Jesus Unmasked

"I am the Good Shepherd... And I lay down my life for the sheep."

Jesus the Good Shepherd serves, protects, and lays down his life for the sheep. At its best, policing is meant to serve and protect. Yet sheep are often not safe in the hands of most shepherds (who would look after them but also lead them to be sacrificed) and policing does not always make people more safe.

As Derek Chauvin is convicted for the murder of George Floyd, we recognize that so much more must be done to bring about healing, restoration, and justice. The deaths of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo and Ma'Khia Bryant at the hands of police are the most recent of millions of reminders that so much more work needs to be done. Not only must our police and criminal justice systems be drastically reformed, but we must see ourselves as bound together, shepherds to each other who recognize our mission to care for and serve one another.

That means doing our part to dismantle racism and transform systems of poverty and violence. It means making sure what happened to George Floyd and so many others never happens again not only because police are held accountable, but because we, as Christ's hands and feet on earth, create a world of such deep compassion that that kind of cruelty and indifference are unthinkable.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who calls everyone from everywhere. Not everyone recognizes the Shepherd to be this marginalized Jew who lived 2000 years ago. But the voice of Love embodied in vulnerable people everywhere, the voice of Love speaks in the language of compassion -- suffering with others to alleviate the suffering of others -- that voice calls to all of us. Universal Love is calling us to be shepherds to one another, to care for each other, to protect each other.

And we protect each other from the forces within and around that tempt us to fear, greed, and dehumanization. The "wolves" are not flesh and blood, but the powers and principalities that have created a world of deception, where our perception is scarcity and the need for lethal force. The reality is that we are unconditionally Loved, and when we live into that Love, we will become all that we are meant to be.

Our Good Shepherd is leading us out of the world of fear and hatred and racism into greener pastures of love and abundance, into the Beloved Community where all are welcome. Let us follow and shepherd one another along the way.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page.

"Peace be with you."

For what may be the millionth time, Jesus greets his disciples with these words of comfort and love. And they need it, for they were heartbroken and afraid. It's the first Easter evening, and Jesus's disciples are shut up away, when Jesus comes among them.

"Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" Jesus asks.

Maybe because they think they are seeing a ghost, and ghosts mean vengeance. It's one thing to be afraid that authorities will find you. It's another thing to be confronted by a man you have abandoned in death.

But it's more than his physical body that makes Jesus not a ghost. It's also the fact that he returns with forgiveness and love that extends the death-defying life he embodies to his disciples. And when he eats fish with them, he is not just proving that he has a working digestive system so that the fish doesn't fall through his appearance onto the floor. He is saying: "Relax, friends. It's me. Let's eat."

The disciples who write the Gospels are not ashamed to admit that they had everything wrong. They didn't understand Jesus' mission or his death or his resurrection. They didn't understand that Jesus was not there to conquer with violence, but to conquer violence, and the cycles of death that arise out of it, itself.

But when Jesus comes back to them, he explains everything, and a new understanding begins to take hold not just because of his words, but because of everything that his life has shown. New life comes from welcoming the marginalized, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and proclaiming good news to the poor.

Moreover, new life comes from realizing that the Source of All Life is Love. God is not violent power that conquers, and those who suffer are not being punished by God. Rather, God is with the suffering, embodied in the suffering, and loving the suffering into new life from the inside-out.

Repentance -- a new mind that comes from recognizing God's solidarity with the poor and recognizing the power of Love to bring life from death, abundance from poverty, flourishing from suffering -- is a gift to all. Forgiveness -- the grace to be more than our mistakes, to live into the Love in Whom we have our being -- is a gift to all. Repentance and forgiveness are to be proclaimed to the whole world.

Lindsey, Adam, and friends talk about the meaning of all of this in our world of racism and greed and us vs. them? How does knowing that we are Loved, that God is Love, and that life comes from and through Love, empower us to confront the sins of systemic racism and dehumanization and transform them from the inside out?

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page.

"Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Far, far too often, these words, spoken to Thomas, are used to shame doubt and extol the virtues of an unquestioning faith. But deep faith seeks, explores, and questions, and that is exactly what trust-but-verify Thomas does. He has a scientific mind, and his need for evidence is a good model for us. And once he sees and touches Jesus's wounds, he is the first to proclaim, "My Lord and my God!"

And those words have extraordinary meaning. God bears the wounds inflicted by human violence and injustice, the wounds of conquest and empire and oppression. God bears them in vulnerable flesh just like ours. God bears the wounds we endure and the wounds we inflict. And God responds to them all with mercy and healing and reaffirmation of human goodness and blessings and peace.

All of the disciples, not just Thomas, were shaken by Jesus's death. That first Easter, the rest of them were locked away for fear of the authorities, religious and political. (Fear of "the Jews" is a poor translation for religious authorities that has tragically perpetuated antisemitism. Furthermore, John's Gospel downplays the fear of Rome that was very real to the disciples who had watched their lead suffer a Roman execution) Thomas, at least, was not locked away with them. Perhaps there's a faithfulness in not being shut away in fear.

Jesus comes into that room and breathes the Holy Spirit upon his disciples. This is the spirit of forgiveness, the strength to return mercy for hate and fear and failure, so that cycles of violence can be broken by compassion. The power to forgive or retain sins has always belonged to us, to humanity. The culmination of retaining sins is the crucifixion, but the culmination of forgiveness is abundant life and joy.

Bonus: Who is the Beloved disciple? The answer may delight you!

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page.

"Behold your mother!" When Jesus speaks these words, he uses his dying breath to place his mother in the care of his beloved disciple. But he also declares to the world that he is our mother, giving birth to our new, fully human selves through his blood and labor and breath-taking pain (pain that literally takes his breath away).

This year, Transgender Day of Visibility falls during Holy Week. On Good Friday, God the Son becomes God our Mother. And we all behold; we all finally see the true nature of God that has been hidden by clouds of misunderstanding and fogs of violence, fear, and shame.

On the cross, Jesus reveals that all the violence committed in the name of God ultimately falls upon God. God is the victim, not the author or commander, of human violence. And on the cross, every victim of human violence is vindicated, because Jesus suffers in solidarity. And as our Mother, Jesus empowers and teaches us how to live into our full humanity through service, solidarity, and mercy.

Our transgender siblings have suffered condemnation at the hands of the church. Our transgender siblings are loved exactly as they are and exactly as they are becoming. On Transgender Day of Visibility, we celebrate our transgender siblings as they are: beloved children of God. And during Holy Week, we remember that the monstrous identity assigned to God by violent theories of atonement is not God's true nature. God's true nature, revealed through all of human history and particularly on the cross and in the resurrection, is life-giving Love.

Holy Week is when everything is revealed: the shame of human violence and the glory of God's love. Condemnation against our LGBTQIA siblings, against People of Color and all marginalized peoples, condemnation by religious and state authorities -- this is what crucifies the living God.

This year, not only Transgender Day of Visibility but also the trial of the officer who took the life of George Floyd fall within Holy Week. Holy Week reveals the divinity of those who are marginalized and the deadliness of our systems of injustice.

But Love is stronger than death. Our own violence, condemnation, and systems of injustice are put on trial and deemed guilty, but God answers them with transformational forgiveness.

The Body of Christ is transgender. Adam, Lindsey, and friends honor and celebrate this beautiful truth just we celebrate the revelation, through the cross and resurrection, that God is Love. May we come to know God and each other as we truly are.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page. Have a blessed Holy Week and a joyful Easter!

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast! Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too.

“Father, glorify your name.” “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

When we think of glory, we often think of rulers on thrones, or magnificent processions, or dazzling displays of wonder. Triumph, victory, power, honor…

But sometimes, glory really sucks.

Jesus has only days to live. He has already had his triumphant Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem, and now, he has just been told by his disciples that “some Greeks” wish to see him. Instead of going to talk to them, Jesus takes this as a sign that the end is near and starts speaking about his death.

Jesus has been interpreting Torah through a lens of mercy in both words and actions. The Sermon on the Mount and the parables have been an interpretation of Judaism. But he’s about to show a universal message of love to the whole world. Instead of going to “the Greeks” who wish to see him, Jesus will give them, and everyone else, a message on the cross.

That message is this: “God is the victim of human violence. Any violence done in the name of God is ultimately done to God. But God’s answer to human violence is forgiveness, mercy, and love.”

Jesus is troubled that he is going to die. He is sad and scared, but he knows what he has to do. “Father, glorify your name,” he says. And God reassures him by saying he has already glorified his name, and will glorify it again. Jesus’s self-giving love, which is leading him to the cross, has not been in vain, but has honored the Source of Love.

God’s glory is exposing the lie of our faith in violence by revealing it in all of its ugliness and horror. In this moment, our own judgment against each other is judged and overthrown. Humiliated, beaten, naked, and dying, Jesus reveals God’s glory by showing the boundless reaches of God’s mercy.

When Jesus dies and rises again, he will draw all people – and all things – to himself. The Love in which we already live and move and have our being will become more clear to us, and we will start to live beyond the boundaries of death and fear that now confine us.

If we are drawn to Jesus, we must also be drawn to the victims of violence and oppression and fear and hate all over the world. How are we drawn to the victims of violence today? What does love call us to learn and give and do for the vulnerable and the suffering?

Adam and Lindsey and friends reflect on all of this and much more.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life."

Have you ever heard these words recited faithfully, reverently, as if they are supposed to be the most comforting words anyone could ever hear... and felt scared and isolated instead?

This is perhaps the most famous verse of Christian scripture, and it is meant to be good news. But good news can only be good if it is good for everyone. And far too often, this verse hasn't been interpreted that way.

When read through a lens of exclusion, it sounds as if those who cannot believe certain things about Jesus -- and by extension, God, the Bible, Christianity, the Trinity, etc... -- are doomed.

But that lens of exclusion and condemnation, that fear-based and frightening understanding of the world that leads to violence and over-againstness... this is exactly what Jesus comes to save the entire world from.

For God so loved the world that God came among us as a human being, to love us and model a life of service and compassion. When we trust in that love, and live in love and service to one another, death has no power over us, for love is stronger than death.

It is the faith of Jesus, the faith of God embodied, that catalyzes our ability to live into the trust and vulnerability that it takes to live for one another, rather than to live for ourselves over and against one another. Love has faith in us, and love enables to care for one another. And that is how we live into abundant, eternal life.

God's love is unconditional, universal, and good news for everyone. Whatever spiritual language we may speak, whether or not we even believe in God at all, Love is at work within all of us, transforming our world of violence and exclusion into the Beloved Community.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

“Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.”

It’s raging Jesus! This is the fiery, zealous Messiah we’ve been waiting for, bursting in, whips blazing …right?

Every now and then, a meme of this scene pops up in social media, with a caption: “When asking ‘What would Jesus do?” remember that turning over tables and chasing people with whips is within the realm of possibilities.” Because, you know, Jesus could get violent when he was pushed far enough.

Except… no.

This is a kickass scene, but it’s kickass mercy.

Jesus is shutting down the system of sacrifice.

The temple is supposed to be where people come to experience God. In order to sacrifice in the temple, people would have to buy animals if they weren’t able to raise their own, and inflated prices exploited the most vulnerable. Beyond that, to make impoverished people feel as if they had to purchase sacrificial animals in order to experience blessing is hypocritical. Yes, Jewish law laid out provisions for sacrifice, but it also laid out provisions for caring for the poor and forgiving debts… and those mandates were not being fulfilled.

There was poverty, exploitation, corruption… and Jesus comes to shut it all down.

This is a prophetic act of mercy. Mercy doesn’t always look like meekness. Sometimes, it looks like turning the tables, overthrowing the powers of greed and violence, and setting everyone free.

The whip? It wasn’t for hitting people. It was for driving out animals… so that they can’t be slaughtered. They, too, are being freed from a sacrificial system.

The temple is where God was to be found insofar as where ever people gather, God is there. God is with us and reflected through us as human beings. But God is most especially reflected in the vulnerable, the poor, the marginalized.

And God is in Jesus because Jesus is in complete solidarity with the most marginalized.

“Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.” The place where God is now located is not within walls, but within flesh.

And God is still to be found within the most vulnerable. Whatever we do to one another, we do to God.

A note of caution: John’s Gospel uses the words “the Jews” a lot. It is the religious and political elite that he is referring to, not the whole of the Jewish people.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

“Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Ouch. This is probably one of the harshest things Jesus says. Maybe even harsher than “Get behind me, Satan!,” which he also says in this passage. This is a tough one, friends.

We’re deep into Lent now, with all this talk of Satan and shame and crosses. What does it all mean?

Well, Jesus has just explained that he will have to go and suffer and be killed by the Powers that Be. And Peter is stunned and terrified and probably ashamed too. He doesn’t want Jesus to die, and he doesn’t want to follow a failed Messiah, for what success could possibly come from Jesus’s death? How would that overthrow the Roman occupation and usher in an age of peace and prosperity?

Jesus then calls Peter “Satan,” and basically says that he will return shame for shame.

The NRSV translation removes some key words here. Jesus says to Peter, “You are a stumbling block for me.” Jesus isn’t rebuking Peter simply from a place of moral superiority… Jesus doesn’t want to die! And the more Peter balks at the idea of his death, the more Jesus agrees that dying sounds terrible and painful and shameful, so he is tempted to walk away. That’s why he bursts out and calls Peter Satan. He snaps back so that he won’t be able to entertain the idea of escaping his fate. Because the only way to escape his fate is to stop doing his work.

Jesus isn’t going to stop feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and building community around the marginalized. He’s going to continue to create a new world that doesn’t depend upon the imperial powers keeping some inferior so they can be superior. He’s going to continue to live in such a way as to anger the Empire… and that is what will get him killed.

He calls us to follow him in his way of solidarity and service. The outcasts and marginalized aren’t marginalized anymore when we go into solidarity with them. And the Powers that Be, who depend on being able to cast people out to threaten and punish and keep their power, don’t like that. So they impose the cross… an instrument of torture and shame.

And Jesus says, “Take up your cross. Live in such a way as to piss off the Empire, and when they shame and punish you, refuse to feel ashamed.” It’s actually pretty badass. It has nothing to do with romanticizing suffering, and everything to do with counting the cost of service, and being brave enough to bear it.

Jesus says in no uncertain terms that he will be ashamed of those who would rather willingly participate in hurting others than be hurt for the sake of others. But what is the result of this shame? It’s not hell or punishment, but just the call to do better. Jesus will continue to tell us that there is more to us than our fears, and he will continue to push us to deeper levels of Love. That Love will inevitably lead to suffering, but it will also transform the world and ultimately lead to joy.

So live in such a way as to piss off Empire, and give up shame for Lent.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too.

Good news; it’s Lent!

What, Lent doesn’t sound like good news to you?

Actually, we’re not sure if Jesus considered it “good news” either when, just after his Baptism, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus isn’t gently “led,” but “driven.” Whether he likes it or not, he’s going out alone into the wild.

But he has just received good news – the best news ever, actually. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Those are the last words he hears before he goes into the wilderness, and they will sustain him all the way through.

Mark doesn’t elaborate on Jesus’s temptations as other Gospels do. So how does Satan tempt Jesus? Perhaps the temptation is to doubt what he has just been told: that he is Beloved. Maybe the temptation is to flee from the desert and prove he is loved, seeking validation from the world instead of knowing it deep within himself.

Jesus is in the wilderness with the “wild beasts.” No shelter, no food… and yet he emerges unscathed. The beasts are tame in his presence. Is this a miracle? Is it a foreshadowing of the harmonious living that comes when we all know we are loved as Jesus is loved?

Forty days in the wilderness with wild beasts – we recall Noah’s journey on the ark. The whole world was re-built in forty days.

Perhaps a new world is being built within Jesus too. He is testing his faith in being loved. He must believe he is loved when he is poor, when he suffers the heat of the day and the chill of the night without shelter, when his belly aches…

And that experience of solidarity with the poor, homeless and hungry sharpens his compassion. He probably becomes more aware, on an intuitive level, on a heart level, of God’s love for the whole world. So when he begins his ministry, he has more of himself to give. Perhaps his capacity to heal as a fully human being came from this time in the desert.

This year especially, isolated and anxious because of this Global pandemic, we are all in our own wildernesses. So, while Lent calls us to follow Jesus, this year especially, we can see that Lent is Jesus coming into our own wildernesses to meet us.

Jesus meets us in the deserts of our hearts, in the dark corners of our souls, and as we walk with Him, we exercise and strengthen our trust in the truth that we are loved.

And that is good news indeed.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too.

O, Shiny Jesus!

This is the Gospel for Transfiguration Sunday, the Sunday before the Lenten journey begins. Coinciding this year with Valentine’s Day, it’s a magnificent day to remember that the light of love shines through all of us.

What is the Transfiguration?

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to the top of a mountain, and there he is illuminated. As he radiates near-blinding light, suddenly at his side appear Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets. It is a mystical experience in which Jesus’s disciples see Jesus at the center of their past and future; for a brief moment they see a flash of who they are and what life means in Jesus’s light.

Jesus stands in continuity with the law and the prophets, but also in contrast. For after the clouds pass, Moses and Elijah disappear and only Jesus remains. He has taken the best of all Moses and Elijah stand for into himself, without the violence or bloodshed of their stories. A voice from heaven speaks, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” And Jesus’s light guides our understanding of all that has happened and all that is to come.

The illuminated Jesus guides us through our Lenten journey, our dark night of the soul. When Jesus comes down from the mountain, he is headed to Jerusalem, where he will die. Lent is our journey to Jerusalem, when we take a hard look at the injustice in the world that continues to harm God’s living image (all people)… and when we open our eyes to the ways we participate in this injustice. But along the way, we follow the immense beauty and love radiating from Jesus, taking that light into ourselves until it shines from the inside-out.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!