Adventures in Podcasting

I am a preacher as well as a writer. These days I do not preach or teach as much as I used to when I was in fulltime ministry. That is fine with me. I have been retired for almost three years now, and I am content with my relaxed schedule. I preach enough. I preached three times during Lent. I also taught a weekly Lenten study on my book “Experiencing God Directly” at the church we now attend.

So I am not complaining. If I wanted to preach more I could sign up with my denomination’s region to be a supply preacher or an interim pastor. If I wanted to teach more I could volunteer to teach with our region’s Certified Lay Ministry program to teach courses. I have thought about doing both of these, but have not yet felt the call to do so.

Instead I have used my time writing books, writing this blog, writing articles in the local newspaper, and occasionally preaching and teaching. My books are doing well. Better than I expected. Each month I sell more books than the month before. But I want to reach a wider audience.

So I decided to start a podcast. I have listened to podcasts for years, but never considered doing one until now. This podcast would not be an interview show with guests. It would be another venue for me to communicate the ideas in my books in audio format that would be free to listeners.

In other words it would be like preaching, teaching and writing rolled into one. So I am giving it a try. I am calling it “The Tao of Christ” which is also the title of one of my books. And I will read that book for the first three or four episodes.

I will embed the first episode here.

I have also uploaded a second episode. You can find them both with this link: TheTaoOfChrist.com.

Also, here is the RSS feed (whatever that is) http://www.buzzsprout.com/290971.rss

As you can tell, I am still learning the lingo, as well as the craft of recording, editing, and adding music. This project is still in the early stages. After I have three episodes I can send it to Apple itunes and then other podcast directories, so people can find it. That will take a little time. Hope you enjoy it.

The Missing Easter Stories

What happened on the first Easter? It is hard to know exactly what occurred when we only have some of the facts. The earliest list of Easter resurrection appearances is given by the apostle Paul, written down more than twenty years after Easter and about twenty years before any of the gospels were written. Paul writes:

“He [Jesus] appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (I Corinthians 15:5-8)

This list is significant for what it omits as well as what it includes. There is no mention of the empty tomb, which plays such an important role in the gospels. Paul seems to know nothing about the resurrection appearances to Mary Magdalene at the garden tomb or the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, which are now the most beloved Easter stories.

Furthermore Paul includes resurrection appearances that are not recorded in the canonical gospels: singular appearances to Cephas (another name for Peter) and James (the brother of Jesus and head of the early Jerusalem church). Most amazing is the mention of group appearances to more than 500 “brothers” at once (how about “sisters”?) and another appearance to “all the apostles,” which presumably means the wider group of seventy apostles.

One wonders what those Easter stories were like. It would have been wonderful to have them included in the New Testament! Some of these stories can be found in apocryphal and gnostic gospels that never made it past the ecclesiastical censors to be included in the New Testament. They make for interesting reading.

What I like the most is that Paul includes his own encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road as a resurrection appearance. His experience happened twenty years after Easter and hundreds of miles from Jerusalem. Yet he is adamant that his experience of the risen Christ was a resurrection appearance as genuine as those that happened on Easter Sunday, even though it is clearly a spiritual encounter and not a physical one.  

That opens the door for us to meet the risen Christ. It doesn’t matter that Jesus’ resurrection happened two millennia ago. Our experiences of the risen Christ are not any less authentic than those of the apostles. It doesn’t matter that we, like Paul, were “untimely born” – born two thousand years late.

Easter is not a matter of timing or geography. It is a matter of spiritual openness to the presence of the living Christ. Christ is risen! He lives! How do I know? As the Easter hymn says, “You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!”

The Redemption of Judas Iscariot

Every good story needs a villain. In the passion narrative of the New Testament that role is played by Judas Iscariot. He is the one Christians love to hate. I have been thinking about Judas because of something a pastor friend said recently. She believes that Judas is in heaven.

Is that true? Is Judas chumming around with Peter and Paul in the heavenly Jerusalem? I never gave it much thought. I know the conventional wisdom concerning Judas’ fate. I know that Dante’s Inferno places Judas in the ninth circle of hell, not far from the prophet Muhammad, Pope Boniface VIII and several of Dante’s personal enemies (which says more about Dante than these men.)

Dante pictures Lucifer as having three mouths, and in each of them he eternally devours one of the three greatest sinners of human history (in Dante’s opinion). In the left and right mouths dangle Brutus and Cassius, who murdered Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. Judas Iscariot is given special treatment by being placed head-first into the devil’s central mouth with his back eternally clawed by the devil's talons. Ugh! It is not a pretty sight.

But my clergy friend insists that Judas repented of his sin and thereby qualifies for a place in paradise. This is in spite of the fact that he took his own life, which for much of Christian history was considered an unforgivable sin. Thank God that is not the Christian consensus any longer. Now suicide is viewed as a result of mental illness and does not disqualify one from heaven.

When I read the gospels, I find that Judas did indeed “repent.” (Matthew 27:3) At least that is the way some versions translate it. Other translations use words like remorse and regret. In any case he had a change of heart that prompted him to try to set things right by returning the thirty pieces of silver. In the end he was so consumed by guilt that he took his own life.

Another biblical account tells a different story of Judas’ end. The Acts of the Apostles says that he used the blood money to buy a field “and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.” (1:18) Double ugh! Why do these religious punishments have to be so gory?

On the other hand the non-canonical Gospel of Judas insists that Judas didn’t do anything wrong. Judas was privately instructed by Jesus to betray him. It was all part of God’s plan. Judas was acting under divine orders to turn Jesus over to the authorities. Judas was actually a faithful disciple and the first martyr. Interesting take on the old story!

So is Judas Iscariot strolling the streets of gold or is he an everlasting snack for the Prince of Darkness? I don’t know. I am not in any position to judge anyone, not even Judas Iscariot. At least that is what Jesus taught me: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” Therefore to avoid being a Devil’s food snack, I will withhold judgment.

Personally I have a difficult time with traditional depictions of heaven and hell anyway. I don’t take the biblical descriptions of afterlife literally. I certainly cannot conceive of my loving Lord sentencing – or even allowing - anyone to suffer torment eternally, not even his betrayer. That is not the God I know. The one who taught me to love my enemies and forgive those who persecute me surely would not turn around and do the opposite.

In any case the problematic figure of Judas should teach us to be careful how we judge another’s soul and faith. Anyone who thoughtfully reads the Passion story can see themselves reflected in the faces of all the characters – including Peter who denies Christ, the apostles who abandon him, and the crowd that shouts “Crucify him!”  If we look carefully, we can even glimpse the face of Judas Iscariot in the shadows of our own soul. So let’s be careful how we judge … lest we be judged.

Springtime in New Hampshire

According to the calendar it is springtime. But here in the woods of New Hampshire you won’t see any jonquils or daffodils sprouting. I can’t even see the ground yet. All we see are slowly melting mounds of snow and sap buckets.

Driving the roads of rural New Hampshire in the spring is like traversing a third world country. I can drive a maximum of only twenty-five miles-per-hour on the roads near my house because of the frost heaves. Any faster and my head hits the roof and the bottom of the car hits the tarmac.

To avoid the buckles in the pavement, I will sometimes go out of my way to drive on dirt roads. They are much smoother, but they have their own hazards. As the snow melts, these backroads turn to mud. Mud season we call it, which comes right before Black Fly season and after Maple Sugaring season. They say that the Inuit have fifty words for snow. We have nearly that many for spring.

Because it is also Lent I am trying to find some spiritual significance in this. Lent is a wilderness time, patterned after Jesus’ forty day sojourn in the wilderness. The wilderness is also associated with John the Baptist who was “a voice calling in the wilderness, saying ‘Prepare the way for the Lord!’”

We are told that his ministry fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, who said, “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.” In other words John worked on the road crew. I need John right about now.

New Hampshire roads in early spring are a spiritual discipline. They are nature’s way to slow us down. They foster mindfulness. I have to pay attention to the moment in order to navigate the moguls in the road. And during the occasional smooth stretches between the frost heaves I notice some other things – like wildlife in the woods and wetlands emerging from the ice.

Lent isn’t easy. It is not meant to be. It is the Way of the Cross. But Lent will pass. Easter is coming, and the vernal green will eventually arrive in New Hampshire. Soon I will be planting my vegetable garden and dreaming of my first dip in the lake. But for now I travel the Lenten road – grateful for the knowledge that the resurrection of life is around the corner. 

A Plastic Free Lent

Recently I read about Episcopal and Lutheran churches in Pittsburgh that are observing a “Plastic Free Lent.” Instead of giving up chocolate or coffee, pastors are encouraging their parishioners to give up “single-use” plastic for Lent – things like shopping bags, straws, and bottles.

What a great idea, I thought. I can save the earth and still have my chocolate and caffeine! The waitress at the local diner already jokes with me about saving the earth “one straw at a time,” so this should be easy.

Two days later I headed into Walmart to buy a couple of things, but I forgot to bring my reusable grocery bags, and Walmart doesn’t do paper bags. Strike one. We stopped to eat at a BBQ place on the way home. I asked for water to drink. I righteously rejected spring water in a plastic bottle and was served tap water in a plastic cup. I ate my potato salad out of a plastic cup with a plastic fork. Hmmm. This is not going according to plan. 

Last Sunday – the first Sunday of Lent - I was preaching at our local church and decided to present the idea of a “plastic free Lent” to the congregation through the children’s sermon. I felt good about inspiring young people and adults to be eco-friendly. After the service, someone pointed out to me that during my sermon I was sipping water out of a plastic bottle. Strike three … or is that four or five?

I went grocery shopping yesterday – this time with my reusable bags responsibly stuffed under my shopping cart. It was a sobering experience. It turns out that almost everything I eat comes in plastic. Hummus comes in plastic tubs. Blueberries come in a plastic container. Grapes come in plastic bags … with plastic zippers. We pick fresh vegetables out of bins and place them in flimsy plastic bags.

Hamburg comes on Styrofoam plates surrounded by plastic. (Remember when it was wrapped in butcher paper?) English muffins come in plastic bags. Bread comes in plastic bags with little plastic tags stamped with the date. My rooibos tea comes in plastic envelopes wrapped in a paper box wrapped in cellophane. Bathroom tissue comes in big plastic bags. Even potatoes come in a plastic bag.

The only thing that did not come in a plastic bag was my plastic trash bags! They came in a cardboard box. At least the plastic bag company is being responsible. I did succeed in buying eggs in a gray biodegradable egg carton, and I chose milk cartons over plastic jugs. Thank God for small victories.

This Lenten journey is going to be harder than I thought. I am only a week into Lent, but I already see that this is going to be an educational experience as well as a spiritual one. I never realized how plasticized our everyday lives are and how oblivious I was to it. 

My life is wrapped in plastic, and it is hard to unwrap it. It will take a lot of mindfulness, a large dose of confession and repentance … and a lot more reusable bags.

Psalm Wrestling

For Lent I decided to meditate on one psalm each day for forty days, using the Benedictine discipline known as Lectio Divina, which is a contemplative listening to scripture read aloud. I explored Psalm 1 on Ash Wednesday and all went well, but I was stopped in my tracks on the second day by Psalm 2.

What had I gotten myself into? How was I going to endure 38 more days of this? The second psalm has to be one of the most horrid examples of sacred writ ever writ. It is a coronation psalm recited for Israelite kings on the day they ascended the throne. It pictures the king as God’s son with absolute power over his subjects.

It is filled with threats of oppression, violence, anger, terror and wrath. The peoples under the rule of this Hebrew sovereign desire to be freed from their chains and shackles, but God scoffs at their yearning for freedom. God promises that his newly anointed ruler will “break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like pottery.”

Read the psalm for yourself. I listened to it over and over again, and it did not get any better. The only redeeming part was the final verse, which is God’s command to “kiss his son.” That would be fine if applied to a nonviolent Jesus offering unconditional love, but it is not. It is talking about your typical Bronze Age monarch. Then it adds: “or he will be angry.” Sounds more like The Godfather than God.

Psalm 2 is a dreadful piece of sacred literature. Even if you interpret the psalm Christologically, it is still problematic. I tried to spiritualize it to refer to inner spiritual rebellion against God, but it didn’t work. That is clearly not what the psalmist originally meant. You can only twist scripture so much before it breaks. So I gave up, and let the psalm speak for itself.

It is an expression of human sin. It exemplifies all that is wrong with religion. It is what happens when religion wields worldly power and when political leaders act like they are God. It is Kim Jong Un, and Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. It is antichrist, not Christ. God intends for us to reject such demigods and demagoguery.

The harshness of this psalm pushed me into the arms of the merciful Messiah who was crucified by people who took this psalm literally, people who believed that religious violence in the name of God is justified. Like those who fly planes into towers. It also made me confront the violence and arrogance in my own Christian tradition and in my own heart.

In other words, the psalm accomplished its purpose. I wrestled with this sacred text until it yielded its blessing. The ancient practice of Lectio Divina worked. Scripture is meant to lead us to God, and it can do this in many ways. God can even use passages of scripture that repulse us. The second psalm was that for me. As the psalm says, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

Recognizing Jesus

The gospel story says that when Mary Magdalene saw the risen Christ at the tomb on Easter morning that she did not recognize him. She thought he was the gardener. I have never seen a painting or drawing that captures this moment accurately. They all picture the resurrected Jesus in spotless, dazzling white apparel – like someone starring in a laundry detergent commercial.

Think about that for a moment? What gardener would wear pure white clothing to work? When I come home from a couple of hours of working in my vegetable garden I look like a Morlock. You know, one of those underground humanoid mutants in H. G. Wells “The Time Machine.” I am absolutely filthy. I immediately jump in the shower just to feel human again.

I think that is the reason that Mary did not recognize Jesus. He looked like a gardener. In other words he was dirty and sweaty. No glowing otherworldly robes. He looked like he had hung on a cross for six hours and spent the night in a cave. Maybe that is why Jesus told Mary not to touch him. He needed to get cleaned up first.

Furthermore this was no ordinary garden, and this was no ordinary gardener. This was a cemetery. This “gardener,” whom Mary mistook Jesus for, was a groundskeeper and gravedigger. His job was to tend the cemetery grounds and dig graves for those too poor to afford a family tomb.

That necessitated being around dead bodies every day. That made him not only physically dirty but ritually unclean in the eyes of religious Jews. He was not welcome in the Sadducees’ temple or the Pharisees’ synagogues. Those who dealt with death were the untouchables of Jewish society.

That is why two of Jesus’ own disciples did not recognize him on the Emmaus Road later that day. He looked like a weary Passover pilgrim who had walked the dusty roads of Palestine in caravans for days to get to Jerusalem. Jesus did not look like a shining demigod, but a dirty stranger.

This slant on the Easter story fits right into Jesus’ teachings. Jesus identified with the undesirables. He said that his followers were to treat the outcasts of society as they would treat him. He mentions specifically the homeless, hungry, prisoners and “strangers,” by which he meant foreigners. You know, those people we want to keep out with a wall.

Jesus comes to us today not in the form of clean, righteous, religious people, nicely dressed for Sunday worship. He comes in the form of those too dirty to hug. Those who have traveled on dusty roads for miles. Those who have slept outdoors. The homeless and the illegal immigrants. Criminals and drug abusers and the sexually immoral. The type of riffraff that Jesus hung out with all the time during his ministry. In other words, our brothers and sisters.

When Mary finally recognizes Jesus under all the dirt, she does not hesitate to run to him and embrace him. When the two disciples on the Emmaus road invite this dusty stranger into their home and are willing to eat with him, only then are their eyes opened to recognize him. Some things never change. Jesus still comes to us in this guise. May we have eyes to recognize him and hearts to embrace him.