Dear Friends,

Did you ever feel uncomfortable/repulsed by the idea of God demanding that Jesus die on the cross to pay God back for the sin of Adam and Eve? We have long believed (with the Gospel of John) that Jesus came to reveal/embody God's love for human beings—that there is no limit to the ways and to the extent that God loves us. Revelation not atonement is the reason God became human.: to make it clear who God is for us. This past weekend, Joe Mayher, pastor of the UCC community that so graciously offers us hospitality, wrote in his newsletter that his community is reading a book by Rita Nakashima Brock entitled Sacred Paradise. She states as the thesis of her study: "I believe Atonement theology is among the most misguided betrayals of Christianity ever perpetrated. We are saved by Incarnation and Resurrection—life begets life." Brock's study shows that the earliest church affirmed that salvation was found in this world, not after death. It was baptism that gave early Christians the spiritual power to experience paradise in this world that was created as a blessing. "This theology is so old and neglected that it feels new," said Brock.

Brock shows through a study of Christian art that there are no pictures of Jesus dead until 964. All the Christian art before that shows Eucharistic Feasts, Jesus working miracles, Jesus Risen, The Good Shepherd, Christ Eternal Youth, etc. The first presentation of the cross was a Cross of Transfiguration, not a Cross of Crucifixion: "In early Christian art, Transfiguration was considered as perhaps the most important moment in Jesus' life because it was here Paradise was seen as present and it happened in the middle of his life, not after it. His life, as incarnate spirit, revealed God, not his death." And so, on this Second Sunday of Lent when we read about Jesus' Transfiguration, it seems fitting to consider this point of view further.

Brock reminds us: "God created the whole world as a blessing. The most common understanding of Paradise in the early Church was that it was the whole earth. The early church made a clear distinction between Paradise and Heaven. Heaven, created as the sky, was where God dwelt with the angels. Paradise was this earth. The Holy Spirit, conferred at Baptism, enabled Christians to see Paradise in the world around them. Once experienced in worship, salvation became a matter of living in the community as if you really believed that Paradise was in this world. Citizens of paradise were expected to cultivate and continue to practice moral virtue and spiritual disciplines so the spirit could grow in the whole community. As they grew in wisdom and spirit, Christians became divine like their forerunner Jesus." Hence, Brock speaks of a religious practice that emphasizes "attunement" to the ordinary experiences of life and enlightenment by living every day. We are reminded of a book entitled Every Bush is Burning meaning to say that we meet God in every encounter, in every moment of our lives.

This further reminds me of Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk saying "Our true home is in the present moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. Peace is all around us—in the world and in nature and within us—in our bodies and in our spirits. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed. It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice."

So we invite you to join us in being "attuned" to meeting God right in the middle of our lives today. God is not far away—God is right here with us. We bring God to one another! We also invite you to join us in leaving behind theories of atonement that distort God's original intention of coming to tell us how much God loves us and to invite us to join God in spreading that love and peace on this Paradise Earth. Some have lamented that the first image one sees in most Catholic Churches is of a gory Jesus hanging dead on a cross. They find such an image glorifying violence and death and contributing to the violence in our world. On top of that, death is not the end of Jesus' story. He rose from the dead and now lives in you and in me asking us to join in the crusade to keep being transfigured ourselves and to be attuned to meeting God right in the middle of our lives and then keep revealing God's love and peace to all who live on this Paradise Earth.

If you are seeking community to support you as you strive to be "attuned" to meeting God right in the middle of your life and to bring God's love and peace to all those you meet, we invite you to join us at Spirit of Life. As a community, we try wholeheartedly to "be Christ" to one another, to tend to the needs of one another, and to those in need in our world. Together, we celebrate our belief that we are being transformed by God's grace as we gather together in prayer. We warmly invite you to come and gather with us at our Table, and join in our experience of the "kin-dom" of God. We are an inclusive, open, affirming and interactive community, deeply committed to being a people of "justice and joy."

May your transfiguration reveal God's love and peace, and nourish your soul,

Find more about past weekly reflections and podcasts in our ARCHIVE PAGE.