Standing at the door knocking...but whose door?

I have been meeting with a guy from church on a weekly basis who has taken it upon himself to try and assist me with my spiritual life. We meet for 'discipleship'. Basically, what it looks like for me is I tell him about the questions and problems I have with certain texts in the Bible, and he helps with translation and putting things in perspective. His Masters of Divinity from Golden Gate Seminary, and pertinent life experiences, provides a good foundation for helping me with some of these issues.

The last time we met, we talked about how to go about bringing the kingdom of God to those around us, what some might call 'sharing the gospel', 'sharing our faith', 'evangelizing', etc. Somehow we got on the topic of Revelation 3:20. The verse goes something like this, depending on which version you read [I'm using the Jewish New Testament]:

Here, I'm standing at the door, knocking. If someone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he will eat with me.

The 'traditional' interpretation is that the 'knocker' is God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit; that the door is the door to a person's heart; that if one opens the door that person has let God in; and that eating with God is a good sign that a person is 'in' with God and vice versa, that the person will go to heaven/be in God's kingdom/is saved from sin/etc.

It seems a simple enough verse to stomach. But adding even just a little bit of context confuses things. This passage is in Revelation. Without going into an uber-detailed examination of it, let's agree for the sake of this blog post that Revelation is the subject of much contention among just about anybody that reads the Bible, scholar or layperson.

The text itself says it is the "apokalupsis" (Greek for 'unveiling') which God gave to Jesus by sending an angel to his servant John. Now that is some wicked hearsay! It is apparently about the 'end times' (predicting the future), is based on an alleged 'vision', and the mysterious supposed author maybe wrote some other letters included in the New Testament, but nobody really knows. And therein lies a small portion of the contention. Was John high on some drug? Was it really a revelation from God? Was John really the author? And what the HELL is he talking about?

It makes me think twice about the appropriateness of using this particular passage as a teaching tool for our toddlers in Sunday School.

I think many of us have been exposed to this verse, if only through some version of the ubiquitous painting (above) seen all over the US, and I would venture to guess the world. It is usually a white Jesus...but that's a whole other 47 gigabites of text we can't go into here.

So back to my discipleship. I mused whether God knocks at everybody's heart's door. Things got tense here because, technically, the verse is included in a part of the text considered a letter to the community in Laodicea. So is this passage only applicable to the Laodiceans, whenever and wherever they lived and whoever they are or were?

Apparently, this is a belief held by highly educated folk: that this applies only to the Laodiceans. Hm. So God only knocks at the doors of their hearts, not anybody else's? But what about the part that says 'if SOMEONE hears...'? And why, pray tell, if He's knocking, would a person inside hear his 'voice'? Wouldn't that person hear a knocking sound? I'm not being silly here.

The problem I have with this interpretation is that this means, if applied to the Bible as a whole, all the other letters written to specific people in the Bible are applicable to only the recipients of those letters. And the New Testament is pretty much just a collection of letters. This does not make sense to me, although I've wondered about this style of Biblical interpretation.

I guess only each person can know if there is a particular knocking, a voice, and whether or not to answer.

(I included the second and third pictures because, honestly, I thought they were funny.)

Why I need this blog...and quite possibly you, too.

Why?
1. The Sunday school answers are not enough any more. They really never were.
2. The churches I've found are unable to engage me in critical areas.
3. Things are happening in the world around me, and the church fails to address them.

I awoke this morning with many questions. It's Sunday, and I'd like to think I could go to church and find some people who could help me find some answers. Some people with open enough minds to engage me in some discussion of the events in the world from some position other than 'conservative' or 'liberal', to really dig into the issues. I have seldom found such people in the churches I've attended.

These kinds of people are to be found on campuses, in the halls of nonprofits, on street corners holding signs, in halls of power and even living under bridges. Why not at church? Don't misunderstand me, I crave community and fellowship and believe these are necessary for the church to thrive, but why do I have to look elsewhere when I want to use my brain?

Believe me, I've looked for years now. I've read enough to know I'm not the only one with this struggle. Maybe this blog will help remedy the situation in some fashion. I will always offer references to the sources of my information before, during, or after each installment.


I will address such topics and people as:

• ideology
• democracy uprisings here and there
• social justice
• unions
• corporate crime
• ignorance v niavete
• police states
• big v small government
• military-industrial-congressional complex
• expendable troops
• wikileaks and wikirebels
• the CIA and Wall Street
• progressive political movements
• a viable third party
• 'free' enterprise
• Bradley Manning
• God's will v satan's power
• Paul Robeson
• Chris Hedges
• Project On Government Oversight
• Pat Tillman
• boycotting
• disbarment of SEC and DOJ attorneys
• capitalism in China and abroad
• and much, much more!

Let's get started.

1. Ideology: If the practical effect of de-funding Planned Parenthood is that more poor women will seek abortions, why can't so-called pro-lifers understand this? It is actually against the interest of pro-life folks to remove services for women. Enough of this cognitive dissonance.

Without access to affordable contraception, cancer screenings, and trained medical and psychiatric personnel, the effect is life taking, not life giving. The already difficult physical, mental, spiritual, and socio-economic lives of the women seeking the services of PP will become worse, not better.

It is not enough to play the 'individual responsibility' card. People are not robots. People make lots of mistakes [are you willing to cast the first stone?]. Especially the uber-rich and their political puppets [see future postings], and they want us to pay for their mistakes so why not keep one of the only safety nets low income women and families have? Do you honestly think Jesus would turn them away? And, if so, where do you get such a message from the Bible? And if you get that message, maybe you need to read it again and again and again until you realize that the message you are getting is the WRONG ONE.

sources: Gothamist, Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now!

2. One Bad Pastor's Kid: So if you were not paying attention, over one hundred thousand citizens of Wisconsin have marched on Madison, the state capitol. All due to the distasteful, and potentially illegal, actions of a pastor's kid. Scott Walker is the new Republican governor of Wisconsin. I'm fairly certain he won't last his full term once the people have chewed him up and spit him out.

Lest you think he is a good Christian boy, consider the following. It all began when...well I don't have time for the entire history, but under the guise of what was dubbed a simple budget bill, emboldened by support from the uber-rich, he decided to try and hide a measure emasculating state employees of their collective bargaining rights, the ones they've had for half a century.

Somewhere in the spin, an average salary of $45,000 and a pension of $19,000 a year for Wisconsin state employees became the source of all economic turmoil in the state's budget, threatening the fiscal future of the state. Really? Ya sure it might not have something to do with "a gigantic criminal fraud scheme where all the banks were taking mismarked mortgage-backed securities, very, very dangerous, toxic subprime loans, they were chopping them up and then packaging them as AAA-rated investments, and then selling them to state pension funds, to insurance companies, to Chinese banks and Dutch banks and Icelandic banks?"

[BTW: Do YOU know how hard it is to live on that kind of salary?] And the unions were even willing to GO LOWER!!! Rather than even give dignity to his constituents [the unions help elect him, mind you], he threatened to call out the National Guard on them! What world is this in which I live? Is 'up' still 'up', and 'down', 'down'?

And what, pray tell, does this have to do with Sunday school answers?

I'll tell you what: governor Walker's behavior is far from Christian, at least from the Christ I know. Union busting, putting more pressure on the already cash strapped citizens of his state, to make up for the financial blunders of the wealthiest top 0.01% and garner political support from the uber-rich, is not Christian.

If you think God is blessing this man due to his hard work and dedication for the betterment of common people, that he is God's instrument for good in a position of power, that his threat to use military force against peaceful demonstrators [remember George Wallace?] was an answer to his prayers for wisdom, PLEASE tell me where you find Biblical support for such things. These are not the kind of decisions made by someone guided by the Holy Spirit, and there is certainly room for repentance [see story of Naboth's Vineyard in I Kings 21:1-29].

sources: Robert Reich, Andrew Kennis, William R. Herzog's Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God