I often say that I am a practicing Episcopalian rather than a believing one.  I sometimes shock people when I say that it would not be appropriate for me to serve on a particular parish committee because I am not a person of faith.  Whenever a born-again type asks me whether I am “a Christian,” my answer to anyone of that ilk is “no.”  Another shocker.

You have heard of an observant Jew?  I am an observant Christian.

And yet, at the core of my soul is my Christian culture.  It is my heritage.  My inheritance.  I rest in the certainty that whatever deity there be hears the words that I sing and knows me thus and is not the least offended by the questions I no longer ask or the answers I no longer seek. I remain ever in awe.

I pretty much gave up on the idea that Jesus saw himself as a religious figure or a deity some time ago.  He knew he was a political figure.  He worked for the social justice of the oppressed people of Palestine.  I used to believe that Jesus deliberately marched into Jerusalem to die just to save a terribly bad little girl like me from my sins.  I’m not quite sure where I picked up that idea.  Certainly not in the Methodist Church I grew up in.  I didn’t learn this hymn line there either:  “I too denied him.  I crucified him.”  Kids just pick stuff up sometimes and it takes them a long time to get over it.

Here in Oregon we read our local boys Marcus Borg and Stephen Patterson a lot .  A couple of Holy Weeks ago, I read Borg and Crossan’s The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’ Last Week.  Last year I read Patterson’s Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus.   I carefully choose and reject ideas in the books I read.  Right now, like everyone else, I am reading Reza Aslan’s Zealot. Who isn’t?  It is number one on the best-seller list mostly because Fox News let some twit, who had not read the book and should never be allowed to interview anyone with an IQ in the triple digits, interview Aslan. Actually, I didn’t think Aslan did a good job in that interview either.  He repeated his academic and scholarly credentials too many times.

Zealot is a bit of a disappointment.  As a history book, it is excellent and very well-documented and I can certainly accept the historical picture it paints of Jesus. As a good read, it is not. I’m used to the teacherly Borg, who, at the beginning of every chapter, tells us the three things that will be dealt with therein.  He deals with them.  At the end, he tells us once again what they were.  And they will be on the exam.

I rarely miss church.  It is at the core of my soul.  Going through all the motions and reciting the ancient creeds does something at that core.  I love the liturgy, but I hardly ever listen to a sermon if it lasts more than ten minutes. I love seeing everyone. The music and the singing.  Most of the words to the hymns are praise and worship.  I wonder at the idea of a deity who created mankind to glorify and praise him forever.  That sounds more like an egotistical man than a deity to me.   Still I sing.  And I recite the impossible tenets in the creeds — although from up in the choir I see more and more “worshipers” who stand there in silence not wanting to voice what they do not embrace but wanting to be there in community all the same.  If there is one thing that pretty much everyone can agree about concerning Jesus it’s that he was all about community.  And he was the inspiration for the most and greatest art, music, and literature of any man.  For me, that is his greatest miracle.

And I love that church provides me with opportunities for meaningful good works.  While it is true that there are many committees on which I should not serve, I just love running that big gloppeta-gloppeta-dish-washing machine in the kitchen.  It’s my very favorite assignment.

For us church ladies, Martha will always be our patron saint.