Whose Side Are You On?

October 22, 2023Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Matthew 22:15-22

Whose side are you on?

Do you lean right, or do you lean left?

Do you favor autocracy or democracy?

Are you a Republican or a Democrat?

Do you favor the Freedom Caucus or the Moderates?

Are you aligned with the Progressives or the Conservatives?

Are you Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?

Do you support the separation of Church and State or are you a Christian Nationalist?

I don’t know about you, but these kinds of questions make me wary. These are loaded questions. Binary questions. Sorting questions. These are questions with an agenda. These are questions that are designed to make you reveal if you are friend or foe.

Right now, the big sorting question in much of our country is are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Are you sympathetic to the people of Israel who have suffered so much pain and loss, so much death and destruction from the sudden and vicious attack by Hamas? Or are you sympathetic to the six million Palestinian refugees of Gaza who have lived for decades under the oppressive thumb of Israel and are now being bombed into submission?

Whose side are you on?

Loaded questions. Gotcha questions. These binary questions are designed to sort you into one camp or another and they are as old and merciless as politics.

In today’s gospel lesson, we get a terrific example of a political sorting question calculated to get Jesus in trouble one way or another. The really fascinating thing about it is that two political factions who usually wanted nothing to do with each other came together to ask this question. That’s how much they wanted Jesus out of the way. That’s how much they wanted to discredit him.

After buttering him up with a comment about his impeccable impartiality they drop their bomb, their loaded question: “Is it proper to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

The particular tax they’re asking about is the poll tax, a tax of one denarius per year levied on every adult man and woman in the empire. This tax had been instituted by Tiberius not long before Jesus was born as part of his overall reform of Rome’s taxation system and its specific purpose was to pay for the occupation and administration of Rome’s conquered territories.

The Herodians were big supporters Herod Antipas and Herod Antipas was a big supporter of Rome, so the Herodians were all in favor of the tax as a way to help pay for what they saw as the many benefits of being part of the empire—decent roads, improved trade, aqueducts, heavy-handed law and order, and so on.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, were not supporters of their Roman overlords and not at all happy about the tax that paid for these conquerors to dominate them and every aspect of their lives in their own homeland. One of the things that they found particularly objectionable, though, was Roman money.

Roman currency was not just money, it was also a reminder that Rome had complete control of the economy. It was also political propaganda. On one side of the Roman denarius was a portrait of the emperor, Tiberius, so every coin was a reminder of who was in charge. The other side of the coin depicted a seated woman in the role of Pax, the goddess of peace, a reminder that Rome kept the peace.

To devout Jews like the Pharisees, the images stamped on these coins represented a kind of idolatry. But worse than the images was the inscription on the coins: Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Pontifex Maximus.

The coin proclaimed not only that the emperor was the son of a god, but also the high priest of the empire’s religions. All of the empire’s religions. Including theirs.

When the Pharisees and the Herodians team up to ask Jesus their loaded question, they think they have him trapped. If he says, “No, it’s not right to pay this tax,” he’ll make the Pharisees and a lot of others in the crowd happy, but he’ll be guilty of sedition against Rome and the Herodians won’t waste a minute bringing it to Pilate’s attention. If he says, “Yes, it’s perfectly fine to pay the tax,” then he’ll disappoint the crowd and give the Pharisees ammunition to discredit him.

But instead of falling into their binary yes or no trap, Jesus exposes it. He makes it clear that he is aware of their bad intentions. He makes the crowd aware that there is no sincerity or honesty in their tricky question. And just as they tried to entrap him with a question, he snares them and reveals their malice and antagonism with a question: “Why are you trying to trap me, you hypocrites?”

Jesus could expound on the theme of hypocrisy and attempted entrapment, but like all good rabbis, he knows a teaching moment when he sees one. “Show me the coin used for the tax,” he says. It seems clear that he doesn’t have one. That’s an important detail that should not be overlooked.

Jesus does not have the coin. But someone does. Someone, maybe one of the Herodians, hands him the silver denarius, and Jesus, holding it up for all to see, asks, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” “Caesar’s,” they reply.

I imagine this was a tense moment. I can imagine him holding that coin in his hand, evaluating the stamped metal portrait in his palm for a long moment before he hands the coin back to whomever gave it to him and says, “Then give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

When they heard this, the text says, they were astonished, so they left him and went away.

What exactly was Jesus saying? What does it mean to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s? On the face of it, it sounds simple. On the face of it, it sounds like another simple binary division, like we can divide life into two compartments: on one side of the line are the things that belong to God, spiritual things, and on the other side of the line are secular things. Like government. Or economics.

It seems simple, but it’s not. It is, in fact, immensely complicated.

“Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” doesn’t sidestep the tricky tax question. Instead, it requires us to do some serious thinking. Philosophical thinking. Theological thinking. And practical thinking. It requires us to live with difficult questions and never settle for pat answers.

What really belongs to Caesar? Does his own likeness? Genesis tells us that we were created in the image and likeness of God, so in that sense, isn’t Caesar’s own likeness something that, in the end, belongs to God? Does the silver in the coin that bears his picture belong to Caesar? He may be in possession of it or exercise some control over its distribution, but isn’t God the one who brought both the silver and the man depicted into being? Long after Caesar has been gathered to his ancestors, the silver will pass to other hands and be melted down for other uses and only God will know where it is. When all is said and done, doesn’t everything belong to God in whom we live and move and have our being?

“Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” also has a practical side. The coin that’s used to pay the tax in question is a perfect symbol of empire’s dominance.

With the emperor’s likeness it proclaims his singular sovereignty. With its depiction of the goddess Pax, it proclaims the empire’s definition of peace, a peace obtained and maintained by violence and force. With its inscription that asserts the divinity of the emperor and affirms him as Pontifex Maximus, it declares the empire’s control of religion. And the fact that this silver denarius is the standard day’s wage throughout the empire makes it the symbol of the empire’s vast economic power. It is, in and of itself, a statement. It says, “If you’re going to participate in the economy, you are participating in empire. If you buy or sell anything, you are participating in empire. When you go to the market to buy olives and flour and oil and fruit and lentils, the basic necessities of life, you are going to have to compromise your religious principles because you are going to use the empire’s coin to do it.”

And this is where it is important to remember that Jesus did not have the coin.

Jesus did not have the coin.

What side are you on? In a world that confronts us with so many binary choices, how do you decide where to stand? Is there a side where you can stand like Rabbi Jesus, a side where you can not carry the coin of someone else’s dominance?

In this time of yet another tragic war when the world seems to be insisting that we make another binary choice of Israel over Palestine or Palestine over Israel, is there a side that does not make us buy in to one dominance over another?

Yes, there is. And Rabbi Irwin Keller describes it movingly in his poem, Taking Sides.

Today I Am taking sides.

I am taking the side of Peace.

Peace, which I will not abandon
even when its voice is drowned out
by hurt and hatred,
bitterness of loss,
cries of right and wrong.

I am taking the side of Peace
whose name has barely been spoken
in this winnerless war.

I will hold Peace in my arms,
and share my body’s breath,
lest Peace be added
to the body count.

I will call for de-escalation
even when I want nothing more
than to get even.
I will do it
in the service of Peace.

I will make a clearing
in the overgrown
thicket of cause and effect
so Peace can breathe
for a minute
and reach for the sky.

I will do what I must
to save the life of Peace.
I will breathe through tears.
I will swallow pride.
I will bite my tongue.
I will offer love
without testing for deservingness.

So don’t ask me to wave a flag today
unless it is the flag of Peace.
Don’t ask me to sing an anthem
unless it is a song of Peace.
Don’t ask me to take sides
unless it is the side of Peace.^[1]

© Irwin Keller, Oct. 17, 2023

^[1] https://www.irwinkeller.com/itzikswell/taking-sides?fbclid=IwAR36yqnCTwLI015qTgRrPYpZT9OKwHkBdnHrW2H5lWbLnUeNlYn9nGUqalA

A Breath of Fresh Air

April 18, 2023Steve Beckham 3 Comments

John 20:19-31

Have you ever found yourself in a group of people who are going on and on about a particularly beautiful and inspiring place they’ve all been to but you haven’t been there? Or maybe they’re talking about a show or a movie you haven’t seen, and they keep talking about how moving it is or how a particular scene brought tears to their eyes, or how it made them think about things in a whole new way? And maybe they even turn to you and say, “Oh you’ve got to go see it!” But you haven’t been to that place or seen that show, and you really can’t imagine that it’s everything they say it is, so you wander over to another group who are having a good-natured debate about whether or not garlic belongs in guacamole.

It’s hard to be fully involved in the conversation about an experience you haven’t had. It’s hard to believe that the thing everybody’s talking about is really as terrific as they say when you haven’t seen it yourself.

In today’s Gospel reading we have a story about a guy who had not yet had the experience that all his friends were talking about, a guy who simply couldn’t imagine the life-changing event his friends were describing because it just seemed too far-fetched, too contrary to the way the universe and life are known to work. It was easier to believe that his friends were pulling some kind of elaborate prank in very poor taste than to believe that their beloved teacher who had been tortured to death had suddenly shown up in the room with them very much alive.

The story of Thomas is a story for us. And a story about us. When Jesus asks Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen?” then adds, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” he is talking to us. And about us.

This is a story for us, to us and about us even before Thomas is ever mentioned. The story begins with the disciples huddled together behind locked doors. They are afraid. The world beyond those locked doors has become a dangerous place for them, and it’s easy for them to imagine that all that danger might burst through those locked doors any second now.

They are grieving. They are afraid. And they are in turmoil. In the midst of all that, Peter and the other disciple had erupted into the room all in a lather to say that the tomb was empty and the grave clothes were all neatly folded. Okay. Weird, but maybe explainable. But then Mary Magdalene swept in and told them that she has seen Jesus and spoken to him! But so far, she’s the only one who claimed to have actually seen the Jesus, resurrected and alive. She’s the only one so far who had claimed to have spoken with him. And for the rest of them… well that was just…unbelievable… so they passed it off as a delusion caused by her grief. Or maybe some kind of female thing. Because, you know, that’s how the boys’ club usually dealt with the perplexing things women sometimes said.

So there they were, locked in grief and fear and unbelief every bit as much as they were locked behind those doors.

But then Jesus showed up behind their locked door, stepping into their emotional prison to free them from the fear and grief that were paralyzing them, and at the same time unlocking and opening for them a whole new understanding of life and death and God.

Jesus does the same thing for us. Jesus steps inside our locked up spaces. Jesus steps through our fear and unbelief to come and stand beside us and among us, to show us that he is alive—and to teach us how to live in a new reality. If we will believe. If we will trust.

In his book Living Jesus, Luke Timothy Johnson wrote, “The most important question concerning Jesus, then, is simply this: Do we think he is dead or alive?

“If Jesus is simply dead, there are any number of ways we can relate ourselves to his life and his accomplishments. And we might even, if some obscure bit of data should turn up, hope to learn more about him. But we cannot reasonably expect to learn more from him.

“If he is alive, however, everything changes. It is no longer a matter of our questioning an historical record, but a matter of our being put in question by one who has broken every rule of ordinary human existence. If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver. Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person in the present; not merely a memory we can analyze and manipulate, but an agent who can confront and instruct us. What we can learn about him must therefore include what we continue to learn from him.”

When Jesus steps into the locked up places in our hearts and minds, when Jesus steps through our fears and unbelief to stand before us, to stand in the midst of us, he does it for a reason. The living Jesus stands in our midst not just so that we can resume the same old relationships with God and with each other that we had before, but so that we can begin an entirely new relationship with God and with each other.

Jesus does not just want us to learn about him. Jesus wants us to learn from him so we can live in unity with him. We are not united to a dead, historical Christ who lives only in the pages of the Gospels. We are united to a living Jesus who stands here among us, who meets us at the table of companionship, sharing with us and serving us all at the same time. We are united with a living Jesus who meets us in disguise on the streets just as in Matthew 25. He awakens us to his presence and opens our eyes to look for him. He urges us to be listening for him. He opens our minds so we can learn from him. He embraces us to be one with him as he is one with the Father.

But Jesus doesn’t just show up. Jesus knows that there’s something more that we need so we can rise out of our pain and fears and unbelief. Jesus knows we need a spirit of courage that will make us brave enough and bold enough to love each other and love the world, a spirit of joy and wonder that will keep us from slipping into cynicism or despair in a world that is all too often indifferent when it isn’t being downright nasty. Jesus knows that if we’re going to help heal the world’s angst, we need to be free of it ourselves. So he gives us the antidote.

“Peace be with you,” he says. Shalom aleichem. Put away your anxiety. Let go of your fear. Put away your disagreement. Stop trying so hard to be right. Try, instead to be loving. Stop the finger-pointing. Stop investing so much energy and emotion in nonsense and things that don’t really matter. “Peace. There is so much you may never agree on, but you can agree on me. Peace. I will be your peace.”

“After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

He showed them his hands and his side. He shows us his wounds.

In Wounded Lord, Robert Smith’s commentary on the Gospel of John, which he completed shortly before he died, he wrote: “Those wounds will never go away. The exalted Christ has not passed to a sublime existence immune to suffering. Even after Good Friday and Easter, God continues to turn to the world through the wounded Christ.

“To believe in this Jesus means to take him, wounds and all, into our own lives. To believe means to participate in Christ’s own suffering on behalf of the true life of the world.”

Our Christ, our God, is not some transcendent deity who sits in heaven far removed from the pain of our existence. Our Christ, our God is wounded from embracing the world, wounded from loving the world. We can sing about victory all we want, but the reality is that we’re still in the struggle, and the Good News, the really Good News is not that our Messiah, our Commander is immortal and impervious, but that he has a Purple Heart. The Good News is that his wounds were fatal, but his fatality was not. His wounds mean that our wounds may kill us, but that won’t stop us. “If we share in a death like his,” says St. Paul, “then surely we will share in a resurrection like his.”

But first, we need peace. And before we can spread peace “out there” we need to spread it “in here.”

We each need to receive that peace.

We need to share that peace with each other.

This is so important that Jesus said it three times. Peace be with you.

“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

This is where we go from being disciples to being apostles. Now we have the same mission Jesus had. We are not supposed to just sit still and happy in our own little pool of peace. We are sent. We have to go out in peace. And with peace. We have to be grounded in Shalom—the blessing of well-being—but on the move, carrying the shalom of God with us, sharing it and spreading it.

“When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

It says in most English translations that Jesus breathed on them. Karoline Lewis of Luther Seminary says that the better translation would be that he breathed into them, and she reminds us that the word that’s used in the Greek, emphisao, is the same word that’s used in the Septuagint Greek version of Genesis 2 when God breathes life into the human that God has made out of earth. This is the breath that gives life. Jesus breathes the Spirit of life into us to give us a whole new life.

Breathe. Take a moment right now and breathe. Inhale the Spirit of God that is being breathed into you right now, right where you are. Breathe.

Now breathe out. Let the holiness in you, the Christ in you, the love and goodness in you fill the room. And now breathe in again. Breathe in the Holy Spirit, the breath of Christ.

And now, think about this. This new life that you are breathing in—it has a purpose. You are being sent. “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you,” said Jesus. You are being sent to bring God’s shalom to the world. You are being sent to bring shalom into your home, to breathe out the love of Christ and breathe in the presence of Christ from those around you. You are being sent into the world to breathe the Spirit of God and divine shalom into every place you go and everyone you meet.

Hand in hand with the breath of the Spirit comes the duty of

forgiveness. As Jesus breathes into his disciples he says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Jesus gives us this very serious but also joyous job of discernment. If you forgive, it’s forgiven. Forever. Period. If you do not forgive, someone will carry the burden unforgiveness…and it might be you. Refusing to forgive can forge a very heavy chain that binds you to the unforgiven person in ways that are painful and destructive.

The Greek word for forgiveness means “to set loose, to set free.” Just as there is bondage in not forgiving, there is transformative liberation in forgiveness. As followers of Jesus, we are in the forgiveness business.

Robert Capon in Hunting the Divine Fox wrote: “The church is not in the morals business. The world is in the morals business. . .

“What the world cannot get right, however, is the forgiveness business – and that, of course, is the church’s real job. She is in the world to deal with the Sin which the world can’t turn off or escape from. She is not in the business of telling the world what’s right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil. She is in the business of offering, to a world which knows all about that tiresome subject, forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice. But the minute she even hints that morals, and not forgiveness, is the name of her game, she instantly corrupts the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense. . . We Easter People have been sent to forgive sins.”

Receive the Holy Spirit. Breathe in the shalom of God then breathe it out again into a world that is gasping for the breath of peace. If you forgive anybody anything, in God’s eyes it is forgiven. When you do not forgive, someone will carry the burden and the body of Christ will continue to be wounded.

And don’t worry about the Thomases of this world. Don’t worry about those who don’t believe. Just love them patiently and surround them with your peace. When they see what you’ve seen and hear what you’ve heard, perhaps they will come to believe what you believe. Until then, forgive their unbelief.

Light a Candle

December 1, 2021Steve Beckham 4 Comments

You find yourself glancing at the calendar and the clock with a slight sense of panic. So much to do and the days are rushing by. Busyness blinds you to the presence and the present of the Present. Decorating. Shopping. Wrapping. Mailing. Visiting. Hosting.

Stop. Light a candle.

You find yourself constantly wondering just how much Christmas you can afford. You feel as if you dare not shut off your mental calculator and the joys of the season are clouded by the Ghost of Bills yet to come. Every gift becomes a bit of addition which, in turn, becomes an anxious subtraction.

Stop. Light a candle.

You find yourself lost in a lonely daydream as the Ghost of Christmas Past fills your thoughts with scenes of happier holidays from days gone by. An old familiar song reminds you of friends and family no longer near at hand and your heart aches more than just a little.

Stop. Light a candle.

You find yourself dizzy from trying to steer your way through the year-end collision of events. Reformation. Halloween. Election. Veterans Day. Christ the King. Advent. Christmas. New Year. Taxes. Fiscal Planning.

Stop. Light a candle.

You find yourself simply feeling as if something is missing, as if you’re forgetting something, as if there must be something more.

Stop. Light a candle.

Five candles. Three blue and one pink for Advent. One white for Christmas.

First, ignite the flame of Hope, the Prophecy Candle. Let this flame remind you that God’s promises not only echo through the past but draw us toward the future. Let the light remind you that just as a feather will rise naturally above the heat of a single flame, so you, too, can be lifted without effort by the Spirit that warms and enlightens us all.

Next, light the flame of Peace, the Bethlehem Candle. Let this flame remind you that the peace of God is found in humble moments and humbler places. Let this light remind you that the real gift we all seek is something no amount of money can buy. Peace.

Then light the flame of Joy, the candle of a different color, the Shepherd’s Candle. Sing the old familiar songs of Joy and surround yourself with light and music. Dance with the Ghosts of your past and know that they are very much alive in your memories and in the presence of God. Watch the old movies, taste the old, familiar flavors. Let this light rekindle your senses and remind you that this song of Joy is eternal.

Now light the flame of Love, the Angels Candle. Let this light bring equilibrium to these days of celebration. Let it guide you through the maze of these impacted days. Let the flame of Love burn a pathway through the adiaphorous clutter. Let its warmth empower you to embrace the days. Swallow its light whole so that it shines through you.

Finally, sit in the presence of the light of Christ. Let the Candle of Christmas remind you that the most humble child born in the most unlikely circumstances bears the image and likeness of the Maker of Us All. Let it remind you that the thing that has been missing in our lives, the object of our unsettled yearning, is not a thing or an object at all, but the very Source of our Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

Take a Breath

April 12, 2021Steve Beckham 2 Comments

John 20:19-31

It was just over a year ago that we all went inside and closed our doors. We locked ourselves in for safety because of the worst pandemic the world has seen since the Spanish Flu. Businesses closed. Jobs were lost. The economy took a nosedive. Streets were empty and cities became ghost towns as we hid away from a virus that could kill us, our friends, our family—a virus that can be spread with a sneeze, a cough, or a breath. We all withdrew from the places of our togetherness—from stores, from workplaces, from restaurants, from schools, from church.

We did our best to stay connected and active with our computers and our phones and our tablets. But as the months dragged on and the statistics kept telling us that the world outside our doors was still dangerous, lethargy set in. Psychologists are calling it Covid burnout and estimating that 75% of us are affected by it– a feeling of low-grade stress. Malaise. Low energy. Lack of enthusiasm and purpose. Fatigue. Lack of focus. Faulty memory.

Productivity and creativity are down. Weight is up. The AMA says that the average pandemic weight gain is 29 pounds. The prolonged worry, stress and anxiety of the pandemic has left millions of us living in a mental fog. When we locked down our buildings, we locked down our psyches, too.

We are grieving. But we haven’t called it that.

What we’ve been feeling must be similar to what the disciples were feeling after the crucifixion. They were grieving. Their hopes for change, for a better world and a brighter life had died with Jesus on the cross. They felt betrayed by one of their companions, someone they had trusted. They were ashamed of their own cowardice in deserting Jesus. And they were afraid. They didn’t want to be seen. They didn’t want to expose themselves.

They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know where to go. They didn’t know what would happen next. So they stayed locked inside the only place where they felt at all safe. Emotionally, they were burned out.

And then Jesus came and stood among them. Behind their locked door. Jesus came to them where they were huddled in their fear and spoke peace to them. He spoke to their anxiety. He spoke to their fear. He spoke to their loss of focus. He spoke shalom. Composure. Stillness. Peace.

And then he showed them his hands and his feet. He showed them his wounds not only so they would know it was really him, but to acknowledge the reality of what they had all been through. It was his ways of silently saying, “Yes, there was real trauma. There is a reason you feel this way. Here it is. I carry it in my body. You do, too, just in a different way. Here I am. Let my visible wounds speak for your invisible ones.”

When they realized it was really him, they were ecstatic, so he spoke peace to them again, this time maybe to calm them down, before he gave them a mission: “The Father sent me, now I am sending you.” Imagine their surprise when he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins they stay forgiven. If you hold on to anyone’s sins, they remain unforgiven.”

And then suddenly it was all over. Just as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone.

We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t there for this brief reunion with the risen Jesus, but it shouldn’t surprise us that he didn’t believe the other disciples when they told him about it. I imagine some of them were having trouble believing it themselves, even though they had experienced it. We’ve all had that experience, haven’t we, where you see something extraordinary and ask yourself, “Did I really just see that? Did that just happen?” Of course Thomas doubted. There is no shame or sin in that.

What is a little surprising, though, is that a week later they’re all still locked in that room. Think about it. Jesus has appeared to them and told them he is sending them out. He has given them the Holy Spirit with his own breath which should equip them for the mission. He has given them the authority to forgive sins or retain them. And one week later they’re still hiding behind that locked door.

Why?

Well, maybe they weren’t sure what to do next. Maybe they, themselves, didn’t entirely trust their experience with Jesus. Maybe they were still afraid.

So Jesus shows up again. He speaks peace again. He invites Thomas to touch his wounds. And Thomas falls at his feet and proclaims, “My Lord and my God.”

Even that second appearance didn’t really kickstart their mission. Jesus had to appear to them again before they really got started. In chapter 21, the epilogue of John’s gospel, we read that they had gone back to fishing in Galilee. Jesus met them on the shore and cooked them breakfast, and basically told them it was time to get moving.

It took the disciples a long time to get over crucifixion shock. Crucifixion fatigue. The Post-Traumatic Shock of all they had seen and been through. They were real people who had witnessed a real horror, and even seeing Christ risen didn’t erase that overnight. It would take a refreshing and renewing breath of the Holy Spirit—Pentecost—to reenergize them completely and set their mission in motion.

They began to share their story, the story of Jesus crucified and risen, anywhere they could with anyone who would listen. When they could, they would share it in the synagogues. When they couldn’t share it there, they shared it in caves or in private homes or in open fields. Little by little their numbers grew. Then came Paul, the adversary who became their greatest evangelist after he encountered the risen Christ, and their ecclesia, their church began to take root in places they had never imagined.

All this took time. And imagination. And creativity. And love. And caution.

Jesus is still sending us out to proclaim the kin-dom of God. Like those first disciples, we are stumped about what comes next. And we’ve lost some momentum while we’ve been locked behind closed doors.

As we contemplate opening those doors, we’re not sure what to do next or how to do it. We know it’s not enough just to get all of us back together behind another set of doors, even if they’re our doors in our building. Jesus is calling us, as always, to go out there with the good news of God’s love and grace and kindness. And it’s daunting. Not only has Covid stymied the normal way we do things, but how do we overcome the energy-sapping pain of declining numbers and increasing cultural indifference to religion in general and ours in particular?

We are like those first disciples. We don’t know how to proceed with safety and enthusiasm. We’re not sure where to go next. We don’t know what to do next and how to do it.

What we do know is this: The risen Christ has stood among us and spoken peace to us. He has breathed on us with the Holy Spirit. He has given us the authority to forgive. And he has told us to go.

And we know that Pentecost is coming.

We don’t have to figure it all out before we step out. The disciples didn’t. They went out in faith and followed the guidance of the Spirit as they went. We can do that, too. The Spirit will guide us and strengthen us and propel us into the future Christ is leading us to.

If we are faithful, there will be changes. God is always doing a new thing.

It’s not our job to know in advance what will change, just that Christ is the architect of the changes that are coming. Our job right now is to pray for the Holy Spirit to fall on us and light us up in a big way so that we are brave enough and healed enough to unlock the door and go out.

So take a breath. Breathe in the Spirit that Christ is breathing out on us. And then go…to make disciples of all people. For the sake of the kin-dom of God.

In Jesus’ name.

Waiting

December 21, 2018November 17, 2021Steve Beckham Leave a comment

“The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”– Frederick Buechner, Advent

Waiting. It’s about waiting. It’s about holding your breath as you pause for what’s coming. It’s about remembering to breathe so you’re awake to see it arrive. It’s about closing your eyes so you can hold on to the dream of what is possible, what might be. It’s about opening your eyes to the beauty and pain and joy and sorrow and harshness and gentleness and passion and peace of everything that already is and everything about to unfold. It is the excited pins and needles of anticipation. It is the queasy uneasiness of suspense. Waiting. We live in a season of waiting.

“The thing I love most about Advent is the heartbreak. The utter and complete heartbreak.” –Jerusalem Jackson Greer; A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together

Yearning. Feel the yearning. Let yourself fall into it for a moment. Wallow in it for a moment. Let it break your heart that the world is not yet made whole. Let it break your heart that the promise is not fulfilled. Let your eyes well with unshed tears for all the tears shed in this world. Stare hard at the reality that our species seems to be forever a painful work in progress. Feel the weighty disappointment of our failure to be what God made us to be and balance it on the sharp pinpoint of the promise we, all of us, feel—the promise of what we could be, the promise of what we’re supposed to be. Let yourself feel that deep knowing that things are not now as they are intended to be. Let it break your heart. Then understand that it is through the broken heart that God enters the world. It is through the broken heart that the promise is revived. It is through the broken heart that the vision of what should be moves forward toward what will be. It is through today’s broken heart that we see tomorrow’s vision of the world God is calling us to build together. It is the light aglow in the broken heart that illuminates the faces of those around us whose hearts are also breaking. It is in the yearning of the broken heart that we find the Advent of Emmanuel, God With Us.

“Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny.…Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.”–Alfred Delp; Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings, 1941-1944

Arriving. But not yet. Almost. Get ready. It’s coming. It’s arriving. But we are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny. Keep moving toward the moment. Keep moving toward the encounter. Keep still in the not-yetness of it all. Decorate. Decorate your house. Decorate your heart. Decorate your language. Decorate your greetings, your symbols, your understanding. Decorate your soul—from decoratusin the old poetic Latin that still connects our thoughts and words with those who decorated before us, who handed down their most important and enduring ornaments. Decorare – the verb that tells us to adorn, to beautify, to embellish. From decus—to make fit, to make proper so that we might be ready with decorum. And yes, we need to decorate. Yes, we need to fill the space around us, to fill our homes, our souls, our hearts with brighter things to see, more solid and enduring visions than the shadow parade of destruction and annihilation. We need to fill our ears with more stirring melodies than shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, songs that lift the heart above the drone of lamentation, the weeping of despair and helplessness. We need to keep moving toward the music and the light. We need to lift our eyes to that first mild light of radiant fulfillment to come. We need to fill our ears with the first notes of pipes and voices no matter how faint and far they may seem. We need to hum and sing and play the old familiar songs that move our hearts to that softer, readier place where the True Song will be born. We need to light the ancient candles one at a time to guide our steps down the corridor of waiting, the pathway of arrival. We need to bring each flame to the heart until the soul is aglow with the depth of its meaning and power. We need to reignite the flame of Hope to show us our way through the numbing fog of sameness. We need to internalize the flame of Peace to quiet our anxieties and give us patience. We need to swallow whole the flame of Joy to whet our appetite for the feast to come. We need to embody the flame of Love to warm us as we journey together, to show us again that we are walking arm in arm and our fates are intertwined, to illuminate the purpose of life, to lead us to the Light of the World.

“For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning – not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.”–Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

Arrive. But understand in your arriving that even after the meaningful journey of Advent we don’t arrive at Christmas. Christmas arrives to us. The Gift comes to meet us on the road to take us to a place we could never attain on our own. We celebrate. We ponder. We dance and revel in the laughing lights of Hope and Peace and Joy and Love that we carried with us, that brought us to this place. We gaze amazed at the Gift before us, almost comically humble and plain, artlessly displayed and wiggling inside its wrappings, laid out on a bed of straw in a manger, and yet more artistically subtle, more beautiful and precious than the Magi gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And if you take a moment to think about what this Gift really is, what this baby really means to the world and what this baby means to you, in particular, you may just hear the voice of Emmanuel saying, “Now the journey begins in earnest. Be not afraid. I am with you.”

How Are You Translating?

April 12, 2018April 14, 2018Steve Beckham 1 Comment

For this is how God loved the world—all of it, everything: God gave God’s unique son so that everyone who trusts into him need not be destroyed but may have eternal life. For God did not send this son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be made whole through him. – John 3:16-17 (my translation)

I know. That’s not the way your Bible says it. It’s not the way my Bibles say it, either. I have several. It goes with the job. No, that’s not the way it reads in your Bible or mine, but it is a perfectly legitimate translation from the ancient Greek text.

So how does it sound to you, this word about the Word in different words? Does “trust into him” make you pause? Before you mentally substituted the more familiar “believe in him” did you stop to think about the difference? What do you mean when you say “believe?” Is there a difference between believing as intellectual affirmation versus trusting? Can you believe in someone but still not trust them with your life? What’s the difference between in and into? Subtle, that one. But doesn’t in sound more like stasis, something settled, while into is more of an ongoing process? Why do so many translations say condemn when the Greek word most frequently means to judge. True, it can mean condemn, but why leap to that? Oh, and saved. Such an interesting, interesting word. Sozo in Greek. It can mean to be rescued, to be made safe, to be removed from danger, but its oldest meaning is to be healed, to be made whole.

So how do you prefer to hear it? Heard one way it can be about God’s plan for fire insurance of the eternal kind. Heard another way it can be a message about God’s intervention to heal this world, all of us and everything else. Which translation speaks to you?

How are you translating the world around you? How are you translating the other people you encounter in life? How are you translating yourself?

“Love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus, later in the Gospel of John. He makes it a commandment of all things. Really loving each other involves learning to really hear each other and see each other. David Augsburger wrote, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” To love you, I need to hear you. To love me, you need to hear me. We need to translate each other accurately. To do that we each need to know something about how the other person is translating the world and interpreting their experience.

We are not looking at the world through the same eyes or hearing it through the same ears, but if, when we disagree, we stop to ask why we are seeing and hearing things so differently—if we take the first step in translating each other—then we’re taking the first steps in loving each other. If nothing else, paying close attention to those around us can teach us all kinds of interesting things, even when they are not being particularly relational. “I learned silence from the talkative and tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind,” wrote Khalil Gibran. And that’s love, too.

The Broken Hearted Season

December 1, 2016Steve Beckham 2 Comments

“The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.” – Frederick Buechner, Advent

“The thing I love most about Advent is the heartbreak. The utter and complete heartbreak.” –Jerusalem Jackson Greer; A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together

“Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny.…Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.” –Alfred Delp; Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings, 1941-1944

Arriving. But not yet. Almost. Get ready. It’s coming. It’s arriving. But we are still in the midst of everything and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny. Keep moving toward the moment. Keep moving toward the encounter. Keep still in the not-yetness of it all. Decorate. Decorate your house. Decorate your heart. Decorate your language. Decorate your greetings, your symbols, your understanding. Decorate your soul—from decoratus in the old poetic Latin that still connects our thoughts and words with those who decorated before us, who handed down their most important and enduring ornaments. Decorare – the verb that tells us to adorn, to beautify, to embellish. From decus—to make fit, to make proper so that we might be ready with decorum. And yes, we need to decorate. Yes, we need to fill the space around us, to fill our homes, our souls, our hearts with brighter things to see, more solid and enduring visions than the shadow parade of destruction and annihilation. We need to fill our ears with more stirring melodies than shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, songs that lift the heart above the drone of lamentation, the weeping of despair and helplessness. We need to keep moving toward the music and the light. We need to lift our eyes to that first mild light of radiant fulfillment to come. We need to fill our ears with the first notes of pipes and voices no matter how faint and far they may seem. We need to hum and sing and play the old familiar songs that move our hearts to that softer, readier place where the True Song will be born. We need to light the ancient candles one at a time to guide our steps down the corridor of waiting, the pathway of arrival. We need to bring each flame to the heart until the soul is aglow with the depth of its meaning and power. We need to reignite the flame of Hope to show us our way through the numbing fog of sameness. We need to internalize the flame of Peace to quiet our anxieties and give us patience. We need to swallow whole the flame of Joy to whet our appetite for the feast to come. We need to embody the flame of Love to warm us as we journey together, to show us again that we are walking arm in arm and our fates are intertwined, to illuminate the purpose of life, to lead us to the Light of the World.

Make a Wish

October 15, 2016Steve Beckham 2 Comments

Make a wish—

If you could make one wish, not for yourself, but for the world, what would it be? If you could make one wish for your significant other, your spouse, your kids, your grandkids, all your friends and neighbors and family, for your town, for your state, for your country, for the world—what would it be? What would you wish for?

How many of you would wish for Peace? That’s a pretty good wish. I think that’s what most people in the world want. Almost everybody wants to live in a world where we don’t have to worry about violence erupting around us at any moment. There aren’t too many people who actually enjoy conflict, and those who do usually end up getting some kind of professional help or incarceration, whichever comes first—although some seem to go into politics. A good debate is okay. Fighting not so much. Sometimes opposition can help us sharpen and clarify what we’re thinking or planning, but opposition can be friendly. It doesn’t have to disintegrate into aggression. Competition has it’s benefits. It can bring out the best in us, it can even be fun when you know it’s part of a game. But it’s pretty destructive as a lifestyle. Debate, opposition, competition, they all have their place but they can all too easily degenerate into conflict if we don’t learn how to rein them in. And we have to rein them in if we’re going to have peace.

What does it take to make peace? What does it take to remove the seeds of conflict? If you’re going to wish for peace, aren’t there other things you need to wish for first?

If you want peace, wouldn’t you first have to wish away greed? Wouldn’t you have to eliminate coveting? Wouldn’t you have to find a way to short-circuit the human tendency to always want more, even if it means that someone else gets less? Wouldn’t we have to find a way to fill that endlessly hungry place in the human heart that never feels like it has enough? Wouldn’t you have to remove the desire to keep score by means of money and possessions and status symbols? Wouldn’t you, in fact, have to eliminate the desire to keep score at all? And wouldn’t you need to find a way to take away the fear of running out of money before you run out of life?

And what about Tribalism? Wouldn’t we need to wish that away if we’re going to have peace? How about our tendency to be fiercely territorial? Wouldn’t we have to tone down nationalism? Wouldn’t we need to develop a healthier kind of patriotism, pride in our country that’s rooted in a deep respect for all that’s good and reveres the price that others have paid to create and sustain and maintain that goodness but at the same time a patriotism that isn’t blind to our faults and defensive about our shortcomings? And wouldn’t we need to open our eyes to what’s good and worth celebrating in other countries and cultures, in other histories? Shouldn’t we wish for all that if we’re going to wish for peace?

For peace to happen, what would we have to do with religion? Wouldn’t every religion have to dial back their tendency to insist that they’re the only ones—that we’re the only ones—who get it right, who understand God, who really get Jesus? Wouldn’t we have to learn to find some peace in our own ranks with the idea that our voice is a valuable and important instrument in the symphony, but it’s not the only instrument playing the music of heaven? Wouldn’t we all, for the love of God in whom we live and move and have our being, for the love of God who is among us and within us and beyond us, for the love of God who transcends all knowing and yet is more intimate with us than our most dearly beloved fellow passengers on this earth—shouldn’t we learn, for the love of God, to practice some sincere humility in our God talk? Shouldn’t we wish for understanding and cooperation between religions if we’re going to wish for peace?

To have peace, wouldn’t we have to first get rid of every last vestige of racism so that nobody feels put upon simply because of their color? Wouldn’t we have to acknowledge the existence of our own latent or not-so-latent bigotries? Wouldn’t we all have to purge ourselves of all those lingering internal voices and habits and conditioning that want to assert that some people are better or even more human than others simply by virtue of the color of their skin? Wouldn’t we have to acknowledge that some of us have blithely and blindly lived lives of privilege simply because of the color of our skin while others have had to develop stringent habits of caution for the same reason in another color? Wouldn’t we have to take a hard look at the painful history of racism and not simply suppress it deep in our collective psyche if we want to be healed of it? If you want to have peace, wouldn’t you have to wish away all those ugly words we have used to describe each other when the other doesn’t look like us? To have peace, wouldn’t we have to wish for something the opposite of color blindness—a what?—a celebration of color? a gratitude for color? a love of color in every shade of humanity? Shouldn’t we wish for that if we’re going to wish for peace?

If we really want peace, if that’s our deepest, truest wish, wouldn’t we have to first wish away sexism and paternalism and patriarchy and every other ism and archy that wants to maintain systems in which half the human race has more value, more power, more rights, more freedom than the other half simply because of gender, as if that’s some kind of accomplishment? If we really want peace, doesn’t it mean that we have to discard archaic and primitive structures of our societies and cultures and religions that not only have outlived their usefulness, but that were, in fact, never really useful at all, structures that evolved simply because one half of humanity was generally more capable of physically dominating and subduing and forcing its will on the other half? Isn’t it time, for the sake of peace, for us to take a step above our cousins the chimpanzees in this particular matter? If we really want peace, should we not wish first for real parity between the sexes?

And doesn’t our endless focus on differing sexualities undermine our quest for peace? Doesn’t the fact that someone is always ready to hate or censure or exclude or diminish someone else because of who they are attracted to or who they love or even because they are still trying to understand who they are kind of get in the way of peaceful coexistence? Aren’t we all children of God even if some have different love interests? Just because some men wandering through Judea 4000 year ago found certain things distasteful, are we bound to their prejudices forever? They also didn’t care for shrimp, barbequed ribs and pulled pork and we seem to have got past that okay. So wouldn’t it be a step toward peace if we could all just stop worrying about sexuality and realize that in God’s creation it seems to come in a variety of flavors?

If we’re going to wish for peace, wouldn’t it make sense to also wish that there would not be so many weapons at large in the world and that they were not so readily at hand?

If we’re going to wish for peace shouldn’t we first wish away hunger and homelessness? Don’t people fight for food and shelter? Wouldn’t you be tempted to if you didn’t have it? If we’re going to wish for peace shouldn’t we first wish for health and healthcare? And should we not wish for equal access to systems and medicines and technologies that heal and sustain life? If we’re going to have peace, shouldn’t we eliminate the possibility of people ruining their financial health just to maintain their physical health?

If we’re going to wish for peace, shouldn’t we first wish for justice? When the people are chanting “no justice, no peace” in the streets, isn’t it more than a slogan? Isn’t it a prophetic voice calling us to make the rough places plain and the crooked straight so that peace has a straight and easy pathway to our hearts, our homes, our communities, our nation and our world? If we’re going to wish for peace, don’t we first have to wish for equity and fairness and level playing fields? If we’re going to have peace, don’t we first need to eliminate injustice and replace it with restorative justice? In fact, isn’t justice the one word that encompasses everything we need to have peace?

Of course, there is another way. You can simply eliminate everyone who doesn’t see things the way you do. You can eliminate everyone who doesn’t look like you or think like you or worship like you or vote like you or love like you or contribute as much to society as you think you do, or isn’t the same sex as you, everyone who you think is competing with you simply because they want the same basic necessities that you want. In the end, if you’re really diligent, you would, in fact, eliminate everyone who is not you.

How peaceful would that be?

A Channel of Peace

October 6, 2016Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. – The Prayer of St. Francis

We are crossing the equinox once again. This is the time of year when we get busy again. The schedule shifts back into high gear. Meetings and classes resume. Choirs starts up again. Certain dates loom large on the calendar. Reformation. Advent. Christmas. Election Day. We begin to cram more things into less time and, while there’s a certain kind of comfort in all the momentum, there’s also the increased anxiety that comes from a fuller calendar. “Anxiety is the garden in which sin grows,” said St. Augustine, and it’s easy to see why. This year, especially, with all the violence that has filled the news and with an acrimonious election cycle building to a climax, anxiety seems to be washing over our world, our nation, and our communities in waves. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” says Jesus (Luke 12:32). I don’t know about you, but I find myself praying more fervently than ever, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

Much as I would like for God to hurry up and simply give us the kingdom, it seems to me as I look at the long sweeps of human history that God has been giving us the kingdom all along, making God’s divine rule a reality on earth as it is in heaven in a very slow but inexorable process. Oh…so…slow, this process—more than two thousand years in the making so far. And it’s been precarious every step of the way. That’s because God, in God’s wisdom, knows that the systems by which we operate—the systems that tend to create winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, the systems that encourage us to see life as competition rather than collaboration—the systems of the world won’t be transformed into something that benefits everyone until the people of the world are transformed. God knows that if the divine values of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control were simply imposed on us they would be brittle and false; they would crumble and leave cynical bitterness behind. But when this fruit of the Spirit grows in each of us organically and naturally, when we cultivate it in our internal life it gives us a resilience and strength that enables us to meet the nastier currents of our time with deep-rooted grace. When antagonism, depression, conflict, impatience, meanness, stinginess, faithlessness, violence, and self-indulgence are abroad in the land we, as followers of Jesus, must stand against them, but we must draw from the deep wells of grace, love and truth in doing so. When the voices of misogyny, bigotry, racism, separatism, and scapegoating are loud and strident in the land, we who are disciples of Jesus must, as gently as possible but as firmly as necessary say No. That is not the way forward. That is not who we are called to be. That way lies dystopia—that road leads to hell, not heaven. “Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Christ tells us that we are the light of the world and that idea is affirmed throughout the Scriptures. “For once you were darkness but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8) The work we do together, the thinking we do together, the lives we live together are God’s antidote to forces that would divide us and set us at each other’s throats. As we cross this Autumnal Equinox, as the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, it’s easy to feel sometimes as if the darkness is winning. But we are children of light; we have the light within us and as the nights grow colder the light and love of Christ can keep our hearts warm if we remain conscientious and faithful in gathering together.

“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25) We gather together in all kinds of congregations. We gather together in our places of worship. We gather together, often spontaneously, in like-minded communities in social media. We gather together in community events. The important thing for us to remember as we gather, though, is that “provoking” each other to love and good deeds should be the highest priority. It’s so easy to simply form echo chambers for our biases and pre-conceived ideas, but if that’s all we’re doing it would probably be better if we didn’t see each other so much, online or elsewhere. There is already more than enough acrimony, bigotry, and mutually reinforced deafness bouncing off the walls of the world without us adding to it.

“Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” (James 1:19-20) I’m thinking of getting that tattooed on my right forearm where I’ll see it all the time. My anger does not produce God’s righteousness. On the contrary, when I release it into the blogosphere or let it bounce down the labyrinths of social media it simply adds to the strident blare that deafens us to each other. The light of compassion, grace and honesty can illuminate and bring clarity to the dark corners of our collective psyche, but the glare of anger and opposition simply blinds us to each other.

I’m writing all this to myself more than to anyone else. I’ve needed to give myself a good talking-to for a while now. This political season has not always brought out the best in me. I have a tendency to do some of my most exquisitely pointed and logical writing when I’m good and pissed off. Anger is my pony and I tend to ride that baby till it drops. I need to remind myself that “if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, if I have faith to move mountains but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:2) My anger does not produce God’s righteousness. There’s a time for anger. It is sometimes a useful and necessary tool. Sometimes. But it’s not a safe place to live, and I, for one, have been spending far too much time in Angryland. When your eyes adjust to the glare you begin to realize that it’s really a very dark place

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)

Now is the time. Let your light shine. Make me a channel of your peace.

(Written 9/16/2016, revised 10/5/16)

The Path of the Foxes

March 19, 2016Steve Beckham 2 Comments

It was my privilege last night to be the keynote speaker at the annual awards banquet of the South Coast Interfaith Council. What follows is my address to that group.

It is a great honor to be here as your keynote speaker this evening and I thank you for inviting me. Also, congratulations and well done to all those being honored here tonight. Before I begin, though, let’s take a moment and turn to the person next to you and say in the language of your own faith tradition—namaste, shalom, alssalam ealaykum—peace be with you.

Human psychology being what it is, I am well aware that there is a high statistical probability that right now at least a few of you are thinking, “Who is this clown, what is he yammering about and how long is he going to be up there talking?”

So…there’s a high statistical probability that some of you are worried that you’re about to be bored, that there will be an as-yet-unknown number of minutes of your life that you will just never get back. Not only that, but because this is an interfaith audience, there is also a high statistical probability that at least a few of you are worrying that I might devote too much time to the perspectives of my own faith tradition or that I might say something insensitive or offensive to your faith tradition. I truly hope I don’t. But if I do, please let me know and I will apologize. These worries are, in fact, very human responses to a situation like this. Those very human responses come from a well documented and universal element of human psychology called the Negativity Bias.

The Negativity Bias. I will say more about it in a moment, but first I want to distract you from your Negativity Bias with a story about foxes. Domestic foxes. Pet foxes. And to do that, I’ll start with dogs.

Dogs have been, unarguably, the most important domestic animal in human history. They were the first animal that humans domesticated and we have formed a bond with them that has not only proven mutually beneficial, but has quite literally transformed both our species. Many anthropologists now believe that our relationship with the dog was a significant factor in our own evolution as a species and even enabled us to develop civilization. So well done, Fido.

We’ve known for a long time that dogs are simply domesticated wolves, a fact that’s now been proven through DNA. So that little Chihuahua peeking out of Paris Hilton’s purse? That’s a wolf…which will give you some idea of what can happen with selective breeding. But how did we ever come to domesticate the wolf in the first place? How is it that in some distant past our hunter-gatherer ancestors struck up this partnership with a species that was not only one of our primary competitors, but actually quite dangerous to us—as we were and are to them?

Dmitri Belyaev, a Russian geneticist, wondered about this, too. He believed that our prehistoric ancestors selected wolf pups based on temperament. So, along with Lyudmila Trut, he set up an experiment in 1959 to prove his hypothesis. He set out to see if, selecting for temperament alone, he could create a distinct breed of domestic foxes–pet foxes—a tame version of an animal related to wolves and dogs but one that had never been domesticated.

They set up their experiment in Siberia near the Soviet government facilities where foxes were being bred for their fur, so they had an ample selection of fox pups to choose from. Their selection process was fairly simple. The fox pups that showed aggression or bit them or would flee from the experimenters when stroked or handled were put into one group. Those who responded with curiosity, playfulness and friendliness were put in another group. They continued breeding selectively for these traits of friendliness and curiosity, and in only six generations Belyaev and Trut had succeeded in breeding a new class of foxes they designated as “domesticated elite,” foxes who not only tolerated human companionship, but were eager to establish and maintain it. Foxes who behaved very much like dogs. After 20 generations of breeding, nearly 80% of that group were rated “domestic elite”—suitable as pets and human companion animals. The breeding project is still going and they now help support their research by selling some of these foxes as pets.

Belyaev and Trut were able to create domestic foxes by selecting pups that were willing to overcome their Negativity Bias. See, humans aren’t the only ones who have it. Many mammals have it, especially those with more highly developed brains.

The Negativity Bias is a feature of our psychology that originates in our physiology – our neurophysiology, to be specific. The Negativity Bias arises from the most primitive part of our brains, the amygdala—sometimes called the Lizard Brain. This is the part of our brain that looks at everything as a possible threat and responds with only 3 options: fight, flight or freeze.

The Negativity Bias is a universal factor in human psychology and it served a very practical purpose in our evolution as a species. That thing you’re about to pick up, is it a stick or a snake? That shape on the horizon, is that an antelope or a lion? That person coming toward me, is that a walking stick in his hand or a spear? Is he from my clan or is he one of those people from two hills away? Is he here to offer us a partnership in something or to scout us out for a raid? But the Negativity Bias doesn’t just make us evaluate things, events and people, it biases us toward the negative—it makes us lean toward fight, flight or freeze instead of investigate, make friends, and play.

I’ve done a fair amount of reading about this and I could say a lot more about the Negativity Bias, but I’m mindful that there’s a fine line between a long speech and a hostage situation. So let’s cut to the chase. What does all this have to do with the South Coast Interfaith Council? Well I’m coming to that…but to get there I have to go here.

This is an election year and election years have a tendency to throw a lot of things into sharp relief—and nothing shows up more sharply than the shadow of our fears. Election years in general, and this one in particular, have a way of bringing out the worst in us because candidates and parties play our Negativity Bias like a violin. And since we, as a species and as individuals, are always only one layer of civility away from being ferocious, this is a very dangerous thing.

Remember those other foxes? The pups who bit or acted aggressive or fled from their human handlers? Well they did a breeding experiment with them, too. And the results are terrifying. On the other side of the compound from the tame foxes are the cages that only specially trained handlers can enter. They have to wear protective gear when they go in to feed these other foxes, because these foxes delight in attacking. They live for it. They are bigger, meaner, and astonishingly aggressive. And now nobody knows what to do with them. Animal rights people don’t want them euthanized, but there’s also a very real worry that they might escape into the wild–and that could be a whole new ecological disaster. They are a living object lesson for us.

Election years tend to bring out that aggressive fox inside us, the one we’ve kept somewhat subdued, barely restrained in the tension between first-amendment free speech and laws against hate speech. There is a spirit of meanness and fear abroad in our country that wants to manipulate our Negativity Bias, that wants to make us suspicious of each other, that wants to make us feel threatened by each other, that wants us to imagine each other as enemies so that we can be directed to vote for the manipulator who promises to be our great leader and protector, who promises to keep us safe.

Religion is one of those traditional dividing lines that can be easily manipulated if we’re not careful. Religion has always been a productive field for those who want to play on our Negativity Bias. There are loud voices right now in our culture who not only want to make scapegoats of particular religions, but want to widen the divisions within our religions. There is a loud noise of Xenophobia and unbridled racism shouting in our land, and I have to say that right now, as a white, male, Christian Protestant, speaking to this wonderfully diverse and eclectic group of people, I feel like I should apologize for some of the things that other white Christian Protestants are saying and doing. Quite frankly, sometimes I am ashamed of my people. We have a lot to answer for. But that’s another speech for another time.

I’m not here tonight just to tell you what you already know about the bad news, about anti-Muslim rhetoric or blatant racism or the long litany of injustices that are all manifestations of our fears, especially White Anglo-Saxon Protestant fears. I’m not here just to tell you the bad news about our Negativity Bias. I’m here to give you the good news that there is an antidote.

There is an antidote. It comes in two steps. First, it’s necessary to acknowledge the Negativity Bias. Admit that it’s there. Second, it’s important to intentionally focus on positive possibilities and positive dynamics. Focusing on possibilities allows other parts of our brains and psyches, more highly developed parts, to take the lead instead of those instincts driven by fear.

You are here tonight, we are here tonight because we are the tame foxes. We are the ones who have had enough curiosity, bravery, friendliness and even playfulness to look beyond the edges of our own religious traditions to try to see what others are seeing, to try to understand what others are understanding. We are the ones who are curious enough to learn to appreciate a different perspective without abandoning our own. We are the ones who have read past the rare verses in our sacred texts that would exclude us from each other or pit us against each other if taken in the wrong context to find the rich and plentiful vein of gold in those same texts that calls us to transcend that impulse, to be inviting, to be accepting, to embrace the stranger. We are the ones who see that our destinies are woven together. We are the ones who hear that clarion voice in every one of our traditions that says simply and firmly, “Be not afraid.”

There are things we can do together as an alliance of faith communities, things we have been doing, that can show the rest of the world that religions do not have to be in competition with one another or antagonistic to one another but can cooperate to achieve things together even more effectively than what we can achieve independently. The Farmers Markets initiated by this Interfaith Council, the support of Centro Shalom, the Habitat for Humanity building programs—these are all great examples of how we make a positive difference together, of how we “intentionally focus on positive possibilities and positive dynamics.”

But there’s more that we can do together. We can advocate for improving the status of women. We can brainstorm about how to improve education…and access to education and affordable child care. We can find ways to address injustices in our policing and criminal justice systems, particularly those injustices endured by persons of color. We can work together on water and environmental issues—after all, regardless of whatever else we do or don’t agree on, we’re all riding through space and time on the same planet.

I would especially like to suggest tonight that we unite as advocates for the homeless. We can speak with one great, united, faithful voice to our cities and counties on behalf of a people who have been literally swept to the curb. We can get creative together to imagine new ways to address this growing problem that all too often winds up on the doorsteps of our houses of worship. We can advocate for comprehensive housing-first programs that address the needs of the whole person to give those forgotten souls a new lease on life. And we can do it all in the name of God, even if we don’t mean exactly the same thing when we say that.

We need to be doing good things together and we need to be very visible in the doing of them. We need our positive interfaith actions to speak louder than their anti-faith words.

I can’t help but think sometimes that maybe we are at a tipping point in the domestication of our own species. Who will win? The aggressive foxes or the tame ones? The aggressive foxes have been let out of their cages. This is no time for us to sit quietly in ours. This is the time for the tame foxes to come out and play. With gusto.

Peace be with you. And be not afraid.

Thoughts Along the Way

Thoughts Along the Way and Occasional Music from Pastor Steve Beckham

Tag peace

Whose Side Are You On?

A Breath of Fresh Air

Light a Candle

Take a Breath

Waiting

How Are You Translating?

The Broken Hearted Season

Make a Wish

The Path of the Foxes