Month: February 2022

It is always interesting to have someone tell you to “just be yourself”. How can you not be? I mean, think about it, who else would you be. The Irish writer, Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, all of the others are taken”. Now, before you move on, think about what Wilde is saying. If you are like me, you spend a great deal of time in this world being someone else. In our society, when people ask us who we are, we very quickly respond with our label, what we do.

If we are not careful, this is how we see ourselves spiritually. There is no small number of churches and denominations that teach people that they are not good enough and never will be. Growing up, it was very common to hear: “you need to get right with God”. And in the context of the early religious teachings I had, it seemed to be important. That was the basic point of most of the revivals I ever went to. In fact, that version of evangelism is based on telling people what is wrong with them and how they must get “saved” to have any hope at all. The trouble is that they tell you what you are saved from but rarely tell you what you are saved to.

So, what are we saved to? What does saved even mean? The implied meaning is that we are being saved from ending up in Hell. But, is that really what we are being saved from? Why doesn’t the church teach what we are “saved” to (or for)? Is it possible that salvation is that moment when we realize that the Living God has been right there, inside of us, all of our lives? Perhaps we are being saved from ourselves?

For years, I was taught that every person has a “sin nature”. That we are sinners from birth, in need of salvation. What if that sinful nature is our own ego? Now, if that is what is really going on, then “take up your cross daily” means something important. It means that every day, we get to make a choice to do things our way or to do things God’s way. Suddenly, the “age of accountability” means something. We become accountable when we become aware that there is another way to be.

If you were to believe that you are “being saved” from yourself in order to follow a “more excellent way” then many things start to make sense. Isn’t this what Jesus did every time he healed someone? The woman “taken in adultery” was simply asked, where are those who condemn you? And the response came, “neither do I condemn you”. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus was the one Person that learned early that his ego was the great deceiver. Consider the temptation, at each point, Satan, offered Jesus the chance to do things “his way” rather than God’s. And it would make even more sense if we saw Satan as ego. The moment we do that, we understand all that Jesus gave up by being a human being on this earth.

And, once we give self up, we understand the more excellent way.

TMM

I have avoided writing about this. It has interfered with everyday life for almost two years. People are asking as I do, when will we get back to normal? Maybe that is the problem. Maybe we deceive ourselves by seeking something called “normal”? My aunt has a sign in her kitchen that says, “as far as anyone knows, our family is normal”. I have the same sign in my kitchen.

That little sign is a reminder. It reminds me that being normal is an illusion. No one is normal, they simply are who they are. It is like being “average”. That is a representative statistic and as a way of being it does not exist. So maybe we should stop saying “let’s just get back to normal”. Maybe if we just let go of normal and average we could be real people, we could love ourselves as is, we could love others as they are.

When this whole pandemic thing started, I said that society would change and the church would change. First of all, we would stop taking things for granted that they will be the same each day. People began to take civil rights more seriously, that is a plus. Churches had to examine why they exist and how to meet the needs of people who need emotional and spiritual support. I still believe that the emergent church can use this time to become more personal and real. Congregations of 10,000 people are no longer viable. Maybe they never were. And maybe, the needs of others are more obvious to us now. Maybe people cannot control being poor, unemployed, homeless, or sick.

Jesus had it right. We need to live in the moment, to see all that God is doing in that moment, and take a bit more time to savor life. Most of all to be ourselves, whoever that is on any given day. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, all of the others are taken”.

TMM

Our society today is full of hurry. We even have a name for it, hurry sickness. This is the world of next achievements and your value comes from what you have accomplished. It will wear out your very soul because it is the opposite of the “narrow path” of the Christian life.

Working in a university environment is a prime place to get this sickness. Each day, it seems, is a demand to do more, write more, publish more and it lives as a usually unspoken expectation. It is even worse if you are an administrator. I know, I have been there. And, if you are like me, it comes home with you and you hurry through most things.

I do not believe Jesus ever hurried over anything. Someone comes to ask for help and he waits a couple of days before showing up. Was he being cruel? Was he testing the person’s faith and commitment? I don’t think He ever did that. What I do think is that Jesus knew that hurry never makes things better and that living in the moment is much more important and much more faithful and much less stressful.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesus kept hurrying through a sermon on the mount or through healing or toward Jerusalem? Jesus knew that everything has a way of happening in God’s good time. A time much broader than our perspective can embrace. When we hurry, we are doing things to get them done, not because it is God’s way. When we hurry, we also miss details that might just matter. I am glad God does not hurry and is always patient with me because the alternative leaves me all alone and on my own.

So what about you? Are you hurrying? And if you are, why is that? For me, it is a time to let go of hurry and achievement. I am who I am and have no need to prove my worth. I think that is the hard part of being on the Christian path, to trust that you are loved and capable and valuable just the way you are. It means you have to disengage from society’s way to value people. It is not about what you do it is about who you are.

TMM