Ezek22 Lectionary Reflections

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 14:21-27
• Ps 145:8-13
• Revelations 21:1-5
• John 13:31-35

The government of the state of Arizona passed an unusual law last week, which gives police in the state the power to demand legal documentation from people who look like illegal aliens. Those who are unable to produce documentation (such as a driver’s license or green card) on the spot will be arrested.

The law might be challenged on constitutional grounds, specifically because it may violate the Fourth Amendment, which states that the government cannot conduct illegal searches. We basically understand this to mean that police can’t go searching for violations of the law without probable cause. But what constitutes “probable cause” is still very much under debate.

Many citizens, even outside Arizona, have expressed positive reactions to the law. The majority opinion coming from this camp seems to be that illegal aliens commit crimes and take jobs away from American citizens while taking advantage of offerings the government makes available, such as education, without paying their fair share of taxes. Furthermore, use of resources by illegal aliens reduces their availability for US citizens as well as for those aliens who are in the country legally.

I have heard the state of Arizona has an estimated 450,000 illegal aliens inside its borders, most of whom came across the border, which is porous, to be sure, from Mexico. The law, then, gives police the power to demand documentation from anyone who looks Mexican. Some people fear — perhaps rightly so — that police will demand documentation from people who don’t look Hispanic in order to give the appearance of applying the law evenly. This may waste time and detain US citizens, preventing them from going about their business.

There are, of course, other sides to this argument. President Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to illegal aliens a couple decades ago. At the time, about 3 million illegal aliens were in the US. Now, that number has grown to 12 million, and the federal government is planning to address the problem at some point.

In addition, adults who entered the country illegally but had children while they were here risk having their families being broken up, since their children are natural-born US citizens. If the parents are deported, families might be broken up, so many illegal aliens have flooded the Mexican consulate in Phoenix to apply for Mexican citizenship for their children, CNN reported a few days ago, just in case they are caught and deported.

There are people who claim that illegal aliens buy American goods and services and contribute to the economy by filling low-wage jobs, thus saving American companies money. Laws can always be changed, they point out. However, our present law makes most of this activity illegal. Even though the law could be changed, it hasn’t been changed yet.

The federal government, which is ultimately responsible for securing our borders, has shown signs of giving the enforcement of illegal immigration laws low priority, and the people of Arizona are understandably upset.

Anyway, try as I might to summarize the different sides of this new law, doing so in this much space is impossible. What I know is that if people are living in this country illegally, at least one law has been broken. Furthermore, staying here after their infraction has been pointed out is like living in a state of ongoing, objective sin.

For example, if a man gets divorced and then gets remarried, he is excommunicated from the church. The excommunication is automatic: it doesn’t even require a hearing. The reason for the excommunication is that he is living a life that he knows to be wrong and, by staying married to his second wife, he refuses to do anything about it.

Maybe he loves his second wife very much, but marriage is a bond governed also by the laws of heaven. Insofar as marriage is sealed by God, he is living in a state of sin. Likewise, citizenship is a right governed by the Constitution of the US. Illegal aliens may make a contribution to American society, but insofar as they refuse to leave, they are living in a state of sin.

That is, even though Americans may love them very much, as Jesus told us to “love one another” in today’s gospel reading, illegal aliens are not Americans. Excommunicated individuals may attend a church service or mass, but they are not permitted to receive communion. It seems this is the kind of love Jesus was preaching.

Now, wouldn’t it just be easier to get divorced from your second wife or file appropriate papers to get into the country legally? Sure, but “easier” isn’t always what people need. We have a need that is far deeper than convenience. Our need is to love others and to be loved ourselves — but mostly to follow our Lord’s commandment, given here to his disciples just before he was taken away, and to love others.

Illegal aliens, continue to love your family, many of whom remain in foreign countries, by sending them money, educating them in American schools, and so on. But also, prepare for the situation that you will be deported by lobbying your foreign government for improvements. You have shown disrespect for Americans by breaking our laws, and you are living in a state of continuous sin if you have no intention of making the situation right. Americans must meet this disrespect with forgiveness and mercy, but the people of Arizona have already shown impatience when patience is called for. Be careful.

To the good people of Arizona, appreciate that I am an outsider but I preach a message of love and forgiveness. You are Americans and humans, and Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” That kind of love is how we will know that you are Americans: think not only of the illegal aliens whose families you are preparing to destroy but also of the American citizens whose person and property you are preparing to search. Be ready for the argument that any evidence of laws being broken, other than the immigration laws, may have been obtained in an illegal search.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 13:14, 43-52 (RCL* 9:36-43)
• Ps 100:1-5 (RCL* Ps 23)
• Revelations 7:9 (RCL* 10-13) 14-17
• John 10:(RCL* 22-26) 27-30

Buddhists generally define “nirvana” as the state of being free from suffering, free from greed, hatred, and delusion, free from craving and anger, and so on. In today’s reading from the Book of Revelations, the writer talks about heaven:

For this reason they stand before God’s throne
and worship him day and night in his temple.
The one who sits on the throne will shelter them.
They will not hunger or thirst anymore,
nor will the sun or any heat strike them.

Neither nirvana nor heaven is considered a “place.” Rather, they are “states,” as in states of mind. It is a state of absolute peace of mind, a state considered highly desirable in both Buddhism and Christianity. In Buddhism, nirvana is considered a state of “deathlessness,” while Christians know this state as “everlasting life.”

It should not surprise you that both great traditions have developed similar ideas of heaven: there is no suffering. We are protected from all thoughts of anger, craving, and so on. A common theme in both nirvana and heaven is happiness, but the Buddha has us attaining nirvana in order to bring about peace; Jesus has us being saved by love. My theory is that peace and love are exactly the same thing in that they are the result of a perfect state of unity:

When Jesus says at the end of today’s reading from John’s gospel, “The Father and I are one,” he doesn’t stutter. It is clear he’s claiming an absolute, unconditional and unequivocal unity with the Father.

This incredible claim is neither physical nor metaphysical: Jesus isn’t meditating to a higher plane of thought here. Rather, he is concluding that his love for the Father, proven by his absolute obedience to the Father’s commandments, forms a bond in his heart and in his mind with the Father. Buddhists believe that nirvana comes naturally to a person who lives a life of virtuous conduct according to the “Noble Eightfold Path.” They attain nirvana through real-world kindness.

On the other hand (or maybe the same hand), Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word.” We Christians achieve heaven and a perfect bond with the Father through love. God proved his love for us through his grace in our salvation, and we prove our love for him through loving our neighbors, our obedience — complete obedience, assuming Jesus’ life is our model — to his word.

By his “word,” he doesn’t mean just the things he spoke, as printed in the Bible. It’s much more practical and rooted in reality than even that: He meant his “trust” and obedience to his commandments. In fact, it would probably be better if we used fewer words and took more action in showing our love to our neighbors and in praying for our enemies.

The most famous Buddhist alive today, the Dalai Lama, once said, “This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

Love is not some complicated philosophy, folks. By obedience to what Jesus taught us, the real-world experiences he gave us as examples, however steeped in parables they may be, we prove our love to him and to the Father. What he taught us is kindness, the same kindness God showed us when he sent Jesus to save us from our sins and the same kindness the Dalai Lama spoke about. Jesus has promised to shepherd us into eternal life, into a perfect happiness, a cessation of all suffering and craving, a share in his divinity.

The United States and Russia, which by far hold more nuclear devices than the rest of the world combined, are now in negotiations to reduce those nuclear stockpiles. When Ronald Reagan met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he stood ready to completely eliminate all nuclear weapons from both countries. That ultimate perfection should be our goal, if we are truly following Christ, but present negotiations aren’t even close. However, they’re a step in the right direction: at least a few hundred weapons of mass destruction will be eliminated from the world.

A movie coming out soon (now part of the Sundance Film Festival) is called “Countdown to Zero,” a documentary by Lawrence Bender. A Web site associated with the film asks people to demand a “zero” level of nuclear weapons from all nations.

In this sense, loving our neighbors — by not holding a gun to their heads, by laying down our lives for their sake, by reducing our ability to blow them to smithereens — goes along with peace. The idea of eliminating nuclear weapons, known by President Reagan more than two decades ago, is consistent with the teachings of the world’s great religions, shown here by heaven, nirvana, etc.

Some leaders today say the treaty we just signed doesn’t go far enough, although President Obama is having trouble convincing many politicians in both parties of the importance of even the proposed reductions (ratification by two-thirds of the Senate may not happen). For example, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme religious leader in Iran, who began large-scale military shows of force in the Persian Gulf Thursday, said he perceived the U.S. proposals as an “atomic threat against Iranian people,” state TV reported.

In nirvana or heaven, a state of pure love and peace, this sense of a threat would not exist. I therefore have to conclude that the ayatollah hasn’t yet found this state of mind.

The attainment of nirvana doesn’t lend itself to thought very clearly, though, and Christians believe we’re all sinners. But still, people do attain nirvana, and God still saves us by his grace. He does this for believers who love him, who achieve that same perfect bond of unity with the Father that Jesus talked about in today’s gospel reading.

The question is, How do we prove our love for him? Large-scale military exercises do not testify to a love for God. They instead reveal an underlying hatred (also not a true part of heaven or nirvana).

Our prayer is twofold: (a) the elimination of all nuclear weapons, and (b) the attainment of a state of peace where nobody feels threatened. This perfect state — of zero nukes and zero fear — can only be achieved through love. This perfection, the goal of both Buddhism and Christianity, is possible, thanks to the love in our Savior’s heart for us and for the Father.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 5:27-32, 40-41 (RCL 9:1-20)
• Ps 30:2-13
• Revelations 5:11-14
• John 21:1-19+

The events reported here in John’s gospel — Jesus’ threefold question to Peter — show the greatest significance of Peter in all the gospels. John certainly had higher thoughts about the existence of God than anyone else, and Paul certainly traveled great distances in the name of Christ. But Peter had his place as well: to tend to Christ’s lambs and sheep, feeding them the Word.

But even in elevating Peter to a role of greater importance among believers (and thus someone for us to model our lives after), Jesus still commanded Peter that his primary concern was not his own well-being, but rather the spiritual health of believers. They were to feed off of his love, understanding it as fully as humans could. That was Christ’s command to Peter.

He asks Peter, “Do you love me?” three times, no doubt a reference to Peter’s three denials as Jesus was being led to his death on the cross. Jesus’ response to Peter each time goes something like this: If you love me then … do this. The three things he is asked to do are (1) feed my lambs, (2) tend my sheep, and (3) feed my sheep.

During the tsunami in 2004 and during a string of earthquakes this year from Haiti to China, we note the assistance provided by churches and Christian organizations to people who are hungry and homeless. Non-Christian organizations are also involved in providing humanitarian assistance, but our focus remains the great commission of Jesus to all believers.

A shameful battle for the souls of Haitian victims of the earthquake is under way between Protestant Christians and Catholic missionaries in Haiti. The in-fighting suggests that Catholic priests are doing too little to stomp out Voodoo practices, which Protestants consider satanic. Evangelist Pat Robertson even went so far as to say God brought the earthquake because Haitians had made a “pact with the devil” involving Voodoo religious practices from their African ancestry.

According to the Campus Crusade for Christ in Haiti, “An estimated 75 percent of Catholics are also increasingly involved in voodoo [sic], spiritism and witchcraft. … The steady growth of Protestant churches in the difficult economic and spiritual climate is cause for praise.”

But many who made the trip to Haiti failed to consider the laws of civil authorities. One Baptist group of relief workers was arrested for kidnapping, because they thought they could transport children across a national border. This ignorance prevented them from carrying out Christ’s mission there, and their actions, based entirely on uninformed and unhelpful (and non-Christlike) positions, landed them in an international incident that further distracted authorities from providing aid to victims of the earthquake.

What happened was that they drew attention away from the sheep and onto the shepherd. Such actions shift the emphasis to the church but completely neglect Christ. From our gospel, it would be as if Jesus had told Peter to tend to himself and his own beliefs, rather than to feeding and tending his lambs and sheep.

But that’s not what Jesus said. It is Jesus’ sheep who are paramount, at the top of our Lord’s thoughts. Certainly, he knew his church would survive, no matter what evils the devil threw at it throughout history. His instruction to Peter was clear: take care of the sheep and lambs.

We aren’t talking about feeding them with actual food, either, as John makes clear on several instances in his gospel. We’re talking about the Word, which as John told us, is “love.” The love Christ taught us is the “food” Jesus speaks of when addressing Peter (and thus, all believers, who are part of the Christ’s body, the church).

Our prayer is that victims of the earthquakes around the world this year, especially in the Pacific rim, find comfort and that aid organizations, including Christian missionaries, learn about the people God has put in these places so that they are able to provide better assistance.

As we hear in the reading from Acts, we are to follow God’s law, not man’s. But God created the Haitians to be exactly as they are. He loves them, just as he created them. Christianity, specifically the belief in Christ as the risen Lord, comes with people of many different skin colors, traditions, nations, and spans every difference known to human society. God’s law is simple: love your neighbor. Your many neighbors might not look like you or follow your traditions. But you are still required to love them.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Acts 5:12-16 (RCL* 1:27-32)
• Ps 118:1-4, 13-15, 22-24
• Revelations 1:9-13, 17-19 (RCL* 4-8)
• John 20:19-31

During the Eastertide, readings from the Acts of the Apostles are substituted for the usual reading from the Old Testament or the Hebrew scriptures. The basic lesson from either of the first readings is that the church claims to have authority — and people recognize that authority — and it is utterly compelled to carry out God’s mission on Earth: healing, preaching, and spreading the gospel of love to all corners of the world.

Let’s take a closer look at the reading from the gospel. It teaches three basic points about the Christian faith:

(1) Jesus breathes on his disciples
(2) Thomas touches Jesus’ wounds
(3) The book is written so we may believe

The gospel writer says, “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’ ”

Jesus’ act of breathing on his disciples as he commissioned them here parallels God breathing life into human beings and all creatures. Yes, our DNA comes from our parents; the holiest of spirits that lives within us comes from God. As Jesus breathes his everlasting spirit into believers, he either reminds them or commands them about the forgiveness of sins.

This week, Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement from the Supreme Court after the Court concludes its work this summer. He’ll turn 90 on April 20 and is the longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court by more than a decade. Justice Stevens has personally defended the humanity of the people whose cases made their way to the nation’s highest court.

“Personal letters, snapshots of family members, a souvenir, a deck of cards, a hobby kit, perhaps a diary or a training manual for an apprentice in a new trade, or even a Bible — a variety of inexpensive items may enable a prisoner to maintain contact with some part of his past and an eye to the possibility of a better future,” he wrote. “Are all of these items subject to unrestrained perusal, confiscation or mutilation at the hands of a possibly hostile guard?”

Because of hope in a better future for prisoners, perhaps after a measure of rehabilitation while serving time in prison, Justice Stevens seemed to believe they should not be subjected to the confiscation of personal effects. Unfortunately, he was outvoted on that one.

Unlike the Supreme Court majority, Jesus, like Justice Stevens in writing the above dissent, has faith in us. Yes, we need to have faith in him, but it is clear here that Jesus needs us as well. Even though Peter and all the disciples were sinners, our Lord still breathed the Spirit of God into them.

Next look at the famous incident with Thomas, who needs to feel Jesus’ wounds before he’s willing to believe in the resurrection. He wasn’t just going to say, “Oh Jesus is Lord,” without the proof. Alfred Lord Tennyson, in In Memoriam, wrote:

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

That is, people who approach faith in God blindly, repeating words of a memorized creed, can have a weak faith, one that can be shaken with a well reasoned argument, such as, “You don’t really believe snakes can talk, do you? Well, it says in the Bible that snakes talked. So, the Bible must be a lie. And all the stories in it, including the one today about Thomas, must be nothing more than a literary device.”

On the other hand, those people who have read the story in Genesis critically, where the snake talks to Adam and Eve — and understood it for what it is — have a faith that cannot be shaken. They have considered the possibility that the story is not historical, found it plausible, and read it for what it really is: a message from God about sin and separation from God. Reading the Bible critically is something like Thomas sticking his hands into Jesus’ side.

One of my favorite TV shows is the Bill Maher show on HBO. Mr. Maher is an atheist, but he is very informed about organized religion and very funny. Plus, his opinion that God doesn’t exist is more logical than the story in the Bible that God sent Jesus to pay the debt for all our sins.

What I wish to point out here is that if we Christians could be as strong in our faith as Mr. Maher is in his non-faith (for lack of a better term), we would be preaching love to all corners of the world, as Jesus asked us to do. There wouldn’t even be a question about how to do it.

But so many of us have not put our hands into Jesus’ side yet, figuratively speaking. We haven’t seen the evidence that God exists in our world. We haven’t seen how different the love in a toddler’s heart for his parents is from that of an infant. We haven’t witnessed the spirit of giving, forgiveness, and love that drives so many people in their daily lives.

Instead, many people blindly follow what they think the Bible or their minister tells them is “the truth.” Listen, if there were anybody on Earth who were privy to “the truth,” they wouldn’t need to have their own TV show or the millions and billions of dollars the Catholic Church has. My conclusion is that nobody knows “the truth.”

Many atheists stick their hands, figuratively, into the sides of science or elite intellectualism. Scientific evidence is very convincing. It doesn’t help matters that the only Christian rubbish coming out of uneducated preachers for the past few decades has been that carbon dating is inaccurate and the fossil record doesn’t really say what scientists say it does.

We can continue the name-calling, but saying that others are wrong will not help us to increase our own faith or our fortitude for friendship with others or with our Lord. Instead, we should realize the lesson taught to us by Thomas here: honest doubt is the only path to a strong faith. In addition, we need to learn from atheists, who have a powerful conviction. Even though the content of our belief is fundamentally different, don’t be afraid of self-criticism or of critically considering other sides of a debate. Rather, learn from everything God has put in your world.

Finally, as the writer of John’s gospel message today tells us, Jesus did many things that were not written in the Bible. Therefore, God obviously didn’t intend for the Bible to be historical or even complete. It certainly wasn’t intended to be used as an argument against the fossil record. It’s not even a complete biography of Jesus Christ. Since it falls short of complete on the subject of our Lord’s life and teachings, you can bet it’s nowhere near complete about the other stuff.

I think the message here is to all of us: stop using the book for a purpose other than that for which it was written. The writer of John’s gospel tells us what that purpose was: so “that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”

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(*) The Revised Common Lectionary of the Christian churches (RCL), copyright by the Consultation on Common Texts, as endorsed by about 16 Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic church.