...And a Cup of Cold Water..

7/2

At Oakdale

Oakdale, Pennsylvania is still its own little town in what is now the ever expanding greater airport sector of Pittsburgh. Once a farm town, it’s most historic moment was probably the great munitions factory explosion of 1918.  And probably more than one recent devastating flooding experience. There’s a long tradition of girl’s softball. A corner store/deli named Sil’s where I was  greeted with a slivovitz toast to welcome 1995. And a Presbyterian Church I was blessed to serve in 1994-1995.

Some in Presbytery were surprised when I went there because by reputation they were conservative evangelical and I was thought to be beyond liberal.  But in the sermons I preached before I came I took the Bible seriously. Very seriously. And I could see their highest value was community. As was mine. They had just been through a young pastor who had demanded a much beloved community member  who would do anything for the church had to give up what the young pastor deemed to be an immoral relationship. That was not going to work in Oakdale. 

I will always remember the elder who said to me, Pastor, sometimes you just have to set principle aside and do what’s right. And of course we shared Steelers. And Pirates. And Penguins. Black and gold. 

There was also a marvelous mythic story about one of the community’s only Jewish members facing down the Ku Klux Klan, cooking a potato on the burning cross and staring the leader into beating a hasty retreat from this clearly dangerously crazy person. 

It was a beautiful year. After having my own interest in music reawakened, I shared that gift with them. A pastor/lounge singer friend of  mine and I put together a band and did a special Christmas concert. And my aunt helped put together a Christmas choir. And my friend Dan joined us and we did music together. He gave me a set of new strings when I left.  

After 20 years, last year I was coming back to Pittsburgh for  a wedding. And wanted to play a gig so I called Dan to join me. And he invited me to join his band for a church street fair and Sunday morning.  I met the new pastor, a dynamic young woman named Robin who had come to them following a painful congregation split. She basically wrapped them in love and opened the doors wide. At the street fair …and on Sunday morning…the new emerging inclusive community was clearly visible. (A visible as tattoos!) Her supportive camp director husband and new child were welcome additions to the community. I could feel the quiet vibrancy and grown sense of self-confidence. 

So I was saddened to learn that this year Robin and family and returned to New Zealand. And so I made plans to come back to Oakdale and share a Sunday with those who had remained faithful. And of course sing with Dan….

Dan and Bob

These were my reflections in the Sunday before the 4th of July…

                                                                     

                                                                 ****

                                           And a cup of cold water….

There is so much that we could  talk about. It’s the  4th of July weekend. The first thing I  think about is not fireworks but cook outs…hot dogs hamburgers, baked beans, especially baked beans the way my mother made them. …In New York City where I live, the day this is the public swimming pools open....

I have two very distinct memories…It was 1976, the bicentennial year…I had been invited to Pawnee, Oklahoma for the annual Pawnee nation reunion and pow wow. An elder in my congregation was the former chief. In Tulsa, he worked for the postal service. But with his people he was a chief. For the week of the pow wow, all economic differences from the outside world were set aside and the people lived communally from a common store house. The pow wow opens with “flag song”…not the Star Spangled  banner, as I light have expected, but a song about the young men who went away to fight for the US in foreign wars… a welcome home  for those who came back and a song of morning for  those who did not…One of the sons was a trader in Indian jewelry. And he gave me a ring from the southwest of turquoise and coral..It’s gone through a lot, been lost and regained twice. But I have essentially worn it every day for 40 years…and am wearing it today.

It was 1983 in Nicaragua…during the peak of the  contra war…Our country, my country, supporting those contras.  So I was understandably shocked to see our flag flying high at their foreign ministry…we always honor countries that are celebrating  their revolutions they said .

Set all that aside a moment…I want to get deeper  into the 4th…but through the scriptures…

First, the story of Isaac… in all honesty, this is a troubling and disturbing story…what is its point? What is it about? Remember how Isaac and Sarah could not bear children? And then finally Sarah gets pregnant and laughs…and that child is Isaac, the sound of laughter…Isaac…the one he loves…(Uh, but what about Ishmael? Ismail? In Islam, it’s him…well, actually, it’s a complicated history, but most Muslims believe it was Ismail/Ishmael who was bound. And Abraham  tells him what is going on and and he agrees and encourages his father..and rolls over so his father won’t see his face. So it will be easier. We could certainly explore that. 

But imagine how Abraham would feel…asked to sacrifice his beloved son…isn’t there a question to ask here?…

Is this really a test? Some say the real test was that Abraham was supposed to refuse…BUT…that doesn’t seem accurate to story..

Historians say this story is a mythic explanation of the end of child sacrifice. among the Hebrews.  BUT…stay inside the story..some say this experience affects Isaac for the rest of his life…that he never felt quite completely  safe..always somewhat wary of this strange God.

Was this really about Isaac’s faith? (“God will provide…” he says. Does he truly believe this? Is this an affirmation, when God provides the lamb?)

Dan and I sang Leonard Cohen’s telling of this story…he wrote it at the peak of the Vietnam era…he saw sacrifice of children as not inspired by awe for wonder or wrestling with a demon or the lord…or mystery…….(I need to say, I believe we could use a draft….where all of us must share the define of our country equally…we would  all wrestle with the sense of any particular war …instead, for most of us, wars are fought by other people’ children…wearing camo sports uniforms isn’t quite enough….) 

Okay…Question one ….how would you feel?

 God honors Abraham because: 

…since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me….

One could argue, that in Jesus, this is exactly what God does….

But I need to be honest…I can’t roll with the idea that we are so bad, God requires a blood sacrifice to excuse us and set us free and thereby kills his own son…this is not someone, this is not a God  I would want to be with…this is a frightening  character…

BUT..what if God is saying…I love these people so much, i want to know them them. What it feel like to be them….I will join them in their midst…I will send my very son to live with them…show them how to live…even if knowing them, it will me cost his life…I‘ll go that far…for love…And that is a God I can go with..

Leonard Cohan doesn’t judge Abraham..he allows the mystery..and awe..to remain …when my father’s hand was trembling with the beauty of the word…

He does criticize those who sacrifice  children with no vision, no wrestling with demons or God…

And here’s where I’m easing back into the 4th of July…are there ways in which innocent children are being  sacrificed today? Or perhaps what kind of world are we  leaving our children?  I’m asking you to answer that question, talk about it with your friends…and ask what then are we to do?….

I can’t leave this without a word from Jesus..(that’s, after all, why we’re here…) Jesus says:

whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

The wife of my predecessor pastor at West Park, Evelyn Davidson believed that the LGBTQ community felt abandoned by the church …and that in Jesus name we were called to show a different face, the face of Jesus.  So she set up a water table to pass out cos of cold water to hot marchers ash the PRIDE march. Literally a cup of cold water in Jesus name…To this day, volunteers pass out water on PRIDE Sunday at the Evelyn Davidson Memorial Water Table…And so I ask you…who is hot and tired?  Who is thirsty? For water? Thirsty for love? Oh if only every child were as loved as the children I know of this  congregation…

That’s what we do…we can offer cool water in Jesus name…to ALL  and I do mean ALL God’s children…..

Let those with ears to hear, hear….

Amen

                                         ****

Our music was truly fun.

Bob, Dan and Jamie

Terry who as a teenager played for Oakdale is still there at the keyboard 22 years later. We sang Dan’s Johnny Cash inspired “C-Minus Christian” and closed with my Teddy Mape’s memorial “Rest Awhile..”

                                                                     "Rest Awhile"

                                                                             ****

I shared these words with my final prayers…

You were truly blessed by Pastor Robin…she brought love and light and laughter back here….you have courageously stayed faithful both before and after her and as you prepare for a  new pastor you bring that faithfulness as a gift…

In the future, we will need communities that can sustain themselves with or without a pastor…it all depends on mutual accountability…this is what is needed..

1.Be there for one another…always

2. Study together …with discipline and commitment

3. Worship…celebrate…share at a deep level…without reference as to how, when or where…

4. Act together…

You can do this…you have done this

Thanks for all you gave to me and my family…

                                            ****

There was time for goodbyes to so many special people. Like the Kehms, part of the glue that holds it all together.

Bob and Eleanor

(Along with so many more..) And recovering my shoes as I left to go to a Pirate game a year ago…and found them here in the same place a year later…and yes, on may way to another game today….

Being there for Mohamed Bah

6/30

Mohamed Bah was a 28 year old immigrant from Guinea. A cab driver. A student. A  devout Muslim. A Harlem neighbor. And a son. His smother was concerned about him and called for emergency medical assistance. She got police instead. And Mohamed was shot dead. The story the police told was simple enough. As usual, they were quickly exonerated 

But aa the case has been examined and studied, stories have unravelled, key pieces of evidence “disappeared” and a critical gun shot, when Mohamed was already incapacitated, came not from below, as in defense, but from above as an execution. Finally, five years later, hearings have begun. In Federal court. 

Part of the tragedy is that these events have become so common, details of any individual case are hard to keep track of. There are almost too many to protest. But there is a more personal connection here. One of our colleagues, Imam Konate, was the leader of Mohamed’s spirit home. And has stood beside his mother, Hawa, throughout the long ordeal. He came to the interfaith circle of the Micah Faith Leaders Table seeking our presence.  And we have joined him in support for Mama Bah. 

To walk the streets of Harlem’s Little Africa with Imam Konate is like walking a neighborhood with my favorite Irish parish priest friend. Imam Konate nods a greeting to all he passes on the street, In the Shabazz Market, he seems to know every vendor by name. During midday prayers, the cab drivers park in a long double line in front of his mosque. Though constantly on the verge of being pushed out by the rising tide of gentrification, the Imam is part of the glue that holds this diaspora of francophone Africa together. 

The Patrick Moynihgan Federal Court House

The Federal Court building looms imposingly over Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. After passing through the airport like security check, I’m surprised to have to surrender my phones well. It makes me feel very anxious to give it up.

I go to the 11th floor and discover the courtroom is already filled to overflowing. They are directing people to an overflow room three floors up where the proceedings are on closed circuit television. I look around the room….there are African Muslims in long flowing robes. And Imam Talib, the dean of African-American Muslim clergy. Women like Debra Almontraser, founder of the Kahlil Gibran Arab culture focus public school until hounded, harassed and harangued by the Post and its allies until the Board of Ed buckled and removed her. Leaders like housing activist Marc Greenberg and Micah’s Peter Heltzel. Other clergy of various denominations. Rev.Dr. Caryn Di Carlo, a former police officer, the passionate Bishop Ray Blanchette.

At the break time, I will see Labor-Religion’s Rabbi Michael Feinberg. And current Muslim lightning rod Linda Sarsour, Palestinian American, organizer of the Women’s march, our go between with the Justice League and the grassroots leadership of Black Lives Matter. Under unrelenting attack by FOX news and the mainstream Jewish establishment. And, sadly, death threats to herself and family. And Muslim women in their robes. The reason for their  presence here is obvious. 

And there are the ubiquitous Revolutionary Communists in their black t-shirts. Leaving aside my puzzlement around the whole “BA”(Bob Avakian) devotion deal, I am fascinated by the Rev Coms.They are always there. Always present. Perhaps that’s why Cornell West will appear with, work with, them. They are disciplined. Committed. And always there. I wish there were a progressive Christian community, not just the usual cadre of progressive clergy, but an identifiable and visible community of witness and presence that like the Rev Coms was always there. In the name of Jesus. Muslims. The progressive clergy cohort collective. And the Rev Coms. Presente. Important for the judge to know we are watching. This case will be watched. 

The wheels of justice grind slow. The day drags on, through the minute details of how the evidence came to be lost and/or damaged and/or…..Well, there was Super Storm Sandy, you know? Well, the officer in charge? Well, retired….

Will there be justice for Mohamed Bah? Even proximate justice? That remains to be seen. We will continue to bear witness. At the least, the Department of Justice has to respond to how people with mental illness are dealt with. A special investigation by the Washington Post showed at least 125 people with symptoms of mental illness killed by police in the first half of 2015. 

And so we watch. And listen. And wait……

Update: So... what's up with West Park? This blog?

1/16/17

Pastor Robert Brashear

Update

The West Park Press began seven years ago as a way to track the daily progress of the project of bringing an (essentially) abandoned building and exiled congregation back to life. For at least five years we tracked the daily ins and outs of a classic urban ministry and an ever shifting cast of characters. From Occupy Wall Street to performances of music and theater of awesome creativity and beauty (cf. Woodshed Theatre Collective, Noche Flamenca....) to the struggles of a small community and all the crazy and wonderful people who came up the steps and into the church.  Over the last year or so, we’ve gone more weekly and focused on theological reflections. It has been the story of one church…one building…as seen through the eyes of one pastor.

Close readers may have noticed another shift. On March 1st, I officially retired from West Park as pastor and my 22 years of ministry there were celebrated on March 23rd. I continue to lead Bible Study on Monday nights and continue to advise the program committee of the Center at West Park, a center that grew out of my vision. (And the inspiration and work of Amanda…and Katherine who brought Mim and Ted and Asya….and so many others…). And of course continue to play at the Open Mic. 

We are now in a new place. The building has, for all intents and purposes, been saved from threatened demolition. Over half a million dollars of internal repairs, mainly of water damage, have been accomplished. No longer do we have the feeling of being somewhere between Berlin and Brooklyn, or even Havana. That is both an accomplishment and also an occasion for some sadness because as the renewal continues some of the funkiness and openness goes away. The more there is to protect, the more important money becomes. And voices of caution grow louder. There is still much to be done on the exterior and that still requires the active  involvement of the community. An ownership of its preservation as an integral part of the community’s cultural heritage as a collective responsibility is necessary. 

The Center at West Park is now up and running. It exists to inspire the transformation of the individual and society through arts and culture, social action, intergenerational education and spiritual exploration. Community preservation of the building is also part of its mission. And the center has an Executive and Artistic Director, Zach Tomlinson, whose wedding I will be doing next week,. Zach was ataracted by my vision. He’s marrying Sarah Zapiler (who authored the all time most read post on this blog). And who created and curated our 100th anniversary celebration and taught us to Dream.Real. Hard.  The Center is in good hands.

The congregation of West Park is still seeking its future. It does intend to be small but fierce. In light of the current reality of old mainline denominations,  it also seeks to find a sense of stability and sustainability independent of a professional pastor. It desires to be a community that would covenant to:

1. Be there for each other. Especially when it hits the fan.
2. Engage in disciplined study together.
3. Worship together, without regard to where or when but with regard to real sharing of one with another.
4. Act together for justice.   

The ideas are right. Making them real will be the challenge.

I come to this time with a sense of accomplishment. But also regret at what hasn’t happened. The missed opportunities, lost chances. Some don’t return. The times I  failed to follow my inner voice and listened instead to experts. 

As for me, I will  continue to explore the world of urban ministry, especially along the intersection of beauty and justice and ethics and esthetics with a special commitment to exploring creation as resistance.  Based in New York City but other places as well. I will continue to tell the West Park story but other stories as well.  Therefore the name will inevitably, sooner than later, change. Keep watching the space for more updates. And there will be forwarding in the meantime. 

This has been an intriguing venture. Sometimes our readership has reached over 19000 a month. We’ve had readers from around the world, with large numbers from France and Russia and China, but many other countries as well.  I have always wondered who you are and why you check in. As I move forward, I would sincerely appreciate hearing from you about what drew you to this site, what has kept you coming and what would ket you reading in the future. I would lobe for this  to be an ongojng conversation.

Over the next few weeks, I will do several articles wrapping up my “official” West Park time and also continuing some other explorations we have already begun.  I look forward to your being with us on the journey.

Break the Walls

6/6

The Wall

So what can I do? is a question artists often ask themselves related to the difficult social issues of our time. Especially with a seemingly intractable issue like the Israel-Palestine conflict, or more appropriately, the struggle of the Palestinian people for justice. Last night at the Lark Theatre Center in New York, the Break the Wall Theatre Project provided one valuable answer to that question. 

Inspired by the controversy around Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Jewish_Children), and Churchill’s making the play available for free for performance by anyone (you can read the whole text here: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/feb/26/caryl-churchill-seven-jewish-children-play-gaza), Ismail Khalidi and David Zellnik have conceived and produced their own project, Break the Wall.

Conceptually, BTW refers both to the wall of separation built by Israel but also the fourth wall between stage and audience. BTW  intends to break through these walls. 

It’s first stage, celebrated by the launch, invited a variety of playwrights to write short plays on the struggle. All the resulting plays will be made available in an online archive for any who would like to perform them. The goal is to gather 50 plays within a year.

The plays presented Monday night were illustrative of the values that drive the project. There were common threads that run through all the plays. Among these is  the importance of approaching the issue through interpersonal relationships. Each play  (with one exception, Yussef El Guindi’s the Monologuist), is essentially a painful conversation about the issue between people who care about each other. The plays suggest that it is in the intensity of these conversations, as opposed to dialectical debate, that some understanding might come. 

That of course, is another recurring theme. The ongoing struggle of Palestinians to even be heard, let alone understood, even by people who are emotionally involved with each other at one level or another flowed through the plays.

Perhaps most importantly, the plays demand that we give up a balanced view. That in a situation with such an overwhelming imbalance of power …military, economic and political….a balanced view is morally untenable. It is to the credit of these artists that this point is made through the art, not through didactic moralism. You understand by being drawn into the relationships. 

While all the plays are of comparable quality, I went because of a long relationship with playwright Stan Richardson (co-founder of the Representatives .. http://therepresentatives.org/). Several of Stan’s plays have been produced at West Park, including the recent Edinburgh Fringe festival bound production of Private Manning goes to Washington.) Stan’s contribution, the Montagues, uses his typical command of relational conversation and the connections and gaps between us ending in his two characters’ passionate plea for help. In other words, exactly where we are. And  he doesn’t tell us what help means. We’ve got to figure that out. 

(It was also good to see longtime West Park friend Lynne Marie Rosenberg in several plays. She was a key cast member of the Woodshed Collective’s ground breaking immersive production of the Tenant that helped reopen West Park. http://www.woodshedcollective.com/the-tenant/)

Thanks to BTW for this demonstration of what artists can do in the struggle for justice while staying true to their art. The plays are there to read…and perform…in the theatre, in homes, in church, in the street…

For information about Break the Wall...and scripts...go to http://www.breakthewallproject.org/

What do we do now?

5/21/17

Historic note…Good Shepherd Faith Church started as a mission project by West  Church. It’s original property was bought from West Church for the sum of $1 and the first service in the new building came in 1887.

The Good Shepherd

Today it is the last non-Lincoln Center or Julliard building on the block…There has always been a close friendship between West Park and GSF so it was a fitting place for my first sermon after retiring from West-Park…

Guest at Good-Shepherd Faith

Christ the King

Here’s what I  had to say:

Well,I think we could all agree that we live in….different times….they are unlike anything I have lived through in my lifetime before. A bit like living in an alternative reality. With no clear idea of what is going to  happen next.  

Looking up from the altar

So what then are we to do? I’m not going to say a whole lot about the political work that may need to be done beyond a reminder that in our tradition, no political candidate or party can ever be the full expression of the will of God. Every government needs to be  held accountable. It’ sour traditional Calvinist understanding that none of us is perfect, that we all fall short.  And that we need the shared collective wisdom of all of us to figure out our path. And that all of us together are smarter than any one of us.  That’s the Presbyterian way of doing things. And that our American republican form of government was inspired by Presbyterian polity. 

I believe that more than ever we need to be building and strengthening Christian  communities. Communities of people committed to following Jesus.  I was developing a seminar and used the phrase “…in the age of Trump…”. And my partner corrected me, “No…this is the age of Jesus…and will be…”  It’s a matter of where we see the ultimate authority.  

Our former Presbyterian Church (USA) moderator Rick Ufford-Chase has said that our communities need these marks, or commitments:

1. That we will be there for each other (when it hits the fan…)
2. To engage in disciplined study together
3. To worship together (sharing at the deepest level)
4. To act together

So…in the church year we’re in the season of Easter, almost to Pentecost. Jesus is talking to his disciples as to what to expect without him physically present. it’s kind of like that for us. He says this at the Last Supper.  So we’ll see what he has to say, how it might relate to living in Christian community. 

It begins with LOVE…so easy to talk about….

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments..” It’s pretty clear…that conditional IF…if we love him, we will keep his commandments…There’s  a saying among my Jewish friends that it’s more importing to obey God than to believe in God.  (Last summer at the Wild Goose Festival I heard someone say, “I don’t believe in God, but I love His with all my heart…” I’m thinking of Simone Weil, the French philosopher who once lived on the Upper West Side. 

At 549 Riverside Drive the plaque says:

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is given to very few minds to notice that things and beings exist. Since my childhood I have not wanted anything else but to receive the complete revelation of this before dying.

She also said, “Love is not consolation, it is light”

 She said that in society, we are wrong to focus so much on rights. What we need to focus on is obligations. It’s interesting that as anti-Judaism as she was, her approach to ethics is so within the tradition. And of course, for Jesus, the two most important commandments, “to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and to love you neighbor as yourself.”

Now it gets more interesting.  He will leave us another Advocate…not sure if you know this or not, but for Jesus, Satan, the one he knew as tempter, was like the prosecuting attorney. For me it’s like that accusing voice oil your head that never lets up. I think it’s like that for most of us…with the exception of say, Bernie Madoff…the voice that questions you, fills you with self doubt…

So the Advocate…is the defense attorney…Jesus uses this wonderful phrase “…the Spirit of Truth…”  I have a friend who says one of her problems with liberal Christians, liberals in general, is the constant relativity of truth…as an artist (and a Christian) she believes her work needs to be true…for me it’s like when you hear a piece of music, or see a performance and everything inside of you goes YES…

I’m thinking Jesus was like that for people…they saw him in action, and everything inside said YES….none of this Pontius Pilate,”what is truth?”  

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life…” There is no separation between love and obedience….Ofelia Ortega, a minister from Cuba, once came to a Presbyterian General Assembly whose theme, based on an old hymn, was LOVE SO AMAZING……In her assembly sermon, she's said No me quire amor maravillosa pero amor eficaz…that is I don’t want love amazing, I want effective love…

The image Jesus uses is that we will not be orphaned…in his day, that also meant not only without parents, but without resources…that’s why throughout the old testament we hear the phrase “widows and orphans…” the most marginalized and vulnerable..and for some of us today, that being without parents, children or relatives…that feeling of a-loneness..is not uncommon in this city…

…you in me and I in you….he says….

It is we who need to be the hands and feet and heart of Jesus now..to hold each other up, to heal hurt, especially the aloneness, to be there for each other. The reformer Zwingli always said that in communion, it is not the bread and wine that is transformed, but it is we who become the body of the risen Lord…

Let me make it clear here…we are entering into…already are…in a time when being a Christian is not so much a system of beliefs but a way of life….to love Jesus, in his terms, the true leap of faith is obedience….

We are also entering into a time when more and more  churches will not be able to afford full time pastors. (More than half of New York City Presbytery…) That means to me that we need to create communities that have cohesion and coherence and sustainability even without a regular pastor. 

You are to be commended for the community you have and are creating here…

I will close with these words…

They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Following the service, a visitor said that Simone Weil was very special to him and that he appreciated the reference to her.  It felt good to preach again….it was a good Sunday morning…

Looking for Jesus with Reza Aslan

5/18/17

In 2013, Reza Aslan was at the center of controversy and  popular media attention with the release of his book, Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. What really put Aslan in the public eye…while greatly boosting his book sales..was an over the top hostile interview by FOX TV’s Lauren Green. Critics had a field day writing with the thinly veiled condescension of his lack of scholarly credentials, lack of awareness of most recent scholarship, and the validity of his conclusions. At the end of the day, Zealot did not really deserve the criticism or the controversy. It is a good book, extremely (and entertainingly) well written, and with source validation. (Aslan does his notes as essays at the back of the book..)It does not break new ground in the search for the historic Jesus nor are its conclusions particularly radical. It was written not for the  academy but for the general book buying public.

Raised as a Muslim with a brief experience as a “Born again Christian,”  Aslan felt drawn in to his own search for the historical Jesus. (A search I might add that seems less important as time goes by except as curiosity..) After a vibrant and detailed description of first century Palestine, especially Jerusalem and the Galilee, perhaps the best part of the book, Aslan then describes the world of First Century Judaism in which Jesus’ life and ministry will be lived. For anyone who has ever made their way through the intricately detailed descriptions of the Temple and its practises in Leviticus and Numbers, Aslan brings it into life with all its sounds and smells earthiness and wonder. That alone makes the book worthwhile.

After examining  his evidence, Aslan concludes that Jesus was a charismatic working class Jewish activist (with skills in healing arts, magic and exorcism) but mainly a firebrand who was dedicated to ending the shared hegemony of the Roman empire and their ethno-religious elite Jewish collaborators. (Aslan draws heavily from John Meier's A Marginal Jew..) Jesus’ understanding of his own Messianic role remain somewhat uncertain.

He then has the task of trying to determine how this one particular zealot managed to break beyond his own timeline and inspire the creation of a global religion. And here Aslan must explore the difference, and the gap between, Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the Christ of the Church. And for all his clarity of the compromised nature of much of scripture, he nevertheless draws much of his information from them. He ultimately finds the church with two realities, one still connected to the Jewish community ethnically and religiously, led by Jesus’ brother James, and the other the global universal missionary religion primarily founded by Paul of Tarsus. And this is the version that will ultimately win out.

In the end, where does this leave us? For Christian social activists, if Aslan’s portrait of Jesus is right, we should spend some time in reflecting on what it means about our commitment to pacifism and non-violent social change. If the “real” Jesus was open to change by any means necessary, what does that mean for us? To the extent that Aslan brings the historic context of Jesus  vividly alive, it’s a call to having an equally detailed understanding of our own context into which we bring our reality of Jesus. it It’s worth spending some time on these questions, even if the truth is that more important than the historic Jesus is the Christ of the Church as he has come to be understood, and known, over all these years.

It is the Jesus of Gandhi and King and the Trocmes and  Dorothy Day that will be definitive for the new radical emerging communities dedicated to Christianity, not as a belief system but as a way of life that demands mutual accountability, discipline and love. A new kind of zealot, if you

 will, informed by the Jesus of history but sustained by the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

Reza Aslan’s is a good read and worth your time, if only for the graphic experience of Jesus ‘ context. 

As one final note, Reza Aslan is one of the advisors and producers for the apocalyptic HBO speculative drama the Leftovers…a show that takes loss and mystery and faith seriously. One more reason to watch….