I Believe in the Resurrection Gene — Thanksgiving

Anton DeWet

Joel 2:21-27

Fear not, Earth! Be glad and celebrate!
God has done great things.
Fear not, wild animals!
The fields and meadows are greening up.
The trees are bearing fruit again:
a bumper crop of fig trees and vines!
Children of Zion, celebrate!
Be glad in your God.
God’s giving you a teacher
to train you how to live right¬
Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words
to refresh and nourish your soul, just as God used to do.
And plenty of food for your body¬silos full of grain,
casks of wine and barrels of olive oil.
“I’ll make up for the years of the locust,
the great locust devastation¬
Locusts savage, locusts deadly,
fierce locusts, locusts of doom,
That great locust invasion
I sent your way.
You’ll eat your fill of good food.
You’ll be full of praises to your God,
The God who has set you back on your heels in wonder.
Never again will my people be despised.
You’ll know without question
that I’m in the thick of life with Israel,
That I’m your God, yes, your God,
the one and only real God.
Never again will my people be despised.

In a world without science every puzzling event becomes a potential God experience. The lightning strikes from the sky and kills one man while sparing the other, and the community comes to the conclusion that God, that all encompassing name for the un-namable mystery of our fears, hopes and dreams, —that God has spoken. The dead man must have angered the gods.

A person becomes ill and without science, the community turn their eyes to the sky, imagining a power they call god, intervening in their lives and teaching them a lesson.

A plagues of locusts level the crops and leave behind devastated fields and devastated lives and the people agree that this must be the work of an angry god addressing their offense.

The concept of God has so often been built upon fear and the lack of scientific knowledge has often contributed to these paranoid visions of God, and sometimes our fear is so deeply imbedded in our genes that when someone says “God” we cringe in fear and deeply pious respect…after all, we do not want to upset the gods now, do we?

I wish we could take a ritual bath—or perform a rite of cleansing that will, once and for all, deliver us from this ghastly image of an angry God which is proclaimed so mightily by both current contemporary Christianity in its many traditions—and too many other religious traditions.

Ultimately, the fear that God manipulates the weather and the insects of the fields—the claim that God has a score to settle with us for being bad from the outset, leaves us with a diminished image of who we are as men and women, sons and daughters. We look at ourselves and every mistake we make, every so-called sin we indulge in speaks to us confirming how bad we are—how judged we stand before a perfect and angry God.

The only ones who profit from this are the peddlers of religion for if you can convince others that God can do bad things them if they don’t listen, you hold great power over them. Often, religious leaders will always offer themselves, even subconsciously, as the brokers of reconciliation between the judged and God. This offers them the perfect tools for manipulation. This helps them build empires. It gives them power over the lives of ordinary men and women and children.

The message is often subtle and sometimes not so subtle; “beware, God is watching, and we are his eyes and ears.”
Enough of this nonsense! It is time that 21st century people rebel against this tyranny of the spirit. It is time that we use our heads and our hearts when it comes to issues of our faith. It is time to understand that the books of the Bible are testimonies of other people’s experiences and interpretations but they can never do justice to our lives if we simply take them literally when we try to interpret them for our situations today.
Its interesting that the greatest Bible punchers in the Christian tradition are also the last ones to turn their backs on issues such as racism, women’s suffrage, and general human rights. Transformation of their hearts is never very quick to happen. Just read our history books and its all there plain and clear.
It is time for people of faith to accept the responsibility to think for ourselves instead of connecting with some or other religious tradition and accepting uncritically, what you are fed from the pulpits or the Bibles study rooms of the church, even [perhaps especially] this one.

It is the responsibility of every generation to reconsider for themselves, how they shall interpret the foundation of our faith, namely the ancient books and stories of the Bible. We have seen great forward development through the ages.

We no longer stone people to death for offenses that simply don’t make sense. We don’t believe what Paul suggests, that women should sit down and shut up in church, because we have come to understand that a God of love will find that offensive.

We no longer encourage slaves to be faithful to their masters because we know that slavery is an abomination and a scourge that cannot be tolerated by either slave or free.

We no longer burn people at the stake if we disagree with them. We do not ban people from our community when they get divorced. And thank God, most of us in this congregation have also come to understand that we are called to embrace our gay, bi-sexual, lesbian and transgender brothers and sisters as God’s gift of diversity to our human experience.

And in the same way we have been conditioned to believe that God is a cosmic puppeteer who makes the rains fall when we nag God enough—or who makes the locusts flee when we prove we are sorry enough—or who saves our children from death and trauma when we pray enough.

But that belief makes every person who has suffered loss and tragedy question what they have done to deserve such pain—why God has struck them done so mercilessly. I lost a nephew who was 5 years old on Christmas Eve last year…is God teaching his parents a lesson and using the life of a child to do it?

I imagine that this mystery we call God, to be a permeating power of love. Like the wind, this Spirit blows where it will. We breathe it in and we share that same breath with all that inhabit the earth. It brushes up against us in surprising ways, reminding us of its presence. It spills into our homes and it is a power which we may invite into our being or exclude at will.

I believe that all living creatures are imbued with the resurrection gene—something within us that allows us to somehow overcome our prejudice—our tragedies—our failures—our mistakes—even our fears.

I had a beautiful plant with the most beautiful pink flowers which I bought last year just before the winter. The first frost destroyed this plant but I did not have the heart to rip it our and trash it. The dry remains I left hoping against hope, and early this past Spring I was surprised by a tiny bud sprouting from this barren leftovers of my mystery plant. Soon it was covered in new life and I have watched it grow into a majestic plant three times its original size.

Where it comes from we do not know. How it works is simply amazing. But there is an immense potential for new growth—for hope—for dreams of a future—and it lies imbedded in our being as part of this sacred creation. We see it in the process of evolution—in the history of the human family.

Forget about all the fears and efforts to divide us into religious groups who are right and wrong—true and false—Biblical and pagan—and embrace the gift of potential—the gift of resurrection—the gift of life—and ultimately, the gift of love.

If we are to be thankful this Thanksgiving, let’s not just look at the power of our nation and give thanks for that—or for the bottom line of our investments and be thankful for that, but let’s imagine our lives and the life of every living thing pulsating with potentiality. Imagine swimming in a sea of love where we make choices to allow it to enter our experience and restore our brokenness when we are beaten down—and to heal our wounds when we suffer. But also, allow it to motivate us as we dream dreams of building a better world where we may have less as we give away some of what we have to accommodate others who have nothing or very little. Yes, even if we worked very hard to gather what we have and even when we cannot prove that others deserve our help.

Give thanks, dear Friends, for the knowledge that this mystery we call God is not the sum total of that which others before us imagined it to be for some of them have sketched for us a demonically angry god who claims lives and destroys hearts. Let’s overcome our brain washed spiritual capacity and begin to imagine a gentle Godliness that heals rather than harms—that forgives rather than condemns—that weeps with us rather than taunts us with—“you got what you deserved.

Let’s stop telling others how to love or make love—how to dress—how to walk or talk or conduct themselves, other than to encourage all we encounter to love with a deep commitment. And for that we are called to set an example.

Perhaps that is why progressive Christianity is so unacceptable to many because it places the responsibility squarely back into the hands of the individual. We do not have a pie-in-the-sky-Santa Klaus who directs the world…but we are the ones called to heal the earth and give hope to this world. We and no one else need to transform our lives where our choices lead to others being excluded from the welfare and medical care of our times. We are the ones who will need to make peace eventually, so why make war to begin with? We are the ones who will have to find a way to live within the means of this planet to restore itself from our use of its resources.

Only with such a commitment and such a faith do I personally see a future for all of us, friend and perceived foe.

And for the people I am honored to call my friends here at Faith Church I see the signs of God’s love in action so often that this is what I wish to give thanks for today, as I think of Thanksgiving.

Friends who have claimed me and my family as part of their journey, loving us and supporting us in our challenges to walk the walk, even as we talk the talk. Friends who are committed and who are willing to sacrifice, giving of their time and so much of their talents, as we struggle to find ways of effecting change in a society where profit and selfish security reins supreme—even at the cost of one’s neighbor.

And yes, in a world that speaks with so much anger and hatred—here I find words of peace and deeds of justice. And when I have felt wronged and defeated—and when I have felt guilty of failure, here I have found loving arms embracing me. For all of this I give thanks.

My prayer is that our ministry to one another will bring us along the road to recovery and wellness and that we will always know that we carry within our spirits the resurrection gene that leads us back to life. Live well, my dear Friends, for you are God’s gift to this world. Halleluiah. Amen.