2022.05.15 Easter Five. Risen Indeed? A Risen Rant. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 5/15/22

The great proclamation on Easter Day Sunday, and through the Easter season of 50 days is: Christ Is Risen. Clergy shout it out. People in congregations shout back: Christ is Risen Indeed. It's like a password—our Christian 'open sesame'.   

I never thought of this before, but the phrase is in the present tense and the passive voice. It doesn’t say Christ rose or arose. Or Christ has risen. It says Christ IS Risen. So who did the rising? Was Jesus connected enough to raise himself up, or does he leave the rising to his identity as the Christ, the Anointed One? And to where? Well, heaven, we presume, or to the place where the God Jesus called Abba is.

Who can figure this stuff out? Not me. No wonder my mother became exasperated with all my questions and wondering. 

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The gospel of John remembers Jesus being accused of blasphemy, because he called himself God. His closest followers are smart enough to question all this rising/risen/raised up doughy theological language. Was Jesus daring to say that he IS God? Accusers threatened to stone him. Jesus told them to look at the works he was accomplishing in the name of this God. “. . .if I am doing God’s work, there is no need to believe me; but if I am doing God’s work—even if you don’t believe me (and they don’t)—at least believe the works I do. Then you will know for certain that Abba God is in me and I am in Abba God.”  (14:11-12 ff) 

Hearing these words, they again tried to arrest him but he eluded their grasp. God knows how, of course. Still is it not blasphemous to say he IS God? But he says he is IN God. That is different. 

Recall that John’s gospel was written later than the Synoptics and has a theological agenda to promote, rather than a story to tell. John’s is a gospel of remembrance, close remembrance, but based on eye witness material, gathered from the oral tradition of reciting events and teachings of Jesus. By now, Johannine writers must persuade the listeners that the story they’ve heard has profound, and yes, “risen” meaning. It was a very hard sell, and sometimes John’s gospel sounds like the gospel of the losers, going out on a limb to persuade others that Jesus was the Christ. 

God is in me and I am in God.

How ironic that the same biblical words that persuaded Jesus’s accusers that he was certifiably phony and blasphemous are the very same words that first assured, and still assure, me years later that Jesus is my guru/Master. These words secure my own Christian faith: “God is in me and I in God.”  I am completely convinced by these words. Why?

First, because this is my own experience of God Immanent—closely, deeply present within me.

And second, because, historically and still, these are precisely the words that persuaded the institutional worshipping Churches that it is very important to keep this image of Divine Immanence out of the liturgy, away from the God who dominates our liturgical worship, the One we regularly worship and consistently clothe in patriarchal language. We may not pray these words privately, but we continue to publicly worship a God who is consistently imaged as distantly transcendent, dominantly almighty. Check the Collects, prayers almost all directed to Almighty God and exclusively masculine. Even Christ is masculinized. Jesus was a man, but the Christ IS risen above any gender identity.

Such images of divinity simply do not affirm the God within me. Nor do they affirm the God within whose love we all move and have being. Yes, I can change the words in my personal prayer, but that is not enough. Without conscious awareness, we Christians are reinforcing, through our regular communal, liturgical prayers, a patriarchal image of God. This is the God we worship, the God we hear about most frequently, the God to whom we pray. To me this sexist imagery is idolatrous. 

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I can focus on my mostly good works, as Jesus said, and know that God is manifest therein. But I cannot say ‘God is in me and I am in God’ when this God is imaged in this alienating way.

OK, my ire has never been enough to cause me to leave the Church, to bag Christianity, to devalue the historical Jesus, to stop seeking wisdom from the Bible, or renounce my holy orders. But it is enough to cause me pain. And enough for me to liberate God’s image in my personal prayers as well as to seek and create inclusive translations of Scripture. I am not alone. 

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Way back in 1975, just when I was drawn to follow my own stirred heart, this summary statement from the introduction to Liturgy for All People was written as part of the attempt of some post-Vatican II Roman Catholic clergy to examine theological language:  

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” says the old proverb. We know now that this is a lie. Words can wound, alienate and degrade people.  Language can also affirm and express love. Care for language is a show of concern for people and a revelation of the attitudes of the speaker.    .  .  .  Church language is predominantly masculine. Male terms, images, and stereotypes, so-called sexist language, dominate church expression. Such usage is no longer adequate. It is time to build gender equality into the very fabric of church life. The effort to build new gender-balanced ways of speaking helps us toward gender equality for women and men.”    (from the Preface to The Inclusive Bible, First Egalitarian Translation, published in 2007 by Priests for Equality)

This is the translation I use now. It is not perfect, yet it is written with integrity and faithfulness to the earliest biblical texts. I’m grateful to these Roman Catholic scholars, clergy and lay, for their effort. And of course we are not done yet, and will never be done, trying to follow the Holy Spirit whose wisdom and lithe movement almost always leave us lagging.

Let’s remember how many times the Holy Bible itself has been translated, each time imperfectly. Chasing God is always playing catch-up. Nevertheless………..

God is in you and you are in God. 

2015.09.27 Papal Voice in Congress

I swear, a little pinwheel popped up spinning from the small white invisible zucchetto on my impious one-time Presbyterian head when I heard the unitive words Pope Francis spoke to our country and our Congress.

We in religions, and we in all other fields of endeavor, so need the voice of a big fat old religious visionary with an impish grin and a conspiratorial wink who advocates the Golden Rule as the chief guideline for church and world politics. The pope's words were unquestionably grounded in humanitarian-spiritual values which sustain viable life on earth: peace, justice, love, generosity, hospitality, respect, open-hearted mutuality, discernment, wisdom—and Love. His actions, ie. dining with the homeless, rather than attending the elegant banquet in his honor, followed his words. with action.

Pope Francis I addressed the assembled U.S. Congress on Thursday September 24th. He began by expressing his thanks and his joy at being in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” He ended with: "God Bless America!" I was all ears, all heart in hope—hooked. This was the first time ever a pope has addressed our government assembled, and, thanks to 21st century sophisticated communications, the word got out!  He stood out, all dressed in white as he was. The sight was almost laughably symbolic. Seeing and listening brought back to me my old Catholic yearnings.

When I was a teen I set out to explore religion, curious to see if there was anything more out there besides skyscraper pulpits with men in them—preaching and praying as if they owned the whole spiritual territory. Okay, I know it was in the 50s, but I was restless with the status quo, believed firmly in a God who cared for me and everyone everywhere, and felt sure my behind would atrophy from sitting in a hard wooden pew every week—receiving, receiving and receiving—words, words, words. Even Holy Communion was passed out to us as we sat in the pew. God made me a body, a body I longed to move!

Looking for movement of some kind I went to a Catholic Mass. Behold! People moved their bodies—stand, bow, bend one knee, kneel, move their arms swiftly across their bodies more times than I could count, walk up the aisle to get bread popped into their open mouths. The only thing these RC’s didn’t do was participate orally in what was going on, because it was in a language only the priest knew. (Still, many of them murmured their own Mass prayers, using strings of beads to guide the process.)  This worship was still passive/receptive, but at least they moved!  AND they worshiped a woman named Mary who stood up front— in a statue and bad art but clearly female. 

The Catholics had stuff I wanted, stuff that involved my body, which I had learned was important because Jesus Christ had one. I took instructions to become Roman Catholic and found out they also had all the answers, which I deemed baloney. I uncovered some basic rules I knew would imprison my bodily freedom more than any of those awful girdles we used to wear.

In order to breathe, move my body in worship, keep asking questions, and, in time, be ordained priest, I joined the Episcopal Church. It had all the embodiment I needed, as well as hope for women to be up front as flesh and blood, not just as immobile, obedient, holy statues. I’ve happily been an Episcopalian for 55 years and an Episcopal priest for 27 years. I can breathe, speak, and question without fear, thanks to its flexible authority system. It gives my spirituality sanctuary.

RC’s do not have a flexible authority system, yet I heard this pope, definitely RC, calling for us to engage in dialogue, pray, and wonder out loud together about new approaches to life-threatening problems, such as poverty, climate change, unequal distribution of wealth, unfettered capitalism, territorial possessiveness, and paralyzing political polarization. His language was not harsh. He did not come to chastise, but to bless and to encourage. You can do better; you can be better when you accord your neighbor the same dignity, treatment, and respect you would like for yourself. 

Just the other day our dear Jewish neighbor said: “Look, all those little flowers are growing up right through the brick and concrete of your stoop. I know it’s because holy people live here.” (She was referring to me and my husband, both Episcopal priests.)

I said, “All people are holy.”  That conviction comes from my own early spiritual experience and from what the Episcopal Church/ Anglo-Catholicism gave me: a sacramental theology by which I know that all the created order is in the image of God and reflects divinity.

She retorted: “Lots of people don’t seem holy to me.”

“Well, often it’s thickly disguised!”  We LOL’ed, as they say. 

I haven’t forgotten my wannabe Catholic phase. With this pope’s presence and unitive message and style, his soft tone, authentic feelings, especially about suffering and children, and the bipartisan language he used, I felt it again—not the impulse to become Roman Catholic, but to know again the basic unity underlying all Creation, the goodness intended for us all, the common good of all living things for which we work and pray together, the true meaning of catholicity.

There are many reviews of the Pope’s speech and many have noticed he is not exactly offering to alter teachings that continue to imprison women’s bodies— and souls. Nor does he speak much about the abuse scandal. Yet and still, his approach values dialogue and open-mindedness, and non-dual thinking. There is no righteous over against unrighteous, immigrant and non-immigrant—no polarization of such moral values into absolute closed categories. Life is more fluid than that, and life requires room for transformation at all levels. I think this Pope is laying some groundwork for such transformation even in his own religion.

Applause went back and forth on both sides of the Congress. Imagine bipartisan applause in this Congress, and for the same speaker!  Who could argue with the Golden Rule?  There is a reason why it is called golden. It has the highest value—spiritual not monetary, please—and it's multi-faith.

But the Pope’s visit was more than just a prophetic analysis of the United States or a call to action, it was symbolic. The papal office carries heft, both historically and morally. The visit tells a new story. It means we must listen up. What I heard is that how we treat each other matters more than anything else. Are we decent? Do we listen with care to ourselves and to others? Do we resent our neighbors, near and far? Do we hoard wealth? Do we act from fear more often than from compassion? Do we listen to our own and others' stories? Because every individual has a story which matters intimately to him or her, and each story is a building block in the common good.

Author Brian Doyle writes: "I don't have any words that carry real weight. All I can do is tell you about it and somehow that's a prayer too, you know what I mean? Every story matters more than we know, or we ever will know—but at least we know that."

It was a nice coincidence, if such it was, that the Pope addressed the U.S. Congress the day after the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur.  Yom Kippur is the end day of a time devoted to teshuva: self-examination, turning around, an effort to  realign your self with God. The Word, according to the Hebrew Bible's Deuteronomy, is not up in the heavens or out over the sea, but very close to you, "in your mouth and in your heart to do it." 

To quote Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who blogs as The Velveteen Rabbi: “Without change, there is stasis, and stasis is death. Yom Kippur comes to remind us that our habits of body, heart, mind, and soul become calcified and constricting. That each year we miss the mark in our habitual ways, and each year we have the opportunity to break free from those habits and become someone new.”

Jews can become immobilized by the need to have a better past, the Rabbi writes. I wonder if we Americans struggle with the need always to have a better future?  And I wonder if all religions struggle with the need to be divine favorites, the best way, the only true path? All such needs can be compulsive and constrictive—girdles again!

The Pope praised the American capacity to dream bold dreams—a gift. We have been successful with many dreams, but have we turned our successes away from hopes and dreams and into an ethic of domination, an identity of privilege, and overweening pride of place?

Should we desire to change, do teshuva, we can. After all, we have a papal blessing. 

2102.03.21 Roger Haight, a BOTH/AND Hero

Last year I heard a talk I'll never forget: “If God Can Be Found In the Soul, Who needs Church?” by Roger Haight, S.J., author and theologian.

Haight offered radically new views for a Church of the future, things like full equality of men and women in church, de-clericalization and collegial exercise of authority, getting modest, being ecumenical and open to other faiths, letting go of control from the center.

AND, scandal of scandals: spiritual truth and sanctification can happen outside the Church.

Such things could be sweet or toxic to Roman Catholic ears.

The lecture hall was packed, mostly with older people like me, most of them women like me, and most of them Roman Catholics, like I once thought I wanted to be but, because of moral politics unfriendly to women,changed my mind. Nevertheless we all were hungry to hear new ideas, new images of our shared God.

Can we be one for Christ’s sake?

(I read “one” to mean mutually respectful and deliciously diverse.)

Haight, a mild-mannered, bespectacled, not bombastic, let's say Wally Peepers type, is scholar in residence at Union Theological School in New York City. He has lost his mandatum (papal authorization) to teach theology in Roman Catholic institutions. Ya think he’s teaching theology?

But he hasn’t lost his voice. His theology is dangerous; for example he titles one of his books “Jesus Symbol of God.”

Symbol? OR Very God of Very God? True God from True God, as our Nicene creed states? Obviously Jesus Christ for Christians is BOTH /AND and to separate divine from human is the big temptation, impossible to avoid and impossible not to avoid.

I sat rapt and wrote lots of notes. What I took away and will never forget came from the Q & A time. One woman asked Haight, “What shall we do? The Church isn’t listening?”

A: “Spiritual nourishment is a higher value than institutional loyalty. If you’re not fed feel free to move. Talk back.”

Whoever heard of a Catholic authority figure suggesting such things—in public? But he did and he is preaching a religion of BOTH/AND.

Thank Godde.

2011.11.30 A Family Saints Day

When I was a young teen and panting with romanticism, I admired Roman Catholics, actually envied them because they had stuff— like beads and prayers and saints names and days. They also prayed, to a woman of all things. AND they had answers to any religio-spiritual questions I might ask. And I had plenty of questions. I felt we Protestants were deprived.

But what I loved the most is that these Catholics had a whole array of saints, one for every issue and ailment and prayer concern you could think of. They even each had a saints name. I thought that was elegant, so personal. There was no saint Lyn.

Of course later when I took instructions to join the Roman Catholic church I found out they didn’t think much of women, except the statuary kind.

So I found the ANGLO-Catholic Episcopal church where there were beads that were optional, or less compulsively omniscient, and a liturgy that made me swoon almost as much as the Latin Mass. But here I had to wrestle with what all these mysterious words meant. It grew me up into a priest.

I made my own beads and use them when I’m dead tired or deeply desperate and wordless.

And I picked out a few saints to personalize according to meaningful days in my life and family. One was St. Andrew whose holy day is today.

Andrew was a nice and curious guy, a disciple of John the Baptist who suggested he meet this Jesus. Eagerly Andrew went to investigate. Then, according to the biblical story in John’s gospel, Andrew rushed back to fetch his bro Simon Peter.

Andrew never made it into Jesus’ circle of intimates. He wasn’t the type to aspire to the episcopate. Maybe he was lucky. After all look what became of Peter. Who would want to be pope?

But Andrew recognized a good thing like forgiveness and the God of love Rabbi Jesus preached, as a good way of life to follow. And he didn't get possessive with his new way but shared it immediately.

Andrew is patron saint to Scotland, part of our family heritage, but that’s not why I chose him as one of our family saints. I chose Andrew because on this day, 10 years ago, my two sons nearly died in a car accident. God didn’t save them, they were plumb lucky. But God I believe worked transformation in their souls after their shared trauma.

In time and with gratitude these brothers supported and led each other into a new way of life.

Each person finds his or her way to truth and holiness, and some people do it together.