“Which is better, beer or Jesus?”
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 9, 2008
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The Jesus experience is about life, it’s not about religion.
It’s about being whole, not about being correct.
It’s about an expanded consciousness, not about becoming religious.
When the Christian faith begins to become concerned about life, instead of being concerned about religion, then there will be a renaissance, a new beginning, and then, perhaps, we have a chance of seeing a Christian renewal.
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May I speak only the truth, and may only the truth be heard by you. In the name of God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier. Amen.
The prophecy from Ezekiel
The prophet Ezekiel said it this way:
The hand of the Lord set me down in the middle of a valley.
It was full of bones.
There were very many lying in the valley, and the bones were dry.
Then God said, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them:
O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”
God said to the bones, “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
The context
This haunting passage was probably written soon after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple 500 years before Christ.
The Jews were in captivity in Babylon.
Their nation had been destroyed.
Ezekiel, the prophet, had been a priest at that temple.
He devoted a significant amount of time predicting the restoration of Israel as a nation, and the return of the nation to their God, Yahweh.
Things were looking pretty bad.
But Ezekiel was optimistic.
The state of Christianity today
To a lot of people, things are looking pretty bad for Christianity these days as well.
Mainstream church attendance is decreasing in most places…
although not so much in this diocese.
Younger adults, as well as older adults, are pursuing alternative expressions of spirituality.
The Roman Catholic church is rapidly marching backward to the past under the leadership of the latest pope.
Fundamentalists are quoting Bible verses out of context in order to judge and condemn.
The controversy about teaching the Genesis creation myths alongside scientific evolution theory has reared its ugly head, again, an issue that many thought had ended with the Scopes trial more than half a century ago.
One might look at churches today, and also see a valley of bones, dry bones everywhere.
Which is better?
Here’s a question:
Which is better?
Beer or Jesus?
Marcus Borg posed that question at the conference I attended this week.
Here’s what he said:
The top ten reasons why Beer is better than fundamentalist Christianity are:
10. No one will kill you for not drinking beer.
9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex (or who to have it with).
8. Beer has never caused a major war.
7. Beer is never forced on minors, who can’t think for themselves.
6. When you have beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.
5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured to death over his or her brand of beer.
4. You don’t have to wait 2000 or more years for a second beer.
3. There are laws saying that beer labels can’t lie to you.
You can prove you have a beer.
And the number 1 reason for choosing beer over fundamentalist Christianity would be this:
1. If you have devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you stop.
This is clever, and of course, silly, but it makes a point.
This is how a lot of people see Christianity.
Unlike beer,
it’s threatening, meddling, militaristic, aggressive, intolerant.
More or less a nuisance.
Meeting of the Westar Institute
But the conference I attended last week led by people who have some ideas about how reverse the trend, ideas about how to put flesh and skin and breath back on the dry bones of Christianity.
The gist of the conference was that it’s Biblical illiteracy that’s the cause of our problems.
They suggest that educating people about our holy scriptures can be our legacy for the future.
The conference was put on by the Westar Institute.
It’s a research and educational organization that’s dedicated to just that, the advancement of religious literacy.
Their mission is to foster collaborative research in religious studies, and to communicate the results of the scholarship of religion to a broad, nonspecialist public.
Until a few years ago, essential knowledge about Biblical and religious traditions was hidden inside of universities and seminaries, kept away from the general public.
The ideas and insights were considered “too controversial” or “too complicated” for people in the pews to understand!
Many scholars, fearing conflict, afraid of getting into trouble, talked only to one another.
Churches decided, and still do often, churches decided what information their members were “ready” to hear.
And this was exactly my experience coming out of seminary in the 1960s, filled with new ideas about what God wasn’t, what God was, what God could be.
Three exciting, intellectually stimulating years in seminary were followed by a slow suffocation in the parish ministry of my young adulthood.
That ministry ended quickly.
But things are different now.
There’s a new openness to new ways of looking at things.
I heard it loud and clear this week.
Marcus Borg
Marcus Borg was the keynote speaker
He is a professor of religion and Oregon State University.
He’s written many books, including the best-seller called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.
He also wrote The God We Never Knew, which was named one of the ten best books on religion a few years ago.
His latest book is titled Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary.
Marcus Borg suggests that a serious study of Jesus provides a rich opportunity in this time of change and conflict in the churches of North America.
A serious study of the life of Jesus, he said, can lead to a rediscovery of how to read the gospels and the Bible in a persuasive and compelling way, how to think of the character and passion of God, what it means for American Christians today to follow Jesus, to participate in the passion of Jesus.
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong was another speaker.
She is author of many books, including the international best-seller, A History of God.
She’s also author of three TV documentaries.
Her latest book, The Bible: The Biography, has just been published.
Until recently, she said, religion was not about thinking things.
Instead, it was about behaving in a way that changed participants at a profound level.
Compassion and the Golden Rule were the primary religious categories.
Any form of violence, even unkind speech or impatient gestures, these things were fundamentally un-religious.
Bishop Jack Spong
Jack Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Newark, was there, too.
He’s a prolific writer, and a nonstop lecturer.
He’s published books with titles such as Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Born of a Woman, Living in Sin, and Resurrection: Myth or Reality.
His most recent book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, was published this past year.
It is clearly established, he said, that a period of 40 to 70 years stood between the life of Jesus and the writing of the four canonical gospels.
What’s not so clearly established is the context of that oral period, and how that context shaped the gospel message.
Bishop Spong’s point was that the early Christian stories developed from within the Jewish synagogue.
The Jewish scriptures themselves were directly used in the telling of the Jesus story.
Other speakers
We also heard from Ann Graham Brock, a professor of New Testament, who offered a feminist view of our New Testament scriptures.
And then there was Milton Moreland.
He’s a highly regarded archaeologist involved in Galileean excavaction.
Some of the words I heard this week
• Here are some of the words I heard this week:
• Everything is in God.
• God is a Mystery Beyond All Words.
• God is “Is-ness” without limits.
• The message of the gospel is “Life before death for everyone.”
• We can’t easily give our hearts to something our minds reject.
• The gospels contain both history and testimony (fiction).
• The critical question is not “What is the gospel story?”, but “What does a gospel story mean?”
• Being a Christian is different from believing a set of statements to be true.
• Reciting a creed is a profound distortion of the meaning of faith.
• Doctrines can be harmful. Why quarrel about something you cannot know!
• The big task of our day is to build a global community.
If our religious traditions cannot rise to this challenge, to bring peace to the world, we will have failed.
• We know what to do.
Love our enemies.
• The Jesus experience is about life, it’s not about religion.
It’s about being whole, not about being correct.
It’s about an expanded consciousness, not about becoming religious.
When the Christian faith begins to become concerned about life, instead of being concerned about religion, then there will be a renaissance, a new beginning, and then, perhaps, we have a chance of seeing a Christian renewal.
God said
One might look at churches today, and see a valley of bones, dry bones everywhere.
But God will breathe new life into those old bones.
That’s what Ezekiel said.
He was being optimistic.
I am, too.
Jerry Brooks
May I speak only the truth, and may only the truth be heard by you. In the name of God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier. Amen.
The prophecy from Ezekiel
The prophet Ezekiel said it this way:
The hand of the Lord set me down in the middle of a valley.
It was full of bones.
There were very many lying in the valley, and the bones were dry.
Then God said, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them:
O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”
God said to the bones, “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
The context
This haunting passage was probably written soon after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple 500 years before Christ.
The Jews were in captivity in Babylon.
Their nation had been destroyed.
Ezekiel, the prophet, had been a priest at that temple.
He devoted a significant amount of time predicting the restoration of Israel as a nation, and the return of the nation to their God, Yahweh.
Things were looking pretty bad.
But Ezekiel was optimistic.
The state of Christianity today
To a lot of people, things are looking pretty bad for Christianity these days as well.
Mainstream church attendance is decreasing in most places…
although not so much in this diocese.
Younger adults, as well as older adults, are pursuing alternative expressions of spirituality.
The Roman Catholic church is rapidly marching backward to the past under the leadership of the latest pope.
Fundamentalists are quoting Bible verses out of context in order to judge and condemn.
The controversy about teaching the Genesis creation myths alongside scientific evolution theory has reared its ugly head, again, an issue that many thought had ended with the Scopes trial more than half a century ago.
One might look at churches today, and also see a valley of bones, dry bones everywhere.
Which is better?
Here’s a question:
Which is better?
Beer or Jesus?
Marcus Borg posed that question at the conference I attended this week.
Here’s what he said:
The top ten reasons why Beer is better than fundamentalist Christianity are:
10. No one will kill you for not drinking beer.
9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex (or who to have it with).
8. Beer has never caused a major war.
7. Beer is never forced on minors, who can’t think for themselves.
6. When you have beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.
5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged, or tortured to death over his or her brand of beer.
4. You don’t have to wait 2000 or more years for a second beer.
3. There are laws saying that beer labels can’t lie to you.
You can prove you have a beer.
And the number 1 reason for choosing beer over fundamentalist Christianity would be this:
1. If you have devoted your life to beer, there are groups to help you stop.
This is clever, and of course, silly, but it makes a point.
This is how a lot of people see Christianity.
Unlike beer,
it’s threatening, meddling, militaristic, aggressive, intolerant.
More or less a nuisance.
Meeting of the Westar Institute
But the conference I attended last week led by people who have some ideas about how reverse the trend, ideas about how to put flesh and skin and breath back on the dry bones of Christianity.
The gist of the conference was that it’s Biblical illiteracy that’s the cause of our problems.
They suggest that educating people about our holy scriptures can be our legacy for the future.
The conference was put on by the Westar Institute.
It’s a research and educational organization that’s dedicated to just that, the advancement of religious literacy.
Their mission is to foster collaborative research in religious studies, and to communicate the results of the scholarship of religion to a broad, nonspecialist public.
Until a few years ago, essential knowledge about Biblical and religious traditions was hidden inside of universities and seminaries, kept away from the general public.
The ideas and insights were considered “too controversial” or “too complicated” for people in the pews to understand!
Many scholars, fearing conflict, afraid of getting into trouble, talked only to one another.
Churches decided, and still do often, churches decided what information their members were “ready” to hear.
And this was exactly my experience coming out of seminary in the 1960s, filled with new ideas about what God wasn’t, what God was, what God could be.
Three exciting, intellectually stimulating years in seminary were followed by a slow suffocation in the parish ministry of my young adulthood.
That ministry ended quickly.
But things are different now.
There’s a new openness to new ways of looking at things.
I heard it loud and clear this week.
Marcus Borg
Marcus Borg was the keynote speaker
He is a professor of religion and Oregon State University.
He’s written many books, including the best-seller called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.
He also wrote The God We Never Knew, which was named one of the ten best books on religion a few years ago.
His latest book is titled Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary.
Marcus Borg suggests that a serious study of Jesus provides a rich opportunity in this time of change and conflict in the churches of North America.
A serious study of the life of Jesus, he said, can lead to a rediscovery of how to read the gospels and the Bible in a persuasive and compelling way, how to think of the character and passion of God, what it means for American Christians today to follow Jesus, to participate in the passion of Jesus.
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong was another speaker.
She is author of many books, including the international best-seller, A History of God.
She’s also author of three TV documentaries.
Her latest book, The Bible: The Biography, has just been published.
Until recently, she said, religion was not about thinking things.
Instead, it was about behaving in a way that changed participants at a profound level.
Compassion and the Golden Rule were the primary religious categories.
Any form of violence, even unkind speech or impatient gestures, these things were fundamentally un-religious.
Bishop Jack Spong
Jack Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Newark, was there, too.
He’s a prolific writer, and a nonstop lecturer.
He’s published books with titles such as Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Born of a Woman, Living in Sin, and Resurrection: Myth or Reality.
His most recent book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, was published this past year.
It is clearly established, he said, that a period of 40 to 70 years stood between the life of Jesus and the writing of the four canonical gospels.
What’s not so clearly established is the context of that oral period, and how that context shaped the gospel message.
Bishop Spong’s point was that the early Christian stories developed from within the Jewish synagogue.
The Jewish scriptures themselves were directly used in the telling of the Jesus story.
Other speakers
We also heard from Ann Graham Brock, a professor of New Testament, who offered a feminist view of our New Testament scriptures.
And then there was Milton Moreland.
He’s a highly regarded archaeologist involved in Galileean excavaction.
Some of the words I heard this week
• Here are some of the words I heard this week:
• Everything is in God.
• God is a Mystery Beyond All Words.
• God is “Is-ness” without limits.
• The message of the gospel is “Life before death for everyone.”
• We can’t easily give our hearts to something our minds reject.
• The gospels contain both history and testimony (fiction).
• The critical question is not “What is the gospel story?”, but “What does a gospel story mean?”
• Being a Christian is different from believing a set of statements to be true.
• Reciting a creed is a profound distortion of the meaning of faith.
• Doctrines can be harmful. Why quarrel about something you cannot know!
• The big task of our day is to build a global community.
If our religious traditions cannot rise to this challenge, to bring peace to the world, we will have failed.
• We know what to do.
Love our enemies.
• The Jesus experience is about life, it’s not about religion.
It’s about being whole, not about being correct.
It’s about an expanded consciousness, not about becoming religious.
When the Christian faith begins to become concerned about life, instead of being concerned about religion, then there will be a renaissance, a new beginning, and then, perhaps, we have a chance of seeing a Christian renewal.
God said
One might look at churches today, and see a valley of bones, dry bones everywhere.
But God will breathe new life into those old bones.
That’s what Ezekiel said.
He was being optimistic.
I am, too.
Jerry Brooks
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