Hoefle, of Spring Training Began

May 2020 Listening for God is Political. One of the downsides to listening for God’s small, still voice is the fact that we may hear deeply. And when we hear deeply we may be stirred from our complacency, which is the core of our comfort zones. We see this in the words of our prophets. They were people who felt fiercely. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote “Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent Agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of this world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and humanity”. In our own, perfectly natural self-centeredness, we may actually be callous to the miseries of the world. We may even be oblivious or callous to our own callousness, unaware of our insensitivity. But once we step away from our self-centeredness, our false self, our barking ego, to learn and practice to be still, so that God can be heard, and manifest in us, we will hear deeply. And then, of course, we will feel deeply, and be disturbed. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said “The Seeker should not stop until he finds. When he does find, he will be disturbed. After having been disturbed, he will be astonished. Then he will reign over everything.” You have heard me speak before about the dynamic and connection between religion and politics. There are people who claim that politics has no place in religion. Our teacher Mahatma Gandhi famously said “Those who believe religion and politics aren’t connected don’t understand either.” And it’s interesting that both are topics that are considered off limits for polite conversation. There is a precedent for people of faith being non-political. After all, politics is of the world, and we are called to be in the world, not of it. Some believe that this means we are to rise above polarization, condemning extremism while seeking principled common ground. That sounds like a good compromise. Yet Revelation 3:16 states “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” During my time in the Quaker community I learned how to be in dialogue with people who had completely different political opinions. It involved hearing them out, asking questions to understand their position, and then simply saying that I didn’t agree with them and that I believe differently — without anger or rancor or bitterness. This was not easy, because it’s counterintuitive. We tend to have our beliefs, we draw a line in the sand, and then we fall on a sword defending that line. The other side of the coin experienced in my time in the Quaker Community was the focus on witnessing faith in action, Continued… Page 2 THE SPIRE actually acting out what one believes. Since their very inception, Friends have been at the vanguard of justice movements and nonviolent resistance. The Quaker Peace Testimony, presented to King Charles II in 1660, states “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatever; this is our testimony to the whole world. The Spirit of Christ by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move us unto it; and we certainly know, and testify to the world, that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us unto all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the Kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world…” The reality is, especially in the light of this being an election year, that if we are truly followers of Jesus we need to get our ducks in a row. Some of my friends who are not Christian (and if you don’t have friends who aren’t Christian you don’t get out enough) have asked me with all sincerity how I can consider myself a Christian, given the behavior of our Evangelical, right-wing supporting brothers and sisters. I find it a wonderful opportunity for me to explain Progressive Christianity and its role since the very beginning of being a voice and engaging in advocacy for the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, and the underdog. And in all truth, I can’t see how I, as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, can do otherwise. Here are some points in the rationale behind that thinking: Love. When Jesus was asked to summarize all of his teachings he said “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Now what he meant by ‘neighbor’ was not a vague reference to the people who live next door. He clearly meant every person, including outcasts, including those who we tend to keep at arm’s length. This was made very clear in the parable of the Good Samaritan. So when we think of loving our neighbor, that means that we include Muslims, Jews, atheists, people of different political persuasions, people of a different economic class, immigrants, people who are incarcerated, addicts, criminals — really, we don’t get to exclude anyone. Most Christians would readily agree with that. Were I to say to them “Of course I love black people, I love white people, I love Asian people, I love Hispanics, I love the poor, I love children, I love the handicapped, I love the elderly”, most folks would reply “Good for you!” But were I to go further and say, following Jesus’ command to love our enemies, “I love Vladimir Putin. I love Pol Pot. I love my neighbor’s junkie son. I love John Gotti.” Or think of someone you really despise in politics… then my audience would say “Wait a minute! Who do you think you are?!” Continued… THE SPIRE Page 3 It’s at this point, where Jesus said love your enemy, that many Christians stop listening. Now, they don’t say “Okay, that’s it Jesus! I’m done with you.” Instead they just indicate a clear line of demarcation: one side is people who are evil, and the other side of the line are the people that are good people. This kind of duality gives us the Just / Unjust War Theory. It says we can kill some people to save more other people, and it is behind the logic of people who are against abortion, but for capital punishment. But the command to love our enemy can’t be just dismissed easily. It’s not marginal or peripheral to our faith. It is the core of our faith. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he’s telling us to love others the way God loves us, unconditionally. Without condition. Now it doesn’t mean that we have to be nice to everyone. But it does mean we have to be kind to everyone. Yes, I know that seems nuanced. Everyone wants to be loved, and no one likes to be loved conditionally. If Jesus and his teachings are not shaking us up then we’re not really hearing them. It is often said that if a pastor doesn’t make you uncomfortable, she isn’t doing her job. It’s also said that the function of a sermon should either be to comfort the afflicted, or afflict the comfortable. The second point is that God is our father / mother, our loving parent. This means that we are all children of God. This is what the New Testament teaches us. And it is the basic theology of peace. It is truly taught in all of the major wisdom traditions and religions of the world. Any child can wrap their head around this thought. Some Christians believe that faith and obedience are required before one can be seen as a child of God. But that flies in the face of the Creation story. The Book of Genesis tells us that after God made humanity, “God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” God did not create humanity, and say “Okay, only the ones who follow me through this specific religious path and do these specific things are very good. The rest — eh. Not so much.” God creates humans and says it is very good. End of story. This is the core of my belief: that if Grace is true, everyone is saved. We are loved by God, each one of us, and we are all commanded to love one another, including our enemies. And we are most definitely commanded not to kill one another. In our Adult Bible Study on the ten commandments we covered Leonard Felder’s reinterpretation, in which he interprets the Commandment to not kill one another as “Do not crush the spirit of another person.” Including our enemies. We are called to righteousness. That means we are called to the work of Justice. “Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness” refers directly to one who desires to see all of God’s good Creation experience justice, mercy, and compassion in the name of God’s love. Jesus taught us to pray with the words “Our father. (Of course, in Aramaic this could also could mean Creator, loving parent, mother / father God, and other parental imaging.) But if we deny that all of us are siblings, all God’s children, then we are expressing some sort of implicit disbelief in God. We’re denying God’s existence as the source of our common being. Continued… Page 4 THE SPIRE Just think of racism, or militarism.

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