Why Christian?

A word, from the context of the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, from Ken Sehested, the founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship:
"Finally, a belated word of thanks to the CPWI group. I remember overhearing, from a distance, some of the controversy which surrounded the group's forming some years ago — basically, pretty caustic criticism for organizing a 'Christian' group. At the time I meant to write a strong endorsement for this strategy--against the cosmopolitanites and idealists who believe they can hang in mid-air, free of history and angles of vision, finding a location that transcends all social locations. This is the dark side of liberalism: the desire to reduce and distill everything to supposed 'universal' principles. This, too, is part of the domination system which must be resisted. This is not at all to deny the urgent need to do interfaith work, and to become sufficiently 'bilingual' to engage with people of no explicit faith commitment. But we must keep in mind the long history of dominant groups who want to say, 'we're all just alike.'"
I am reminded, when I hear vague references to a higher power, that it does matter greatly just what higher power we are talking about. After all, from where I sit here in Arlington, the Pentagon is a higher power, the White House is a higher power, the Congress is a higher power. Each of those higher powers does have the capacity to reduce us all to the same, to obliterate our histories and make of us creatures in their own particular images.
To follow Jesus is, first and foremost, to resist that power to reduce others to our own image, including the image of followers of Jesus. The cross is most abused when it is captive to the empire and becomes a sign of triumph rather than an invitation to compassion -- to suffering with.
Hm, so I wrote the above this morning. This afternoon I come to the Lenten exercise where today we are asked to read Luke 9:18-27, in which Jesus asks Peter, "who do you say that I am?"
The heading for today's exercise is, "What difference does it make that I'm a Christian?"
Clearly this afternoon is speaking to this morning. It does make a difference what higher power one calls upon, one sits with, one listens for. If God is made known in Jesus then what do we know of God? The passage from Luke is instructive. Just before Jesus asks the great Christological question he feeds 5,000 hungry souls and stomachs. Just after he asks it, he reminds his followers that the nature of discipleship is defined by the cross. Then, he continues his ministry of healing.
God feeds us. God desires our wholeness. God heals.
What difference does it make to put Jesus at the center of my devotion? It points me clearly toward that God. It draws me into relationship with that God.
None of which is an argument for exclusivity, but rather a recognition that I am a finite human being, situated in a particular culture and moment in history. I cannot follow every path, but I can follow the one before me with as much faithfulness as I am willing to risk.
Pictured? Oh, that's a window from my church. I call that one "peace Jesus."

In Jesus' Name ... oy

Tis the season of robocalls I reckon. Our home phone has been inundated with them this week as the McCain campaign tries to convince Virginians to be afraid of Bill Ayers. Well, I guess actually they want us to be afraid of Barack Obama, but it seems more reasonable, given the tenor of the calls, to be afraid of Ayers.
But that's neither here nor there. The church phone today received a robocall from Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former Navy chaplain who was discharged because he insisted on praying, against Navy regulations, in Jesus' name at events which non-Christian Navy personnel were required to attend.
The ex-chaplain has become a Right-wing gadfly focusing on any instance of perceived violation of the rights of chaplains to force Jesus down the throats of non-Christians. Well, of course, he doesn't see it quite like that.
Now he's pulling together an event in Virginia that, so he said on the robocall, is completely non-political. Interestingly enough, this "nonpartisan" and "non-political" rally will take place in Richmond on the Saturday before an election in which Virginia plays a critical swing-state role, but I'm sure that is mere coincidence.
Somehow I don't think the chaplain's robocall was any less political than the McCain camp's robocall, but I'm just the listener on the end of the line.

The Coolest Thing About My Church

Yesterday at worship during the prayers of the people a man (who I'll call 'Joe' for the sake of a bit of privacy) prayed for a bit of peace and comfort. His wife, who serves on our session -- Presbyterian-speak for church board -- was with her father who was dying. In addition to that heavy burden, they had lost their 17-year-old dog earlier in the week. They'd also had a couple of family 'highs' -- birth of a grandchild -- in recent weeks so it had been an emotional roller coaster for the past month or so. He was in tears as he prayed aloud.
As powerful as such moments are, they are, to be sure, nothing particularly out of the ordinary in a small church. Except for this: Joe is Jewish.
We say, every Sunday, that Clarendon Presbyterian Church is a house of prayer for all of God's children. And we mean it. Without exception.
We are clear and unapologetic in proclaiming the good news of Jesus. We pray in Jesus' name. But we trust that God hears everybody's prayers. We know that we do not have hold of all there is of God in our Christian confession and are enriched by the faiths of others. We hear Jesus' words, that his father's house has lots of rooms.
And we trust that there is one for Joe -- not because he comes to church, but because he seeks God and anybody who knocks at the door of God's house is going to find a welcome. So in our little wing of the house, we don't have a litmus test of creed or confession for joining the fellowship, offering prayers, serving the least of these, and finding a little peace in the presence of a loving God.
Will Joe ever "find Jesus"? That question holds little interest for me. Frankly, I think it is the wrong question.
Joe is a sojourner, walking a path in fear and trembling -- as Paul put it -- toward the light of life and love that shines in the darkness. Some will only always interpret that light as Jesus.
On the other hand, if light can be both particle and wave, perhaps the metaphor can be expanded, as well. After all, long before Jesus, God told Moses: I will be who I damn well please.