The Raven Foundation

“Guiltiest guilty pleasure.  Reality T.V.”

So began last night’s episode of ABC’s “20/20” called “Reality Rules.”  Anchor Deborah Roberts continued by claiming “America’s appetite for reality TV is extreme.  In 1998 there were zero hours of reality tv in primetime on broadcast networks.  In 2011, there will be as many as 15 hours per week.  Meanwhile, reality has dominated the cable channels for nearly a decade.”

The second segment of “Reality Rules” focused on Bravo’s hit reality show The Real Housewives of New Jersey.  They showed a scene from this season’s premiere episode.  Melisa and Joe, a couple on the show, had their baby christened.  A brawl between Joe and his brother in law, who also happens to be named Joe, broke out at the after party.

“This is one of the hottest reality shows around and it’s changing the television landscape,” Roberts claimed.

Andy Cohen, the executive producer of the Real Housewives series, started out skeptical about the authenticity of the show.  But in filming the series, he found that when he “scratch[ed] below the surface, [these women] were somehow really human.”

And that anthropological statement is where I want to begin this examination of the reality show that is “changing the television landscape.”

Real Housewives New Jersey is full of drama and violence and it’s tempting for us to avoid discussing reality television.  We could easily view it as the lowest form of pop-culture. But maybe Cohen has a point.  As much as we may criticize reality television for being fake and constructed, there is something very real about it.  It is the reality behind these shows that make many of us uncomfortable with them; that, indeed, make us scapegoat them.  We want to believe that we are nothing like those fake and excessively dramatic people.  But maybe we are more like the stars of reality television than we want to admit. For example, I fear that 85% of family reunions fall into the same cycles of family drama.  Please, no cameras at my house during Thanksgiving.  Okay?  Thanks.

Instead of scapegoating these shows, maybe we could view them as a study in mimetic anthropology.  For example, the main stars of Real Housewives of New Jersey are Teresa Giudice and her husband Joe Giudice.  Teresa’s brother Joe Gorga and his wife Melissa Gorga are also stars in the show.  What makes the show so compelling is the mimetic rivalry between the couples. 

What is a mimetic rivalry?  When we are in a mimetic rivalry with someone, we want what our rival has.  Our rival is also our model for success.  Here’s a great example from the gossip magazine In Touch. (Have I hit a new low by quoting In Touch?”  Okay, let’s not scapegoat gossip magazines!)  The article “Fame Destroyed My Family" (June 6, 2011) starts, “There was a time when Teresa Giudice found strength in the love of her family – and knew that no matter what life handed her, she could count on their unwavering support.  But that was before Teresa became a star on The Real Housewives of New Jersey – and achieved the type of fame that her younger brother, Joe Gorga, and his wife, Melissa, desperately wanted for themselves.”

That’s the formula for mimetic rivalry.  We desperately want what our rival, who is also our model, has.  Joe and Melissa Gorga desperately want fame, not because they are necessarily bad and greedy people, but because their sister and brother-in-law has it.

When we are in a mimetic rivalry, we want what our rival has, but we also want to become our rival.  In other words, we want to possess the essence of our rival.  Joe Giudice points this out in the article.  The article claims that “Melissa and Joe Gorga love the cameras and wanted a taste of the spotlight badly.”  The next sentence quotes Joe Giudice as saying, “They want to be me and they obviously want to be Teresa …  Go find your own life!”  The drama continues in the same paragraph.  (Oh boy.)  Melissa “claims on her blog that Teresa tried to keep them off the show so that she could be the more successful sibling – which Teresa and Joe Giudice deny.”

So much drama.  But I do think there is an anthropological truth here.  In rivalry, we always want what the other has, and we always think that we deserve what the other has more than the other deserves it.  We blame and demonize our rival, while at the same time think we are the innocent one, the good one.  But the truth is, when it comes to rivalries, no one is innocent. 

So, we’re left asking, “What’s the way out of a mimetic rivalry?”

For the Giudices and for the Gorgas, the only way out of a mimetic rivalry is to let go of the shared desire. If they really want reconciliation, the Giudices and Gorgas need to release their shared desire for fame.  In order to do that, they need to find a new model that will lead them away from rivalry and toward compassion.  That’s a difficult and painful spiritual transformation, but that's the transformation they need. 

And, in a world that breeds rivalry, that's the transformation we all need – unless you happen to live in a monastary . . . a desert monastary.

Last week, Suzanne and I had the good fortune to attend this year’s Theology and Peace conference at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, Maryland.  Well, Suzanne did more than attend.  She was one of three keynote speakers.  Suzanne presented a wonderful paper about education in the church entitled “Beyond Power Struggles: Teaching without Rivalry.”  The other keynotes were Michael Hardin, who delivered a fabulous paper called “The Babylonian Captivity of the Gospel,” and Brian McLaren, yes the Brian McLaren, who presented an inspiring paper called “Christianity Transformed and Transforming.”

Now, the Brian McLaren is a Christian rock star.  His books (I think he’s written 10) are each best-sellers.  They are challenging and provocative, while at the same time compassionately pastoral.  He questions our assumptions that God is violent, and so he has mimetic sensibilities.  His book A New Kind of Christianity takes this question head on, asserting that God is Love and thus has nothing to do with violence.  In his presentation, Brian related his work to mimetic theory, quoting Girard extensively throughout his talk on PowerPoint slides.  You can view those slides on his Slidshare website here.   One of the slides quotes an important statement Girard made in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, “A non-violent deity can only signal his existence to mankind by having himself driven out by violence – by demonstrating that he is not able to establish himself in the Kingdom of Violence” (219).  This is the transformation of the human understanding of God that the Hebrew Scriptures point to and that Jesus reveals: that God is love and has nothing to do with violence.  We humans are violent; we are the ones who violently drive one another, and even God, out of our lives.  In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus reveals that God has nothing to do with violence, but rather God forgives humans for our violence and offers us the way of God’s peace.  But probably the most inspiring thing Brian said to our group was, “People are ready to hear what you have to say and what you have to say is important.”

So, Brian was awesome.  And so were our other rock stars.  Michael Hardin, whose book The Jesus Driven Life I highly recommend in this article, asked this question in his talk: “What does a gospel freed from violence look like?”  He answered that question by claiming, “It looks like really good news, real evangel.”  But first, the bad news.  Michael discussed the development of satan in the Bible and claims that satan is an anthropological category.  That is, evil arises within the human species, not from without.  Evil is generated by our mimetic, or imitated, desires.  The satanic mechanism of accusation and violence infects all humans and we infuse God with that evil.  This infusion is how the doctrine of Penal Substitution was developed.  Penal Substitution claims that God the Father demands the death of God the Son to satisfy the Father’s justified wrath for human sin.  So, Jesus saves his followers from his violent Father and God.  Michael deconstructed this violent view of God by claiming that Jesus is the full revelation of who God is. Personally, I found Michael’s reference to the Council of Nicaea most helpful.  These early church Fathers wanted to make the point that Jesus the Son is fundamentally the same as the Father.  Michael claimed, “Here the language of Nicaea comes into play.  If we confess that Jesus is homoousias (of the same substance) with the Father, then we are also making a statement about the character of the Father.  We are asserting that God is nonviolent.”  He then said, “For those of us who claim that God is non-violent, the Council of Nicaea is our best friend.”

Suzanne, who has written two wonderful books on mimetic theory, The Wicked Truth and The Wicked Truth about Love, discussed the stumbling blocks that can thwart effective teaching in the church.  Her talk emphasized childhood education, but the principles she advocated are beneficial for youth and adult education, too.  Suzanne combined the Bible, mimetic theory, and the work of Maria Montessori to articulate a vision of education that helps us deal with scandals and power struggles in positive ways.  She started by quoting Matthew 18 where the disciples ask Jesus a question sown in rivalry, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  Jesus responded by saying, “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  This statement has caused a bit of confusion over Christian history.  Why would Jesus advocate that adults imitate children?  The root of the issue is desire.  Like all humans, children desire objects mimetically.  Children, like adults, model for one another what to desire.  This is why two children in a room filled with toys will inevitably clash over the same toy.  The child who first played with the toy models for other children to desire that toy.  The main point Suzanne made was that children are not scandalized by their models, whereas adults are.  Children fall into rivalry, but their rivalries are short lived because they aren’t scandalized in their shared (mimetic) desire for a toy.  They don’t demonize their rival.  Adults fall into rivalry, but our rivalries can easily last a life time because we are scandalized in our shared desire with others.  We do demonize our rivals.  Indeed, Jesus claims in Matthew 18 that “Occasions for scandals (also translated as ‘stumbling’) are bound to come.”  Rivalries are inevitable, but if we are more like children, we will not stumble into life-long scandalous rivalries with others.  The only way adults can move past a rivalry is to freely admit our rival is also our model.  Our rival has something we want – whether fame, fortune, power, a specific man or a woman.  This admission takes humility, but with children is our model, we will quickly move past our rivalries and be open to the possibility of reconciliation. 

The three talks were fabulous and fostered great discussions for those attending the conference.  It was amazing for me to see how well the talks interconnected and built upon each other.  It was one of the best conferences I’ve been to - I can't wait for next year's conference!

Next month, my two year old son will turn three.  Yes, the time is going by fast, but this isn’t a sappy “my children are growing up so fast” article.  My children are growing up fast, and I do plan for this to be a pretty sappy article, but it’s not a “my children are growing up so fast” sappy article.

My son has a tremendous gift.  It feels silly to say this, but in a very important aspect of life, I look up to this nearly three year old toddler.  He’s a natural at doing something I have to work very hard at.  And here’s where it gets a little sappy.  My two year old knows how to love. 

In fact, he’s my model for how to be a loving person.  It’s crazy, I know.  But this kid gets it.  Last night, when I picked him up from daycare, his teacher smiled and said to me, “Oh, he’s so sweet.  All he wants to do is cuddle.”  His previous teachers have routinely sent slips of paper home that say, “He plays well with others, especially with girls.  He’s so sweet.”  On our drive home yesterday he asked me twice, “Daddy.  You … you okay?  Daddy.  You … you appy?”  (He repeats himself a bit and still has problems with the letter “h.”  Part of his charm, I’m sure.)  “Yes.”  I reply, smiling to myself, amazed at how thoughtful he is.  “I’m okay and I’m happy.” 

Suzanne Ross, one of my colleagues here at the Raven Foundation, is delivering at talk next week called “Beyond Power Struggles: Teaching Without Rivalry” at the Theology and Peace conference.  Suzanne has been one of my greatest teachers during the last 5 years.  Not to stir any rivalry, but it’s hard to imagine anyone better to discuss teaching without rivalry than Suzanne.  She is going to explore Matthew 18, where Jesus’ disciples ask him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  That, of course, is a question loaded with rivalry.  Jesus’ response was very peculiar: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Not only does Jesus claim that little children reveal what the kingdom of heaven is all about, but then he states that we adults should become like those little snot factories.  I’m left wondering, “Really?!? Has Jesus been drinking some crazy juice?  People in the kingdom of heaven are like little children?!?  What is that about?”

In the notes of my Oxford Annotated Bible, the editor states that “a child’s social status was little better than a slave” and that “little ones” refers to socially inferior and vulnerable people.  I’m sure that historical context plays an important part in a solid interpretation of this text, but surely Jesus meant more than that we should become like slaves and socially inferior.  

The best I can do to explain this verse it to point to my two year old.  He models for me how to love.  He is radically open to others.   He’s mimetic (imitative) in the most positive of ways.  That is, he is openly influenced by those around him.  For example, if he sees people on television suffering from the devastation caused by the recent tornadoes, he visibly absorbs that suffering..  His face cringes at the sight of pain and agony.  On the other hand, if he sees someone smiling, he absorbs their joy and he smiles with them.  He does all of this without worrying about what others will think of him.  He is uninhibited in his mimetic nature.

Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he said to become like little children.  You see, I tend to do the opposite; I tend to cut myself off from the suffering I see around me.  I justify that behavior with a defeatist attitude, thinking to myself, “It’s too much to look at” and “There’s nothing I can do about it anyway.”  As an adult, I certainly don’t want to admit that I’m influenced by those around me.  That, of course, is one of the biggest problems in the adult world.  Adults are not supposed to admit that we are influence by others – it is a sign of weakness.  Yet, it is precisely because we fail to admit this truth that we fall into rivalry with one another.  So, to be like a child means to be so open to the emotions and feelings of those around us that we compassionately absorb those emotions and feelings into our very selves.  Only then we can respond, “Are you okay?  Are you happy?”

So, in the end, the kingdom of heaven is not like a rivalry among adults concerning who is the greatest.   Rather, the kingdom of heaven is about being absorbed into another way of life – into the mimetically compassionate life of little children.

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Adam discusses Job of the Bible. Job challenges much of the wisdom in the Bible that claims good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. For example, see Deuteronomy 6:18, Psalm 1, and Proverbs 3. For a book similar to Job, see Ecclesiastes. Job claims his innocence, while his friends unite in accusation against him. In the end, God sides with Job, the victim. Here we see the evolution in the human understanding of God. God is not with the crowd that unites in accusation against a common enemy; rather, God is on the side of the victim. This is seen ultimately in life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

For more, see Rene Girard's book, "Job: The Victim of His People."

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Adam discusses the recent comments made by Stephen Hawking about science, God, and Heaven. Does science explain away the existence of God? Can something come from nothing? Is the human brain like a machine? Is Heaven a fairy tale humans made up to make ourselves feel better about the future?

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Adam discussed Rashard Mendenhall's controversial statements about the death of Osama bin Laden. Mendenhall critiqued the celebrations in the United States after we heard about bin Laden's death. Is the death of someone who caused so much destruction in the world something we should celebrate? Do we tend to divide the world into good and evil, allowing us to neglect the evil we cause? Can we control violence? Or does violence control us?

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . in him was life, and the life was the light of all people . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . .”

-John 1:1-14

Every culture is reflected by its artists.

-Marilyn Manson[1]

I don’t usually look to Marilyn Manson to support my argument.  St. John . . . yes, Marilyn Manson . . . not so much.  But I think Manson is on to something.  Part of what makes an artist successful is an ability to reflect their culture; they give a resonating voice to events, feelings, and dynamics that permeate a society.  Currently, few are more successful at doing just that than the pop music sensation Katy Perry.

Her latest song, E.T., is presently number 1 on the Billboard top 100.  The song is, well, strange.  And if Manson is correct, it means we are experiencing some strange times.  Part of that experience has to do with a sense that we are disconnected from meaningful communities and relationships.  The sociologist Robert Putnam claimed in his book Bowling Alone, that this trend has been growing during the last 50 years and asserts that the “bonds of our communities have withered, and we are right to fear that this transformation has a real cost.”  The cost is a spiritual crisis of isolation and insignificance.

E.T. speaks to this growing spiritual crisis and suggests we will look anywhere to find a sense of meaning, even in dangerous and destructive places.  Kanye West plays the role of the alien who invites Perry into “the danger zone.”  She is hypnotized by his presence and the danger he poses.  She perceives the spiritual elements of this encounter.  She asks, “Could you be the devil?  Could you be an angel?”  The alien’s touch meets a temporary desire for connection: “Your touch magnetizing, feels like I’m floating, leaves my body glowing.”  It’s an experience of supreme connection; one that seems to transcend all other relationships.  “There is this transcendental, on another level, boy, you’re my lucky star, I wanna walk on your wave length . . .”

Unfortunately, this connection is not really on another level.  It is muddled by an all too human experience of violence.  Perry is drawn to the violence like a moth to a flame.  Like many of us today, Perry is willing to sacrifice her own well being in order to feel a temporary sense of connection.  “Take me, ta-ta-take me, wanna be a victim, ready for abduction.”    

This brings up the question, why would anyone want to be a victim?  Gil Bailie points out in his book, Violence Unveiled, that “Today the victim occupies the moral high ground everywhere in the Western world” (29).  That moral high ground allows us to fight back in the name of justice.  When Perry says, “Fill me with your poison,” she could easily be talking about the poison of violence and revenge, dressed in the guise of a victim’s call for justice. 

But there is a segment of the song that sounds very similar to St. John’s reflections on Jesus.  Katy Perry, like John, admits to living in darkness and to a desire to be led into the light.  “You’re from a whole other world,” says Perry.  “A different dimension, you open my eyes, and I’m ready to go, lead me to the light.”  John says something very similar about Jesus.  The Word of God is made flesh in the person of Jesus.  It is here that God, like Kanye West’s alien, enters the world.  Unlike West’s alien, though, Jesus brings a light that has nothing to do with violence.  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).  Jesus flips West’s alien upside down.  Instead of inflicting violence upon another and getting caught up in a cycle of victimization, Jesus comes from another dimension in order to reveal the way of God’s love; the way of true connection.  John says, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him” (1:10).  In fact, according to John and the other Gospel writers, it is not God who is violent with the world, but rather the world that is violent with God.  In Jesus, God ends up on a cross and is killed by the hands of humans.  God becomes the victim.  But, as James Alison has pointed out, in Jesus God becomes the Forgiving Victim.  John tells us that after the resurrection God continues to seek a connection with humanity. “Jesus came and stood among [his disciples] and said, ‘Peace be with you’” (20:26). 

The question that John explores is the same question that Katy Perry explores.  It’s the question of connection.  Where do we find true connections in a world that fosters violence and separation?  Maybe our greatest spiritual leaders are correct. 

Maybe the way to true connection is through the path of nonviolent love. 

[1] Spin, October, 2005.

Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear? - Jesus (Mark 8:18)

I confess to you that I fail to see homeless people and I fail to hear them.  I look the other way, or simply walk on by.  I do sense myself being tugged toward them.  Deep down, I know we share a common humanity and that we are connected.   

Still, I don't look.  Jesus' words confront me everytime I visit downtown Chicago.  In the statement above from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus references his miracle of multiplying bread and fish.  He provides for people who are hungry.  No questions asked.  That miracle is a midrash on the Exodus from Egypt, where God provides manna in the wilderness and tells people to share.  They, of course, start to hoard their food and the manna spoils, as do their relationships.  All they had to do was share.  They had enough.

Richard Paxson, one of our Raven friends, sent us a link to the website invisiblepeople.tv.  At the site, a man named Mark travels the streets of the US and records his conversations with homeless people.  Here is a man who sees and hears the voice of his fellow human beings.  That's a powerful challenge for me.  I invite you to take a look, too.

The youtube channel is also worth a look.  The description ends with this statement that asserts our common humanity.  "Please always remember, the homeless people you'll ignore today were much like you not too long ago."

Eyes to see.  Ears to hear.

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I plan to preach this morning, but, and this sounds a little awkward, I plan to preach to the confirmation class.  So, I’m inviting the rest of us to listen in.  It might have something for you, but this sermon is primarily for the confirmation class.

Emma, Daniel, Erik, Madison, Christian, Amanda, Madeleine, and Sam, it has been a great pleasure for me to have been through this confirmation process with you.  You have been a great gift to me.  You have challenged me and have brought me to a better place.  I do this because I believe in it, and I believe in you.  For all of that, I thank you.

Confirmation Sunday always gives me a sense of hope because you have a pretty good idea of what you are getting yourselves into.  You are confirming yourselves into the church, and the rest of us are confirming you into the church at the same time.  And we all know that the church is a human community, and as a human community there are times when we fail to live up to our ideals, and there are also times when we succeed.  By confirming yourselves into the church, you are telling us that you believe in this thing.  And we ask you today to gently hold the rest of us accountable to being the church.  And we will also gently hold you accountable being the church as well.

There is a new documentary out in the theaters that speaks to what we’ve been exploring this year in confirmation class.  It’s produced by Tom Shadyac, who also produced such modern classics as Ace Ventura, The Nutty Professor, and, my personal favorite, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.  It’s called I Am.  It’s a fascinating documentary.  Shadyac had a horrible biking accident that caused many health issues.  He always had questions about his life, but after this traumatic event, he began to take those questions more seriously.

The documentary starts off with bad news and then discovers good news.  He looks at the violence and chaos in the world and he asks, “What’s wrong with the world?” and then asks, “What can we do about it?”  The documentary is part autobiographical and part interview.  He explores what’s wrong with the world by exploring his own life.  He came from a somewhat humble background, and then he made it big in the movie scene.  He made a lot of money.  And with that money he bought all kinds of stuff.  Mansions, and stuff to fill those mansions.  He bought cars and private jets.  He was the epitome of everything our culture tends to view as successful.  He had it all.

But he describes a moment when he bought a mansion in Beverley Hills.  The movers finished placing everything into his mansion, and he tells us how he just stood in the entrance way, feeling empty.

All of this stuff, and he felt empty.  All of this success, and he felt…depressed.

What is that about?

He goes throughout the world and interviews scientists, historians, and spiritual leaders.  One scientist claims that part of what’s wrong with the world stems from a message within modern science.  He says that much of modern science got it wrong.  What he says is that modern science told us that we are primarily individuals.  You are your own person.  The truth of who you are is located in your brain.  Indeed, a major truth statement within modern science and philosophy is, “I think, therefore I am.”  The emphasis on the individual means that when other people begin to influence you that you lose a sense of who you are.

That’s a big message of modern philosophy and science.  The problem that Shadyac experienced is that when we emphasize the individual, we lose a sense of our humanity.  When we emphasize ourselves, we can easily isolate ourselves from our fellow human beings.  Shadyac discovered that the more stuff he bought for himself, the more isolated and disconnected he became from his fellow human beings.  He had all the stuff in the world, but no meaningful relationships.

The scientists that Shadyac talks with question the individualism of modern science and philosophy.  This is the good news that Shadyac claims to have found.  The scientists he interviews claim that we are not so much “individuals” as if there is this disconnect between us.  Rather, we are all connected in a fundamental and, yet, mysterious way.  He observes that we can’t help but influence one another.  So, when we see someone suffering, we suffer too.  It’s as if we take on that suffering; it affects us.  Likewise, when we see someone happy and smiling, we’re likely to respond by smiling back.  We are wired for empathy.  We are wired to be in relationship with others.  We are wired to be influenced by one another.  One scientist even claims that what is “real” is not found in individuals.  The truth of who we are is not found in our brains.  Rather, what is real is found in the space between us, in our relationship.  The bad news is that we can work against the natural connection we have with our fellow human beings, and with the world.  We can numb ourselves to others by emphasizing our relationship with stuff as opposed to our relationship with other people.  As Shadyac found, that leads to emptiness, depression, and a lack of meaning.

Near the end of the documentary, Shadyac interviews a scientist and asks her “What do we do now?”  She claims that what humans need is a “Change of mind.”  Remember this – a change of the mind – it will come up in a few minutes.  She says that we need to change our minds so that we see that we are interconnected at the most fundamental level.  That when one person suffers, indeed, we all suffer.

Shadyac also interviewed many spiritual leaders.  The one person I want to point out to you is the former Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, a man named Desmond Tutu.  Tutu understands the interconnectedness of human beings; he gets it from Christian tradition.  We remember from Genesis that God created humans in the image of God, and that God breathed God’s spirit into humans.  But Tutu also gets this idea of interconnectedness through African spiritual traditions.  There is an African term that speaks to the interconnectedness of human beings.  That term is ubuntu.  Tutu claims that ubuntu recasts the modern saying “I think, therefore I am” and phrases it, “I am human because I belong.”[1] Ubuntu says that if I raise you up, I raise myself up.  On the other hand, if I diminish you, I diminish myself.

Now, how does this fit into our readings from this morning?  I want to focus on Acts.  Acts tells the story of the early church after the resurrection of Jesus.  Here we find Peter preaching to a group of people.  Peter has both good news and bad news for the group.  He starts off with the good news of resurrection; that God raised Jesus up.  For Peter, God is a God of life, not death.  The bad news comes when Peter says to the group “you crucified Jesus.”  Now, this is a very strange thing for Peter to say.  He’s preaching 50 days after Jesus was crucified, so it is very hard to believe that the people in this group were there when Jesus was crucified, or were in the crowd that yelled for Jesus to be crucified.  In fact, Peter was the one who denied Jesus three times.  But what’s even stranger, is that the group Peter preaches to says agrees with him.  In essence they say, “Yes.  We did crucify him.”

What is that about?

I think that what Peter and the group he is preaching to realize is that we all get caught up in cultural systems that lead us to forget that we are all interconnected.  Once we forget that interconnectedness, we are then able to crucify others.  Even someone like Jesus.  When we forget that what happens to you also happens to me, when we neglect that, then we can be physically, emotionally, spiritually, and economically violent with one another.

And the group says, “Yes.  We have participated in those social structures.  What do we do now?”

Peter says that what we need is a metanoia.  It’s a Greek word that often gets translated in the Bible as “repent.”  What metanoia literally means is: a change of mind, direction, or heart.  Peter tells the group that they need a change of mind.  Today, a scientist claims that what we need to do to make the world a better place is to have a change of mind so that we see the interconnectedness of all things.  2000 years ago, Peter claimed that we need to have a change of mind so that we see interconnectedness of all things and we no longer crucify one another!  We need to have a change of mind so that we see the interconnectedness of all things so that we no longer perform physical, emotional, spiritual, and economic acts of violence upon one another or upon the world.

But, we will fail.  Changing our minds is a lifelong process, and so failure is inevitable.  Peter is there to remind us that the resurrected Jesus forgave even Peter and his betrayals.  Peter tells us that God’s forgiveness is always there, waiting for us to accept it.  To paraphrase Peter, he says, “Change your minds and go in the direction of God’s forgiveness.”  Once we accept God’s forgiveness, we are free to offer forgiveness to ourselves and to others.

Science and our spiritual traditions are coming together and saying the same thing.  In fact, one person in the documentary claimed that science is just now catching up to our spiritual traditions.  What we need is a change of mind, a change of direction, so that we see that we are fundamentally interconnected to one another and to the world.  And we need you to help lead the way.

So, may you have a change of mind.

May you see that you are interconnected with all of creation.

And most importantly, may you know with certainty that you are loved by God.  And may you share that love with one another and with the world.

Amen.

[1] The Words and Inspiration of Desmond Tutu: Believe, 3.

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Suzanne and Adam discuss President Obama's recent call for national unity after the capture and death of Osama bin Laden. Throughout human history, we have found unity through violence against a common enemy. But what are the risks of finding unity through violence? Does that human tendency make us mirror images of our enemies?  Does that violence against a common enemy distract us from other problems? These are a few of the questions we grapple with in this video.