Musings

Selfless Service

 You know the difference.

 

You go to a clothing store and visit the shoe department.  The sales person greets you warmly and asks how she can help you.  She brings you the shoes you want to try on, patiently shuttling between your seat and the back storage room as you go through several pairs, none of which is quite right.  Gently she asks if you have any special needs or preferences.  You are torn between shoes that are comfy and shoes that are attractive, not yet finding a balance between the two.   “Take your time, try on all you like,” she says, making suggestions about shoes to check out, but without being adamant or pushy.  Finally you find a pair that might work.  “What do you like about them?” she asks.  You answer, and decide to buy them.  With warm smiles and thanks to each other after she rings up the purchase, you leave with your new shoes to go upstairs to the clothing racks.

 

There you are inspecting pairs of pants when a sales person approaches you and hustles you over to a different rack.  He pulls out a pair of pants and extols their virtues and price and urges you to try them on.  Talking fast, he leads you to yet another rack and pulls out another pair, which he says are also perfect for you.  He rushes you over to the fitting rooms and ushers you into one of them.  The pants look okay, but you feel like you have not been given the time and space to browse at more options.  

 

Sometimes people think they are being of service, but they are so lost in their own presumptions about you, and what they think you need, that they lose sight of your otherness.  They project their own desires and values onto the people they aim to help, and as a result, they disappoint or disempower them.  

 

But when someone really comprehends that you are someone else, and humbly seeks to know your otherness, this “selfless” attitude can enable them to be especially helpful, both practically and spiritually.

 

One path to selflessness is to read and write poetry.

 

A poem is a receipt to God, or the universe, for a precious experience.  The experience comes as a gift, and the poem is the grateful response.  It is inspired by something or someone other.   It points to a reality in the other that is beyond the poet’s full grasp.  The poet gives the poem to an other, whether it is a reader or to the heart of the cosmos.  Through the poem, the reader is drawn out of the ego and into the experience of the gift and the giver.

 

Among my favorite poets is Antonio Machado, who wrote in the early 20^th century, and is very beloved still in his homeland of Spain.  His “proverbs”, such as these, are receipts for his experience of the nature of poetry itself:

 

It is not the fundamental “I” that the poet seeks, but the essential “you”.

 

The eye you see is not an eye because you see it.

It is an eye because it sees you.

 Poetry is an exercise in honoring the deep otherness of everything and everybody.  It gets me out of the way, so I can begin to understand more of the nature and needs of others.   The breathtaking linguistic leaps of poetry provide aerobic training to prepare me for service.

How to Read the Bible

 

Here I offer a set of assumptions and suggestions for reading, understanding, and making creative spiritual use of the Bible.

1)  The Christian Bible includes the Jewish Torah and prophetic and other scriptures, along with a selection of Christian texts, assembled in roughly its present form in the 4^th century AD by the emerging Catholic Church as it became the state religion of the Roman empire.  It is the work of many human beings over thousands of years, dating back to early Near Eastern civilizations that existed before the Jewish people.  It is called "holy" because of the spiritual intentions of the people who composed its books and the devotion of readers.  None of its authors had any idea that their works would be part of what we now know as the Bible.  There were other early texts used in the early Christian church but left out of the “canon”, or official church list of scriptures.  An important one is the Gospel of Thomas, a book of quotations attributed to Jesus.

 

2)  The Hebrew scriptures, or the Old Testament, represent a religious tradition that is independent of the later Christian faith. The Hebrew scriptures aren't about Jesus, although the Christian scriptures include many references to the Hebrew scriptures.  To honor the fundamental differences between the two sets of scriptures doubles the spiritual significance of the entire Bible.

 

3)  Anything in the Bible that looks miraculous or contrary to the normal functions of the natural world is not factual, but rather is mythological. In ancient times, the distinction that now exists between fact and fiction did not exist in the same way as it does now.  The Bible does not ask us to "believe" it as if it were a collection of facts or a set of legal prescriptions that necessarily make sense outside their original cultural contexts.  Rather, it challenges our spiritual and moral imaginations, inviting us to use it as a rich language for expressing our journeys of faith.  Ancient biblical myths can have great power in positively transforming our lives today.

 

4)  Hardly anything in the Christian gospels has a verifiable basis in history corroborated by sources outside the New Testament.  The Gospels were almost entirely products of the spiritual imagination of first-century Christians.  There is no way to separate the Christian scriptures from early Christians, who were a diverse community of beliefs and practices.  To understand the figure of Jesus, to make sense of the New Testament and of early Christianity, we must understand the spirituality of people in the first-century Christian church.  This requires grounding in non-doctrinal, academic scholarship.

 

5)  There is much to be discovered in the Bible by engaging it with religious traditions outside the Judeo-Christian heritage.  Exploring texts in other religions that resonate or differ with passages in the Bible can raise enlightening questions.  The Bible is best understood and appreciated from the perspective of religious pluralism - the idea that other religions can be as good for others as mine is for me.   In this context, the Bible can be seen as a vital part of the great global conversation throughout history about the relationship of human beings to ultimate reality.  For example, read the Dhammapada (sayings of the Buddha) and the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew and Luke) side by side.

 

6)  Rabbi Jesus used the Hebrew scriptures freely and creatively.  His “midrashic” method of interpretation, still used by Jewish rabbis, is instructive for Christians in interpreting the New Testament.  Following Jesus' understanding of the scriptures of his native tradition, the entire Bible becomes precious raw material, providing us with imagery, aphorisms, pithy parables, poetry, and narratives that we can use to awaken ourselves to higher levels of consciousness and kindness.

 

Reading the whole Bible is daunting - and not just because it is a long book!  So here's a selection of passages that give a feel for the whole document, and can whet your appetite for more.  It's best to read these passages alongside books that give an historical, spiritual, and textual background.  For the Hebrew Scriptures, I recommend The Beginning of Desire by Avivah Zornberg and The History of God by Karen Armstrong, and for the New Testament, The Five Gospels by the Jesus Seminar and The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels.  The many books and articles published by the Westar Institute (Jesus Seminar) provide excellent non-doctrinal, academic analyses of the backgrounds of the biblical texts.

 

 Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament):

 

Genesis (whole book - essential to comprehending the whole Bible)

Burning Bush:  Exodus chapter 3

Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:1-4,7-8,12-17

The Aaronic Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26

Ruth's Promise: Ruth 1:16-17

Elihu's Speech: Job 37:14-24

Psalms: 8, 23, 46:1-2a, 10, 92:1, 95:1-2, 100, 118:24, 121

Holy Mother Wisdom: Proverbs chapter 8

There Is a Season:  Ecclesiastes chapter 3

Celebrating the Sensual:  Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) (whole book)

Prophetic Justice: Isaiah 2:2-4, 11:1-3a, 11:6-9, 40:1-11, ch's 27-31, 61:1-2 - Amos 5:21-24 - Micah 6:8

 

New Testament:

 

Jesus: Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-10

Jesus: Light: Matthew 5:16

Jesus: Love Enemies: Matthew 5:43-48

Jesus: Lord's Prayer: Matthew 6:9-13

Jesus:  Do Not Be Anxious: Matthew 7:25-34

Jesus:  Asking: Matthew 7:7-12

Jesus: With You Always: Matthew 28:20

Jesus: Children: Mark 10:13-16

Jesus: Communion: Mark 14:22-25

Mary:  Magnificat: Luke 1:46-55

Simeon's Blessing: Luke 2:29-32

Jesus: Golden Rule: Luke 6:27-31

Jesus: Law of Love: Luke 10:27

Jesus: Parables of Mustard and Leaven: Luke13:18-21

The Word: John 1:1-5

For God So Loved the World: John 3:16

Jesus: Love One Another: John 13:34-35

Jesus: Lay Down His Life: John 15:12-13

Paul: Hope: Romans 8:18-28

Paul: Hold Fast to the Good: Romans 12:9-12

Paul: God of Hope: Romans 15:13

Paul: The Body of Christ: 1 Corinthians 12

Paul: The Love Chapter: 1 Corinthians 13

Paul: Be Kind: Ephesians 4:25-32

Paul: Armor of God: Ephesians 6:10-17

Paul: Put on Compassion: Colossians 3:12-17

James: Doers of the Word: James 1:19-25

John: God Is Love: 1 John 4:7-12

John: He First Loved Us: 1 John 4:19-21 

John of Patmos:  River of Life: Revelation 22:1-5

 

 

Song on the Mount

(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

 

The Macrotheism of Chip Murray

a review by Jim Burklo of

“Twice Tested by Fire: A Memoir of Faith and Service”

by Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray

(Figueroa Press – 2012)

 

It’s no accident that Chip Murray’s autobiography comes into print at the 20^th anniversary of the 1992 LA riots.  At that time, he was the pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church, still the epicenter of black religious, political, and cultural life in Los Angeles.  He and his church strove to keep the peace and pick up the pieces as violence raged around them, and that was enough to assure him a place in history.  He brokered reconciliation between the black and Korean-American communities.  He led the church in remarkable efforts to rebuild South Central LA in the aftermath.  He remains one of the most influential contemporary black pastors in the United States.  Now in his eighties, he’s working as a University of Southern California religion professor.  The new USC Cecil Murray Center carries on his legacy of community engagement by training and organizing church leaders to be agents for economic and social development. 

 

But there is much more to the man than his fame, or his role at FAME Church, would suggest.  I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Chip as a colleague over the past four years, and just being able to say this is a sign of his generosity of spirit.  He shows up at campus events from which he has nothing to gain for himself, just to be supportive of his brothers and sisters of all faiths and ages.  His natural humility glows from within.  He speaks gently, his words effortlessly flowing into poetry.  He’s a beautiful and beloved person on our campus.

 

He had to be persuaded vigorously by his colleagues at the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture to write this book, which is half a lyrical autobiography and half a rumination on how to end the scourge of racism.  Reading his story helped me understand the man in a new way.  He’s associated with matters of race, and he has plenty to say about the subject.  But that's not the primary fuel for his fire.  He’s driven by a mystical spirituality that was evident from his early childhood in Florida. 

 

Chip Murray grew up in a world where he and those around him knew their places - whether or not those places made any sense - and found a certain security in knowing where and to whom they belonged.  Despite the outrageous racial oppression and the Great Depression that shaped his circumstances, his youth mostly was a happy time.  That gave him an inner emotional and spiritual confidence that propelled him into leadership.  He went on to excel at Florida A&M and from there entered the Air Force where he had a distinguished career.  As the civil rights struggle was heating up at home, Chip was growing accustomed to the racially integrated environment of the military, serving in places as far-flung as Greenland.  (Military discipline appears to have served him well:  he looks and moves like a man ten years his junior.)  He survived a plane crash that killed a fellow pilot – his first test by fire.  He married and then left the Air Force to go to Claremont School of Theology, where Dr. John Cobb, foremost scholar of process theology, was his mentor for his Doctor of Religion degree.  While there, he served a church in Pomona in the culminating years of the civil rights campaign.  He held pastoral posts for the African Methodist Episcopal Church around the US before being called to Los Angeles in 1977.  He started building a congregation of 250 people into a megachurch of 18,000.  His was a message of mysticism and activism, building faith and encouraging practical self-determination.  He had come to a church that had a big picture of a white Jesus on the wall above the pulpit.  When he retired, he left a black Jesus on that wall.  He shepherded the creation of the FAME Renaissance Center, a conglomerate of enterprises generating subsidized housing complexes, a minority business incubator, and many social services.   The second test by fire, the 1992 civil unrest, was but one of the many challenges he and his church had to confront.  A racist skinhead group planned to kill him until the FBI infiltrated it and ended the threat.  Street gangsters repeatedly terrorized the church.  Through it all, Chip Murray maintained a sweetness of soul and a profound openness of mind and spirit. 

 

I heard him give a talk at a Christian group on campus a few years ago.  He disturbed a number of those in the audience by saying that he did not believe that Christ was the only way to heaven.  He said something similar to these lines in his book:  “My belief system has room for atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Taoists, Catholics, Protestants, Scientologists, the Church of Religious Science, Quakers, the Unification Church, Mormons.  Are there any among us who teach/preach other than God is love?” (p 85)  His book is salted with quotes from his friends from other faiths, such as this one from the late Hassan Hathout, a great leader of Muslims in America:  “Atheism is when God is denied.  Microtheism is when God is acknowledged, but with greatly reduced reverence.”  Chip continues with a characteristic turn of phrase:  “I see a third possibility implied by the other two:  Macrotheism, when God is acknowledged with unconditional love and maximum reverence…  Love is always an extension – beyond limitations, beyond time and place, beyond anger, beyond categories, beyond war and factionalism.” (p 87) Religious pluralists are a minority group in Christianity, and a yet smaller one in the generally theologically conservative world of historically black churches.  So to hear this kind of macrotheism from a pastor of his stature among people of all faiths and sects is especially powerful.

 

“How did our generation make it?” Chip muses about his peers from childhood.  “I think we made it because we were in large part dream-driven.  Being a starry-eyed dreamer myself, I long ago began to nurture a fantasy about a model nation called Freeland.  It is there that I retreat on sleepless nights.  It is Nirvana when the fires of hell threaten my peace or my existence.  Love is the hallmark of the perfection that this vision models…” (p 22)   His book is a celebration of all he has done, and a reminder of all that is left for the rest of us to do, in moving Freeland from dream to reality.

 

Selected "musings" - by topic

Here I offer links to my past "musings", and other writings, on a variety of topics.  I've been posting weekly articles for ten years: this list consists of pieces that drew significant comments from readers, or that cover topics that I think are of enduring significance.  

Writing is one of my spiritual disciplines.  Often I don't know clearly what I'm feeling or thinking until I put my fingers to the keyboard.  "Musings" has been a way to maintain conversation with friends and colleagues in places far-flung from mine.  And it is my attempt to contribute to the progressive Christian movement world-wide.  If my "musings" can be useful to lay people who are trying to find a new way to practice and express their spiritual journeys, if quotes or ideas from my writings are put to use by preachers, writers, and activists, then I'm thankful to be helpful in this way.  I'm grateful to be a part of such a soulful, thoughtful community of friends who continue to shape so much of what I write!

My books on progressive Christianity are in print and available at Amazon: 

OPEN CHRISTIANITY: Home by Another Road (2000) -- This is still in use by individuals and study groups as a "primer" on theologically and socially progressive Christian faith. 

 

BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS:  Meditations, Prayers, and Songs for Progressive Christians (2008) -- This is a "book of common prayer" for progressive Christians, including meditations, liturgies, prayers, and new lyrics for old hymns.  A selection of my "musings" appears in this book.

My latest book, HITCH-HIKING TO ALASKA: The Way of Soulful Service, will be published late in 2012.  It will explore the spiritual and religious dimensions of many forms of service. 

My personal website is www.jimburklo.com .  There you will find my online book, BREAD AND ASPHALT, about my years of work with homeless people.  Also you'll see pages about progressive Christianity, eco-spirituality, weddings, religious and spiritual education for children, and other topics.

Selected "Musings" by topic:

What Is Progressive Christianity?

How to live as a Christian without having to believe the unbelievable

Progressive Christianity: Q and A
The Four Spiritual Awes  (a "tract" for progressive faith)
Progressive Christian Elevator Speeches

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)

The Arts of Compassion:

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)

How to live as a Christian without having to believe the unbelievable

 

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 . 

The Way of the Mule

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.)

Muddy Insight

Discovery

I dreamed I heard someone singing
A beautiful song I'd never heard before.

I woke up humming the tune.

 

Who is the songwriter?

 

I dreamed I found a piece of paper lying on a sandy shore.

On it was a poem I'd never read before.

Its intense clarity haunted me after I awoke.

 

Who is the poet?

 

Muddy Insight
(at Esalen, Big Sur)

 

Four billion years ago,
Clouds spat rain on flowing lava,
Hot vents stirred the seabed,

And troubled the primal mud into life.

 

Two thousand years ago,
To heal a man of blindness,

Jesus spat in the dust, pinched that warm mud from the ground,

            and smeared it into the man’s eyes.

 

Through cracks from the hot core of earth

            water bubbles up

                        and fills the cliff-side tub in which I soak.

I breathe its sulphured vapor.

Boils of fog float around a mountain

            stippled with chaparral,

Gull wings sigh in the onshore updraft.

Sunlight finds the feathered branches

            of a cypress.

Waves rumble and flush;

            veils of foam fly back

                        from the curling edge of surf.

 

If mud obscured my eyes

            long enough to break the spell they put on me,

Could I then see deeper into the heart of the world?

(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)

Seeking the Blessing

I received many responses to my recent "musings" about the Blessing of Taxes (coming this Sunday, April 15) and my Christian arguments for progressive taxation, most of them critical.  Some objected to the sin-focused theology of my argument that taxation is necessary because human greed prevents charity from being adequate in meeting the needs of the poor.  Others were so frustrated with the amount of public funds spent on the military that they could not imagine praying a blessing on their taxes. 

I learned two things from this feedback.  First, my "sound bite" theological argument missed the mark.  It did not reflect a truly progressive theology.  Second, changing the discourse about taxation in this country is going to be even more challenging than I thought.  People have a hard time blessing their taxes when they are deeply upset with how the money currently is being spent. 

Everybody wants to "starve the beast".  To paraphrase Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader, conservatives want to shrink government social spending down to the point where they can drown it in the bathtub.  Progressives feel pain writing checks to the IRS when they see how huge a percentage of the money is wasted on a bloated military-industrial complex.  Conservatives take advantage of this widespread frustration so that they can continue to cut taxes on the wealthy, unravel the nation's social safety net, cripple public education, and dumb-down the American people so that they will be even easier to manipulate.

A lot of people stopped trusting the government, or believing it could ever be trusted, during the Vietnam War.  Nixon lied to us about the US bombing of Cambodia, among other breaches of public trust.  Later came Ronald Reagan, who cleverly traded on the Vietnam generation's oppositional attitude toward government.  "Government is the enemy" was a rallying cry that attracted both conservatives and liberals.  It led to a vicious cycle.  Americans elected conservative politicians who governed badly.  That just reinforced their message that government is evil.  This deepening disillusionment led to millions of good-hearted people dropping out of political life altogether, and focusing their attention on charity that only addresses the downstream problems that resulted from upstream disasters.  But only the public sector can have the needed resources to solve those upstream problems.

Many progressive-minded people have abandoned politics.  In doing so they have handed the public sector over to people who are systematically crippling the government's ability to serve the common good.  To put it bluntly: if you don't vote, you vote Republican. 

The cycle must be broken if the American dream is to have any meaning for 99% of our people.  Religion has a responsibility to change the attitudes of Americans about the role of government and the taxes that pay for it.  Religion is being used cynically to dismantle America's vital institutions today.  Faithful people need to get to work to rebuild and reform them.  And religious language matters in the process.

To that end, here's a "sound bite" from a "musings" reader - I think it's better than mine: 

"If you claim to be a Christian, then you are by definition responsible for the dignity of your neighbor.  Progressive taxation is the only economically viable way to make this responsibility come to life." -- Rev. Jason Hubbard, pastor, Bostwick Lake United Church of Christ, Rockford, Michigan.

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!

Compassion Week

 What’s your passion, this Passion Week?  Anything worth risking your life?

 

I attended a conference at Esalen Institute at Big Sur this past week, which gathered filmmakers and activists to share media strategies for promoting reconciliation among the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  At one point the conversation focused on how to prevent war between Iran and Israel and America.  People professed strong feelings about the brewing crisis. 

 

“Are you willing to die to prevent this war?” asked one of the participants.  The room fell quiet. 

 

The man who asked the question was Abdullah Omeish, a filmmaker born in Libya but raised mostly in the US.  He had gone to his homeland to document the revolution against the dictator, Gaddafi.   He had left his wife and young kids in America to risk his life to record the story of the Arab Spring in his homeland, and had returned with videos of the uprising, which he showed us.  

For Abdullah, this was no empty question.  Nor was it for Jesus.

Jesus was passionate about creating a reign of divine love on earth, to replace the oppressive Roman empire in his occupied homeland.   He was compassionate with the poor, the sick, the women treated like mere possessions, the Samaritan outcasts, the people seen as “unclean”.  Passion Week is a time to remember Jesus’ intense commitment to love, peace, healing, and economic and social justice.  His passion led to his death.  But it transcended the cross on which the Romans killed him.  His passion throbs in us now, inspiring us to spend our lives, and sometimes even to put ourselves at mortal risk, in the service of the most vulnerable among us.

 

Abdullah’s question has no easy answer.  But it is one that further emboldens us to witness and work for the kingdom of compassion we want to create in this world.  Now’s the time for active citizenship for the peaceful prevention of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.  Now is the time for protest against the Congressional budget plan that would cripple America’s social safety net.  It includes a massive 17% cut in the Food Stamp system.  Fact:  the entire charitable, donated food system of America – through churches, temples, soup kitchens, Food Banks, etc – distributes a dollar value of food that is only 6% of all federal government food aid for the poor.  (Source:  Bread for the World, a major evangelical Christian charity, quoted in FIXING THE MORAL DEFICIT by Ronald J. Sider, 2012, p 89.)  The amount of the proposed reduction in Food Stamps would be roughly double the amount of food that is provided by charity in America!  Churches can’t collect canned goods fast enough to make up the shortfall.  But they can mobilize faithful voters to reject this shameful budget proposal.  And they can pray in worship - not to cut taxes on the rich, but to bless the taxes we pay and ask God for inspiration to press for the money to be spent compassionately.  (Celebrate the Blessing of Taxes in worship on Sunday, April 15) 

As we contemplate the cross on Friday and the empty tomb on Sunday, may the passion of the Christ be resurrected within us – for the sake of the common good!