theeffect Podcasts

Dave Brisbin 2.28.21

Second Sunday of Lent. Why do Jesus and Paul teach the way they do? Why do they both tell us that the Way to new and abundant life is by focusing on what is invisible, conquering by yielding, resting under a yoke, becoming free by becoming a slave, reigning by serving, being great by being small, becoming wise by being a fool, triumphing through defeat, living by dying, being strong by being weak? Maddening for people focused on the security and control implied in single, accurate, even formulaic answers. But a true encounter with God, a momentary view of life through God’s eyes, is necessarily at odds with the view from a human vantage. God always presents as a paradox between what we think is true and what is now possibly really true. As long as we’re breathing, we will need our human point of view, and until we’re ready to wrestle with how God’s reality fits into human lives, paradox will simply present as a contradiction. And unlike paradox, contradiction needs to be resolved.

A contradiction is a set of opposing elements of which only one can be “true.” A paradox is a set of opposing elements designed to lead to a deeper insight, a truth that doesn’t resolve the paradox, but makes resolution moot. A paradox is not meant to be resolved; it’s meant to be wrestled. Twenty years after a transcendent encounter with God—the vision of a ladder between heaven and earth—Jacob is still only half-baked, halfway through the fortyness of his journey. But when he wrestles all night with the spirit of God, he is wounded, but through the wounding of his own self-sufficiency, God changes his name from Jacob, the schemer, to Israel, the one who has wrestled with God. A good teacher like Jesus or Paul knows that any encounter with God can only be authentically expressed as a paradox, left unresolved, because any single answer is just a picking of sides in a contradiction. A full stop to further truth. A good teacher knows that the process itself is the goal, that the wrestling, not a resolution, is the Way through the fortyness of any paradox we face: especially the fortyness of Lent leading to the central Christian paradox of how Jesus has died, yet lives.

Dave Brisbin 2.21.21

On the first Sunday of Lent, after having been through how many Lents? How many Easters? We’re pretty sure we know what Easter is all about. Just ask us, and we’ll rattle off all our theological truths about the resurrection. But when you bring the certainty of your beliefs to Jesus, you’re in for a shock. What would Jesus say? Probably to sell everything you have and come and see how the big Easter you hold in your mind is blocking a life-sized Easter that can actually fit into your daily moments. Every follower of Jesus, every hero of faith in scripture who received a spectacular revelation, a mountaintop experience with God, was immediately plunged into a forty-ness, a wilderness period represented by the number forty that was a time of consolidation and assimilation, of bringing the hugeness of the experience down into the DNA of daily life. It's the inevitable process in which the great doubt sets back in, but through the action of faith, the great truth distills down for use in real life, if it’s to be used at all.

From Noah and Moses to Jesus, Peter, and Paul, the shape of the journey is the same. And in the story of Elijah, we see the full shape of his journey from the spectacular miracles on Mount Carmel to the humble silence of a cave on Mount Horeb. And what stood between those two mountains? Forty days in the wilderness... Forty days or years is not literal here; it’s the long-as-it-takes time to grow the “shepherd consciousness” of Moses, the humble anawim spirit that can recognize God in the smallest of things. When Moses is still and small enough, he can see God in a burning bush, and when Elijah is still and small enough he hears his God in the kol d’mamah daqqah, Hebrew for the still small voice or better, the silent sound, sheer silence of God that draws Elijah out of the cave of his wilderness. Lent is the church’s ceremonial re-enactment of the wilderness that precedes the new life of Easter, an opportunity to grow deeper into our own still, small selves and an Easter we’ve not yet imagined.

Dave Brisbin 2.14.21

Poor Thomas… As one of the twelve Apostles, the inner circle of Jesus’ first followers, he follows Jesus for years, exhibits his bravery and boldness in following where others feared to go, and according to tradition, carries the gospel as far as India before he was martyred there in 72 CE. Pretty good resume. And yet because of one mistake—saying he wouldn’t believe the report of a risen Jesus until he’d put his hands in the wounds—he’s gotten this bad rap and a demeaning nickname for two thousand years and counting. Extremely unfair, especially when you consider that every one of Jesus’ first followers also doubted his resurrection until they’d had a personal experience with him. Thomas was the only one honest enough, bold enough, to admit he needed a personal experience to bring it home. But further, did Thomas really make a mistake at all?

Jesus teaches in such a way to first break down the assumptions and belief system of the questioner, because without first instilling the “great doubt” in a questioner’s mind, no further enlightenment can take place. Yet we in the West have been taught that doubt is bad, a sin, the opposite of faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. Faith is not thought; faith is action. And the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty, the mental illusion that stops any further action of faith. The doubt and uncertainty that are an essential part of human life are the motivators that make our faith possible. Faith only exists in the presence of doubt, is the ability to act in the presence of doubt. Doubt is part of the divine dissatisfaction that propels us not to certainty, but to the personal experience that convinces us of the truth that makes us free. This is the Way of Jesus, the Way he teaches us to experience truth, and the only Way to the Father… Thank you, Thomas.

Dave Brisbin 2.7.21

A man calls to ask how he can know God’s love is real and not just a thought in his head that he made up or would like to believe. He’s asking the central question without which life remains very scary. I remember asking the same thing about prayer. Was I just talking to myself? How could I know if my prayer was real? By outcomes? By feelings? Maddeningly, Jesus doesn’t tell us. Always comforting but never comfortable, Jesus never gives us the intellectual certainty of a direct answer. He’s not being coy. He knows even if he gave us the “right” answer, it would still just be another thought in our heads. If we think it, we can unthink it and would never know if it was real. Eastern teachers, whether middle or far Eastern, know this about spiritual matters: that the answers we crave can’t be transferred. They must be personally experienced to have the conviction of reality.

Far Eastern teachers have used koans for millennia to show the inadequacy of rational thought. These paradoxical and unresolvable little stories or questions make no rational sense and are meant to muddle the mind and create the “great doubt” that can lead to sudden intuitive leaps. Jesus teaches in exactly the same way, and when you analyze the conversations preserved for us in the gospels, you see one overarching theme: motion. Even when just asked where he is going, Jesus says: come and see--move with me and you will know beyond mere understanding. God’s spirit is ruha in Aramaic and means breath, wind, spirit all at the same time. It’s all about motion; three things defined by motion, that don’t exist without motion. Jesus is telling us that God’s love is a moving target, and the only way we can know if it’s real and not just a thought in our heads, is to move with it. It will be in the motion of love through us to another that we will become convinced that God and God’s love is as real as real gets.

Dave Brisbin 1.31.21

If Jesus were here today, would he be a Republican or a Democrat? Really? What I first thought had to be a rhetorical or facetious question was being asked in all sincerity. And the quick answer: that he would be neither or both, while possibly technically true, would be an evasion, ignoring the complexities and subtext of the question. Such a question deserves to be answered with the seriousness with which it is asked, because at a time when politics have been equated with morality, with opposing positions not simply wrong, but evil, we really want to know. If we revere Jesus, or just believe our opposition does, we’re going to want Jesus in our camp, and some of us are absolutely certain he already is. But if Jesus had any political beliefs, they are not recorded in the New Testament, which means they are not important, non-essential to his message. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have any.

Jesus was a fiercely loyal Jew to the end. He said he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, yet he never refused compassion and assistance to anyone whether from his own camp or any other. He was the first to criticize his own people, then added insult to injury by praising their most hated enemies. Jesus had a side, but his identity was with his unseen Father first—and from that vantage, what he saw far transcended his politics. Over a thousand years before, Moses set up the Tent of Meeting a half mile outside the camp of the Israelites; if you wanted to meet God, you needed to go outside the camp. Just when we think we’ve got Jesus figured, domesticated, co-opted, he rocks us back on our heels. Always comforting but never comfortable, if you want to meet Jesus again for the first time, you will need to go outside your camp. If you’re asking whether Jesus is a Republican or Democrat to justify a position, prepare to be frustrated. His answer will not scratch your itch. And if you’re looking to Jesus in all sincerity as your north star, he will lead you—but prepare to be led well outside your camp, your party, and anything else in which you huddle for security.

Dave Brisbin 1.24.21

Friend of mine, increasingly frustrated that his actions and attitudes weren’t matching the conviction he believed he believed, had a sudden breakthrough one morning: that he was trying to create meaning out of life and something of himself through a sheer force of intellectual will. That he wasn’t taking God seriously—just showing up each morning and letting life teach. As a reminder, he took a Mason jar and labeled it “will/ego” and put on the top shelf of his pantry, so every morning when he goes to get his coffee, he can look up at the jar and say, “not today.” Beautiful little ritual containing a huge truth. Before we can answer abstract questions of meaning and identity, we first need to ask concrete questions of purpose. Why am I here? What is the goal of my life? Questions that define a direction, indicate next steps.

This is exactly what Jesus teaches. He doesn’t give us expansive theology, philosophy, or doctrine—great abstract thoughts. He gives us purpose and direction because the big questions of life can’t be answered by sheer force of intellectual will and never all at once. Meaning as concept can only ever be extracted from purpose in action. Why are we here? To learn to live in connection and love. Jesus tells us if we continue in that purpose over time, lose our lives, our sense of self, in that purpose, we will experience a serial surrender of ego and will that will allow us to know the truth—that everything and everyone really are connected. And the conviction of that truth will make us free—the goal of our lives: freedom from the fear and compulsions that prevent us from living in love. Jesus knows, two thousand years before modern neuroscience could tell us why, that this process of serial surrender is the only Way to the Father, the source and embodiment of that freedom, our Good News.

Dave Brisbin 1.17.21

Ever looked up to realize you’ve driven miles past your exit with no idea how you got there? Who was doing the driving just then? Ever done or said something before you were even aware another choice was possible, cringing afterward? Paul bemoans the same thing at Romans 7 saying, the things he hates are the things he finds himself doing. Says he’s not in control, that the sin living in him is driving. Two thousand years later, neuroscientists believe there are three parts of our brain, but only one is conscious and not always driving. The first one, often called the lizard brain is responsible for our most primitive survival instincts and procedural memory—the things we do over and over, like driving cars. The second, the limbic system controls our emotions and specific memories. What is programmed into our lizard and limbic brains over the course of a lifetime doesn’t just change on a dime because our conscious brain, the neocortex, has an epiphany, a conversion, or even just a desire to change.

This is why Jesus’ first followers called themselves Followers of the Way—not followers of Jesus. They understood that what they thought they knew and believed only showed them the door, but could not take them to the transformation they sought. Jesus says this over and over, that only when we ourselves do what he has done, will we be made free. It’s not enough to believe Jesus with our minds, to understand theology or church doctrine. Those conscious activities don’t get down to the lizard brain where our compulsions and fears really live. Only the daily practice of Jesus’ Way of love and symbolic rituals that bring us back to connection can deprogram what we can’t touch with our conscious minds. The lizard brain doesn’t know the difference between a symbolic act and a real one, so if we create a rich, daily practice of real and symbolic action always in the direction of connection, we will find we’re gradually experiencing the transformation Jesus intends.

Dave Brisbin 1.10.21

As our world seems to spin more and more out of control, becomes more and more precariously balanced, the word apocalyptic is being used more and more as well. We’re becoming obsessed. Movie, TV, and social media content seems to revolve more and more around apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic material, and all this cultural focus assumes that apocalypse means catastrophic destruction—world ending destruction. We get that meaning from its association with the book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. But the book of Revelation gets its name from the first Greek word of the book: apocalupsis…which means, wait for it…revelation. Better, unveiling or uncovering. The point of apocalyptic literature is not the catastrophe, but that in the midst of the destruction, God is still there, temporarily hidden by trauma and loss, but no less present and protective.

The apocalypse is the uncovering, the unveiling of God’s continued presence, the conviction that his promises remain intact, though we can’t see how. It’s ironic that we have come to fear apocalyptic books, when they were originally meant to instill hope, but even with this original understanding in hand, are we still waiting for this apocalyptic unveiling to happen? If we are still waiting, we’re missing the point. Jesus’ Kingdom always carries the qualities of now and not yet—acceptance of and gratitude for each moment, even as we work diligently for change in the next. Jesus is saying that apocalypse, God’s unveiling, begins right now with our own decision to see or it doesn’t begin at all. If we’re really following Jesus, then we are creating little apocalypses every day, seeing God revealed in the most seemingly insignificant details. The truth Jesus is trying to convey is that if we can’t see God now, we won’t see God later…in this life or the next.

Dave Brisbin 1.3.21

Our little dog was attacked by an owl in our backyard a few nights ago—an owl, can you believe it? She came running back in screaming and bleeding and now won’t go back out into the yard. She now sees the backyard as a scary place, even if daytime with no owls in sight. Are we much different? Looking to a new year with hope for change, are we looking with eyes capable of seeing change? This last year of loss has been so profound, and the first week of the new year not much better, that we’ve been programmed into a fearful mindset, a way of seeing that won’t change with the calendar.

Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.” It’s that last line that signals to us in English that Jesus is speaking metaphorically. But in Aramaic, Jesus’ native language with its layers of simultaneous meaning, the metaphorical meaning is also literal. He is telling us that until the eye, the view, opinion, mindset with which we look at life is clear, simple, sincere, straight, true—even the light we see, the order and balance in our moments, will appear dark—chaotic, disordered. Scary. With no owl in sight. To rise above the programming of the loss of a year or a lifetime takes an eye clear enough to always choose in the direction of connection with each other and everything in our moments. The change to a new year is a great milestone, but changing the eye of our mindset is what really makes the year new.

Dave Brisbin 12.27.20

It’s the Third Day of Christmas. What does that mean? Three French hens immediately comes to mind from the song. But what are the Twelve Days of Christmas for that matter? The ancient liturgies of Christianity dating back hundreds and sometimes thousands of years have created a yearly cycle of seasons and celebrations that have defined and bonded communities through their common cultural festivals and traditions. We have lost a common liturgical language and practice in the modern West. Strike one, because liturgy is the way a people respond and participate in public and communal worship, and there’s no less need for that now than ever.

Strike two is that our culture celebrates the extremes: the biggest, fastest, youngest, first, last, most spectacular or most spectacular failure. Whatever is between those extremes is flyover country, like Kansas or Nebraska—something only on the way to something else, something important. This is the Third Day of Christmas. Like a middle child, not the first or the baby. What value can it possibly represent? Avoiding strike three is figuring out how the third day is just as sacred as the first or last or any other, and is the task of anyone who really wants to follow Jesus. Learning to love and value the consistency of showing up every day, day in and out, just as presently and energetically as if it were the only day is what constitutes the anawim heart. The heart of one who has learned to live humbly: in the vulnerability, dependence, and gratitude of one who fully relies on God’s presence and provision. Every day.