Where have you gone?
When did we lose you?
Was it when we became so certain that we possessed you
That we persecuted Jews,
Excommunicated doubters,
Burned Heretics,
And used violence and war to achieve conversion?
Was it when our first-century images
Collided with expanding knowledge?
Or when biblical scholars informed us that the Bible does
Not really support what we once believed?
Was it when we watched your followers distorting people
With guilt,
Fear,
Bigotry,
Intolerance,
And anger?
Was it when we noticed that many who called you Lord
And who read their Bibles regularly
Also practiced slavery,
Defended segregation,
Approved lynching,
Abused children,
Diminished women,
And hated homosexuals?
Was it when we finally realized
That the Jesus who promised abundant life
Could not be the source of self-hatred,
Or one who encourages us to grovel
In life-destroying penitence?
Was it when it dawned on us that serving you would require
The surrender of those security-building prejudices
That masquerade as our sweet sicknesses?
We sill year for you, Jesus, but we no longer know where
To seek your presence.
Do we look for you in those churches that practice certainty?
Or are you hiding in those churches
That so fear controversy that they make "unity" a god,
And stand for so little that they die in boredom?
Can you ever be found in those churches that have
Rejected the powerless and the marginalized,
The lepers and the Samaritans of our day,
Those you called our brothers and sisters?
Or must we now look for you outside ecclesiastical setting,
Where love and kindness expect no reward,
Where questions are viewed as the deepest
Expressions of trust?
Is it even possible, Jesus, that we Christians are the villains who killed you?
Smothering you beneath literal Bibles,
Dated creeds,
Irrelevant doctrines,
And dying structures?
If these things are the source of your disappearance, Jesus, will you then reemerge if these things are removed?
Will you bring resurrection?
Or were you, as some now suggest, never more
Than an illusion?
By burying and distorting ourselves
From having to face that realization?
I still seek to possess what I believe you are, Jesus:
Access to and embodiment of
The source of Love,
The ground of Being,
A doorway into the mystery of holiness.
It is through that doorway I desire to walk.
Will you meet me there?
Will you challenge me,
Guide me,
Confront me,
Reveal your truth to me and in me?
Finally, at the end of this journey, Jesus,
Will you embrace me
Inside the ultimate reality
That I call God
In whom I live
And move
And have my being?
-Author unknown
Grif (and all-see below to quit receiving these emails)-
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the return fire. As my sister said, 'Someone call CNN, we've got a debate on our hands.'
In order not to inundate other's email accounts with our exchanges, and so we can keep a running record of our debate where others can chime in, how about we move this over to the blogosphere? I've made a website, www.jesuspoem.blogspot.com that will let us debate this. I haven't thrown up my response yet because school and work is getting the best of me, but I intend to do so soon.
General debate parameters I employ: Polemics are fine, try to avoid personal slander, and meet afterwards for buffalo wings. That last one might be difficult though as we're a few states apart. I'm sure Granddaddy (Theo) will go in my stead.
If you want to follow the debate, keep checking www.jesuspoem.blogspot.com.
If you're happy to get no more updates about this, sorry to have bothered you.
Thanks,
Matt
On Apr 8, 2009, at 1:17 PM, BAMAJAMMIN@aol.com wrote:
A young man’s letter…An old man’s response.
Young man. Hope those 12:30 AM off-the-cuff answers help. Let me know if something didn't make sense or you agree/disagree with me. Peace,
............................................................
Young man-So here's what I think. The author criticizes Christians for many
things that my Christian "family" is definitely guilty of in the past. We have
gone to war, we have burned people, we have kept others in slavery.
For this, we've apologized and said that we got it wrong. This is the
whole basis of Christianity...we're messed up people, we get things
wrong, and God is changing us to be better.
Young man-But, the author assumes (1) that every Christian has done these things
Old Man-He doesn't Matt. Not all. Just those Christians who helped with preemptive and unjust wars, persecuted Jews, held slaves, supported slavery etc.
Young man-(2) that every person doing those things in the name of Christ was a Christian (they weren't)
Old Man-I'm a little confused here as to your intent. But, we agree that some charlatans may have done “those things” in the name of Christ (?) without being Christians. I doubt, however, that the poet ever intended to address those ‘charlatans.’
Young man-(3) that Christians never did anything against it (they did). More often than not, it wasn't, heretics burned at the stake, but people professing that Jesus was the
Lord of their lives and that the kings and queens should change their ways.
Old Man-We agree that it is NOT OK to kill Christians. Who says it is? The poet does, however, include heretics burned at the stake by Christians as one of his grievances. Mine too.
Young Man-The Christians (and others) moved in Britain and America to end the slave
trade and were successful in Britain without a war.
Old Man-I seem to remember that it was only after another source of sugar became available that the Brits began moderating their position on slavery. Besides, on whom would they have declared war?
Incidentally, white Southerner Christians, most proclaiming Biblical texts as justification, resisted antislavery and integration movements to the bitter end. And...the majority of those southern Christians eventually melded into a part of Goldwater’s southern strategy and...eventually, into the power-base of the Republican Party. That's when their political and religious tongues began to get hopelessly twisted around one another.
Young man-More Christians were killed in the 20th century than in all previous centuries, just
because they refused to obey governments who told them to quit worshipping Jesus.
Old Man-Once more! We agree that it is NOT OK to kill Christians. The poet does worry, however, about Christians killing Christians (and others). I do too.
Young man-It seems the author uses history in a highly inexact way to make a point that is totally unwarranted.
Old man-Don't think so, Matt. Could you elaborate, then, give your sources?
Young man-The poem ends with the author still wanting to see Jesus, but it is the Jesus he understands in the world he's made. Perhaps that's okay for him, but I don't think God is some kind of Santa Claus sitting in the sky who's just happy so long as we believe in him.
Old man-Matt-I'm not sure how you could have gotten that from how the poem ends. I hold that the last words are beautifully, and classically, Christian. Please re-read carefully and…re-consider…
..................................................
I still seek to possess what I believe you are, Jesus:
Access to and embodiment of
The source of Love,
The ground of Being,
A doorway into the mystery of holiness.
It is through that doorway I desire to walk.
Will you challenge me,
Guide me,
Confront me,
Reveal your truth to me and in me?
Finally, at the end of this journey, Jesus,
Will you embrace me
Inside the ultimate reality
That I call God
In whom I live
And move
And have my being?
........................................
---(continuing young man's letter)---
Young man-God loves us very much and wants to be known by us. He wants
to be known so much that he took on human flesh, 'God in the bod,' (Ha) so
we could really know him. Therefore, we're not able to think
about God any way that we want to, we need to think about God how he's
told us to. God is the Ultimate Reality of all things, as the author
says, but he isn't ultimate reality as I define it or as the author
defines it, he's Ultimate Reality as he defines it.
So, I appreciate the author's heart to want to know God, but I suspect
that he wants a god to suit his own needs, not the God who really
loves him enough to die on a cross. Because if he followed this God,
he would have to face sin in his life, which is a scary thing (The poet is calling the church to face its corporate sin. That's scarier)
Old man-Matt, a suggestion regarding the last two paragraphs...I think that you should give the certitude a rest. In the Christian world alone, there are many, many belief systems. The upshot is,"When two or three are gathered in His name"...we will usually find something to disagree about. Words of faith become less confrontational, more saleable, more "peacemaking" if they are preceded by five simple words…
This is what I believe.
Peace Matt...Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I enjoyed sharing mine. Grif
.
=
Matt ,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, you should know that, when it comes to computers, that my knowledge goes barely past being able to turn one on. Therefore, I have no first hand knowledge of how a blog works.
(For instance, today is 4/22/09 and I just discovered that this piece that I thought I sent to the blog on 4/10/09 was misdirected. Maybe it will make it this time)
Several years ago, I wrote a letter to the paper when Paul Finebaum, a prominent sports writer who also has an afternoon talk show, wrote a column very critical of Magic Johnson. The paper gave my letter pretty good play and that afternoon on his radio show, Finebaum raised his voice while asking “Who is Gene Griffin?” And he feigned like he was asking an assistant to get me on the phone. Of course, he never called. (I’m sure it was all for affect.) But, a lot of my friends called me. One, a media guy, counseled me to be careful with radio hosts who control the switches and newspaper people who buy their ink by the barrel. I go into that blogosphere with the same caution.
But, I’ll give it a whirl. Personally, I like a format similar to our first exchange…a letter and then a response (Jefferson and Adams had it right). Within my limited experience, I have found that on the internet there is: so much nonsense; so much obfuscation; so much airing of personal saddle burrs, so much insensitivity, so much carelessness and deliberate insult that real, healing dialogue becomes exceedingly difficult. In short, the internet usually reduces us from peacemakers to propagandists and resolution becomes a foreign word.
By resolution I do not mean that you and I need to reach agreement. In fact I doubt that we will. But, sometimes success is merely in reaching that point where two parties agree to disagree-that point to where, if called upon, either party could efficiently argue the other’s point of view. Good debaters (if “debating” is what we are doing) learn to do that. It opens their minds, makes them better debaters.
During the 2004 presidential campaign my family members, from around the country, began broadcasting email exchanges. Other folks started appearing from everywhere. And, as Merle Haggard said in his song lamenting the loss of the good times, “the story got lost in the words.” People in their computer privacy get bold and careless and lose a bit of who they are in the rest of their lives. (I jump on that like a duck on a June-bug and, when I do, I can be pretty caustic). I see no signs, however, that the aforementioned problems apply to you. For, unless I am asleep at the switch, you are a careful, considerate and respectful young man anxious to get about building your life experience and furthering the mission you see that you have. Of course, I have some 75 years of working out my mission and will, sometimes, make sure I am heard.
Maybe I can save a little time and energy if I tell you a bit about who I am. I was retired from one of the fortune 500 insurance companies in 1994. I think that I am probably better versed and more curious than the average guy on political and contemporary religious issues but I have no special training in either. I was a Baptist until college started my head spinning and I began on a long and winding spiritual journey. Years ago I came to a restless rest in the Episcopal Church where I am probably as intellectually and spiritually content as I’ve ever been. There I, personally, find a deep appreciation of mystery (without mystery, is there a need for faith?). I am not threatened by good questions that probe at the mystery. I like the subject poem because it is packed with some pretty good questions.
Remember the old hymn-“Were you there when they crucified my Lord.” I think of this poem as asking, ‘Lord--were you there when our hearts turned black. Personally, I think He was. I think he was then, as I think He is now...always present with the oppressed...paticularly when the oppressors are Christians.
Good poetry helps us to see things we would not otherwise see. Often it reaches beyond even the poet's reach. grif