Posted by Jim Burklo at 03:31 PM | Permalink
Posted by Jim Burklo at 06:38 PM | Permalink
(I wrote this poem, a meditation on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, in the year 2000 - and am still waiting for someone to put it to music! Any volunteers?)
Song on the Mount
by Jim Burklo
Every hair on your head is counted
Every bird on the wing
Is fed by the hand of the One who loves us
And gives us voice to sing
Grass in the field
Lilies will yield
Birds needn't store any seed
Trust in the One whose Word moves mountains
And answers every need
Love enemies
Answer their pleas
Justice will only be done
When judgment is left to the One who made us
And wants us to be One
Fortunes on earth
What are they worth?
When thieves can break in and steal?
Put your stock in the One with treasure
That every heart can feel
Posted by Jim Burklo at 11:53 AM | Permalink
Posted by Jim Burklo at 10:49 AM | Permalink
Raw Faith
Beyond the Fish Wars
On Being a Christian
The Bible and Religious Pluralism (see more at pluralismsunday.org, a site which I maintain)
The Gapless God
A Creed for Christians
Inside Out (a meditation on the future of the church)
Seeds of Listening
How to Change the World
Are You Willing?
Liturgy, Ritual, Drama:
Water Into Wine (meditation on communion)
The Vine (words of institution for communion)
But or And? (a play for worship)
The Meeting of Rumi and Shams (a play for worship)
Matthew 13 Revisited (a play for worship)
A Sermon for Sneetches (a poetic sermon)
New Songs (poetic litanies)
Songs and Hymns:
New Words for Old Hymns
We're All Mojados
Faith and Social/Political Action:
Biblical Voters' Guide
Blessing of the Taxes
How (Not for Whom) I'm Voting
Civil Initiative for Same-Sex Marriage
Ten Real-World Commandments for Americans
The Burklo Limit (on income inequality)
Progressive Taxation and Christian Faith
Defining and Defending Religious Freedom
Prayer, Meditation, Spiritual Practice:
Three Prayers
A Prayer for Wisdom
My Little God
Lord's Prayer - An Interpretation
The Active Ingredient
Artistic Contemplation of the Cross (see my "Stations of the Cross" at www.jimburklo.com)
Ebb Tide
The FeAST
Biblical Interpretation:
The Bible and Bob Marley
The Bible and Billy Collins
What's the Word?
Miracles and Myths
Metaphorical Literalism
Poetry:
WORD Jazz (a poetic sermon)
Fat Tuesday WORD Jazz (a poetic sermon for Lent)
O Little Town (a prayer for Christmas)
The Virgin Monologue (a prayer for Christmas)
Interlude for Gratitude (for Thanksgiving)
Ash Wednesday
Oddservations
Tweets from my Subconscious
Mecca
Three Odes
Topa Topa
Bob's Poetry Supply
Where Poems Hide
Word Yenta
Mysticism and Spirituality:
Talking Trees
Love Practice
On a Starry Night (for my dad!)
The Dark Virgin
Sanctuary
The Bridges of Hanalei Bay
The River
A Tree Story
Why I'm Here
Not Yet (meditation on Advent)
Feeling For (I Am Not Here For Me)
Humble Faith
A Great Achievement
Immaculate Conception
You Are the Beauty That You See
Parables and Stories:
The Clay Bird
Parable of the Uncut Sapphire
From Seeds and Stardust
Oddservations:
Time for the Tiara (for my mom!)
Application for Membership in the 12 Disciples
Bringing Words to Life (a lecture on public speaking)
Homelessness and Houselessness (appeared in the book, The Best of CoEvolution Quarterly)
Posted by Jim Burklo at 05:49 PM | Permalink
Christianity asks you to do very hard things that are supremely worth the effort. Loving your enemies – that often seems impossible. Willingly giving up your power and money and time and influence in order to serve the poor and the sick and the oppressed – that can be downright scary. Having a heart full of pure love in all circumstances – how can we do it? But if we do it, we build heaven on earth. These are things that matter, things Jesus asks us to do. It takes a lifetime of serious spiritual and physical and emotional work to come even close to rising to these challenges.
Compared to them, believing in the factuality of the fantastic stories in the Bible is trivial. And that is exactly why it makes no sense to let such questions matter very much in living a faithful Christian life. It really isn’t important whether or not you take the Bible literally, or whether or not you believe all the creeds word-for-word. If they don’t make sense to you, don’t worry about them. Don’t let dogma and doctrine get in the way of practicing Love, who is God. Doctrines can be interesting. They help us understand the origins and background of our religion. But repeating creeds is not the price of admission into Christianity. Instead of caring whether the story of Jesus’ resurrection was a fact or a myth, let’s concern ourselves with things that matter. Let’s care about our neighbors without jobs or health insurance, face the resentment in our hearts that needs to be released, struggle with how vote and be activist citizens, and learn to bring our careers in alignment with our highest values. Let’s gather in churches, soup kitchens, work-places, living rooms, and cafés to support each other in doing things that matter, and let go of old doctrines that don’t.
When Jesus asked us to believe in him, he wasn’t asking us to believe a list of ideas about him. He was asking us to believe in that spark of the divine that was inside of him, because he wanted us to believe in the spark of the divine that is in every one of us. The belief that mattered to him was faithfulness, a willingness to follow in the way of Love. A willingness to feed the hungry, liberate the oppressed, heal the sick, and preach the gospel, which is the good news that Love is all that matters.
The key to Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7. This is the first teaching that Jesus gave his disciples and a crowd of followers. He exhorts them to love their enemies. He urges them to be humble in prayer. He tells the poor that they shall be blessed. He asks them not to worry. He tells them not to judge.
And he says nothing at all about the following topics:
1) The Bible. Neither Jesus nor any of the people after whom its books were named had any idea that what they said or wrote would become part of the Bible. The New Testament was created much later, over a period of over 300 years, by early Christians. Jesus quoted and interpreted the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) very often, and he had a free-spirited, poetic, allegorical way of using those writings to illustrate his teachings. It is very hard to imagine that he would have demanded that Christians take the New Testament as literal, factual history, had he known that someday it would exist.
2) Creeds, dogma, or doctrine. One would think that if such things mattered so much to Jesus, he would have begun his preaching career by addressing them right away. But the Sermon on the Mount makes no mention of believing in miracles, believing the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ, believing in the Trinity or the Apostle’s Creed, or even “accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior”. Jesus didn’t care about dogma. He cared about what was in the hearts of people, and about how they treated each other.
3) Homosexuality and abortion. Jesus said nothing about these topics whatsoever in the New Testament. There’s no hint in the Bible that these topics mattered to him at all. Christianity should not be confused with a rigid set of ancient rules or with a current partisan political agenda.
Christianity is both simpler and harder than most people make it out to be.
My first step into an adult Christian life came when I was sixteen years old. I went on a backpacking trip with a Christian group. On top of a high pass in the Sierra Nevada, the leader, appropriately, read aloud the Sermon on the Mount. When he repeated Jesus’ words: “Love your enemies”, a rush of energy went through my body. I was certain that this experience was God, or was of God. I knew in an instant that it was worth basing my whole life on this one commandment.
I’m still working on it, decades later. While his words have shaped my entire life and career profoundly, I am far from completely fulfilling Jesus’ command.
It’s been so challenging to love my enemies – to love in tough circumstances, and to love people who present me with difficulties – that I can’t imagine putting other stumbling blocks in front of people who might want to join me in following Jesus. Many if not most people in America today cannot accept the idea that there is only one true religion. They see people of many religions living faithful, loving lives, and cannot imagine that they are going to hell for failing to accept one certain creed. Many people are bewildered by the contradiction of taking science seriously and then being told that the miracle stories in the Bible are literally true. But these issues are not crucial to living a life of faith. There is plenty of room in Christianity for people who want to follow Jesus’ way of unconditional, difficult love, but whose God-given common sense prevents them from nodding along with implausible or confounding doctrines.
How can you follow Jesus’ way of love without accepting creeds that are confusing or impossible for you to believe?
1) Find a community of people who will give you support in following the way of Love. Find people who care much more about works of compassion and about inner spiritual growth than they do about doctrines. You may find these people in a church – or in a sub-group of a church – or in an informal gathering of friends – or even in an online community. Find a circle of people you can trust to challenge you to acts of kindness and service, people who can give you honest feedback, and will trust you to do the same for them. Whether this circle goes by the name “church” doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether or not it helps its members to live like Jesus lived. For communities in your area, see progressivechristianity.org under “affiliates”.
2) Practice a spiritual discipline. In Christianity, there are very many forms of prayer, contemplation, meditation, and other means of spiritual awakening and deepening. Find the one that is right for you, and practice it regularly. These disciplines can help you stay centered in love and compassion and self-awareness, giving you much more choice about how best to respond to your own emotions and urges, as well as to your encounters with others. It prepares you for compassionate action. For suggestions about spiritual disciplines, see my website, jimburklo.com.
3) Learn about the history of the Bible, the Christian religion, and other religions. Read and study the Bible itself, and alongside it, read interpretations of it by non-doctrinal, academic scholars who can reveal to you the cultural background and historical milieu in which its books were composed. Websites that will introduce you to this scholarship: progressivechristianity.org and westarinstitute.org . You’ll discover that the Bible is a very human document, but that makes it all the more fascinating. You’ll start to feel the spiritual experiences of the people who wrote it and read it in ancient times. You’ll begin to appreciate that while much of the Bible is mythological, many of its myths have an enduring power to transform lives toward Love. You’ll understand that the miracles in the Bible are not historical facts, but that the real miracle is the Bible itself: a treasure-trove of poetry, stories, deep wisdom, and inspiration. Learning about other world religions will make your studies in Christianity come alive, as you compare and contrast the various faith traditions to discover common themes and uncommon insights.
______________
Rev. Jim Burklo is the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he is the author of books on progressive Christianity: OPEN CHRISTIANITY: Home by Another Road and BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS: Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians. His latest book, HITCH-HIKING TO ALASKA: The Way of Soulful Service, will be published late in 2012. You can read his weekly blog, “Musings”, at www.tcpc.blogs.com/musings , and his personal website is www.jimburklo.com .
Posted by Jim Burklo at 01:45 PM | Permalink
A Spanish pilgrim in rough clothes rode on a mule toward Rome and Jerusalem in the year 1522. Ignatius of Loyola was his name. He was “to the manor born” but rejected his wealth and status to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Later he would become the founder of the Jesuit order of Catholic priests.
Along the way he met a Moor – perhaps a man of North African ancestry who converted at least nominally to Christianity to escape persecution after the Catholic conquest of Muslim Spain – and the two of them conversed as they rode side by side down the dusty highway. The conversation focused on the Virgin Mary. The Moor agreed that she had conceived Jesus without a man, but he said that since she delivered Jesus vaginally, she was then no longer a virgin. Ignatius vigorously defended the Catholic dogma that she was still a virgin. The Moor sped up on his mule and left Ignatius behind.
Ignatius stewed about the conversation as the mule slowly carried him forward. He was infuriated at what he perceived to be a mortally serious offense against the Holy Virgin. As a proper caballero, insults against the integrity of a noble lady were not to be taken lightly. Honor had to be defended, at sword-point if necessary. What should he do? The Moor had told him of his destination not far ahead. Should he pursue the Moor and kill him for his disrespect? Or should he let the matter go? He tried to determine the moral basis for a decision, but came up with nothing.
So he decided to let God direct his mule. Perhaps Ignatius was remembering the biblical story of Balaam, whose donkey was more attuned to divine guidance than he was.
He let the reins go slack on the mule just before the fork in the road. One way – the road in better condition – led to the village where the Moor was headed. The other was the bypass road to points east. If God directed the mule to the village, he would defend the Virgin’s honor by slaying the Moor. If God directed the mule to head in the other direction, he would know God intended the matter to be dropped.
The mule carried Ignatius away from that deadly encounter. Were the mule’s big ears better able to hear the voice of God? Or did the mule just smell more grass ahead along the bypass road?
Did this incident explain how the order founded by Ignatius became famous, and even infamous, for its embrace of the wisdom and insights of non-Christian religions?
We all do well to let the reins go slack when we get riled up about religious differences, and let the Love that is God lead us toward peace. Ignatius was emphatic in his belief that the Holy Mother of God was a virgin – before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. That belief mattered to him deeply. Islam reveres Mary, but tells the story of Jesus’ birth and Mary's status in a different way than is found in the New Testament. It was no wonder that the Moor and the Christian pilgrim had different points of view. It took a mule to convince Ignatius to step away from the conflict long enough to make room in his heart to let the difference be.
As election season begins in earnest, mixing religion and politics in ways that are sometimes combustible, it’s time for a slow, slack ride on Ignatius’ mule – away from anger and toward inquiry, empathy, and appreciation among people of different faiths.
(SIGN UP YOUR CHURCH to participate in PLURALISM SUNDAY - celebrating the diversity of the world's religions in worship on May 6.)
Posted by Jim Burklo at 01:25 PM | Permalink
(Below: the IRS 1040 form on which the people of Mt Hollywood United Church of Christ in Los Angeles (of which I'm a member) wrote how they pray their taxes will be spent, as part of our 4/15 observance of the Blessing of Taxes)
(COMING SOON: Pluralism Sunday - celebrating the religions of the world in Christian worship, worldwide - MAY 6)
Posted by Jim Burklo at 02:16 PM | Permalink
I hope that congregations of all faiths will grapple with these matters in worship this coming weekend. Whether or not we feel able to pray a blessing on our taxes, at least we can preach and pray about what kind of government we want, what uses of our taxes we intend to prevail, and how we can put our faith into practice as citizen activists!
Posted by Jim Burklo at 06:07 PM | Permalink
What’s your passion, this Passion Week? Anything worth risking your life?
Posted by Jim Burklo at 02:19 PM | Permalink