"Moses said to the YHWH, "May the
LORD, the God of the spirits of all mankind appoint a man over this
community.... (Numbers 27:15).
The future of young Black Boys is heavy on my heart as we struggle with the murder of Trayvon Martin. But the truth is I have grandchildren who are bi-racial, several not "Black at all, and I worry equally about them in a world where any child can be gunned down for being in "the wrong neighborhood" or on the "wrong street" or on the "wrong gang turf."
When our children and grandchildren are victimized because they are Asian, Black, Bi-Racial, Female, Gay, Latino, Lesbian, Male, poor or rich Americans, our natural collective, class-ist, ethnocentric, group sensibilities often become prominent in our thinking. We believe that it is a priority to "protect our people" from attacks because they are Jews or they are Blacks or they are transgender. We strategize how we can "protect OUR people."
In the midst of all the heat around the barbaric, senseless and lynch-like killing of Trayvon Martin, I would like to have the historic and prophetic folk wisdom of Moses and Jesus challenge our thinking (and my own).
God had already informed Moses that he would not lead the new generation into the promised land, so Moses responded, "Jehovah-God of ALL SPIRITS, appoint one over this community." Only God could appoint one who would be "over the community." This was a diverse community. The ancient Hebrews were in fact a people that represented diverse tribal groups (see "Tribes of Yahweh" by Norman Gottwald). Not only were they twelve diverse tribes (actually eleven with two half tribes), they had intermarried with a number of other tribal groups and nations, and in fact included in their midst from Egypt was a "mixed multitude," that is to say a multi-racial constituency (I therefore always smile when some Jews tell me they are "white people)." Really is racism so strong in America that every group that immigrates here wants to think of itself as "white?"
But more importantly, as the One Universal Spiritual Reality, God was the God of all spirits. The phrase translates from Hebrew loosely as "Source of Universal Spiritual Life." So much for all our superficial ethnic/racial distinctions (Race is also a very unscientific category). As with the apostasy of Miriam and Aaron concerning his Cushite wife, Moses understood that God is Spirit, and God embraces and is the universal one Loving One of all Spirits (Hence the Hebrew Shema-"Hear, O Israel, the One Lord our God"). In another place God declares, "All Souls are My Soul" (erroneously translated by some from the Greek "All souls are mine."
So God's soul/our souls are troubled by the murder of Trayvon because that boy's life is "Our Life." The scholars who mistranslated the koine (common Greek above) presupposed that God was concerned with or cognizant about ethnicity, gender, gender orientation, family, caste and class, hence they could not conceive in their translation efforts the idea of "One" rather than "many souls."
What really troubles us also is that all of us feel and recognize the same sickness alive in us that we perceived to exist in Mr. ZImmermen's heart. We are agitated about this, in part, because we know that the same fear, the same easy, ultimate, quick solutions to challenges to our existence can be erratic, irrational and genocidal. We would rather eliminate what threatens and challenges us and our world rather than negotiate and understand it. Zimmerman's solution to his fears comes too close to the raw, hidden recklessness concerning human life that is all too resident in us as well. We must, with Moses, become convinced that any solution that kills or negates the humanity of another does damage to our One Universal Spirit. Hence Moses continually "pleaded with God" not to destroy those who had "sinned" and "angered God" in some way. It was the Spirit-Force in his life elevating his consciousness above the tribalistic, ethnocentric, legalistic understanding that he and his community had always understood to be "of God."
In Luke 3:23 the author tells us that "Jesus was 33 years old when he began his ministry, and that he was the son, or so it was thought, of Joseph." Throughout Luke's Gospel he seeks to correct the thinking of the community that Jesus should be thought of as the Christ of God because he was the heir to some bloodline "from Joseph to Seth." No. It is not human blood that determines our oneness. It is not the tribe or clan or caste that determines our worth, our humanity, our "somebodyness." It is the fact that we are all part of the One Spiritual Life that we call God. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3 that even those who do not claim the name or the faith still, as their own Stoic philosophers have written, "live and move and have their being in that One Life."
I teach and proclaim the Virgin Birth of Christ, not as a dogma, but as a way of understanding that the life that we call "Christ" was a spiritual, not a human reality. Mary was not put away because what she had in her was of God, not because of her desire to fulfill her natural inclination to mate with Joseph. All children are our spiritual sons and daughters. All of them are heirs to God's life through the unconditional offer of Love. The crack babies, those born with birth defects, alcohol fetal syndome, Downs Syndrome, with "loser parents" all come into the world as God's re-incarnation of life. We are all daughters and sons of God. Mohandas K. Gandhi wrote, "We are sons and daughters of One Life."
Moses was affirming in his prayer, his request to God, "I know you are not looking for someone who in our opinion comes from the right gene pool. You do not evaluated based on outward appearances, on style without substance, on 'bling bling' and 'chi-ching.' You are not looking at mental acuity and physical strength, or for the well-born and the prominent name. The criteria you will use to choose a leader for the community is deep and has to do with mystical spiritual realities that are nascent in all life and yet for the most part elude us as human beings."
David offers a song of praise, "My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him (Psalm 62:1)." Human blood, national origin, citizenship status, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, marriage, family, Jesus said none of this exists in heaven, but in that alternate plane, we are "as the angels (spiritual messengers)." In fact he said we already have "a house" in that plane that does not correspond with our natural reality. In other words most of "our souls" or "our real selves" already exists on that plane. What we have here in flesh and blood is representational of the individual entities (personifications) of the One Soul.
So in spite of the historical, sociological realities that inform this most heinous murder, let us not be sidetracked. Our real need is to embrace as people of faith and as a nation, the concept of the "Oneness of all Life--of all Sentient Beings." If any One Life is abused, castigated, crossed-out, diseased, killed, ignored, mis-educated, neglected, starved, then all of our lives are WORTH NOTHING! What then is happening to our world and to us, where so many continue to be nameless, invisible victims of our affluence and greed?
I have recently been reading "Parable of the Talents" by the late Octavia E, Butler. Her protagonist in that story, Olamina, would put it this way, "We shape God according to the Spiritual Light we allow to shine on our own souls." It is time open our souls more fully to God's light, that God's form in our hearts and minds might be re-shaped to a broader, more inclusive, more magnanimous representation of all humanity.
The future of young Black Boys is heavy on my heart as we struggle with the murder of Trayvon Martin. But the truth is I have grandchildren who are bi-racial, several not "Black at all, and I worry equally about them in a world where any child can be gunned down for being in "the wrong neighborhood" or on the "wrong street" or on the "wrong gang turf."
When our children and grandchildren are victimized because they are Asian, Black, Bi-Racial, Female, Gay, Latino, Lesbian, Male, poor or rich Americans, our natural collective, class-ist, ethnocentric, group sensibilities often become prominent in our thinking. We believe that it is a priority to "protect our people" from attacks because they are Jews or they are Blacks or they are transgender. We strategize how we can "protect OUR people."
In the midst of all the heat around the barbaric, senseless and lynch-like killing of Trayvon Martin, I would like to have the historic and prophetic folk wisdom of Moses and Jesus challenge our thinking (and my own).
God had already informed Moses that he would not lead the new generation into the promised land, so Moses responded, "Jehovah-God of ALL SPIRITS, appoint one over this community." Only God could appoint one who would be "over the community." This was a diverse community. The ancient Hebrews were in fact a people that represented diverse tribal groups (see "Tribes of Yahweh" by Norman Gottwald). Not only were they twelve diverse tribes (actually eleven with two half tribes), they had intermarried with a number of other tribal groups and nations, and in fact included in their midst from Egypt was a "mixed multitude," that is to say a multi-racial constituency (I therefore always smile when some Jews tell me they are "white people)." Really is racism so strong in America that every group that immigrates here wants to think of itself as "white?"
But more importantly, as the One Universal Spiritual Reality, God was the God of all spirits. The phrase translates from Hebrew loosely as "Source of Universal Spiritual Life." So much for all our superficial ethnic/racial distinctions (Race is also a very unscientific category). As with the apostasy of Miriam and Aaron concerning his Cushite wife, Moses understood that God is Spirit, and God embraces and is the universal one Loving One of all Spirits (Hence the Hebrew Shema-"Hear, O Israel, the One Lord our God"). In another place God declares, "All Souls are My Soul" (erroneously translated by some from the Greek "All souls are mine."
So God's soul/our souls are troubled by the murder of Trayvon because that boy's life is "Our Life." The scholars who mistranslated the koine (common Greek above) presupposed that God was concerned with or cognizant about ethnicity, gender, gender orientation, family, caste and class, hence they could not conceive in their translation efforts the idea of "One" rather than "many souls."
What really troubles us also is that all of us feel and recognize the same sickness alive in us that we perceived to exist in Mr. ZImmermen's heart. We are agitated about this, in part, because we know that the same fear, the same easy, ultimate, quick solutions to challenges to our existence can be erratic, irrational and genocidal. We would rather eliminate what threatens and challenges us and our world rather than negotiate and understand it. Zimmerman's solution to his fears comes too close to the raw, hidden recklessness concerning human life that is all too resident in us as well. We must, with Moses, become convinced that any solution that kills or negates the humanity of another does damage to our One Universal Spirit. Hence Moses continually "pleaded with God" not to destroy those who had "sinned" and "angered God" in some way. It was the Spirit-Force in his life elevating his consciousness above the tribalistic, ethnocentric, legalistic understanding that he and his community had always understood to be "of God."
In Luke 3:23 the author tells us that "Jesus was 33 years old when he began his ministry, and that he was the son, or so it was thought, of Joseph." Throughout Luke's Gospel he seeks to correct the thinking of the community that Jesus should be thought of as the Christ of God because he was the heir to some bloodline "from Joseph to Seth." No. It is not human blood that determines our oneness. It is not the tribe or clan or caste that determines our worth, our humanity, our "somebodyness." It is the fact that we are all part of the One Spiritual Life that we call God. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3 that even those who do not claim the name or the faith still, as their own Stoic philosophers have written, "live and move and have their being in that One Life."
I teach and proclaim the Virgin Birth of Christ, not as a dogma, but as a way of understanding that the life that we call "Christ" was a spiritual, not a human reality. Mary was not put away because what she had in her was of God, not because of her desire to fulfill her natural inclination to mate with Joseph. All children are our spiritual sons and daughters. All of them are heirs to God's life through the unconditional offer of Love. The crack babies, those born with birth defects, alcohol fetal syndome, Downs Syndrome, with "loser parents" all come into the world as God's re-incarnation of life. We are all daughters and sons of God. Mohandas K. Gandhi wrote, "We are sons and daughters of One Life."
Moses was affirming in his prayer, his request to God, "I know you are not looking for someone who in our opinion comes from the right gene pool. You do not evaluated based on outward appearances, on style without substance, on 'bling bling' and 'chi-ching.' You are not looking at mental acuity and physical strength, or for the well-born and the prominent name. The criteria you will use to choose a leader for the community is deep and has to do with mystical spiritual realities that are nascent in all life and yet for the most part elude us as human beings."
David offers a song of praise, "My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him (Psalm 62:1)." Human blood, national origin, citizenship status, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, marriage, family, Jesus said none of this exists in heaven, but in that alternate plane, we are "as the angels (spiritual messengers)." In fact he said we already have "a house" in that plane that does not correspond with our natural reality. In other words most of "our souls" or "our real selves" already exists on that plane. What we have here in flesh and blood is representational of the individual entities (personifications) of the One Soul.
So in spite of the historical, sociological realities that inform this most heinous murder, let us not be sidetracked. Our real need is to embrace as people of faith and as a nation, the concept of the "Oneness of all Life--of all Sentient Beings." If any One Life is abused, castigated, crossed-out, diseased, killed, ignored, mis-educated, neglected, starved, then all of our lives are WORTH NOTHING! What then is happening to our world and to us, where so many continue to be nameless, invisible victims of our affluence and greed?
I have recently been reading "Parable of the Talents" by the late Octavia E, Butler. Her protagonist in that story, Olamina, would put it this way, "We shape God according to the Spiritual Light we allow to shine on our own souls." It is time open our souls more fully to God's light, that God's form in our hearts and minds might be re-shaped to a broader, more inclusive, more magnanimous representation of all humanity.
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