WWJD?

June 29, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

Luke 9:51-62

In His Steps is a religious novel written in 1896 by Charles Monroe Shelton. It has sold more than 50 million copies and is one of the bestselling books of all time. 

I read the novel in 1965 at the urging of some of my Southern Baptist Air Force friends. I was 19k, newly “Born Again,” and trying to live a Christian life despite powerful hormones surging in mybody. It was pointless to reason my way to appropriate Christian behavior because my frontal cortex would not be complete for another six years. This is why I found Charles Monroe Sheldon’s book so exciting, so helpful.

The full title of the book is, In His Steps, What Would Jesus Do? This is probably the origin of WWJD bracelets that proclaim one’s determination to ask what Jesus would do before making decisions. Would Jesus want me to patronize a restaurant that discriminates against LGBTQ+ persons? Would Jesus want one to stay in an abusive marriage? Would Jesus want me to pay Federal taxes that pay for weapons we give to countries that bomb civilians? Would Jesus want me to vote for a politician who believes in abortion? Would Jesus want me to invest in Tesla?

In our complicated era, the WWJD question is even more complicated. Would Jesus support war in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine? Would Jesus approve of the round-up of hundreds men, women, and children in the U.S., without due process, for immediate deportation to foreign lands? Millions on one side of the political divide shout, with certainty, “YES!” Millions more, including mainline religious leaders and Pope Leo XIV, shout, with equal certainty, “NO!”

Given this chasm of disagreement, it would probably be wise to hold back a little on deciding that we are absolutely sure Jesus would do. Sometimes Jesus surprises us and does what we don’t expect. It appears none of his disciples or followers expected Jesus to enter the Holy Temple and start throwing chairs, money boxes, and animal cages into the air.

In Luke 9:51-62, there is another dramatic turn in which the apostles expect Jesus to do one thing and he does another.

On his way to his final visit to Jerusalem, Jesus sends messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to “prepare for his arrival, but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” (Lk 9:52-53)

Is this a surprise? Not according to the commentary in our Lutheran Study Bibles. 

“On their way to Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish world, Jesus enters a Samaritan village. Jews and Samaritans had a strained relationship, stretching back to the time when the Assyrians and then the Babylonians attacked and conquered the people of Israel (722 BCE – 587 BCE, respectively.) Because of this, it is no surprise when the villagers do not welcome Jesus.”

But it was a surprise to the disciples. They were indignant – and just a little vengeful.

James and John had a shock-and-awe proposal.

“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Lk 9:54)

Where in earth did they get that stupid idea? Was there any time in their three years with Jesus that he said or did anything remotely close to calling down fire on his opponents? Granted, he’s not always gentle Jesus meek and mild. But a fire storm? Please.

If James and John really expected fire, then they must have been surprised that Jesus wouldn’t do it. What Would Jesus Do? Not that.

He turned and rebuked them.

Luke leaves the nature of that rebuke up to our imaginations.

Did Jesus shake his head and heave a heavy sigh? Did he glare at them so fiercely their blood ran cold? Did he growl – as he has been known to say – “get behind me, Satan?” Or did he simply turn and lead the way to another village in silence?

The Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough, Associate Director of Leadership Programming at the Association of Theological Schools, suggests Jesus’ response to having gates closed against him offers a “beautiful insight” on the nature of love.

The Samaritan village has every right to refuse Jesus entry. They are doing nothing wrong. They are protecting their people from the unknown. They have ever right to close their gates, and Jesus protects them when they do it.

“Jesus reminds us that allowing agency and choice is a crucial practice of love,” Brooke Yarborough writes. “He wanted to go there, and yet their boundary was honored and respected. What was not celebrated and seen as a good choice? The choice to punish, to harm, to destroy in the name of Jesus because the disciples were inconvenienced or thought another choice should have been made. Jesus shows us that allowing space for another to have agency is crucial to a life of love.”

These are important observations to contemplate before we ask ourselves, “What Would Jesus Do?”

James and John asked the question and immediately concluded Jesus would bring a hell storm down on this unpretentious little village. We must try not to forget this the next time we ask WWJD? Left to our own human devices, the answer we think we discern may be catastrophically wrong. And, not to put a fine edge on it, calamitously evil.

In college I began to steer away from the potential pitfalls of WWJD and  use a different measure for living a Christ-like life.

Then at the very end of my senior year, I took my first course in philosophy under Dr. Peter Genco, a black-bearded mensch whose dissertation was rumored to have proven the existence of God. Among the text books we studied was Situation Ethics, The New Morality (1966, Westminster Press) by Joseph Fletcher. The book was, for me, an apotheosis of philosophical discovery because it offered an enticing formula to guide ethical behavior.

The greatest commandment of Fletcher’s domain was love. Ethical behavior was measured by the amount of love expended in the process. The more love you showed, the more ethical was your behavior.

The idea made ethics quantifiable and opened doors traditionally shut to nice Christians. I’m talking about sex.

Fletcher offered four situations in which ethical behavior might be contrary to conventional morality but would be okay depending on the amount of love you showed. The greater the amount of love, he said, the more ethical your behavior.

Given the hormones flushing through my 20-something arteries, the idea was most appealing.

One of the examples Fletcher cited involved Mrs. Bergmeier, a German woman sent to a prisoner of war camp in the Ukraine. Her husband, after rounding up the children, spent months in a desperate search for her. In the Ukraine, Mrs. Bergmeier learned that her family was looking for her but Soviet rules would not allow her to be released unless she was pregnant. A friendly camp officer graciously offered to help and before long the expectant Mrs. Bergmeier was released to her family.

That worked for me. Here was Mrs. Bergmeier and the generous camp officer, each loving their neighbor as themselves. And wasn’t this extra-marital coitus an expression of the purest kind of love?

But Professor Genco was having none of it. “Sex,” he said, “requires three magic words: ‘I take thee.’” Without a lifetime commitment to your partner, sex is a sin. So went the official line of the Eastern Baptist College faculty. But would it also be a sin for Mrs. Bergmeier to remain morally pure but separated from her children? Again, Fletcher doesn’t say. You tell me. It’s an ethical dilemma.

What Would Jesus Do?

It’s not easy to live a discerning life. For most of us, we try not to overthink our Christian behavior. Loving God, loving our neighbor, loving and forgiving our enemies, turning the other cheek – the life of faith is hard enough even when the rules are written down.

So we turn to the Holy Spirit to show us the way, to distil the rules of behavior to simple understandings. In The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, we learn we cannot do it without one another. “God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for no man is without fault, no man without his burden, no man sufficient of himself, no man wise enough of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.”

WWJD?

I no longer trust my conclusions about what Jesus would do in any circumstance because I may be wrong, and because Jesus often does what I don’t expect.

But I will ever trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the words of the Prophet Micah:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
And what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness and to
walk humbly with your God? [Micah 6:8]

SooEEE!

June 22, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. Reprised from an earlier post.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. Luke 8:32-33

We bible buffs have read this passage too often to grasp its full meaning or to realize how appalling it is.

I mean, we’re talking demons and pigs here – a legion of fiends and two thousand filthy, stinking, snorting, disgusting pigs. 

If you think about it, this dramatis personae has the making of a summer blockbuster similar to World War Z or Dawn of the Dead.  

But this is more than a repulsively thrilling story. It is a reminder that dark forces share our world with us, spirits and demons exist, and Jesus has power over the forces of evil.

Jesus is fairly casual in his response to the man whose soul has been displaced by hundreds of foul demons. 

Frankly, most of us are ambivalent about the notion of demon possession. In the 1973 thriller The Exorcist,  I was horrified by the vivid scenes of a little girl possessed by a hideous demon, but I stepped out of the darkened theater and reminded myself, “Of course demons don’t exist.”

These days, exorcisms are rare and most experts regard demonic behavior as the manifestation of schizophrenia, sociopathic personality, or bi-polar syndrome. 

But to most of us, it’s hard to dismiss the possibility that dangerously crazy people are controlled by demons. How else can we explain why fiends take guns into theaters, elementary school classrooms, or political rallies?

In 1970, a young German woman named Anneliese Michel began hearing voices that told her she was damned and going to hell. As her condition worsened, she saw Satan’s face leering at her several times a day. 

When anti-psychotic drugs had no effect, Anneliese and her parents concluded she was possessed by a demon. They dismissed the doctors and hired two priest exorcists. According to one account, 67 exorcism sessions lasting up to four hours, were performed for ten months. 

During the grueling process, Anneliese refused to eat and died at her home. The autopsy stated the cause of death as malnutrition and dehydration from almost a year of semi-starvation while exorcisms were performed. She weighed 68 pounds at death. Both Anneliese’s parents and the priest exorcists were charged with negligent homicide.

But the question won’t go away: was Anneliese possessed like the demoniac Jesus confronted? Or did she have a mental illness that could have been cured by psychopharmacology?

The incident with the demoniac on the Sea of Galilee also stimulates modern skepticism about miracle cures and faith healing. There are those who believe stories of Jesus’ miracles were made up by the evangelists for dramatic effect, or if people were really cured, it was accomplished by Jesus’ charismatic powers of suggestion.

In a bygone episode of  NPR’s Radio Lab,  hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich guided listeners through the Placebo Effect. This is a well-known phenomenon in which people are cured by the power of suggestion. Anecdotes included tales of witch doctors who knew they were using trickery in their trade but cured people of their illnesses anyway. The hosts interviewed a woman whose carpal tunnel syndrome was cured – temporarily – by an evangelical faith healer.

But the program suggested the placebo effect also happens outside of faith settings. A physician reported his experience with the electrodes that are implanted in the brain to halt the hand tremors of Parkinson’s Disease. The doctor said he would tell the patient he was sending a mild current through the implants that would cause the tremors stop. And so it would. But when he failed to send the current and didn't tell the patients, their tremors also stopped.

All these accounts are enough to make one downright skeptical. Demons don’t exist. Miracle cures are a psychosomatic, mere figments of the mind. There no mysteries left in life. How boring is that?

Thank God for the pigs. These disgusting and certainly unwilling players are convincing evidence that there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our feeble philosophies.

The story appears in all three synoptic gospels: Jesus converses coolly with a man full of demons.  The eerie scene forces us to face the possibility of eternal damnation, where unredeemed sinners darn socks that smell.

The man’s demons frankly terrify us mere mortals, but it is immediately clear that the demons are terrified of Jesus. Shouting out to him in a monstrous chorus, they beg him not to cast them back into hell.

Instead, they spy a herd of two thousand pigs – as if one could miss a herd of two thousand pigs in Israel – and beg Jesus to cast them into the belching, farting creatures.

Two thousand pigs.

I can’t even imagine a herd that big. Never in my life have I seen so many pigs in one place. 

Even one pig is too protuberant to ignore. In Cuba, many of our relatives and their friends keep a prize hog in a pen behind their tiny houses. The creatures are hard to miss. They serve as a convenient garbage disposal but mostly they are a hedge against starvation. A small family can eat for months on a single swine.

In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania I occasionally drove past roadside pits where a half dozen enormous porkers submerged themselves in fecal mud, luxuriating in orange rinds, potato peels, corncobs and other items of the compost du jour. You could smell them a mile away.

So cover your nose and try to imagine two thousand stinking pigs scattered across an acre of ground reeking with decaying dung and muck. 

The more I think about it, the more appalling the scene becomes.  

Now close your eyes and imagine two thousand pigs suddenly rousting themselves from their personal stys, shaking off chunks of half-chewed garbage from their sodden jaws. Listen the deafening roar as eight thousand cloven hooves assault the muck and the beasts violently jostle one another as they charge off the precipice into the lake.  Watch as the impact of the monstrous herd churns geysers of fetid water high into the air as pigs drown in the lake without so much as a “th- th- that’s all folks.”

Is there a more bizarre scene in all of scripture? Certainly no scene in the Marvel franchise is messier, louder, or more expensive to produce.

But bizarre or not, one has to ask: who could make up such a thing? The story of Jesus, the demoniac and the pigs captured the attention of thousands of people and it was passed down by oral tradition for dozens of years until it arrived intact in three separate gospels.

The reason the story remains unchallenged two thousand years later is that it has the ring of truth. The unmistakable message:

The dark side exists, and it is populated with atrocious demons and hideous fiends.

The thunderous massacre of two thousand pigs got everyone’s attention, then and now.

Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. Luke 8:37-39.

Two thousand years later, the message is clear: 

God has given Jesus the ultimate authority over us all: the good, the righteous, the weak, the tempted, even the repugnant creatures of the nether regions.

And those who bask in the warmth of that authority will always have Jesus’ protection from the evil one. 

And they will safely reside forever in the presence of the God of infinite love. 

Sweet Tongues of Flame

 

June 8, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. (Reprised from an earlier post)

Acts 2:1-21, I Corinthians 12:4-11

There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place, and I know that it’s the spirit of the Lord.

There’s a sweet expression on each face, and I know they feel the presence of the Lord.

Sweet Holy Spirit, Sweet Heavenly Dove, stay right here with us, filling us with your love,

And for these blessings we lift our hearts in praise; 

without a doubt we’ll know that we have been revived when we shall leave this place.

This hymn is so familiar it seems like it has been around forever. In fact, Doris Akers, an American Gospel music composer, wrote the words and music in 1962.

This lovely melody stimulates our spiritual antennae to feel the presence of God’s Spirit in this place, and in every place. 

Granted, there are times when the Spirit seems far away, and there are times when the Spirit doesn’t feel sweet or placid.

I am indebted to my former World Council of Churches colleague Olivier Schopfer for posting, in French, a prayer that captures other dimensions of the Spirit. A rough translation:

You are in us, breath of life, so close that they almost forget you: come Holy Spirit, our breathing!

It is you who give meaning to the words, which do live the ancient words: come Holy Spirit, our inspiration!

Sometimes you're storm, you scream injustice and absurd suffering: come Holy Spirit, our protest!

Sometimes you have the sweetness, in a voice that sings the love and peace: come Holy Spirit, our consolation!

The Holy Spirit: our inspiration, sometimes stormy and screaming out against injustice and suffering, sometimes sweet, loving, peaceful, consoling. And always as close to us as the air in our lungs.

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the dramatic occasion when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ disciples as tongues of flame. 

The tongues of flame weren’t the only concrete evidence that God’s Spirit was in the air. The disciples also began speaking in foreign languages, and – even more astonishing – the apostle Peter’s ordinarily bumbling syntax was transformed to evangelical eloquence.

All this was the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would come to his followers after he ascended to heaven and disappeared from their view.

The Spirit remains among us, of course, but for most of us it dwells in silence. There are no tongues of flame and, in most mainline churches, no linguistic wonders to remind us God is all around us.

Yet there are many reminders of the Spirit’s presence. 

According to the Apostle Paul, we know the Spirit is in us because of the Spirit’s abundant fruit.

“The fruit of the Spirit,” Paul writes in Galatians 5, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

I’d like to think the indwelling spirit enables me to exhibit these traits all the time, but I must confess they often elude me. 

Alas, I’m much more successful in flaunting the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I often engage all seven of them every day, sometimes before lunch.

That’s the thing about sin: it blocks access to God’s loving spirit. Love is cancelled out by greed and envy. Joy is rendered miserable by wrath and pride. Self-control is derailed by lust and gluttony and envy.

The distractions of our sins are no small matter because it prevents us from noticing that God is incredibly close to us. 

Henry J.M. Nouwen wrote, “When we speak about the Holy Spirit, we speak about the breath of God, breathing in us.  The Greek word for ‘spirit’ is pneuma, which means ‘breath.’  We are seldom aware of our breathing.  It is so essential for life that we only think about it when something is wrong with it.

“The Spirit of God is like our breath,” Nouwen said. “God's spirit is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves.  We might not often be aware of it, but without it we cannot live a ‘spiritual life.’   It is the Holy Spirit of God who prays in us, who offers us the gifts of love, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, peace, and joy.  It is the Holy Spirit who offers us the life that death cannot destroy.  Let us always pray: ‘Come, Holy Spirit, come.’”

We can pray, but will we know when the Spirit comes? 

Brother Thomas Merton warned us that we usually don’t allow the Spirit to penetrate the arbitrary obstacles we place in its way. It’s not only the seven deadly sins that block the spirit, although there’s no question that lust, envy, greed, and pride render it impossible to dwell in love with God and our sisters and brothers. But there are other distractions.

Our days and nights are crowded with harsh sounds that shatter our inner peace: traffic noises, trash pick-ups, shouting neighbors, barking dogs, screeching cats, pounding woodpeckers, chirping crickets, and twittering squirrels. In self-defense, we surround ourselves with droning radios and blaring televisions. We plug our ears with electronic nodes that shout harsh musical dissonance of music, and we hypnotize ourselves with computer games and social media. 

No wonder we can’t hear God’s voice. Merton said we will never hear God’s voice until we are able to shut ourselves away from the cacophony of daily life.  

It is only behind closed doors, in the silence, in the eerie stillness, we begin to hear the still, small voice that dwells inside. That voice, Merton cautioned us, might terrify us. It is the voice of God who dwells within us like the air in our lungs.

Silent prayer and mute meditation – if we have the time and patience to stick with it – will open our harried souls to the indwelling Spirit of God.

And that voice that dwells within us has remarkable and often mysterious faculties.

Years ago, during my erstwhile Baptist days, I sat on a picnic bench at a conference center in Wisconsin and sipped coffee with a learned seminary professor.

The professor, a native of Norway and an expert in Old Testament, was the main speaker at a bible study conference. I was there to supplement his lectures with a lay commentary on how the Hebrew Scriptures might pertain to modern life. I had no seminary training and little background in the Old Testament, but Baptists tend to wink and look the other way when laypersons unveil their implausible theology. Many Baptists believe that seminary education weakens your faith and erects barriers to the Holy Spirit, while ignorance opens the doors to divine inspiration.

Naturally the professor and I were initially suspicious of one another, but we soon found we had enough in common to compensate for the vast educational gulf between us. One of those commonalities was the abundance of mystery in our faith. 

“I left Norway when I was young to complete my theological education in the United States,” the professor said. “My family remained in the old country. I returned home for brief visits every two or three years, but ongoing communication (in the days before satellite technology) was difficult.

“I was in the midst of a lecture one morning when I felt a strong urge to step out of the classroom,” the professor continued. “It was such a compelling urge I felt I should respond to it immediately. I smiled at the students who were sitting sleepily in front of me and said, ‘Excuse me, I have a message.’ I dismissed the class and stepped out of the room. 

“In the hallway, a silent message formed inside my head – there was no sound, no voice, but the message was clear. ‘Your brother Lars has died in Oslo,’ the unspoken message said. ‘You must return home.’

“I went to my office where my secretary had just picked up the phone. My sister-in-law was calling with the message that my brother had died in his sleep. I said, ‘I know.’ And I began to prepare for the trip home.

“I often think about this incident when one of my students asks me to solve a theological controversy or interpret an ambiguous passage of Hebrew scripture. There are so few certainties in life. Only mysteries.”

Yet the professor had no doubt that the mysterious message came directly from God, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit that dwelt within him as close as the air in his lungs.

If we only took time to shut ourselves away from the raucous commotions of life, if we only found the time to sit in silence and listen for God’s still small voice within us, we would become aware that the Holy Spirit walks with us every step of our lives: as a comforter, as an informer, as an advocate, as a window into the mysteries of God’s eternal realm, as a giver of the fruits of God’s love.

It is the Holy Spirit that equips each of us with unique and special gifts to serve God and one another. 

Paul describes these gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-11.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

On Pentecost Sunday we hear the roaring winds of the Spirit, the hissing tongues of flame; we see the disciples dancing like drunkards in the street, we hear inexplicable sermons shouted in many languages.

But Pentecost Sunday also bids us to sit in silence, in quiet places where no roaring, hissing, or shouting will clog our ears. And God asks us to sit in the silence until our hearts are at ease and our minds are still. 

And if it is God’s will, the still small voice will speak to us, reminding us of our own special gifts from the Spirit, and urging us to use those gifts for the “common good.”

And that still small voice is the greatest gift we will ever receive.

Come, Sweet Spirit. Come.