Sepphoris.” Journal of Biblical Literature 45, no. 1-2 (January): 14-22.

Horsley, Richard A. 2003. Jesus and Empire : The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder. Fortress Press.

Myers, Ched. 2008. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. Maryknoll: Orbis.

I’ve never been one of those super-serious clergy persons. The type that is very stoic in all that they do, especially when they lead worship.  Actually, that’s something that I will never understand; how pastors can remain so serious while leading God’s people in worship.   This isn’t to say that worship isn’t a serious endeavor, but when we’re up in the chancel area we see and hear everything going on in the pews and throughout the sanctuary. Whether it’s the older gentlemen coughing up a storm, the loud ding from a person’s cell phone letting them know they got a text, or those who walk down the aisle in the middle of the sermon.   It’s hard not to be distracted by these things, but it’s also hard not to laugh at these things.  That in the midst of what should be a reverent time there is a whole lot of irreverence.   

In the throes of leading such a worship experience this past Sunday, an image of the first Christmas popped up into my head along those words from John 1, “the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” I suppose I could get upset at the lack of reverence and become righteously indignant but I believe that the incarnation teaches us otherwise.   The incarnation teaches us that God dwells among us in the midst of the “isness” of life.  There is always the ideal or the “what should be” that can all too easily pull us away from the gift of the present in all of its blessed imperfection.  Yes, the Word became flesh, but He also became flesh in the throes of a less than ideal world where rulers immediately wanted him dead and a band of notorious shepherds were the first non-family members to welcome him into the world.  I suppose it could’ve been better, but into such an irreverent situation our God decides to come.

There are times when my prayer time takes a hit or maybe I should say there are times when my prayer time really seems dry and pointless.  Yesterday, it was really hard for me to remain focused and to remain centered.  That sense of simply going through the motions without any sense of God’s presence really pervaded.  Part of it is my own anxiety and the increasing burden that the pandemic is placing upon us with each passing day.  The “what-ifs” keep growing and the lack of answers are torturing and exasperating.  That said, this morning I felt much better.

The rollercoaster moves onward!

Something that I have come to really value is the Ignatian principle of “Finding God in All Things.” Yesterday, when I wasn’t really feeling all that great I took and step back and paid attention to the world outside my window.  We have lots of wildlife, at least for this neck of the woods.  And with the advent of May they seem to be everywhere.  We’ve got squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, tons of birds, cardinals, blue jays, even a turkey.  They just keep keepin’ on, doing what they do and, you know, in the bigger picture of things I find this very comforting.  It provides me with much needed perspective because what immediately comes to mind are those words of Jesus, “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.  Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

And so I consider the squirrels, the rabbits, the chipmunks, the birds, the cardinals, the bluejays, even the turkey and they all seem to be doing okay.  God is taking care of them.  As a result of this, my question to myself is: why wouldn’t he take care of me?  And the answer is that there is no good reason or answer.  He will take care of me, and he will take care of you, simply because we are loved in Christ.

Peace,
Pastor Geminn+

A few weeks ago in one of his many press briefings Governor Cuomo encouraged us to take stock of the unexpected blessings of the pandemic.  Using himself as an example Cuomo explained that he was spending quality time with his daughters, quality time that simply wasn’t there before for him and his family.  I felt a resonance with his words.  I know my wife, Becca, did, too.

Yesterday, as we sat in front of our house and watched Emma ride her bike up and down our little street, Becca noted that if not for pandemic we wouldn’t be sitting and watching Emma do just that.  What Becca meant was that before the pandemic hit Emma was still riding her bike with training wheels.  Now because of all the time she has had riding her bike, she has learned to ride it without her training wheels.  And I should stress, this was all Emma’s doing, she learns things on her own time and terms.  As a result, her and I are able to set out on our own bike riding adventures.

Sometimes we need circumstances to push us onwards in life, to learn the things that God needs and wants us to learn.  Strangely, tragedies are often the best fodder and the best soil to do so in.  Think about the moments when you really grew in life, when you made great strides, were they the easy or hard times?  The predictable or unpredictable times?  The happy or the sad? Or somewhere in the middle?

In the Gospel of John Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches and he follows this up with some important information.  He says every branch of his that bears fruit the Father prunes so that it may bear more fruit.  In other words, if we are to bear more fruit, if we are to grow further in Christ, our God is in the task of pruning us, of taking away the things that may be keeping us back from true growth in Him.  This may be painful in the moment, but it will prove to be worthwhile and fruit bearing in the long run.

Going back to Emma, in her efforts to learn how to ride her bike without much help or assistance from Becca and I she got plenty of bumps and bruises.  She definitely fell and had some scary moments, but she did it, she learned how to ride her bike. Now, Becca and I can sit back and watch her ride her bike, with a certain amount of pride and happiness.

I wonder if that’s how our God looks at us; when we finally grow as a result of his pruning and learn the things he needs us to learn and become the people he calls us to become.

Peace,

Pastor Geminn+

It has been such a dreary and cold spring here in New York.  In many ways, it matches the way many of us are feeling here in the epicenter of the pandemic.  Spring just doesn’t seem to want to breakthrough.  But this morning I woke up to find clear skies and a warming sun.   I felt relieved and grateful, it looks like it is going to hit 70 degrees today.  When I sat down to begin my morning prayers I said the words, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise” with a renewed understanding and appreciation for them.  Such words are easy to speak without giving much thought to them, but this morning it was different.   Different because of the clear gifted-ness of the day.  For all of our technological advances we still can’t control the weather.  We simply have to make do with what it gives us.  And though everyday is a gift, today I feel the poignancy and blessing of that truth.  I find myself comforted by my creatureliness and for but a moment, I feel centered.  I feel that I am where I should be, not controlling, not working, just receiving.

“O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise.”

There really is an absurdity to life, to the very ways in which we fail to see or to perceive the very truths that are right in front of us.  Instead, we latch onto narratives or stories or value systems that help us to justify the seemingly tragic, obvious, and superficial.  In many respects, such things inhibit us from growing as human beings because we spend so much time apeing around to acquire some form of happiness and contentment that we’re told we should have if we just follow along and play the part assigned.

Here I am reminded of a great scene from Camus’ The Stranger.  During his trial Meursault (the main character) notices that everyone around him is playing a sort of game.  The lawyers on both sides are clearly part of a club of sorts, they have their understood roles and all work and act accordingly.  Everybody knows everyone’s bullcrap but like a bunch of actors in a Shakespearean play they play the part that they know they have to play.

Such is life for many of us but there’s problem to this, a risk that we don’t really hear or learn of until it’s too late.  The old adage, “bad company ruins good morals” is applicable here but in a different sort of way.  It might be better put as, “group think ruins deep insight”(I’m still working on that one).  Or maybe it could be understood in the Faustian sense of selling your soul to a specific way of doing things while losing touch with what really is.

And I think such things can all too easily get in the way of our becoming human because instead of leading towards real connection it leads to false connection, all based on a manufactured way of doing things.  Everyone is disposable in so far as they do not play the part or play along.  This is very much part of the culture that we human beings have created and continue to create.  I think that we if we are paying attention we can be reminded of such dynamics on a daily basis.  Those things that inhibit us from being open and honest with others tend to stem from such dynamics.  We all too easily subsume ourselves to a system, a group, a form of propaganda without realizing it.

“Take heed, watch and pray.”

For me Holy Saturday begs the question: is it good that we know the ending to the story?  Does the knowledge that Jesus will rise from the dead cause us to skim over the emptiness and seeming meaninglessness of Jesus’ death?

I never paid much attention to Holy Saturday until taking part in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.  This year it’s different because through the Exercises I have developed the habit of imagining myself as a person or witness in the various gospel stories.  What I came to realize through this process is that the first Holy Saturday may have been a terrible affair for the women disciples.  It isn’t just that Jesus, the hoped for Messiah, was put to death but it is also the means and the methods that went into accomplishing such a thing.  It’s sitting in that knowledge and the reality that “there’s no justice, it’s just us.”  Men claiming to uphold the Torah broke their beloved Torah in order to maintain their status quo.  Pilate, in order to maintain peace, put a man whom he claimed did not deserve death to death on a cross.  Jesus’ most intimate disciples proved to be rather faithless in the face of great danger.   What was there to latch onto if you were one of Jesus’ disciples?  Everyone was gone and those who remained were corrupt and just awful.  Certainly, on that first Holy Saturday it did not appear that “the ark of the universe bent towards justice.”

I think for many of us Holy Saturday can be much more representative of our lives than the resolution and brightness of Resurrection day.  There’s much that we encounter in our daily lives that doesn’t make any sense, is tragic, and simply unfortunate.  Bad guys win, the corrupt get re-elected, church leaders lie and obfuscate, children unexpectedly die, cancer afflicts all kinds of people and on and one we can go.  We do our best to make sense of these things but sometimes we just need to sit with them.  Christians are a people who look for the Resurrection of the dead but sometimes that can be used as a distraction from the seemingly ugly aspects of life in this world.  It can serve as our “get of jail” card from the inexplicable ways of this world.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t anticipate Resurrection morning or be excited and joyful.  Instead, maybe we need to spend more time in the unknown, learn to get comfortable with it, and not seek to explain it away.  Rather it may be okay to very simply believe that somehow someway Resurrection comes.