Meditation on "Who do You Trust?" #1

Who do you trust?

Ann Lamott is coming to town on Wednesday. You’re invited to hear her speak at the Holland Center at 7PM. Doors open at 6 PM and the event is free. Your friends at our UNO campus ministry have read her works and believe she has an honest integrity and speaks truth. If you need transportation, please let me know by phone or email and we will arrange something for you.

Let me share how she came to be sponsored by a connected group of progressive congregations.

Creighton University offered Ms. Lamott, even though she is not Catholic, the opportunity to lecture on behalf of a women’s health series. This is normal, well and good. However, in her most recent book, published after the contract between Creighton University and Lamott was finalized, she speaks about euthanasia and abortion as options that do not always deserve condemnation. Certain folks in the Catholic hierarchy and in the associated Creighton medical community saw a chasm between accepted Catholic teaching and what Lamott had written. They discovered boundary issues. Discussion with Lamott followed and the contract was revoked.

Let me say Creighton has to walk a fine line here. As an academic institution, it needs to welcome new ways of thinking and be on the edge of academia., or we’ll continue to think the earth is the center of the universe. On the other hand, it cannot flaunt traditional Catholic teaching and expect no consequences. Like most of life’s decisions, this was not a clean cut, but looked jagged and bloody.

A group of leaders from progressive congregations in Omaha (from the denominations that support our campus ministry at UNO, yea!), quickly decided Ann Lamott should definitely come to Omaha to speak because she has some deep and valid things to say about God, Jesus, her teenage son, Sam, politics in our nation, and her own faith journey. These are powerful and accessible stories of faith (how God is with us in coping with alcoholism, power in the family and such). Within 24 hours, the new deal was done and she’s coming on Wednesday. There is room for 2,000 of our closest friends and I hope you’ll join us.

So who and what do you trust? Church teachings? Authority figures? Your gut feeling? If it feels good, do it? The Jesus who broke rules and demanded expected much and demanded change? The Jesus who was traditional?

The way we answer these questions speaks to how we view ourselves: are you a person who needs to be told what to do and how to act in order to be offered salvation? Are you a person who needs to make his/her own decision without reference to traditional ways of thinking? or are you someone who is comfortable with God and trusts that God is not vindictive if you listen and question and creates room for varied opinion? These questions go to the very core of how we view ourselves as people and God’s children.

We may not get all this understood and answered by Wednesday, but I hope you continue your dialogue with God!

John 2:

3The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
23When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.