James 1:27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

This verse has been on my mind for a few days now. I'm chewing on it as I do. So here are some thoughts.

Things that I would expect are "pure religion" from the various churches and spiritual trainings I've participated in: 

• Praying - a lot. Multiple hours a week (not while multi tasking). 
• Going to church - also a lot. Plus leading/serving/doing something extra while at church. 
• Reading your Bible. Frequently. Probably every day. At least weekly (not counting church). 
  
• Controlling your emotions. Not feeling too angry or depressed, focusing mostly on peace and joy. 
• Submission to authority. 
• Following the rules/keeping the commandments. 
  

Personal habits that you would think prevent me from participating in James's "pure religion":

• Swearing. 
  
• Finding 70% of church folks super annoying. 
• Not trusting anyone who speaks too often on the importance of trusting/following/obeying authority. 
• Being curious about anger. Also, having a lot of it and not knowing what to do with it. But knowing that, when I ignore my anger, depression usually takes over so "just letting it go" isn't a realistic option.
• Free Space. There's probably more. You probably know betting than me. 

And yet, pure and faultless religion is "looking after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

I don't know very many people who have spent any time with orphans and widows. I can name a few. Mostly foster care parents, but most of us will only meet a few orphans and widows in person in our lifetime, especially with the way society is organized. It can be hard to find those in need because they aren't in our immediate circles. But I think James calls us to look for them, not passively but actively.

I do think that it's probably fair to look at this verse and note that orphans and widows were the most vulnerable people in James's day. They had the least agency and power and were very dependent upon their community to make sure that they survived. Even though we still have orphans and widows and they are still vulnerable, I think it's important to look at our own culture and include all of our vulnerable. 

James says "do it". Take care of the helpless, the powerless, the ones most vulnerable to exploitation. Even though you may end up giving and giving (possibly for years or decades) and they will not "earn" it or pay you back. For me, when I read this with that in mind, I think of immigrants, the homeless, and foster children. I think about the systems of racism and the opportunities that we have to organize and vote in new policies that will take care of the most vulnerable. I think of the Black Lives Matter protests and the hate crimes committed against Asians and Asian Americans during Covid19. I think of the trans people who have been murdered in my own city. I think of the immigrant detention center that was exposed for performing hysterectomies on women who did not need and did not want those surgeries. I think of the families separated by our immigrant policies. I think of this last year and I weep looking for a sign that the religion that James describes is out there. 

The other piece of Jame's pure and faultless religion is to keep yourself from being polluted by the world. And I will admit, I avoided thinking about this phrase. It makes me uncomfortable. (See the list of personal habits above.)  Because I love this world and all that it has to offer. I love the music and art. I love food and drinks. I love dancing. In the club. With the sinners. And I love this world so much that I don't even know how to feel guilty about it. (But I can feel guilty about not feeling guilty. Don't worry.) Again, if I was going to write a list of things that count as being polluted by the world it might have a lot of the things on my "personal habits" list. Plus something about sex, the 10 commandments, and probably more things about sex since Christians love talking about rules about sex. 

However, proper Biblical interpretation is not performed by reaching for pop culture, Christian truisms, or your personal guilt. As one of my professors used to say, "First, use the text to interpret the text." So I submit to you that rather than treating this verse as the last verse in chapter 1 of James, we treat it like the the heading with chapters 2-5 as the list of things that explain how to avoid being polluted by the world (and how to practice a faultless religion). As much as I love the book of James and could go on and on, I'll close with a list of topics (pollutants and ways of practicing perfect religion) actually covered in the book of James for us to meditate on. 

• Favoritism of the rich over the poor. (Apparently, showing favoritism is as good as breaking the whole law.)
  
• Faith and deeds (with the example of the uselessness of only saying that you hope those without food and clothes would find them). 
• Teachers will be judged more strictly.
• We should not praise God and curse men who have been made in God's image.
• Selfish ambition vs peacemaking. 
• Greed/jealousy/judging your neighbor.
• Rich people will be judged for exploiting their workers.
• Patience in suffering.
• Prayer of Faith/the importance of confessing your sins to one another.

There are a lot of things on this list that don't receive very much attention in church. I've still never heard a sermon about the importance of not exploiting your employees despite many church goers being business owners and managers. And I've heard precious little about our responsibility to take care of the vulnerable, to actively try to counter-act the world's tendency to show favoritism to the rich. When I hear James taught, too often people focus on the perseverance of chapter 1, land briefly on how we need to have deeds to go with our faith (but deeds means following the 10 commandments or something similar not taking care of your neighbors who are poor), a stop on how "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" and then a wrap on the importance of prayer. But there is so much more here. There is so much that the church in America needs if it is to escape the judgments that James also teaches.

Exodus 34:6

For years I have struggled with the verses that talk about the sins of the father being passed down 3 and 4 generations. As someone with a father with a lot of moral ambivalence, I did not look forward to learning what these verses meant. But these days I see the sins of our fathers everywhere. I see them in the U. S.  Capitol. I see them in the hypocrisy of this country as it responds very differently to Black Lives Matter and the Proud Boys. I feel the weight of being white in a country that tells me that I can benefit from being white if I just pretend I don't understand what I am seeing. I feel it like a millstone That my father's father's, father's father must have carved. 

I know that I'm not racist like the worst of them. The death of Black people make me queasy, sad, and angry. The way murder should make you feel. But, Lord, have I felt the pull towards apathy this past year as I realize how long this fight will last and how long it has already been going! Lord, I have felt the ways in which I benefit by a silence other people cannot afford. Lord, I have heard my siblings crying out and I grew weary of my own powerlessness, like they don't live in that reality from birth. But I am used to a certain amount of power and agency and the structures in this country are set up so that you can only have those when you align with white supremacy. White people who commit to equality are race traitors. And that is not glamorous. It is lonely and confusing. Black and brown people won't hold you up as someone special (because they shouldn't need to) when you betray whiteness and white people who still support whiteness will distance themselves from you even if it's only by intuition.

But this generational iniquity calls for repentance, calls for turning away, calls for a commitment to justice even it renders you powerless. This is the cup white Americans must drink from.

I forgot to post this in September.

The world is heavy today. It's heavy often. I'm beginning to suspect that it will never get lighter, not truly. It feels heavy to me because I have looked into the face of injustice, because I know how far reaching the curse on this world is, because I feel called to shoulder the burden of my neighbor. 

When I was little, after both of parents had remarried and started struggling in their second marriages, I used to mourn the fact that there would never be a complete family portrait. Such a small request, such a normal thing was impossible. To gather people together long enough to take a photo was not possible. It was almost possible at my wedding and at my sister's wedding, but neither of us succeeded. Now that I'm an adult, I feel that grief but on a larger scale. The impossibility of all of the people I care about coming together, holding anything in common for even a moment is, for some reason, a heavy weight for me. 

I want the miracle of life to be enough to bring us together. I want to hear us all laugh at the joke that is hidden in the human experience and marvel at the sacred trapped in us all. I want to stay up late with the rest of the planet wondering at how small we all are and how we manage to move our own mountains. Just because we are all here and none of us "chose to be" and all of us are trying so hard to "do life right". Even though I know intimately the thousand complications that divide us, the history that holds our stories, and the selfishness that isolates us, I want so badly for existing to be enough to bring us back together as siblings on a small rock in a big universe.

I feel overdue for a check in. I know I’ve had some real highs and lows in the past couple weeks but nothing feels worth reporting.

I realize that I have spent the last year or so trying to come to terms with parts of myself that I don’t like. Maybe it’s just this final stretch of my twenties taking its toll. Maybe this year has hit me harder than I’m fully cognizant of. Regardless, I feel a new awareness of faults and flaws paired with a knowledge that they are not going anywhere quickly. So I sit here listening to Tracy Chapman while I try to decide if I can sort my personality and consciousness into categories.

I have to admit that the self love movement has been tainted by those who have hurt me and loved themselves too much to change or apologize. But I’m finally beginning to understand how much harder this life is when you don’t try to love, understand, and accept yourself. I’ve always sought validation from outside sources like school, church, work, and family despite never feeling much like a people-pleaser. Instead of trying to please everyone, I typically would find a person who I respected immensely or who I shared common values with and I’d try to extricate the feedback that I need from them.

Whether the feedback was that I needed to change, try harder, or give myself grace...I didn’t care. As long as the person was on my list of personally selected authorities, I’d bend or rest as they directed. It’s only now that I have accumulated a pile of folks who have steered me wrong or directed their lives away from my core values... only now that I’ve been asked for impossible leaps enough times that I recognize what could have been avoided if I wasn’t doubting my own worth. My doubt was a crack in a cup that I kept asking everyone else to fill. For years, I resented the folks who took advantage of that crack. For years, I hoped I’d finally be full enough of other people’s opinions that the crack would close under the weight of my competency and spiritual growth.

I know my cup won’t ever be perfect, but closing the crack of self doubt is made easier if you love yourself. But loving yourself without knowing yourself is cheap and temporary. I’m at the part of the journey where I can see mistakes that I’ve repeated in more than one relationship, ways I continually hurt people. The patterns are there and I have a couple of choices. My younger self would have run to church to try to prove that I could change. Or I might have found a reason in my upbringing for why I am the way I am and made a plan to overcome the flaw. My slightly older self would ask a trusted friend if it’s really that bad and likely been crushed if they were honest and distrustful if they told me what I wanted to hear. 

 This year, I’ve been sitting with my flaws a lot. Trying to argue less with them. Trying to listen. Trying to accept that they’ve been part of me for a long time now. Trying to imagine how Jesus might talk to me by remembering Zacchaeus, the thief, Mary, Martha, Peter, Tomas, Judas, Lazarus, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, the adulteress, the centurion, the children, the bleeding woman, the demon possessed and so many others. Each of those stories is rich with a different kind of love than I typically extend to myself.

God who comes near. God who sees all. God who forgives all. God who touches, carries, explains, heals, weeps, praises, teaches, welcomes, helps,  frees, feeds, and sits with us. Make me like you. Teach me to know myself like you know me. Teach me to love myself like you love me.

I've been writing a lot. But none of it feels presentable. It's difficult these days to focus. I've been reading up on human rights violations in ICE detention centers, losing faith in humanity, and then trying to find my way back to somewhere safe and stable. 

I've been thinking about the Old Testament question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" I've been reminded of the Jesus who picked up a whip to cleanse the temple. Somehow I missed the whip on my last meditation. God with a weapon. I've been comparing Jesus with a whip and Jesus in Gethsemane, trying to instruct my heart on the complexity of God on earth, God surrounded on all sides by injustice. God who defended the poor, the sinner, the unclean...but who didn't defend himself. And I've been thinking about how badly I want to be understood, how dangerous it feels for those in authority to misunderstand me, how I really should be looking to God to understand me and worrying less about other folks. How I shouldn't pick up a sword to defend myself, but the precedent is definitely there to fight injustice by cleansing the temple, defending the poor and oppressed wherever we find them.

There's a surprisingly large amount of overlap between being misunderstood and fighting for justice. I've been struggling to remember what I'm fighting for. My ego gets hurt and I retreat. Someone I'm close to advocates for complacency and I feel anger simmering in my skin. Sometimes, injustice happens to us and things muddle even further. Which Jesus am I supposed to emulate when I am attacked? Can I choose both? Am I choosing the Jesus in the garden because I'm afraid of standing up for myself and suffering seems holier? Am I choosing Jesus with a whip to fill my desire for vengeance? 

Vengeance is always what people, especially church people, will accuse you of when you seek justice. When I see Jesus with a whip, I don't see vengeance. I see a glimmer of what John will prophesy about in Revelation. I know that it must be possible to pick up the whip and seek justice without getting mixed up in self-righteousness, self-protection and vengeance. But the path is narrow and it is easy to fall off. 

I am, however, comforted by a God who disagreed frequently with Synagogue leaders, taking up a whip to defend those who came to the temple to find God. I am comforted by a God who enters his own temple as a stranger and is angered by the greed that taints worship, by the way access to God is restricted, by those who profit off of those who would draw near to God. I am comforted by a God who would defend the poor and unworthy worshiper so thoroughly. For once, there are no parables or teachings or prayers. No miracles--except that of an angry God cleaning house. For once, you cannot mistake him as buddha-serene, detached and aloof and whatever we think holiness is. God with us. God who sees us. God who loves the unworthy. God who defends those whose oppression is normalized, commercialized.

And I know there is more to this. I know I'm supposed to bring this full circle. God with a whip and God in the garden of Gethsemane, teach me the meaning of, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Teach me what the answer to that question is as I continue to learn about Black Lives Matter, the abuses of ICE, and all of the other weights the world has. For now, I think the answer to that question is, "Don't look away." So I'm looking. I'm learning. I will not close my eyes to the suffering of others just because it hurts. I will see the stranger as my brother.

Meditate

I’m learning what it means to meditate on something day and night. This past year has felt like good meditation. Like chewing. Like climbing inside a chrysalis. Like the type of act of faith that will either transform you or prove you the fool and rob you of any remaining faith.

It wasn't a comfortable start, but the longer I meditate the better it feels. Holding a Scripture in mind for days. Turning it over and over. Examining it. Wondering "Why these words?", "Why this emphasis, order, or phrase?" Comparing expectations with what I find. Chewing and chewing. Thinking about what I know of cultures that are closer to the those of the writers represented in the Bible. "What did this mean to them? What were their expectations? What was their reality?"

It's been good to meditate. To return to familiar Scriptures and interrogate them, chew on them, let them change me. It's been one of the most grounding things to return to these days. To know that God cares about the things tearing my city apart. To see that as my reality gets more complicated, Scripture keeps pace.

Good Samaritan

There are days when the world seems so cracked and battered that I do not know what the point of getting out of bed is. There are days when injustice and pain seem so total and complete that I feel guilty for the ease of my life. There are days when the success of evil people pulls me down like a weighted net. And I wonder if there could possibly be a "how" or a "why" meaningful enough to heal the world's wounds. I wonder if there is a "when" imminent enough that it would save anyone.

How is it that grieving human suffering has become political? How is that nurturing human life has become political? I hear folks talking. They want people to "deserve" dignity and nurture and success. But if they don't, then I don't. And I cannot make more sense of it than that. I want people to share my grief so I share theirs. I want people to work towards a world where we all can succeed, so I work for and celebrate everyone's success. But mostly, and I cannot stress this enough, I believe people. I do not question their tears, their worth or their stories. The few times that I have needed people to believe me and they failed to, have stayed with me as deeply impactful moments that have illustrated how much we all need each other. 

 It's a popular thought in today's society to "move somewhere out in the woods and become self sufficient". The mindset behind that bothers me. And I wonder if it isn't more meaningful for us to take care of our neighbors, to allow ourselves to be taken care of by our neighbors. And for our neighbors to include everyone. People will let you down. You will also let people down. AND, you will let yourself down. There is no protection, no armor, no strength, no independence, and no self-sufficiency so total that you won't get hurt. Every time we remove ourselves from society to "live off the grid" we weaken the community that we could be a part of, and we remove ourselves both from being able to help others heal and for others to help us. So many healers, peacemakers, and bridge-builders are sitting on the bench hoarding their gifts and talents and impoverishing the world out of self-preservation or a distaste for the political. It makes me want to weep especially on the days that injustice feels particularly heavy.

Thinking about "going off grid" or more accurately people's desire to withdraw from human community, I always come back to the story of the good Samaritan. It's on the list of stories that keep me up at night. Jesus telling this man (this expert in the law) who has kept all of the commandments to love his neighbor as himself. This man (maybe earnestly or maybe not) asking who exactly is his neighbor. I suspect that he thinks he already loves his neighbors. Maybe he's expecting some guidelines like you might find in the Talmud about how many steps from your door someone has to be in order to be an official neighbor. I don't know. But I wish I did. I wish I could see inside this man's mind.

I also wish I knew why Jesus responds with a story that puts the audience in the position of identifying with the man who gets mugged and left for dead. It feels like the man asking, most churches, and myself would be much more likely to identify with the helper who comes to show kindness. But we aren't allowed that. We are the man left for dead. And our neighbor is not the local rabbi or the priest. Presumably they say a prayer and keep walking. (Like I do in so many situations.) They are also not the helpers, the neighbor. 

The Samaritan who will definitely not receive anything for helping. The Samaritan who definitely doesn't know the man from church, work, or anywhere else, decides to help. The Samaritan who could probably be blamed for this man's injuries if the wrong Jew finds them together. He is the neighbor. Jesus could be describing an undocumented Mexican immigrant helping an abused and half dead dude in a MAGA hat with a striking likeness to our President and this story would not be any less shocking or challenging for the man who asked "who is my neighbor". And the Samaritan man doesn't just help him out of the ditch. The Samaritan performs emergency first aid, brings him to a hotel, and pays for all of the medical and food bills. He never asks for anything. Actually putting himself at risk in the process. Maybe the Samaritan knew what it was like to be the kind of human people would prefer not to see on their commute. Maybe the Samaritan thought "if I don't help him, who will?" Maybe the Samaritan had been practicing compassion like the spiritual discipline that it is.

Jesus asks, "who was the beaten man's neighbor?" And the expert in the law doesn't have the guts to say "the Samaritan" (and I think that's intentional evasion) so he says "the one who had compassion on him." Jesus doesn't miss a beat, "go and do likewise." Jesus, telling this successful, presumably righteous, expert in the law to be like the Samaritan has got to be the biggest slap in the face that the man has ever experienced. I don't think there's a more impactful way to say that everyone, yes everyone, on this planet is your neighbor. Help them heal. Pay the bill. Don't complain about it. Don't seek compensation. Love your neighbor like you love yourself. Share the risk of being human. Be like the Samaritan. Be kind to Samaritans. Don't just be kind to your neighbors, be neighborly to everyone.

It's a difficult interpretation. When you begin looking at the whole world with each individual as your neighbor, the sheer number of folks bleeding in a proverbial ditch that you are responsible for can overwhelm you. This challenges American individualism head on. But the Bible wasn't written by Americans or for Americans. It's not meant to validate our country or our culture. It's meant to show all of humanity the Kingdom of Heaven. Where it challenges our cultural ideals, we should pause, have humility and meditate. Return to the words again and again. 

I know I do. The violence in my city, the way selfish people want to control the narrative, and the coldness of those who I thought were committed to loving their neighbor has driven me to a deeper meditation of Scripture than anything else ever has. And I'm not done yet.