Spirituality with True Passion

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” These words, attributed to Jesus, have always intrigued me. And so, while reading the most powerful book, Leaving the Saints, by Martha Beck, I was grabbed by her use of this very line in facing issues both at home and with her church.

It continues to amaze me how little the complete truth matters to those caught up in family and religious systems where to question is to be automatically vilified. We look back in history and find how the church labeled questioners “heretics” and how families have rejected those who have married outside of family race and or societal niche.

Such irony! Religions and families that like to take the high ground (needing to be correct) may become powerfully trapped by their own confessions. To become free of that pretentious (or “pretending”) attitude our truths need to be challenged from time to time with new information. Horizons need expanding. Indeed, our truth needs to let process inform possession. Humor, a most welcome oil, flows freely only when people stop taking themselves too seriously to listen … yes, to listen thoughtfully.

In the LDS Church, Martha showed how difficult it was for her, a BYU professor, to bring up taboo subjects, like impugning her father of having sexually abused her as a child. This revelation was complicated by the fact that his job was serving as a “defender of the faith” in the LDS church. Protecting his status was more important to church image than dealing with Martha’s need to be healed. Truth can be most challenging.

Jesus was hated by the religious of his day for challenging his closed, tightly controlled Jewish system. Jesus stood up for the rejected of his day. To the man born blind, (whom Jesus healed) the religious said, “You were born in utter sin .. and you would teach us?” To the woman caught in adultery the religious said, “Our law says she should be stoned” but when Jesus was asked how he would judge, Jesus simply said, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone. 1” Truth is, no one threw anything.

Spirituality does not dishonor truth even if religions sometimes do. When Copernicus informed the Church of his day that he believed the earth was NOT the center of the universe and that we were simply a planet revolving around the Sun, he was severely chastised and rejected by the Church. When Martin Luther tried to re-form the Church of his day saying that each person had equal status before God under grace, he was officially thrown out and proclaimed a heretic, worthy to be caught and killed by anyone. When Lincoln proclaimed equal status for blacks and whites, a war was fought over that “truth.” Indeed, truth often ignites spiritual passion. It fills our souls with the courage of Jesus to speak the truth in passionate love for all God’s people and for all of creation, too. Truth thirsts for understanding, honoring life.

So who’s speaking for the value of the life of Jew, Arab and Mexican people these days? Our tendency as a nation lately has been to be critical, fearful and distrustful of certain peoples. And though the lifestyle, choices and practices of all people (including our own) need to be weighed wisely, the danger is that we throw out the millions of good-spirited persons with whom dialog is welcome. Are many people more reasonable and peace-seeking than we are sometimes led to believe? How will we know if this is true without honoring patient, persevering dialog? And, even if some people have come to “hate Americans” our spiritual foundation rests upon Jesus’ admonition, “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you 1” or the apostle Paul’s, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 2” Our true mission is not to expect others to first love us but rather show our love first … even as God first loved us. 3 Is our truth guided by Christ’s passion? Now that’s the Spirit!

Pastor Dan

1 John 8:7; 2 Matthew 5:44; 3 Romans 12:21; 4 I John 4:19