The Liberal Way of Jesus

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Is Jesus the Only Way?

Jesus said he was the only Way

to come to the Father.

(Not GO TO the Father.)

I believe Jesus IS the Way,

but not in the same way

that some Christians believe.

In fact, it’s my opinion that

the way some Christians

talk about Jesus being the way

actually gets in the way

of following Jesus.

The way some Christians make Jesus exclusive

is way, way, far away from

the way Jesus lived and taught.

His whole ministry was an inclusive one.

The way he lived, the way he welcomed

all kinds of people,

weighs heavily upon my understanding

of the Truth and the Life he embodies.

We should do away with the narrow

interpretation of John 14.6.

Like everywhere else in John’s gospel,

Jesus was taken literally and had to

correct his listeners.

Thomas said, “How can we know the way?”

Thomas took him literally, as if Jesus was

speaking of an actual road on the highway

or a path through the desert—something

that can be placed on a map.

Jesus said, “No, Thomas, you misunderstand.

I AM the Way.”

By “I am” Jesus didn’t mean a doctrine

or a theology or a belief.

He meant ‘a way of life’ that Jesus

himself embodied.

It is the Way of Inclusion.

Earlier in John’s gospel

Jesus said that the shepherd had

‘other sheep’; that is,

God is more inclusive than you think.

And there is no way that Jesus is going

to lose even one of his sheep.

The Way to ‘come to’ God

is the inclusive love of Jesus.

It is the welcoming Way.

It is not the way of doctrine

or the way of a belief system.

It is the way of love.

The way to interpret John 14.6

is through the lens of the life of Jesus.

The untouchables and outcasts that

others excluded from the table,

Jesus included.

That’s the Way.

That is the Way to communion with God.

That is the Truth about God.

That is the Life that comes from joining

God’s wild mercy.

Are conservative, exclusive Christians

right about John 14.6?

No way!

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A Poem

SONNET ATTEMPT

For some time I’ve had a goal—

To try my hand at writing a sonnet.

The stress of this striving has taken its toll,

But I’ve finally gotten on it.

I wasn’t sure I could work the rhymes;

That doesn’t come naturally to me.

I’ve started and stopped many a time

With pedantic feet as you can see.

An architect once said Form should follow Function.

And I know it’s not necessary to have a rhyming scheme.

But being a Presbyterian, who has to have unction,

I’m trying to be on Shakespeare’s team.

Well, I’ve almost reached my goal of composing a sonnet.

Look! Here I go—I’ve done it! I’ve done it!

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Jesus Didn't Know

Moment magazine asked a number of Jews: What do Jews bring to the world? Writer Nicole Krauss said, “I once heard Shimon Peres joke that the greatest Jewish gift to the world was dissatisfaction.” Krauss goes on to point out how the Jewish tradition is a questioning tradition. The Jewish book known as the Talmud may be the only sacred book in the world that invites its followers to doubt.

In the Talmud we find Jewish rabbis arguing about everything. If the rabbis finally refute an argument, it’s considered a form of failure, Krauss says. The point is to keep the argument alive; to learn to live within the uncertainties.

I have to admit that I want everything nailed down. I’m uncomfortable with uncertainty. Yet, I realize that part of maturity is to accept the fact that life is wonderfully wild. I will keep trying to revel in open-endedness.

No one knows—not even me. (Jesus—Mark 13.32)

If you have an opportunity today, say, “I don’t know.”

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Sister Schm**k

There is a nun named Sister Schmuck. Really. I read about her in The Atlantic Monthly (May 2011). Now, I've led a rather innocent life. So, I admit that I did not know the raunchy meaning of 'schmuck.' I knew it was a put-down to call someone a schmuck. But I didn't know why.


Sister Schmuck grew up in Kentucky, but was sent to the Sisters of Mercy convent in Brooklyn, N.Y. She says she gets funny looks and grins when she signs her name or checks in at an airport. So, she explains that her surname Schmuck is a German word meaning 'jewel.' Which is true. However, 'schmuck' is also a Yiddish word for the private part of the male body. 


Now, if you're thinking quickly, you might say, "Oh, I get it: the family jewels!" But that's not the case. Linguistics experts say that the German word and the Yiddish term have no common linguistic roots. 


The Yiddish term comes from baby talk. A little boy's penis is called a shtekl, a 'little stick.' Shtekl morphed into shmeckle, a kind of baby-rhyming thing; and shmeckle morphed into shmuck. In the Yiddish context Shmeckle is used for prepubescent boys, and is not a dirty word. But schmuck became the word used for older boys, and it has an obscene ring to it.


Here's a typical Jewish joke using this term: Murray and Harry are visiting Tel Aviv, and they decide to rent camels and ride them through town. They quickly fall into an argument. Murray is convinced his camel is male; Harry thinks otherwise. He asks, "What makes you so sure yours is male?" Murray says, "That's easy. Just a few minutes ago, we passed this guy on the sidewalk, and he said: Take a look at the schmuck on that camel!"


Sister Mary Schmuck likes Jewish comedy. But she thinks comedians are creative enough to find other terms to use than the one that matches her surname.


I'm glad I read the article by Jeffrey Goldberg about this jewel of a nun. My linguistic capacities have been expanded. 


But is it just a coincidence that as I write this blog post Representative Weiner has just admitted his shortcomings? One could be tempted to say: Congressman Weiner, you're a schmuck! But I'm not going to do that. I'll leave that to his wife.


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Can do

The 20th century saw many new inventions that made life easier. Such as Carnation Milk in a can. I came across a poem about that very subject in a book of poems selected by Garrison Keillor, entitled, Good Poems for Hard Times.

I hope you like it:

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;

Here I sit with a can in my hand--

No tits to pull, no hay to pitch.

You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.

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The Other Side

The people who guide mountain climbers up the Himalayas are called sherpas. They know

the face of Mount Everest like the back of their hands—the ways to go to get to the top and the ways to avoid. The sherpas    live in the valley below; they see the mountain every day. But according to Jacob Bronowski in Science and Human Values, when they are shown images of Everest from the valley on the other side of the mountain, they can hardly believe what they see. They know one side of the mountain, but the other side is not familiar to them.*

There are many brilliant scientists who do not believe in God. Men and women with Ph.D.s in their discipline. They know their field. But science knows only one side of the mountain. There is another side, and you have to put yourself in another place in order to see it. There are, in fact, many scientists who are able and willing to ‘relocate’ their thinking in order to see the spiritual side of life. Reality is bigger than what scientific evidence can show us. Science is limited to one side of the mountain. Moses went up the mountain to receive God’s Instructions. Jesus went up the mountain to be transfigured. If we stay in the valley on one side of the mountain, we limit our view of life and its meaning.

The Holy Mystery is known only by looking from the other side.

*(Reported in the Christian Century, May 17, 2011)

[The photo was taken by me--no, not the Himalayas, but the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina]

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Jewish insight

One of God’s great gifts to the world is the Jewish community. The Jewish people have many things to teach all of us. Rob Kutner, a writer for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” says that Jews keep before us “the constant perspective of the outsider, the stranger in Egypt.” [Quoted in Moment magazine, May/June 2011, p. 42]

It could very well be this Jewish prophetic tradition that gave to our Fore Fathers & Mothers the strong conviction about protecting the rights of minorities. The prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures such as Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos constantly speak on behalf of God to uphold the rights of the poor, the weak, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.

Jesus, who was a Jew teaching in the tradition of the prophets, emphasized the moral demand of welcoming the ‘outsider.’ His discourses and parables champion the stranger, the untouchables, and outcasts.

Let us give thanks for the Jewish people and their moral insights that come from a divine source.

And I’m also grateful for all the Jewish comedians.

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