Readings: Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18 | Psalm 90:1-12 | 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 | Matthew 25:14-30

Christ Lutheran Church in Aptos, CA

Readings: Amos 5:18-24, Psalm 70, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13

Since I preached this one with an outline rather than a manuscript, I’ll provide you with the full Gospel reading (the main focus of the sermon) below. I think sermons are better heard than read anyway, so click ye olde play button above to listen to the live recording.

Matthew 25:1-13

The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young women took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight, there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then, all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later, the other young women came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Our modern culture seems to have an allergy to symbolic meaning. We live in a world (I speak for those of us in the US, at least) that has primed us from birth to be literal-minded people.

We deal better with signs rather than symbols. The difference between the two is that signs are literal. They point directly to something (the stop sign says STOP, so we stop). A symbol carries a deeper meaning. To stay with the imagery of the stop sign, the red color symbolizes stopping, but it can also mean ‘warning’ or a myriad of other things in different contexts. (This stop sign example is a dreadfully limited one; please forgive me.)

The symbology of the ancient church has been carefully and prayerfully designed through the millennia to open us to a deep interior sense of the sacred rather to point directly to some angry sociopath’s contrived dogma.

Our allergy to symbolism is why a lot of us have a hard time with the historic liturgy. Our modern brains are looking for literal signs in church (and everywhere). This is why people are so drawn to tyrants who tell us exactly how they think God wants us to live, OR ELSE (followed by a 45-minute set from a praise band, of course). But the ancient mass (as an example of my tradition’s context) gives us archetypal and primordial symbols of light, darkness, inclusion, exclusion, feasting, fasting, etc. This symbology has been carefully and prayerfully designed through the millennia to open us to a deep interior sense of the sacred rather than to point directly to some angry sociopath’s contrived dogma.

The late historian from the University of Chicago, Mircea Eliade, likened this loss of the sacred to a ‘second fall’ of humanity into secular and desacralized existence.

Here’s Eliade (my brackets below are an attempt to iron out the gender stuff that might get in our way today)…

“In [our] deepest being, [humanity] still retains a memory of [the sacred], as, after the first ‘fall’ [our] ancestor, the primordial [human], retained intelligence enough to enable [us] to rediscover the traces of God that are visible in the world.”

Mircea Eliade

So, though our modern culture has left us without a healthy way of connecting with ancestral sacred symbology, we have within us a timeless memory of it. I believe that a part of us yearns for it. But because church has been rendered irrelevant (especially the more ancient and traditional form of church), we go looking to assuage this symbolic memory in tribalism, ideology, and all kinds of ways, some of which are harmful.

In my own case, it was when I stumbled into the ancient liturgy of a Roman Catholic mass after almost 20 years of being away that brought me back into the Christian fold and led to me eventually entering seminary to become a (Lutheran) priest. It was the ancient words, hymns, chants, smells, sounds, tastes, and movements of my Roman Catholic upbringing (which I thought I kicked to the curb decades ago) that made me feel small again. It made me feel connected to the global communion of saints. I felt the presence of our ancestors who said these same words, sung these same songs, and ate the same bread and wine millennia ago. While culture tells me that the point is to live large and significant (particularly in status, production, consumption, and monetary wealth), this sacred liturgy reminded me that, in my smallness, God loved me exactly where I was - in my flawed and lovingly limited insignificance. I got the sense that, though in the eyes of my predominant secular performance-based culture, I was insignificant… In the eyes of God, I was loved to the core of my being. God was bonkers about me and I never even had to lift a finger to earn it.

I’m ranting now. I could go on, but I’ll close by saying…

This is why I see it as an integral part of my vocation to carry these sacramental celebrations forward. For they connect us with the memory of the deep past and eternal hope for the future.

May the living God awaken us from our symbolic amnesia and help us recover sacred meaning through the evocative power of symbols that the ancient universal church can provide.

As Ever,Jonas

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I was away from religion and the church for a couple of decades of my life. It’s a long story, but somehow I made my way back. One of the things that I was so smitten with in the church was the liturgical seasons. I saw that they provided different rhythms of life that corresponded to the natural world. In Advent, we have the excitement of fresh snow and the holidays that go along with the birth of Jesus. There’s this joyous merriment in the air, but Advent offers a countercultural way to hold the season where we hold off the big celebration until Christmas day when we pull out all the stops. 

During the season of Epiphany, in the depth of winter and darker days, we are given the mystical inner renewal of the star of Bethlehem. 

During Easter, we have the bursting forth of brighter days, flowers, and wildlife that go along with the resurrection of Jesus. During the summer, the church takes on a simpler role during ‘common time’ and allows us to be in the world more enjoying the longer days and the sun before the church year starts over in Advent. 

We’ve lost our natural rhythms in recent times. Our ancient ancestors were far more tuned into them. We had specific ways that marked the movement of life throughout the year. Not that you have to be religious to do this, but in my experience, church gave this to me. 

Right now, we are knee-deep in the season of Lent. Lent can seem kind of like a drag in the church year. We have the after-Christmas blues and we just want to get straight to the happy-happy-joy-joy of Easter. 

But, with Lent... We can’t. For we can’t get to the lightness of Easter and the resurrection without going through the heaviness of the crucifixion on Good Friday. Lent is the season that marks the low point in that journey.

Yes, this is a church thing. But isn’t it a real-life thing also? 

Three weeks ago - the day that I saw the headline: “Covid infections plummet 90% from US pandemic high, states lift mask mandates”, I scrolled down to see the next headline that said that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine (which is now taking place on the ground, of course). As soon as I delighted in seeing the cashier’s full face at our local grocery store for the first time in two years, I wondered if he’d soon be called up in the draft.

It’s like we can never celebrate too fast. Because something catastrophic always has a way of arising at the most inopportune time. 

It’s honest to ask - why can’t life just be... Easy? And safe? And awesome? Like, all the time?

But the pain of life is (inconveniently) integral to the human experience. Just as there are plenty of mountaintop moments in life, those wouldn’t be so without the deep, dark valleys. There’s something about taking an honest look at the sorrow and brokenness and temporariness within all of us that deepens us into the heart of what it means to be human. Something about trudging through the valleys makes us more compassionate towards ourselves and our neighbors who trudge along with us. For we all have heavy burdens to carry in various forms.

Lent is a season of self-examination and existential reflection. But man, why now? We’re so tired. In both the macro and the micro realms of life. We all have our micro stuff going on that you don’t see in the news or on social media - from addictions to hangups, broken relationships, disappointments, etc. But then, on the macro (big-picture) side of things, we just jumped from a global pandemic to a possible precursor to WW3. 

Can we take a moment to just... Breathe... This is a sacred time to illumine our winter darkness. A time to name the things that ail us - not to just roll around in the muck and the mud of it all. But to shine a light on it. To see it, NAME it, and be sung through it. 

This is human. And this is the season of Lent. Even the natural world teaches us this particular moment in the cycle of the year. We can’t jump to the brightness and bounty of Spring too fast. We have to have a season of MUD and wetness and unwelcome snow storms first.

This is where and when Lent finds us. It’s earthy. It’s real. It is... Us.

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* Genesis 15:1-18

* Oliver Burkeman’s Newsletter (The Imperfectionist)

* Becoming News Resilient

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I gave the following homily at our seasonal vespers that my friends at Musica Sierra and I started hosting here in the Sierra Valley. This one is for the season of Epiphany and is based on the story from Matthew’s gospel about the “Three Kings” and the star of Bethlehem (click to read Matthew 2:1-12). Yes, I know we’re into Lent already, but I hope you won’t mind this slight step back into liturgical time.

The first thing I find interesting about the story of the “Three Kings” is that these mystics from the East weren’t kings nor does it say anything about them being “wise men”. This is where all of that boring Greek they make us learn in seminary pays off... The Greek word used here is magoi, which translates to Magi. The Magi were Zoroastrian priests. We might call them pagans in our culture today. 

Now... Maybe they earned the title ‘wise’ because of their skills in interpreting dreams and understanding astrology. They were well known for telling fortunes and preparing daily horoscopes. They were scholars of their day and had access to the Persian emperor. Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions in the world - it pre-dates Islam - and is still active in Iran today. 

The primary prophet for Zoroastrianism is Zoroaster. Zoroastrians believe that he was miraculously conceived in the womb of a 15-year-old Persian virgin. Zoroaster started his ministry at the age of 30 after he defeated all of Satan’s temptations. 

...IS THIS SOUNDING FAMILIAR TO YOU RIGHT NOW? I digress...

Zoroaster predicted that other divinely appointed prophets would be conceived as history unfolded. Zoroastrian priests like the Magi believe that they could foretell these miraculous births by reading the stars. 

--

I have a dear friend who is deeply into astrology. She’s an amazing woman - a fantastic mom and a gift to her community. She’s been through a ton in her life and has overcome so much. She’s told me that astrology has given her the grace for who she was born to be and that it helps her understand that all is unfolding as it should. She texted me a little while ago and asked me a very honest and vulnerable question... She asked me if being into astrology was at odds with my Christian faith. She wanted to know if the two were in opposition.

What resulted was a long text conversation that I won’t belabor you with (because simple yes and no answers to these kinds of questions never do them justice). 

Yes, Christians and astrologers have thrown stones at each other for a long time. But all I have to do is look at this passage from Matthew to wonder why. I mean, sure... It’s easy to fall into idolatry in astrology just as it is with wealth, personal development, parenting, partisan politics, yoga, health + fitness, or (yes) Christianity. I’ve met Christians who seem to idolize a punitive and damning God who Jesus came to disprove. It’s not that God damns us for our idolatry, it’s more that we damn ourselves by making up a tyrannical god who isn’t even there. But back to the story...

The Magi were astrologers. They’d been mapping the stars for 2,000 years before Jesus was born. Astrology is no new-age hippy-dippy thing. Humans have been finding meaning from studying the stars for a very long time. It’s all a part of God. I believe that I, as a Christian have lost touch with my human heritage of seeing God in the natural world. I don’t know what the rhythms of the planets are. I don’t know how to read moon cycles. Why does this stuff come off as being anti-Christian? I find myself so busy trying to find God in my heady western concepts and legalistic rules that I fail to, like the Magi, see God in the miraculous world under my feet and across the night sky. 

When the Magi arrive, they meet the so-called king. The Sherriff in town, the puppet-king installed by the religious authorities - Herod. When Herod hears about this “newborn king” as the Magi say, he tells the Magi to report back to him as to the whereabouts of this newborn king so he can - ahem - “pay him homage.” (If you keep reading Matthew’s story, it turns out that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. When the Magi end up NOT coming back to Herod to give him Jesus’s location, Herod orders every child ages two and under to be killed). 

See, Herod, the so-called king, lives from a place of total fear. For it is only fear that can cause such violence (Herod even killed two of his own sons because he was so afraid of losing his so-called ‘power’ to them). It is fear that grasps for worldly power. Power over others instead of power with others. It is fear that can’t stand to fathom losing the throne. Because this kind of so-called ‘power’ only exists in opposition to others. It’s scarce. Limited. It must be managed. 

I want to contrast this worldly fear of this so-called king to the faith of the Magi who are open to God’s Epiphany as it was revealed to them through the stars in the sky. In other words, I want to hold up how incredible it is that the Magi fearlessly followed God’s Epiphany through a strange land to such an unlikely rundown shack.

This story shows me that God uses all things and people - from the stars in the sky to the mystic pagan astrologers - to show us who God really is (and in Herod, who God really is NOT)... And as they follow this epiphany, they see clearly that God is not Herod. Rather, they see God in the eyes of a child born of a peasant woman in an unconventional marriage... In this child, they see the love that they were created in as it gazes back at them. The love that we all are created in is... HERE? And, as the scripture says, the Magi were overwhelmed with joy. 

See, this story shows me that God is found, not in the things that we humans usually deem to be powerful and magnificent. God is not found in the eyes of a fearful small man on a throne. God is found in the humblest of places. God is in the mundane. God is found in the things of this earth - in the vanilla glow of daybreak and the stars of the night sky over the Sierra Valley (btw, if you can’t see God in the stars here in the Sierra Valley, it might be really hard to find God in the Bible, just saying...). 

In closing, I give you this blessing. May your path be well lit by the stars above. May your life be guided by a series of endless epiphanies. May you be drawn into the astonishment of the love that your life is made out of. When an epiphany such as this hits your heart, may you, like the Magi, go back home by another way. May your feet be guided away from the powers and principalities of this world that seek to tear down and destroy in order to maintain their fragile authority. And may you find your way home... Back to your original blessedness... For you are made out of stardust. You are the handiwork of the divine and in you, She is well pleased.

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But the ONE THING I CANNOT DO until I’m ordained is the Eucharistic prayer. I cannot say what my tradition calls the ‘institutional narrative’. This is the blessing that the pastor says when she holds up the bread and wine that ends with, “...do this for the remembrance of me.”

This blessing of remembrance - this institutional narrative - MUST be a big damn deal if I can’t say it until I’m ordained. 

I think this is really cool. Like, there’s something definitely here if it’s the ONE THING they keep non-ordained folks away from. 

This blessing of remembrance that Jesus gave his disciples as he held up the bread and wine on the night which he was betrayed during the last supper makes me think of a creation story I once heard in my spiritual-but-not-religious days (yes, I’m a total geek for creation stories). It was written by Neale Donald Walsch originally, but I’ve taken the liberty of adding a Christian twist to it. Let’s see how this goes...

In the beginning, God was all there was. God just... Was. There was nothing else. 

God didn’t want to just know Godself... God wanted to experience Godself. God yearned to know what it was like to experience God’s magnificience (or beauty or whatever of God’s qualities you want to insert here). God wanted to go from being a concept to becoming participatory. 

However, God could not experience Godself unless that which was NOT God showed up. 

For without that which is not,  that which ISis NOT.

God needed a reference point outside of Godself and this did not exist when God was all there was. 

So, God divided Godself. God separated Godself. For the first time in forever, THIS and THAT existed separately from each other along with that which was NEITHER THIS NOR THAT. 

In other words, God became triune. God became three elements/persons: 

* This 

* That 

* Neither-This-Nor-That (the space between and all around this and that which must exist for this and that to exist). 

Another way to put it is this...

* The creator

* The created

* That which is

Or, of course...

* God, the Father

* God, the Son

* God, the Holy Spirit

God went from oneto three.

By becoming triune, God created relativity, the greatest gift that God ever gave to Godself. You and I are given this in relationship. This is the perichoresis or divine circle dance between creator, created, and the relationship that holds them together. 

This might explain the Big Bang (or whatever we decide to call it down the road). This is when time was created. It is when the space between this and that became measurable. All things became relative to each other. 

Since God is love and God needed to experience God as love, God had to create Love’s opposite. That’s when God created fear. And just like that, love became an experienceable thing. Not just a knowable concept. (Perhaps this is mythologized by the story in the garden.)

So maybe God’s reason for creating you and me is this... For God to be able to experience Godself as God in and through us. 

This wasn’t likely an easy task for God. For us to experience that we are God’s beloved, we must first experience ourselves as NOT God’s beloved. We must forget our belovedness. For in a relative world, in order to experience what being tall is like, we must experience that which is short. 

We can’t experience what we are unless we encounter that which we are not. 

It’s impossible for us to truly not be a beloved creation of God (if you REALLY want to go there, it’s impossible for us to not be an inseparable part of God). We simply are that, have always been, and forever will be. 

So, in us, God did something totally bonkers... God caused Godself, in us, to forget who we really are. 

In entering our physicality, we gave up our REMEMBRANCE (there’s that word again!) of ourselves (and thereby God Godself). This allows us to experience what it’s like to come back to our ultimate reality. To go from there back to here. In other words, to REMEMBER who we are. And to remember who everyone and everything else is. 

In the Eucharist, we eat and drink the body and blood IN THE REMEMBRANCE of He who is life. He who is Reality. Or, Christ.

And here’s the cool part...

By REMEMBERING, we are RE-MEMBERED. We are put back together again individually and collectively. Corporally and corporately. In the re-membrance of him, we are brought back to the place we never truly left. 

When this hits us, we do what we are created for... To experience AND BE the astonishment of God’s love. And God is overjoyed at the astonishment that God experiences in Godself through our lives. This remembrance never gets old to God.

Do thisin the remembranceof me.

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Contrary to popular belief, the death and resurrection of Jesus didn’t usher in a new religion. Rather, it marked the end of religiosity.

Religiosity, or the religious impulse, is based on if/then logic… IF you follow the rules, THEN God will favor you.

Jesus was not, in popular opinion, following the rules. He ate with, laughed with, befriended, and forgave sinners for Christ's sake!

But this, right here, is the scandalous good news of the gospel. And it’s why Jesus got hung up on a cross in the middle of the town square…

On that cross, Jesus didn’t change his tone. He doubled down. He proclaimed that even our violence against him, the Son of God himself, doesn’t change God’s mind about us.

God has eternally favored the entire world. From the get-go.

God does not count our trespasses against us. This is the changeless promise of the gospel that echoes throughout time and space.

Which is fine for most of us when it comes to the one looking back at us in the mirror. But when that grace is extended to even them (yes, them!), things get hairy, indeed.

Faith, in this case, is not something you have to “do” in order to “get in.” Faith is when the undeserved one-way gift of God’s love unexpectedly slams into us.

When it comes to religiosity - to the impulse that asks what we must do to be whole/right with God, Jesus says one simple phrase.

It is finished.

The only religion we have in Christianity is a weekly party to mark the end of religiosity. It cancels out the religious impulse because it gives us nothing else to do. We are invited to come together in the light of the joy that comes from people who really know that they’ve been undeservedly reconciled with God, the ground of their very being.

So now what? Well, now we have a reversal. Where we once went to church to sacrifice to the gods, we now go to receive God’s sacrifice for us. Where we once went to recite the things that were supposed to bring us into favor with God, we proclaim that there is nothing we can do to lose God’s favor.

And in that light, we can own up to the ways we fall short in loving service to our neighbor. When our ego ideals let us down - and they always will - we can humbly cast them away as false idols. And we can rejoice that it is God’s unflinching eternal forgiveness that puts us back together again and turns us outward in love towards our neighbors.

On my Apple devices (I’m sure other brands of digital devices have a similar function), every day, a new slideshow of past photos and videos shows up. I have no idea how the Apple bot curates these slideshows, but it does a great job. It even sets them to music that perfectly fits the vibe, etc.

Well, the one that it displayed the other day was of my daughter Rory from four years ago (not the one I included with this post above). She was four years old at the time.

It’s striking, especially in their younger years, how drastically they change in such short of a time span. Her face was so babyish and her voice so squeaky and cute. She still has hints of these characteristics, but they’re fading into her maturity.

Well, this really hit me and I started… Bawling. It was like an inner ache that was just waiting for the right moment to express.

As joyful as it is to be a parent, I’ve come to know this… Being a parent also means being in a continual state of guilt, regret, longing, and sadness. When I watched that slideshow, I started realizing how distracted I was when she was that age. I remembered how frustrated I’d get with her just because she was being a kid. And I felt so sad that she’ll never be that young again.

I wanted a do-over. And there’s no way that’s happening.

Being a parent is hard work. No, let me restate. It’s impossible work. As new parents, we’re expected to master the most emotionally trying and exhausting job in the world on day one. And from there on out, we’d better not mess it up. This is the standard our world sets for us. It’s the standard we set for ourselves. And it’s totally unrealistic. (Yes, dads fall into this too.)

I’ve been a parent for a mere 8 years. Settling into this role takes time. And the mission is always changing because the human(s) we’re raising are continually growing and developing at breakneck speed. The kid we just got used to dealing with yesterday - new synapses in her brain have just formed and she’s now a totally different person. Good luck!

This job is impossible. And that’s okay.

Dear parent, if you’re reading this, may you know that grace abounds. The expectations for you in our performative world are unfair and impossible.

But also know this... God uses all of the times we’ve fallen short of our perfect parental ideal for God’s good work. God works with our imperfections because it’s the only thing God has to work with. It’s a damn good thing that I am not my daughter’s God. I need just as much shepherding as she does along the way.

Parents, may we all stop every now and then to remember how astoundingly forgiven we are and how much mercy is at hand in this role. May we realize how great it is that God can use our mistakes and foibles to shape our kids and even deepen our connection with them when we’re honest about the impossibility of our lot while being starkly aware of the goodness of our God.

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But what if “final judgment” didn’t mean that?

What if “final judgment” meant the finality of judgment? Better put, the end of judgment.

If we interpret Scripture through a Christ-centric lens, this is exactly what it means.

Christ Jesus gave God a body and became the mouthpiece of the previously hidden God. He gave voice to God, the Father, who had previously been hidden in abstraction.

And from the cross, he utters the final judgment.

Father, forgive them.

Utter and complete forgiveness IS the final judgment.

And with that,you and I can stop judgingourselves, each other, and the worldso harshly.

God’s unconditional love has the first and final wordeven in the midst of our loathing and projected violence.

In this final word, God has died to God’s falsely perceived wrathand in the resurrection, a loving God has been givenfor you.

Grace + Godspeed,Jonas

Destruction is different than deconstruction. And I think a lot of times, we just want to tear stuff apart.

I mean, I get it. I’ve been there. I’m there often. When I realize how much harm that religion has caused us and our loved ones, a common reaction is to take a proverbial crowbar to it.

But we can’t call this deconstruction. Deconstruction signifies a meticulous and intentional taking apart of something. In deconstruction, we’re still after something. But the crowbar wielding of destruction is not… This. Because when I get done and my previous house is in shambles, I still need to be rescued from my false self.

I’d say that the authentic Christian faith is inherently deconstructive. We naturally construct idols in a multitude of ways and the Christian faith is designed to continually tear those idols down. The questioning it engages in is not meant to undermine God but to affirm God. 

If our idols are our gods then there is no hope. But alas…

God is the love that stands when all of our idols have been torn to the ground.

God is the loving presence that stands firm when nothing else is there. When my sacred cows have been slaughtered when my guardrails have been torn away and life brings me to the end of myself... There is a humming that arises in the midst of my being God is here God has always been here. And now, in the absence of my idols that is plainly clear. When the cosmic scoresheet has been ripped from my hands, when I see that God hangs on that cross to show me that God would rather die than uphold my idols… I know that God’s love for me has always been so. This deconstruction makes me a blank slate. Disillusioned of my idols. And God can work with that. God can only work with that.

Grace + Godspeed,Jonas

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It’s true that religion - derived from the Latin word legare which, as I mentioned, we also get the word ligament from - holds us together in a chaotic and uncertain world. 

There are good things about this. But it can also tip over into toxicity, hatred, and even violence. 

All of those religious tenets I mentioned yesterday - the elitist spirituality, the performative activism, the worship of corporations, the vitriol against ethnic minorities and people who live differently than we do, etc...

These are all false ways in which we find our rightness. They are ways in which we find our specialness. As good as this rightness feels to the ego, it also divides us from our neighbors, ourselves, and... God. 

In our religious rightness, we can justify all sorts of sordid behavior and ways of being in the world. They wall us in and isolate us from the other. 

Christianity, at its most authentic level, is a Religion that is meant to keep our bad religious impulses in check. It is an anti-idolatrous technology, if you will. 

I’d argue that, in Christianity, our God is not a shiny object of our desire. Rather, our God is the crucified one. The one who has cried out from the cross in dereliction when all idols have failed. This is where Christ meets us.

I’ll explain more in the days ahead. Until then...

Grace + Godspeed,Jonas

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But now that I’ve kept along the path and God has deepened me into this journey, I see…

I was religiously non-religious.

Humans are religious creatures. We can’t help but be religious in a multitude of ways. The word religion is derived from the Latin word legere. This is also where the word ligament comes from.

Lowercase-r religion is like our existential ligament system. Religion is the way in which we hold our lives together in this chaotic world.

Yes, we have the brand-name uppercase-R religions of the world. But what I find fascinating are all of the lowercase-r ways that we’re religious without even knowing it.

Do you go do yoga with others? Or do you attend silent retreats? How about golf (this is a lowercase-r religion of mine)? Have you ever been to a Dallas Cowboys or Chicago Bears game? (Soldier Field is certainly a religious cathedral if there ever was one.)

Do you live with the notion that you need to #hustle harder than everyone? Or that you have to drive a crappier car and live with less means than the people around you? Do you think that every ethnic minority group is out to get you? What about that activist bumper sticker on your Toyota Prius? Do you think that corporations should be given free rein no matter what?

Do you think that to be Religious is outmoded but to be non-religious, spiritual, or agnostic is ‘good’?

These are all religious tenets.

We are all religious. Even the religiously non-religious.

In Comfort + Joy,Jonas

Sometimes, you’ll get a more formal podcast where I sit down with a nice microphone and offer a more teased-out ‘thing’. Other times, like today, you’ll get more of a voice note/memo from me where I just start yammering into my phone about whatever’s on my mind.

Today, I’m passing this voice note out to everyone. So please, enjoy.

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The questions I addressed are below with (approximate) timestamps should you want to jump around.

* (1:10) I know God is with us through our suffering but really - the scale of Covid-19? Where are You God? Has this world You lovingly created fallen so far that this is a sign of sorts? But the ones that suffer most are the vulnerable ones, not the cream at the top.

* (7:05) So much of the new testament (I believe), is symbolistic and can be interpreted so that it is relevant to what is going on in our daily lives even in 2020 but some of it I truly struggle with. I grew up and brought my children into the Lutheran church but presently go back and forth between you and Swedenborgian Christianity, both of which I respect greatly. Is it OK to wobble a little with different internal beliefs about what it's like in the afterlife and what our purpose here on earth is?

* (11:45) How do you reconcile the judgmental God of the Old Testament with the loving God of the New Testament?

* (18:40) I know you're a big fan of the Revised Common Lectionary. I never knew about it but I think it's a great tool. Is that what you use for daily readings? Do you have any specific practices/routines you engage in daily in your walk with God? I'm always interested to hear the rhythms people build into their lives.

* (28:00) Tell me about your conversion from more secular spirituality to Lutheran Christianity.

Links from the show:

God and the Pandemic by N.T. Wright

Blessed Broken Given by Glenn Packiam

On Being a Theologian of the Cross by Gerhard O. Forde

Where God Meets Man by Gerhard O. Forde

Centering Prayer Course by ME!

Grace + Godspeed,Jonas

Third Sunday of Easter

(Check out all the lectionary readings for the week here.)

Luke 24:13-35The Road to Emmaus

24:13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem,24:14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.24:15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them,24:16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.24:17 And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad.24:18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?"24:19 He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,24:20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.24:21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.24:22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning,24:23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.24:24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him."24:25 Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!24:26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"24:27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.24:28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.24:29 But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them.24:30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.24:31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.24:32 They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"24:33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.24:34 They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!"24:35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

If you’re enjoying Table Talk, become a paid subscriber below to keep this thing going strong! Alleluia!

Image Credit: Tanja Butler (http://tanjabutler.com/)

Matthew 28:1-10 - The Resurrection of Jesus(Check out all the readings for the week here.)

The Resurrection of Jesus

28 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” 8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Here we are. The crescendo of the Christian year. The high point of the liturgical seasons... Easter. 

For a lot of liturgical churches like mine, we’ve been refraining from saying or singing the word Alleluia since Ash Wednesday. But on Easter, when Christ rises, there is only one response... 

Alleluia.Christ has risen. 

I realize that looking around at our world now, this seems to be a stretch. If Christ has risen, then why all the death, sorrow, and tumult in the world in such widespread numbers now? 

When we look at the news or at the empty streets and sidewalks of our cities and towns - when we think of the empty pews in our churches as we Zoom together from home - all we can conjure are images that match the somber Lenten season that we just made it through.

Yes, we just got a Lent we never dreamed possible. But though the bad statistics in the news will likely continue to worsen for a little while longer and we’re still not out of the physical distancing woods yet, it is Easter and Christ has risen.

See, the first Easter looked a lot like our world does now. In Matthew’s gospel, the two Mary’s, Mary Magdaline and Jesus’s Mother Mary, go to the tomb to check things out. Suddenly there’s an earthquake as an angel swoops down and rolls the stone away that covered the tomb. 

Now, angels in the Bible aren’t like the ones we see on Hallmark cards. Angels are straight-up terrifying. The guards pass out because they’re so horrified and I’m sure the women are dumfounded (but, as we see here, far braver than the guards). 

The angel tells the women that Jesus has been raised. See, look - he ain’t here. The angel tells them to spread the word and head to Galilee where Jesus is headed. So they take off running to do what the angel told them to do. I can imagine the expression in their faces as they sprint towards Galilee. Much like the OMG emoji on my phone, I’m sure. 

And then it happens... Jesus appears as they’re en route and greets them. This day has just gotten even more bizarre for the women. We went from OMG to WTF. And Jesus says, simply, “Do not be afraid; go and tell the others to go to Galilee; there they will see me." 

I’m making light of it, but the first Easter for the women and the disciples was most definitely traumatic. This guy who they thought was amazing - well, he got killed. Not just killed, but publicly dehumanized in the most horrific way. And even worse, he LET himself be killed. No true Messiah would do that. Have we wasted all of this time - all of this emotional labor... For this?

It’s all the feelings for them on that first Easter - terrifying, disorienting, and depressing but also hopeful, joyous, and ripe with possibility. A new creation was among them - what a fascinating time to be alive.

Jesus... Has risen?! 

When the women were on their way to the tomb, I’m sure they thought they’d reached the end. It was over. Let’s go identify his body, put some flowers down, and start the grieving process. 

And they were right. They did reach the end of what they knew. But then the angel came followed by the risen Jesus and suddenly, this wasn’t the end, but merely the beginning. The main message from God at that point from both the angel and Jesus was this: 

Do not be afraid. 

This was and is the Easter word from God to us. 

Another interesting thing was where Christ decided to go after his resurrection. Instead of opting to stay in the city center of Jerusalem and crush the evil-doers as this powerful deity, He decides to go to where it all began... To the rural backwoods of Galilee. 

See, the risen Jesus isn’t the one who struggles with death on the cross. The risen Jesus has ultimate clarity. There are no mixed messages anymore. He understands that he truly is the one who fulfilled the prophesies. He has utter confidence about what just happened and what his birth, life, death, and resurrection have been about this entire time. 

This Jesus wants to go away from the concentrated center of metropolitan power to gather himself and his crew and start their mission to reach out to all people. Jesus is the ultimate universalizer. On that first Easter, he has just defeated death, sin, and the devil for ALL people. 

This is THE moment for great joy. This is the gospel. God is for us and in the midst of this confusion, trauma, anxiety, loneliness, and death (as well as hope), we have nothing to fear. 

Christ has risen.Alleluia.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.May the Lord's face shine on you with grace and mercy.May the Lord look upon you with favor and + give you peace. Amen.

Until next time, as always…

Grace & Godspeed,Jonas

I recorded a contemplative exercise for you that I read and recorded from Fr. Richard Rohr’s latest book, The Universal Christ. It’s one of the most powerful guided meditations I’ve ever experienced.

I will warn you… It’s deep. It’s definitely a Good Friday meditation that puts us face-to-face with Jesus on the cross. But in order for resurrection to happen, we have to move through the crucifixion.

I was handed a non-sensical theology of the cross when I was a kid. It ended up ruining Christianity for me for a very long time. I couldn’t accept that God had to kill his son because of the bad things humans did/do. The Jesus-as-human-shield thing never cut it for me. It sounded a lot like divine child abuse.

I’m now JUST STARTING to learn more about a redemptive theology of the cross, but better later than never. A different take on the same thing that ruined my Christian faith is restoring it. Fr. Rohr has had a lot to do with this restoration, for sure.

If this is too much for you right now, that’s totally fine. Save this for later when your soul can bear it. But I want to invite you to give it a chance. I hope that, like me, you’ll end this exercise feeling a lot freer than you did when you first started listening to it.

Grace & Godspeed,Jonas

[Quick note #2] These podcasts are typically only available to paying subscribers and Patreon members. HOWEVER, everything I publish between now and the beginning of May is available to everyone, so enjoy!

Fifth Sunday in LentJohn 11:1-45 - The Death of Lazarus, Jesus the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus Weeps, Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life, The Plot to Kill Jesus(Check out all the readings for the week here.)

Those lectionary people are sadistic... This week, we have forty. Five. Verses. This spans not three stories like last week (which was a wall of text in themselves), but FIVE stories wrapped into one!

Here it is, the Holy Gospel, according to John (scroll down beyond the reading to see the homily)…

The Death of Lazarus

11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Jesus Weeps

28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Okay, here it is in a nutshell...

At the beginning of this loooooong passage, Jesus’s friend, Lazarus, is going to die. His sisters, Mary and Martha, sent Jesus a letter saying that he’s sick (so, like, hint hint, come heal him and stuff). 

Now, you think that if you were gonna get ahold of the Son of Man to tell him that a dear friend of his was sick that he’d be all over it. 

But, no, not in this story. Instead, he’s like, aaaahhh... No big deal... He’ll be fine...

Well, Lazarus DOES die... And still, Jesus doesn’t freak out. It’s all God’s will, he kinda says, and then he heads on down to the tomb of Lazarus in Jerusalem two days later. 

I want to say here that it’s a suicide mission. They just tried to stone him in Judea. His disciples are terrified to go back. But he saddles up (or maybe Jesus rides bareback, I’m not sure) and goes down there anyway. 

When he gets to the tomb, Mary is like, Dude, where were you? You’re the worst friend and Messiah ever...

Jesus shrugs it off and goes to the tomb to find the Judaens and everyone weeping. That’s where it hits Jesus really hard. He starts to weep. He raises Lazarus from the dead and the Jewish authorities don’t like this magic they’ve just seen. Who is this guy? And they go and plan to kill him.

So that’s the skinny. That’s what happens. 

This seems to be the theme these last few Lenten weeks: Who does this guy think he is? 

This gospel story (in John) is different from the other gospel stories about what leads to Jesus’s death. In the other stories, it’s about how Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem, makes a giant ruckus, and effectively shuts it down. But here, in John, the thing that leads Jesus to the cross is raising Lazarus from the dead. 

It’s a fantastic story. We’ve got friendship happening here. Complicated relationships. Disappointment. Blame. And the timeless questioning of God. 

We see these kinds of themes right now in our pandemical world. Where is God in this pandemic?! Why isn’t he making everyone better? 

Where is God in this has been the go-to human lament for... ever...

After reading this gospel story, we have to ask ourselves... What happens when God doesn’t show up at the tomb, snap his fingers, and raise someone from the dead? Because in my experience, that hardly ever happens. 

Martha’s response is raw human emotion in verse 21... “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When a family member dies early, this IS the question... 

And to look at the question with stark objectivity, it’s also the go-to response that effectively asks, “Who are we gonna blame for this?”

Mary is trying to blame someone for this horrible thing. I sure would. And God - as always - is the easiest scapegoat. 

Jesus is taking it here. He takes on the God role and people aren’t happy with him. And it’s a lot to get a whole lot more heated than that. 

They all start weeping. Some mimetic scholars have said that the Greek word that’s used for Mary and Martha’s weeping points to catharsis (an emotional release of tension). The Greek word that’s used for Jesus’s weeping points to frustration or agitation (as in, these people are so frustrating). 

You’re a human. I’m a human. We both know how good it feels to blame someone for tragedy and unite with others against them. It’s human! It’s what we do. 

Mary and Martha are doing this (don’t blame ‘em at all) and the authorities take this to an extreme. They go back and plot to kill him. Why? 

Because Jesus has made a career of upending entire human systems that are based on death. And now he’s doing it literally, not just figuratively. 

Rene Girard teaches us that since the very beginning of human culture, we’ve united in a sacrificial death against another person or smaller group on the margins who take our blame (aka the scapegoat). 

So Jesus brings Lazarus back to life and he knows that this is going to throw a giant monkey wrench in everyone’s worldview. See, when Lazarus is dead, Jesus is the scapegoat. As mad as they are at him, it’s a cathartic release. He’s to blame because he didn’t do anything to stop it. I can imagine them saying, well, Jesus, you can’t just bring him back to life now, can you? Where were you before? And this feels cathartic. 

But Jesus is about to be like, okay guys... You want me to bring him back to life, really? You really want me to do this? We’ll see about that. 

He knows that this isn’t going to make everything better, as they might think/say. He knows that it’s actually going to do the OPPOSITE. It’s going to make them WANT TO KILL HIM for doing this. 

So he does it. He raises Lazarus. And by doing that, he effectively takes away their scapegoat mechanism (the death of Lazarus thanks to the God-man not saving his life). And now they’re furious. How dare he.

Jesus weeps...

Jesus is weeping over a world that’s trapped in cycles of blame, violence, and death. Trapped in a mindset of projecting our pain onto others again and again. 

But what if, instead of blame, we looked to compassion? What if we trusted God in times of sorrow and instead of finding a scapegoat, we found solidarity? 

Jesus weeps because the world is trapped in a myth that only he can see through. 

Terrible things do happen. God doesn’t come to the rescue every single time. I don’t know if humans can figure out God’s pattern here or if there even is one. Instead of blaming Jesus wondering why he didn’t come, we can say - we’re here now. Even if we can’t stop this, what can we do to alleviate the pain and be there for each other? 

This is what the whole gospel is about... It’s not about God coming to the rescue every time humans snap their fingers. It’s about showing us how to relate to each other in a whole new compassionate way. 

If you notice, as I said, Mary starts off in accusation... But then she shifts to trust. Jesus responds with this mysterious phrase in verse 25-27, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 

That’s the miracle. Not just bringing Lazarus back to life, but what Lent is leading up to - Good Friday and Easter. Death and resurrection. This idea that, yes, people die horrible deaths too soon all around the world every single hour of every single day. But in Christ, death doesn’t have the last word. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. Jesus challenges us to reorient ourselves to see that even in death, we are brought up into the renewal of God. 

There’s nothing wrong with lamenting and grieving death. The problem is when it gets in the way of our relationship with God and each other. In Christ, we can surrender our scapegoating and know that it only leads to more death and sorrow.  

Here’s a good question or two for a Lenten reflection:

What is the tomb that is inside of you that Christ calls you to come out of? 

What are the places of death in your soul that are keeping you from coming alive to yourself and to your neighbor? 

Trust-falling back into faith enlivens and resurrects us to do this. To trust, relax, and be free from the boulders that cover our inner tombs. 

In Christ, we are called out of our tombs, which is terrifying. Because it’s more comfy here in the tomb. To resign ourselves to these things. We have no idea what will happen when we are brought back to life. It’s pretty certain that we’ll be out in the wilderness again. And like Lazarus, we’ll likely die again. But this is the cycle that we’re involved in. 

We are intimately connected in death. It is the common denominator. It can both bring us into a self-protective, blameful, and rivalrous stance. Or, in the way of Christ, it can bring great joy and connection. 

Death and grief make up God’s raw material. But the good news is that resurrection and renewal are God’s source code. 

We’re getting closer to the cross, friends. A week from now is Palm Sunday. Things are getting real. 

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord's face shine on you with grace and mercy. May the Lord look upon you with favor and + give you peace.  Amen.

Until next time, as always…

Grace & Godspeed, Jonas

—Fr. Richard Rohr

Hello, hello

As always, I hope this finds you well and warm wherever in the world you are. 

I’m putting something together that I think you might be interested in. It’s a book study/course/conversation based on one of my favorite recently published books and that is - The Universal Christ by Fr. Richard Rohr.

If you’re not familiar with Fr. Rohr, he’s one of a few core thinkers who brought me back to the Christian faith after being away for a while.

It is, of course, the Christmas season. I thought I was crazy releasing this right now. With all the hustle and bustle going on, who has the time to read a book much less actively participate in a book study? But then I realized... This is actually the perfect time to do this - and particularly with this book. My prayer, this Christmas season, is that this study can provide a new incarnation of the Christ presence in the world and what it means in your life (at least, that’s what it did for me).  

I’m not sure where you stand on the whole Jesus thing. I had a lot of doubts and questions for a very long time that kept me away from the Christian faith. But in this book, Rohr addresses the major ones and lovingly reintroduces the notion of Christ in a way that’s grace-filled and life-giving. 

As we move towards Incarnation Day, I hope that this study will give you a ‘fresh start’ on your relationship with Jesus and the Christ (not exclusively the same thing - as Rohr says in the book: Christ was not Jesus’s last name:)) 

If you’d like to learn more about Rohr and the book, here are a couple videos of Rohr’s - a short one and a longer one - that go over the book in general. 

The shorter one. The longer one.

Okay... Now for the details...

This is an 8-week book study/course. The first module drops on Dec. 23rd and the last one in mid-February (just before the Lenten season which starts in March this year).

Week 1: Chapters 1&2Week 2: Chapters 3&4Week 3: Chapters 5-7Week 4: Chapters 8-10Week 5: Chapters 11&12Week 6: Chapters 13-15Week 7: Chapters 16-AfterwordWeek 8: Appendixes

Two modules will come out per week: one on Monday and one on Saturday. You’ll get email notifications with links when they do so you can jump in right away. Should you happen to lose any of the emails, everything will be available on the main course site (that you’ll get access to should you enroll). This also means that you can go at your own pace if 8 weeks is too fast (we’ll cover 2-3 chapters of the book per week) because everything will live on that central course site once it’s released. 

I highly recommend a journal for this study. Each module will be offered in both audio and text format. The module at the beginning of the week will include the suggested reading for the week, reflection questions to ponder (and that you can journal about), and a guided meditation based on the readings. The module at the end of the week will also include a guided meditation as well as my thoughts and perspectives from the week’s readings. 

Now, let’s talk about price as well as bonuses for early enrollment.

If you happen to be a Patreon supporter at the $20+/month level - this study is included in your membership. A free access code will be sent to you right after I press ‘send’ on this email. 

If you’re not a Patreon supporter of mine, the price of the course is $45. BUT, if you enroll before the 23rd, the price will be $35, so you’ll save $10 if you sign up now.

Another bonus you’ll get for signing up early is access to two live video conference chats during the 8 weeks of the study. I’ll host one towards the middle of the book and one at the end so we can discuss our insights, questions, doubts, and whatever else is relevant. 

That there button ^^ will take you to the secure pre-order course website hosted by Gumroad (again - Patreon supporers, I’ll send you the free access code to use there as soon as this email comes out).

I’m really excited to share this book with you. Even if you’ve already read it, I hope this study will deepen your awareness of the principles within its covers and your relationship with the universal Christ. 

I look forward to seeing you in the study. 

Grace & Godspeed,Jonas

Today, I had the opportunity to give a short homily at our church here in Chicago. It was my first one (!) and I wanted to share it with you here on the blog. Click the audio thingy above to play it in your ears or read below (or both)!

Luke 1:26-38

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Let’s wait until we’re ready. We will... When the time is right.

Those were the sentiments my wife and I shared during the early years of our marriage before Rory - our now 6-year-old daughter - was born. 

Not yet. We’re not ready... Yet. 

And then, one day, about four years into marriage, we had a realization... We were never going to be ready. The time would never be ‘right’. And so we surrendered to the longing we both shared to have a baby. Which, as unprepared as we were, we did very shortly after the Spirit moved us to submit to the “coming of Rory” - as I say:) And life, that one night in our small home in Reno, NV, changed forever. With a miraculous team of midwives and doulas buzzing around, a couple of hours past midnight after my birthday in the summer of 2013, life forever changed from BR to AR (Before Rory to After Rory). 

But I’m getting ahead of the story here. Because in this moment of Advent, we’re still waiting. Still preparing for the incarnation. 

And Mary, when the angel Gabriel came to her and announced that she’d carry the Christ-child, wasn’t ready. She didn’t live in a cushy Pinterest-worthy home. She was a poor and unwed teenage woman in first-century Palestine. As cheery as Gabriel sounded when he made the announcement of her immaculate pregnancy, I’d imagine it didn’t seem like good news. The timing was a little off, to say the least.  

How many times in your life has the good news first sounded a whole lot like bad news? 

But in the story, it’s astounding how shockingly fast Mary’s hesitation turns into a wholehearted “Yes” to this inconvenient mission. And thankfully, she found solidarity with her cousin, Elizabeth, a pronounced “barren woman” who the angel also announced was miraculously 6-months pregnant (with who’d be named John, the baptizer). Elizabeth and her husband, Zecharia were likely not ready either. 

So much of life’s stress comes from the weight we place on our own shoulders to prepare for the worst. To figure it all out beforehand. We want to be safe and comfortable and provide for those we love. We wouldn’t want to be a burden on anyone, would we? It’s all well-intended stuff. Our self-salvation plans look so perfect in our minds. If things will only work out like... that... 

But life hardly ever does. Especially the best things. And this time of year, when the Advent police are out making sure everyone is “preparing” perfectly for Christmas (don’t you dare celebrate, yet!!) - know that it’s actually impossible to be perfectly ready for what God has in store for you and all of us. 

But like Mary, may we be blessed with the wisdom to surrender our idea of good news for the Good News of God that comes whether we’re ready or not. And may we find solidarity with others who aren’t ready either.

Amen