Denver Community Church

Spiritual Formation Podcast: Advent 2020 – Week 1

At DCC we believe that as we explore and participate in the life of Jesus, we become a healing presence in the world. Part of participating in the life of Jesus is actively engaging our interior worlds. This involves exploring who we are, the Divine in us, and the ways in which God uniquely speaks to and leads us. Contemplative prayer practices are a great way to cultivate this in our lives. As you sit at home, or perhaps as you take a walk, simply download the podcast and you will be guided in a contemplative prayer practice.

November 15, 2020: Drunk, Naked and Passed Out – Michael Hidalgo

After the flood narrative Noah, who apparently was quite the gardener plants a vineyard, ferments the grapes, drinks the wine (too much wine), gets schnockered and then passes out naked in his tent. His son Ham walks in on him and sees him in all his miserable glory, and goes to find his brothers Shem and Japheth to tell them about dad. It feels like a moment in a frat house: Connor, after a heavy night of drinking, passes out face down in the bathroom buck naked. Aiden walks in and sees him, laughs, goes to get his phone because he’s absolutely got to get a picture of this, and he tells Justin because he’ll think it’s hilarious!

 

That aside, Shem and Japheth find little humor in the situation, put a blanket over their shoulders, walk into the tent backward so as not to see their father’s nakedness, and lay it over him. The next morning Noah hears about Ham and is furious. He says, “Cursed be Canaan!” Canaan being one of Ham’s boys. Interesting isn’t it? Why Canaan? Why not one of his other sons - say Cush or Egypt or Put. Canaan didn’t see Noah naked, Ham did. Not only did Noah curse Canaan, he praised Japheth and Shem (Abram was his descendant) - blessing them. So this hatred of Canaan goes way back, and the praise of the Shem goes way back too.

 

We see this trend through the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets and the people of Israel really pile it on Canaan, but not just him. Ham’s descendants include people from Babylon, Assyria (Nineveh anyone?), Egypt was the father of … well Egypt the brutal slave overlords, the Philistines (the longtime nemesis of Israel) and Sidon, the Hittites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Hivite, Arkites, Amorites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. All of them enemies of the God and his people. This rift and hatred runs deep - generations deep. But then comes Jesus.

Jesus goes through Sidon, a big no-no. It’s there he encounters a Phoenician woman … and who else was a Phoenician woman from Sidon? Jezebel; the woman who epitomized all the evil that came from Ham’s lineage. And what does Jesus do? He heals her daughter and praises her faith. It’s no wonder then people from Sidon bring their sick to Jesus to be healed. Jesus even says it’s going to be better for Sidon than for the people of Israel … better to be Ham than Japheth.

This points toward a way to help us understand the Bible and God and all the violence. Simply put: if it doesn’t look like Jesus then it’s not an accurate picture of God. Because Jesus is the very face of God who is love. It is through him, his life, teaching and love that we come to know God. So what if that is what we gave ourselves to?

November 8, 2020: What the Hell? – Nick Elio

If the violence of God was only in the Hebrew Scriptures, we might be able to move on with a bit of a wince and keep going. However, we are met with the violence of God for all eternity when it comes to the threat of hell that suddenly rears its ugly head in the Christian Scriptures. What makes things more interesting is this threat of eternal conscious torment forever in the fire prepared by a loving God is found on the lips of Jesus. Jesus, the face of a God who is love, talks about eternal fire and a place where the worm never dies; and he talks about hell more than heaven. This fact has been seized upon by many over the years.

It’s helpful however to take a big step back before we continue. First, Jesus only speaks about hell to the religious who believed they were in no danger of hell. In some ways saying, “If you think you are not in danger of hell, and believe they are … you may well be in danger of hell.” Second, Jesus always spoke of a very specific place. Like one you could walk to. A place that had a sordid history, and, in Jesus’ day, was a garbage dump that also served as a place of burial for poor families and a place the Romans would toss crucified bodies. It was called Gehenna (aka Valley of Hinnom). Third, our understanding of hell that we walk around with today wasn’t actually in the minds of those who wrote the Bible. Seriously, it wasn’t. Our modern notion of hell is much more the product of Dante Alighieri than anything written in the Bible.

So what exactly was Jesus talking about then? Well, it seems he was speaking toward some sort of willful separation or distance from the Divine that we choose within our fractured selves. That’s what we will explore when talking about hell.

November 1, 2020: Set Apart for No Mercy – Michael Hidalgo

According to the Bible, God tells the people of Israel to utterly destroy the Canaanites. All of them: Men, women, children, infants, animals. Not only are they to be killed, they are to be shown no mercy. More than showing no mercy, they are to be cherem - set apart - for destruction. This, from the lips of a God who is “slow to anger” and “abounding in mercy.” Even giving a moment’s thought to this is enough to make one’s stomach turn. It’s genocide, there’s no getting around that, and apparently God commands his nation of priests to carry this out on the cities, towns and villages in the land they are going to take over. 

Some defend this command, believing God is just so whatever God says to do, you do. No questions asked. I mean, who are we to question God? Those who think this way argue the Canaanites were the most horrible people living in the Ancient Near Eastern World. However, the Canaanites were no better or worse than anyone else living back then. The only difference between them and, say, the Assyrians is they lived in the wrong place. They lived in a land that Israel wanted and the way to get it was to wipe them out.

This story and these words echo the words of a King of Moab in the 9^th Century B.C. named Mesha. In other words, this kind of violence was not original with the people of Israel. ANE tribes often praised their gods by attributing gross violence to them, and then, after the battle, gave them glory for their victory. The gods were violent warriors who looked out for their people, and were ready to destroy anyone (and in this case everyone) else. Let’s not forget Israel was immersed in this culture, and to a certain extent participated in it. So, what do we do with these stories? The simple answer is “engage them” for what they are. That being a record of people’s conversations about God, how they understand God and what we can learn from that.

October 25, 2020: Does God's Blood Boil? – Amanda Lum

There are many stories in the Bible about God getting angry. One even pits God as so mad that he needs to take some time off, some time away to cool down, because if he doesn’t he’s gonna lose it! And when God loses it, God turns and destroys people. A lot of people. This portrait of God is alive and well today. Some point to God getting really angry over some very specific sin - sin they are never guilty of - which is convenient. But there is a more subtle way of talking about a god that is kind of a jerk. Not long ago I spoke with someone who spoke of how their god got her attention by causing her to be in a terrible accident. What? This is how god got her attention? By hurting her, putting her in the ICU for 3 ½ weeks and scaring her family because they thought she’d die? 

It’s important to note that any parent who did something similar to their child to “get their attention” would be arrested and imprisoned. Rightly so. But this is how we talk about God (I guess there is some kind of divine excuse for abusing people that we as humans don’t get)? And we do it quite often. How can we love a god like this? Trust a god like this? Believe in a god like this? Worship and pray to a god like this?

But this is the portrait painted in many passages of the Bible: God. Is. Angry. But what if this is one portrait of God and teaches us something, not about God, but about humans? What if this is a reflection of the ancient, primitive, backward view of a fire-breathing deity who needs to be satiated by our good deeds and proper behavior at every turn? Perhaps God’s anger has something to teach us - not about God but about us.

October 18, 2020: He's Really Nice, But. . . .– Michael Hidalgo

The story of Jonah has long captured the minds and imaginations of many. It seems to have it all, a stumbling prophet, a supernatural fish, second chances and a surprise ending: God asking Jonah a question about why God shouldn’t show mercy. As popular and enduring as that story is few people ever say, “Man, that book Nahum? It is a real page turner!” Even though one only need turn very few pages to get there from the end of Jonah. 

 

Like Jonah, Nahum too involves Nineveh, but there is no fish and no second chances. However, like Jonah, it too ends with a question. The question is not about God’s mercy, but about why God shouldn’t absolutely, utterly and without question destroy and wipe out Nineveh and pelt them with filth (see Nahum 3.6: shikkuts) as though this is a scene from Monty Python.

We start the series here because, let’s face it, when it comes to the Bible there is no shortage to the troubling pictures of God and God’s people. But then, there are no shortage of beautiful, loving, endearing pictures of God - as mother, as lover, as creator, as forgiving. So what do we do with this? Toss it? Ignore it? Defend it? Or maybe wade into the mess of things and allow this contrast to lead us into something deeper. 

October 11, 2020: The More the Merrier – Michael Hidalgo

Christianity is not a religion for the elite. Not even close. Consider its name. It references Jesus of Nazareth who was a victim of state sponsored execution. The disciples who carried his message were all executed, save one, and he was exiled. It attracted the last, the lost, the least and those on the margins. And the invitation to be a part of this movement that was birthed by a rabbi from the outskirts of the Roman Empire? One only needed to be tired or worn out or burned out on religion, for then they might here the invitation of Jesus, “Come follow me.” Which is to say, this invitation, this movement, this way of living is open to everyone. 

It was this reality at the heart of the early church that caused it grow so rapidly. The early church sought to serve, to include, to recognize that everyone belongs - because this is what they saw Jesus do. Jesus was often found in lonely, out-of-the-way places with the down-and-outers. This is why, at DCC, we invite everyone who will to journey with us in our transformation. 

October 4, 2020: Never Stop Exploring – Bekah Stewart

Often, when we use the term “Christian” we have a quick definition in our minds. However, the contours of the Christian faith are vast and ancient. We forget this as we often have only grown up in one expression of it. However, with more exploration there will be a greater appreciation for all it has offered to the world over the Centuries. At DCC, we are explorers who want to see how far this Jesus based faith goes. After all, if we claim to worship an infinite God, the one who holds the universe together, why would we ever think a small, manageable faith is what we should be about? 

We believe this massive thing called Christianity, is ours to explore. And not only that, but that our faith teaches us that all things are ours, whether “he world or life or death or the present or the future”, because we are “of Christ, and Christ is of God.” If this is the case, then we have some exploring to do.

 

September 27, 2020: What Did You Call Me? – Michael Hidalgo

The writer of Acts tells us, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” Which means there was a time when they were called something else. For them, however, who they understood themselves to be was clear. They were a group of people who modeled their way, their life after the life and teachings of Jesus. And who was Jesus? The union of the Divine and human, of material and spiritual, the one who came to give life to the full. It was this life manifested in Jesus that was, for the early disciples, the foundation of their identity.

 

Today, we live in a world that is filled with all sorts of ways to identify ourselves. And it becomes easy, with each label layered on, to lose our individual identity as image bearers and collective identity as Christians - those who resemble Jesus. Perhaps we need a moment to reflect on what it means for us to understand who we are and whose we are so that we will have greater clarity on our deepest and truest identity.

September 20, 2020: The Divine in Flesh & Bone – Michael Hidalgo

God never speaks in this book. With all of the accusations and the questions put forth; God remains silent. A feeling of distance adds to this sense of God not even hearing the cries or the prayers. But someone is listening. Someone is seeing. The first words spoken by the widow are, “Look, Lord.” She is crying out, “God can’t you, won’t you look at me?!” And then the geber shows up and says, “I have seen …” There is someone at last. Now, in the final poem, a prayer, there is no longer first- person singular, but first-person plural. 

What we witness is those who are suffering move toward one another, lament, cry out and eventually are found praying together. It’s possible that right there, in the midst of the flesh and bone of human beings, in that very place is where God is. What this teaches us is that God is present in the other - in the midst of pain, hardship, disappointment - when we cry out and we are not alone in our cry but surrounded by others. That is God being present. Too often we try to have answers, but maybe we are the answer. An answer given simply by us showing up.