Love your neighbor. No exceptions? Really?

For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.”  If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
--Galatians 5:14-15 NRSV

In your scrolling on social media, perhaps you’ve the meme that says this:

Love your neighbor
who doesn’t
look like you,
think like you,
love like you,
speak like you,
pray like you,
vote like you.
Love your neighbor.
No exceptions.

When I’ve seen these memes (I’ve probably shared ones like them), I must confess that in my own spiritual arrogance I have thought the message “Love your neighbor. No exceptions.” was for others. Maybe it’s for the person who refuses to acknowledge systematic racism and sports an #AllLivesMatter on their profile picture. Maybe it’s for the person sharing conspiracy theories about Muslims trying to impose “sharia” law in rural America. Maybe it’s for the person posting they “love the sinner but hate the sin” when it comes to equality for LGBTQ people. The message is for anybody else but me, right?  It’s for “them” or at least whoever I’ve decided “them” is today.

But the pretty rainbow-colored graphic says, “Love your neighbor. No exceptions.” So, maybe my mind’s propensity for creating a new “them” to look down on, to set myself against, to ignore our common humanity doesn’t line up with the idea of “Love your neighbor.  No exceptions.”

I really hate it when the Gospel of Jesus Christ condemns me along with everybody else’s shortcomings.  It’s so much more fun when I get to be the one looking down on others.

This past holiday weekend I had the joy of getting together with old friends. My wife and I met in college, and blessedly we have a group of about twenty friends from those days. Each Labor Day weekend for twenty-five years we have gotten together to catch up, tell old stories and have fun. Many of the folks in this group of friends don’t share my particular religious or political beliefs. That makes for interesting and sometimes heated conversations. Even when I’ve lost my cool, because I can’t believe they don’t have the same beliefs I do (mine are the correct ones after all!) these friends, who really are like family, have accepted me and loved me anyway. Our annual get togethers and our contacts in between remind me of my deep love for these people regardless of whether or not we believe the same things about God, vote for the same party or think the same way about social issues. I love them with no exceptions, and I thank God they do the same for me.

In the age of social media and partisan cable news, one of the most common questions I get as a minister is how do I stay in relationship with the family member or friend who believes differently than I do? It can be difficult when we are all firing off emails and posting comments without giving it any thought or even taking a breath. Things can get nasty and personal real quick. I know because I have gone there and regretted it. 

1.  I recommend that each of us get in the habit of never posting a quick reply to another person’s comment with whom we disagree.  If something someone has posted or shared really bothers you, take a day to think about it and then message them. Maybe you need to type something out to get your feelings on screen.  If you’re like me, once you get your feelings out, you realize there is no real need to send that message on. This is truly difficult for me. I can’t think of a time I’ve done so and felt good about it later.

2.  Sometimes you may need to adjust the settings on your email or social media to “mute” a certain person’s messages. They don’t have to know you aren’t reading the stuff they are sharing and forwarding to you.  You can spare yourself and them the awkward discussion of why you “unfriended” them.

3.  Other times you may have to take the hard step of “un-friending” someone or maybe just letting that person know you need to communicate with them in other ways besides social media or email, because you can’t keep your emotions in check. I’ve had to make this move with some family members and even some close friends, because what they share or post provokes a reaction in me I don’t like.  I’m pretty sure the stuff I share and post has caused that same kind of reaction in them. I’m definitely sure that what either of has posted has never changed the other's mind.

4.  Finally, there are those people who share such negative things and make such personal attacks that it may amount to emotional abuse. In such cases, setting firm boundaries is necessary for your own well-being and health. Loving your neighbor can only happen from a safe distance with some people.

Remember the biggest companies with the smartest minds are working non-stop to keep you glued to your phone, tablet and computer. They make money—lots of it—the longer you keep using their app or watching their channel. The easiest way to keep you making money for them is to keep you outraged. There are genuine things to be outraged about in the world, but few of them are ever changed by a shared Facebook post or a forwarded email.

Our culture does not reward maintaining relationships with people different from ourselves. It rewards outrage and remaining in your own bubble. Yet, if we are really going to “Love our neighbor. No exceptions.” it has to cut both ways.

Nobody ever said this Christian-thing was easy.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Here's the latest episode of my podcast:

 Episode 9 of the Save Me Podcast is now available.

Sonya Vann

shares about intersectionality and negotiating various spaces as a black bisexual woman. Sonya is the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO. She also shares about growing up next door to Ferguson, MO and life since the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmad Aubery.

This episode contains a Haiku from Sasquatch (a.k.a. Father Aaron D. Raulerson) and a "Married to the Minister" segment from Colleen Brown Only.

This episode is sponsored by Zipporah Recruiter, the job site for churches, SimpliSaved, church security and Croaksbury Books, the online bookstore for dying mainline churches who don't want to change or sacrifice anything.

Listen on ITunes, Spotify or most other podcast platforms or just click on this link: anchor.fm/save-me-podcast

Yes, Dogs Go to Heaven (I guess cats do too)

Good people are good to their animals;     the “good-hearted” bad people kick and abuse them. --Proverbs 12:10 The Message

Before my wife Jennifer and I adopted our children, we had dogs.  We are both dog people who grew up with dogs under foot carrying slobbery tennis balls, so in creating our first home a dog was necessary.  Our first dog we named Buddy, because he was the friendliest short-haired Jack Russell Terrier.  His cropped tail never stopped wagging.  He was completely white except for a black spot around his left eye.  He ripped up the linoleum in the kitchen of the house we rented--TWICE, but otherwise he was gentle and loving.  He played with us, napped with us and laid on us when we laid on the sofa watching TV.  He was an energetic but loyal family member.

When Buddy had to be put down because his aged body began to painfully give out on him, I declared that I never wanted another dog.  Losing Buddy was just too painful.  But as I said, we are dog people and we raised our sons to be dog people, so other dogs eventually joined our family.  I decided that even though dogs’ lives are so much shorter than ours, it is a gift that their journeys intertwine with our own as long as possible.  The pain of loss is the price we pay for the joy they bring us.  I wept as the vet gave Buddy the shot that caused his breathing to stop, but as bad as that pain was, the joy we shared together far outweighed it.

There is a good reason why the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a run on dog adoptions.  Not only are people hungry for companionship, but the stress of these times results in us needing trustworthy and non-judgmental relationships.  Eckhart Tolle said this about the gift dogs offer to us in an interview with a magazine for dog owners:

It's the alienation of modern society and the human need to relate deeply to another being, which they are unable to do with humans. I hope this is changing, but in the meantime, dogs offer the opportunity to relate to and to have an open heart towards another being. To be able to show love to another being which is always [reciprocated]. That's why I think dogs have a function that is absolutely vital, to keep humanity sane in this transitional period between two states of consciousness. For some people, it's the only relationship where there's no fear and where they realize they are being accepted and not judged.

Think about that for a moment.  Dogs always reciprocate the love of humans.  Dogs offer some people their only relationship where there is no fear, no judgment, only acceptance.  What an astounding thought.  Dogs reveal to us how to be better humans.

I’ve argued with Christians who have precise theologies of the human soul and who declare only humans go to heaven.  They say pets are excluded from heaven, because they don’t have souls.  I’ve always felt like such declarations were deeply arrogant.  We know so little about what existence after this life looks like, how can anyone know the limits of who gets to experience it and who and what  does not?  When I look into my dogs’ eyes I see beings who live only in the present, who know only faithfulness, and who are more loyal than most human beings.  If anything, they seem to embody more of whatever the “soul” is supposed to be than most of what I do every day.

So, I believe dogs do indeed go to heaven, whatever heaven is.  If pressed, I guess I believe cats do too, and whatever other animals become parts of our families along with them.  If we can experience love with them, then how much more does God, who is love, also value them?  What would heaven be without them?

I’ll leave the theological debates to those who have energy for them.  I’d rather go play with my dogs who teach me to treasure the wonder and beauty present in every fleeting moment.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

Anybody Else Feeling Disoriented These Days?

For who is God except the Lord?
    And who is a rock besides our God?
--Psalm 18:31 NRSV

On KC sports radio this morning, the program hosts talked about how thanks to Covid their internal measures of time have been disrupted.  Normally, preseason pro football happens in August but not this year.  This year NBA finals are happening now instead of months from now.  Major league baseball has only been playing a month instead of since May.  Each of the radio guys said it didn’t feel like it usually does a week before Labor Day weekend.

I share their feelings.  Usually my sons have already started back to school in mid-August.  At this time in normal times, I’m watching the Chiefs preseason games and picking who I think will make the roster.  Most summers I’m debating which summer blockbuster movies are the best.   In every other summer, my family and I are trying to get in as many trips as we can to local pools before they close for the season.  The routine of my life has been disrupted.

Maybe you feel the same way.  It can be jarring when our expectations of what life will bring go unmet.  We know that life potentially can be upended at any moment, but we are creatures who long for routine and the security of knowing what comes next.  To live during such a time of uncertainty means living with a level of vigilance that can become exhausting after a while.

There are spiritual lessons in this time of upheaval if we are willing to take them in.  These days of living with a pandemic remind us that there are no true guarantees in life.  Only God remains present and secure in the many twists and turns of our lives.

The Psalmist asks, “For who is God except the Lord?  And who is a rock besides our God?”  In this poetic language lurks the question, “What is truly secure besides God?”  We invest people, relationships, objects, governments, bank accounts, etc. with a belief they are permanent, but none truly are.  Relationships change.  People can be fickle.  Governments come and go.  Houses and money can be lost as the economy changes.  Only God remains as firm as an unmovable rock but as close as a loving friend.

20^th century theologian Paul Tillich wrote in his classic book The Shaking of the Foundations:

Providence is the faith that nothing can prevent us from fulfilling the ultimate meaning of our existence. Providence does not mean a divine planning by which everything is predetermined, as is an efficient machine. Rather, Providence means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by any event.

No matter our circumstances, the one thing that remains constant is God’s creating and saving work in every moment of our lives.  Put a different way, Jesuit priest Pedro Arrupe wrote:

"I am quite happy to be called an optimist, but my optimism is not of the utopian variety. It is based on hope. What is an optimist? I can answer for myself in a very simple fashion: He or she is a person who has the conviction that God knows, can do, and will do what is best..."

Life happens.  Calamity can strike in a sudden and random manner.  Our sense of security and well-being can be lost in an instant, because who or what we have invested ultimate assurance in turns out not to be God.  Yet, despite life’s travails and our reactions to them, God remains with us and will do what is best for us under the circumstances.

You are not alone if you feel the disorientation of these days.  Plenty of folks are right there with you.  Most of all, God is right there with you, and no matter what comes in this life, God will remain constant.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

 

 

Don’t Be Like “Florida Man”

Make no friends with those given to anger, and do not associate with hotheads,
--Proverbs 22:24 NRSV

Are you familiar with “Florida Man?”  This internet meme is a guilty pleasure of mine.  It’s been around since 2013 when somebody on the internet noticed the outrageous news stories coming out of Florida with headlines that always began with the words “Florida Man.”  If you want an idea of the phenomenon, just google the words “Florida Man” and see what comes up.  Recent “Florida Man” headlines include:

“Florida man accused of climbing onto semi in traffic during road rage incident”

“Florida Man Arrested for Cashing in Lottery Ticket at Gas Station He Stole It From, Cops Say”

“Florida man arrested after living in luxury suites in pro soccer stadium.”

You get the idea. 

Dave Barry likes to joke that the wackiest people in America all roll down into Florida. The Florida Man phenomenon got so bad that the humorist wrote a book called “Best State Ever: AFlorida Man Defends His Homeland.”  Barry isn’t the only one whose made a living poking fun at their home state, satirist Carl Hiaasen has another novel out right now about the over the top events in Florida. 

To be fair, I’m told there are plenty of law-abiding and normal people who live in Florida.  Also, the reason the whole Florida Man thing is a guilty pleasure for me is because most of the wildest headlines are people with real problems.  If you look beyond the headlines, the stories are often sad ones.  An article in Columbia Journalism Review pointed out the Florida Man phenomenon is "one of journalism’s darkest and most lucrative cottage industries" where "stories tend to stand as exemplars of the mythical hyper-weirdness of the Sunshine State, but more often simply document the travails of the drug-addicted, mentally ill, and homeless."  This raises the question if there could just as easily be a “Missouri Man” or “Kansas Man” phenomenon as well.  If journalists were to frame the stories of drug-addicted, mentally ill, and homeless people in our two states in similar ways, we could have our own internet memes too.

Recently, I’ve noticed a change in Florida Man stories that are probably true of Missouri Man and Kansas Man too—not to mention Missouri Woman and Kansas Woman.  The stress of COVID-19 combined with an election season has provided plenty of opportunities for wild and wacky headlines.  Here are a few:

“Florida man accuses of threatening grocery store employee with ax after being told to wear a mask”

“Florida man accused of firing shots inside Miami Beach hotel lobby over social distancing”

“Florida man accused of punching neighbor over Biden campaign sign: police”

I’m pretty sure you could find similar stories in Missouri, Kansas and all over the country.

It’s a tough time with more reasons than normal to be upset and to react badly.  As I scan this weeks headlines as college students are back in school and elementary through high school students soon to start back one way or another, I see lots of upset people on all sides of what to do about COVID-19.  I also see plenty of conflict over politics on social media.  I certainly admit that there are legitimate injustices in our society that are worth getting upset about, but I’m also pretty sure that most of us need to just calm down and take some deep breaths.

The book of Proverbs in the Bible has a lot to say about anger.  I know sometimes these Bible verses can oversimplify complex things.  Sometimes anger can be a healthy thing when we are mistreated, oppressed or abused.  Anger can be a means of claiming one’s own power.  The kind of anger I think Proverbs is generally talking about is one that is destructive in all the wrong ways.  This is the kind of anger that sensible people have to apologize for after they calm down—you know the kind of anger that happens when a teenager working in a drive through messes up your order and you then take it out on your kids.   Not that I know anything about that from personal experience.

Proverbs 22:24 says, “Make no friends with those given to anger, and do not associate with hotheads.”  What?  If I followed that advice, I’d have to stop watching the outrage machine on cable news.  If I didn’t associate with hotheads, I’d have to un-friend all my “friends” on social media—and they’d have to un-friend me as well.  If I backed away from people who are “given to anger,” I’d have to socially distance myself from most everyone in our culture.  Oh wait. . .

Don’t be the Florida Man or Missouri/Kansas Man or Missouri/Kansas Woman.  Step back from your computer keyboard or smart phone before you fire off that reply to somebody with whom you disagree.  Turn off the news when you find your blood boiling.  Take a deep breath and count to ten when you are about to lose control over a person not wearing a mask at the super market or depending on your point of view, when you are about to lose control because a minimum wage employee asks you to wear a mask when you enter a store.

Do whatever you need to do to calm down and chill out. 

Ask yourself if this is really worth getting angry about? 

Ask yourself if your anger really accomplishes something or if it is just self-indulgent bad manners?

Don’t be a headline—although if you do, make sure it’s funny, because I need a good laugh.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Finding God While Washing My Hands

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let
anyone who is thirsty come to me,  and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’
--John 7:37-38 NRSV

How many times have you washed your hands today?

In these days of pandemic, maybe you have lost count of how many times you have moved to a sink, gotten soap from a dispenser or a bar of soap and washed your hands.  Did you wash your hands for 20 seconds as health experts recommend? Maybe you sang “Happy Birthday” to ensure you washed long enough?

I confess to still viewing hand washing as a chore.  I’m doing it, but I don’t like it.  My habit of washing my hands obediently yet begrudgingly goes way back long before the days of COVID-19.  I was a boy after all.  I dislike making generalizations about gender, but many boys seem genetically predisposed to resist washing themselves.  I was especially terrible as a teenager, and now raising two teenage sons I’m experiencing payback for what I put my parents through.  My house smells more like a high school boy’s locker room than I care to admit.  As I try to enforce basic hygiene, I try to remember I was once that way too.

I certainly never thought there was anything spiritual about washing my hands.  I grew up among “free church” Christians, the type of Protestants that includes Baptists, Christian churches (of which Disciples of Christ belong), Congregationalists and others, who originated as dissenters from official state churches that were most commonly Anglican or Roman Catholic.  In these traditions, rituals and traditions are viewed with suspicion.  After all, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for their empty rituals (such as washing hands!), so we were to avoid them too.  Never mind that we had our own unconscious rituals and traditions in how we did church.

Faith was a thing one believed rather than experienced.  Finding God in nature and every day activities seemed to err into the territory of the New Age movement.  Strict boundaries between what is spiritual and what is “worldly” were necessary.  In hindsight, I wonder why we talked so much about God being omnipresent, while at the same time we acted as if God was only present in the church building or at sacred spaces like church camp.  We missed out on a lot of opportunities to experience God in the ordinary moments of life.

Maybe God is present in the ordinary “rituals” of life, even in the ones we’d rather not do.  Maybe God is to be found especially in the moments when we do the necessary chores of life.  In seminary, I was assigned The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a medieval monk who was famous for saying, “God is among the pots and pans.”  I’ve been wondering lately if I’m missing out on experiencing God’s presence among the many inconveniences of life during the Coronavirus, such as the times when I wash my hands.

I came across the following prayer from the spiritual writer Gunilla Norris and it caused me to think differently about this oh so common activity of washing hands.

Inside, my body consists mostly of water, the way the globe, too, consists mostly of water. I came to be within the waters of my mother’s womb. So when I wash I like to remember that I am in my element…Your water…Your living water. Help me scrub my face free of its masks so I can return to the true self You gave me.

The prayer from Gunilla’s book Being Home inspired me to look her up.  On her web site, she shares about writing the book.  I love what she says.

When I published Being Home in 1991 I did not know that I had begun a series of books on what I now call household spirituality, or the practice of spiritual awareness in the most mundane and simple of circumstances. Together these books seem to me to be like a crystal with many facets. They are part of one thing and yet shed light from different perspectives on the humblest of our day-to-day tasks. It has always been my understanding that when we are really present in our daily activities, our lives become more luminous, filled with love and grace.

Whether we are living in the present days of confusion brought on by COVID-19 or some blessed future post-vaccine time, our ordinary day-to-day tasks, even the ones we may grudgingly do for our health and the health of others like washing hands, contain the possibility of “our lives becoming more luminous, filled with love and grace.”

May your daily “rituals” be filled with the blessed presence of God.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

The Latest Heresy on the Block

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
--1 John 4:1 NRSV

I was a relatively new minister serving in a church in New York still reeling from the 9-11 attacks which had happened only months earlier when it happened.  I met with a church member who was eager to talk with me about something important.  I had expected to talk about some personal struggle or perhaps the collective trauma of the attacks on the World Trade Center.  Instead, the church member launched into a long explanation of the research they had been doing online which revealed a conspiracy secretly running the world. 

The church member handed me a binder full of information printed off the internet with charts connecting the Illuminati to the United Nations to the New World Order.  I was stunned, to say the least, that this well-educated successful suburbanite was invested so deeply in the conspiracy theories they presented me.  I tried to steer the conversation towards the person’s own internal struggles, but it was apparent they were disappointed I didn’t buy into the secret knowledge they possessed.

This encounter happened when the Worldwide Web was still relatively new, before social media and smartphones, but it is a phenomenon that is far older than the internet and it has been common in American Christianity for centuries (witch hunts, vampire scares, Jewish cabals, Catholic plots, Freemasons, etc.).  For that matter, conspiracy theories and claims of “secret knowledge” have been a part of Christianity from its beginning.  Maybe they have been a part of religion since humanity first began walking upright?  The allure of being among the chosen few who know what lurks behind the veil of reality as perceived by the masses is addictive.

My attention was drawn today to an editorial at Religion News Service titled “QAnon: The Alternative Religion That’s Coming to Your Church.”  The author is a former editor at Christianity Today, not exactly a liberal alarmist publication, yet she clearly laid out the dangers of this online conspiracy movement for local congregations—especially conservative evangelical ones. 

If you’re not familiar with QAnon, be careful when you google it.  You’ll quickly go down a rabbit hole of conspiracies that has no end. (This article in The Atlantic provides a good explainer.)    In general, this conspiracy theory began on a site known for racist and far right content called 4chan.  An anonymous user named “Q” began posting claims of inside knowledge about high level Democrats running a child sex ring and elements in the Trump administration working to stop it.  In cryptic language that is often religious in nature, the posts implicate the media, Hollywood movers and shakers, and Democrats.  Sharing QAnon-related conspiracies has grown exponentially in the age of COVID-19; one study showed posts sharing QAnon conspiracies increased by 71% on Twitter and 651% on Facebook since March of this year.

Once upon a time, conspiracy theories were only things your “crazy uncle” spouted at family gatherings or college students shared in late night dorm room discussions.  Yet, now they are common and rampant among White Evangelical Protestant Christians who generally distrust the media and question scientific consensus on things like evolution and climate change.  Of course, left-wing conspiracies exist too, just look at the so called "anti-vaxxers," people opposed to vaccinations.  What they all have in common is the promise of granting a select few the satisfaction of knowing the “truth.”

Scholars generally credit the appeal of conspiracy theories to the need for people to cope with a disorienting world where ordinary people are buffeted by complex forces lacking easy explanations.  It’s easier to believe COVID-19 is a plot by evil left-wing industrialists than it is to accept that there is a fatal disease that doesn’t seem to affect some people but kills others.  It’s easier to believe a pedophile ring is killing the job market than it is to make sense of an impersonal global economy that ships jobs overseas.  In the same way, it was easier for the Puritans to kill witches when illness struck villagers in the 18^th century than to believe in things like germs, hereditary and sanitation. 

Katelyn Beaty, the author of today’s Religious News Service editorial, along with the great religion journalist Jeff Sharlett and others have equated the recent QAnon conspiracies with the early Christian heresy Gnosticism.  Like QAnon, it had cryptic texts that promised enlightenment to its adherents.  Christians combated the heresy by turning back to scripture and pointing to the incarnation of Christ, who was not an esoteric spiritual being but an actual human being who demonstrated love of neighbor, caring for the least in society and a message based on concrete examples of lost sheep, parents and children, day laborers and landlords.   Jesus taught a Gospel of love that was difficult for the masses to accept, because of its demands of self-sacrifice.  The promises of Gnosticism offered the exultation of humans through secret knowledge, while the Gospel of Jesus offered the exultation of God through easy to understand acts of every day love.

The author of the First Letter of John told their readers to “test the spirits,” and urged them to believe that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.  Why this emphasis upon the incarnation?  Because Jesus was not just a ghost passing through this material plane, but a human being who knew what it is to suffer and gave his life for the sake of others.  The author of the letter goes on to offer some of the most beautiful language about God ever written: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”  In other words, the way to test a belief system is to ask, “where is the love?”

Whether the conspiracy theory is QAnon, the Illuminati, the Freemasons or ancient Gnosticism, a simple way to “test the spirits” is to ask where is love in this system of belief?  Does this worldview result in people forsaking their own ego to show love to others around them or does it exalt the ego by declaring its adherents are superior to others because they alone know what is really going on?  QAnon may be the latest false religion to invade Christianity, but it’s the same song different verse.  It’s just another selfish attempt to declare some are better and more spiritual than others.  Jesus didn’t have much patience for religious know-it-alls.  We shouldn’t either.

Grace and Peace,
Chase