Parallels: Elisha-Jesus

• ELISHA:

  Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

  2 Kings 4:1-7

• JESUS:

  On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
  
  
  Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

  John 2:1-11

• ELISHA:
  

  A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.'” So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

  2 Kings 4:42-44

• JESUS:
  

  Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?” And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. Those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.

  Matthew 15:32-39

The Return

It’s funny: I’ve had this blog title floating around in my head for months now. I thought the title was going to be referring to my return to Meeting for Worship after my hip surgery.

It’s not, though: it’s about my return to Jesus.

Five years ago, I began an annual tradition of reading the New Testament, starting on Christmas and finishing by the end of Lent. Two years ago, after I finished my annual reading, I felt that I was being called to take a break. I didn’t seem to get anything from that reading—I’d become too familiar with the text and had read it too frequently. So, last year come Christmas, I didn’t start reading the New Testament. Actually, I don’t think I’d even picked up my favorite translation (Richmond Lattimore’s) for over a year.

Today I had lunch with a dear friend of mine—I’ll call her R—who I hadn’t really gotten to visit with for several months. During lunch, she mentioned this worship meeting she attends every Tuesday night. She’d mentioned this a few times before. They read a section of the Bible, talk about the word or phrase that pops out at them, and then pray together. It sounded a lot like a modified lectio divina group.

Coincidentally, I just finished a book called “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening” a few weeks ago that spoke about lectio devina, as well as centering prayer. (Centering prayer deserves its own entry, but I will chime in briefly that apparently centering prayer is what I’ve been doing at Meeting for Worship for years and just didn’t know what to call it. If you want to read a book that really, really explains just what we’re trying to do at Meeting for Worship in concrete, practical steps, this is THE book. And surprisingly, it’s written not by a Quaker, but a contemplative Episcopalian.) Lectio divina is a practice I’ve read about in quite a few books now, but never felt motivated to really try. I found the idea interesting, but just didn’t feel an urge to try it then and there.

After lunch today, I suddenly found myself interested in attending R’s worship meeting with her. But I didn’t know when my husband would be getting home tonight (he’s often out doing service calls at locations over half an hour away, so when we eat dinner is not predictable), so I told her I’d have to let her know later if I could come.

Shortly after I got home from lunch, my husband calls to let me know he’s coming home early.

Way opened!

Tonight’s focus was on two selections from the Gospel of John, chapter 1, lines 6-8 and 19-28. We read three translations: the NIV (1:6-8, 1:19-28), the King James (1:6-8, 1:19-28), and the Message (1:6-8, 1:19-28), in that order. For the first reading, we were encouraged to focus on a word that drew our attention and then share our thoughts about it.

The word that jumped out at me was “light” in lines 6-8:

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

This term has particular meaning to Quakers—we talk a lot about the “inner Light”, the “Light within”, etc.—but the source of our history with that term is biblical. I happen to be reading J. Brent Bill’s book “Mind the Light”, so the word “Light” really popped out of the page.

But that was the… somewhat predictable response. Looking at the same text a second time as seen through a different translation encouraged me to move beyond the predictable and the practiced responses and find something new.

The second word that called out to me was the word “through”:

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him believe.

What struck me was the idea of coming to believe in something through another being. “Through him, all men believe.” It almost felt like the “through” was the verb in that clause, not a preposition. It is often “through” other people that we come to have faith; and Light works through us… We can be conduits to that Light and catalysts to the Light in those we meet.

The third reading revealed to me a pairing of phrases: “completely honest” and “plain truth”, from lines 19-20 in the Message translation:

19-20When Jews from Jerusalem sent a group of priests and officials to ask John who he was, he was completely honest. He didn’t evade the question. He told the plain truth: “I am not the Messiah.”

These phrases sound synonymous, but they’re not always. Sometimes when I’m focused on being “completely honest”, I speak too much and too long. I’m speaking honestly, but my overabundance of words obscures the truth. So there’s a difference between being “completely honest” and living “plain truth”.

What struck me the most, though, about the entire experience tonight was how different an experience it was to read the New Testament in this way. Hearing what words or phrases struck others—hearing the Spirit behind those words—made this text that I’ve now read or heard over a dozen times feel new. I was able to see the text with new eyes.

And what also struck me at the end, as we were praying out loud in a circle,one after another—which is a new experience for me!—was how centered I felt, how centered the entire group felt. It was the same sense that I’ve experienced at Meeting for Worship… but with people whose theological beliefs and practices are different than mine. Yet the Spirit was there, just as it is at Meeting for Worship.

I was called to put myself in an uncomfortable position, to be around people whose beliefs I believe to be different than mine, and to be open and vulnerable with them just the same. I expected to find it challenging—it was. I didn’t expect the experience to be so enjoyable and spiritually refreshing.

Friends, we are called not just to the Light, but to the Light through discomfort. Only by being uncomfortable can we be given the opportunities to respond to the Light within others who reflect the Light differently than we do.

But it is the same Light, Friends.

The Testing of Abraham: To Follow Where We Are Led, a Bible Post

Imagine this: you and your wife have tried and tried for years to have a baby.  After so many failed attempts, you and your wife have finally given up all hope. Your wife no longer has her periods; you both have entered into old age. Then, God comes to you and says:

“I will surely return to you about this time next year, and [your wife] will then have a son.”

Your reaction, of course, is to burst out laughing. And when you tell your wife, she does the same.

But God knows what He’s doing–of course–and come the next year, you and your wife finally have a baby. You name him Isaac, as God directed, and life is good. Isaac grows up strong in your faith and you–of course–absolutely adore him.

Then God calls to you and tells you:

“Take your son Isaac… and there you shall offer him up to me as a sacrifice.”

Wait, what?

(Readers familiar with the Old Testament will recognize the main character in this story as Abraham. Readers not familiar with the Old Testament will find this story in chapters 18 and 22 of Genesis.)

As Abraham is leading Isaac up the mountain God led him to, Isaac, being rather astute, notices that his father has all the makings for a sacrifice to God, except one. He asks:

“Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?” (Genesis 22: 7)

And his father, perhaps out of a desire to hide the truth from his son or perhaps because he believes what he says, replies:

“God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” (Genesis 22: 8)

But as they get to the appointed place, there’s been no word from God. Abraham builds an altar and places Isaac on it. Just as he’s about to slaughter his son, a messenger from God shows up and tells Abraham not to kill Isaac. Relieved, but still needing an offering, Abraham spies a ram caught in a thorny bush.

Two thoughts struck me as I was considering this story. The first is how faithfully Abraham was willing to follow where God led him. As Quakers, we believe that we, like Abraham, can be led by God. But are we as willing to follow our leadings? If we are given a leading that we know is from the Divine Source, but is utterly abhorrent to us, are we still willing to follow where God would lead us? Or are we more willing to follow those leadings that are comfortable, that do not shove us violently out of comfort zone and into a really, really uncomfortable place?

In addition to the Bible, I’ve been reading “Fit for Freedom, not for Friendship”, a book about Quakers and their relationships with African Americans in the US. One thing that has stood out to me is how faithful individual Friends were in following their Guide, and how often bodies of Friends would not follow them. I wonder if Friends back then (I’m only partway through) were subject to the same doubt by other Friends that Friends today who are given uncomfortable leadings are subject to. I wonder if we are more likely to doubt the veracity of another’s leading if it’s one that makes us uncomfortable.

Back to Abraham… the second thought that came to me was how often the intention behind God’s leading is not what we expect. God told Abraham, “Go, kill your son for me.” Abraham, like most of us would have, must have assumed that the purpose of walking up that mountain was to kill his son. But the purpose was to reveal the strength of Abraham’s faith. The notes in my Bible indicate that God was “testing” Abraham, to see if he was truly worthy of the blessings God was planning on giving him. I have a different idea: the test wasn’t for God’s benefit, but for Abraham’s, so that Abraham would truly know how strong his faith was and would no longer doubt it.

Sometimes God calls us to do something and we think we know the intent behind it. Sometimes the call itself seems to contain its own purpose. But if we get caught up in what we believe will be the end result of the leading, we may miss the point. If Abraham had gotten caught up in the idea of killing Isaac, he might never have made it up that mountain. Sometimes the point of a leading is just to follow it. God alone knows what the purpose is. All we are called to do is to be faithful to our Guide and follow where He leads.

Creation: Genesis 1-5, a Bible Post

Last Sunday, I made the decision to read the Bible again, this time at a much slower pace, with the Apocryphal books, and taking notes. My goal is to post my thoughts on what I’ve read at least once a week, to encourage me to think about what I’m reading instead of just plowing through it, as I did last time. The Bible translation I’m reading is the Catholic Companion Edition.

The first 5 pages of the Bible are incredibly dense. I took notes on every page and have multiple subjects I want to write about. If this post ends up rather disjointed, I apologize.

For me, the most remarkable part of the first 5 pages of the Bible are the different creation stories: how the world was made, how we were made, how suffering began, how nomadic life began. Until I actually read Genesis for the first time in college, I was unaware that there was more than one creation story in the Bible. I believed that the creation story went something like this:

1. God creates stuff;
2. God creates Adam and puts him in the garden of Eden;
3. Adam gets lonely, so God creates Eve;
4. They’re told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil;
5. Eve’s tricked by the devil disguised as a snake and eats the apple;
6. Eve and Adam are forcefully removed from Eden by God

In the first chapter of Genesis, God does indeed go about creating “stuff”, but otherwise, the story is much simpler than my flawed image:

“God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, saying to them: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.'”
(Genesis 1: 27-28)

In this version of the creation story, God creates both man and woman at the same time, in the same way, or, if there is anything different about the way God created woman, the author doesn’t deem it worth mentioning. The second verse also indicates that women were created with men. This is the creation story I relate to the most, with both man and woman being created in God’s image.

(One subject I don’t want to go into is the debate between Creationism and Evolution. For the record, I believe in Evolution and take the days in Genesis Chapter 1 as, at most, metaphors.)

The creation story in Genesis Chapter 2 is quite different and seems to be emphasized more in most Christian churches. This is the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man, the story of how Eve was tricked by Satan and led men into Sin.

Let’s start with the end of the story, which revealed to me something I’d never noticed about the beginning:

“Then the Lord God said: ‘See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever.”

(Genesis 3: 22)

Now, what this verse implies is that man is mortal from the beginning, because he’d need to eat from the Tree of Life to gain immortality. I think that’s pretty straightforward from the text.

So, keep man’s mortality in mind as we return to the one of the first events of this creation story:

“The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. The Lord God gave man this order: ‘You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.‘”

(Genesis 2: 15-17)

Then Adam gets lonely, so God creates Eve from his rib. Then our friend the cunning serpent shows up and entices Eve to eat the forbidden fruit:

“But the serpent said to the woman: ‘You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.'”

(Genesis 3: 4-5)

The rest of the story is well-known: both man and woman are exiled from the Garden of Eden and doomed to a life of trials and suffering because they disobeyed God’s order. This story is an attempt at explaining why we, as people, have to suffer.

This is the question I have: if man was already doomed to die, why did God threaten him with death as a punishment for eating from the tree of knowledge?

Now that Adam and Eve have left Eden, they decide to start a family and have two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain was a herdsmen while Abel was a farmer. God disdained Abel’s offering while extolling Cain’s, which made Abel so angry that he then went out and killed his brother. This is not traditionally viewed as a creation story, but I believe it is. Abel’s punishment is that he becomes a restless wanderer–a nomad. This story is the creation of nomads, the explanation for why the nomadic tribes must wander endlessly, without ever settling and finding a home.

One question I have about this creation story is from Genesis 4: 17, where it’s mentioned that Cain “had relations with his wife”. Where did his wife come from? The only people that have been mentioned thus far are Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel.

In Genesis 5: 1, we are given a summary of the creation stories:

“This is the record of the descendants of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God; he created them male and female. When they were created, he blessed them and named them ‘man’.”

(Genesis 5: 1)

This seems to be a combination of the two creation stories of chapter 1 and chapter 2.

The story then moves on to Noah and the flood.

My Secret Lenten Offering

I know Quakers don’t celebrate Lent, but I was raised Catholic, and this practice has stuck with me. Every year come Lent, I try to think of something to give up or to do. The purpose for me hasn’t been to make Lenten offerings temporary changes (“I will stop playing video games for Lent”), but permanent ones (“I will pray every day”). Regardless of what I do or do not believe about Jesus’s death and resurrection, I enjoy celebrating Lent as a way to remind myself of the importance of spiritual growth and of nurturing my relationship with God.

So, as Lent approached this year, I started thinking: “What should I give up for Lent this year?” Most years, I come up with something flimsy, or what I decide to give up changes multiple times during the course of Lent–the most memorable example of this was when I was a college student and tried to give up a certain kind of meat while eating mainly in the school’s culinary-challenged dining hall and trying to get enough calories at meals to not binge on PopTarts or Ramen or EasyMac–but this year, I came up with something that would stick right away.

This Lent, I decided, I would give up over-eating. After all, I believe that over-eating is a moral issue: by over-eating, one is, in theory, preventing someone else from eating that food; it’s consuming more than one’s fair share of Earth’s limited resources. And, besides, I’ve been trying to lose weight for years. (Can you guess which is the real reason and which the excuse?)

And that’s what I’ve been trying to do. That’s the Lenten Offering I’ve been open about with others, even posting it as a status update on my facebook account. (One Friend misread “over-eating” as “over-reacting”, which sounds like a good idea for a future Lenten Offering.) For Lent, I’m giving up over-eating.

But in secret, there’s something else I’ve given up for Lent this year, something that came to me as an idea months ago and has now burrowed so deep inside me that the decision was made long before Lent began… something that came to me in the midst of my reading through the entire Bible in a meager five-month period:

To give up spiritual/religious reading for Lent.

But, the Stout Person of Faith in me pipes up, that’s not something you should be giving up for Lent! That’s something to do MORE of during Lent, not less!

And yet, there it is, my secret Lenten Offering: I’ve given up spiritual reading for Lent. Because, when it comes down to it, I’ve done a LOT of spiritual/religious reading in the last 5 years. I’ve read the New Testament–from beginning to end–every year, starting at Christmas and ending at Easter. I just finished reading the entire Bible–Genesis to Revelation–in a five-month period that ended in mid-February. I’ve made a study of the religions I identify within: Christianity/Quakerism and Buddhism.

I’ve done a lot of spiritual reading. The time has come for me to shed this and find something new. What have I been avoiding Doing by spending so much time reading? What other practices have I been too busy reading to try?

So, here it is: This Lent (in addition to giving up over-eating), I’m giving up spiritual/religious reading to open myself to other practices, to not become locked in habit and ritual… to remind myself that the purpose behind all the reading I’ve been doing isn’t to study, but to grow.

Finding Jesus in Leviticus

Earlier this year, I was approached by a f/Friend who wanted to know if I’d help her read the Bible. Always up for a good challenge, I agreed. Unfortunately, life became too busy for her and the others who originally agreed to read the Bible along with me; but that’s neither here nor there. This is the schedule I’ve been using: http://www.thefunnel.org/bible.html .

But as I read through the selections, something surprising happened: I started to actually enjoy the readings. I began looking forward to them. I realized that the selections were not enough; I’ve started filling in the gaps the last couple of weeks. I don’t know if I’ll read the entire Old Testament before next year, but I think I’d like to try. What’s most important, though, is that I continue to be as open while I read.

A few days ago, I tackled Leviticus. I have a lot of history with Leviticus, most of it bad. When I first read Leviticus in high school, I started joking that maybe it should just be tossed out of the Bible. In recent years, my perception of Leviticus has been tainted by those who use it to deny rights, respect, love to anyone who’s not straight. “Abomination!” pretty much summed up what I thought Leviticus was about and how I, in turn, felt about Leviticus.

But hidden amongst the messages about what’s clean or unclean are glowing bits of Light that shone through and reminded me, surprisingly, of Jesus:

“The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.” Leviticus 19: 13

This God cares about the kind of people who would need the money right away and can’t wait until morning to be paid.

“You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19: 14

This God cares about people who don’t fit bodily norms. This God cares so much about people not taking advantage of the blind or the deaf that He ties it in with fear of Him: if you fear God, you don’t mistreat the blind or the deaf.

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19: 18

Love your neighbor as yourself. And, as we know from Jesus’s teaching about the Good Samaritan, the question isn’t who is our neighbor, but who isn’t. (Answer: everyone is our neighbor.)

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 19: 33-34

This God cares about immigrants and wanderers. This God cares about the homeless, the gypsies, the strangers. This God not only wants us to be kind, but to treat these people who are passing through as if they were natives and love them as much as ourselves. That is pretty awesome.

“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you.” Leviticus 25: 35-36

This God cares about families, and not just those members who are easy to love or live with, but those who perhaps we sometimes think of as deadbeats or bums. It’s not just the people we don’t know personally who we’re supposed love as much as we love ourselves, but the people closest to us: especially those who need our help.

This God reminds me of Jesus.

A New Perspective on Jesus

I’ve been thinking about Jesus for a long time. I was raised Roman Catholic and grew up with a deep faith in God. But I was never sure about Jesus. For a while, I believed in the Trinity. I remember crying while reading about Jesus’s crucifixion in one of the Gospels when I was around 12. I felt so sad that he was killed. In a way, I grew up with Jesus. He was inspiration for moral behavior, he was my faith mentor.

And yet, there was always a sense of discomfort whenever a prayer directly addressed Jesus. (I had the same discomfort with prayers addressed to Mary, though that’s a bit off-topic for this post.) No matter what I wanted to believe about Jesus, praying to him always made feel twitchy, like telling a white lie.

As I said, this has been going on for a while. In high school, I became determined to read the whole Bible before graduation. By the time I graduated from college, I was only to Kings 1 in the Old Testament. As Christmas of 2004 approached, I decided it was time to finish the Bible. My goal was the end of Lent 2005… and I succeeded. In the winter of 2006, I found Richmond Lattimore’s translation of the New Testament. Since then, I start reading the New Testament around Christmas and finish by the end of Lent.

All this to say that I’ve read the New Testament at least 4 times now and have been waiting for clearness on this for over 15 years. All this, also, to delay revealing a discernment that has been growing in me since childhood and only became clear to me while randomly talking about Jesus with my husband last night.

I don’t believe Jesus was God. I don’t believe he was the son of God, at least not in the virgin birth, unique way most Christians do. What I do believe is that Jesus was a son of God, in the same way that we’re all sons and daughters of God. But most of all, I believe Jesus was a man–just a man–who was able to connect with God on such a deep level that he and God became united. Jesus lived and breathed God’s will. By the time of his death, he was One with God.

And this is so important, because if Jesus was just a man, if there was nothing unique or special about his birth, this means that all of us have that same opportunity to become united with God. We don’t get to say, “Well, Jesus was Jesus. I’m only human, after all!” as an excuse for our spiritual failings.

We all can connect with God. We all have that potential within us to follow Jesus’s path to God, to live in “the way and the truth and the life”.

And one of the best ways to do this, in my experience, is by reading the New Testament and becoming familiar with Jesus’s life and teachings. He said more than “Love your neighbors as yourself” (and he wasn’t even the first to say that anyways!). His life reveals the importance of fellowship, of solitude, of prayer, of ministry, of healing, and of constructive criticism.

So, now I know the answer to the “Am I Christian” question that I’ve been asking myself for the last few years. Yes, even though many Christians wouldn’t agree with my theology. I am a Christian because I try to follow Jesus and because the New Testament is my primary Holy Book.

Judging: A Slogan Post

Do not judge.

(from the Gospel of Matthew)

Earlier this morning, I had to clean my glasses. And it occured to me that this is a metaphor, that to see clearly, one’s lenses must be clean. I’m hardly the first to come up with this metaphor; the rest of the quote from Matthew speaks about how one can remove the speck from someone else’s eye if there’s a log in your own. At the time, though, I connected the metaphor with Buddhism’s Right Understanding. It’s interesting to me to see similarities between Christianity and Buddhism.

There’s a post I’ve been meaning to write recently about whether Quakerism is a Christian religion, but I am still trying to discern its contents… I am also likely procrastinating.

I’ve been rereading Richmond Lattimore’s translation of the New Testament for the second or third year in a row. I started right before Christmas and am hoping to finish during Lent. But I’ve read the NT so frequently in the last few years that it is starting to feel a little stale. Still, there are things I enjoy particularly about the Gospels: in Mark, it’s the simplicity of the story–this is the Gospel I feel is probably most accurate in terms of what actually happened during Jesus’s life; in Matthew, the Beatitudes; in Luke, the amazing story of the friendship between Mary the mother of Jesus and Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist that starts the Gospel; and in John, the whole mystical aspect.

And yet, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps I am meant to be reading a different religious text at this time. I plan on reading the Qur’an immediately after finishing the New Testament. This will be my second time reading the Qur’an, but the first time that I’ve preceded it with the New Testament.

Clean vs. Profane: A Slogan Post

What God has made clean, do not you make profane.

(Richmond Lattimore’s translation of the New Testament, from Acts, pg. 278)

The context for this quote is one of the apostles–Paul, I think–has been asked to have supper with a family who is not Jewish and doesn’t follow kosher dietary laws. An angel speaks to the apostle and basically frees him from the Jewish kosher laws, which are found in Leviticus.

The abused quote “Homosexuality is an abomination unto the Lord” is also found in Leviticus. This New Testament quote is one of the reasons I don’t think the Bible is as anti-homosexuality as it’s been made out to be. I know some of you are going to disagree with me about this, and that’s okay. But from my reading of the Bible, and especially the New Testament, the sin seems to be overwhelming lust: when Paul talks about men having sex with men or women having sex with women (women same-sex sex only appears once, that I can recall, in the NT), it seems to be about lust–that these men and women were so overwhelmed with lust that members of the opposite sex could no longer satisfy their hunger. This seems very different from loving, committed same-sex relationships. I can imagine Paul raging against our society’s love of meaningless sex in TV shows and movies, Paul scolding us for our endless desire to become more attractive, Paul being horrified at the abundance of relationships based solely on sex.

I think he would be less bothered by same-sex couples trying to get married than he would be by the ridiculous amount of sex in movies or TV shows. I think he’d be more worried about sex without love than sex without anatomically-correct parts.

But all this is about Paul anyways. Jesus himself is silent about same-sex relationships.

This is what today’s slogan brings up in my mind. But I’m left with a question: how do I act on today’s slogan? And I think this slogan has two meanings: first, that one shouldn’t say something is profane when God has made it clean; second, that one should not sully what God has created clean. There are so many practical applications of the second meaning: that one shouldn’t desecrate nature, that one shouldn’t deny another person his or her humanity… And a corrollary: what you have made profane, restore it to its original state.

And yet, I can’t help but feel that I’m somehow missing the point here.

The Prodigal… Cat?

Last night, as my thoughts were wandering as they usually do right before I fall asleep, I started thinking about my favorite memory of Sugar. We used to lock her up at night in Rob’s office (with food/water dishes, two beds and a padded office chair, and two litter boxes), so we could get some sleep. Most mornings at 5 AM, she’d start announcing quite loudly (she was a Siamese, after all) about how she was tired of being locked up and wanted attention. Some mornings, I’d give in and go to her. And when I did that, I’d open the door and she’d be there literally beaming at me, rubbing her whole body against my legs, and nearly jumping into my arms. I’d pick her up, she’d wrap her forelegs around my neck to “hug” me, and then nuzzle under my chin with such force that I’d have to bend my neck up. She was overjoyed at seeing me again, after only being apart from me for 5, maybe 6, hours.

I started thinking, “I wonder if God’s that happy when we come back to Him after being away? How wonderful would it be if God overflowed with joy when we came back to Him, even if we were only gone for a few hours.”

And then I remembered a story in the Gospels that I’ve had explained to me dozens of times in Mass or CCD (Catholic Sunday School) or in books, blogs, etc.

In this parable, Jesus tells the story of a man with two sons. One son is faithful, always does what he’s supposed to, and isn’t the focus of the story. The other son leaves his father’s home, squanders his inheritance, realizes he’s been a fool, and returns home, begging for forgiveness and asking to be treated like a hired hand and not a son. The father is so happy to see the son he thought lost to him that he throws an enormous party to celebrate his son’s return. (To read the actual Bible verses, click here.)

So: Yes, God does overflow with joy when we come back to him. And the image of God being like Sugar, so abundant with love and joy at seeing me again after such a short absence, is one that makes me smile. And it also gives me a new understanding of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Most of the times, I’ve heard it explained that the Prodigal Son parable is about how God will always forgive us after we’ve sinned if we only come back to Him and ask forgiveness. I always thought, “Well, wouldn’t it be better just not to sin in the first place and be like the faithful son?” But now I understand that parable in a different light. It’s not just about sinning and forgiveness, it’s about moving toward and away from God.

Most of us couldn’t bear to be completely saturated in God’s presence. I know I couldn’t bear it. We need a break, a time to enjoy being human and our current, personal, selfish experience. And, frankly, I think that’s okay, because we’re not God, we’re people. We’re people that can commune with God, that are part of God, but we are not God. So it makes sense to me that we would need a break from communing with the Divine once in a while.

But when we’re done taking a break, and want to go back to being with God, imagine how wondrous it’d be if He were ecstatic we’d returned, no matter how long we’d been gone. If we’re only gone for 5 minutes and then come back, it’s cause for celebration. And if we’re gone for even longer and come back, it’s time to throw a party.

Being shown God through the love of a cat. Will wonders never cease.