David Brisbin Podcast

Dave Brisbin | 2.21.16 James Series 7: James continues to hammer on the theme of making our actions match the ends we seek in Kingdom. He points to counter-kingdom practices and action he witnesses in his community—the fights, quarrels, covetousness—and harshly admonishes his people. But again, we need to resist the temptation to just see more rules to follow here. James tells us to draw near to God, humble ourselves, submit, and allow ourselves to let go and descend into a kind of mourning, a sense of loss of all the things we held dear in order to find what is really dear in life. We have built the idea that kingdom is achieved by following rules, when what Jesus and James are telling us is that kingdom is realized by falling in love—in love with a life that looks like kingdom, so that our behavior matches the kingdom we seek. We need to let the rules fall away so we can fall…into the embrace of the Father.

Dave Brisbin | 2.14.16 James Series 6: Continuing to develop his theme of the law of liberty, James is determined that we understand how fully becoming the law as Jesus framed it—the fulfilling of law as opposed to mere rule following—was the embodiment of faith. His famous passage about the power of the tongue comparing it to rudders on ships and bits on horses is a colorful way of restating Jesus’ teaching that it’s not what goes into man that defiles him, but what comes out. It’s tempting to see these admonitions as more rules to follow, but James is trying to convey that we must use the same means as the ends we seek. If we wish to live in the unity of the Father, then we must begin practicing that unity and connection first. Sounds like a catch-22, but only if you think of heaven, understood as God’s ultimate acceptance, as the end of the journey. What if, as Jesus says, the kingdom, God’s acceptance and love is already within? What if heaven isn’t the end of the journey, but the beginning? That would be

Dave Brisbin | 2.7.16 James Series 5: James launches into another major theme of his book, the law of liberty. At first glance, his phrase seems to be an oxymoron—joining two completely contradictory terms. Isn’t law the opposite of liberty? But its very definition, law limits and restricts freedom for the greater good of the group. So what is a law of liberty? James speaks of being a doer of the word and not just a hearer, that action is necessary, that hearing without doing is just another way of saying faith without works is dead. James is zeroing in on the essential point that though law as we understand it, restricts, and such law is not what Jesus or James are teaching. When we follow a law with which we have no connection in terms of purpose and highest good, then our freedoms—things we desire to do--are restricted, but when our purpose and highest good in life has become the same as the law’s purpose and highest good, then in what way are we any longer obeying? We and the law have become one and what

Dave Brisbin | 1.31.16 In the aftermath of our good friend, Lenny Rosenbaum’s suicide, we have felt an onslaught of the usual questions, anguish, and second guessing as well as those specific to each of us…depending on our relationships with Lenny, our last contacts with him, and a million other factors. The realization dawns that as long as we draw breath, we will be faced with loss in life—the loss of people and things dear enough to cause the questions and anguish and second guessing. In a very real way, we are defined as a people by how we handle the losses we experience. Facing loss brings our deepest beliefs into question, strips life down to its essence—in effect, shows us what we really believe and trust regardless of what we may say to ourselves and others. What Jesus seems to be telling us in his Good News is that nothing of value is really ever lost--it just changes form. Just as the stars that disappear at dawn are still right where we left them in our blue sky, everything we need and love remains

Dave Brisbin | 1.24.16 James Series 4: James was Jesus’ brother or close relative or friend—the language of the New Testament can mean any of the above—and perhaps because of such closeness, James teaches in much the same style as Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus begins with the Beatitudes, a picture of the finished product, an end view of the process of kingdom. James also first presents the big, general principles that function the same way. But as does Jesus in the Sermon, James now begins to break down the big concepts into day to day details. How do these principles play out moment by moment? How should we be treating each other in home and synagogue in light of the principles of discernment and judgment? But following the Way is not about following rules, and though James gives us rules, directives for our comportment, he couches it in his concept of the “law of liberty,” a seemingly oxymoronic phrase until you realize that this law is not a law of conformance, but of transformance and moves in

Dave Brisbin | 1.10.16 When a beloved friend and integral member of a community dies, it sends shockwaves through each connected life. But when that friend has taken his own life, the shockwaves compound and merge with deeply human questions and the added remorse and even guilt that frustrates healing both individually and collectively. With Lenny’s Rosenbaum’s death last week, we find ourselves in just such a moment, with just such questions and shock. How could a person like Lenny, who was one of the most intelligent and humorous individuals you could meet, who was a fixture at our gatherings and meetings, always bringing such life to each event have gotten to a point of such hopelessness right under our radar? Is his suicide forgivable by God despite what we may have been taught in our religious circles? How do we move through the grief and pain and perhaps the guilt and remorse as well? The beautiful irony of Lenny’s life is that even though he was the one who has caused our immediate grief, he is also th

Dave Brisbin | 1.3.16 James Series 3: Coming back to the book of James after Christmas and the start of a new year, we are reminded that time, all we know of time, the passage of time, is circular. The only reason we know time is passing is because earth and moon, planets and stars turn in their circles. The movement of circles is the movement of time. Life is circular too—circles within circles, and James’ book, taking us on a journey to define life on Jesus’ Way moves in circles as well. His topics don’t neatly lay out along a straight logical line, but recur in circular patterns. At first glance, it seems chaotic and disordered, but as a metaphor for life, it makes perfect sense. Starting with the initial theme of endurance, the acceptance of life on life’s terms, he moves on to wisdom and faith and then patience: the waiting for completion as a gardener waits for rain and soil to do its work, once all the work he can do is done. The serenity of this kind of patience, rooted in the endurance, acceptance, a

Dave Brisbin | 12.27.15 As Christmas moves into the rearview, there is one more look we should give the birth narratives to see what they may have for us herenow. It’s always the tiny details of a story that give it its authenticity, show that the storyteller was fully present to the moments described. And in Jesus’ birth narratives we have some details that shouldn’t be missed: wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger, no room at the inn. These details have graced millions of nativity scenes for two millennia, but do we have them right? What do the swaddling clothes and manger tell us about our God that we can use to experience him right herenow? And was there really an inn in the way we think of an inn? And if not, what would a more accurate translation tell us about Jesus’ family and our families and character and nature of those, like the Magi, who see through the details to the God they travel so far to worship.

Dave Brisbin | 12.13.16 In the run up to Christmas, one of the more striking elements of the Nativity narrative in the Gospel of Matthew is the story of the Magi and the Star. What was this star and who were these Magi? Was this a miraculous event or the good timing of a supernova, comet, conjunction, or some other celestial event? But if it were there in the sky for all to see, why were the Magi the only ones to see it? Why did Herod and his court have to be informed? And as we examine the possible true nature of the star, what is its significance for us today? Is it just a miracle story foreshadowing the miraculous ministry of Jesus, or is there more? When we look at the nature of the Magi, the lifelong dedication to their astronomical science, their passionate desire for a king who would usher in a new age, their courage in taking the long perilous journey to greet that king…we are still not prepared for their seeming naïve openness in accepting a poverty stricken infant as the figure for whom they worked

Dave Brisbin | 12.6.16 James Series 2: James tells us in the opening verses of his book that we should count it all joy when we encounter various difficulties because the testing of our faith produces endurance and the endurance produces a perfect result in which we lack for nothing. James then moves on to talk about asking for wisdom, asking without doubt, persevering to reward, the nature of temptation and presence. If we look at these verses from a Western point of view, we will have a complete misunderstanding of what James is saying in his Eastern way to an Eastern audience. We in the West rely on our eyes rather than our hands looking to form over function; we see life through an intellectual, passive lens rather than an active, experiential one; we see life broken into separate, dualistic compartments and time as a linear segment between endpoints rather an a holistic whole. Unless we can begin to understand that James and his fellows always saw function over form, active experience over passive mental

Dave Brisbin | 11.29.16 James Series 1: James, the brother of Jesus, the man who led the early Jerusalem church for the first thirty years after the crucifixion was the pillar of the Eastern Church and yet is relatively unknown in the West. Western tradition portrays Peter as the head of the early Jewish followers of Jesus, but the East has always maintained James in that position. The book that bears his name was quite possibly a catechism for early Jewish followers and converts and is beautiful in its clarity and brevity and focus on the big questions as well as the essential details of life. Moving nearly verse by verse, we’ll take a look at how James led his brother’s followers through those first difficult years, trying to follow Jesus’ Way through persecution from both Jewish and Roman authorities. And because of that persecution and the religious and cultural upheaval of trying to follow Jesus and Judaism at the same time, it’s no coincidence that the first issue James addresses is that of suffering—of

Dave Brisbin | 2.22.15 The Fifth Way Series 12: “Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” I think Father Arrupe is dead on here. The Fifth Way is as different from the four ways as falling in love is from following traffic laws or the tax code. Laws and codes may keep us safe and secure, but will never get us to the thrilling, out of control-ness that we really desire in life. If you strip away everything we think we know theologically and legally and religiously, what is left at the bottom of the dogpile is Jesus simply asking us to fall in love as he has fallen in love—with life, with each other, wi

Dave Brisbin | 2.15.15 The Fifth Way Series 11: Reacting to a statement made in a sermon the previous Sunday, a woman told me it was the first time she had not been “completely won over” by what I had to say, that she and her husband had had a very “lively” discussion about it on the way home. I told her that was great! That I would much rather have her disagree and think on it and discuss it rigorously and research it, than just say it was a “lovely sermon” and never think on it again. Truth is, approaching the Fifth Way of Jesus is only possible as more and more of our four ways mentality is stripped away, as we become willing to “sell” everything we think we have, think we know, in favor of the radical truth to which Jesus beckons. That means, if we’re not being disturbed, we’re not approaching the Fifth Way, but are still traveling the other four. The Fifth Way is never familiar, never settled, and never boring. Like the true adventure it is, it gives no guarantee of safety and flatly defies agenda and it

Dave Brisbin | 2.18.15 The Fifth Way Series 10: When most people hear the title of this book, The Fifth Way, most immediately want to know what the first four ways are. Pretty insightful, because we really can’t know the nature of Jesus’ Fifth Way without understanding the nature of the first four. The four ways, like the cardinal directions of the compass rose point out the sum of all the ways we as humans go about acquiring the things we need. They are rooted in the four “philosophies” of first century Israel, but they are as old as humanity’s birth and as active today as then. The four ways are about our means of acquisition, whether physical or emotional, and begin at the assumption of need, of emptiness. The Fifth Way moves in a completely different direction and turns the four ways inside out, downside up, and backside front. Instead of beginning at the point of need, it begins at the point of abundance--that everything we really need is already here—within, among, and in the midst of every moment of ou

Dave Brisbin | 2.1.15 The Fifth Way Series 9: Chuang Tzu, a 3rd century BCE Chinese philosopher said: The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish. Once the fish is caught the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch a rabbit. Once the rabbit is caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. Once the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I want to speak with. To that I add: The purpose of theology is to catch God. Once God is “caught,” theology can be forgotten. To find a person who has forgotten theology is the goal of the Fifth Way of Jesus. Theology is our best attempt to express the inexpressible truth that is God, ultimately. Any theological truths we find along the Way can point to God, but are not God themselves, and in the light of God’s presence, if they are not forgotten, then we are not really seeing the light.

Dave Brisbin | 1.18.15 The Fifth Way Series 7: One really ancient view of cosmology was of a flat earth resting on the back of an enormous turtle. What was the turtle standing on? Well, it’s basically turtles all the way down. As our minds struggle with the impossibility of an infinite stack of turtles, we are seeing the problem of theology. How can we possibly use finite language and physical rules of logic to describe something that by definition stands outside everything we can use to describe it? We long for one more turtle on which to stand, but eventually there is only the unseen God. We can’t prove God to one another, we can only prove him to ourselves…once we’ve moved beyond theology, once we realized that understanding theology is not knowing God. Jesus tells the story of workers who come to work first thing in the morning with a contract for a certain amount of pay and workers who come later in the day with no contract at all, just a promise of fairness. When all are paid the same, the contractual w

Dave Brisbin | 1.11.15 The Fifth Way Series 6: The ancient Hebrews who wrote our scriptures envisioned us humans living our lives between heaven and earth—between the pure connection and unity of God and the individual form and separation of the material world. And our job as humans was to bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven: to merge the two, bring the unity and connection of heaven into our daily lives while retaining the individual form by which we are recognized. To live this radical reality is not an intellectual task as much as an experiential one. No one can give us the answers, we must live with such purpose until we know truth. Jesus tries to illustrate just this way of living with unity and disunity in one embrace in his parable of the wheat and the tares, because life between heaven and earth is much less about learning to pull weeds as it is about learning to accept the imperfections in life and ourselves and not allowing them to keep us from moving toward the harvest.

Dave Brisbin | 1.4.15 Called to lead a study group at a treatment facility, I found myself in front of about 20 women I’d never met before to talk about the intersection of faith and life and scripture. Immediately I saw a few who were not interested at all, another few who were interested for while then mentally checked out, some who seemed animated throughout, and others who wanted to talk afterward about next steps. I realized that I was seeing all of the four soils that Jesus described in his parable of the sower and the seed. To take some time with this parable in its Hebrew setting can really bring it home as we begin a new year, because we normally think of Jesus as depicting the difference between people, between believers and non-believers when he’s really portraying different parts of ourselves. Who among us is completely integrated and whole, has no weak or dissenting parts of our psyche? The truth Jesus is trying to convey is that each of us has all four soils within, and if we’re not carefully aw

Dave Brisbin | 12.28.14 Heading into a new year, there seems to be a lot of fear about the direction of the world in general and our country and our lives in particular. Jesus said he came to bring life and life abundantly, but where is that abundance in the fearful attitudes being displayed? Victor Frankel said that the last of human freedoms is the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. Paul of Tarsus said he’d learned to be content in all his circumstances. How did they do this? How do we? There are three songs that I believe convey the heart of the life toward which Jesus is calling: Crazy World, Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World, and for the new year, Auld Lang Syne. To first understand and then to begin to live the crazy contradictions and disparate themes played out in these songs is to again glimpse talya—the attitude-word Jesus used that means both child and servant at the same time—the means to find that we can live with abundant trust even if we lack the clarity of a risk fre

Dave Brisbin | 12.21.14 The birth of any child is a big deal. So the birth of Jesus is a very big deal. But why? Any answer to such a question that is merely historical or theological, may be true, but leave us personally untouched at the same time. In a theological fight that consumed much of the 5th century, church fathers debated and excommunicated over whether Mary should be called theotokos—“God bearer” in Greek. Some didn’t believe that a spirit God could take material form, but eventually the church rallied around the belief that Mary really did bring God into this world. In the Gospels, Jesus is called immanuel—“God with us” in Hebrew—the reality of God’s presence in our midst. When we remember who we are: sons and daughters of God’s image—when we live as if that is true, we become theotokos too. Bearing the image of God into our moments is the very experience of immanuel, of having God with us right here and now this Christmas.