How does one go about taking God out of schools - religious holidays - our lives? Before the first bell rings in the morning - before the first class begins - before decoration go up for a religious holiday, before the sun came up that morning when the women expected to complete the task of treating Jesus' body with spices, the wholeness of God is present. No one can fuss with that. No one can prove that God is not there simply by their observations of the world around them. Elie Wiesel was able to remind prisoners of the presence of God even when God was hanging from a noose - struggling and refusing to die even as silence and stillness pressed on.
Oh I suppose we can say anything we want. I suppose we can even accuse others of taking God out of this part of our lives or that part of our lives. I suppose we can weep and wail about how - some force - some power - some political gangsters - are working their evil ways to remove God from our lives. Yet, we must not listen to such faithless voices that fear the voids or chaos or troubles within the world around us. We must not be fools.
I use fools here not as the church does when we call the followers of Jesus fools for Christ. In this use, we step into and live within the peaceable Reign of God to which Jesus was a witness. By doing that, we look foolish to the ways of the world of violence and separation and division. When we think God can be taken out of our lives - just like that (snap of fingers) - it simply means we have abandoned the truthfulness of the expansiveness of God and we become fools - knuckleheads - the image of people who do not believe in God. Isn't that odd. We the people of God can somehow be persuaded and then take on the notion that God somehow has been taken from us and we must stop such action.
In our present political/cultural context the language of God being taken away from us and the notion that some power is taking away our religious freedom - is born of fear not faithfulness. When this fear is able to present itself as a anchor for our lives that will keep God with us, we have fallen for a lie - we really do become fools not the faithful. Yet, it sounds so damn powerful to say we are the faithful trying to keep God in our lives - our country - our homes - our future. Have you heard how deafening those voices can be. They call forth their god as though they were WRITING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS - the louder the better.
Truth is, as we come to think that we must holler more loudly about our God - we are witnesses of faithlessness - we become the idolatrous ones who have manufactured a god we must protect - we have just elevated ourselves above the Creator we claim to trust in all times. Kind of like "Don't worry God, we got your back - we will protect you - we will not let anyone hurt you - we will put you back into your rightful place of honor." In the meantime, the one who was and is and will be, continues to be the one who was and is and will be even as we cannot grasp that reality.
In these days of people trying to save God from a cultural overthrow - from evil powers all around - we are witnesses to a movement of utter idolatry - wearing as it always does - the mask of devotion and faithfulness and righteousness as though it deserves a place of distinction in our culture. We must remember that it was fear of those atheistic communist that made folks think we needed to add words to a historical document so that we would not be overcome by those folks. Listen, the followers of Jesus do not us the name of God as a magical incantation. We use the name of God to remind us of the image of peace and healing and love and reconciliation and forgiveness and unbounded hospitality that no nation seems to get - and yet we are invited to be there.
So, let us not be fools who love our culture as we like it to be. Let us be fools for Christ - fools for the vision of God's Reign - fools for life that can be given up for the well-being of others - fools for the wonder-filled diversity of God creation as it was within the primal creation story of our faith. I like to say that those of us who long for freedom of religion - long for something other than - the faithfulness of our God who establishes diversity - nurtures compassion - lifts up the lowly - turns no one away no matter what the cost to us. But I'm ranting.
TRRR
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