Are you running with me Jesus?

Our horny dilemma

For Christians, it may seem oftentimes that life has more pain in it that we asked for. Bad things happen. Malcolm Boyd, back in the turbulent days of counter culture and Vietnam protest, of rock and soul music at their peak of fermentation and creativity, of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury and City Lights Bookstore, of Woodstock and hippie-dom, asked a question both simple and profound: are you running with me Jesus? Is our faith relevant in times of hurt and times of pain, when God gives us a mountain to climb, when, instead of feeling safe and secure in his everlasting arms, we instead find ourselves on the receiving end of "his chastening rod"?

Religious escapism - an opium?

Christianity generally, and Pentecostalism in particular, get accused of glossing over difficulties, praising our way out of troubles, shouting and singing hallelujah's to help us forget the pain, accent the positive instead of dealing with the negative. Yes, I can't deny the accusation that we oftentimes sing and rejoice, or "turn our troubles over to Jesus."

Yet there is a method to our madness. If we appear as 'fools' to outsiders, they deserve to know there is a kernel of purpose, an objective, which is perhaps not obvious to the naked eye. We have a hope which puts gas in our gas tank, oil in our lamp. We have a promise that says, turn your cares over to the Father, and he will see you through.

We have a hope and a consolation

We ask why we have these troubles, and if we listen, the answer is blowing in the wind. God is working on us. He is "improving" us. He prunes us, as the farmer prunes his trees. He purges us, as a goldsmith smelts impurities from gold. He chastens us, disciplines us. Discipline, in the Roman language, the Vulgate, and all through the medieval and modern Church, means to teach. But the whole point of any discipline is, in the end, the goal of self-discipline. Teaching must be internalized. It is not enough just to show up in church, sit in your fancy pew, show off your fancy Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, your wife's new chapeau. Our native ancestors taught us, Wisdom must be lived. You got to walk the walk, you got to practice what you preach. "I would rather see a sermon, than hear one any day," said Edgar Guest, the homey poet of America's Great Depression and "The Good War" (World War II).

Some great "achievements" in theology

White man began in poverty and ignorance in the forests of the old world. But he waxed lofty, he evolved a high falutin theology. He spent tens of thousands of man hours constructing elaborate "proofs" for the existence of God. Defining terms and words and jargon into rigid meanings, pigeonholes and categories. He hammered all the flexibility out of the language, and all the breath of life out of the words. What the Spirit had given with spontaneous freshness, from God, the theologians perverted into an erection of man, with hard language and frozen meanings. Is our doctrine man-made? Or from God?

For more http://robtshepherd.tripod.com/faith.html

What the people need is not arrogant lords of a pretentious dogmatism, but a life line of hope and excitement. The only real 'proof' for the reality of God is when someone helps someone else, inspires someone else, lifts someone else. Reach out and touch somebody's hand, make this world a better place, if you can.

Carl Jung, the great Swiss disciple of Freud, wrote: "So often among so-called 'primitives' one comes across spiritual personalities who immediately inspire respect, as though they were fully developed products of an undisturbed fate."

Churchianity is fine, but what about living the faith?

Even with their flaws and imperfections, the churches serve an eternal purpose. Authority is ordained by God, as much as such principles as responsibility, duty, self-discipline, and sacrifice. Thomas Jefferson had been burnt out on the negativity and sometimes (what might be called) the spiritual oppressiveness of the churches. Traditional Christianity embraces the basic doctrines as the vicarious atonement, the shedding of the Blood of Jesus on the Cross. But sometimes, this same tradition is guilty of a kind of Pharisee short-sightedness. We turn ourselves over to Jesus (like little children) putting our faith and trust in his grace and his sacrifice, while failing to hear his voice today, and being remiss in regard to our duties and commission in the here and now -- in the living, breathing present.

Jefferson, somewhat impatiently I believe, wished that the theologians and church leaders would fight less, speculate less, argue about doctrine less, and instead start DOING THE WORDS OF JESUS more. Jefferson even constructed a personal copy of the Gospels, composed only of the teachings of Jesus, and omitting everything else, even the miracles. There's something admittedly sexy and alluring about authentic signs and wonders, God's show and tell.

Was Jefferson right to cut out the miraculous? I think sometimes God is forced to use miracles simply as a way of getting our attention. Nevertheless Jesus himself laid heavier stress on obedience to his words, and lighter stress on infatuation with his works. Jesus himself warned his disciples that merely hearing his teachings was folly, like building a house on sand. Rather, one must do the words of Jesus. The Deliverance minister Bishop Whitlock so often said to those of us who sat under him, "The answer is in the red letters." If we want our house to be built upon the solid rock, the words of Jesus must be internalized. The proof of our belief is action, and that action (deeds, obedience) represents fruits meet for repentance.

Personalism

Bishop Whitlock taught us that the Bible does not say "Plan of Salvation." No, it's the churches that teach that, with their "tradition of man" and their human-evolved theology. We need to open our ears to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Go back to the original languages. Get a Strong's concordance. Seek out the biblical lexicons and scholarly aids at your disposal in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. And for my part, I would refer you to the King James English (with Apocrypha), or even the Rheims New Testament. The Jewish prophet Simeon, then 77 years old, cradled the baby Jesus in his arms and then called on the Name (Baruch ha Shem) saying "Now I have seen thy salvation." Personalism. Was 'salvation' a person, the person Jesus? In Hebrew, the word Yehoshua means salvation.

Our work is cut out for us. My Daddy used to tell me, "Good better best, may we never rest, till our good is better, and our better best." I think everyone, whatever his measure of faith or flavor of ideals, tries to do better today than yesterday, wants to be better, and live better, the next day than the day before. That law of God is written in our hearts. It has zero to do with what denomination, or which 'Scriptures' you embrace. I happen to be a sort of KJV kind of guy. But you may go with the Book of Mormon, or the Jerusalem Bible, or the Douay Rheims, or the New World Translation. Or perhaps you are Jewish or Muslim and the whole Christian thang is a bafflement you generally shy away from. (But Judaism and Islam are also "revealed religions," each with their particular Scriptures, and each is a "religion of the Book."

Blessed be the Name
baruch ha-Shem

The people of the Book, and we who did not have the Good Book

We Christians owe an immense debt to the Jewish people, who gave us the Word of God, who gave us Jesus the "Word of God" (the divine Logos), and who, in some sense, have themselves been "the word of God" made flesh throughout the world, and thru history. Our heritage is both Christian and, folks forget, pagan as well. That dual heritage is important. Native spirituality, due to being pre-literate for so long, lacked a written record, lacked Scriptures in the sense of a bible or sacred literature. Often without literacy and education, they (say WE) have seen through a glass darkly. But those 'deprivations' may have been blessings in part. The wise ones, primitive though they were, taught that wisdom must be lived. They remained at times closer to the animal creation, closer to nature, closer to their own bodies, closer to the earth of which we are made.

Instead of ecclesiastical show, or theological "plans" and formulas, their elders taught them simpler holy grails, such as bravery and ethics, valor and truth as the hallmarks of manhood and simple virtue. How does one bear up under hardship, pain, or scourges of circumstance? You with more august lineage, please do not judge my humble origins too harshly: you too, surely have a tribal subconscious. You too, are still only humans, formed from the same clay. Are we not all, after all, "earth people." The Spirit in the Sky is the One love. Theology may be rich in pretense and affectation. Lots of brilliance but not much heart. Does your religion teach you how to be a better person? Does your religion give you a song to sing, or a hope in times of sorrow? (For more on the native wisdom of the great chiefs : http://www.geocities.com/cott1388/native-words.html

Søren Kierkegaard wrote: Destroy your primitivity, and you will most probably get along well in the world, maybe achieve great success-but Eternity will reject you. Follow up your primitivity, and you will be shipwrecked in temporality, but accepted by Eternity.

God disciplines us.

"We are his workmanship," said Paul. Our Maker is working on us. He chastens us not for our destruction but for our own good. And, oh the shock of it: he even uses our primitivity to do it. God our father tells us: "ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. [Hebrews 12]

Christianity all too often has degenerated into an effort to impress others, rather than authentic help and healing, first for ourselves, then for others. Deliverance Pentecostalism, as taught by Brother B. (Bishop Whitlock), stressed the cleansing aspect, cleaning the inside of the cup, You enter into your secret closet of prayer, not to be seen of men, but to seek healing for yourself. Our God is a consuming fire. Then, having submitted to the Father in secret, He will one day send you out to help others. Deliverance pentecostalism.

The wounded healer

Jung taught that the ones who are able to heal others, are the ones who themselves have suffered, have been wounded, and the wound has been healed. The wounded healer. I believe this is a core concept of Deliverance ministry. There is a great need in the Church today for a special class of servant willing to get "dirty" so to speak. There is a need for a special class of minister willing to roll up their sleeves and do the difficult, dirty jobs that the "nice" Christians in their comfortable, respectable social clubs would not stoop to do.

Where are the pathfinders and trailblazers who will do for our tradition the kind of bold unveiling that Freud and Jung did for psychotherapy. Freud began with the interpretation of dreams, and all his life was spent doing pretty much that. He peered into the symbols, into the myths, into the subconscious realm of fears and fantasies, rebellion, authority, jealousy, lust and hate. He saw the deep need that almost all of us have for a healing at the level of our souls. As a physician, he never forgot the connection between physical health, and psychological wholeness. He dusted off Aristotle's word "catharsis" (a word we Christians find in our New Testament, translated first into Latin, and later into our modern Bibles, as cleansing, cleaning, etc).

Plumbing the depths

So often the ones who bring most to the table are the ones who have been the rejects, or the outcasts, the stone that the builders had no use for. Freud suffered rejection from so many different groups and angles. And it goes on even today. Scores of commentators are convinced that he "bogged down" at some point, but hardly any of his critics can agree with others just where his brilliance ended, and his human limitation took over. Occasionally, Christian clergy have noted Freud's atheism as a shortcoming, but Hans Küng has pointed out a deep, unverbalized faith, just beneath the surface of almost everything Freud did. Freud seems to have had a personal aversion or animosity toward his own feminine side, and it has been argued that his hostility toward biblical religion, and the God of the Bible, is a reflection of a kind of Nietzschean contempt for effeminate weakness, or submission. [Paul Roazen writes of him] "His resistance to religious ideas was akin to his more general rejection of dependence and passivity, which he associated with femininity. Whenever Freud sounds intolerant, it is likely that something in him was threatened and he may have been more involved with the problem of religion than he cared to know. " [p 251] Nevertheless, at the end of his life, Freud was asked if he had any hope for the world, was there any single thing he thought might offer hope for saving the world. He thought for a moment, then said, "Yes. The one thing that might offer hope for the world is this -- love without a sexual aim." (See The Achievement of Freud)

And didn't our own Martin Luther King, Jr. tell us the same thing. Agape, was his word. Straight from the words of Jesus. Agape means disinterested love. We need each other. The Jewish theologian Martin Buber saw God in the idea of community and relationship. The Oneness is bound up in otherness. God's Unity is in human community. We unite with God when we pray, when we work, when we serve our fellow man. To reach out and touch somebody's hand, that action itself is a prayer. "When ye do it unto the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me," said Jesus.

A non-christian who shines a light in the darkness

How much we can learn going outside our churchy tradition. I have been blessed by the writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. This rabbi seems to have drunk deeply from the wells of spirituality. There is a truth I believe in, that if your theology becomes to complex or complicated, SIMPLIFY. Get back to basics, get back to your Genesis. I am not "smart enough" to have much patience with highly developed, advanced theology. Give it to me simple. Boil it down and give it to me such that "a wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein." I am all too prone to dull mindedness, all too stuck in my locality, my lowly corner of earth, to grasp the fancy stuff.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, for me, really does help in laying out biblical spirituality in a way it can be understood quickly and without strain. In fact, Heschel manages to do so, in much of his writing, in simple language that does not rely on religious or theological or rabbinical jargon. I am a Christian, but to me that seems like a breath of fresh air.

Some closing words of encouragement

All of us have our struggles. We have or trials and temptations. Circumstances are bound to "scourge" us at times. Bad things happen. But we have this hope, that God is with us, that he knows the end from the beginning, that he has a purpose in the chastening he is afflicting us with. The word scourge in Hebrews is not a pretty metaphor. The old scourge was a scorpion, it would literally claw and tear the flesh. But there is a promise that somehow our Saviour will alchemize the pain into ultimate healing and joy, that he will transform the suffering into heavenly reward, that he will take our dross and turn it, in his good timing, into spiritual gold.

Have faith. Do not despair. Never give up. I am not going to tell you not to praise your way out of troubles. I am not going to tell you not to be drunk with the spirit, or aglow with the joy of God's Shekinah glory. (Yes, we who followed Brother B. learned the emphasis on word studies, a very biblical calling. It wasn't just Norman O. Brown who delved into classical language to bring forth timely truth for a new generation. You can do it too!)

Go tell it on the mountain! (These words of hope and promise are from Paul Tillich.)

Eternal joy is the end of the ways of God. This is the message of all religions. The Kingdom of God is peace and joy. This is the message of Christianity. But eternal joy is not to be reached by living on the surface. It is rather attained by breaking through the surface, by penetrating the deep things of ourselves, of our world, and of God. The moment in which we reach the last depth of our lives is the moment in which we can experience the joy that has eternity within it, the hope than cannot be destroyed, and the truth on which life and death are built. For in the depth is truth; and in the depth is hope; and in the depth is joy.

What We Might Do Together

Abraham Joshua Heschel:

God is not a word but a name. It can only be uttered in astonishment. Astonishment is the result of openness to the true mystery, of sensing the ineffable. It is through openness to the mystery that we are present to the presence of God, open to the ineffable Name. [Heschel: What We Might Do Together]

Theology must begin in depth-theology. Knowing must be preceded by listening to the call: "Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground."

No one attains faith without achieving the prerequisites of faith. First we praise, then we believe. We begin with a sense of wonder and arrive at radical amazement. The first response is reverence and awe, openness to the mystery that surrounds, and we are led to be overwhelmed by the glory.

God is not a concept produced by deliberation. God is an outcry wrung from heart and mind; God is never an explanation, it is always a challenge. It can only be uttered in astonishment.

The most fruitful level for interreligious discussion is not that of dogmatic theology but that of depth-theology.

[Heschel: What We Might Do Together]

Lord have mercy on a boy
from down in the boondocks

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The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
Isaiah 58:12