Founding principal of the CAC is that the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. St. Francis didn’t waste time opposing the Roman church, he just went to the edge of the church and made it better. He calls this “soft prophesy.” He’s convinced that in our age it’s the only prophesy that can be heard by a large number of people. “Hard prophesy only causes people to dig in their heels. Trying to present an alternative in a non-oppositional way, so that it is seen as an alternative.
Aristotle is considered the father of politics, who saw that the nation states around him seemed to be constantly warring. In the U.S., it seems that we need a war every ten years, as a product of the military-industrial-academic complex. Aristotle’s original idea of politics was to deal with issues by argument, by persuasion, by reason, and by a clear presentation of truth, not by violence. How sad we must all feel that today it has come to mean the exact opposite - another form of violence.
We’re facing a major crisis of meaning (post-modernism). The soul cannot live without meaning. So what people are doing in the vacuum is creating quick, glib, smug meaning systems which give them a sense of identity, but they are almost always oppositional. That’s why he told us that until our eyes and consciousness change, he doesn’t see any end to this.
They tell him in Washington that at least the Democrats and Republicans used to drink in the same bars, but now there are separate bars for each because the hatred is so deep. How can they create a people when they are not a people themselves?
We need to tell our own stories. Exodus 3 - the burning Bush. Two sentences later, the voice that Moses hears from the Bush tells him to confront the Pharoah. Instead of this, we have a church of Leviticus and Numbers - concerned with priestly questions. Balanced by the church of Exodus. The prophets try to bring the two together, but end up meeting their deaths. Probably, the most God has been able to hope for is a minority position - a remnant.
Out of the Bush, he called “Moses, Moses.” Moses said “Here I am.” All we can bring to the moment is who we are. The good news is that this is all God wants us to bring. Broken bread, like in the Eucharist.
“Do not draw near, but put off the shoes on your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground.” This is an alternative space, from which we can look back on the world without hatred or judgement but perspective and freedom.
“I have surely seen the affliction of my people in Egypt…” God knows their sorrows, and is capable of empathy and sympathy with our sorrows. This is precisely what Jesus brings front and center - the connection of God with human suffering. Exodus 3 is the foundation text for this.
Our word for God in the Romance languages (deus, dios), is a direct translation of Zeus. God was the god who through thunderbolts from the sky, sitting on the throne. Despite the revelation of the scriptures, Jesus, and the trinity, we elevated Jesus to the monarchical tradition. The trinity reshaped the world in a circle, not a hierarchy. If you are converted to Jesus without being converted to the trinity you will misunderstand Jesus. After 2000 years of Christianity, the best we have done is grow a year a century in our readiness for the gospel.
For most Christians, God is still out there - a punitive out there. This does not create a safe universe, it creates fear and a violent universe. In this universe, we have to protect ourselves even from God. This leads to a defended kind of life.
What does the God of Israel do? “I have come down to deliver from the hand of the Egyptians, my people… To bring them to… a land flowing with milk and honey.” The enslavement of comfortable first world people is our growing hopelessness, cynicism, and apathy which cannot imagine anything different. When you cannot imagine anything else, he thinks we are enslaved. The opposition of Israel to Moses shows that they didn’t understand their enslavement - until they saw the alternative.
The pressures of the dominant, highly victorious culture has been so seductive that the real story line has become power, prestive, wealth, health.
This is the work of God. We cannot make it happen, but it comes through silence, and years of letting go. We let go of the old empire and refind our ground on new, sacred ground. Our work is still putting the two - Leviticus and Exodus - back together.
Whenever we bring all of us, this is the definition of prayer. When only part of you is there, you are not in prayer. But when all of you is there, then you are an instrument and can be used by God. His definition of sin is trying to live with part of you. The work of religion is pulling together all of the parts. This takes a lifetime.
In the beginning, we live in shame of parts of ourselves. The work of religion is the work of reconciliation, forgiveness. Don’t need to hate and deny different pieces. If we don’t need to do it in our heart, then we don’t need to do it outside of ourselves. You don’t need to fear, oppose would-be enemies.
Survey that people are more fearful now than they were five years ago immediately after 9/11. This is a very clever way to keep people enslaved. Keep the self afraid, and you keep the self split. You can’t bring your wholeness, you can’t say “Here I am.” What the gospel gave us is a recognition that the “I” we are is something deeper than the psychological self. In the promise of the indwelling spirit is a place we can go and rest which has nothing to do with us. It’s a pure gift. When we learn to abide there, that’s the true self. That’s the God self. That’s the transcendant self. This democratizes religion.
The only difference is those that dwell there and those who are trying to create our persona with outside things - the false self, which dies when we die. We have been given an alternative world that’s solid, but we don’t draw on it. If Western Christianity does not find its mystical self, it might as well close shop. Mystical means inner experience. Paul calls this the inner witness. Paul lived a trinitarian life. He knew there was a homing device, an “inner knower” inside of ourself. Prayer teaches of to abide there.
After all is said and done, it is this that makes this different from a humanist left-wing political conference.
Ending with Mary Oliver poem. He hopes what they have given us is another way to entire the fire. There are two fires - the heroic way to do everything ourselves, but we always fail. His first 20 years as a Franciscan was to try to be Francis. He’d haul all of his possessions out, only to have them be back 6 months later. God told him “You’re not Francis. You’re Richard.” He was given the grace to know that there is another way to enter the fire - that “I am what I am what I am.” For most of us, we have one gift in one area - maybe two. Few have three. Don’t let anything split you, but bring all of you and offer it. That is what God wants.
We will be experiencing the Thomas Mass in a few minutes. Jesus gave us a “beautiful mime.” Every so often, you have to take your life in your hands, let it be broken, give it away, and share it. This creates a basis for communion and community. Not heroism, not meritocracy. No worthiness systems. Will always be split apart. But when we are inside of safety, knowing we are all broken, then we can come together. We have nothing to prove, nothing to protect. God can get at us. I can get out of myself, and others and God can get in. This is the other way to enter the fire. When you live in there, you will be fire. The world is not prepared for this because there is nothing there to hate. You just are, who you are, who you are. Which is exactly what God loves.
