LOGOS

       In the beginning was the Word,
       and the Word was with God,
       and the Word was God.
This is the first verse from the gospel of John. An opening of a famous hymn to the divine Word. Some think it was originally a gnostic poem. Some others consider it to be a beautiful philosophical poem. It is also a beautiful creation story, New Testament creation story.
    What is translated in our bibles as "the Word" was in the original Greek text ὁ λόγος. Proper translation is "the word". But I believe that in this case it should be just transliterated as LOGOS. Why should it be transliterated and not translated? Because Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ was such a potent term in the Greek and Hellenistic mythology and philosophy that any translation would not do it justice. It should become a loanword.
    Think about other loanwords, all of them can be properly translated but there is much to be desired!  TATTOO can be translated from Polynesian languages as “poked skin”. GEISHA is literally “an art person” in Japanese. UKULELE is “a jumping flea (instrument)” in Hawaiian language (because fingers pluck strings so quickly). CURRY is just a regular name for “a sauce” in Dravidian Tamil and ZEITGEIST translates from German rather spookily as “time ghost” 
    If we want to understand more fully this beautiful biblical poem from the beginning of the gospel of John, LOGOS cannot equal THE WORD no matter how much we embellish it and load it with meaning. Just like curry is not another sauce and when I play the ukulele I do not play a jumping flea.

Join us this Sunday when we listen and discern the ancient enigma word play:
        In the beginning was LOGOS,
        and LOGOS was with God,
        and LOGOS was God.

Advent podcasts

In Advent 2019 I prepared with Peter Rinaldi these podcasts (Part of our ReligioSanity channel - We primarily upload to SoundCloud but our podcasts can be found also on Apple Podcast and other platforms.)
We always closed ourselves in the Rutgers Presbyterian Library and chatted about Advent and Christmas traditions but mainly about biblical and theological conundrums and provocative questions swirling about these preeminent religious holidays.

Sane Christmas 1 - St. Nicholas Day

Sane Christmas 2 - How Jesus Was Born In Bethlehem
(40 Years After His Crucifixion)

Sane Christmas 3- Delicately Talking About Mary's Virginity

Sane Christmas 4 - How Mary Became A Virgin Again

Sane Christmas 5 - Protoevangelium of James (Part 1)

Sane Christmas 6 - Protoevangelium of James(Part 2)

Sane Christmas 7- The Infancy Gospel Of Thomas

Un-confiscated Christmas

These are some toothbrushes confiscated by the “Homeland Security Agency” from the refugees crossing the US southern border. They were collected and photographed by Tom Kiefer when he worked as a janitor at the Border Patrol prison.
    This picture gives me chills. You need to understand that I was born and grew up in the Czech Republic under Russian occupation. Until recently I had occasional nightmares of living again behind border walls and electric fences and under the dark shadow of malevolent secret police.
      At that time toothbrushes and prisons had a special significance for us. It started with Vaclav Havel and other dissidents and opposition leaders. They could be picked up from streets and arrested at any time and put in prison without their families or anyone knowing for days. So they started to carry their toothbrushes with them just in case... Soon it became a coded saying. “I am taking my toothbrush with me.” It meant I am prepared to go to jail.  
    And here we are again! Loud, stupid, spiteful, chauvinistic propaganda with fences and walls on the border. Innocent people being put in jails, their families torn apart, children kept in cages, and even their toothbrushes being confiscated! Why? For what reasons? Just to be mean? Just to be even meaner than agents of totalitarianism?
    Thankfully, there is good news in all of this. Occupation of my native home lasted for a long time, but eventually it ended exactly thirty years ago. Borders were demilitarized and those stupid border walls came tumbling down and fences were cut by the very dissidents who came almost directly from prisons to become presidents, prime ministers and secretaries of government. It felt like a miracle, but it was not coincidence, there is a deep, because divine, logic behind it.
    The Christmas Gospel is bringing that message to us in this season. The abusive political power might look strong, but it does not have the ultimate word over our world. Join us this Sunday as we un-confiscate Christmas and seek hope for our world.

And by the way, I have no doubt at all that among those vilified desperate refugees, among those detained in cages and those whose toothbrushes are now confiscated are the future Vaclav Havels, Nelson Mandellas, leaders, politicians, scholars  or industrialists in our or their original countries. So watch out what you do to those least of these!

Simple Gifts

This Monday I was making myself a simple supper – a slice of a rye bread, smothering of a vegan cream cheese and a slice of an heirloom tomato with a sprinkle of a salt and right as I was about to take my dinner to the table I was caught by sheer surprise. The slice of tomato looked like a beautiful star! And in a moment it also tasted heavenly in all its simplicity of rustic rye bread, the intense fragrance of a ripe juicy tomato and a few crunchy flakes of salt which I gathered myself half a year ago by the ocean shore. I savored every bit of my meal – the sight, the texture, the fragrance, the taste. My simple meal was tastier and happier than any elaborated banquet.
      This Second Sunday in Advent we will listen to John the Baptist. But before hearing any of his words we will hear the message through his dress code (coat of camel wool)  and diet (honey and locusts). He was an ascetic who was dressed and fed by divine providence yet in his time and place better than any royalty. Today we can translate his dress and diet into simple, locally sourced, sustainable, environmental, gentle living. That is and has been the model of divine providential care.
      I believe that the message of the blessed simplicity is always important for us to hear, but it is especially inspiring in this Advent season, while we are attacked and lured from every angle by sirens of consumerism.
       Join us to learn about and rejoice in the simple gifts.

Healing Community

Thirty years ago I was studying Theology at the New College of the Edinburgh University. The 1st of December was Edinburgh’s first AIDS awareness day. There was a big public campaign going on with buses, billboards and flyers with slogans “AIDS Concerns us ALL” and “Take Care”. 
    I arrived to Edinburgh as an international student from behind the Iron Curtain. Back in Prague we lived in semi isolation, there were few AIDS cases but in Scotland the situation was getting serious. There were more and more diagnosed cases and people were dying of AIDS every day.
    Although the world was changing rapidly around us with the fall of the Berlin wall and the Velvet Revolution in Prague, I could not stay immune to this other strife going on. My fellow theology students as well as congregations of the Church of Scotland where I worshiped faced the challenge of AIDS epidemics like true disciples of Jesus. They advocated for the ostracized, against prejudice, for needle exchanges and free condoms for sex workers. They took to hospitals and fought for proper care for those ill and dying.
    I know from the stories of those who lived through that period here in NYC how even more challenging of a time it was on the other side of the big pond (dark prejudice has its home among some American religious people). UWS presbyterians including our Rutgers Church were on the forefront of this struggle and they strived valiantly against prejudice and for dignity and love. This Sunday, the 1st of December is exactly World AIDS Day. On this day we will remember with sadness, gratitude to God and with hope for brighter times what it meant and still means to be a healing community.

 

Christ the King - Overcoming toxic divinity

A crucifix on the Charles Bridge in Prague with a (controversial) Hagios in Hebrew.
קדוש  קדוש  קדוש  יהוה צבאות --  Ἅγιος, ἅγιος, ἅγιος Κύριος Σαβαώθ
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth.

There is no doubt that Jesus preached the Kingdom of God. The kingdom he preached was unlike any kingdom of his time or any time, different even from any subsequent forms of government. Jesus not only preached the kingdom, he was also embodying it and living it out by touching and healing the untouchables, by eating with the outcasts, and by bringing hope to all the marginalized. His message and his practice were a challenge and even cardinal offense against all the abusive powers at that time and so as this radical agitator/organizer he was eliminated, he was crucified.    
    This Sunday we celebrate Christ the King and the Gospel reading is about Jesus’ crucifixion. In this contraposition of king and crucifixion is the radical reinterpretation of authority and power is present. It is the beginning of the end of the violent power and the beginning of the end of what we can call toxic divinity.
    Humans build their empires on violent abusive power and humans construct their theologies of supra natural divinity - in its center is the philosophical construct of a god as an abusive patriarchal figure who is an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent supra-natural being. The crucified Christ the king is the major challenge to it, a great opportunity and an open invitation to the radically new spiritual and theological realm of divine radical love, compassion and self-giving. Two thousand years later it is still underappreciated and still radical and seldom heard about: God who rules not by the force of abusive power but by the power of attraction.
    Come and join us in celebrating Christ the King, this new divine paradigm for spirituality and the world.

What Would Jesus Eat?

Jesus would not harm a living thing, right?
     We expect Jesus to be gentle, compassionate, caring and loving, a true physician of our souls and the Universe. But that is not a full picture. In the Bible we hear about few occasions when Jesus got really angry and once even cursed an innocent tree which then withered and died (Mark 11:12-14+20). It is a unique example of a truly arbitrary and brutal miracle. People are shocked and theologians are often lost and left without answers.
    Scholars studying ancient agriculture and economy might have an answer. I would like to illustrate it on my own experience. Twenty years ago we lived for a year in Louisville and we were surrounded with beautiful tobacco plantations - fresh green fields on rolling Kentuckian hills sprinkled with dark red tobacco barns. As peaceful and bucolic as it looked I wanted to curse those fields knowing for what they stood and what they meant - horrible addiction, deceptive, fraudulent advertising, serious medical health problems,  endless suffering and often early deaths.
    Or imagine cotton fields in the American South 200 years ago, in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi. Beautiful, well kept by so well-mannered genteel owners. But all of that southern cotton and plantation culture deserved divine curse, regardless how they looked - because they stood for endless misery and suffering of slavery and racism which lingers until now.
    When Jesus cursed the fruitless fig tree I am certain it was for what it represented. It represented the disintegration of society and Judean farming communities. It was a symptom of dispossessed little family farmers who were originally growing food but were replaced by expanding plantations of absentee landlords.
Jesus cursed the fruitless fig tree because he was angry over the fate of small family farms and in support of communities growing food for people rather than plantations of cash crops grown for profit.
    This weekend we will welcome again our autumn speakers, this year Ben and Lindsey Shute - our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farmers. Come on Saturday at 2 pm for a presentation and discussion and on Sunday at 11 for worship to talk about their farm and to ask What and How Would Jesus Grow and for us How and What Would Jesus Eat.