This tempest in a coffee cup is too funny. All my life I’ve heard people say “Happy Holidays.” I pretty much thought it meant “Have a happy holiday season.” I never took it to mean “I hate Jesus.” I think the red Starbucks cups are very festive. What kind of folks try to make a coffee cup into a religious statement?   Let it go.  There are lots of jolly reasons for the season.

Most first Tuesdays, the Chaplains’ Department at Willamette hosts a noon-time presentation  called “Big Questions.”  It’s always fascinating and informative.  This month it was:

Of course, right now, everyone is very aware of the seeds of violence that have survived in the Abrahamic faith of Islam.

But, somehow, I think we have forgotten , or prefer not to think about, what Yahweh said to Moses when he was bringing the Hebrew Children back to Palestine.

Exodus 23:31

“I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.

And check out Deuteronomy 20:16-17

In the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you.

Nice.

Now keep in mind, that the native Palestinians had been living there since forever, and the Israelites had been in Egypt for 430 years.  No wonder the American colonists thought they could wipe out any Indians who stood in their way.

And, from my own tradition, how about the Book of Revelation?

I have always thought of it as an allegory at best and a crazy dream at worst.

As a child, I found it very confusing.  And terrifying. There is all this scary stuff about Gog and Magog and horsemen. We had been taught that we were redeemed, so not to worry.   Then, we read (Rev.20:12) that we would be judged according to what we had done.  And right away after that is a reference to being thrown into a lake of fire.

So, all three Abrahamic religions have a very violent tradition.  I wish I could believe that this is a part of their/our tribal pasts.

Dear God!  What we have done in your name — and it continues.

Again, from my own tradition, what did Jesus say in Matthew 5:9 — or at least, what were we taught in Sunday School?