Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

Judge Not?

The advice to not judge resonated with me, but then I also heard messages that said we can’t get by without judgment. How would we choose vanilla or chocolate? How would we decide what job to look for? How would we know who to trust? How would we keep from doing evil?!

Knowing right from wrong is vital, isn’t it?

Discernment

I’ve been told that discernment is just judgment that’s well thought out, and correct. But as I’ve struggled to understand what it would mean to live free of judgment, I’ve found I see discernment differently.

Judgment is focused outside me. It’s me saying what’s wrong and right, good and bad out in the world. It’s almost like I’m declaring what I believe to be the heart of the world.

On the other hand, discernment is about knowing my own heart. I call it discernment when I’m figuring out what I value, what I love, what I choose.

Distinguishing discernment from judgment

When I’m discerning (as I use the word) I have an open, loving heart, never anger or sneering or exasperation. While discernment may lead me to avoid someone who is dangerous, for example, it won’t lead me to hate them. While it may lead me to question their ideas, it won’t lead me to make fun of them.

What seems to work for me is thinking of discernment as something that applies to *me* and my choices. I can check in with myself and see if a particular action is something I want to do, or not. (And that can be a lot of work, sometimes.)

If it’s about something that I’ve already done, or something that someone else is going to do (and isn’t asking my help in deciding), then it seems like judgment to me, and I prefer to leave that to God.

There’s nothing wrong with you.

This is something that I’ve gotten a bit of flack for saying. So I’m going to flesh it out a little.

When I let go of judgment, I let go of labeling things in the world as “wrong” or as out of alignment with the heart of reality, with the heart of God. When I consider something, I can find it out of alignment with the heart of me, of course. That’s how I know whether it’s what I want. But out alignment with God or reality, that just doesn’t make any sense to me. And it doesn’t have to. I get to leave that stuff to God.

And do the best I can, in each moment, to pay attention and follow love. Doing the best I can. Just like you, and everybody else.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (From The Gospel According to Matthew, chapter 11)

This isn’t the message I get from much of the Christian world. But wow! Isn’t it beautiful?

There’s nothing to fear in this message. If you’re paying attention to ideas that are heavy or ill-fitting, if a path fills your heart with loathing or dread, what you’re seeing isn’t God. God is love.

You’re welcome.

:)

I talked about this before in a post called repent or burn <cough, gag>. Someone decided, when translating a certain group of authority-approved books about our religious history, to use words like “repent” and “sin” and “savior”.

When you translate, you choose words appropriate to the time and place you’re in. They should be words that are in general use. In King James’ time, you’d call someone who saved a kid from drowning a “savior”. But now-a-days, we think “savior” means something magic and weird. If you’re curious, here’s my understanding of what those words really mean. “Repent” would be better translated “change your approach”, “sin” actually means “screw up”, and “savior” would better be called “rescuer”.

Right now I’m thinking of “scripture.” That word means “words that are written down.” Whoop-de-do! Just like “Bible” means… get this… “book.”

Jesus didn’t talk in magic-language. He didn’t want to hold up a system of code-words that kept people separate from God. He used the a word like “kingdom” because “kingdoms” made sense to people. When’s the last time you set foot in a “kingdom”?

I imagine that by the word that became “kingdom”, Jesus meant a world where God was present, fully involved, where God’s will carries the day. That we can look around a see a new environment, a new world that belongs to God and where we, as sparks of the divine fire, can be truly ourselves.

“On the outside, it can sometimes appear that these “emerging churches” are just as orthodox as any other Bible-believing church. Online doctrinal statements and many sermons will sound no different from a Bible-based church. But more often than not when the outer layers are peeled back from these “emerging churches,” a mystical-based, kingdom-now, panentheistic view of “God” is revealed.

And I have to say it looks to me much like it looks to these guys: Churches do try to hide the truth of what they believe in an effort not to offend old-school Christians. They *do* put up statements of faith that imply that they’re just regular old-fashioned “Bible-believing” Christians. And I think it’s sad.

I keep hearing leaders say “I’m not saying I don’t agree with substitutionary atonement, I’m just asking…” or “Of course I affirm the Nicene Creed, I’m just saying…” They are dancing around the truth because they don’t want to push away fellow Christians. But what about the rest of the world?

The secular world is my world, an I am telling y’all that they are not going to come to Christianity as long as they think it’s about a God who longs to burn people for all eternity, or any other weird, illogical theology.

I am deeply in love with the emergent church, and grateful to Jonathan Brink, and to Tony Jones, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and others for the honest things they’ve said.

But you’re all still only seeing Christians. You’re not speaking to the rest of us, for whom the dogma is just silliness. Those doctrines kept me away for so long. And when I was finally able to see the possibilities, it was because I dug and dug, and overlooked weird things like “I’m not saying substitutionary atonement is wrong…”

Just for the record OF COURSE IT’S WRONG. The idea that God demanded blood as payment for our sins is silly, and any God that worked that way would be unworthy of worship. There. I said it.

Jesus didn’t come here to die as payment for anything. I could go on all day about how that makes no sense at all, but I won’t. Because what’s much more interesting is why he did come here.

Jesus came here to LIVE with us, to BE among us, and to SHARE the good news of God’s love and God’s kingdom with us. Why did he have to die? Because that’s what it means to be human. We all die. Some earlier, some later. Some by “natural causes” and some because of the stupidity of other humans. But we all die.

The reason he died the way he did is because that the most loving thing he could do right then, with those people. He gave himself to show us the way.

There are words that Christians use that make up a sort of code. These words are supposed to be the “correct” translation of certain words in Greek or Hebrew. But if a word has no meaning outside the Christian context, then it isn’t really a translation at all.

Some people think that when you translate, you just find the word that’s an exact match for the original word, and you’re set. Sometimes that’s true… for example, shoe, in English, is pretty equivalent to zapato in spanish. But often, it’s not true. Often, there are lots of words to chose from, or words have connotations (or sub-meanings) that make the translation strange.

Here’s an example. How do you translate the word “farm” to chinese? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that if you did translate the word, a chinese speaker wouldn’t picture what we picture when they heard the word. They might picture rice paddies, where we picture rows of corn. See what I mean?

The word “repent” has been used since somebody decided it was the right word in the 1600s. And maybe then, it was. But the word “repent” doesn’t actually mean anything in English, except for in the context of Christianity. So how can anyone claim to know what it means?

But, there’s good news. (Fancy that! Good News!) Bible scholars tell us that the word that’s been translated “Repent” in the New Testament actually means “change what you’re doing.” (And nowhere does it say “or burn.”)

Wow. Imagine that. Jesus, our loving Brother and Spark of the Divine Fire actually said “Change what you’re doing, if you want things to not suck so much.” Turn your heart toward the light that I’m showing you, so that you won’t live in hell.

He tells us that there’s a light to turn toward, and that we can embrace that light. How awesome is that? That’s what I call good news.

Oh, and by the way. You know that scary word “sin”? What if it meant “make a mistake”? “Miss the mark”? … More good news. It does!

More about not fearing the Bible

Jay Bakker gave a sweet sermon on this the topic of “repent”. If this topic intrigues you, you could also check out Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell. He’s pretty good at explaining how the Bible, far from saying hateful, terrifying things, actually brings a beautiful, hopeful, loving message.