9/11: Reflecting on religious language 10 years later

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged.  That’s because last month I took a week-long vacation in Copenhagen, which was fantastic and awesome and so many things I still can’t begin to describe even now - but that attempt is for an upcoming blog.

Today is the tenth anniversary since the attacks of September 11, 2001.  For the last three years, I’ve kept the memory of that day at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, where I regularly attend Sunday services.  I say this in mild surprise because ten years ago, I was in a completely different place in my life, and indeed I wouldn’t have imagined myself in church on that day or any day.

Ten years ago, I called myself more of a seeker than religious.  I’ve mentioned already how I was raised Roman Catholic, and, although being gay never made me feel God loved me any less, I was sorely disappointed with the church as an institution, which often times excludes as much as it includes.  However, in 2001 I was a junior in college, had already declared religion as my major, and in fact had been studying the subject on my own since the eleventh grade.  I was familiar with the latest scholarly analyses on the Bible, especially the New Testament, and their theories on the origins and development of Christianity.  So comes the curious fact then that, by the time I decided to pursue religion, in particular early Christianity, as my area of study, I no longer believed in the central claims of the Christian faith.

In 2001, I preferred to attend Jewish worship services on Friday evenings on campus.  Although Judaism, like all faiths, is rooted in stories that can also be called mythical, there was a certain breath of fresh air I felt during worship.  The intimacy of our group, the ancient Hebrew melodies that I still fondly remember, and the unique Sabbath rituals were all certainly a factor.  But in Judaism, God is God.  God is the Eternal One, the Name, the Presence, the Place, etc.  Of course, God is not just an abstract idea in Judaism either, but since God never became man as in Christianity, that immediate personal connotation is removed.  Even God’s name is unknown.  Thus there is a deeper mystery behind the Being of God, deeper than the mystery of how a son of God can be God too.  So in a way, what you believed about God was, for the most part, your own business.  What mattered more was how you acted in life.  At the time, this was the type of God that I was looking for.  I couldn’t explain how the personal God of Christianity could allow such bad things to occur in the world.

That all changed after September 11th.  I never went back to Jewish services on campus because my faith even in that concept of God was shattered.

I remember that morning, not vividly, but clear enough.  I woke up at 8:45am, so just when the first plane struck the North Tower.  Sometimes I watched the news as I was getting ready for breakfast, but that morning I decided not to.  The day before had been extremely hot and humid, but it had cooled during the night.  Morning in Philadelphia was crisp and bright; the sky was a consistent blue.

I walked into the Dining Center at Haverford College, got my breakfast, walked into the dining area, and to my surprise, everyone was quiet.  Well, it was by this time 9am - who wants to be talkative at that hour, especially as classes are beginning?  Yet when I sat down next to my friends, they also were quiet and staring into the distance.  I asked one of my friends if there was something wrong, and she told me that a plane had just struck the World Trade Center.  My immediate thought was the accident involving a plane striking the Empire State Building soon after it had been completed.  A tragedy, sure, but accidents happen, right?  At this point, word hadn’t reached us that a second plane had just struck the South Tower.

I finished breakfast and hopped on the bus.  At the time, I was in my third year of Hebrew classes, but these were taught at Bryn Mawr, our sister college, a 15-minute bus ride away.  When I got there, I saw a good friend of mine waiting for me at the bus stop.  Though she and I took Hebrew together, I could tell she had been waiting precisely for me, and not just to go to class.  She looked worried, and asked if I was okay.  I said that I was and asked where this concern came from.  That’s when she told me about all the other things that had transpired.  By this point, it was almost 10am, so the South Tower was in the middle of collapsing.

I don’t remember much of class that day, but returning to Haverford, there were already events being organized to reflect on the morning.  Although my mother, who lives in New York City, had called me to tell me she was alright, it suddenly occurred to me that, if I hadn’t known about the second plane while it was happening, what if something else was going on that I didn’t know about.  I tried calling her back, but all I got was a busy signal.  Later on in the day, though, I spoke to her again, and she assured me our family in New York was fine.

I remember going online.  At the time I had a Danish penpal that I corresponded with often over ICQ.  I remember logging in and receiving so many messages of compassion and support from random people in different parts of the world.  That really touched me.

I remember our school’s emergency meeting that evening.  Haverford College is rooted in the tradition of the Society of Friends (the Quakers).  Our meetings, though of course not religious, retained the central element of Quaker worship by letting people speak as they felt moved to.  One girl was inconsolable as she told us how her mother worked on one of the high floors of the World Trade Center, and she had not heard from her mother.  My heart broke as I listened.  (Next week, we learned her mother had made it out safely.)  That was the first time the tragedy hit home.

Up to that point, I knew things had changed, but it didn’t really register.  Even hearing that all airplanes were grounded until further notice didn’t change that feeling.  It wasn’t until I returned to New York for fall break in mid-October that I understood the magnitude of September 11th.  Formerly, as I rode the bus from Philadelphia to New York, the World Trade Center was one of the first things you could see about 45 minutes away, but now the Twin Towers were not there to welcome me home.  I tried visiting what was now Ground Zero only to find that there was no getting past Canal Street, though even from there, you could see the rubble.  In fact, portions of the rubble, I later learned, were still on fire, a fire that apparently was not completely extinguished until December.

Through all of this, my faith in God eroded away, and I decided not only to bury God, but also never to visit his grave.

Ten years later, I was reflecting on this in church, as I listened to the soaring, yet sorrowful, music commemorating the departed.  The details of how I got here will be for another blog.  All I can say now is that I have not returned to the faith of my childhood, nor will I ever.  But I have returned to a different perspective on faith that has an even richer meaning to me.   I’ve learned that faith is humility.  Faith is not knowing all the answers.  It is not about correct doctrine, but correct action; not about belief, but correct living.  That is, after all, what I had been learning from the Jewish tradition.  God’s name is hidden so that we seek, not to define him, but to understand how to act in his ways.  I just couldn’t word it like this at the time.

However, I learned an even more important lesson.  Faith may not be about correct doctrine or belief, but these are meant, not to separate religious from infidel, but to point us all in the direction of God.

I don’t pretend to know what the early Christians meant when they preached Christ crucified, dead, and buried, and risen on the third day.  I wasn’t there.  But I do know this.  I had buried God and resolved never to visit the tomb I laid him in.  And yet God still arose from that tomb without my knowledge and returned to me, not in the same way I knew, but transformed, in a ghostly yet clear image, with a soft voice that opens and explains ancient words in a new light, making my heart burn with it.  Isn’t this what we read that those early Christians claimed to have felt?  Jesus’ Resurrection remains the central claim of Christianity, but not of my own personal faith.  Rather I know now, because of that claim, that resurrection occurs every day.  There is an opportunity for new life every day, a possibility to change your life every day, perhaps not in drastic ways, but certainly in the ways that matter most.  And because I know this, every Easter takes on a new meaning, and I can confess with my whole heart: “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!”

Religious language is poetic language.  The same way a poem turns ordinary words into meaningful ones, so too does a faith story turn ordinary life into one with meaning and purpose.  The birth of Jesus acknowledged as the salvation of Israel should teach us that the birth of every child is full of hope for a better future.  The Virgin Mary’s bearing of God in the human form of Jesus should make us wonder how purely and sincerely we bear God to one another.  We learn, then, to focus more on those things we know better, and be humble about the things we don’t.  Thus in the midst of inexplicable tragedy, we hopefully learn that, while we cannot explain the roles of tragedy and violence in the divine plan, we already know the parts that love and charity play in it - and that that’s where we will continue to find God.

But behind all this language, what strikes me most is the intention behind it.  Christianity, among many faiths, teaches that God is with us in the here-and-now.  But when in church we are greeted with “The Lord be with you”, I know that that means: ‘All that is holy, good, and full of light, I wish for you now.’  When we greet each other with “the peace of the Lord”, I know that that means: ‘I hope from the bottom of my heart that you have wholeness in your life today.’  I couldn’t ask for any wishes more sincere than those that call upon whatever higher power there may exist, and pray that it walk with me.  And when we say “Blessed be God” or “Praise the Lord”, I know that that means: ‘What’s truly precious in life is not the latest hit movie or TV series; it is not the latest fashion, or song, but it’s that which cannot be described or bought.  Blessed be that!’

And so, with that in mind, prayers for the departed on 9/11 no longer offend me, as they used to.  To me, it was pointless praying to a God that put the fallen into that situation in the first place.  But I recognize now that that is not the point.  The point is the intention, and so with that, I can say:

For all those who died on 9/11, and for all those who have died in like manner:

May endless choirs of angels lead you into heaven with song.

May generations of patriarchs and prophets stand at the door in cheerful applause.

May golden-crowned apostles and saints welcome you warmly with open arms.

May bright-robed martyrs and confessors greet you lovingly with a holy kiss.

May ever-blessed Mary and all the host of heaven exult in your homecoming.

May the very being of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - embrace and enfold you.

May the very voice of God whisper: “Well done, good and faithful servants.”

Feel-good Christianity

This past year I’ve become an avid reader of Scandinavian crime fiction.  I’ve always loved a tantalizing ‘whodunit’, and I’ve developed an interest in the laid-back and polite Scandinavian culture, so this genre is a perfect match! Many other Americans would agree, as the growth of Scandinavian crime writers here such as Stieg Larsson, for example, attests to.  Maybe since we in the U.S. envision Scandinavia as a well-mannered and peaceful collection of cultures, a gruesome murder in a sleepy Swedish town seems so intriguing.  Maybe the relative peace in Scandinavia, when compared to American crime, entices Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Icelanders to imagine and explore this dark world in their own backyard.

Recently I finished Camilla Läckberg’s riveting novel, The Ice Princess.  In it, Erica investigates the mysterious murder of her childhood best friend, Alexandra, in a remote Swedish town.  Erica and Alex’s friendship had been cut short in childhood when Alex’s family moved away, and sadly the next time Erica saw her was floating dead in a bathtub, half-frozen with slit wrists.  At Alex’s funeral in Fjällbacka Church, the narrator remarks:

“Erica still hadn’t embraced any type of religion; for her a church was a beautiful building steeped in traditions, nothing more.  The sermons of her childhood had prompted no desire to accept a faith.  They often dealt with hell and sin; they lacked the bright belief in God that she knew existed but had never personally experienced.  Much had changed.  Now a woman stood before the altar, dressed in a pastor’s robes, and instead of eternal damnation she spoke of light, hope, and love.  Erica wished that this view of God had been offered to her when she was growing up.” (p. 83)

I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness for this fictional character.  If I remember correctly, Erica is around my age, 29, in the story.  I have almost no memories of the Sunday sermons preached in my Catholic church growing up, so I don’t know how often the fires of hell were brought up.  But I know people who have experienced sermons like those, and have met my share of those whose faith is characterized by that mindset; whose first thought, upon hearing of someone’s death, is: “Well, I hope they repented.”

This excerpt from The Ice Princess made me recall a few articles I came across years ago on “feel-good Christianity”, a term used often in a derogatory way by, for example, Christian fundamentalists, but sometimes also by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians.  Their argument is that many Christian denominations (usually mainline ones: Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists) have traded in holy truth for worldly peace, and have changed God’s pure word to suit man’s sinful needs.  Having a woman before the altar, as in The Ice Princess, might be considered such a betrayal; so might performing same-sex unions, or being tolerant of abortion, teaching evolution, etc.

Here’s how one writer summarizes this observation:

... most Christians in the West have been cutting deals with the world - continually swerving to avoid any sort of conflict with it, any clash that would violate the unwritten cultural peace treaty.  We all know the terms of the treaty.  Everyone can do whatever they want, and no one is allowed to so much as speak out against it... Someone might feel bad.

Christians should be the first people to recognize the “treaty” as a variant on the devil’s bargain: “You shall be as God, knowing [defining for yourself] good and evil.”...

[People expect] to hear about a tame deity who would give them a feel-good faith filled with warm fuzzies...

But it’s not our job... to make people feel good.  It’s our job to be faithful.

“Feel-Good Faith” by Matt Kaufman.

In order to get the full context of these quotes, I encourage you to read the full article here.

It is the job of a Christian to be faithful... but is that our only job?

I find the answer to that question, of all places, in the New York branch of the Swedish Church, where I had the pleasure of being invited to this Sunday.  The church is very simple, not just in architecture, but also in ministry.  Only one priest officiated. A lady from the congregation helped minister the wine.  My friend’s friend played the small organ.  I love the procession of choir and clergy that my church has, but there is a refreshing beauty in the simplicity found in the Swedish church here in New York, as if things have been trimmed down so you can concentrate on the message of the day.

And this was the message of the day - yes, in translation:

[Jesus said:] “You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.  Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you.  Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and you will receive.  Your gift will return to you in full - pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap.  The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” (Luke 6:36-38, New Living Translation)

While this message of reciprocal respect alone answers the question above, it’s not why I find this passage interesting.  The opening exhortation to be compassionate mirrors a similar line found in a similar context in Matthew:

“... you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48, NLT)

(In fact, the Swedish pastor made the same connection during his sermon.)

These two sayings of Jesus themselves echo one from the Book of Leviticus where God tells the Israelites:

“...You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Lev. 19:2, NLT)

These changing passages are what interest me more.  To me, they testify that, although the divine essence of God does not change, the human experience of God can and does, and changes often have to be made to compensate.  We fallible human beings need to be able to relate to a message if we are to understand its meaning.  Let me put it into perspective...

A band of Israelites has just left Egypt, a land where they were exposed to cruel slavery and made to worship foreign gods.  Now they’re determined once again to become their own nation and worship their own God.  What do they need to hear from God?   That they are called to be “set apart” (the Hebrew meaning of the word ‘holy’), just as God is “set apart” from the world.

A sect of Jewish believers in Christ has just witnessed the destruction of the beloved and sacred Temple in Jerusalem.  They ask themselves how they are to worship God now, and anxiously wonder if ahead lies the coming of Jesus, or the wrath of God.  What do they need to hear from God?  That they are to be “perfect” (the Greek word is more like being “completed” or “perfected”) just as God is “perfect”.

A growing group of Greek Christians breaks away from traditional Hellenic culture in the exclusive devotion to some foreign deity named “Jesus”.  Their earthly suffering is great - so much so that, while Matthew remembers Jesus’ sayings as  general blessings, Luke recalls them with a personal and poignant sense of urgency.  Instead of Matthew’s “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice”, Luke has, “God blesses you who are hungry now”; instead of “God blesses those who mourn”, we read, “God blesses you who weep now.” (Matt. 5:4, 6 and Luke 6:21, NLT)  So now what else do these people need to hear from God?  That they need to be “compassionate” (or “merciful”) just as God is “compassionate”.

What good what it would have done to tell the Israelites that they need to be “compassionate” to one another?  Most likely they already were; shared pain often brings about a sense of compassion.  Their goal now was to “set themselves apart” to worship God in the way given to them.

What good what it would have done to tell the Jewish Christians to be “set apart”?  Most likely they already believed they were, since they had remained faithful to Jesus, their Messiah.  Now, despite the destruction around them, their goal was to “perfect themselves” for Christ’s second coming.

What good what it would have done to tell the Greek Christians to “perfect” themselves?  It’s hard to “perfect” yourself when you’re weakened by the pangs of hunger or the tears of despair.  No, their goal now was to take the compassion they surely learned through their mutual suffering and extend it in love to their enemies. (cf. Luke 6:35)

If we Christians believe in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then we must recognize that this same Spirit has already tailored divine truth - even within the pages of the Bible itself - in order to best reach our forebears, and now does the same for us.  So then I ask you:

What do you need to hear in church?  Or in synagogue, mosque, or temple?  In a world where the news overwhelms us 24/7 with reports of natural and human-caused disasters, senseless murders, crimes against human rights, poverty, disease, I confess that what I need to hear from God is that “light, hope, and love” that Erica wished she had heard in church as a child.  And I don’t need to hear it only on Sundays - I need to hear this message every day!  I need to “feel good”, not out of materialistic selfishness, but because the message of goodness in this world often seems sadly rare.

I’ve learned these truths over the past few years in church, and I believe this is what most of us need to hear from God.

We are NOT okay as we are...

This certainly is not ‘feel-good’.  If you seek a spiritual practice, it’s because there’s something missing that the world can’t give you, and thus you feel incomplete.

...but we are loved as we are...

The main religious message throughout history is how much the Divine loves the finite.  You have been loved since you were born, and you will be loved through eternity.

... so we are okay as we come.

Whether you come knowing how to observe the complex Christian religious calendar, or you just say a short prayer before eating or sleeping, the divine love will move your sincere heart into this awareness.

And I’m deeply glad that this message already is being proclaimed across so many different traditions.

I leave you with the refrain of a beautiful hymn we sang in the Swedish service.  It says:

God’s love is like the beach and the grass.

It is wind and breadth and an unending home.

Compassionate words like these overcome hell and sin any day.

The Trinity

Jesus asked his followers: “Who do you say that I am?”

One of them said: “You are the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  In your being, the divine and human natures are either fused separately or linked in perfect hypostatic union.  The Paraclete proceeds either from you or through you.”

Another jumped in: “You are also the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationships.”

And Jesus said, “What?”

The Christian Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost; or Creator, Word, and Spirit, has always been hard to explain.  Catholic lessons explained it to me like this:

“It’s like an orange: you have the core of the orange, which is attached to the fruit of the orange, which is covered by the peel of the orange.  Three things that still make up one orange.”

Or:

“It’s like the sun: the sun is a ball of fire burning millions of miles away.  Nevertheless, its light feeds plants on earth, and its warmth nourishes life on earth.  Three different things, but all originating from the same sun.”

And I said, “What?”

The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the word “trinity” is never found in the Bible.  The teaching is a third- or fourth-century attempt to explain those biblical references to the power of God experienced in threes.  I won’t bore you with these references here; you can see them at the end of this blog if you’re interested.

The doctrine of the Trinity should be precious to us today, not because of what it teaches us about the being of God, but because of what it teaches us about human nature.  For, although the basic teaching that God is experienced in a threefold community of persons, regrettably no other doctrine has divided the community of Christian people:

• When the fourth-century Council of Nicea accepted the doctrine, it condemned as heretics those who did not adhere to it, namely those who taught that, although Jesus was God’s highest creation, “there was a time when the Son was not.”

• When the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon resolved that the person of Jesus was made up of one divine and human nature inseparably fused, it banished those who disagreed.  The result was Oriental Orthodoxy, made up of Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Armenian Christians. This division remains to this day.

• In the 11th century, the church split yet again.  Although a number of issues were involved, one of the most prominent was the addendum that the Holy Spirit proceeds not just from the Father, but from the Son also.  To this day, Eastern Orthodox Christians (Greek and Russian) exclude the addition “and from the Son” from the original Nicene Creed.

(The last two are what I intended to portray in the joke of the opening story.)

Can a doctrine that has ironically caused so much division in the Christian community, still have something to say to us today?  To answer this question, I look to my siblings and cousins of other faiths to see how they explain their traditions. 

JUDAISM

Judaism, as do all the three Abrahamic faiths, takes belief in God very seriously.  However, in his classic book What Is a Jew?, Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer says:

Unlike Christianity, Judaism is primarily concerned with what God wants us to do, not what God wants us to believe.  Jews talk more about behavior than about doctrine... [One] story has it that God says, “It matters less that they believe in me than that they keep my Torah.” (p. 103)

For centuries, Christians have been excommunicating each other for incorrect belief, while questions like “How should we behave towards one another?” or “How do we make this world a better place?” go unanswered. 

BUDDHISM

I have a great respect for Buddhism.  It is the only faith that I know of that suggests killing of its own founder if you should encounter him on the road.  Now, I’m not sure I would go that far, but I understand the reasoning.  Buddhism is about achieving personal enlightenment, and escaping the cycle of suffering and dissatisfaction that permeates life.  Seeing the Buddha on the road might tempt you to ask him how he did just that, thereby distracting you from your own journey. Better then to kill him than lose your own way.  In a way, it’s similar to the saying in Judaism quoted above.  Neither Buddha nor God are as important as how you live your life. 

CATHOLICISM

The seemingly over-emphasized Catholic veneration of Mary continues to cause division, even among Catholics themselves.  However, anyone who has ever attended a Catholic funeral and heard grieving Catholics recite the Hail Mary surely experiences the power of this community-building practice.

For, in this context, Catholic doctrine on Mary’s role in heaven matter less than what the words of the prayer essentially say: that the same God who, according to the story, filled Mary with grace and was with her, will also fill us with his love and be with us in this time of loss; that the same God that blessed Mary’s womb to bear the Son of God to the world, will also bless our lives, and help us bear healing and comfort to one another.

Now let’s go back to the opening story.  How does it actually end?  When Jesus asked his disciples concerning his identity,

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16, NRSV)

The story does not go on to define how Jesus is the Messiah, or how he is the Son of God.  For Peter, for the readers of Matthew, and for subsequent Christian generations, Jesus simply is those things.  When Christians found it necessary to define the ‘how’, they stepped outside the confines of scripture and began to use non-biblical terms such as “trinity” or “consubstantial” in attempt to explain what they believed was an inexplicable truth.  There is nothing wrong with this; we Christians today must also step outside the confines of our received teachings and learn:

• from Judaism, that the doctrine is not more important than the action;
• from Buddhism, that we should challenge teachings that get in the way of our journey;
• from Catholicism, that words can still hold truths that run deeper than we may think.

I’m not advocating that we do away with the teaching of the Trinity.  It’s a valid belief that has contributed to Christian identity for centuries.  But if we’re using the doctrine to decide who’s in and who’s out, then we’re missing the point, for the deeper truth of the teaching is that God is not just a unity, but also a community.

We shouldn’t pay lip service to a faith.  We shouldn’t recite its words or follow its customs without knowing what they truly mean.  Actions do speak louder than words - but sometimes words can lead you to wholesome actions, and I believe this is what the Trinity doctrine can still do today.  When you feel you don’t have the right words to express your feelings, there is nothing wrong with looking to the ancient words of your tradition, trusting that they will open your heart and make it more receptive to what you need.  And when you do this in the company of others, you may, with or without your knowledge, end up either finding the encouragement you need, or becoming an inspiration to someone else.  The creator of a community is often a single word, uttered in a love that motivates the spirit.  And in fact, that is what the Trinity is essentially about: Creator, Word, and Spirit.

New Testament verses traditionally understood as alluding to the Trinity:

The Annunciation to Mary:

“... The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” (Luke 1:35, NRSV)

Jesus’ baptism in Mark:

“... [Jesus] saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11, NRSV)

Jesus’ commissioning of the disciples:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19, NRSV)

Paul’s closing blessings:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2 Corinthians 13:13, NRSV)

Speaking in Tongues

Today, my church spoke in tongues!  No, it’s what you think. ;-)

Today, the church year celebrates Pentecost, a festival that originates from our Jewish heritage.  Called Shavuot (“Weeks”) in Judaism, the holy day doubles as both a harvest festival and a commemoration of the giving of the Torah (the “Law”, or the first five books of Moses).  Many Christians either overlook, or are unaware of, this Jewish connection, and the story can still be intelligible without it.  But knowing its Jewish foundation makes the story richer and far more meaningful.

The book of Acts states that Jesus’ disciples gathered together this day, no doubt in faithful observance of Shavuot; no doubt still mourning the recent death of their Teacher.

“And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” (Acts 2:2-4, NRSV)

People nearby heard the commotion and were surprised to recognize that “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” (Acts 2:11, NRSV)  Many churches (like mine) will allow the congregation to simultaneously recite the passage in whatever other languages they know as a way to relive the power of the story.  You can hear what that sounds like here. Experiencing that still seems so new to me every time, and for a moment I forget that we read the same story last year.

But what does this story mean?  And can a story about speaking in tongues still speak to us today?  The key may lie in another story that the church calendar selects as appropriate for the theme of the day.

You may recall a similar linguistic commotion from Genesis.  At a time when, according to the story, everyone spoke the same language, the peoples of the earth said:

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” (Gen. 11:4, NRSV)

Upset at the people’s collaboration to reach heaven, the Lord confuses the languages of the earth and scatters the people.  The image of people suddenly dropping tools, unable to understand each other and finish the Tower of Babel, may enter your mind.

Someone close to me once admitted he was angry at God for punishing people who just wanted to reach him.  But nothing in the text suggests that they wanted to reach heaven out of love for God.  They gathered together for the selfish purpose of making a name for themselves.  And if that’s true, their collaboration must have been far from amicable.  Selfish collaboration rarely is, and we all know it’s completely possible to still get a job done with threats, ill-treatment, pressure, etc. without a ‘thank you’ or a ‘job well done!’

By contrast, Jesus’ disciples are gathered together in devotion to God.  They were recalling God’s wondrous gift of the Law to Moses, and waiting in faith for that same God to send the Holy Spirit, as Jesus had promised.  And because of this, they’re given the power to communicate in other known languages.  In this way, the story of the Christian Pentecost can be a kind of spiritual resolution to the confusion of languages at Babel - a symmetry that is powerful enough, but its power does not stop there.

For, the disciples receive this power solely to preach Jesus, whom the Christian faith confesses as Lord.  And what exactly is Jesus’ message?  True, he is often reported to have said things like “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) or “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34, NRSV).  But when pressured to sum up the core of his teaching, he offered simply:

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40, NRSV)

Note that “the Law and the Prophets” is code for the Hebrew Bible.  Jesus sums up all the Scripture he knew as sacred with just two of its own laws, both of which begin with “You shall love”.  Do you now see how awareness of the Jewish roots of the Christian Pentecost make the message more profound and meaningful? That on the very day on which Jews recall God’s giving of the Law to Israel, Christians are to reflect on and preach Jesus’ summary of that same Law as being a message of love.

The message of the Lord is the message of love: love of God and neighbor.  By the way, this is not a new message, nor does the “old (Jewish) document yield to the new (Christian) rite”, as a famous Latin hymn declares.  Other contemporaries of Jesus (notably Rabbi Hillel) offered similar devotional “soundbytes”.  But, just like the yearly reading of the Pentecost story, making this realization can still feel new each time, precisely because it’s something so easy to forget.

It’s easy to forget that if we don’t exercise this kind of love, we, like the people of Babel, bring upon ourselves the punishment of confusion and alienation from our neighbor.  They decided to make a name for themselves instead of for the Lord - that is, instead of for love.  They decided to build a tower to heaven instead of building relationships with each other first.  They forgot how to love.  Haven’t you ever entered a beautiful house of worship (of any faith) only to realize that, no matter how marvelous on the outside, it’s utterly devoid of spirit and of love on the inside?  As the Psalmist once said “unless the Lord (unless love?) builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1, NRSV)  Centuries later, Paul echoed this, claiming that he is nothing without love, adding that love surpasses even faith(!) and hope. (cf. 1 Cor. 13)

But what if we forget how to love?  Many of us, knowingly or not, daily harm ourselves in so many ways.  How, then, can we love our neighbor when we’re not actually loving ourselves?  I think this is why Jesus offered advice so unique to his followers’ ears, that they willingly risked disobeying the ancient rule of not adding anything to God’s law (cf. Deut. 4:2) and called it the “new commandment”.  After humbly washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus is remembered to have said:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)

If you can’t muster the energy to love someone as you love yourself, then try, as much as you can, to show them the same selfless, and indeed “radical”, love that Jesus, and so many others like him, have shown.  And trust that the action alone will eventually open your heart to the sincere love of self and neighbor.

I believe the message of this kind of love should be first and foremost - for everyone, no matter what faith or philosophy.  And for us Christians, Pentecost should serve as a loud wake-up call to proclaim the kind of love that Jesus preached, the good news of his message. And yet, despite how new this message of love feels, it isn’t really new at all. Despite the multitude of cultures and languages that are scattered around the earth today, hasn’t selfless love always been universally understood, no matter what language you speak?

First blog: What is a radical Christian?

Answers.com says that “a radical Christian is someone who takes their beliefs over the edge.”

Choosing a title for this blog has kept me from actually making it because, for the longest time, I had no idea what to call it.  How do you summarize your beliefs into something concise and catchy... and something that hasn’t been used before? But in the end, I chose “Radical Christian”, not because it’s unique (I haven’t coined the term), because I believe it’s what best describes me now at this point in my life.

My church, St. Bartholomew’s in New York City, is an Episcopal congregation that promotes the “radical” welcome of Jesus.  That phrase always resonated with me.  I love to study languages, and I appreciated immediately the many connotations the word “radical” offers.  We use the word commonly to mean “extreme” or “drastic”, but the root of the word itself actually means “root”.  It’s ironic, then, that a word can mean both “pertaining to the root or origin” of something, as well as “drastically breaking away” from something, but this irony works to my advantage.

I returned to the Christian faith three years ago after having left it entirely for almost a decade.  But I didn’t simply pick up where I left off.  (For starters, I left Roman Catholic and returned Episcopalian, though I can already hear some of you mutter “same thing!”) I feel I have returned with insight that is new and refreshing to me.  The insight itself is not new because I know there are many others who share my opinions, but it’s still new to me.   It’s an interpretation of the faith that sets practice over ideology, trust over creed, and love over dogma.  It strives to focus more on the teachings of Jesus and not necessarily on the teachings about Jesus, something which the Christian church hasn’t always differentiated between.  And it also seeks not to blindly follow, but to question, that which has been handed down to us.

At the same time, however, I have a newfound reverence for Christian tradition, a love for, and a curiosity about, those teachings about Jesus.  Why does liturgical Christianity have the “church year”?  Why is it traditional (at least in Western Christianity) to refrain from saying ‘alleluia’ during Lent?  I think you can see better now why I love the word ‘radical’.

It’s been about two weeks since the Doomsday that never happened.  Here in New York City, the event was well publicized in trains and buses, and people gathered in Times Square around the man who spent his life savings ($140,000) on the Judgment Day campaign.  I read later that there were others who left their jobs, or budgeted themselves so that they would have no more money after May 21.

Of course, nothing happened, and we’re still here (despite Harold Camping’s assurance that we have all been ‘spiritually raptured’ - whatever that means).  And so many people, including me, have been so quick to mock the whole thing and laugh at the followers.  But a friend of mine set me straight (so to speak, I’m not actually ‘straight’!) by asking me why I was doing that.

Reading the Bible, I know that the first generations of Christians were probably very much like these Doomsday prophets.  They expected Jesus to return in their lifetime.  St. Paul, writing to the Thessalonian church, warned that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” and that “sudden destruction will come... as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape!” (1 Thes. 5:3, NRSV).  And of course that didn’t happen, which is when one begins to detect in the Bible different explanations as to why Jesus didn’t return (a “man of lawlessness” is supposed to come first and lead people astray, there will be wars and destruction first, etc.).  They had to radically break away from what they were taught in order to harmonize their faith with the present.

When I thought about this, I remembered a sermon given at my church regarding this same topic.  The priest said that he of course believes in Christ’s second coming, as well as in his third, and fourth, and so on, for Christ comes whenever one calls.  The same one who promised that “I will not leave you orphaned” (John 14:18, NRSV) will indeed be with us always (cf. Matthew 28:20).

This past week’s celebration of the Ascension of Christ better expresses this view.  After Jesus is taken to heaven before the disciples’ very eyes, the book of Acts reports that two mysterious, white-robed men asked them: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?  This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11, NRSV).  It’s as if the text, by presenting Jesus’ second coming as a simple certainty, invites us to seek Christ, not in heaven, but in our hearts.  Suddenly I saw the recorded promises of Jesus in a new light.

I don’t know if these events happened exactly as if they were written.  Certainly there are many, many reasons to believe that they did not, and there’s probably more myth here than factuality.  I’m okay with that.  For you see, this story serves as my guide to being a radical Christian.  In the same way that the disciples are taught not to worry about where Jesus went and how he is to return, so too, I believe, I am not supposed to dwell on the details of the faith, but follow the Christ within.  What matters more? That Mary Magdalene was alone when she discovered the empty tomb of the risen Lord, or that the teachings of Jesus rise up through history and still speak to us today?

Of course, though, we can’t and shouldn’t throw out 2,000 years of history.  We have much to learn from our forebears’ experiences.  St. Paul may have been wrong about Jesus’ imminent second coming, but I believe him wholeheartedly when he said he experienced Christ (1 Cor. 15:8). So have many other Christians for two millennia.  And so many more people of different faiths experience the divine in their own genuine way.  Whether it’s a chemical, and therefore natural, experience matters less to me than whether it leads you to do to others as you would have them do to you, or to love both your friends and your enemies, and to forgive those who sin against you.  And, though I personally am drawn more to traditional Western Christian ritual, I believe that Christian practice in general, from the solemnity of a Catholic mass, to the ecstasy of Pentecostal worship; from the mystical liturgies of the East, to a simple and silent Quaker meeting; from the medieval Lutheran church down the street to the Baptist mega-church outside the town helps us open our spirit and hear the voice of the Christ that, as promised, is already within.

This is the journey I’m on now and have been on for the past three years.  It is not one that everyone will agree with, and that’s okay too.  I look forward to the future by looking to the past, taking with me those things that enrich my life, and appreciatively learning from those things that no longer speak to me.  I look forward to meeting others who share my journey, which traditional doctrine may consider to be too “radical”... and it is - in every sense of the word.