Why did Jesus come?

Jesus said, “Today is salvation day in this home! Here he is: Zacchaeus, son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to find and restore the lost.” -Luke 19:10 MSG

I like the way that Eugene Petersen renders this verse. I think that the salvation that Jesus speaks of is all about finding and restoring people who have lost hope. Folks that are sad, lonely, unhappy and unloved. To these he saves more than their souls. He restores their dignity and gives them purpose.

I want to say a few words about dignity. Humans can be so beat down. They can lose themselves as they struggle so hard to survive the day. They find themselves fighting to find love joy and hope And sadly, even the strongest lose faith and give up. These sometimes lose their dignity.

To these the Lord says, come to me with your burdens. I will help you bear them. I will give you peace and rest. I will restore your dignity. As he transforms our lives, he reconnects us with our heart. He restores dignity by revealing his unconditional love and acceptance to us.

Unconditional is an interesting word. We grow up in a world where everything seems to be conditional. Performance is everything. Our compensation at work is all about performance. Our acceptance at church is all about our religious speech and actions. Everything seems conditional.

Then Jesus comes along. His love and acceptance always seems to precede his actions. To the woman caught in adultery, he accepts her before he challenges her to get out of prostitution. He does not belittle her but restores her dignity before all those who judged her.

So why is it that some religions and religious folks focus so much on sin? Pointing out sins, like the wannabe rock hurlers who Jesus confronted did, seems to be the opposite sort of message than what Jesus delivered. I wonder if it is all about the need for blood atonement? 

As I wrote here, many think that the reason that Jesus came was to die. These believe that his real ministry was not in life but in death. It was not really about what he did in his earthly ministry but the blood that he shed on the cross. These adherents are about a transaction rather than transformation.

Ever think about the idea of a Messiah? For some in the gospel books, a messianic figure would be a warrior. A powerful man (no one back then thought it would be a woman) that would, like King David, lead them in a revolt against the Roman government. 

No one imagined a suffering servant. They all were expecting someone and something different than Jesus. And mostly, despite all of his miracles, he was rejected in the end. Only a few were able to see the divinity in him. Yet all but that few scattered when he was murdered.

Before the resurrection, I think that most thought that their Messiah was a failure. They believed that Jesus came to defeat Rome and all they saw was Rome defeating him. These did not see the reason that Jesus came to earth. They could not get past the physical and enter the spiritual.

The resurrection changed everything. Jesus defeated death. He showed up in locked rooms and on sandy beaches. He ate breakfast with his followers. He restored their faith and their hope. To Peter, who still felt shame, he spoke of caring for the flock - giving him purpose and dignity.

The 40 days after the resurrection were filled with giving hope and dignity to all Jesus encountered. And on Pentecost the Holy Spirit came baptizing all who prayed with a new power and a new vision. The gospel is about such dignity and vision.

In the end, Jesus did not come to put a spiritual band-aid on. He came to bring real humility to us. The kind that breaks us of all of our religious pride and ego. And like the heartbroken disciples, he came to give us power and purpose. And these resulted in restoring our dignity.

... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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prayers that cost us nothing

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! -Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:5

I have prayed a few thousand people in my lifetime. Have shed many tears as I felt the pain of my brothers and sisters in the faith. I have spent years praying silently and in private for my wife as she struggled with disability and pain. I prayed constantly for my first wife before she died,

So I am acquainted with the struggles that come from unanswered prayers. Yet I still pray. I have a prayer blog. Even so, these days I seem to pray differently. I no longer pray for the home run. The miracle that will cure our ills and begin a new inning ... a new chapter ... and a new season.

These days I mainly pray to know how to love better. I want to be able to flow with the pain and the suffering. So I ask God to help me do that. I so want to be able to love like Jesus. I want to be a divine extension of heaven. Yet I have found that the path is not filled with miracles.

For sure, I still want miracles. But I do not want miracles to become an idol. In contrast, I pray for things like contentment. I wrestle with the Spirit about my painful struggles. This wrestling has become a beautiful outgrowth of my prayer life. It is so real.

What do you think praying like a hypocrite looks like? Could it be just praying to show our piety? Maybe just mouthing religious words and not believing them with your heart? Perhaps it is saying the Lord's praying like a magical incantation? I can see merit in all of that.

But what if it is something much simpler? What if it is praying without love and compassion? What if it is praying with a coldness or a certainty that does not break your heart? What if prayer is all about allowing yourself, at least in part, to enter into another human's pain?

Jesus demonstrated this kind of caring. On many occasions it is written of him that he was moved by compassion. I think that his friends could visibly see this. Perhaps it was a change in posture. Or maybe a facial expression. I think that many times Jesus' compassion came out in tears.

In any case, my point is that unless a prayer touches you deeply it may be somewhat hypocritical. King David once said of himself that he would not give something that costs him nothing. Perhaps there is a lesson in there about prayer? Maybe prayers that do not cost us are just cheap and meaningless?

This is a hard thing to hear. In our "thoughts and prayers" world, I think that we have cheapened our prayers. We have substituted mindless supplications for genuine prayers that break us. We have become people who think that God hears and answers cheap prayers.

So what do you think the world would look like if people did not pray as hypocrites? Here are the verses that immediately precede Jesus' words about not praying like hypocrites. In these verses, I think that we get a brief picture of the mind and heart of God about prayer.
"So when you give something to a needy person, do not make a big show of it, as the hypocrites do in the houses of worship and on the streets. They do it so that people will praise them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full. But when you help a needy person, do it in such a way that even your closest friend will not know about it. Then it will be a private matter. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you."
These verse cut us. They expose us. They are meant to embarrass us. They are meant to teach us about prayer. It is as if Jesus was setting us up. As he speaks of helping the needy, he is teaching us that prayer is so much more that public prayers. Prayers are meant to break us and cost us.

You may be confused by the idea that prayer costs us something. Certainly prayer costs us time out of our day. Still. I suggest that prayer costs us more than that. I think that prayer is an act of giving a piece of ourselves. Of not only our time but our emotions and our actions.

For what good is prayer, if it is not a joining of our hearts and actions with God. I mean, what if prayer is more than asking but giving as well. What if prayer is an extension of divine will and providence on the earth? What if God wants to work through prayer in meaningful ways?

Sadly, I still play the hypocrite when I pray. Old habits are hard to break. And sometimes I am not ready to enter into prayers that break my heart. I do not want to cry. It is so hard to get out of my comfort zone. Yet I do understand that unlearning and learning is a process.

I ask you. Will you join me? Will you allow yourself to rise above "thoughts and prayers" and let your heart break as Jesus did. And maybe allow yourself to cry with the hurting and the broken. I think that these sorts of prayers have the power to defeat hypocrisy. May they do just that for you.

... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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Does Jesus have to be divine?

According to Christian theology, Jesus had to be God for his sacrifice to be sufficient to atone for the sins of all humanity. As a human, his death would have been finite, but because he was God, his sacrifice was infinite and could pay the infinite penalty for sin against an infinitely holy God. Being both fully God and fully man, Jesus could act as a mediator and provide a way for people to be reconciled with God, secure righteousness, and receive eternal life. 

The explanation above is one that I embraced for most of my life. It made sense. If human beings were sinful by nature then they would need a divine being to atone for their sins. This idea dominated my theology from a very early age. Until it didn't.

I won't go into the ideas of blood atonement here as I delved into it here. I also will not speak to the problems with the original sin dogma as I did here. Suffice to say that I no longer embrace the orthodoxy of those views and see human beings in a different light.

So what I would like to discuss here is the question of not whether Jesus is divine but whether he has to be. For sure, If one believes that humanity needs blood atonement for their sins, then it makes perfect sense that Jesus has to be divine. But what if they do not?

I think that there are a few things that might point us to the answer of whether Jesus might be divine. One caveat that I might mention is the aspect of faith. For sure, no one can confess Jesus as Lord apart from believing in his Lordship. So it is important to weigh that in.

So here are a few scriptures that I suggest that might deal with Jesus' deity.

  • Jesus says, ‘anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’.

    This is an amazing statement because of the implications. One that I freely accept. In his life, Jesus showed us an amazing image of what a perfect human being might look like. I think that he also gave us a credible reimagining of what God is like. Gone are the pictures of a wrathful Zeus-like deity judging humanity because of their sins. Gone is the idea that the Father is angry with us. In contrast, in Jesus we see a picture of One who cares deeply for the poor and is not too happy with those who do not help them. These images present a compelling case for Jesus' divinity.

  • Jesus also says. I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.

    This is an outrageous claim if made by any human. In saying this, Jesus separates himself from the prophets, the rabbis and all others. The miracles he does might seem to be evidence enough of this but his words give an extra degree of validity to the idea that he is divine. In calling himself 'the Son', I think that he is teaching us something about himself. I think that he is pointing to a divine connection that the most spiritual among us lacks. In my view, I think that points us to the idea that Jesus saw himself as more than human.

  • A question from Jesus: "Why do you call me Lord but don’t do what I tell you?"

    One listening to him might ask Jesus, 'Who are to speak to us in this way?' For sure Jesus gave commands that seemed odd to many. I mean telling people to love their enemies went against the human grain and brain. Calling the poor blessed did not seem logical by any stretch of the imagination. Rebuking his elders seemed wrong. So how in the world could he command the absolute obedience of his disciples. What verse in the Hebrew Bible could he quote? Why should any agree with him? It might make a case for his divinity?

  • Jesus got in trouble when he said: "I and the Father are one."

    The Jewish leaders threatened to stone him saying that he committed blasphemy by claiming to be God. To be sure, he did deflect their accusation using an obscure verse from the Jewish scriptures, but I think that their reaction was well founded. This idea of oneness with God often got Jesus in trouble. Even a casual reading of the scriptures bears this out. I think that he had a spiritual oneness with God that revealed itself in his miraculous ministry and extraordinary teachings.  He is one who has had no equal in all of history. 

So, while I am not inclined to believe in Christ's divinity based on some sort of atonement theory, I am fully in, based on his character, his ministry, his teachings and his testimony. I have tried to model my life after his. In my view, he is matchless. And worthy of emulation. There is no one like him.

So back to the question. Does Jesus have to be divine? As I have indicated, to some degree, it is a matter of faith. That said, I think that there is enough evidence in the gospels to indicate that he is. Yet even if he is not divine, I believe that his life of love is one that is worthy of emulation. 


... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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Developing My Inner Voice

Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path. -Henry Winkler

In my life it has been hard for me to discern and develop my inner voice. My brain always seemed to override the inner voice. A bad habit that I developed because of fear. Consequentially, I tended to rely on my brain to keep me in control. Something that it would take years to unlearn.

Here are a few thoughts about my journey to hear and trust my inner voice.

  • I think that I first needed to acknowledge the existence of my beautiful inner heart/self/voice. This seemed to be the starting point.  Believing that my heart was actually trustable and not desperately wicked changed everything.

  • Trying to figure out why I have done, or am doing, a thing is hard but necessary. My big discovery was that I did a lot of things because I was a rules follower. I still love rules and principles but now understand a tad more about how impotent and limited they can be.

  • Focusing on becoming more loving seemed to sometimes identify the battle between head and heart. I am always aware about how much fear is a part of my journey. Even today I struggle with the future because I am fearful of future health problems for Ann and me.

  • Being open to change has really been hard for me. I retired at 49 from a job that I loved. A few years later I left a ministry position that I did not want to leave. Each time I tried to lean into the still small inner voice. And in each case I was glad that I did.

  • In my early years I really judged myself harshly. I had grace for everybody but me. Being comfortable in my own skin and owning who I really am seems like a cliche but it took a long time for me to get there. I am glad that I found a beautiful way forward.

I think that the idea of being comfortable in my skin was an important discovery. For years I heard things that seemed odd to me even though I could explain it with my head. Many times things in the Bible simply did not make sense. I wrestled with so much of the bible.

I began to learn that it was certainty, not doubt, that was the enemy of faith. This prodded me along the road. I began to see my natural skepticism as a good thing instead of something to be defeated. And my questions led me to think outside of the box.

I remember a pastor once telling me that I needed to submit. Another accused me of having a negative spirit. I think that cultic intimidation in church settings is really prevalent. Seems like folks are only concerned with the truth when it aligns with preconceived theological ideas.

Developing my inner voice required me to embrace and believe that God was working through what some describe as the still small voice or just plain old intuition. It was difficult at first but peace resulted as I pressed forward. That peace grows even today.

My friend John used to advise folks to ask themselves: "What is the most loving thing to do?"  It is such a great challenge. It has the ability to refocus our minds, our hearts and most importantly our actions in the ways of love. And I think that it can help us develop our inner voice.


... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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Does God Know the Future?

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11

This verse is often used to substantiate the claim that God knows the future. I don't interpret the verse that way. In my view, it is simply saying that God wants us to prosper and be filled with hope. And that hope can stem from seeing God working in our lives when things are hard.

Yet some read this verse through a different lens. They embrace the idea that God has planned a future that cannot be changed in the present. While others believe that the future is not predetermined, but rather a range of possibilities, with the actual outcome dependent on free choices.

I am open to that but not dogmatically. In reality we really do not know if God knows the future. Yet, one thing to consider is the idea that God seems to act after bad things happen rather than before. One could interpret that as evidence that he, a loving God, does not really know the future.

I'd like to discuss that last point. For me, I really believe that God loves us. Pursuant to that idea that it makes sense that our heavenly father would prevent traumatizing things from happening to us if he knew the future. Yet history and reality proves that he doesn't.

Yet that same history shows us how God actually works. He takes traumatic things, like abuse, and finds a way to gather counselors and others around us to help us heal. He takes our sins and our mistakes and seems to find ways to help us. He brings beauty from ashes.

It is like God is really not interested in knowing the future, whether he can or not, but more interested in being in the moment with us. Take the Cross of Christ for example. He could have intervened but chose to allow Jesus to be tortured. And he brought something beautiful from it.

I guess it all depends on how one sees God. If one embraces the idea that God knows the future (as I once did) they must accept the idea that he chooses not to prevent awful and heinous things from happening in their lives. And much has been written on why he does that.

In contrast, a person who sees God as One who cannot, or chooses not to, see the future does not have to deal with the idea that their heavenly father could have prevented their pain but chose not to. They can rest in the idea that God is their friend and allow him to bring good things out of bad. 

As I said before, I am not married to either idea but can see the merits of each view. One might say that a God who doesn't see the future is not God at all. And there is merit to that view. I also find merit in the other view as well because of the loving way that it imagines God.

... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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Integrated Theology

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. -Robert A. Heinlein

I think that a theology that happens in a vacuum is a primitive one. So often we begin our understandings of the scriptures in a narrow setting that teaches us one way to read and interpret the Bible. Even if the teacher says there are other ways to understand a passage they hone in on one.

Consequently we grow up spiritually hanging on to an 'ism'. As time goes on we unknowingly build fortresses around many of our newfound beliefs. And when we hear a different perspective we quickly dismiss it before we understand it. Then life happens.

I think that integrating a narrow theology into life can be hard when our life experiences don't seem to align with what we believe. At first we tend to blow it off. But over time it begins to wear on us. And we begin to be open to new ideas and approaches.

This was my story. I remember that day in 1990 when my 39 year old wife Ellen had heart and kidney failure. I recall the 10 weeks that she was in the hospital. I held on to my theology. I believed in healing and prayed daily for a miracle for Ellen. In 1994 she died.

When she died my theology began to crack. My two kids and I watched her die for four years. We were all broken. Yet I tried to hold on to my theology. I held onto the old cliches. My theology had to stay in tact. If not for me, for my kids. I tried to be strong for my kids.

The crazy thing about life is that it goes on. I married Ann in 1995. I began to feel whole again. The four year nightmare was over - or so I thought. The kids still struggled with their mom's death but I stayed 'strong' in my faith. I lived out a theology that was not integrated into my suffering.

Of sure, I processed my grief by writing a booklet about Job. In it I applied my narrow theology to Job's grieving process. Yet my observations were shallow and simplistic. My rigid theology would not allow me to go where I needed to go. My ego held me captive.

Then in 2002 something horrible happened. Ann had an operation and 3 days later had what appeared to be a stroke. She was paralyzed on her right side and struggled to get back to 'normal'. Which she did after months of therapy. She would spend the next 5 years relapsing and relearning to walk.

My rigid theology began to break. I began to integrate my pain into my theology. My beliefs seemed to embrace a more inner, heart filled, focus. Yet so much of my theology remained intact. Even so, I began questioning the fundamentalist roots of my beliefs.

During this time, I read a book by Adam Hamilton titled, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White. I think that something broke in me as I read through the pages. I started to envision a less rigid faith and theology. It began a to release something wonderful in me.

As I began to change, I sensed a spiritual and theological integration happening inside of me. I became comfortable with questions that I had for a very long time. As I opened my mind to new possibilities, I began to see the answers in places I never dreamed of.

Sometime, in the middle of it all the change, something wonderful happened. I found Bob. I discovered my own voice. It was like I was being born anew. I became comfortable in my own skin. The integration was proceeding and I was moving forward. It was a beautiful thing.

I think the problem with a theology that is not integrated into one's life is that you lose yourself. But not for Christ. For something else. Perhaps for the religious ego? Might be to conform to a religious community. Or even worse, fear can lead us to strange places.

Fear. I hate that word. I lived with it for so much of my life. I was bullied as a kid. There were bullies in the Army. And in church I experienced fears. It is really hard to explain. I think that it was the fear of being wrong. And certainly, I had fear around church leaders.

I think that fear can put us in bondage and keep us there. It keeps us from being open to new things. It prevents us from changing. And it certainly keeps us in old theologies that no longer work for us. I guess that is the message. Freedom will lead us to an integrated theology. 

... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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The Cross Theories

"The cross is the school of love." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

There are seven theories, proffered by theologians, of what happened when Jesus was crucified. Unfortunately, most of those theories are based on the idea that atonement needs to be made for our sins. They mostly deal with some sort of substitution scenario where Jesus took our place and our judgement on the cross. Here is a synopsis that I found from a web search:
Major theories include Penal Substitution, where Jesus takes on the punishment for sin; Christus Victor, which frames the cross as a victory over sin, death, and evil; Moral Influence, where Jesus's example inspires believers; and Ransom, where Jesus's death pays a debt to free humanity. Other theories include the Satisfaction theory, which holds that Jesus's death honors God's justice, and the Governmental theory, which suggests the cross upholds God's moral governance. 
My own view mostly resembles the moral influence theory. Here is a blurb from another web search:
The moral influence of the cross is the idea that Christ's crucifixion is a powerful example of God's love, which inspires people to live more moral and selfless lives. This theory proposes that witnessing the extent of God's love through Jesus's sacrifice motivates individuals to repent, reject sin, and live a life that reflects that love by sacrificing their own interests for others. It is a transformative event that acts as a catalyst for moral change by inspiring discipleship and commitment to a new way of life. 
I like the idea that Jesus' death was not just an act of the murder of an innocent man. Of course it was a brutal act of torture and murder. But reframing it as an act of sacrificial love makes sense to me. It speaks to me of redemption, and how God is always at work bringing beauty from ashes.

Even so, I am concerned that even this view might paint a picture where somehow the religious and civil authorities were working with God in some sort of strange plan. I reject that out of hand. The actions of the religious leaders were evil and the civil leaders acted with great cowardice.

Back to the cross. It concerns me greatly that so many consider the cross as God's plan to save humanity. In doing this, I think that we overlook the fact that, for this to be true, God collaborated with murderers and cowards. Consider this parable from Matthew 21, that Jesus used to teach about this.
A certain landowner planted a vineyard with a hedge around it, and built a platform for the watchman, then leased the vineyard to some farmers on a sharecrop basis, and went away to live in another country. At the time of the grape harvest he sent his agents to the farmers to collect his share. But the farmers attacked his men, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Then he sent a larger group of his men to collect for him, but the results were the same. Finally the owner sent his son, thinking they would surely respect him. But when these farmers saw the son coming, they said among themselves, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate; come on, let’s kill him and get it for ourselves!’ So they dragged him out of the vineyard and killed him. When the owner returns, what do you think he will do to those farmers?
A bit of explanation. In this parable the religious leaders are the farmers. Each agent is a prophet. The son is Jesus. Nowhere in this parable does God work with the farmers. In reality he gives them many opportunities to do the right thing. And each time they murder. It was no different with Jesus.

Sadly the religious leaders were not friends with God. They came to hate Jesus and they plotted his murder. Hard to see God involved with this sort of heinous malice. It reminds me a bit of my own experiences with religious leaders. They are great to be around unless you challenge them.

Netting it out, I think that it is simply inconsistent with the character of God to think that he would act in this fashion. More reasonable to see that humans searching for a meaning to the murder of an innocent man came up with theories that downplayed Jesus' murder and made it part of God's plan.

This rationalization is something that we humans always do. We try to take something really bad and find some good in it. And like I said, I am okay the moral influence theory. Yet I am not okay with theories that make God complicit in the murder of Jesus.

In my reality, the Resurrection of Christ is the beauty that came from the ashes of Jesus' murder. And it truly proclaims that God needed to redeem the cross. Instead of the cross redeeming humanity this paints an image of where Christ's death was in need of redemption.

You can see from this why I see that the resurrection redeemed the cross. By that I mean that the raising of Christ from the grave showed us how God works. He is not the one who micromanages our lives but when bad things he is with us and causes even bad things (like the cross) to work for us.

Yet you might ask about the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus seemed to be asking the Father to remove the cup of his death. He then prayed asking for God's will. Many assume from that prayer that his murder on the cross was God's will. For me I think that God does not work that way.

I think that Jesus was terrified by the thought of what lay before him. There would be no rescue. He would cry out to God from the cross feeling forsaken by God. He would be treated as a human and God would not intervene. He, like every human, would have to trust God to bring something good from it.

In the end, I can deal with this sort of reality. Knowing that the Father did not rescue his son gives me comfort when my prayers are not answered and I have to embrace with my heart and soul a trust of God that helps me look beyond. I mean, who has not felt forsaken by God.

This pragmatic approach to the cross is the answer that humanity longs for. Not the one where a magical God answers our prayers but one where we experience heavenly silence but sense that he is with us and will work all things to good, conforming us into the image of Jesus.

I pray that the visceral understanding of the cross might help you process your pain and your suffering. I think that knowing that Jesus showed us a better way as he suffered on the cross might help us to do the same when we take up our own crosses.

... this devotion is part of a series on my spiritual deconstruction. Click here to read more.
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