No One Can Be a Slave of Two Owners

 Way back in 2014, my family and I moved back to Southern California from Arkansas. Among our hardships at the time was that we didn't have a car. We had ridden the bus back to California and could only bring what we could carry in our luggage. It was a rough time for a number of reasons, and in Southern California, not having a car put a serious hamper on our mobility. But one of the things I found myself feeling at the time was a kind of relief in a way. No car meant no insurance payment. It meant no needing to fill up the tank with expensive gasoline. It meant no car repairs. No yearly car registration either. We were using bus passes at the time, and the monthly pass was so much cheaper than actually owning a car. I was actually happy for a time about not having a car, and was somewhat stressed about being given one about four or five months later by the church we became members of.

     In 2016 or '17, I became the proud owner of a World of Warcraft account. I was paying $15 a month, give or take, for access to Azeroth. Honestly, paying to rent or "own" the thing felt like it obligated me to play it every day, otherwise I was wasting my money. 

     Owning anything means being responsible for that thing. Ownership's neither good nor bad, and it is a regular part of our society's collective psyche, but it does come with responsibilities if you want to continue to own that thing. Ownership of a thing, in a way, makes you the property or slave of the thing you own. Owning a thing obligates you to use it, or else why own it? Owning a thing obligates you to take care of it whether you want to or not. When you own a thing it takes and holds part of you for ransom until you let that thing go. Owning a thing, in a way, makes it your master because you, out of principle, develop an attachment to it just by virtue of your ownership.

     Jesus taught that, "No one can be a slave of two owners. He will either hate the one and love the other, or he will love the one and despise the other." It is my thought this morning that this one of the reasons why the conditions of discipleship demanded a letting go of "the things you started off with", that is, your possessions, as much as they demanded letting go of any relationships where you were more attached to the other person than to Jesus Himself, and of course letting go of your own "psyche," your own self-identity, your "breath." You cannot serve two masters.

     If you are so attached to something that you cannot just let it go, then it is your master, it is your owner whether you want it to be or not. As I said, in this day and age, ownership of property is nearly unavoidable, but be aware of it, and what you possess that has ownership over you. These are the things which prevent you from really being His disciple. Not because He has strict rules, but because you have lent yourself over to serve other owners, and no one can be a slave of more than one owner or master.

Sometimes the Darkest Moments Can Produce The Brightest Lights

 I am going to say something here where my intention can be easily misunderstood. I hope it isn't. 

     Without the people and their descendants that slavery brought to America, history would have looked very different. There would have been no George Washington Carver to teach us about peanuts and their beneficial uses. There would have been no Frederick Douglas. There would have been no Martin Luther King Junior. No Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek. There would have been no Nat King Cole. The lady of color who was the human calculator behind the NASA efforts to get to the moon wouldn't have been there. The revolutionary army might all have died of small pox if not for the wisdom of an African slave who showed Cotton Mather how to inoculate against it half a century earlier in Boston. Or the Civil War might not have been won at all if not for the efforts of a freed slave posing as a housemaid in Jefferson Davis' house and gathering information for the Union.

     For all the horrors and atrocities that slavery brought, and it brought many, too many, it was also the soil which produced great minds, great people, people who inspired and taught us in so many ways. People without whom the United States could not have survived. I was contemplating at what point in history slavery could have best been stopped. Ideally, it would have been by waylaying the first Dutch slave traders so that it never took root to begin with. But then I remembered all of these great people and many more who contributed so much to who we all are as a nation. I remembered Les Mitchell who was a youth leader at the church I grew up in, and who was there for me at moments in my childhood when no one else was. Without slavery, he wouldn't have been there either.

      It is a general principle that more often than not, some of our greatest moments of growth, some of the most powerful lessons we learn, some of the moments which define who we are come from tragedy, from horrors, from things that happened which should never have happened. It is a truth that, without the Holocaust, it's likely that the State of Israel wouldn't exist today. Without the horrors of the Civil War, slavery itself wouldn't have been abolished in the United States. Without the Atomic Bomb dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan would probably never have surrendered in WWII. How many people have experienced radical positive life changes from literally dying for a short time?

      There is a story from the Zen tradition:

-

There once was an old Zen farmer. Every day, the farmer used his horse to help work his fields and keep his farm healthy.

But one day, the horse ran away. All the villagers came by and said, “We're so sorry to hear this. This is such bad luck.”

But the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”

The villagers were confused, but decided to ignore him. A few weeks went by and then one afternoon, while the farmer was working outside, he looked up and saw his horse running toward him. But the horse was not alone. The horse was returning to him with a whole herd of horses. So now the farmer had 10 horses to help work his fields.

All the villagers came by to congratulate the farmer and said, “Wow! This is such good luck!”

But the farmer responded, “Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?

A few weeks later, the farmer's son came over to visit and help his father work on the farm. While trying to tame one of the horses, the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg.

The villagers came by to commiserate and said, “How awful. This is such bad luck.”

Just as he did the first time, the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”

A month later, the farmer’s son was still recovering. He wasn’t able to walk or do any manual labor to help his father around the farm.

A regiment of the army came marching through town conscripting every able-bodied young man to join them. When the regiment came to the farmer’s house and saw the young boy's broken leg, they marched past and left him where he lay.

Of course, all the villagers came by and said, “Amazing! This is such good luck. You're so fortunate.”

And you know the farmer’s response by now…

"Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?"

-

No one wants tragedies or hurtful things to happen to them. No one wants atrocities to occur to anyone. The Holocaust was an atrocity. Slavery was an atrocity. But without the filth and dirt of those atrocities, we would not have had such beautiful things take root and grow as a result.

Women Teaching and Pastoring and Why Paul Wrote What He Did About It

 Something I haven't much touched on about is the role of women among a community of disciples. The truth is, I've kind of ignored it, but that probably isn't the best way to approach it or anything for that matter. Though, in a way, it's kind of resolving itself.

     I was initially taught that women shouldn't be teaching or holding authority over men within a church or denomination, and if they did so it was unbiblical and a violation of Scripture. This is, very much, the traditional view, and is the reason why so many churches and denominations still refuse to ordain women as pastors or priests.

     This view is based primarily on two passages in the New Testament. Both are found in letters written by Paul. The first is 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36. The second is 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Jesus Himself never said anything about excluding women from teaching positions or positions of authority, although all twelve of His Apostles were men specifically. Because the two passages against it are found in Paul's writings, He is often seen as a misogynist and he and his writings maligned by those who support women's ordination. The truth is, Paul was anything but a misogynist.

     Paul's worldview regarding any member of a community of disciples can be summed up in his letter to the Galatians, chapter 3 verse 28, which reads, "There is not one Judean neither Greek, not one slave neither free person, not one male and female; because you are all one person within the Anointed Yeshua." In Paul's mind, all were the same in the body of Christ. All held the same Spirit, the same Logos and were members of the same Logos. Jesus Himself shares a similar sentiment when He says in Luke that, "in the resurrection they will neither be married nor given in marriage." That is, there will be neither male nor female.

      This is part of a deeper truth. God is neither male nor female, and His Logos of which we all share a part is also neither male nor female. Male and female are attributes of the flesh. The Logos is eternal, ageless, and outside of time. The attributes of the flesh are impermanent and will pass away. Paul and Jesus both were concerned with the disciples living in the eternal, not the impermanent.

     So, what are we to make of Paul's statements then regarding women and teaching or leadership roles? First, Paul didn't write the passage in 1 Corinthians. It was inserted later. How can I possibly say this? When you read Paul's writings in the original language over and over again, you get used to the way he speaks. You get his rhythms and vocabulary and even patterns of thought. The passage in 1 Corinthians doesn't read anything like Paul's speech. It sticks out like a sore thumb among his words. In some manuscripts, it's not even in this position, but appended to the end of a different chapter. Furthermore, it breaks the natural flow of thought and context of the chapter. Someone inserted it after the letter was written for their own agenda.

     Second, Paul did write the passage in 2 Timothy. This is his wording and flow of thought. But what he means and how it's too often translated are two different things. You also have to understand the cultural context of the period. Women had few rights. They had more rights in Roman society than they did in Judean society, but even then they were still relegated to second class citizens and legally had to be under the authority of a man, either their father or their husband if they wanted any legal standing. This isn't too dissimilar to a woman's legal standing in the United States prior to the twentieth century and the early parts of it, or in the United Kingdom. It was only in the latter part of the twentieth century that they could even open their own bank accounts or purchase their own land. They had no legal standing in a court either without a man's authority. And so this is the cultural and legal reality Paul is trying to advise Timothy in.

      But what did he mean in the actual verses? "Let a woman learn with all stillness with all submission; and I don't allow a woman to teach neither to dominate [also "murder"] a man, but to be with stillness." First, the word usually translated as "silence", and here I have rendered "stillness", actually means to be still, at rest, quiet. It's the word used by the Eastern Orthodox Church to describe their mystics and meditation techniques, "hesychia". One who is in a state of meditation is "with stillness".  Furthermore, "with all submission." To whom or what is one submitted when they are meditating? The Spirit of Christ.  The second word of note in the Greek is "authenteo," usually translated as merely to "hold authority over," but this is a softening of the word's meaning. It literally means "to dominate, have total power over," and also "to murder." The force of this word is to have another's life in their hands. Consider the culture. It is the same with his instructions on hair and veiling. Paul wasn't trying to limit these sisters because he was misogynistic. He was trying to protect them from a society that would destroy them if they became "too free" in that society's eyes. Women who weren't veiled were either slaves or whores. Women who were too outspoken were put in their place. Women who attempted to dominate men often found themselves dead. Paul was trying to prevent that. He was protecting them from the realities of the world they lived in, and they knew it.

     Twenty first century America is a different world and society entirely from the first century Roman Empire. We've gone through a lot of painful but necessary evolution where the place of women in society is concerned, and their rights. There is no reason whatsoever, culturally speaking, that women cannot be in positions of authority or teaching positions in our society. The truth is, women frequently bring a compassion and wisdom in their leadership and teaching that male leaders and teachers don't. They bring a more whole, more well rounded picture of God's love and personality, as they were intended to.

     I could also bring up the number of women writers, deaconesses, and teachers in the ancient church and the church throughout the centuries, and even heroines in the Old Testament, all of whom have contributed significantly and beautifully to its spiritual life. All of whom were clearly moved by the Spirit to do these things.

     To sum this up, yes, women can and should be allowed to teach and hold ordained positions. No, Paul wasn't a misogynist. He was trying to protect his sisters from those who were.

The Disciple's Response to the Murders of Alex and Nicole by ICE

 People are angry, and that anger is justified. There's no getting around that. Right have been violated. The Constitution has been violated. People have been murdered by federal law enforcement on the street in broad daylight.

     How should a disciple of Jesus Christ respond? First question to ask, "What did Jesus teach?" Second question to ask, "What did Jesus do? What example did He set?" A following question, "What example did His immediate disciples set based on what He taught them?"

     Neither Jesus nor His disciples were strangers to shocking abuses of power and violence against them or others. Whether it came from the Judean religious leadership, the Herods, or from Roman authorities, they saw it every day. They experienced it themselves. Unjust beatings and humiliations, kangaroo court trials, mob violence, and executions on a whim. Consider Stephen's brutal death in Acts. Consider how many times Paul was beaten. Consider Peter and John's arrest by the Sanhedrin. This was the world they lived in.

     How did they respond to all of this? Did they attempt to hurt or injure their attackers? Did they attempt to rebel against the governing authorities? Did Jesus when He was arrested?

     Be angry and do not "sin". Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Return no one evil for evil. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing."

     Every fiber of my flesh tells me to respond with anger, outrage, and it burns towards violence in response. Violence meant to protect the innocent, at least in my mind. Protect the people I love, the people who didn't deserve this, what remains of the ideals of the country I was raised in. Anger begins to become hatred for those causing the harm, and it becomes incredibly difficult to really "see" them and "love them as myself." This is my flesh's threat response in action, and it is overwhelming. But it is born from the flesh. Understandable. Justifiable even. But it is born from the flesh.

     The disciple of Jesus Christ cannot operate from the flesh and remain a disciple. Jesus and His disciples taught operating from the Spirit, the Logos; cooperation with and submission to the God who is love of whom we all share a piece, a part, a shred. With whom we are one. He taught the most important thing was to love the other person no matter who it was or what they had done. To forgive so many times you lose count. To not judge. His compassion had no limit, even for those shredding His skin with a whip, beating the hell out of Him, and nailing Him to a wooden cross. This was the example He set. This is what God is truly like.

     Alex Pretti was a child of God and carried His logos. So was and did the man who shot him. God loves both of them. Nicole Good was a child of God and carried His logos. So was and did Jonathan Ross. God loves both of them too. Alex and Nicole are now in His presence and are safe from all harm. But God wants the men who killed them in His presence too, made right and restored from what led them to this. God's love does not end when someone commits an atrocity. It sets out to redeem and restore them from the serious error and malfunction that's causing it. That is God's justice, restoration and reconciliation.

     If we are going to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we must not cooperate with our flesh's threat response. We must disengage from it, neutralize it, and instead cooperate with that God born nature that is inside each one of us. We must love, even those who try to destroy us.

When Jesus Had Compassion On Demons

 Turned to the story of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke this morning. I think a lot of folks just see this as Jesus casting out a lot more demons than normal from someone. I think I did when I heard this story growing up. But there's a lot more going on here that you're not really taught to catch. Jesus isn't just showing mercy to the demonized man. He's also showing mercy and compassion to the demons themselves. 

     It is the demons who first address Him and beg Him not to "torment" them. In the Greek, this is an interesting word, "basanizo". It literally means "to interrogate harshly". To examine by torture. Imagine interrogating someone by waterboarding and you've got it, but the emphasis is on the interrogation, not the torture. 

     The demons are begging for mercy from Him, and it gives Him pause. He stops what He was doing, commanding them to leave, and asks what the demon's name is. He treats the demon like a person, not a thing or a monster. It's here he learns that there are a lot of them in this man. The word in the Greek text isn't Greek, it's Latin, "legion". That's an interesting choice for Luke to use this specific word. It suggests that this man might have been speaking Latin at the time, and the nearby settlement was a Roman one. That they were farming pigs is also a clue these were not Judean settlers.

     The demons beg Him not to send them into the Abyss. In this day and worldview, this would have been another term for Tartaros, the hellish zone of the Underworld where monsters, Titans, and the truly monstrous human souls were consigned. They know He can do it. But they also appear to believe that He might show mercy on them. Isn't that fascinating? The demons trust who He is enough that they know He might show mercy on them. The context I think we're missing here through our own learned prejudices is that, and what Jesus Himself recognized, is that the demons themselves were suffering too. Perhaps they were trapped with the man just as much as the man was trapped with them. Maybe what we're missing here is that the demons were the ones asking Him for help, not the man who wasn't in control at the time.

     (This reminds me of a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder I once heard about from my Abnormal Psychology professor in college. It was actually one of her patients. The alternate identities came to the psychologist looking for help when they couldn't rouse the person's main or original identity or self. They were actually scared for that personality, didn't know what to do, and sought the therapist ought themselves.)

     And that trust was not misplaced. Notice they ask Him to send them into the pigs. Why can't they just leave and do it themselves? Because they're trapped there. And Jesus has compassion. He doesn't send them into the Abyss. He doesn't "torment" them further. He just releases them from the man, and the man from them. He sees their suffering as well as the man's and He has compassion on all of them.

     But the demons are not "healed". They receive the mercy they ask for, but they are still suffering, still angry, still fearful, and once in control of the pigs, the pigs destroy themselves. This wasn't Jesus' doing. This was the demons' doing to the pigs and themselves through their own choices.

     The man however is free from the demons. He begs to go with Jesus, but Jesus tells him to go home and tell them what happened to him. I could be wrong, but I suspect this is because the man is a Roman. This is more of an act of compassion than it seems. The man has been suffering for a long time, and he needs to time to be with his own people and heal rather than come under scrutiny as a gentile following Jesus.

Fallout and the Problem of Evil

 If you're a Fallout player, chances are you're also a fan of the Amazon T.V. series. They've done an amazing job of it. In the most recent episode there's a scene where the main villain has taken people from the wasteland and plugged a mind control device into the back of their heads in order to reprogram them into happy, harmless, productive members of his ideal of society. In this episode, one of the main characters, Lucy, who also happens to be his daughter, is abhorred that he's done this. She's abhorred that he's taken away their free wills, their personalities, and everything which made them who they were and turned them into whom he thinks they should be. Are they happier? They certainly think so, but they're no longer the people they were. To underscore his justification for it, he brings in two members of rival gangs already implanted with the devices. These devices haven't been activated yet. The two begin to try and kill each other. Lucy tries to get them to see reason, to talk them down, but they're not even listening. Her father then tells her, all you have to do to make them stop is "push the button."

     One of the arguments against both the goodness of God and His omnipotence is the question, "Why does God allow evil and suffering?" Honestly, this episode of Fallout illustrates the answer perfectly. Yes, He could "push the button," but it would be just as much an abomination to Him as it was to Lucy if not more so. In order to totally eliminate "evil" in the world, He'd have to wipe our personalities and take away our free wills. He'd have to do to us what her father was doing to the Wastelanders without their consent, violating them, and in the process destroy each and every individual. Honestly, only human beings would think that was an appropriate solution to the problem of evil and suffering.

     Lucy couldn't handle it. She pushed the button to get them to stop. But that's a button that God will never push. He wants our voluntary cooperation and will not violate or destroy our free will to get it. So yes, He will let us hurt ourselves and each other, because the consequences of the alternative are unthinkable to Love Himself.

A Message From The Lord, "You Still Aren't Listening..."

 This message was given to me tonight from the Lord. It wouldn't let me go. Believe me or don't. Here it is:

“You still aren’t listening. You harvest what you plant. If you plant apple seeds, will they grow a banana tree? If you plant carrot seeds, will they produce a rose bush? Again and again, I’ve told you how you are to live, what is the best way to live, and you refuse to do it. I told you explicitly to love your neighbor as yourself. I told you explicitly to love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and to not return evil for evil, because I will be the one to repay. You did not listen. If you planted cruelty, why do you expect mercy to grow? If you planted greed, why do you expect to harvest generosity? Rotten trees can’t produce healthy fruit, and healthy trees don’t produce rotten fruit. That’s not a moral lesson, it’s a fact of nature. Why did you expect good, healthy fruit from a rotten, diseased tree? Did I do that to you? No, you planted it there yourself and kept telling yourselves that it would give you superior fruit any day now. A rotten tree! You have let these things grow unchecked and now they are coming ripe and you don’t understand why you are getting the fruit you are! Did I do this? No, of course not! Why would I give you diseased fruit? Why would any good parent give their children rotten food? No, you did this yourself, and now you must satisfy yourself with its rot. I told you what to plant and how, and you did not listen. But now, please listen, I’m begging you. Do justice for the poor, the outcast, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Love one another and be merciful to the person you don’t know. Don’t return harm for harm, but give back compassion, love, and mercy to those who abuse you. Only then will you be acting like My children. I’m begging you, turn around before anything worse happens. It won’t be Me doing it, but it will be the harvest that you yourselves planted, and it will be terrible. If you plant hatred, you will harvest suffering to your own destruction. Doesn’t even your own history teach you this? Even if you don’t see it, your children and your grandchildren will, and you will bring it upon them. Not because I wish it, but because you planted it. Uproot these rotten crops and plant healthy ones that will preserve you and yours. Love, don’t judge, forgive, be fair to one another. I’m begging you. Listen to Me this time.”