Before I begin to dive into the text- it might be a good idea to just say a few words about this Gospel….
This Gospel was written around 80-85 CE by a Greek speaking Christian, probably outside of Palestine. The Gospel was attributed to Luke, the traveling companion of Paul late in the second century. But it really is an anonymous.
Luke presents several major themes – distinctive themes about Jesus….one major theme is that the message of salvation which begins in the heart of Judaism ends up for all the peoples of the world. A second major theme is Jesus is the Prophet….and that is the theme I would like to center on…
Luke provides several literary moments to present Jesus as the Prophet…and actually this theme surprised me- and it surprised me because I was trained and educated as a Fundamentalist preacher to use the term Lord with Jesus …his later designations…Jesus is God who became man…
So when I began to study Luke’s Gospel in the last five years- I actually tried to read it without any of my previous Fundamentalist conceptions and what I discovered surprised me…
Luke’s central theme is that Jesus is the long awaited prophet…- and that may surprise many Christians-but it would not surprise a Jewish or Islamic reader of the Gospel. For Luke…Jesus is a prophet not incidentally but foremost…
I might also add that the First Palestinian Church that is the Jewish-Christian First Church of Jerusalem who ‘s Pastor was James, the brother Of Jesus – they predominantly views Jesus not as God who became man- (which was a late pronouncement) but as the Prophet- the adopted Son of God. And I believe this is no important for us today to realize especially in inter religious dialogue between Moslems, Jews and Christians…in reality we have so much in common…
Now allow me to present Luke’s idea of who Jesus is….
At the very end of the Gospel, Luke tells the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after Jesus‘s death and resurrection…Luke has them saying about Jesus and this is found in Luke 24:19…
Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,
And this phrase appears throughout Luke’s gospel…
The prophet theme first appears in chapter 2 of the birth story-First Luke presents Jesus as being born the prophet…scholars have long noted that the birth narrative in Luke chapter two closely resembles the birth story of the great prophet Samuel…In both accounts we see a devout Jewish woman miraculously conceives and both women respond in song praising the God of Israel …who exalts those who are humble and humbles those who are exalted…The allusion to this is not by accident….
We see this prophet theme again in chapter 4
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing
In other words –Jesus is saying the predictions of THE PROPHET…have now come to fulfillment in HIM!
And you remember how they responded….yes….in unbelief…- they know after all that this is Joseph’s son…and they demand a sign – a miracle…
And Jesus responds with that famous line….”‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town.
And he launches into a sermon – which by the way- is not found in the other three gospels…Luke alone tells this…Jesus tells two stories- that the Jews would have known- about prophets who were sent by God not to Jews but to Gentiles…..One was Elijah who was sent to the widow of Zarephath and Elisha who was sent not to heal the lepers of Israel but Naaman, the leper Gentile king of Syria. In both stories- God sent his prophet not to help the people of Israel but to minister to Gentiles – those outside the camp.
Now ….I will come back to that idea in a few minutes…the idea of ministering to those outside the camp…
What Luke is doing is showing how Jesus knew he would not receive a warm welcome from his own people- they will reject him and the message will go instead to the Gentiles….that’s how Luke sees it.
The point is – Luke portrays Jesus as the Prophet….Now, for the ancient Jews….you should know- a prophet was not a crystal ball gazer-a person who made predictions about the future. No- he was a messenger sent from God…the spokesman for God…calling the people of God to mend their ways and return to God…. who spoke for justice, compassion toward the poor and the aliens…the immigrants and for those who suffered…
Now in our text today….we see that Jesus is portrayed a prophet in death…
Not only does Jesus preach like a prophet….not only does he heal like a prophet, but he dies as a prophet. And there was a long standing tradition among Jews that there greatest prophets – Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos were all violently opposed and many martyred by their own people. And in our passage before us,. Jesus laments for Jerusalem- anticipating that he too suffer the fate of a prophet.
Luke 13:32-34
He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.”Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Here I must digress very quickly and explain how many Christians have used this text to condemn the Jews for rejecting Christ….and was used for the basis of a very virulent anti-Semitism which dominated the Church for many centuries…
There is in not only Luke’ Gospel but in all the Gospel a biasing of history….where it is emphasized that the Jewish religious tradition not only reject the Gospel but kill its messengers…and I would suggest as many scholars like Rosemary Ruether a Catholic feminist scholar has suggested…that this theme in early Christian tradition developed from the crucial need to make some religious sense out of the crucifixion itself-to provide a dogmatic necessity for the fact that the prophet king and son of man was not only unheard by an unbelieving people but that it was a predicted that he should be killed by them..This was accomplished by reading back into Jewish history a pattern of an apostate Israel which has always rejected the prophets and killed them…
There is one other facet of this – we see a shifting of blame for the death of Jesus from Roman political authority to Jewish religious authority…and the purpose of this shift was not merely one because the Christians had turned their attention to the Gentiles but first of all of a polemic hostile towards the Jewish religious tradition.
I bring this up because it is in our text this morning- a text to be read and reflected on during Lent…a time of reflecting on our journey not only as individuals but as a corporate community…a time to examine the obstacles that have blocked our path to Easter….
There is a sign of hope when I reflect on a moving moment in the life of one Prophetic leader of the Catholic Church…Pope John Paul II
2000. After meditating at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, he placed in the wall a written prayer to God expressing deep sadness for all wrongs done to Jews by Christians. It ended, “Asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.” In 2000 the pope presided at a liturgy of repentance for the wrongs of Catholics toward Jews.

Now in closing allow me to go back to the idea that I mentioned that I would return to….
Of ministering to those outside the camp….
Let us just for a moment think how what inflamed the Jewish believers while they were listening to Jesus in his hometown synagogue-
You must realize Jesus homily at his hometown church was not a smashing success…it was a smashing failure- indeed they actually sought to throw him off the cliff… why? Well, even if this is a polemic devise to blame the Jews – there is still some message that we can draw from it…Clearly the people of Jesus’s hometown were angry not at his claims to being the Prophet. The messiah… but to the fact of history that the Gentiles…the aliens…the foreigners sometimes experienced God’s mercy and help when Israel did not. What Jesus said irritated them- inflamed them- it was the implication that God’s mercy was not confined to one particular people- one particular religious persuasion…Yes, God’s mercy is not confined to the borders of one nation…not confined to one particular religion
Now before we quickly judge these Jews – remember there are many Christians today who hold to a very exclusivity view of their faith and their nation here in America…I know- I used to be one…who thought and believed that America was a Christian nation …a chosen nation…a blessed nation…and that only the Christian – the Bible believing Christian would see the light of heaven…There is a word for that kind of existence …it is called tribalism….xenophobia and ethnocentrism…
This Lent who behooves us to examine our beliefs and make sure we are not committing the same mistake that the hometown folk of Jesus committed- of rejecting the people who are not like us…the tendency to be hostile to people who are different …

This essay is meant to be a reflection on the word and my experience as a Fundamentalist Protestant. Some might not like this reflective essay because it is a kind of free writing-scattered reflective analysis on Fundamentalism. I recently have discovered a kind of dialectic problem- a dilemma that I find myself in… Because on one hand- I realize that Fundamentalists – many of whom I know and love- have a genuine relationship with God. They try to live their faith and so I want to be fair and refer to Biblical Fundamentalism as another Tradition of Christianity….But and this is a big but…on the other hand, I realize –having been a fundamentalist of the extreme end- it does have a dark side. – and a dangerous side and I need to present both sides of the picture. A Dr Jeckl-/Mr. Hyde picture. There is always a danger when a group of individuals believe that they only have the answers- the solutions for the problems that we face in this world. So Fundamentalism in this sense is more of an attitude and way of life based on an exclusivist-absolutist theological position. They believe that they only possess divinely sanctioned answers.
The dialectic dilemma is that the honest critique of Fundamentalism means the dangers of Fundamentalism far out weight the positive attributes of this religious conviction. The negative contradicts the positive. Allow me to share some of these contradictions.
1. The first positive thing I would say about Fundamentalists is that they are devoted to the Bible and take it serious. I wish many Progressive Christians would take a lesson from the Fundamentalist. The contradiction here is – the opposite end of the spectrum- their devotion has become idolatry or Bibliolatry. Yes, there is a sense here that my previous view of scripture as a Fundamentalist preacher was pathological! Paul Tillich, a 20th century American Theologian referred to his kind of Biblical absolutism as demonic– meaning that the Bible only is a medium that points to God- it is not God. When I had the Bible in my hand- preaching and cried out “This is God speaking to you” – I had demonized the Bible.
2. 2The second positive thing I could say about Fundamentalism is that it offers a very personal side of faith. This was one of the features of Fundamentalism that attracted me the most. I was 26 years old at the time when a young man told me that it was possible to have a relationship with God. I had never heard of such a thing. I had heard about the laws and the rules of religion but never about the possibility of an intimate relationship with God. Yet- as positive as that is- there is also the contradictory aspect that follows- that the entrance into such a relationship must be according to the pattern imposed by the fundamentalist tradition- the response to the altar call. One must “receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior”. It’s the “born again” experience and if you cannot point to an exact moment when you did that- you are not born again…you are not saved. I might also add this makes for a very individualized –privatized faith. Where is the sense of community?
3. The third positive things I could say about fundamentalism is that it does give the individual a psychological security – a certainty in a world of uncertainty. The security of having all the answers to all of life’s problems. This actually goes together with the first item I discussed- the relationship between the fundamentalist and the bible.
While security and certainty are admirable – there is the problem of a false sense of security and an over simplification of the Bible…

The starting place to understanding Fundamentalism is the Bible… So we must begin by looking at Scripture. We must begin there- because there is no understanding of a fundamentalist mindset-cultural set without understanding his or her view of scripture. Scripture is their life blood. I do not think any Fundamentalist would disagree with that statement. I speak as an expert on Fundamentalism because I once was a Fundamentalist preacher of the rawest kind. My Bible was my life manual. You must understand that about Fundamentalists and Evangelicals- they view the Bible as the answer book – excuse me- one particular Fundamentalist preacher even sold a Bible with that title- the answer book. But it is not just an answer book- they view it as the only divine answer book. Their belief is that this divine book has the answer to every single question…problem…whether it be sociological, political or scientific- whatever area of life- it is covered. This kind of mindset develops into an absolute exclusivist outlook on life.

In my next entry I will continue to talk more about this absolute-exclusivist outlook. (More on Wed. Feb 20)

1.In this essay, unless I specify otherwise- when I use the term Fundamentalist- I am referring to a Fundamentalist Christian or an Evangelical Christian.

I tell people “twenty years ago-you would not have liked me” and then add. “God, I would not have liked myself!” And they inevitably ask “Why?” My answer is “well, do you care for Fred Phelps or Jimmy Swaggart? That’s what I was like!” And their facial expression reveals their reaction ranging from “you’re kidding” to “oh my God.” Yes, I was a mean-spirited fundamentalist preacher and a bigot. Now, do not misunderstand, not all fundamentalists are bigots, but I was and took great pride even referring to myself from the pulpit as a “Bible Bigot” as if intolerance based on scripture was morally acceptable. Yes, a bigot! What else to you call someone who believes he has all the answers- the absolute truth- and condemns everyone who does not fit into his theological box: Buddhists, Moslems, and especially liberal preachers, humanists and homosexuals. I had placed God in a box and God could only operate within the confines of that box. But little by little, cracks began to appear in the foundation of the box and suddenly like the rupture of a pressured cabin at high attitude, a theological shift occurred, one that would change my life completely.
If there is one overarching characteristic of a fundamentalist, it is a mindset fixated on certainty of truth, that one possesses the absolute truth, the Bible. My faulty logic went something like this: since God is an absolute being, His word is then absolute and since the Bible is God’s word, it is absolute and since I have God’s word in my hand- I possess absolute truth. There is no arguing with that kind of mindset. Oh, by the way, it was only a short step in the flow of the logic when I began to unconsciously view myself as god-assuming I possessed all the answers and everyone else was wrong.
There were cognitive blows that attempted to crack my Kantian bubble of reality. In my early years of preaching a Presbyterian historian, Dr. Bruce Willson came up to me after a Bible study and told me: “Ed, you see only black and white with no gray.” I took it as a compliment but years later, those words haunted me. It was during my first Pastorate that I learned the hard way- through sad heart breaking experiences with people, that judging and condemning others (which I seemed well endowed to do) is always more self-consuming and self-destructive to the one doing the condemning then the condemned. There was one final epiphany when I met a hard core extreme fundamentalist who called himself “Christian Identity” a virulent anti-Jewish racist and suddenly I saw what I could become and it scared the hell out of me.
But for 20 years I labored as a Fundamentalist Protestant preacher and then in the course of one decade- I changed. Now, I did not wake up one morning and suddenly realize “God, all these years, I’ve been wrong.” No, it was a slow steady progression of mind searching reasoning which was a new approach for me. It began when I began to question certain foundation beliefs and the cracks began to appear. The first crack that appeared in my theological box was the idea of an imminent rapture- or second coming of Christ which in my case, bordered on paranoid apocalyptic fixation which was the motivation for not only my preaching but my lifestyle. My lifestyle was such that I was not concerned about education or career advancement because I was getting ready for the end of everything. Yet as important as it was, looking back, I am surprised that there was no real wrestling match in my soul over it- no real fanfare. It happened when I spend considerable time looking at the scriptural evidence and the historical origin of the doctrine and discovered one, scriptures contradicted scriptures on this issue and secondly, the rapture theory was a rather modern invention and was not evident in the early Church. I just stopped preaching it. But the second crack that appeared was more serious and affected my entire theological system. It dealt with the cornerstone of my faith, the doctrine of sola scriptura, the belief that the scriptures are inspired, inerrant and the only rule of faith and practice. This occurred rather indirectly and ironically when I began a Master’s of Theology program at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio. Yes, one of the most conservative-fundamentalist Catholic schools in America. The course was on Biblical Studies and what caught my attention was the emphasis on Biblical Criticism. To be quite honest, prior to this class, I never questioned the origin of the Bible. I had never given much thought to how it came about. I had assumed and I confess it was a rather ignorant assumption on my part that the Bible was inspired and that inspiration extended to the very words themselves. I never held to the idea that the Bible just dropped out of the sky but my view of inspiration was such that it was very close to a mechanical dictation, a kind of God inspired automatic writing. But the class opened my mind up to several ideas which in essence changed how I viewed the Bible. The basic underlying principle is that although God is an absolute being, God’s word (Bible) does not have an absolute value but is conditioned on the historical and cultural setting in which it was written. This of course stands in stark contrast to my previous fundamentalist view that God’s word has an absolute value regardless of its historical or cultural conditions and therefore speaks to every culture, time period and generation. There were two basic problems with my previous fundamentalist view of scripture. The fundamentalist view of scripture overstates the divine origin of the text and ignores completely the human instrument or human authorship. And finally it ignores the multiple complexities of the Biblical text: that the text that was written over the course of thousands of years based on oral traditions, complied by multiple authors, in different languages and now there is the time and cultural gap of the reader attempting to understand a text some thousands of years later situated in a different cultural and historical setting. This class and outside readings (J. Barr, R. Bultmann, P. Tillich) introduced me to a critical study of the Biblical text, the goal of which was to assist the reader at arriving at the meaning intended by the original human author and as understood by the original audience. This is accomplished by looking at the: traditions- that is the stories, songs, rituals that were passed down from generations to generation; the text as a piece of literature studying its structure, style, genre and literary devices: the history “in the text”- it’s setting in time, location, and social, political and religious conditions in which the text was written and the history “of the text” – the who, what, why, and when of the text; and finally at how the authors edited and modified their material to reflect their particular situation and problem. I came away from that class with a new perspective of the Bible- that it was not a set of laws to enact but a story of man’s encounters with God and as such it was not intended to be a historical, economic or scientific textbook. But most importantly it was not meant to be the defining theological textbook or the final word or the only word about God. How could it be? How can man, a finite being definitively explain the infinite being?
So where am I? Well, it is obvious I am not a Fundamentalist or even an Evangelical Christian since I no longer believe that the Bible is inerrant and the literal word of God, that man is innately evil (original sin), that the Trinity is the only definitive description of God and that the only way to God is through Jesus Christ. What am I? I don’t know and really does it matter? Oh, if you must label me, I am someone who believes in God- a God that has many names, yet unnamable- what Tillich called the ultimate reality. I am someone who believes he has thought too much about dogmas about God and has not practiced my faith. Am I a Christian Humanist? Or have I become what I previously condemned, a liberal- the final irony.

The religious or spiritual quest should not only take us on an inward journey but also it should take us into the world with all the problems-conflicts that call us to respond in love. Swami Agnivesh, a Hindu calls this principle “social spirituality” and he practiced it in India and he refers to it as a journey undertaken with people of all faiths towards the goal of social justice. I like that phrase, idea and practice and encourage all to read about this man’s practice of marching for justice. There is a rich “social spirituality” among the Jewish prophets who stood for the poor and the injustice that was happening in 8th century (BCE) Israel. Martin Luther King Jr practiced this principle here in American in the 1960’s.

We need to redevelop this principle today for there are many, many, issues, problems, conflicts and wrongs (injustices) that need to be righted – in America today. Just in this past two weeks- two serious issues have arisen- the discrimination against gays in the Boy Scouts of America and the proliferation of assault weapons in America. Now is the time for “social spirituality” with regards to these two injustices.
Will people of all faiths in America begin to stand against an unjust practice of barring people from the Boy Scouts based on sexual orientation? What I am talking about here is a basic spiritual principle of love and inclusion.
Where do you stand?

Now allow me to discuss the gun issue and excuse me if I get a little passionate and sarcastic. American has always had a love affair with guns but the time has come to put aside our paranoia and our cavalier attitude towards life.
I am proud of President Obama for taking the leadership role and saying enough is enough!
It is time to say no to assault weapons- those military style semi-automatic weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. I understand the reasoning behind the desire to have such weapons. I understand it is not to kill deer. I have heard the preaching of many gun toting Pastors who want their parishioners to get their guns ready because they believe the government has become tyrannical. “That’s what the second amendment is about folks, “ they rant. “It is about defending our freedoms from a dictator.”
That why many of these gun preachers declare they have the right to meet force with equal force meaning if the tyrannical government (playing on their paranoia) comes at them with assault weapons they must have assault weapons also. Now the question remains- since the government also has nuclear weapons, does that mean the citizens should also possess nukes?
Yes, I am being a little facetious- even sarcastic because I get angry when I hear preachers quoting from scripture to prove that Christians should possess and use a semi-automatic weapon – 7.62mm that fires at a semi-auto rate at 40 rounds/min and a full auto burst of a 100 rounds a min and some have a full cyclical rate of 600 rounds a minute. How many more children…how many more mothers, fathers and grandparents have to die before we do something?
Equal force with equal force? Since the majority of these preachers come from a Christian background (God forgive us) – allow me to quote from some interesting thoughts on equal force with equal force…
Jesus:
“I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39)
And do you remember the night they arrested Jesus and Peter took a sword and cut off the ear of one of the soldiers- and do you remember what Jesus said and did?
“Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take up the sword shall perish with the sword…” (Matthew 26:52)
So much for the principle of meeting force with equal force!

The only force strong enough to overcome evil is? LOVE

Even Paul writes: “RECOMPENSE TO NO MAN EVIL FOR EVIL….BE NOT OVERCOME OF EVIL, BUT OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD.”
Well, there is something to think about this week? Isn’t time we people of all faiths stood against injustice? It is up to you and me!

This morning’s news was deeply disturbing. After watching it – I knew I would write about it- with some degree of something which should not be said but needs to be said- it is about the killing of Chris Kyle– the American Navy Seal sniper. You are probably wondering what a religious expert would have to say about this tragic incident but it really goes to the heart of the religious or spiritual condition of a nation. First, I am a veteran having served as a Combat medic during the Vietnam era and secondly, I have seen the ravages of PTSD on returning vets. Our country could be said to have a very flirtatious-fickle approach to veterans and war heroes. Vietnam veterans received the scorn of the American people and were for decades looked upon with disgust and many veterans were forgotten and indeed did not receive the medical treatment they deserved from the U.S. Government. Now once again soldiers returning from battle are being neglected especially in the area of mental health. It says something about a supposedly great nation who goes to war for freedom and in the end neglects the very men and women who fought for that freedom. Will America respond to this hero’s senseless murder by recognizing we are not fulfilling our obligation to these men and women who put their lives on the line for our comfort and security? One particular song from 1983 which really made an impact on me was the folk group Redgum entitled… “I was only nineteen.” which I listened to this morning and tears filled my eyes when I realize 19 years are still dying from a government who believes war is the answer and sends young men out and those that do not die suffer a longer death of PTSD.;
Lyrics:
We hooked in there for hours, then a God almighty roar;
Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon: –
God help me, he was going home in June.

1 can still see Frankie, drinking tinnies in the Grand Hotel
on a thirty-six hour rec. leave in Vung Tau.
And I can still hear Frankie lying screaming in the jungle.
‘Till the morphine came and killed the bloody row

And the Anzac legends didn’t mention mud and blood and tears,
and stories that my father told me never seemed quite real
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn’t even feel…
God help me, I was only nineteen.

And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can’t get to sleep?
And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me,
I was only nineteen.
(You can here this song on your tube- the following location:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urtiyp-G6jY

What can you do? Write a letter to your Senator, Congressional representative and the President demanding we provide more funds for our veterans especially in the area of PTSD treatment.