Dry Bones Dance

Happy Birthday to Me

There will be a brief cessation of the Jesus hostilities to say that I'm 37 today.

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus: Man drowns trying to walk on water

In my continuing quest to drive away every reader who is not deconstructing their religious upbringing, there’s a story in Matthew 14: 22 – 33: Jesus walked on water in the middle of a storm. Peter, an impulsive sort of guy, got out of the boat and started walking towards Jesus. He lost faith out on the waves, and Jesus had to save him from drowning. As he did, he said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

There seem to be two ends of the spectrum when it comes to this faith thing. On the one end, you have those whose faith is so blind that they will literally drown trying to walk on water. On the other end, you have those who believe there is an explanation for everything:

Researchers at Florida State “ theorize that a rare combination of optimal water and atmospheric conditions resulted in a unique, localized freezing phenomenon called "springs ice," according to Physorg.com, which specializes in news about science, technology, physics and space. A frozen patch of ice floating on the surface of the lake would be difficult to distinguish from the surrounding unfrozen water, making it appear as if Jesus were walking on water, according to the theory.

Certainly, it’s an ingenious hypothesis, but really - If you don’t believe in miracles, isn’t the more obvious explanation that Matthew just embellished the truth a bit?

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus: The Way and PTSD

I said this in the comments section, but I have to say this here: Given the frequently combative nature of the blog world, how do I not get death threats and statements condemning me to eternal damnation? I talk about exorcising Jesus demons and liking Jesus better when he’s dead, and not only do I NOT get hate e-mail and nasty comments, everyone still appears to like me. Clearly you, my lovely readers, must be above average individuals. Either that or there just aren’t that many of you, and so I manage to escape the notice of the crazy and cantankerous.

Today’s Jesus passage is in John 14: 1 – 7:

1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God [a]; trust also in me. 2 My Father's house has plenty of room; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going."
5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know [b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

In this passage, the word I have the most trouble with is “the” – as in THE way, THE truth, THE life. Also, NO ONE comes to the Father but through me. As I have mentioned before, I am not entirely sure I want to get anywhere near God the Father, but should I change my mind, it looks like I might find the door to the Father’s house – whatever and wherever that is – locked up tight.

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus: Exorcising demons

Apparently, I’m still in an all Jesus, all the time phase. When I found myself scribbling down my thoughts on paper towels in the locker room of the Y because I didn’t have any paper, I thought, “Hmmm….this is starting to get a little bit obsessive. Seriously, what’s with this Jesus kick?”

Then I figured it out while swimming laps: This isn’t theology. It’s exorcism.

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus: Not so much with the following part

It seems I’m on a roll with this Jesus thing. I’m as surprised as you are. I was thinking about it while I scrubbed my bath tub (It is now cleansed and white as snow once again. I do not, however, know if it is saved.) It’s probably the latent fundy in me, but I think I feel I need to make more of an effort with Jesus, rather than blowing off the second member of the Trinity on my way to yoga class. God the Father and I, however, are still most assuredly not on speaking terms.

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus: This isn't what I was going to write

Not too many people preach on Matthew 23 – or at least not when I’ve been in the room, but it has always been one of my favorite chapters, particularly when I feel especially bitter. “They (religious leaders of the day) tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to help them…..Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

That’s the sort of thing that makes me want to yell, “Preach it, honey!” and commit the words to memory. I feel “Woe to you!” is an underused phrase. Spoken in the proper tone, it sounds quite impressive. Jesus seemed to thoroughly enjoy giving the religious establishment the finger, and he liked to watch them squirm. It’s one of his more consistent themes. (And then one day, very long ago, someone stood up and said, “Hey, you know what we need? A Pope! We’ll say that it was Jesus’ idea.”)

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus: He's gotta be in there somewhere

Dylan gave a very thoughtful response to my last post, and in many ways, she’s right. We can be pretty certain that Jesus really existed, that he was an itinerant prophet who said a fair amount of what his disciples said he did, and that he was crucified by the Romans – if for no other reason than the fact that if Matthew, et al were only spin doctors, they would have done a better job of sanding down some of Jesus’ rough edges. Also, spin doctors very rarely die for their candidate, and it would appear that most of the disciples did. She made a very good point that we’ve been overly conditioned to think that one of the characters in every parable has to be God, when that’s not necessarily the case. I read her take on the parable of the landowner, and I like her conclusions that it reflects the injustice of the times, and it’s about how violence begets more violence, etc.

Here’s the thing, though: I’m a tree-hugging, left-leaning, pacifism-espousing, non-profit-y type with a visceral distrust of authority. If I interpret Jesus as a power to the people rabble-rouser with an agenda of non-violent resistance, it seems a little too convenient. (I’ve never met you, Dylan, but if you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you’re not a Republican and not a Baptist or Pentecostal.) I have a strong motivation to interpret Jesus as someone who agrees with my particular agenda – an agenda that has everything to do with my life experience and location in culture and history and practically nothing to do with Biblical interpretation.

Throwing hand grenades at Jesus

I’ve said before that I’m the most un-Jesus-y Christian I know. I don’t pray to him, he doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and in my own life, I’ve found his powers of salvation to be less than efficacious. I can neither confirm nor deny the literal truth of the historic creeds, and during the past few years of my spiritual practice, Jesus has been a bit of a side issue for me.

I don’t know if I love Jesus the way that I’m supposed to or at all, but then, if Jesus really is Divine, it seems silly to think that my emotional reaction to Him would matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. I’ve never managed to find myself in the traditional “sinner meets Jesus hallelujah!” narrative, and much as I like the idea of Jesus as a peace and love Jewish Gandhi who would be against the death penalty and for universal health care, he seems a bit more contradictory than that if I stray too far from the Sermon on the Mount. So I find it hard to know what to do with Jesus, despite spending the first 32 years of my life in churches that had very definite ideas on the subject.

Presidential Pontifications Revisited

I am abnormally engaged in this Presidential primary season. Normally, by this time, I’m wishing everyone would shut up already, but I’m really very into it this time around, rather than looking at all the available candidates thinking, “THIS is the best we can do? God have mercy on us all.”

In what is no doubt an exercise of ego, I went back to my Presidential primary predictions from about a year ago, and I must say that I NAILED the Democratic primaries, thank you very much. I predicted an early exit for Tom Vilsack and Christopher Dodd, said that Edwards would run third, and that I was “cautiously optimistic” that it was possible for Obama to win the primary. (I also said the Kucinich didn’t have a chance in hell of winning, but that did not require great powers of prognostication.) I also said that I wasn’t sure Clinton could win a general election. That, of course, remains to be seen.