For instance it is hard to advance a truthful theology of suffering when we are the ones forcing others to suffer. In our country where some Christians say they are being persecuted if a salesperson says “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” we often lack even the most basic point of reference for understanding how people from different cultural settings who’ve lived through oppression and grief approach their faith.

For example theologian Chung Hyun Kyung comments on the influence on Asian women’s theology of Western colonizers telling them God is love while beating, staving, and raping them. This experience and twisted message affects how they view God and what questions they ask of God. She writes that their challenging of God on his silence during their oppression cannot help but shape their theology. They ask of God, “Where were you when we were hungry? Where were you when we called your name as our bodies were raped, mutilated, and disfigured by our husbands, policemen, and the soldiers of colonizing countries? Have you heard our cries? Have you seen our bodies dragged like dead dogs and abandoned in the trash dumb?” (Struggle to be the Sun Again, p22).

Questions must be asked as theology is done in such postcolonial contexts in attempts to differentiate the message of the colonizers and the message of Jesus. For instance, when oppressed people are told that a good Christian is quiet, subservient, and accepts suffering and poverty by the very colonizers who live in luxury and benefit from the service and poverty of the people, some serious theological reconsideration is in order. A theology that is only ever applied to women or oppressed peoples in order to keep them subservient is highly suspect. Truth and worship are far more important than such self-serving twistings of God’s word. But it takes hearing from these voices from the margins and wrestling with the same questions they wrestle with in order for the church as a whole to move towards a healthy and truthful theology.

But to do so requires humility. It not only requires some of us to give up our positions of power and privilege while admitting that we do not have the corner on Christianity, it may also require repentance and reconciliation. It requires admitting that our privilege came at the expense of others – that the poverty in the world today has its roots in forceful conquest of land, the outright theft of natural resources, and the enslavement of peoples around the world. It requires admitting that the life we now enjoy has its historical roots and present reality in the blood, sweat, and tears of others. It is only after we repent of these sins that we can be open to embracing a fuller theology which we can only learn by listening to the voices of others – often the very others we must ask forgiveness of.

Being open to hearing and believing these truths is difficult. It is far easier to mock the theologies of others and call them heretical than to humble ourselves and repent in the name of truth. But it is vital for the health of the community that is the universal body of Christ. The eye cannot say to the hand that I have no need of you – or that I am more important or more connected to God than you. We must embrace our whole body, even the parts we have abused or neglected. To truly be the body of Christ we must listen to the voices of the oppressed and the colonized – for we can never be whole without them.

When I was 3 that answer was sufficient for me and so I said a prayer to invite Jesus into my heart. The good news as it were was all about me – making sure I got to go to heaven when I died. I didn’t stop to ask what Jesus meant about preaching the gospel of the kingdom, or what it meant when he said he had come to preach the gospel to the poor, or even what it meant to be a disciple and follow the disciplines Jesus demands of his own. I didn’t wonder why I was only taught the gospel about Jesus, and not the gospel of Jesus. I knew my response to “what is the gospel?” and so I didn’t even think to ask those questions for a long time.

Honestly, what really pushed me to start to see the gospel as being about more than just me was how the etymology of the word captured my attention. Wikipedia gives a brief history of the term as follows –

Good News is the English translation of the Koine Greek ευαγγέλιον (euangelion) (eu "good" + angelion "message"). The Greek term was Latinized as evangelium, and translated into Latin as bona annuntiatio. In Old English, it was translated as gōdspel (gōd "good" + spel "news"). The Old English term was retained as gospel in Middle English Bible translations and hence remains in use also in Modern English.

I loved the dual meaning the term gōdspel – or good spell – evokes in modern English. As a major sci-fi/fantasy/mythology geek, I conjured up images of deep magic working to heal a broken world. The darkness that has crept into our world being fought by the good spells of the power of light.

But this play on words was more than just an interesting literary image for me; it pushed me to start thinking through what it really meant for all things to be reconciled to God. Like a good spell intended to transform the world and push back the darkness, the good news of Christ reaches further than I had ever imagined. The scriptures speak of God so loving the whole world that he sent his son Jesus. We also read of Jesus proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom where the oppressed are set free, the blind given sight, and the brokenhearted healed. The gospel of Jesus challenges believers to pray that God’s Kingdom will be manifest on earth as in heaven, that every person has their daily bread, and that all debts are forgiven. In these inclusive passages I began to see that the gospel as preached in scripture was far bigger than a formula that ensured I went to heaven when I died. Jesus was serious about bringing actual good news to all, and boldly proclaimed that in him this reconciliation of all things had begun. Broken relationships could be healed – shattered relationships within families, amongst nations, amidst creation, and between us and God could be finally be made right. This isn’t just good news for someday in heaven, for, as Jesus proclaimed, in him the prophesies of the poor finding hope, the oppressed being set free, and the blind finding sight are already fulfilled. Those who suffer from oppression and poverty have tangible hope here and now. The good spell has been cast, the deep magic is as work, and the light is pushing back the darkness as Christ reconciles all things to himself.

The gospel, the good news, is about so much more than an economic transaction where I get a ticket to heaven in exchange for intellectually assenting to an idea about Jesus. The gospel is good news for the world. It is about God loving the world enough to send his son and establish his Kingdom. It is the gospel of Jesus, the new way of being that he preached. This good news isn’t just something we believe in or talk about, but something we are called to celebrate and embrace. If it is truly good news we will joyfully accept the challenge to follow in the disciplines of Christ – being his hands and feet working to heal all shattered relationships through his reconciling power. We live out the good news to the world.

While I might still have that conversation in various churches these days, I feel that something has begun to shift in the church since that time. Our globalized world has forced a new understanding of how we conceive of our faith to emerge. It is harder to deliberately ignore the diversity of voices speaking into this thing we call Christianity. While some might still proclaim the other to be wrong simply for being other, it is impossible to deny that the other exists. This isn’t about being open minded or being politically correct, it is simply a necessary reaction to the nature of the world we live in. Other theologies, other voices, other ways of reading scripture exist (other always being relative to one's vantage point). We are too interconnected to ignore them or pretend they don't matter. They are simply part of the air we breathe as Christians which is becoming increasingly impossible to not acknowledge.

I am reminded of how my exasperated professor dealt with my rather obstinate historical research methods class in college. A few of the students had dismissed his attempts to teach them differing approaches to how people approach historical research as supportive of revisionist history (and therefore evil). They desperately wanted to cling to the notion that the “God Blessed America” version of history they believed was in fact the only true version of history – any attempts to tell the stories from the margins of women or minorities were simply revisionist corruptions. So the professor had us read a study that detailed the various ways the history of Williamsburg has been presented to tourists over time. Depending on what was going on in the world at the time, the historical story as it was told by the reenactors varied tremendously over the years. Each version had an agenda and portrayed American colonialism in a way that shored up that agenda. It was difficult for the students who were insisting that the very hero-centric pro-God version taught under the influence of 1950’s anti-communism was the real history to continue to bang that drum when the evidence of how history is manipulated by the teller was laid out so blatantly before their eyes.

The world has been blatantly thrust in front of our eyes, and even the church can no longer resist this emerging consciousness. What stories get told and whose theology gets privileged can no longer be determined out of ignorance. In our interconnected world, the voices of womanist and feminist theologians, the cries of the liberation and postcolonial theologies, and the narrative understandings of scripture that focus on exile, family, and oppression are accessible to even the average Christian. The church is far bigger than some of us might have once believed, we just had to be forced to open our eyes and see it. While this might seem a tad patronizing to those outside the American church system (I can see them rolling their eyes at our elation of our delayed “discovery” of the other), I for one am grateful for this emerging sensibility in the church (even if it is long overdue). Coming face to face with the diversity in our unity might not imply immediate acceptance or respect or understanding, but it pushes us outside of ourselves. Seeing a slightly clearer picture of the world as it is forces us to acknowledge and often wrestle with what we see.

Call it interconnectedness, or globalization, or simply awareness of our neighbor, the church is emerging or perhaps converging upon itself. What gives me hope when I consider what is emerging in the church is that the conversation pushes us into this converging community. And when we are in community, when we start to actually know our neighbors, is when we can start to live out the call to love our neighbors.

This entry is part of a Synchroblog on “What is Emerging?” in the church today. Here's a list of other contributions to this conversation. I'll add more as they are posted – feel free to write your own post and send me the link!

Pam Hogeweide compares the emerging church movement to a game of ping pong.
Sarah-Ji comments that the emerging questions people are asking are far bigger than any defined movement.
Sharon Brown writes about using labels as an excuse.
Peter Walker reflects on how the emerging church conversation helped him recognize his power and privlege as a white male.
Dave Huth posts a on new ways to talk about religion.
Kathy Escobar finds hope in seeing a spirit of love in action emerging in the church.
Nadia Bolz-Weber reflects on the the beautiful things she sees emerging in her church community.
Chad Holtz writes on our Our Emerging Jewishness.
Julie Kennedy describes her organic entry into the emerging church and reflects on moving forward with a new public face.
Dave Brown comments on the emerging church and swarm theory.
Danielle Shroyer reflects on what is emerging in the church.
Brian Merritt offers his pros and cons of the emerging church.
Julie Clawson is grateful for emerging globalized Christianity.
Susan Philips points out that emergence happens as G-d redeems our shattered realities.
Mike Clawson reflects on the non-western voices that brought him to the emerging conversation.
Jake Bouma suggest that what is emerging is a collapse into simplicity.
Liz Dyer believes a chastened epistemology is a valuable characteristic emerging out of the church today.
Rachel Held Evans writes on what is changing in the church.
Tia Lynn Lecorchick describes the emerging movement as a wood between worlds (from The Magician's Nephew).
Amy Moffitt shares her journey towards a theology of humility.
Travis Mamone comments on the need for the emerging church to rely on the word of God.
Sa Say reflects on the the prick of doubt.
David Henson lists what he sees as what is emerging in the church.
Angela Harms writes in in defense of emergent.
Wendy Gritter asks how we can listening to the voices from the margins.
Bruce Epperly comments on the largeness of spirit of emerging spirituality.
Linda Jamentz reflects on listening to the voices from the margins in church.
Lisa Bain Carlton hopes that our emerging conversation can respond humbly to our moment in time.
Christine Sine asks how far are we willing to be transformed.
Lori Allen Wilson reflects on what is emerging in the younger generations.
Cynthia Norris Clack sees love emerging in the church.
Bob Fisher lists the values emerging in his faith community
Mihee Kim-Kort writes of the conversions and conversations she sees around her.
Ann Catherine Pittman believes that what is emerging in the church is inclusivity.
Matthew Gallion describes how emergence is spread thin across the whole church.
Phil Snider offers guarded praise of emergent.

Such an approach ignores the already and not yet aspects of the Kingdom. To claim that we are currently part of the Kingdom because God is among us, and that we are in fact helping God's Kingdom come "on earth as it is in heaven" by anticipating in hope the future fulfillment of the Kingdom, is not the same as some misguided faith in progress. We (the communal we of humankind) don't expect to complete the task, but still must participate because in one sense we already inhabit the very realm we are hoping to create.  In other words, we simply must do our duty skingdom citizens.

So this past weekend at Matter '09, I was grateful to Pete Rollins for putting a better language to this whole manner of living. He said that, yes, in the grand scheme of things we are part of a revolution, but we will never see its end or entire scope. So instead of confusing critics by speaking of revolutions, we should instead start seeing ourselves as merely part of insurrections. Where we see oppression and injustice in the world, we rise up against it. We are the creators of the systems of this world, we are the ones fueling the oppression, and so we can be the ones to insist upon change and recreate it. It isn't about ushering in the Kingdom in all its fullness, it is about being the resistance movement in the places where the Kingdom is already under attack.

I loved that imagery he provided. It allows each of us to work where we are at and to bring the changing force of love into the small pockets of the Kingdom we can access. It is grand and cosmic with revolutionary undertones, but without the dangers of confusing our actions with the breaking through of the divine. We work with and for God, trusting in him. Through our transformation in Christ we can be stripped of the power of this world and can affect change in our communities of insurrection. We can rise up for peace, and justice, and love not simply for some future kingdom, but because Christ has already broken through and invites us to live for him now.

But I want to say how much I appreciated Matter '09. It was put on by Shechem Ministries and was billed as a creative theology conference. In essence it brought the arts and theology together through a variety of mediums. As conferences go, it was a very small conference and had some serious kinks in the planning/implementation side of things, but I hope those don't stand in the way of this becoming a regular gathering. There really is so little being done in the church that explores how art and theology and church life and faith all work together. We need safe spaces where we can explore those sorts of questions, and the Matter conference is the perfect opportunity to make that happen.

This year at the conference we got to approach the issues and learn from a variety of different styles. Throughout the conference there were presentations/workshops from a variety of voices. Some of these were strictly academic, others were talks on the practical intersection of art and faith, and others were artistic sessions like poetry readings or short drama. I was privileged to lead a session on how our mental images of God affect if our response to Eucharist turns us inward to a personalized faith or outward to a service orientated faith. Then there were three main sessions where an academic and an artist engaged the theme verses of the conference while in dialogue with each other. So a painter and a biblical scholar, a filmmaker and a philosopher, and a musician and a textual critic explored together how to interpret and reflect on scripture. Then we also got to hear multiple times from Pete Rollins, who explored with us creative liturgy and pushed us to reflect on lived faith that is in the world but not of it. He, as always, was brilliant and challenged us to remove the facades of our faith. It was cerebral, and emotional, and worshipful all at the same time.

I was grateful to be a part of this event, and thankful to those who put in the work to make it happen. I truly hope it does evolve and survive so that we can continue to see these diverse disciplines interacting and deliberately learning from each other.

I think one of the poignant soundbites from the Moltmann conversation came during the rapid fire round. Tony Jones would throw out a name and Moltmann would give a one sentence response. While this of course brought out some moments of praise (“Pope John Paul II – “He was a good pope” and Miroslav Volf – “dear friend, gifted theologian'), it also brought a few criticisms (Augustine – “ask his wife” and Pelagius – “he is the saint of American Christians”). I found his reply to what he thought about Hauerwas to be significant – “The New Testament speaks not about a peaceable kingdom, but a peace-making kingdom.”

Moltmann is very insistent on the need to have an active faith. Apathy is the enemy of faith, and can lead one to passivity. But if we are serving Christ and truly looking towards the hope of the Kingdom, we will be actively engaged in the faith. A peaceable kingdom is not one of action, there must be deliberate attempts made to established the hope-filled world that Jesus calls us to.

In a later session, Moltmann then expanded on what he meant by that idea of a peace-making kingdom. He likes the future idea of a peaceable kingdom where swords will instead be plowshares, but he also reminds that peace-making is what does the actual work of transformation. He said, – we need communities that anticipate this peaceable kingdom, and communities that work for peacemaking in this world. A double strategy so that peacemakers do not become too violent themselves without this ideal vision or people end up not preventing any war by living in their own peace. He captures the dangers of both the peaceable and the peace-makers, the former can be so afraid of conflict that they are frozen in inaction and the latter so committed to a goal that they adopt the tactics of the violent to achieve their ends.

I’ve seen the dangers of those that think the best route to peace is to do nothing, who believe that even words create too much conflict. And I’ve also seen the beautiful examples of peace-makers actively taking a stand for what is good and right without fear of their own safety or intention to harm oppressors. The women of the Niger River Delta who stood up to Chevron to protest the destruction of their homes, or the women of Liberia who peacefully ended a bloody civil war (as depicted in Pray the Devil Back to Hell) demonstrated this active peacemaking. And Moltman himself felt the tension as well, after he was released from the WW2 POW camp he vowed to never again take up arms in a military, but he also vowed that if given the chance to kill an evil dictator like Hitler he would take it. It’s complicated, but it’s also a good reminder that peace has little to do with passive pacifism, and everything to do with actively seeking justice and peace.

One of the things I appreciated most in the conversations with Moltmann, was his insistence on returning to the simplicity of the gospel. Often he was asked a question on some controversial issue in the American church, and he simply scoffed at how we make such a big deal over it. His thought is that God is God and the gospel is the gospel – how we keep trying to manipulate and add things to it seemed preposterous or even heretical. Take for example his response to two such hot topic issues much discussed lately in America – gender language for God and homosexuality.

Moltmann was asked about the difficulty in “coming up with pronouns that are appropriately intimate and personal for God and yet don’t anthropomorphize God with a gender.” His response was that God is neither he nor she nor it – God is God. We should not use God’s divinity to justify the domination of men over women. The image we have of the trinity is not one of hierarchy or domination, but of unity. This unity can be reflected in our church communities – being in community the image of the communal identity of love. I found his view of allowing God to be God to be refreshing. Too often God is used for that very purpose of domination that subverts and destroys community. Sometime we get so wrapped up in the complexities of our own opinions that we paint elaborate portraits of God in our own personal images.  Moltmann proposes instead a simplicity that doesn’t fall into idolatry by reducing God to gender, and yet remains intimately connected to God through the use of multi-gendered pronouns for God.

Same thing with homosexuality. When the schismatic nature of sexuality in the American church was brought up, Moltmann replied that the whole discussion isn’t a problem in Germany. He said they have never had a struggle about this in the churches and in between the churches, because the church is about the gospel and not about sex. Christians believe in the justification of human beings by faith alone, not by faith and homosexuality. That, according to Moltmann, is adding heresy. I find this tendency, especially in the American church, to add things to the gospel to be disturbing. I’ve recently been told that I obviously am not a true Christian if I, say, read gender neutral Bible translations, do yoga, refuse to spank my kids, or become a vegetarian. As farcical as it sounds to turn the gospel into “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and continue to eat meat and you will be saved,” it is unfortunately representative of a growing trend in the church these days. When prominent church leaders regularly question the salvation of those who don’t follow the teachings of Calvin, the warped idolatry in the church is apparent.

So, I loved that Moltmann simply scoffed at America’s adolescent stupidity and encouraged us to get back to the gospel. Let God be God. Let the gospel be the gospel. Of course, opinions and theologies will always affect our faith, but sometimes we just need a good reminder to get over ourselves and stop manipulating God for our own ends.

At one point Moltmann, spoke about the two crosses of Christianity – the real cross at Golgotha and Constantine’s dream cross (a discussion I assume he develops further in his book, The Crucified God). The cross that appeared to Constantine in his vision was the cross of empire and violence. It was used to conquer, oppress, and destroy opposition. His cross is one of power and domination, not of response and reconciliation. But it is Constantine's cross, and not the cross of Golgotha, that the church has most readily accepted through the ages. Moltmann mentioned that it was the precursor of the Iron Cross and Victoria’s Cross – crosses that spoke not of the sacrifice of Jesus, but of empire and political maneuvering. We place that cross on flags to demonstrate the forced acceptance of a political interpretation of Christ. Accepting Christ and his cross has become about accepting the empire’s official version thereof.

Moltmann suggested instead that we need to go back to the origins of our faith to find a new future for Christianity in the world outside of imperialism. We have so confused the cross of Constantine with the real cross of Christ that we fail to understand and honor what the cross truly means. We honor our idea of a powerful, vindictive cross instead of a suffering cross. Unless we break from this idolatry, the probleofm  the Church causing pain in this world will continue.

I found the image fascinating. When the cross becomes our shield and sword instead of a symbol of hope, our faith becomes about struggle with the Other instead of love of the Other. Instead of acknowledging that through Christ’s suffering, all can be reconciled, we desire to forcibly make others think as we do. But conversion through coercion is not a reflection of hope and love, but of fear. If we cannot let the other be who they are and encounter the cross on their own terms, then we have forsaken the cross in favor of empire (be that a political or ideological empire). I fully agree that we need to return to the real cross, but I also do wonder what the future would look like apart from this need to use the cross to justify our disrespectful and inhumane treatment of others. A cross that embraced the suffering of others and helped them develop hope from that suffering instead of causing that very suffering is a vastly different sort of cross; and a church that shunned the cross of empire in favor of Jesus himself would be a very different church.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a Christ-centered faith. And unfortunately those of us who are uncomfortable with the document are now being accused of wanting to ignore Christ or question his divinity. So let me say upfront, that is not the case. Christ is central. Period. But the assertion that Christianity – the movement of the followers of Christ – is nothing more or less than the person of Christ just really seems to miss the point.

The attack and reason for the document springs from the talk about the Kingdom of God and social justice within emerging missional communities. Viola and Sweet insist that such talk turns Jesus into an abstraction and tempts us to ignore the person of Jesus. They say "Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing." I'm sorry guys, but Jesus was both of those things. He can't be reduced to those things, but that doesn't mean that he didn't embody those things as well. To say that is all he was would yes, drain his glory, but to say he wasn't those things too denies reality. What is going on here is really a discussion of which image of Jesus we want to embrace – a niche Jesus of one extreme or another or the full Jesus.  More on that in a bit.

My main problem with the document lies in their assumption that those of us talking about justice and the kingdom are doing so apart from the person and power of Jesus. That's just plain and simply not true. But it has become the favorite straw man argument for the opponents of the emerging missional community. I think in many ways it is based on a misunderstanding of us that projects the theology and history of the classic liberal social gospel movement onto the missional movement. Len Sweet even admitted that the document sprung in part from the lessons he's learned from teaching a class on the history of the Social Gospel movement in early 20th century America. And while that movement was influenced by theological discussions that questioned the divinity of Christ and sought to find the "historical Jesus," it is unfair and inappropriate to assume the same thing of the emerging missional movement.

I don't know how many times we have to stand up and say that caring for the Kingdom, seeking justice, and loving others is all about choosing to focus more on Christ. As Christians we believe in him and follow him. He said, if you love me you will obey me. Not "if you love me, you will worship a ethereal, conceptualized version of me that is disembodied from action and the world I came to save." When following Jesus becomes simply about doing works or simply about standing in awe of a divine person then we've got problems – and a Jesus that has nothing to do with the Jesus of the Bible. Those images of Christ are dangerous, but what I see the manifesto doing is attacking a (projected) incomplete image in favor of another incomplete image.

While Viola and Sweet may personally think that following the commands of Jesus is part of what it means to be a Christian (although they say it is just about Christ), to tell others that talking about the commands of Jesus takes the focus off of Jesus is unhelpful in the extreme. I grew up only hearing about the person of Jesus. Jesus is divine, he did miracles, I am to believe and worship (be in awe of) him. Nothing more. Ever. It is naive to believe that just by presenting this Jesus, people will start doing all that he commanded if those commands aren't allowed to be talked about. For instance, my daughter attended one night of a neighborhood backyard bible club this week. Her lesson was on Jesus serving the poor and healing the sick. The takeaway was that Jesus did miracles so therefore we have to believe in him. No mention at all of the "go and do likewise" aspect of being a follower of Christ. At this same club, the leader presented the Wordless Book, but after doing the Gold (heaven), Dark (sin), Red (Jesus), White (substitutionary atonement) pages she turned to the Green page and couldn't remember what it was for. (the green page, btw, is the grow in one's faith page). It was the perfect representation of a faith that focuses on the need to believe in the person of Jesus to the exclusion of following Jesus. This is the faith I grew up with – one that cares a lot about the person of Jesus but which doesn't even talk about following his commandments. An impotent faith that essentially tells Jesus that we don't love him enough to obey his commands.

It is because I love Jesus that I talk about and pursue justice and the kingdom. Even Viola and Sweet mention that "the teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself." I just wish they wouldn't falsely accuse us of doing that. And I wish they wouldn't encourage these dichtomized versions of Jesus by criticizing the actual following of his commands. It is a step backward into the faith my daughter witnessed the other night at the Bible club, and truly unhelpful to the church in the long run. I love Jesus, but I want nothing to do with a faith that is disembodied, disconnected, and impotent. I want to believe in, worship, and follow Christ (since those are all technically one and the same). I'm sorry, but a real Jesus Manifesto wouldn't be about such a one-sided incomplete image of Jesus. No – it would present Jesus in the fullness of the gospels and not be afraid to tell Christians that following Christ involves a heck of a lot more than standing there slack-jawed in awe of him. I'd love that message to get out to the world, but this, "A Jesus Manifesto" was simply a disappointment in that regard.

First – that as the church we haven't always been so divorced from the practice of celebrating Resurrection. In the pre-industrial world people were much more attuned to the fading and returning of life in the unfolding of the seasons. Their feast days (which our Christian holy days attempt to co-opt) marked the turning points of the seasons – solstice, equinox, solstice – in an endless ritual. Each year the world enacted the play of death and resurrection as winter crept in and stole life and light away and then summer brought everything back to life again. But this wasn't just a ritual – it was life. Marking and understanding this cycle meant the difference between life and death. One had to know when to plant and when to harvest and how much to store up against winter starvation. Life was cherished, and light as the harbinger of life revered. But we've lost that in the modern world. In our wired and climate-controlled homes we have little need to mark the passing of seasons except for how they effect our comfort. We know we can go to any store and buy produce no matter the season. We have disconnected ourselves from the cycle – living in an artificial (and unsustainable) now. We have little need to yearn for or celebrate the return of life to the earth. We take that life for granted and so have gotten out of the habit of practicing resurrection.

I believe this falling into the habit of remembering the death and not the life has marred our faith. The resurrection stands for hope – for remembering that good does win. The resurrection ushers in the Kingdom, calling us to live in that hope by following in the way of Christ. The resurrection encourages us to spread that hope – doing good, righting wrongs, caring for others. But instead we dwell simply on the death. We see less hope and possibility for improvement and instead see depravity. We make the death about us – how it serves us, how it defines us. Not that those questions are invalid, but to solely focus on them leads to a highly imbalanced faith. Our faith becomes about endings rather than beginnings. We can't break free of the eternal now that is but a pseudo-life and embrace the return of the light. I think we can learn from the cultures that marked the passing of the seasons – even on the darkest day when it looked like death may have won the people are not called to mourn or to remain in darkness. No, they light a bonfire and chase away that very darkness asserting that the light will return and with it the life that sustains.

So I wonder what it will take for us to do more than utter a few "He is risen indeeds" on Easter and to choose to live in the Resurrection. To refrain from dwelling in despair and darkness and to affirm life instead. To live in the hope of the resurrection – choosing to bring life into the world.

At least that is what I am asking myself as I prepare for Holy Week.