Ronnie McBrayer

"Saul of Tarsus was a fundamentalist; and very little can be more damaging, more hurtful and harmful, than hard-shelled, hard-hearted fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is spirituality gone wrong; it is piety turned sour. It is a form of compromised, contaminated religion that has substituted right living with rule-following. It is fueled by impending judgment and certain punishment rather than by spiritual liberation. Fundamentalism trades in the currency of control, manipulation, and coercion. The short of it is this: Fundamentalism is a pathology of the heart, that has exchanged love for fear."

Prenatal Conversations... Moksha and Olam Ha-Ba... Albert Einstein and the First Law of Thermodynamics... Monarch Butterflies... The Apostle Paul as the Primary Source of the Belief in Resurrection... Listen to this Easter episode to discover what all of these have in common.

"I suspect that knowing God's will is not the real challenge for us. Knowing God's will is the easy part. Doing it is the hard part. As living sacrifices we keep crawling off the altar when the flames get hot. No, I don't know the will of God for you, but I do know that whatever it is, it will require courage instead of playing it safe; it will require the narrow path, not the smooth road; it will require sacrifice over selfishness. It will require letting go, a giving of yourself, and a giving up on what might be expected from others, the world, or even yourself. And that is the struggle. In the words of Nikos Kazantzakis: 'It is a struggle between the flesh and the spirit; rebellion and resistance; reconciliation and submission.'"

This Lenten talk from Psalm 32 is about weight; internal weight upon the conscience; let it be an act or a past behavior that worries your heart, that you cannot get off your mind. It hangs over your head like the Sword of Damocles. Exhausting you; robbing you of living; stealing from you your peace; you can't really enjoy life as your eyes are always darting to see if the sword is yet in motion; and maybe some days you might even pray that the thread would go ahead and break and put you out of your fitful misery. But there is a way out... As the Talmud says: “God's forgiveness is the opening of a door to the light. If we only crack that door, God will then throw it open as wide as a highway...Confession is the hinge on which the door of repentance turns.” Your hinges may be a little rusty, but you just have to make a start; give it a little nudge - and God opens the door.

Jesus' message from Luke 14 is simple, but start: "Violence will only lead to more violence. Compromise will only lead to more compromise. It's death and destruction down both of those roads, as it has been for all of history. If you want a different outcome, you're going to have to try something different!” Jesus could be accused of channeling Abraham Lincoln when he said, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side For only God is right.” God isn't a mascot; God isn't a badge you wear or a slogan you recite; God isn't the big man on the playground that you get to pick to be on your team. God isn't on anybody's team, because God doesn't play our games. God doesn't take sides. God calls us to that "something different." What is it? Nothing new. It's as old as the core tenet of the Jewish Prophets; for if one could distill the moral and spiritual demands of the entire Judeo-Christian ethic into a single practical phrase, it would be this: “O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Justice. Mercy. Humility. These three together appear as love being practiced in the world. Such love is the only chance any group of people will ever have at experiencing anything that resembles a future.

In this talk on the "Temptations of Jesus," Ronnie centers the reformer Roger Williams and his critique of corrupting power. Williams, the eventual founder of Rhode Island, rejected the use of abusive power as a means of religious ends; as a power-holding, power-wielding church would always become an oppressor of conscience. Williams wrote forcefully from his exile among the native tribes of New England wilderness: "I feel safer among these Christian savages than I do among the savage Christians." This savagery was fueled by the false - but forced - requirement of religious uniformity. Roger Williams said: "God does not require a uniformity of religion to be enacted or enforced; and does not need a sword of steel to assist the sword of the Spirit. To enforce uniformity is to deny the very principles of Christianity. It is the greatest occasion of civil war, a raping of the conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus, and makes hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls. It is unnecessary, unlawful, ungodly, and unchristian.”

Last in the series on Genesis: "'The answer is in the story, and the story is still being told.' That story - your story, our story - will keep being told as long as we live and breathe - and then long after we have lived and breathed - even as Joseph's story is still being told today. And while there's no magical place that can take away your suffering or erase your painful memories or immediately rescue from whatever troubles you at this moment, there remains the next page to be written; the next chapter to be drafted; and the next act, still to be composed. 'The answer is in the story, and the story is still being told.'"  (Apologies for the sniffles in this episode - this was recorded as I still had the flu! RM)

God asks Jacob question: “What is your name?” It is an invitation to confess.  He answers, of course: “My name is Jacob.” I'm a rascal - trickster - a fraud. Never had the man been so honest. And that honesty - that confession - changed his life. God says in response, “Not anymore. You have wrestled with God and you have prevailed. Your name is now Israel.” Jacob wasn't blessed because he had worked so hard for it. No, he had worked so hard, he was now so exhausted and so at the end of himself, that finally he could received what only God could give him. His moxie took him all the way to the door, but only an unclenched fist could open that door; only an open and empty hand could accept what was on the other side. It didn't just happen on this one night: For years God let Jacob just wear himself out with the struggle - using up all his strength, strategies, and craftiness. And now - finally - Jacob was done. Spent. Deeply wounded. Now completely incapable of getting what he wanted with his own power; only then could he receive what was needed.

Ronnie's exploration of Genesis arrives at one of the book's most difficult passages: What Jews call, "The Binding of Isaac." Ronnie says, "All ancient religions were built on the same foundation: 'God is angry…We stand in constant danger of being destroyed…Only the blood of the most precious - the most innocent - can save us.' So, when God comes to Abraham with this sinister demand, it wouldn't have sounded all that unusual to Abraham. Child sacrifice was a customary and common practice of the time. But this God - Yahweh - was not the fickle, unpredictable, bloodthirsty gods worshipped in Mesopotamia or Canaan or in MesoAmerica. This God had shown himself to be steady - trustworthy - gracious and good to Abraham. "Abraham's understanding of God should have been cross examined, for this was an opportunity to listen more closely - to test the spirits, as the Apostle John said - and demand better answers, better instructions; to hear the better word of a better God. Of course Abraham believed in God, but did Abraham believe in a good God? Of course Abraham had faith - we know he did - but did Abraham truly understand in whom his faith was placed? Abraham could be counted on to do as God told him - of course, it's Abraham But could Abraham be counted to see that the God he had come to know, was far better than any God he could imagine?"  

In Part 6 of Ronnie's series on Genesis, he arrives at Abraham - and Ray Kinsella, portrayed by Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams." Both mean hear the Voice, and heed an inexplicable calling - an intuition, a vision, a dream - emerging from out of the ether. They "go the distance," to quote the Voice, displaying a tenacious faith that simply keeps going. 

The Dark Side, that monstrous, powerful energy from the Star Wars universe is, per George Lucas, "grasping, clutching, greedy desire. It is to want; to control; to have supreme power.” And so, we arrive at Genesis 11 and the remarkable story of the Tower of Babel; something I will refer to this morning as, “The Empire Strikes Back,” for that is exactly what happens here.  The whole post-flood population gets together to do something that not even their ancestors would have dared. They begin building a tower into heaven. This was a siege tower. Their goal was clear, as the Babylonian word for "babel" means, “gateway.” Babylonia means, “gateway to the gods.” They intended to storm heaven; to throw down the Creator; and put themselves in God's place. A line from Bob Dylan summarizes the "Dark Side" - not only of the Force - but as a constant of human nature: “God is in his heaven; and we all want what is his. But power and greed, and corruptible seed, seems to be all there is.”

Part 4 of Ronnie's series on the Book of Genesis highlights Noah and the Flood: "There are a lot of reasons the story of Noah and the Flood is told as it is. To show the superior powers around the nation of Israel that Yahweh remains supremely in command; to show that the Hebrew God is not capricious - that God is capable of emotion, regret, even change; to show that God ultimately commits himself to human flourishing: But above all it is told to embolden a washed-up, washed-over, and washed-out remnant of survivors who are barely hanging on by a thread. For they were at a crossroad with a choice to make: They could give up their faith and be assimilated into the faceless mass of that Empire - or - resolutely, courageously, rebuild on the fresh mud of the freshly inflicted disaster they had suffered.  "This isn't really a story about animals marching two by two. It's the test of one family's persistence. It's not a story to ferret out historical facts. It's intended as a lesson in survival. This story is the second option: 'We will not be assimilated. We will not forfeit our hope - not even in a world washed away - not even with a God we don't fully understand.' This story is written as an act of holy defiance - against their circumstances, against their sufferings, against easy answers, against those who had imprisoned them - and against God himself if need be. They refused to quit believing, and chose to survive for their own sake and the sake of all others.”

From talk three of Ronnie's series on the book of Genesis: "We can't really deny this gift of free will. We can only wrestled with it, because as a gift, it is the most problematic one God has given us. We have freedom, but it has its limits. Those limits make our choices in life extremely important. As El Jefe said to the Counselor: 'You are the world you have created.' What kind of world will it be? For yourself…your future…your family…your community? It's a heavy responsibility, but it's inescapable." 

In Part 2 of Ronnie's series entitled, "Genesis At the Movies," he takes on the chaos of the pre-ordered universe; how God overcame darkness and confusion; and how we as God's creatures and Earth's inhabitants are called to foster, cultivate, and otherwise to cause Creation to flourish. Ronnie says, "This isn't  'environmentalism.'  No, this is stewardship of all: Natural resources, pristine landscapes, a thriving population, food for the all who are hungry, water for all who are thirsty, peace for all who are at war, justice for all societies and people. It is a call of responsible caretaking, to make Creation all that God intends - and equally - a call to forsake our self-centeredness that threatens God's good world. F or in the irony of all ironies, the only species with the ability to safeguard the world and cause this world to flourish, is the same species with the capacity to destroy it - and almost everything living on it." 

In a new, ambitious Sunday morning series of talks, Ronnie dives headlong into the book of beginnings, the Book of Genesis. Each talk will have a movie theme, to engage the listener, this week's being "Back to the Future." Ronnie says: "The book of Genesis was not composed and collected as a scientific explanation for the formation of the Universe... as literal, datable, fixated history...or as  a combative, adversarial text to be placed in the hands of Christians, to wage ideological war with philosophers, archeologists, geologists, astronomers, modernists, post-modernists, or Darwinians. It was composed and collected in the form we have it today, as a theological anchor; a touchstone that future generations could return to, to remember their family history. It was composed and collected so that people would not forget their God. It is a book about the past. But it was written to ensure a bright and healthy future."

"Yes, if I could tell of everything that will enter your life in the days, years, or even decades ahead, it just might kill you. But if you take a few moments to sit and think about everything you have already survived - you just might discover that you are tougher than you thought you were - more adaptive than you are giving yourself credit for - and have a wee but more faith than you thought you did. You just might remember that how you have gotten through hard and fearful times in the past, is by going through hard and fearful times. 'The wave crashes over us,' as James Hollis says, 'but that same wave recedes and leaves us standing.'”

Ronnie shares the story of Gary and Ronda Fleming, emphasizing the hope that comes with the Advent season: "Ronnie, your introduction of Emily Dickinson's poem, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers,' resulted in a momentary emotion-filled mental trip from the Simple Faith sanctuary to a time in the summer of 2014, where we had a personal and very profound experience with hope as a thing with feathers..."

"What is really important you? Put another way, if you knew your time was short, on what or to whom would you focus your evaporating minutes? To what task would you give yourself? How would your priorities change? The truth is, your time is short, so these questions apply. "Your spirituality, faith, and overall wellbeing will grow stronger, deeper, livelier, and more vital as it becomes the more focused, more concentrated, and more simple. Don't go for more of anything. Go for less. Paraphrasing the words of Meister Eckhart, 'The way of Jesus has much more to do with subtraction, than it does addition.' Where this art of simplification really works, and you don't have to a mystic or uber-spiritual to experience this for yourself, is staying present in this one day that you have - today."

"Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Yes, sometimes I'm even a Christian - sometimes. That word becomes more and more problematic because of so much uncommon ground. Yes, there are a number of essential beliefs important to me and to which I hold - fewer though, as I get older. And yes, some of my beliefs are in conflict with the beliefs of others, and these conflicts are not easily dismissed - they are different - they might even be irreconcilably different. But my beliefs, as important as they may be to me, do not give me the right to be belligerent toward others who do not share my view of faith...After all, what good are our beliefs, if we use them to win arguments, but lose our credibility in the process? What good is Christian faith if it only inflates our egos? What good is it to claim the name of Jesus, but the claim only makes us mean, hard-hearted, and judgmental?"

Jesus wasn't the first Jewish rabbi to codify a "golden rule" or to emphasize the Great Commandment(s) to "Love God and love your neighbor." Jesus was - and is - however, the one to make the ethic of love normative for we who call ourselves Christian, for love is the only thing that can "tikkun olam." From the Hebrew: Love is the only thing that can "heal the world." Politics will not heal the world. Your voting card will not heal the world. The United States of America will not heal the world. There are rooted in power, and as followers of Jesus, our calling is not to seize the steering wheel - to get our own way. Our calling is to practice is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control - orbiting around this nucleus of love for God and love for neighbor.

"'Do not go gentle in that good night.' That's the line that I see dancing behind the blind Bartimaeus story, this man persistent enough to not be left in the dark. Dylan Thomas was the Welsh poet who authored the furious, defiant lines: "Do not go gentle into that good night…burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' How was Bartimaeus' sight restored? By a power outside himself - you can count on that. Yet, at the same time, there was a faith-shaped persistence at work; a hope-filled determination; a refusal to go gentle into that good night. "There's no assurance that you will always get what you seek - if ever; no guarantee that the door will always open, that your prayer will be answered as you expect, or that your 'faith will always become sight' - to quote an appropriate New Testament turn of phrase. Life is far too unpredictable and exceedingly mysterious for any of that. And anyone trying to tell you different or sell you a warranty is just trying to, again to use an appropriate phrase, to rob you blind. But as people of faith - we have to have a little faith." (See Mark 10:46-52)

As it was in the days of Jesus, so it is today. This society is Machiavellian to its core - trunk, root, and branch. The end justifies the means.Do whatever it takes to reach your goal, no matter how dirty or how ugly or how corrupt. Politics - obviously so - from the most local election to the highest seat in the land. In our economics - so long as the shareholders make their money, do whatever it takes, hurt whoever has to be hurt. On your job - it's cut throats and stabbed backs; tattle-telling and sabotage just to get ahead. How we treat this beautiful world: Rules can be bent - rules can be broken - progress, development: Those have become synonyms for greed and selfishness. What did Jesus say? “But among you it will be different." That difference replaces supremacy with sacrifice; it replaces being at the top, with a willingness to go to the back of the line. It's not obsessed with getting one's way - but with helping someone else along the way. It's different in that the ambition is to not to conquer others, but to be in service to others."

"Teach us to number our days, wrote the Psalmist, "that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Certainly, the writer is instructing us all to count our days; that is, be aware of how brief life is. Going further, the writer is making sure that we make those few days of life, really count. Sure, we would all like to have a little extra time, but the only way to have extra time is to realize how little time you actually have - and to make that time count.

With the recent passing of songwriter, actor, and icon Kris Kristofferson, Ronnie took some time to reflect upon his life - a life that can never be duplicated. From the talk: "To know and become who you really are - who God made you to be - to take up the life that only you can live, a life that can never be replicated: This is the beginning of the soul's fulfillment. But it often requires a giving up - a letting go - of all you have been holding on to, be it as a privileged Rhodes Scholar or a middle class grunt stuck on the hamster wheel of someone else's expectation. To have the courage to be yourself, and to take the risk to follow that path, that's true freedom - that's another word for nothing left to lose. And inevitability, this freedom will lead you to grace - 'undeserved privilege' - and gratitude for the life God has bless you with."

"Hurricanes are the result of low-pressure systems moving across warm tropical wasters. Earthquakes are caused by the normal release of energy from the movement of tectonic plates. Sickness and disease are as old as the ecosystem that sustains humanity, and we are frail beings. Evil people - with twisted minds and monstrous intentions - will always live among us. This is the natural world - the natural state of affairs. To ignore it or to explain it away is a travesty that only compounds suffering, it does not alleviate it. And as utterly shocking as this may sound, in the face of this suffering, don't look to the heavens to find God! Look to your suffering neighbors! "Because God 'was not in the storm,' if I might borrow a line from the prophet Elijah. God is in and with the storm-blown, now homeless family in Steinhatchee, Florida. God didn't cause the rising waters - God is in the evacuees who lost everything to the flooding of the French Broad River. God is in that child who cannot escape the abuse of her of stepfather. God is in innocent children dying in today's wars. Don't look for God up there or out there - look for God down here. Don't look for God in your answer-all theology books - look for God in the question marks and confusion. Don't look for God in the explanations of religion. Look for God in suffering people. Because that's where Jesus said God would be - Christ would be there in the 'least of these.' An act of God is not some disastrous calamity - no matter what your insurance policy says. You are an act of God - you can be - when in hope and faith you act to lovingly heal the world." (See Psalm 19 and Luke 13.)    

"There is a discernment, a knowing, that goes beyond - and exceeds mere intellect or intelligence. I'll state what we all know: A person can have the highest of IQs, advanced degrees, technical proficiency, and have no common sense whatsoever; no problem solving ability. You can be intelligent - and still be stupid. You can have knowledge - more than most people around you - but still be a clueless chucklehead about life. What I'm talking about is wisdom. That is the precious commodity, and it is in desperately short supply these days."  

"What are we to make of this strange and wonderful story, this encounter Jesus has with a foreign woman, this talk of dogs and outcasts? The story is told, once again, to reinforce a constant and primary theme of Jesus' ethic and ministry: He is breaker of boundaries; literally and figuratively. He intentionally moves into the foreign places; into the marginal places; out to the borders; out to where we his followers are often incredibly uncomfortable. Jesus is always pushing the religious limits, always critiquing the institutional rules, always expanding the horizon, always making space for those regarded as incompatible or unacceptable. Jesus has a soft spot for fools, drunks, little children, for starving puppies begging under the table; the poor, the rejected, for those whose noses have been bloodied by a hundred slamming doors; for the weak, the down and out, the stained, the marked, the failures. Jesus is always out there hanging with the crowd we wouldn't be caught dead with.   "For the life of me, I can't figure out where today's church came up with this prim and proper, tame and courteous Jesus, who is little more than a mascot for middle and upper class respectability. This man was a revolutionary in the truest sense of the word, come to welcome all who would come, even if it alienated those who thought that they were the ones who had cornered the market on faith and belief in God; even if his words and way was seen as an affront to the religious establishment" (See Mark 7:24-29).

"How often does a religious authority figure become the actual authority? How often do human-made regulations get inflated and inflicted as God-given commandments? How often do ancient traditions - traditions that may have worked very well for those who first conceived of them - outlast their usefulness - and grow into monstrous, shame-inducing, fear-mongering, finger-pointing, soul-crushing, heart-breaking machines of spiritual abuse and destruction? Be distrustful of - run away from - groups, denominations, churches, and movements that crush the people under their care; that place heavy burdens on people's backs; that coerce, intimidate, manipulate and malign. That might be religion. But that just can't be Jesus. "You see, religious rules can't protect you. They can't keep you holy. They really can't help you. Sure, they might work to get you started; but eventually - sooner or later - external, religious, behavior management can only keep you caged, withdrawn, fearful, suspicious, and judgmental. It can't set you free. To borrow commentary from the Apostle Paul: 'Christ has set us free…The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love…For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Neither we nor the world need more religion. We need changed hearts. We need transformation from within. And that is possible - as we surrender to the Spirit and direction of Jesus - who makes all things new."

“The journey ahead will be too much for you! God says to Elijah (See 1 Kings 18 and 19). For those who have been champions, for those who have felt like nothing but losers. For those disappointed, discouraged, despondent, confused, misused, and abused: The journey will be too much for you! Enough with the lie that 'God will never put more on you than you can stand.' That's nowhere near an accurate statement and will not hold up under thoughtful, theological, or experiential analysis. Sometimes life will collapse on you with the weight of multiple lifetimes; there will be too many challenges; too many burdens; too much tragedy. It happens with the news of a single, solitary catastrophe - or with the slow, accumulating of day to day weariness like silent, falling snow. Either way, sometimes it is all more than you can take. Sometimes life will break you. "But I know, as I read the history of our ancestors here in the Scriptures, and as I review my own life and the lives of those who kept faith to the end and beyond, is that God has a way of showing up and picking up his children when they have reached the very end of themselves. There is something about coming to the absolute end of strength, when another step cannot be taken; when another war cannot be fought; when another threat cannot be answered; when another precept cannot be believed; when another creed cannot be recited; when another day cannot be faced: Only then does God become God to the one who desperately needs God." 

"Come to me,” Jesus said, "I am the bread of life…Come to me and you will find what you need….Walk with me…learn from me,” he said. He offers his way, his words, his ethic, his very life to each of us. And in taking it, we find our daily bread to face each and every day: Not as a kind of spiritual vitamin; not a little pep talk for us when things are down; not a puffy, air-filled, processed bag of junk food. This is real, solid strength. It's food for the soul. Or hear it this way: “I am to you what you need, to do what you must do.” Nourishment. Fuel. Power: To live your life. To meet the demands of the day. To finish your race. To be alive, sustained, and fortified for whatever the future may hold.

Ronnie says, "I only have three sermons. So I will be repeating myself again today. One - The only God I know is the one revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Ask me who God is; what God is like: I will point you there. Two - This God loves you with an infinite, incredible, inexhaustible love. And three: It's those people who have a profound sense of being loved by God; who have this internal, soul-washed awareness that they are the recipients of grace: These are the people who truly live; and who can truly change the world." 

From Ronnie's latest talk on the 23rd Psalm: "He 'maketh me to lie down.' The Shepherd gently - but deliberately - compels me to be still. It is the lying down; it is the quiet; it is the stillness that leads to restoration. The best translation from the Hebrew is: 'Bed down in the lush green grasses. Sip the cold, quiet, deep waters -of rest.' Cold drinks and nap time sounds like heaven! But most of us have to be forced into stillness. We must be made to lie down. We can't turn off the monkey-mind. We can't even turn off the television or put down our phones. We feed ourselves on the breaking news of the moment; we gorge on incessant information and activity; we are surrounded by the loud, the unnecessary, the fearful, and the obnoxious. Our senses are continually assaulted by those things, situations, and people that can do nothing but leave us angry, thirsty, hungry, and unsettled. Lord knows, oh the Lord knows, we must be made to lie down." 

In this exploration of the biblical prophet Amos, Ronnie talks about what launched Amos' vocation, why the prophet's voice is one of such doom, and how to interpret and apply his words today. Ronnie says, "Amos, for lack of a better turn of phrase, invented the apocalyptic category. All the Hebrew prophets to follow - even the great ones like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel - are standing on the shoulders of Amos, as he in real time processed the events that he witnessed and drew interpretive conclusions as to why these things were happening..."

Speaking of Ezekiel (Chapter 3) as an example for us all, Ronnie says, "Ezekiel persisted in his vocation for two decades.  Persistence more than progress. Stubbornness over success. Twenty years his hand is at the plow. Twenty years with hardly a convert. Twenty years among the thorns and scorpions of resistance...That is the pattern, but I think also that is the point. When one takes up the Christian vocation; when one commits to following Christ, to serving others, to loving neighbors; there is no quick or easy pay off. There are often few signs to see if you are actually doing any good. You will need persistence, resiliency, and patience. You will surely need a great big dose of the 'keep on, keeping on.' It is a great act of faith and hope - defiantly so - to keep being a true human being, made in the image of God, living out the love of Christ in a world that will likely conspire against you."

From Ronnie's talk based on Lamentations 3: "I get to have these conversations about God with people. Invariably, someone will say: 'Well, I don't believe in God.' And my answer has become, 'Me either!' Then  I give the person space to talk about the God they refuse to believe in; and it has never failed: I can't - I won't - I don't - believe in the God they describe either! Because this God is usually a sadist; or a monster; or a capricious, thin-skinned invention of religious imagination. This God has been made in someone else's image and then forced onto others as the God of creation, universe, and eternity...Do we create God in our own image, a form of confirmation bias, finding in God what we hoped was already there? Of course we do. But for good or bad, I think that says more about us than it says about God."    

In this conclusion to his series on The Emmaus Road from Luke 24, Ronnie makes clear that sermons and talks come to an end, but the road goes on. "Faith will persist. The Spirit will lead. Your journey of faith never ends until you do," he says. And quoting James Hollis, Ronnie reminds the listener: "There is no home ‘out there,' no Valhalla to attain; there is only the journey. The journey is our home. Our home is our journey...There is no peace, contentment, and tranquility above the fray. We will always live in in-between times, between what has been reached and exhausted and what approaches over the curve of the horizon. Are we afraid? Of course! Only psychotics and the deluded are not. But that is not an excuse for not showing up in life. Our journey is our home.”

In this talk - part 9 of 10 in the series - Ronnie asks the listener to open his or her heart to the "Real" - with a capital R. He says, "I am of the persuasion that you can at once be a person who believes in contemporary science; and be a person of deep faith in God; that you can be analytical and empirical while remaining mystical and spiritual; that you can appreciate and value Newton, Einstein, Sagan, Hawking, and Darwin - and still be a committed follower of Jesus. I am making a case - or at least offering an invitation - that you accept what is Real as extending to the spiritual world - that it not be contained strictly within the material world. And I make that invitation to both the religious and the agnostic."

As Part 8 in this walk down the Emmaus Road continues, Ronnie observes how an honest, humble telling of our own faith experience can invite Christ to join the conversation: "These disciples find their friends. They begin to share their story with fear and trembling -  and Jesus arrives. It's as if their speaking of him, invites him to join them...Meister Eckhart, a radical Catholic mystic from the Middle Ages, talked about how we can birth God into this world. He said, 'We are all called to be the mother of God. The Christ is always wishing to be born into the world! What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to the Son in my time and place?' Thus, when you share your Christ experience, you are creating an incubating environment where Christ comes into that conversation."

"How do you tell someone, how do you share with someone, your own personal experience with God? Sometimes this will be sharing with someone who is seeking - seeking answers - seeking God. It might be sharing with someone who is on the brink of losing faith, or he or she feels that 'just believing' won't work for them. And maybe you've had those encounters with someone who is ambivalent, even hostile to faith; and sometimes you might share with a fellow Christian, a fellow traveler, but your faith experience and his or her faith experience are so different, that you are like strangers to each other. How do conversations like these work themselves out?" In Episode 7 of this series on the Emmaus Road, Ronnie takes on these questions and more, encouraging us to let God do God's work within us, and step back far enough to let God do God's work in others. 

In Part 6 of "The Path Is Made By Walking, Ronnie quotes Janet Hagberg, words that serve as proper commentary to the Emmaus Road experience of Luke 24: “Now we surrender to God's will, but with our eyes wide open…for we have been changed. We sense a looser grip on ourselves and all we have believed, because our confidence is in God - not what we think about God. Our primary motivation in life becomes the desire to love and to live honestly. We acquire an inner peace and calmness because we grow into the full awareness that God truly loves us. We learn how to go about our lives with patience and freshness, a vitality that can only come from God. There is no striving, just evolving. The healing experience is so personal and so profound, we may find it difficult to express.” How do we get this? Persistence. Muddling through. Surrender. Being melted down and re-formed. Anger. Tears. Shaking your fist or the middle finger at heaven. Kicking and screaming on the floor. Trying out atheism for a while. Shunning anything religious, spiritual, prayerful, or anything like you knew in the past. But if you are a person with a bent toward faith - if you are a person who discovers that the eternity planted in your heart cannot be ignored - you will begin to poke around in the ashes for the bones. You will begin to put the pieces back together, and maybe - just maybe - you will have an Emmaus experience: “Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…They said to each other, 'Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road.” 

As this journey down the Emmaus Road continues, Ronnie speaks about the times when faith seems lost: "Before you change, you will be confused. It's natural. It's to be expected. Once you are on the road, you will encounter roadblocks - intense seasons of questioning; dark nights of the soul; arrows shot toward heaven that never seem to hit their target. Janet Hagberg rightfully calls it, 'The Wall.' You crash up against it and things go to pieces. "It feels like you are losing your faith and possibly losing your mind...like everything you were ever told about God or believed about God is wrong... all your old prayers and Bible verses and routines that used to do the trick have lost their power. Your unassailable, bullet-proof solutions fail, and no amount of praying harder, believing more, reading your Bible, or rededication will remedy you. In the words of William Butler Yates: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; anarchy is loosed upon the world.'"

With episode four of his current series, "The Path Is Made By Walking," Ronnie observes that Jesus challenged his fellow travelers on the Emmaus Road to do something almost impossible: To throw out what they had believed previously, and look at life, faith, and reality with a completely different point of view. He was invited them to change their minds - something so few of us are willing to do.  (For the opening reference, the rabbit/duck image, see: https://www.ualberta.ca/science/news/2018/march/optical-illusion-gives-insight-into-how-we-perceive-the-world.html )

In this third installment of "Walking," Ronnie clarifies his hopes for this deep dive into the Emmaus Road story of Luke 24. "One: There's always something deep, innovative, and wondrous beneath the surface of Scripture - it's only 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, but so much further than that. Two: Luke was not afraid to meet people right where they were, to speak their language, in order to tell the story of Jesus. And three: Can we stop and appreciate the artistry and creativity of the biblical writer?" Ronnie picks up that third hope in this talk, revealing the imagination and skill of Luke. Regarding the two photos discussed in this talk: 1) Visit https://stellarium-web.org to see the night sky anywhere in the world. 2) "The Starry Night" is on display at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC: https://www.moma.org

In Part 2 of Ronnie's exploration of the Emmaus Road text from Luke 24, he takes a deep dive into the background of the story - a background that is more than 400 years old - but one Luke and his listeners would have known all too easily. From there, Ronnie gives a challenge to readers of the Bible to "dig deep," discovering the multiple worlds that are beneath our shallower readings of the text. Note: For Dum's meme "Persistence," referred to in the talk, visit: http://dumilustrador.blogspot.com/2011/04/ha-momentos-que-devemos-persistir-em.html 

With this introduction to the Emmaus Road experience of Luke 24, Ronnie begins an ambitious series of talks entitled, "The Path is Made By Walking" (taken from a poem by Spanish poet, Antonio Machado - text below). Ronnie says, "This story has been given for every true believer, for every spiritual seeker; for every honest doubter, and every troubled questioner; it's for every wanderer and wonderer; for every curious soul, every longing heart, every disillusioned cause-keeper, and every disappointed lover. It is a tale told for the freshie just beginning her walk of faith; for the cynic who has lost his faith; for the agnostic who interrogates faith; for the atheist who has no faith; and for the old hand, the road-weary traveler who is just trying to keep the faith...I recognize that these seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus cover the distance of eternity. I recognize that these few verses might be the most creative use of narrative anywhere in the Christian lexicon - as Luke, the writer, brings together Jewish wisdom, emerging Christian reflection, metaphor, parable, and borrows from both Plato and Socrates. I recognize that this gold mine has gone largely un-mined; and I recognize that I am not up to the task of trying to communicate all that is here."   “Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking. By walking the path is made. Beat by beat and verse by verse...When the goldfinch cannot sing; when the poet is a pilgrim; when prayer will do us no good: Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking.” - Antonio Machado

On his 90th birthday,  legendary local dentist Dr. Johnny Savage shares words with the congregation at A Simple Faith Church. See the Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzqFXaIIbAU Johnny's biography, written by Kathryn Hardy is available at online bookstores.  

"A garden is where it all began - a garden is where it is all headed - and a garden makes it all possible. The resurrection is heaven come to earth; life and life-giving spirit confronting and overcoming death. Jesus  is the man working in the garden - restoring the garden of life - does all that is necessary and possible for life to flourish. In the words of Robert Frost: “He has kept the pathway open...our home is at the end.” Based on John 19 and 20 Images referred to in this talk can be viewed at: https://artandtheology.org/2016/04/05/she-mistook-him-for-the-gardener/ 

Power. Politics. Prophecy. Peace. And a little donkey carrying Jesus through the gates of Jerusalem. In this talk Ronnie focuses on the overlooked details and persisting challenge of the first Palm Sunday.

St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday this year, and I couldn't resist playing a few  Irish songs. This quintet collection of The Backsliders band features myself on guitar and vocals, Matt Miller on fiddle, Tim Ryals on percussion, Andy Stucky on bass, and Ricky Stanfield on mandolin. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

What's So Amazing About Grace? That's a question Philip Yancey asked with the title of his book that has become a Christian classic more than 25 years ago. It's a question that remains worth asking and answering - as Ronnie attempts to do with his latest talk (Based on Ephesians 2).

This is Ronnie's final talk in a series on the book of Ecclesiastes, using commentary from Viktor Frankl. "Today, I want you to be infused with holy, scrappy, heavenly resistance. I want you  spilling over with God-given chutzpah. Not arrogance; not violence; not ego or attitude: But humble, hopeful, resilient, defiance: For 'what can be overcome, must be overcome…God grant me the courage to change the things I can.' There is a time for sacred defiance. Stick it to the man - and in that resistance - there is meaning."