Psalm 133 pictures what can happen if we are faithful to dialogue.  In a moment, we’ll look at what constitutes dialogue, which is a critical feature of hospitality.

I’ve long thought of this psalm as a rather odd—but beautiful—piece of poetry.  The first verse is simple enough, as the Good News Bible puts it: “How wonderful it is, how pleasant, for God’s people (literally, “brothers”) to live together in harmony!”

Julie Andrews sings "Getting to Know You" to the kids in "The King and I" gif

It’s those last two verses that might leave us scratching our heads.  When verse 2 compares this harmony to oil poured on Aaron’s head, so much that it runs down his beard onto his robe, our reaction may be one more of distaste (or even disgust) than anything else.  Picture this.  When Banu and I anoint someone with oil, we usually put a small amount on our finger, and then do something like making the sign of the cross on the forehead.

Here, according custom, an entire flask of oil is poured out on the head of Aaron the priest.  The anointing oil has a delightful smell, but my guess is not many of us would want to wind up like a greased pig!

The images in the psalm have several interpretations.[1]  Some literally see it as a celebration of “brothers” living together.  Others imagine “the fellowship of the Covenant community in Jerusalem.”  Some say the image of flowing down, whether it’s the oil running down Aaron’s beard—or the water flowing from Mount Hermon in the north to Zion in the south—pictures Israel and Judah coming back together.  And there are other ideas.  So there’s been a bit of debate as to what all of this means.

And on the matter of debate, it’s important to know the difference between that and dialogue.  With debate, we’re already convinced we’re right, and we’re trying to persuade others to see things our way.  It’s like a courtroom scenario, with opposing lawyers making their case.  Or it’s like the news channels doing more commentary than actual journalism!

Dialogue is quite different.  A couple of decades ago, Leonard Swidler developed “The Dialogue Decalogue” (“The Ten Commandments of Dialogue”).  They’ve been updated and renamed “Dialogue Principles.”  You can see them at the Dialogue Institute website.[2]

Here’s the first one: “The essential purpose of dialogue is to learn.”  Just as with the spiritual discipline of listening, dialogue meets its enemy in closed and narrow minds.  Those unwilling to learn need not apply!

In his book, Cultivating Christian Community, Thomas Hawkins says dialogue “involves a willingness to challenge our own thinking.  We remain open to examining our own assumptions, no matter how uncomfortable doing so may feel.”  Dialogue seeks “to open up and out toward a meaning larger than any single…viewpoint.”[3]

I’ve sometimes heard this criticism of dialogue: it requires you to waver on your beliefs.  The idea is you can’t take a firm stand for anything; you have to be wishy-washy.  However, faithful dialogue, far from asking people to surrender their beliefs, instead needs those who know what they believe.  There’s a huge difference between thinking for ourselves and refusing to entertain ideas that might call us to become bigger and more insightful persons.

An aspect of dialogue similar to this is spelled out in the ninth principle, the ninth commandment, if you will: “Participants in dialogue should have a healthy level of criticism toward their own traditions.”  It’s difficult to have meaningful interaction with people who think they have all the answers.

To put it differently, don’t be so self-assured that you’re unwilling to admit any uncertainty!  There have been times I’ve noticed this in myself.  Believe me, it’s not an endearing quality; I find it rather tedious.  Here’s one very good remedy: learn to laugh at yourself!  (And as I think I’ve mentioned before, it helps if you see within yourself plenty of material at which to laugh!)

A tricky part of dialogue is addressed by the fourth principle.  “One must compare only her/his ideals with their partner’s ideals and her/his practice with the partner’s practice, not one’s ideals with one’s partner’s practice.”  In other words, none of us is always a faithful model of what we profess.  We all fall short.  We don’t always practice what we preach.  If we point to someone else’s behavior when they don’t live up to their ideals—and then judge it on that basis—we should expect the same treatment.

I’ll mention one more of these principles of dialogue.  The fifth one says, “Each participant needs to describe her/himself.”  This aspect of dialogue is often ignored.  We can too easily make assumptions about each other.  We can see someone performing an action, maybe in support or in protest, and ascribe to them motives they simply do not have.

This past week, some of us had a quite charming dinner conversation on the PERC patio.[4]  We discussed a number of topics, such as the president, various policies, the way the news gets reported (including an overemphasis on bad news, as opposed to good news), various types of exercise, Gordon Ramsay, and so on.  By the way, if you’re wondering, things did not descend into a food fight!

We could refer to each other as conservative, liberal, someone from another planet, and think we have them all summed up.  Maybe not so fast.

Related to this is the whole business of labeling.  Hawkins notes, “Labeling people denies the legitimacy of their opinions.  It makes further discussion unnecessary.  Name calling means our minds are made up.  We no longer see our opponents as worthy of respect.”  With an interesting conclusion, he says, “When we engage in name calling, we break one of the Ten Commandments.  We bear false witness against another person.”[5]  That’s a clear case of “not getting to know you”!

In Matthew 7, Jesus also weighs in on this.  Labeling others is a way of passing judgment on them.  We put ourselves in the position of God.  Jesus warns against this, saying “with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (v. 2).

Dialogue is about much more than the proper way to have conversations.  At the end of the day, dialogue is about our relationship with God.  It necessarily involves other people, because it’s a discipline essential to fostering Christian community.  But as Hawkins reminds us, “The practice of dialogue reminds us that we and our opinions are not at the center of community. Christ is.”[6]

Just as Christ is at the center of community, so Christ is at the center of dialogue.  What Jesus calls us to do can feel really uncomfortable; it can even feel dangerous.  It can almost feel like we’re betraying someone or something.  That’s why we might come up with all kinds of excuses to avoid dialogue.  We can tell ourselves about that certain person, “I’ve done all I can to understand them”—but in our heart of hearts, we know we really haven’t.

Are there any people—or any group of people—with whom we refuse to dialogue?  Can we imagine the possibilities for our lives, for our communities of faith, for our society, if we simply let go of the excuses?  Something that plagues our country, and the church, is our practice of only giving a hearing to those with whom we already agree.  We only listen to what reinforces our opinions.

In many ways Jesus fought against that impulse.  There’s something I’ve mentioned on occasion, and I did so again at our lovely dinner.  Notice the people he called to his inner circle.  Among people of various backgrounds, he included Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot.

Here’s the story about the tax collectors.  They are hated, not just because they collect taxes, but because of who they are working for.  They are employees of the empire, and what’s more, they gouge the people in doing their job.

If the tax collectors are collaborators with the Romans, the Zealots are at the other end of the spectrum.  They are revolutionaries who want to overthrow the government, to send the Romans packing.  The differences between Matthew and Simon make the differences between Republicans and Democrats seem nonexistent.  I think it’s safe to say Matthew and Simon do not have similar opinions.  Left to their own devices, they probably wouldn’t be interested in dialogue.  They would make poor models for the picture our psalmist is painting!

Jesus isn’t interested in labels.  No matter what we call each other, Jesus is having none of that.  He died and rose from the grave for everyone.  He calls us to knock down the foolish walls we build.

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.  That’s where the Lord ordains blessing, running down everywhere.

[1] A. A. Anderson, The New Century Bible Commentary, Psalms 73-150 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 885.

[2] dialogueinstitute.org/dialogue-principles

[3] Thomas Hawkins, Cultivating Christian Community (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2001), 48.

[4] www.percatthemansion.com

[5] Hawkins, 49.

[6] Hawkins, 52.

Sometimes fans of certain TV shows, musical artists, or sports teams will make lame attempts at interjecting those interests into conversations, or—God forbid—into sermons.  I can assure you that this is not one of those lame attempts!  I have a very good reason for the title, “The Neutral Zone,” aside from the fact that it exists in the universe of Star Trek!

For those who don’t know, and especially for those who don’t care, I will give a very brief explanation.  Between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Empire there exists a region, established by treaty, which is called the Neutral Zone.  Neither of those governments is supposed to send ships of any kind into that area without the consent of the other.

Now, here comes that good reason to speak of the neutral zone!  It’s a concept presented in the book, A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke.  He’s done a lot of work with congregations, including those who are either in conflicted or transitional situations.

He uses the term in reflecting on work done by William Bridges, another consultant.  His theory is that “change is an event.  Our experience of the change is transition.  He cites three movements—endings, the neutral zone, and beginnings—in the transition experience.”[1]

We might think of “endings” as the chapter or the phase of life that is drawing to a close.  “Beginnings” would be the next step or the new reality that is now appearing.  It’s the middle one, “the neutral zone”—in which things seem chaotic and unsettled—that can really alarm us, even sending us screaming in the other direction!  Or it can really have us confused.

We all know that caterpillars turn into butterflies.  While that critter is still in the cocoon, strange, confusing things are going on.  At some point, it’s neither caterpillar nor butterfly.  It’s in a state of metamorphosis in which it’s neither one.  That little booger is in what we might call a state of transitional goo.  That is its neutral zone.

We can see the people of Nazareth in our reading from St. Luke’s gospel as being in their own neutral zone; they are transitional goo.  (I should probably explain!)

As we begin with verses 14 and 15, Luke presents Jesus returning from the wilderness, having endured temptation.  He says of Jesus, being “filled with the power of the Spirit, [he] returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.  He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”  It’s when he comes to his hometown of Nazareth that things really get interesting.

Jesus attends “synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom,” and he reads the beginning of Isaiah 61 (v. 16).

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (vv. 18-19).  Jesus tells the people that “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

They are astonished by the way he addresses them.  They’re asking each other, “This is the son of Joseph, isn’t it?”  Dennis Bratcher says, “It seems at first that Jesus had won acceptance at Nazareth.  They marvel at the gracious words spoken by Joseph’s son now become a man.  But the people have not yet truly responded, at least not on the level necessary to engage the future that Jesus is bringing.  Beginning in verse 23…Jesus drives to the heart of the issue, and to the heart of the people.”[2]

It’s not long until Jesus reveals the feelings of ownership and control the people want to use over him.  “Hey, he’s from our town; he’s one of us!  He should do the stuff here he’s done in other places.”

But when they hear how Jesus elaborates, attitudes change pretty quickly.  He speaks of beloved prophets, Elijah and Elisha, doing good deeds for foreigners.  After all, he says, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown” (v. 24).  And it looks like they want to prove him right!

Luke tells us that “all in the synagogue were filled with rage.”  In The Message, Eugene Peterson says, “That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger.  They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom” (vv. 28-29).  But maybe there was enough confusion with people milling around, since we’re told that “he gave them the slip and was on his way” (v. 30).

I said earlier that the people of Nazareth experience their own neutral zone.  Change is going on, but their experience of that change has them emotionally paralyzed.  Families, communities, congregations:  all of them can be seen as emotional systems.  Verses 28 and 29 show us that the people in the synagogue are emotionally stuck—and they want to stick it to Jesus!

I just mentioned that change is going on.  What change could that be?  There are a number of ways to look at it.  I want to mention something we see evolving throughout the entire Bible.  Throughout salvation history, the faith gradually becomes more inclusive.

In the earliest times, each nation, each ethnic group, believes in their own god, and that’s true for the Israelites.  Their God is Yahweh, but they also believe that those other gods exist.  It’s just that they’re not supposed to follow them.  As time goes on, they come to see that the God of Israel is the one true God.  Other gods are simply idols.

With the urging of the prophets, the God of Israel is seen to be God of all the earth.  Foreigners are welcome, and indeed called, to worship this God.  And later, as the church of Jesus Christ expands throughout the Roman Empire, barriers between Jew and Gentile begin to fall.

That evolution of the faith has continued, albeit with many bumps in the road.  Interfaith dialogue continues to explore the similarities, and to clarify the differences, among our understandings of God in the twenty-first century.

The people Jesus is addressing understand all too well what he is saying.  He’s letting them know that their claim on him, and at a deeper level, their understanding of themselves as “the” people of God (that is, the only people of God), can no longer be defended.  This produces anxiety within them, but instead of handling their anxiety, their anxiety handles them!  And as we’ve seen, they want to handle Jesus!

Jesus would like to lead them in the change that is inevitable.  But as our friend Peter Steinke comments, “Leading change brings out both reactive forces and responsive ones.”[3]  That first one, reactive forces, is when we become defensive.  Sometimes people speak of instinct, the “lower brain,” or the “reptile brain.”  We sense danger; anxiety kicks in.  Anxiety is an automatic reaction to a threat, whether that threat is real or imagined.

What happens when we’re anxious?  Are we relaxed?  Or perhaps, does our chest tighten up?  Actually, “anxiety” and “angina” come from the same family of words.  When we’re anxious, we want instant answers; we see things in terms of yes-no, either-or; we literally become narrow-minded.[4]  When we feel threatened, there’s no time to take a survey!  Everything within us is screaming, “There’s no time to think!  Just do it!”

That second one that leading change brings, being responsive, is when we are reflective.  This is learned behavior.  We are free to exercise reason and creativity and imagination.  We’re free to explore possibilities.  We’re using the “upper brain.”  And it also has a physical response.  Instead of tightness, there tends to be a sense of calm.  We remember to breathe!

Both reaction and response are necessary for human life.  Without the “knee-jerk reaction,” we wouldn’t pull our hands out of the fire.  You know, when any body part is on fire, that’s not the time to assemble a focus group and brainstorm various options!

So for all its benefits, the reptile brain, the lower brain, is not very useful in building community.  We need response that’s more elevated.  In a similar way, we’re reminded that “once anxiety runs a high fever…one can never rely on insight or reasonableness or even love.”[5]

Here’s a note about the reptile brain.  At the conflict mediation training a few months ago at Stony Point, the presenter gave us some advice.  Never tell someone that they’re acting out of the reptile part of their brain.  For some reason, that usually doesn’t go well!

Having said all that, I hope I haven’t given the impression that anxiety is a bad thing.  As I just said, anxiety is a normal part of who we are as humans.  But it’s a part of us that can easily overwhelm us and drive our behavior.

Speaking of being driven by anxiety, maybe you heard about the poll that was recently released by Monmouth University.[6]  It dealt with people’s feelings about the presidential campaign.  The question was asked if this campaign has brought out the best in people or the worst in people.  A large majority, 70%, said it’s brought out the worst in us, 4% said the best, 20% said neither the best nor worst, and 5% said it’s both the best and worst.  That last 1% said they don’t know!

When asked if they’ve lost friends because of the campaign, 7% said yes.  Though in fairness, 7% also said that happens in every presidential campaign.

Again, this is one poll, so take it for what it’s worth, and remember, there really aren’t right or wrong answers.  This is just a snapshot of anxiety among us today.  Still, I would be willing to hazard a guess that it’s not every campaign in which 70% say it shows us at our worst.

Okay, I’ve touched on ways in which those in Jesus’ hometown synagogue are spending time in the neutral zone.  A good example would be Jesus’ refusal to allow them to “claim” him, and to call them to a wider vision.  In various ways, the winds of change have swept through their lives and community.

That feeling of being in the neutral zone is not unfamiliar to a congregation in an interim period.  Feelings of anxiety would be expected.  What does the future hold?  What will we do next?  Or better, who are we, and who is God calling us to be?  How is God calling us to emerge from transitional goo?

A moment ago, I spoke of how anxiety can overwhelm us.  In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul warns his sisters and brothers, “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (v. 15).

The neutral zone can be a scary place.  We can learn the wrong lessons there.  We can learn how to bully each other.  We can learn how to belittle each other.  That can be expressed in a thousand different ways.

So it’s true, the neutral zone can be a scary place.  But it’s also necessary, though not in the Star Trek sense of keeping enemies apart.  It’s necessary because that’s the time and place to re-orient ourselves.  We hold on to what is good and true from the past, but not so tightly that we cannot embrace the hopeful and hope filled future into which the Holy Spirit leads us.

[1] Peter Steinke, A Door Set Open (Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2010), Kindle edition, chapter 7, section 5, paragraph 1.

[2] www.cresourcei.org/lectionary/YearC/Cepiphany4nt.html

[3] Steinke, 2.8.8

[4] Peter Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times (Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2006), 8-9.

[5] Steinke, A Door Set Open, 2.8.8

[6] www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_US_092816

(The image “The Neutral Zone” is by David Akerson.)

I’m about to make a confession that I consider to be dangerous.  The confession is this:  I love the Bible.  I love reading and studying the Bible.  This August will mark the thirtieth anniversary of my baptism.  Back then, each day I read three chapters from the Old Testament, two from the New Testament, and a psalm.  I didn’t understand why some people would voluntarily deprive themselves of this rich treasure.

I gradually slowed down my pace.  For a long time now, each day I’ve usually read a psalm and a chapter from the rest of the Bible.  I no longer feel the “need for speed.”

Why do I say that this is a dangerous confession?  Among other things, it can be dangerous if the written word becomes an idol.  There’s even a name for worshiping the Bible in and of itself:  bibliolatry.  And bibliolatry is alive and well.  I think it’s really demonstrated when people assert, even defiantly assert, that their reading of the scriptures is the only legitimate one.  Some might even use violence!

Picking up on that theme of violence, I must say even though I love the Bible, to be honest, there are some scriptures that I find detestable.  For example, I’m thinking of places in which genocide is advocated.  There are places that promote (or at least wink at) the abuse of human beings.  It can be based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical disability, and social status, just to name a few.

However, we need not turn the Bible into a weapon.  We can keep the life-giving word of God from becoming an instrument of death.

“Yes, but how can we do that?”  Thanks for bringing it up!  That’s a good question!  We’ll look at that in a few moments, but for right now, I’ll say this much:  it involves Jesus.

Actually, even before we get to Jesus, we can see an evolution of faith in the Bible.  We can see it in stuff like forced labor and the death penalty.  But let’s deal with something that might be a little less controversial, a little less threatening.

“What are we going to eat for lunch?”

In our society, we are aware of those who have certain rules about what to eat.  There are Jews who keep kosher, Muslims who observe halal.  And on the point about Muslims, a few years ago, we hosted a forum on Islam in America since 9-11.  We had representatives from various kinds of Islam.  I made sure to remind the folks putting out the goodies in the fellowship hall to avoid anything with ham or bacon in it!

And of course, there are those with allergies and those who insist on only eating healthy food!

The business of kosher and halal involves food that is ritually clean and unclean.  In the Bible when we have regulations on what to eat and what to offer as sacrifice, ritual cleanness and uncleanness are the main focuses.

So how does Genesis 7 start out?

When we think about Noah and the ark and the great flood, we have a certain image in mind.  We learn it when we’re little kids.  Here come the animals, two by two!  What a heartwarming picture; it works very well in songs.

But then we have this.  The Lord says to Noah, “Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate” (v. 2).  I don’t know about you, but for me, this kind of kills the vibe.  It puts a damper on the spirit.  By the way, it’s the only place where Noah is specifically told to bring seven pairs of clean animals.

Why only this one time?  Maybe somebody didn’t want to hear the alternative version.  Here come the unclean animals, two by two!

Still it’s true, in chapter 6, later in 7, and in chapter 8, we’re always told that the animals arrive in pairs, whether they’re clean or not.  Some say the reason for the extra clean animals was so Noah would have enough to offer as sacrifice when the flood was all over.

Whatever the case, we have a memorable early example of clean and unclean food.

In Leviticus 11, it becomes codified, almost engraved in stone.  This is where we come to the law of Moses.  Some say certain animals are considered unclean because of concerns about hygiene, or maybe certain animal behaviors, or who knows what.  One thing we can say for sure is that this is where the priestly system, the religious institution, flexes its muscles.

As we saw earlier, pork is off the menu.  So is rabbit, which Banu and I have enjoyed from time to time.  And regarding seafood, how about shrimp and lobsters?  Unclean!  And insects (if that’s your thing)?  Some are okay, like locusts and crickets.  Butterflies and bees?  Not so much.  I wonder, does anyone know about chocolate-covered ants?

One of the problems with purity codes, in this case instructions on what to eat, is that they can become an end in themselves.  Like the Bible, they can degenerate into becoming an idol.  If we’re following this particular guideline, we can deceive ourselves into thinking that’s what pleases God.  We fool ourselves into believing we can earn God’s favor and mercy.  If we consume and offer as sacrifice only clean food (or whatever the equivalent behavior is for ourselves), we might feel that we are placating a God who, at the end of the day, really doesn’t like us!

That brings up one of the common themes among the Hebrew prophets.  It is to offer, as it frequently is, correctives in worshiping and relating to God.  For example, the prophet Hosea delivers this word from the Lord: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (6:6).  So often, the people lapse; their hearts become divided.  They substitute outer observances instead of living in the grace and love of the Lord.  And it’s reflected in their actions.

Then Jesus arrives on the scene.  He stands in the tradition of the prophets.  As with them, there continues an evolution of faith.  Jesus holds on to what is good and true and holy in the tradition, and he also re-interprets the scriptures to fit the changing realities.  He does a lot of that in the Sermon on the Mount.

We see that enlightenment about the deeper meaning of the scriptures in Mark 7.

One day, some disciples of Jesus sit down for a little snack.  That’s fine, but some Pharisees realize that they haven’t washed their hands in a ritually-approved way.  How dare they eat with defiled hands!  So they tear into Jesus and chew him out.

Jesus points out the way they’ve idolized their traditions—things that really have nothing to do with God’s love.  In fact, they put up barriers to that love.

Then he gets to the matter at hand.  He says, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (vv. 14-15).  He turns the argument that was hurled at him upside down.

With their usual clarity of understanding, his disciples later ask what the heck he was talking about.  Jesus wonders why they still haven’t got it.  Here’s where he again re-interprets and deepens the understanding of the scriptures.  Being defiled isn’t a matter of what food to eat, since it only goes into the stomach.  Being defiled is a matter of the heart, who we are in our innermost being.  That’s what clean and unclean are all about.

What comes from the outside doesn’t defile, because it travels through the body and “goes out into the sewer” (v. 19).  Most English translations are a bit squeamish in dealing with the Greek word ἀφεδρῶνα (aphedrōna), which actually means “latrine” or “toilet.”  So in case you haven’t noticed, Jesus is rather blunt in his opinion on questions of clean and unclean food.  That might be why Mark adds as an editorial note, “Thus he declared all foods clean.”

That’s a nice save Mark, considering we’re talking about what goes into a toilet!

Speaking of the toilet, Jesus lists a bunch of nasty qualities.  In verses 20 to 23, he unloads some unclean stuff.  These come out and defile us.

If Jesus hasn’t done this already, St. Paul brings in a specifically social and neighbor oriented dimension to eating clean and unclean food.  In Romans 14, he says, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean” (v. 14).  He follows Jesus in saying all food is ritually clean, but then admits there might be things people avoid for the sake of conscience.

He continues, “If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.  Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died” (v. 15).  Examples might be sitting at the table with one who finds alcohol offensive and then getting in their face with a bottle of wine or whiskey.  (Come on, have a snort of this!)  Or perhaps offering your observant Jewish neighbor a big helping of barbecued pork!

More specifically in Paul’s time, there was food that had been offered in the temples of pagan gods.  After such a ceremony, the food would be distributed to the poor.  If you’re eating with someone who makes a point of saying, “This was offered to such-and-such a deity,” then Paul says to politely refuse.  Someone might think you’re agreeing with the worship of other gods.

Again, we see the re-interpretation and deepening of the meaning of scripture.  He fits the teaching of Jesus into his own time, into his own situation.  “Do not,” Paul warns, “for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.  Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat” (v. 20).

People are more important than food.

I began with the “dangerous” confession that I love the Bible.  But as I hope we’ve seen, the written word can also serve the powers of death, not life.  It can become a weapon.  To prevent that, we need the living Word.

I said that we would look at the “less threatening” subject of food.  As I also hope we’ve seen, it can wreak its own kind of havoc.

On revisiting the question of preventing the Bible from becoming a weapon (which I said we would do), I want to offer a few comments by Richard Rohr.

“We can only safely read Scripture—it is a dangerous book [there’s that word again]—if we are somehow sharing in the divine gaze of love.  A life of prayer helps you develop a third eye that can read between the lines and find the golden thread which is moving toward inclusivity, mercy, and justice.”  He’s referring to the evolution of faith I’ve been talking about, the one that leads to greater enlightenment and deeper understanding.

What happens when we’re not moving in that direction?  “Any ‘pre-existing condition’ of a hardened heart, a predisposition to judgment…any need to win or prove yourself right will corrupt and distort the most inspired and inspiring of Scriptures—just as they pollute every human conversation and relationship.”  Quoting verses to win a fight, often quoting them out of context, turns the Bible into a weapon.  Weapons kill.

“Hateful people will find hateful verses to confirm their love of death.  Loving people will find loving verses to call them into an even greater love of life.”  That goes for all of us.  Hate leads us to search the written word and find death.  Love leads us to search the written word and find life.

As I draw near my conclusion, I want to add something that got me thinking about my subtitle: “Do we bless or distress?”

In last week’s e-letter that our presbytery’s stated clerk publishes, he mentions an incident that left him angry and hurt, but mostly sad.  He is among those who will be at the PCUSA General Assembly which begins next Saturday in Portland, Oregon.

He says he heard from a friend and colleague who he has known for decades.  This person made comments about the committee on which our stated clerk is serving and about its written statements which will be coming to this year’s Assembly.  He said the comments “were dismissive at best, derisive at worst, of the careful, deliberative work of the committee.”  He has reached out to his friend in hopes of reaching some understanding.

Still, he laments, “Disagreeing with someone’s opinion about an issue rarely can seem to take place without viewing that other person as ‘stupid,’ ‘uninformed,’ ‘ignorant.’  One can scarcely express a different viewpoint from someone without being attacked, shamed, or ridiculed.  We see it in national political discourse.  We see it in our communities.  Sadly—and shamefully, I believe—we sometimes see it within the Body of Christ, the Church.”

Unfortunately, that verifies what we’ve been looking at.

Our stated clerk commends to us a document adopted by the Presbyterian Church in 1992, “Seeking to be Faithful Together: Guidelines for Presbyterians During Times of Disagreement.”  (It is included in the Zebra links on this blog!)  He especially focuses on numbers 1 and 5: “Treat each other respectfully so as to build trust, believing that we all desire to be faithful to Jesus the Christ,” and “Focus on ideas and suggestions instead of questioning people’s motives, intelligence or integrity.”

In closing, remember that the written word without the living word, Jesus Christ, becomes rigid and stale.  It leads to death and distress, rather than to what it is meant to be, life and blessing.

Sometimes fans of certain TV shows, musical artists, or sports teams will make very lame attempts at bringing those interests into conversations.  I can assure you that this is not one of those lame attempts!  I have a very good reason for the title, “The Neutral Zone,” aside from the fact that it exists in the universe of Star Trek!

For those who don’t know, and for those who don’t care, I will give a very brief explanation.  Between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Empire there exists a region, established by treaty, which is called the Neutral Zone.  It’s more than a demilitarized zone.  Neither of those governments is supposed to send ships of any kind into that area without the consent of the other.

Now, here comes that good reason to speak of the neutral zone!  It’s a concept presented in the book, A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke.  He has done a lot of work with congregations, including those who are either in conflicted or transitional situations.

He uses the term in reflecting on work done by William Bridges, a consultant on transition management.  His theory is that “change is an event.  Our experience of the change is transition.  He cites three movements—endings, the neutral zone, and beginnings—in the transition experience.”[1]

We might think of “endings” as the chapter or the phase of life that is drawing to a close.  “Beginnings” would be the next step or the new reality that has now appeared.  It’s the middle one, “the neutral zone”—in which things seem chaotic and unsettled—that can really unnerve and alarm us.

An example from the Bible would be Isaiah 62.  It deals with the community who has returned from exile in Babylon.  They are in their own neutral zone, so to speak.

For them, the “endings” would be the time of exile, as well as the celebration and relief of homecoming.  That is disappearing, and in its place:  question marks.  It doesn’t yet feel like home.  There’s a sense of drift, a feeling of limbo.  The glorious future promised by the prophets—the “beginnings”—have yet to arrive.  Or at least, the people don’t perceive it.

We can also see the people of Nazareth in Luke 4 as being in their own neutral zone.

As we begin in verses 14 and 15, Luke presents Jesus returning from the wilderness, having endured temptation.  He says of Jesus, that being “filled with the power of the Spirit, [he] returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.  He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”  It’s when he comes to his hometown of Nazareth that things really get interesting.

Jesus attends “synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom,” and he reads the beginning of Isaiah 61 (v. 16).

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (vv. 18-19).

What is in the background is a reference to the sabbatical year and the year of jubilee, which are mentioned in Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15.  In the sabbatical year, debts are forgiven, slaves are set free, and the land enjoys its own sabbath—it’s allowed to remain fallow.

In the year of jubilee, every fifty years, property is to revert to its ancestral owners.  It’s a sort of land reform, to help prevent the extremes of the very wealthy and the very poor from remaining in place.  But it seems that these measures were rarely, if ever, followed!

In any event, this “year of the Lord’s favor” is what the returned exiles were longing for.  Now Jesus is telling the people in his hometown synagogue that “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

The people are astonished by the way he addresses them.  They’re asking each other, “This is the son of Joseph, isn’t it?”  Some say that this first reaction is one of rejection.  Something like, “Who do you think you are?”  However, Luke says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth” (v. 22).  They’re surprised, but pleasantly surprised, by his eloquence and his insight.

Dennis Bratcher notes, “It seems at first that Jesus had won acceptance at Nazareth.  They marvel at the gracious words spoken by Joseph’s son now become a man.  But the people have not yet truly responded, at least not on the level necessary to engage the future that Jesus is bringing.  Beginning in verse 23…Jesus drives to the heart of the issue, and to the heart of the people.”[2]

Jesus lays bare the sense of ownership and control the people would exercise over him.  “Hey, he’s from our town; he’s one of us!  He should do the stuff here that we’ve heard he’s done in Capernaum.”

Bratcher says, “We can almost hear them.  Why, yes, we have blind people here in Nazareth.  We are all poor and need good news…  We are oppressed and carry heavy burdens!  Yes, we want the year of the Lord’s favor, because we want the release from debts and taxes that it might bring.  Yes, we welcome this future that will bring us all we want.”

When they hear how Jesus elaborates, their attitudes change pretty quickly.  He speaks of beloved prophets, Elijah and Elisha, doing good deeds for foreigners.  After all, he says, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown” (v. 24).  And it looks like they want to prove him right, if it’s the last thing they do!

Luke tells us that “all in the synagogue were filled with rage.  They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff” (vv. 28-29).  But apparently there was enough confusion with people milling around, since we’re told that “he passed through the midst of them and went on his way” (v. 30).

I said earlier that the people of Nazareth experience their own neutral zone.  Change is going on, but their experience of that change has them emotionally paralyzed.  Families, communities, congregations:  all of them can be seen as emotional systems.  Verses 28 and 29 show us that the people in the synagogue are emotionally stuck—and they want to stick it to Jesus!

I just mentioned that change is going on.  What change could that be?  There are a number of ways to look at it.  I want to mention something we see evolving throughout the entire Bible.  Throughout salvation history, the faith gradually becomes more inclusive.

In the earliest times, each nation, each ethnic group, believes in their own god, and that’s true for the people of Israel.  Their God is Yahweh, but they also believe that the gods of the other nations actually exist.  It’s just that they’re forbidden to worship them or to follow their practices.  As time goes on, they come to see that the God of Israel is the one true God.  Other gods are simply idols.

With the urging of the prophets, the God of Israel is seen to be God of all the earth.  Foreigners are welcome, and indeed called, to worship this God.  And with the advent of Jesus (and absolutely with the early church), the barriers between Jew and Gentile begin to fall.

That evolution of the faith has continued, with many bumps in the road.  Interfaith dialogue continues to explore the similarities, and to clarify the differences, among our understandings of God in our twenty-first century world.

The people Jesus is addressing understand all too well what he is saying.  He’s letting them know that their claim on him, and at a deeper level, their understanding of themselves as “the” people of God (that is, the only people of God), can no longer be defended.  Their faith must expand.  This produces anxiety within them, but instead of handling their anxiety, their anxiety handles them!  And as we’ve seen, they want to handle Jesus!

Jesus would like to lead them in the change that is inevitable.  But as our friend Peter Steinke comments, “Leading change brings out both reactive forces and responsive ones.”[3]  That first one, reactive forces, is when we become defensive.  Sometimes people speak of instinct, the “lower brain,” or the “reptile brain.”  We sense danger; anxiety kicks in.  Anxiety is an automatic reaction to a threat, whether that threat is real or imagined.

What happens when we’re anxious?  Are we relaxed?  Or perhaps, does our chest tighten up?  Actually, “anxiety” and “angina” come from the same family of words.  When we’re anxious, we want instant answers; we see things in terms of yes-no, either-or; we literally become narrow-minded.[4]  When we feel threatened, there’s no time to take an opinion poll!  Everything within us is screaming, “There’s no time to think!  Just do it!”

The second force that leading change brings, being responsive, is when we are reflective.  This is learned behavior.  We are free to exercise reason and creativity and imagination.  We’re free to explore possibilities.  We’re using the “upper brain.”  And it has a physical response.  Instead of tightness, there tends to be a sense of calm.  We remember to breathe!

Both reaction and response are necessary for human life.  With the “knee-jerk reaction,” we quickly pull our hands out of the fire.  But the reptile brain is not very useful in building community.  We need response that’s more elevated.  In a similar way, we’re reminded that “once anxiety runs a high fever…one can never rely on insight or reasonableness or even love.”[5]

Having said all that, we shouldn’t get the impression that anxiety is a bad thing.  It’s not that anxious people are bad people.  As just suggested, anxiety is a normal part of who we are as humans.  But it’s a part of us that can easily overwhelm us and drive our behavior.

Maybe we can see ways in which both those who’ve returned from exile in Babylon, as well as those in Jesus’ hometown synagogue, have spent some time in the neutral zone.  In various ways, the winds of change have swept through their lives and communities.

That feeling of being in the neutral zone is not unfamiliar to a congregation in an interim period.  Feelings of anxiety would be expected.  I’m sure many can attest to that.  To be honest, my efforts to learn new skills in being a non-anxious (or lesser anxious) presence never end.

A moment ago, I spoke of how anxiety can overwhelm us.  In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul warns his sisters and brothers, “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (v. 15).  He’s addressing a different matter, but I think his words can still be applied to the subject at hand.

The neutral zone can be a scary place.  We can learn the wrong lessons there.  We can learn how to bully each other.  We can learn how, in ever so slight a way, to belittle each other.  And that can be expressed in a thousand different ways.

So it’s true, the neutral zone can be a scary place.  But it’s also necessary, though not in the Star Trek sense of keeping enemies apart.  It’s necessary because that’s the time and place to re-orient ourselves.  We hold on to what is good and true from the past, but not so tightly that we cannot embrace the future into which the Holy Spirit is leading us.

Remember, before Jesus deals with the hometown crowd, he is filled, not with the power of his own ideas, but with the power of the Spirit.

On this date in 1968, the world lost one of the great spiritual figures of the 20th century, Thomas Merton.  From his monastery in Kentucky, he was a prolific writer.  He commented, of course, on so-called “spiritual” topics, but he also had great insights into art, culture, social issues, and politics.  In his final years, he made major strides into interfaith dialogue, especially with Buddhism and Zen.  In fact, he was at a conference in Thailand pursuing those aims when, going back to his room, he was electrocuted by a faulty fan.

Merton had a keen understanding of something we seem to have regressed on:  torture.  The report on CIA torture that was finally released is testimony to that.  How sadly appropriate this comes as we observe Human Rights Day.

In his book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, he speaks of torture as a struggle of the individual against a bankrupt process.  (Forgive the gender-exclusive language!)

“He who is tortured is reduced to a condition in which nature speaks instead of freedom, instead of conscience. Pain speaks, not the person. Torture is the instrument of those who fear personality, fear responsibility, and wish to convince themselves again and again that personality does not really exist. That freedom is weaker than natural necessity. That the person can be silenced by the demands of nature.

“In the calculated use of torture there is also a special evil. The person is pitted against the process in such a way that the process infallibly wins. From the inmost sanctuary of the individual person there is extracted, by means of torture, not the voice of the person, but the voice of the process. The tortured one does not merely echo the process, but he finally utters, from his own inmost self, the ‘confession of faith’ which bears witness to the reality of the process, and to the abdication of his own spiritual freedom.” (Kindle edition, 2.57.1-2)

We often think of torture as violating one’s rights, one’s human dignity—and it certainly is that.  But even more, it is an assault on the human spirit.  We Americans can begin to address that evil, in part, by bringing the responsible parties to justice—not by simply releasing a report.

[originally posted on 10 Dec 2014]