Today is known as Maundy Thursday on the Christian calendar.  It is the day of the Last Supper in the Upper Room with Jesus and his disciples, before his arrest and crucifixion on the next day, Good Friday.  Jesus washed the disciple’s feet on that night, emphasizing a life of humility and servanthood.  But he also said something very important , something integral to his coming kingdom—Jesus gave them and us a new commandment:  “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”—John 13:33–35 (NIV).

I don’t know about your state, but Arkansas is one of those states that has a monument of the 10 commandments posted on the grounds of the state capital.  You may also know that this all began in Alabama about 15 years ago, and has gone to the supreme court a couple of times.  At the moment, such monuments are legal if they don’t promote a “specific religion.” The argument for such a display is at least two-fold: First, the proponents claim that these commandments transcend religious differences and peoples of all faith shouldn’t have a problem with the precepts in the commandments. We shouldn’t kill, right?  Others claim that the U.S. legal system is based on said commandments. The problem is, neither one of these premises are remotely true.  Just read the first four commandments.  In essence they say:  have no other Gods before the Old testament God; make no graven images; don’t take the Lord’s name in vain and keep the Sabbath Holy (which is not Sunday BTW).  Those are undeniably specific to a particular religion, friends.

And as far as our law being based on the 10 commandments, Joseph C. Sommer writes in his blog, “The constitutional principle of church-state separation excludes such sectarian Commandments from having any part in the legal system – let alone being the foundation of it. That position is further supported in a brief filed at the U.S. Supreme Court by several legal historians and law scholars in a 2005 case. The brief, coordinated by Professor Steven K. Green of Willamette University College of Law, notes the Constitution and Bill of Rights “did not include even a perfunctory or formalistic reference to God.” The brief continues: “Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Ten Commandments and biblical law received nary a mention in the debates and publications surrounding the founding documents. In the wide-ranging debates . . . the Founders mentioned Roman law, European Continental law, British law, and various other legal systems, but as can best be determined, no delegate ever mentioned the Ten Commandments or the Bible.” No wonder the Treaty of Tripoli, which was approved by President John Adams and unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1797, declared that “the government of the United States of America is not founded in any sense on the Christian religion. . . .” (humanismbyjoe.com)

So I have a Holy Week idea for those who would use the backdoor to push the Christian religion on us in the public arena.  Why not post the only commandment given to us by Jesus, you know, the one he gave on Maundy Thursday: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  To not offend other religions, how about the spirit of the command simply, “Love one another.” How would that be?

You see there is nothing more critical to the kingdom message than these three words” Love one another.

So why do Christians want the 10 commandments, and not the one? I believe it is because religion is more satisfying than spirituality to us. Obviously, religion is a unique and powerful force in society. And personally, most people are slaves to it. It promotes both good and evil. Historically, religion has helped to abolish slavery. It has promoted racial integration, equal rights for women.   It has motivated individuals to create massive support services for the poor, the sick, the hurting, and the broken. Magnificent hospitals such as Baptist Health and St Vincent’s grew out of a Christian concern and compassion to heal the sick. 

But wait for the rest of the story: Conversely, it has been used to justify slavery, racial segregation, oppression of women, and discrimination against homosexuals, genocide, extermination of minorities, and other horrendous evils.  Religion drives some to dedicate their lives to help the poor and needy– think Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, MLK or Mother Teresa.  It drives others to exterminate as many “heretics” as they can….Religion has the capability to generate unselfish love in some people, and vicious, raw hatred in others. There is a major disconnect here.

Jesus said that we are to love one another.  I believe that means at a minimum to accept and tolerate others, to change the world not by the sword but by our love.   To love like Jesus did, to wash feet that we believe are dirty, to sacrifice for the sake of others, to measure our Christianity against the standard of sacrificial love.  His love went the second mile when he was only required to go one; Jesus’ love turned the other cheek, he forgave regardless.  Jesus love accepted others unconditionally, and his love was extended to his enemies, because anyone can love a friend.  Jesus’ love always put people before rules, and while he honored the 10 commandments, he knew that religion had contorted their straightforward message into anything but straightforward.

We are to love as Jesus loved, but it ain’t easy for religious folk, me included. After all, as we will find out tomorrow, Jesus’ love got him crucified, for practicing those three words.  And at the end of the day, Jesus’ command is simple- it doesn’t need scholars or linguists to interpret.  It is all too plain and simple: love one another. That’s it.  What would happen if we put half as much energy in promoting those three words and we do promoting our version of those 10 commandments?

So I say, add Jesus’ commandment to your monuments if you must have a monument. Write them on the wall. You see, these three words can change the world– beginning with you. Beginning with me.

Palm Sunday.  On this occasion in Jesus’ life, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem happens, and it is a big deal.  Now I have my questions. Was this merely a publicity stunt to prove that Jesus is the one who fulfilled messianic prophecy and expectation? I mean anytime the text says something was done to fulfill prophecy, then it seems staged to me.  It seems like self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean if I could find a beast with four heads coming out of the sea and a white horse, I could fulfill prophecy through the knowledge of retrospective, and say that is was talking about me.  But there was an undeniable buzz in the air on that Palm Sunday long ago. Even clueless people were caught up in the moment.

I have experienced this kind of buzz when something exciting was happening where most people were clueless to what it was. I remember some years ago we were in Niagara Falls Canada, and something big was happening.   There were people everywhere, by the thousands.  Serious TV equipment lined the streets.  We kept asking what was going on, and nobody seemed to know.  We finally heard that the Arkansan John Daley was attempting to hit a golf ball across Niagara Falls, which would require a 500 yard stroke.  He almost did it.  The whole place was abuzz with excitement, and many like us didn’t know what was going on, but everyone was asking others about it and trying to see anyway.   I think the crowd was similar here, and it was a dramatic entry none-the-less. Jesus certainly got their attention, and the whole city had heard before long what was happening.  Word of who he was spread quickly as people asked “who is this.”

But maybe  a more important question, why did Jesus act to comply with the people’s expectation for a kingly leader, if that is what this procession is all about?  Nothing else in his ministry catered to anyone’s expectations, in fact, he did his darndest to askew convention and rewrite people’s traditional political and faith expectations. He was never that kind of leader, never that kind of person. Yes, I get the irony of entering on a donkey, but I am sure this subtlety was lost on this crowd, and is only appreciated only by the informed post resurrection reader.

At the end of the day, whatever his motive, it was his time, and as you know, things turned south in a hurry. And if the last few weeks have taught us anything, it has taught us how fast our whole world can change.  So it’s not hard to imagine how Jesus went from hero to goat in a week’s time. The cries of hosanna and blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord turned to “I don’t know him” and to crucify him.  He wasn’t who they thought he was. And why would he be?  At least some should have known better, but even those closest to him were in the dark.

But not on this day.  On this day there was great excitement and celebration.  Most of it was jumping on the bandwagon as many people had no clue as to what the excitement was about, but got in on it anyway. It was a coronation for a king.  It was sort of a flash mob without YouTube there to document it.  

You see, here is the deal: people see only what they want to see. He was very clear in his entire ministry that the meek would inherit the earth but it didn’t make any sense; conventional wisdom says the mighty carry the biggest stick.  He said, that we were to love our friends AND our enemies but that is crazy talk; What kind of cowardice is that?  And to an oppressed people who longed for deliverance from the imperial cultus, he said don’t worry about what you eat or drink or anything else. He said turn the other cheek at aggression and to repay evil with good.  What kind of foreign policy is that?  He redefined power when he said for what will it profit one if you gain the whole world but lose you very soul?  What kind of economic policy is that? He said whoever would be great would be servant of all? They had been subservient to Rome long enough, what kind of authority is that for a king?  

I’ll tell you what kind—the kind that gets you killed. He threatened their most fundamental understandings and definitions.  He threatened life as they understood it, and they were very insecure. He threatened everything that they knew about everything.    They were threatened because they had everything all wrong. Yet knowing this,  he entered Jerusalem anyway, knowing that the price would be high.

 You see he was destined to suffer.  Now, I refuse to believe it was to simply  satisfy a payment for sin.  That back tracks to nowhere but  to a capricious God who is a fundamentally angry, bloodthirsty, and a sadistic father.  It leads to a God who has to have his ego stroked in a certain way by defectively created people who in the history of the planet never lived up to expectations, but are going to be severely punished anyway even though they never had capacity to do anything else.  That is a dysfunctional understanding of a God who is love.  I believe instead that his suffering was inevitable, necessary and utterly predictable because people and powers were threatened, and like cornered animals, they responded with aggression. So he suffered.  As Bonhoeffer said, he was edged out of this world and to a cross, and the truth is only a suffering God can come to us and address our human predicament.  You see, Jesus was broken on the cross because the world was broken and the world is broken because we are broken pieces of that world.

I have always said this in my teaching of crisis intervention, and like I have personally experienced, that every single day, someone who was on top of the world yesterday finds that today the world is on top of them, an it happens just that fast.  Today Jesus is on top of the world.  It will be on top of him on Friday.  The same is true for us in life.  On top one day, and it turns over on us the next.  Sometimes we know why, sometimes it is our own doing,  sometimes we are clueless,  sometimes fate is disconcertingly random, but it always results from  brokenness or broken systems. Always.   

The truth is, we see fleshed out in or text today that people put too much stock in other people.  Jesus was not the savior they were looking for and they didn’t know what to do with him, and thy went to a very dark place and purged their consciences.   People idealize and idolize reality, they look for virtue in others that compensates for their own deficiencies.  We all live vicariously through others who we perceive as better, stronger, smarter, better looking, more popular or charismatic than us. To live through others helps us ignore our own shortcomings, and that is why they wanted Jesus to be something other than he was.  They thought they needed Jesus to be something else, something less threatening to who they were at their core.  Jesus was anything but kingly as it turns out, and they  wanted no part of him.

We evidently not only need heroes, we need superheroes. And then there is this: We can’t tolerate brokenness, it is too close to home, it is mirror we can’t stand to look into. Being around brokenness reminds us of our own pain, character flaws, sin, and mortality.  I am painting a bleak vibe of humanity, it is enough this morning to make you believe in sin.  It is enough to make you believe in desperate measures to fix it.  It is enough to lead you to a cross.  And that is precisely why he had to suffer;  you can’t fully immerse yourself in a broken system without falling prey to its brokenness. All too often, this brokenness is the inevitable end.  Or maybe, just maybe it is really the beginning.

So no happy ending today, you will have to wait till next Sunday. But  if there is Good News to ponder each day of the downhill spiral we call Holy Week, it is this:  Jesus didn’t shy away from brokenness—he faced it head on.  And in doing so,  our salvation begins with Jesus showing all of us all too humans the way. The way to forgiveness, to reconciliation, to healing and wholeness.  That is the meta narrative that we all continue to write as people of the way.

And to me, that is Good News indeed.  And when you really get it, it’s enough to make you want to shout Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, indeed.  Thanks be to God.

 [SW1]

I have seen stories of churches who refuse to stop meeting in a time in which we are all expected to socially distance ourselves.  In fact, you have all heard about the pastor in Tampa who was arrested for holding church services anyway. Restaurants, beauty shops, schools, bars, and most small businesses are closed or limiting social interaction with their clients, and they are responsibility and creatively finding ways to carry on while social distancing.  I suppose a lot of churches are doing the same.  However, not all.  A recent Facebook post finds a woman bragging that her church is still meeting, and asserting that God will protect them.  I hope she is right.  Upon sharing such stories with friends, Larry Chesser, a member of Providence wisely quipped, “Religion needs to have a conversation with science.”  Indeed!  With Larry’s inspiration, I am posting a sermon (Quantum Leaping) from August of 2016, (so forgive any anachronisms), on just that kind of conversation.

“Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.” Luke 13:10-17

I have Sirius XM satellite radio in both of my cars and I have wondered if it is worth the money.  Sure it’s great on a road trip, and no matter what genre you like you can find it on XM radio (and plenty that you don’t like by the way).  But I am not in the car that much and I do like listening to local radio, especially during football season, so I have thought about saving that 20 bucks a month.  But recently I have found a channel, number 121, called “Insight” that really helps me get in touch with my inner nerd.  OK, no comments about my nerd not being so inner.  I am definitely not a nerd.  I am actually a geek, because I am science and technology oriented.  Thus the Insight channel comes into play.  SiriusXM description of the channel is as follows: “Insight is an exclusive, groundbreaking news, information, and entertainment radio channel offering listeners inspiring ideas and intelligent conversation with an edge.  Designed to reach fans that enjoy the eclectic subject matter of public radio, SiriusXM Insight will feature an array of fresh, diverse voices addressing a new era of issues in a lively, smart, and sometimes humorous approach.”  And I love this station. On my drive home every day at 4PM, there is a show called “Star Talk”, with Neil deGrasse Tyson, the popular astrophysicist who is the Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.  He is something of a media celebrity, kind of the new Carl Sagan. The show is good, and pretty funny, he has a great sense of humor.  The play on words is Star Talk, because it is not just about the stars above, but he features stars in the world of entertainment, politics and more.  He has had Bill Clinton on his show, and it was a good one.

This past week I heard a show with Penn & Teller, the Las Vegas magicians, and one with a physicist from Princeton who spoke on the multiverse theory, and boy, that was a tough one. But last Thursday, his show was on science and religion and featured an interview with Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, probably the world’s most famous atheist. To balance that, he had a Jesuit Priest, James Martin, to talk about science and religion and he did a pretty good job. Tyson was not rough on Martin, and fact it was a civil, stimulating conversation.  It was balanced and fair, as all parties had an open sense of inquiry about them. Tyson said he intentionally defies labels, so you really don’t know where he stands, but let’s just say he is not a deacon anywhere and has never been to Vacation Bible School.  Dawkin’s big thing is evolution, so he really against any religion that denies evolution as scientific fact.  So having a Catholic theologian on the show was perfect, because they generally accept the theory of evolution, and don’t think it is in conflict with a creator, it is just how God created.  After the Catholic church was brutal in dealing with Galileo, a man of devout faith by the way, they learned their lesson and were easy on Darwin.  Or maybe they learned the value of science. Catholics embrace science very well—the Vatican has an official Astronomer, and he is a good one, we heard him speak at Lyon College when Emily was there.

Tyson and Dawkins seemed open to a concept of the divine, acknowledging that the universe is a big mysterious place, even in the physics world, but getting from possibly a divine “First Cause” to highly developed religious systems of polity and practice makes no sense to them whatsoever.  Even if there might be a divine creator, it is a quantum Leap to get to the pillars of any organized religion from there.  So if there is a God whose evidence can somehow be proven through scientific inquiry it is a long way with a lot of illogical steps to the deity that religions espouse. This is scientific nonsense they say, because such a deity is not provable they say.  It is a quantum leap to suggest that there is a divine design in creation and jump to things like Jesus and the virgin birth.  It is even a longer jump to the rules, norms and mores of highly developed theologies where guilt and fear are tools of compliance of a fickle and caprcious God who seems more human like than God like.  They rightly say that you can’t scientifically prove any of that stuff.  Whatever astronomical mysteries that are out there that one might argue as the fingerprints of God doesn’t lead to anything at all, and certainly not a modern religion that your future depends on.

Ok, so the good Father said that is where faith comes in and the progressive revelation of God.  He said that Tyson would not start to indoctrinate a novice in physics with Quantum Mechanics, God does not start with religion as we know it.  We get there when we are ready for it.  Tyson said he has had spiritual experiences in scanning the universe or climbing a mountain, but those aren’t religious whatsoever.  The Father spoke of Tyson’s self-described spiritual experiences in “thin places” as God reaching out to him where he was at.

Well, at least science and religion were having a civil conversation. So often the gulf between the two is irreconcilable. I know people who wouldn’t watch the hit CBS television show “The Big Bang,” because it was “heathen”  because of its title. Arkansas is full of people who won’t vaccinate their children or get them the Flu shot for religious reasons, because they know more than proven scientific evidence. I’ve have seen people refuse to take life saving chemotherapy because their pastor said it would undermine their trust in God to heal them.  When science and religion can intelligently talk, it is a good thing.

Now you probably realize that this topic is a dangerous one for me.  I thought about buying Dawkin’s book, “The God Delusion,” but I am scared it might make too much sense for me, so I retreated to my comfort zone and screwed on my faith tighter and just listened to the show.  And while the good Father didn’t convince anyone, even me, he didn’t come off like an idiot, and that was refreshing too. But the questions the episode raised for me are good ones, especially “how did we get to here in the world of religion?” Is it merely the revelation of God to human vesels, evidently to only a few human vessels that led to church as we know it in 2016? But let’s advance the cause even further to where we live and ask, “if you accept the revelation of God in the Bible as we all mostly do, by faith, how do you get to where we are today?” Indeed.  It is a big jump, a quantum leap if you will.

Because the average religion has made plenty of quantum leaps from faith to practice. For years growing up, I was taught in church that you displeased God if skipped church, even on Sunday night.  Where did that come from? Quantum Leaps.  I was taught that you displeased God if you went dancing or were played cards.  I guess Canasta was OK, because my parents played every Saturday night with friends. You couldn’t work on Sunday at all, I kind of like that one, but we always went out to lunch after church to eat causing restaurant workers to sin I guess. And if you ever took a drink of alcohol, then you were pure evil. I was taught to be a Baptist first and a Christian second, and everyone else was wrong and we ought to pray for their souls.  We wanted them saved of course, but part of us wanted to see them burn in a great big satisfying cosmic I told you so, we were right.    I was taught salvation by grace on one hand, but what you did or didn’t do would prove whether or not it really stuck with you.  Of course that was limited to being a good Baptist.  I was taught that I was born to go to hell and be punished forever because I was a dirty, worthless worm whom God despised—unless I could recite the formula in front of others. And in an instant I became loved and treasured and would live forever with great material rewards.  The difference between eternal torment and eternal bliss was a forced compliance with the party line. Sin was clearly defined for me, we knew exactly what it was, it was just like a checklist.  And if you sinned a lot, then you probably weren’t saved to begin with—I guess you didn’t know what the hell you were doing when you walked the aisle, because these choices are inconsistent with once saved always saved.  A quantum Leap from the Bible message to practice.

Today new Christian mantra includes things like how to vote and whom to vote for, to brashly speaking for God on issues ranging from abortion to homosexuality to the role of women to faith legitimized prejudices such as xenophobia and mysogeny.   The modern church uses a religious cookie cutter to form its disciples and you are either on the same page or you are not Christian, because yes, they do judge you and your faith.  The modern Christian believes a certain set of socio-politico values as the faith has become a slickly packaged and a marketed, trademarked brand that is an all or none package deal.  Another Quantum Leap.

The trouble of course is that none of this or very little of this is in the Bible, the primary source for our faith, and that is where the leap comes in.  Where does it say God is displeased with us if we skip Sunday night?  Where does it say that playing cars leads to sin?  The Bible warns against drunkenness but actually affirms the drinking of wine.  Somehow we twist the culturally encapsulated advice or opinion passages into mortal sins endangering our very souls.  We major on the minors to put legs to our own agendas. This powerful stuff that has a stranglehold over our poorly developed spiritualities.

We have corporate compliance at the hospital, police departments have internal affairs, corporations have codes of ethics, but these things pale in comparison to the compliance department of the average local church.  I mean we either guilt or scare people into conformity.  And trust me, there is no peer pressure like religious peer pressure.  We all have an innate needed to be Ok but even stronger we have a belief that we deserve to be punished. The whole mess preys on our insecurities and our allergies to uncertainty. How did we get to there, indeed.  It is a quantum leap.

But we did and we have had 2000 years to perfect it.

Our Lectionary text today shows us that Jesus is not about any of that stuff. He puts rules in their place and reprioritizes what it means to love God and it begins and ends in loving people. It is just that simple and just that profound.  Here was a woman with a disability, the kind that never goes away, the kind that getting older only makes worse.  And she has suffered for 18 long years, and being disabled in Jesus’ day was particularly unfortunate.  She suffers physically and most assuredly emotionally too.  Heck, no one cares about her we don’t even know her name.  No one probably knew her name. Jesus didn’t know her name, but he did see her, and says in effect, for heaven’s sake woman, straighten up and the bent over woman did just that.  Wow, can you imagine? For those of us who live with chronic illness to be cured in an instant would be life changing.  But to be deformed, just wow.  If Jesus were here today and took away my diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis that I have had for 21 years and he fixed you too, and fixed everyone we prayed for this morning, we would jump up and down for joy. It would be the greatest day in our lives.  And we would take off our shoes and hit the ground in awe of the Almighty.

But wait– not this crowd.  They got hoppin’ mad, can you believe it? Yes.  That’s right they got crazy angry.  Say what? Jesus broke their religious rules and flaunted it in their faces. How dare him. It would be like going to a landmark Baptist church and passing beer around to the worshipers on a Sunday Morning.  It would make their blood boil—same thing here. Why? Because of religion.  Because of rules.  Because of a quantum leap from faith to practice.  How did we get to there, indeed.

Well, this Jesus didn’t turn the other cheek this time, he let them have it.  He was mad that their stupid rules had hijacked the revelation of God and it was leaving people behind in the process, and that’s what made his indignation righteous. He said if it were your dumb animals who were thirsty or hungry on the Sabbath you would tend to them right?  It would be the compassionate thing to do.  How much more then, should we help this woman who is in fact our sister as a daughter of Abraham.   She is one of us, she is part of our family and you would treat not just favorite pets, but dumb animals better. Look hypocrites, people are always more important that rules.  And the guilt masters walked away guilty themselves.

And lest we point our fingers at the evil Pharisees, you and I have been there as well.  We have let religion hijack the revelation of God.  What is that revelation?  It is the Kingdom of God Ethic, and it is on every single page in every single story in the gospels, and it takes a back seat to our religious constructs.   Jesus showed us clearly the Kingdom ethic, and we killed him for it.  He taught You have to love people above all else friends, it is the law of love.  You have to go the second mile when you are only expected to go one, you have to turn the other cheek; you have to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  You have to see the greatness behind humility and your one and only only goal should be to serve others.  That is what true religion is.  It is in fact taking care of widows and orphans, really it is.  It is counter cultural to everything that we value in society, it is nothing like the rules of our world or the tenets of our churches.  It is about the Jesus of the Gospels and not the quantum leap Jesus of institutionalized religion. The kingdom is about right acting, not just right believing.  It is not about acknowledging a formula but about being the presence of Christ in the world. It is not about forcing compliance through guilt, shame, or fear but about the contagious nature of no matter who you are, where you have been or what you have done God loves you period and he want to give you a hope and a future.

So today brothers and sisters, are we going to play church or are we going to be church.  The difference is life changing.  And if we are church, then we will never make that quantum leap from the Kingdom of God to the kingdoms of this world.  And we will mediate life giving, transformative power to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And for all of us who are bent over by life,  that is Good News! Thanks be to God.  Amen.

I will update the site once a week, usually on Wednesdays, with new content written by me, Stan Wilson, Pastor.  However, I sometimes get stuck by the law of inertia and only post sporadically. If you want to know when new content comes online, click the “follow” button on the right hand column to receive email notification when a new blog is posted.

Providence is currently a house church and is on pause because of CoVid 19, and while in the Baptist tradition, we strive to be an ecumenical safe zone for people who are searching for authentic Kingdom living.  We believe that no doctrine is God, no polity or programs are gospel, and while respectful, there are no sacred cows here.  All honest opinions and feedback are welcome.