Following vs. Worshiping Jesus

Just ran across the best thing I have ever read on the exclusivity of Christianity, by Richard Rohr in Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go (strung together from pp. 79-81):

I personally believe that Jesus represents most perfectly the heart and nature of God.  But the Second Vatican Council says that Jesus is the light and the truth but that other religions also “reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all.”  A “ray of Truth” had best be respected and received, and I would much sooner have that light than the darkness of arrogance and pride.

The absolutely crucial thing is to “go deep in one place” and let your God lead you to a place  of surrender, love, and humility.  Until then you do not understand or love your God anyway.  The paradox is that when you make an “exclusive” commitment to “Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” (to use the recent language of many groups), you are in fact committed to  inclusivity!  Because he was!  That is the seeming contradiction that most fundamentalists never resolve.

I personally believe that we rather totally missed Jesus’ major point when we made a religion out of him instead of realizing he was giving us a message of simple humanity, vulnerability, and nonviolence that was necessary for the reform of all religions — and for the survival of humanity.

For some reason, we want the “person” of Jesus as our “God totem,” but we really do not want his message of “descent” except as a very functional message — this is what Jesus did to save us.  We do not want it as a pattern of life and a path of our own liberation.

We need to be concerned with following Jesus, which he told us to do seventeen times, and less with worshiping Jesus — which he never once told us to do.

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the new-making name

From a Walter Brueggemann prayer:

At the outset of this day,
we place our lives in your strong hands.
Before the end of this day,
do newness among us in the very places where
       we are tired in fear,
       we are exhausted in guilt,
       we are spent in anxiety.

Make all things new, we pray in the new-making name of Jesus.

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Simpler Roots

Great line from Gordon Atkinson:

Christianity began as a movement in Palestine, migrated to Greece where it became a philosophy, moved into Europe where it became a form of government, and finally came across the ocean to the United States where it has become a business. With each move it has traveled farther from its roots as it adopts the dominant power structure of the culture.  We Christians need to know this about ourselves and seek always to return to our simpler roots.

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the union of the human and the divine

Great PBS piece on Richard Rohr

Rohr calls himself a “radical traditionalist.”

Me too.

Favorite quote:

It’s not correct to say Jesus is God. Now, don’t run and report me to the bishop, all right? It’s not correct to say that — Jesus is the union of the human and the divine. That’s different. I’ve been a priest 43 years. Most of the Catholics Christians I’ve met would for all practical purposes believe Jesus is God only, and we are human only. We missed the big point. The point is the integration, both in Jesus and ourselves.

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God is not a white man

A music video version of my minimalist theology:

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Most of us don’t pray

Most of us don’t pray.  We just rehearse our anxieties out loud

Ian Morgan Cron

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poor translation

Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation

Fr Thomas Keating

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Addicted to my own mind

People addicted to their own mind will find contemplation most difficult, if not impossible.  Much that is called thinking is simply the ego’s stating of what it prefers and likes—and resistances to what it does not like. Narcissistic reactions to the moment are not worthy of being called thinking. Yet that is much of our public and private discourse.  When your mental judgmental grid and all its commentaries are placed aside, God finally has a chance to get through to you, because your pettiness is at last out of the way.                          — Fr. Richard Rohr

Uh-oh, sounds very familiar.  Narcissistic reactions to the moment.  Brutal but true.

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Learning to Love God’s Judgment

Check out this great article

Favorite line:

The cross does not convert God into loving us; it converts us into receiving God’s judgment as sanctification rather than wrath

Amen

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“J.D. likes Center for Action and Contemplation and The Ramones”


That’s what my Facebook profile currently says under “Recent Activity”

That’s me.  I’m a walking contradiction. 

Either that or I’m not afraid of contradiction.  Yeah, I’m a non-dual kind of guy.  Let’s go with that.

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