Tag: Jesus

Maybe this is why people ditch Christianity

This is a tweet from Marjorie Taylor Greene, publicly saying she believes in the entire gospel message.

This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, talking about those who support aid for Ukraine, specifically saying that she hates people who support Ukraine, then doubling down to say she seriously hates them.

This is Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is a big part of the reason Christianity is losing its foothold in this country. People like Representative Taylor Greene wrap themselves in Jesus, proclaiming themselves to be de facto arbiters of what God wants. Then they turn around and proclaim hatred for anyone who doesn’t see the world the way they do.

If Marjorie Taylor Greene is the arbiter of proper Christianity, count me as part of the nones when it comes to religion.

A free country doesn’t make its citizens pray

The statement was lost in the hub-bub around Donald Trump pitching Lee Greenwood’s Bible. Maybe it was just a little marketing flare, adapting his signature phrase to the situation. Or maybe it was another breadcrumb from the guy who lusts after the kind of power the President of China has.

But Donald Trump said he wants to make America pray again.

I know a number of Christians who probably wouldn’t disagree. They’d say we need more prayer. When I look around the world at some of the things we do to each other, I can’t completely disagree. But from the founding of this country, that’s always been a personal choice. You can pray or not, to whatever deity you choose or not. That’s part of what–pardon the phrase–makes America great.

Something tells me that wouldn’t necessarily be so if Donald Trump were to assume the level of power he wants. This is the man who openly says he wants to be dictator (but only for a day). It’s the guy who more or less runs the CPAC conference, where Jack Posobiec said welcome to the end of democracy and implied we need to replace it a theocracy. It the guy whose movement includes Christopher Rufo, who believes both in leveraging the power of government, and that recreational sex needs to go away.

If Trump gets the power he lusts after and we’re compelled under force of law to pray (a clear violation of the Constitution), something tells me we won’t be praying to Jehovah or Allah, or the contemplative God worshiped by people like Richard Rohr or Bono (too woke). It’ll be the real God, the one who smites all the people he’s angry at while speaking in his preferred language: Olde English. His justice will be swift and administered by the State–the same folks who define what God wants.

It’s worth noting that the Russian Orthodox Church was one of the earliest supporters of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that it’s one of Putin’s primary pillars of power. Given Trump’s demand for complete loyalty, if he were to make America pray again, it wouldn’t be for something he doesn’t like.

It’s entirely possible everything I’ve written is hyperbole, that Trump’s rhetorical excess is aimed at owning the Libtards like me. Maybe I’m getting worked up over nothing.

But Trump’s supporters say they like him because he says what he means. This is just the most recent unAmerican thing he’s said.

I pray a lot. Not as much as I should, but more than I used to. It’s something I do of my own free will to make myself better. But I will never pray to satisfy some superior power that can make me pay otherwise.

God doesn’t force prayer. The government sure as hell shouldn’t.

The Easter Message, 2024 Edition

Jesus was executed in the worst way the Roman Empire knew. His execution wasn’t just to punish him. It was a public statement to his followers. The might of the Roman Empire was not to be trifled with–and the Jewish power structure had no problem using that might to crush anyone who caused trouble.

Good Friday and Holy Saturday are about human power and the cost it can impose on someone who runs afoul of it. We don’t crucify people anymore and we rarely execute them, but it’s a thin veneer that keeps us from being that kind of society. Though we rarely talk about it in dignified circles, human creativity is often harnessed in crushing those considered in need of it.

Tomorrow is about victory over our compulsion to crush each other. Most of us, given the chance, wouldn’t torture someone to death. But we all have the small tortures we inflict on each other. Screaming. Silence. Setting someone else up to deliver the justice we so badly lust after. In many cases, we view it as self-defense, delivering a message that says we will not be trifled with and ours is not to be taken for their benefit.

Tomorrow is about the premise of setting down those weapons, of an ascension to an existence where we don’t have to armor ourselves against that guy over there, or against that bitch who dared mess with me. It’s about the possibility of an existence where every tear is wiped dry and we can be authentic with everyone, without worrying about that authenticity being used against us.

If Easter tells us anything, it’s that we got God wrong in the Old Testament. He’s not sitting high atop the thing, eager to rain down holy devastation on the smallest transgression. It pisses him off when we hurt each other. He would prefer we stop that crap.

Imagine being a parent of children who’ve profoundly hurt each other. Imagine they won’t both come to your home at the same time because of that hurt. That’s what God feels like. And like us if we were parents in that situation, he would like that to go away.

That’s what Easter is. It’s the costly triumph of love over what we do to each other. It’s the forgiveness of what I’ve done so that I can work hard at forgiving what’s been done to me.

It’s showing us the possibility that lies beyond our own self-identified thought pattern.

I’m a far different person than I was twenty years ago. I used to be angry, narrow, and brittle. Now, as my body is periodically angry and brittle (I’m still working on narrow), my mind and soul have softened. I’m not where I need to be, but I’m a long way from where I was. Some of that’s my work, but a lot, I believe, was me just listening to the Voice that’s always there.

Properly practiced, Christianity is not angry, narrow, or brittle. It’s the manifestation of the love that compelled Jesus to give up his godhood to come to an uncomfortable place at an uncomfortable time in history and die one of the worst deaths we could create. Any of us who came back with divine power after being tortured to death would unleash an unholy can of whoop-ass. Jesus asked for our forgiveness.

Anyone who uses Christianity as a litmus test for bestowing love is missing the point badly. I have far more in common with the thieves on Jesus’ left and right, or the adulteress who wasn’t stoned, or the woman at the well than I do with Jesus.

He asked for me to be forgiven, though I’ve done nothing to deserve it. How much, then, should I do my best to apply the same love to everyone around me.

If this the end is coming, what should I do differently? Maybe nothing.

A generation ago, the Left Behind series of books captured the periodic Christian fascination with the end of time. A generation before that, the Hal Lindsey movie The Late Great Planet Earth scared the crap out of me. For a fourteen year old, worldwide Armageddon and judgement of all who fall short is scary stuff.

Jesus’s second coming is often brought up during the Holy Week (the week between Palm Sunday and Easter). Among more conservative Christians, there seems like a special eagerness to see Jesus return so the unholy get theirs.

As a practicing (and mediocre) Christian, I’ve thought a lot about the end of times. To quote the great Reverend Cleophus James (The Blues Brothers), the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.

The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night. HEH!

If you look around at the world, the end could be near. We’re facing the potential for massive war. Extreme weather seems to pummel someplace every day. We had the Covid. A locust infestation. The Cubs and Red Sox have both won a World Series and the Jets might make the playoffs this year. If that’s not a sign of the apocalypse…

As a Christian, what should I do differently if Jesus is about to come back?

Perhaps I should be ready to tell people about my faith. But as 1 Peter 3:16 says, I should do it in a gentle and respectful way. Maybe I should try to be a better person. Maybe I should seek God a little more in prayer and try to give control of my life over to him. Maybe I need to get serious about faith. Maybe I should actively try to show love for others in my daily life.

In other words, I shouldn’t do anything different.

I don’t have the tools to understand anyone else’s standing before God. I have enough on my plate trying to be faithful.

That guy over there? That Jew? That Sihk? That Muslim? That atheist? I have no idea where they are with God. But if God’s creative enough to make everything, I suppose He can manifest himself in different ways to attract different people.

As a guy whose kids are now adult and come home from time to time, I want them to be decent people–and they are (probably better than me). Regardless of what they believe, I feel like things are complete when they’re home. Were our relationship severed, it would create a wound that wouldn’t heal.

If I’m screwed up and I feel that way, I imagine God feels more compelled to want his kids home.

When the world’s potentially ending (which it probably isn’t), is the time to love everyone around me and let God sort out their worthiness.

Love, baby, that’s where it’s at.

Easter illustrates that it took a miracle for me to have right standing in front of God. As the recipient of that miracle, it would be presumptuous for me to judge anyone else.

When it’s hard, the only way out is through. Accepting that helps.

Friday was probably the closest I’ve come to understanding what it’s like to suffer severe chronic pain. My whole body hurt. Concentrating on a simple task took Herculean effort. Sitting at a desk typing on a laptop for two hours felt like running a marathon, both mentally and physically. If I lived Friday every day, I wouldn’t be able to hold down a job.

It was day to use the changes in perception I’ve worked on since Christmastime.

My pain came because God either ordained it or allowed it. It’s not meaningless. There’s a purpose to it. And he won’t leave me to face it alone.

To be clear, it was a difficult day. Baby bunnies didn’t come to lift my spirits. There were a few work things that had to be done, but doing them was agonizing.

I did it with a clean mindset. I didn’t curse myself for what I couldn’t do and when I finished what absolutely needed to be done, I walked away without feeling like I hadn’t done my part. Maybe that’s the purpose in all this, to grow closer to God and build my ability to work through difficulty with dignity and grace.

Recognizing a purpose to my difficulty made all the difference. In my Bible app yesterday, the verse of the day came from the book of Esther. Though she was queen, Esther couldn’t enter the king’s presence unless she was summoned. But Esther was a Jew, and Haman, a royal advisor, was getting ready to exterminate the Jews. Esther’s Uncle Mordecai says that it’s possible she was put in that position to prevent the genocide.

Esther courageously entered the king’s presence. Instead of having her killed, he was glad to see her. Her life and ultimately the lives of the Jews were spared.

It was a heavy burden, one she bared with dignity and grace.

Nothing that monumental happened Friday. I did some work, then went to bed. But I trained for that. I did what needed to be done and I didn’t use my pain as an excuse to beat myself up or to be surly to someone else.

The work I’ve done over the past few months prepared me to accept what happened Friday and do what needed to be done without fighting against it. I trusted that I could do a difficult thing and it would be okay.

And it was.

Life is full of difficult days. They’ll only end when we die. If they’re inevitable, preparing for them is important work.

My way there involves God. I think it’s a good way. Yours may be different. But when we stop chafing against difficulty, we get the freedom to be creative in how we manage through it. And that’s when amazing things happen.

What to do about very bad people

What do you do about very bad people? How do you respond to people who knowingly and sometimes gleefully inflict harm on others? On you? On people who can’t possibly defend themselves? How do you personally deal with malevolent forces in your life and others? God knows there’s no shortage of such people right now.

My command is to love them anyway–and to pray for them. I don’t have to kowtow to them or condone their actions. I don’t have to be best buddies with them. But I can’t, as Bono once wrote, become the monster so the monster will not break me.

How do you love, as Jesus commanded us, people who blissfully visit misery on others? How can you balance those commands against a God who’s supposed to love the victims of horrible actions?

Isn’t that going down the road to praying for and loving a domestic abuser? A human trafficker? Hitler?

The disconcerting answer is yes. It’s the same road. It’s a road Christians are commanded to walk.

Though I’ve never caused major harm to someone, I have made people’s lives far more difficult than it needs to be. I’ve acted selfishly, doing things with no redeeming value–as recently as last night. It’s the same garbage, just watered down a little.

My worst actions aren’t okay. They carry a cost. When I die, I’ll have to answer for them. Perhaps God will allow me grace–if I own what I’ve done and understand its weight (some of that work’s been done already).

In the same way, what these people have done isn’t okay. They’ll have to answer for this things, both here and after death (if you believe that). Perhaps God will allow them grace–if they own what they’ve done and understand its weight.

It’s not a satisfying answer, I’m supposed to love and pray for those people. If they show remorse, I’m supposed to help them back from the edge. And I’m supposed to do it regardless of the weight of their sins. Because at times, I’ve been one of those people.

This isn’t an easy message.

As Christians, the example is clear. We’re to forgive.

Before Jesus died, he asked his father to forgive the people who killed him, for they didn’t know what they were doing.

Jesus’s death wasn’t as neat and clean as it appears on a standard crucifix. He was scourged raw first, then had a heavy wooden crossbeam lashed to his shoulders and arms. Then, without his hands to give him balance, he was forced to carry the crossbeam until he couldn’t. (Then Simon of Cyrene was forced to do it.)

Then Jesus was nailed to the cross. Once the cross is lifted, the very things you do to breath hasten your death. Using the leverage of the nails that pin you there, you lift yourself so you can take a breath. When your body gives out, you can no longer breath.

People executed on the cross were typically shamed by hanging naked. And when birds came to peck at them, they couldn’t shoe them away.

All of this continued for hours, until the victim succumbed or until the guards broke their legs and forced suffocation on them.

It was designed to be a slow, shameful, agonizing death.

Jesus asked forgiveness for the people who did that to him.

How much more so then, should Christians forgive people who’ve done far less to us?

Social-media culture encourages judgement now, contemplation later (if ever). We are quick to call out those who are unacceptable, to pronounce final, immutable judgement.

My hands are hardly clean in this regard. Snark and sarcasm are a heady combination when you’re good at it–as I am. I’m demanding when people fall short. I’m not accepting of someone I perceive to be lording their position over me. Any number of things bring forth my heady condemnation. All of them are relatively trivial.

None of these people have tortured me to death. In fact, most Christians (at least in this country) don’t face anything worse than a scowl and some moderate ridicule. If I’m indicative, we’re not overflowing with forgiveness.

I need a lot of forgiveness. I’m the last person who should withhold it.

Living up to the standard

Today’s verse of the day in my Bible app is “For we are God’s masterpiece. He created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

As much as I hate the Yankees, there’s a mystique to putting on the Yankee pinstripes. You’re wearing the same uniform as Ruth, Gerhig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Munson, and Jeter. There’s a standard to uphold. Ideally, there’s a way of doing things.

If that’s the case with a baseball team, how much more if I really believe the God stuff? What if I really lived as if I were God’s masterpiece?

I didn’t do anything to earn that status. I have no cause to beat my chest and proclaim moral superiority. I know the dark and selfish corners of my mind and how often I allow them to run free. God accepting me in spite of myself is cause for humility and gratitude, not moral certainty.

I need to aim for the standard modeled ny awe of the pinstripes. There’s a challenge involved to live in accordance with my team’s standard.

The work only begins when you put on the Yankees uniform. It’s the same with my identification as a Christian.

It’s a hard standard to maintain and I fall short all too often. But that’s the goal.

What a world it would be if we all lived to the standard of the uniform we chose.

The powerful message of the book of Job

The book of Job has always terrified me. Every time I read it, I worry it’s a forerunner to a season of misery. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that crap is inevitable. Health issues. Interpersonal relationships. Job and financial stress–including losing your job.

If you’re like me, you’ve suffered all of those things at one point or another in life. That’s the entire subtext of Job. He loses everything, including his health. His wife tells him to curse God and die. Then his friends come and take turns telling him he’s responsible for all those bad things because he’s a bad person (he isn’t) and karma’s a bitch. Then some young guy who doesn’t know as much about life as he thinks lays into the friends for not being harsh enough. If that’s not enough, God smacks Job around.

If you’re like me, you’ve felt like you’ve been there, too. If you share my faith, Jesus was clear that life would sometimes suck, that we would know trouble in this life.

Job’s experience isn’t foreign to us.

But his story is powerful.

On his Daily Stoic podcast, Ryan Holiday shares the story of how novelist John Gregory Dunne said he didn’t think he could do this, as he and his wife, Joan Didion, rushed to the hospital to attend to their daughter who had pneumonia that would turn to septic shock. His career was crashing at the time and the load felt overwhelming to him. She turned to him and said, “You don’t have a choice.” Though it sounds cruel, it was delivered be someone going through the same things. By someone standing next to him. She knew, because she didn’t have a choice, either.

For whatever reason, God allows us pain and agony. But He didn’t spare himself the same pain and agony. Jesus lived in a difficult time. His murder was an act of torture engineered to be agonizing, shameful, and to force your body to betray you on the way to death.

So when we find those Job-like times in life, like Dunne, we don’t have a choice. We have to face them. Like him, we have someone standing next to us–someone who has been through all the same things. His statement that we don’t have a choice comes from experience. It’s applied with love and empathy, not disdain. Soothing as a lie would be, the lie that we can avoid difficulty is among the most harmful.

Job’s story illustrates the choice we do have. Difficult things will come, but we hold the choice of how to deal with them. Keeping our humanity, as Job did throughout his ordeal, is the freedom we still have.

It’s hard. It can be soul crushing. It’s a demand to be reasonable at a time when the world makes your soul throb. Time gives us no choice but to continue. The only way out is through. We can allow the experience to make us bitter and brittle. Or we can choose a different path.

Job is a model of choosing that path. In that, his story illustrates that power, whether we believe or not.

Just knowing that choice is there is the first step to weathering the storm.

What to do with pinheads

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil…none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

It’s hard to keep a charitable view of people when other things are going wrong. For me, it’s pain. For others, it might be a difficult situation at home, financial stress, or just a crappy job. Life is difficult. People are difficult.

You know this when you get up in the morning. The days when someone’s steaming pile doesn’t spill over to (or get willfully placed in) your lap aren’t the norm; they’re a blessing. Appreciate them when the come. Be ready when they don’t.

Someone will get themselves in a bind, then dump their mess on your lap, covering their mess with insolent demands that you fix it right now. They will view you only as the solution to their problem then throw you away like a spent Kleenex.

How you respond to them says more about you than it does about them.

Jesus says that we’re supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who do us wrong. How can you do that to someone who just showed themselves, you, and the world that you exist only as a solution to whatever problem they created?

Is that all you are? Do you buy into their fantasy that you exist solely to resolve whatever mess they created on their timeframe under their rules? If so, that’s your problem, not them.

If not, why do you care? Do your job to the best of your ability (something you have a lot of) and let the chips fall. In five years, you won’t remember today’s insults. But if you act with grace and confidence, they may remember you. They may feel a slight discomfort and handle the next mess with a little more grace.

Note: If the word you seems pretentious, I’m writing this to myself. Gearing myself up for the day. I’m not hectoring you, the reader.