Ronnie McBrayer

Belief and Belligerence

"Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Yes, sometimes I’m even a Christian - sometimes. That word becomes more and more problematic because of so much uncommon ground. Yes, there are a number of essential beliefs important to me and to which I hold - fewer though, as I get older. And yes, some of my beliefs are in conflict with the beliefs of others, and these conflicts are not easily dismissed - they are different - they might even be irreconcilably different. But my beliefs, as important as they may be to me, do not give me the right to be belligerent toward others who do not share my view of faith...After all, what good are our beliefs, if we use them to win arguments, but lose our credibility in the process? What good is Christian faith if it only inflates our egos? What good is it to claim the name of Jesus, but the claim only makes us mean, hard-hearted, and judgmental?"

For the Healing of the World

Jesus wasn't the first Jewish rabbi to codify a "golden rule" or to emphasize the Great Commandment(s) to "Love God and love your neighbor." Jesus was - and is - however, the one to make the ethic of love normative for we who call ourselves Christian, for love is the only thing that can "tikkun olam." From the Hebrew: Love is the only thing that can "heal the world." Politics will not heal the world. Your voting card will not heal the world. The United States of America will not heal the world. There are rooted in power, and as followers of Jesus, our calling is not to seize the steering wheel - to get our own way. Our calling is to practice is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control - orbiting around this nucleus of love for God and love for neighbor.

"The Dying of the Light"

"'Do not go gentle in that good night.' That’s the line that I see dancing behind the blind Bartimaeus story, this man persistent enough to not be left in the dark. Dylan Thomas was the Welsh poet who authored the furious, defiant lines: "Do not go gentle into that good night…burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.' How was Bartimaeus’ sight restored? By a power outside himself - you can count on that. Yet, at the same time, there was a faith-shaped persistence at work; a hope-filled determination; a refusal to go gentle into that good night.
"There’s no assurance that you will always get what you seek - if ever; no guarantee that the door will always open, that your prayer will be answered as you expect, or that your 'faith will always become sight' - to quote an appropriate New Testament turn of phrase. Life is far too unpredictable and exceedingly mysterious for any of that. And anyone trying to tell you different or sell you a warranty is just trying to, again to use an appropriate phrase, to rob you blind. But as people of faith - we have to have a little faith." (See Mark 10:46-52)

Power and Glory

As it was in the days of Jesus, so it is today. This society is Machiavellian to its core - trunk, root, and branch. The end justifies the means.Do whatever it takes to reach your goal, no matter how dirty or how ugly or how corrupt. Politics - obviously so - from the most local election to the highest seat in the land. In our economics - so long as the shareholders make their money, do whatever it takes, hurt whoever has to be hurt. On your job - it’s cut throats and stabbed backs; tattle-telling and sabotage just to get ahead. How we treat this beautiful world: Rules can be bent - rules can be broken - progress, development: Those have become synonyms for greed and selfishness.
What did Jesus say? “But among you it will be different." That difference replaces supremacy with sacrifice; it replaces being at the top, with a willingness to go to the back of the line. It’s not obsessed with getting one’s way - but with helping someone else along the way. It’s different in that the ambition is to not to conquer others, but to be in service to others."

Make It Count

"Teach us to number our days, wrote the Psalmist, "that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Certainly, the writer is instructing us all to count our days; that is, be aware of how brief life is. Going further, the writer is making sure that we make those few days of life, really count. Sure, we would all like to have a little extra time, but the only way to have extra time is to realize how little time you actually have - and to make that time count.

Why Me Lord: The Gospel According to Kris Kristofferson

With the recent passing of songwriter, actor, and icon Kris Kristofferson, Ronnie took some time to reflect upon his life - a life that can never be duplicated. From the talk: "To know and become who you really are - who God made you to be - to take up the life that only you can live, a life that can never be replicated: This is the beginning of the soul’s fulfillment. But it often requires a giving up - a letting go - of all you have been holding on to, be it as a privileged Rhodes Scholar or a middle class grunt stuck on the hamster wheel of someone else’s expectation. To have the courage to be yourself, and to take the risk to follow that path, that’s true freedom - that’s another word for nothing left to lose. And inevitability, this freedom will lead you to grace - 'undeserved privilege' - and gratitude for the life God has bless you with."

The Backwater Blues: God Was Not in the Storm

"Hurricanes are the result of low-pressure systems moving across warm tropical wasters. Earthquakes are caused by the normal release of energy from the movement of tectonic plates. Sickness and disease are as old as the ecosystem that sustains humanity, and we are frail beings. Evil people - with twisted minds and monstrous intentions - will always live among us. This is the natural world - the natural state of affairs. To ignore it or to explain it away is a travesty that only compounds suffering, it does not alleviate it. And as utterly shocking as this may sound, in the face of this suffering, don’t look to the heavens to find God! Look to your suffering neighbors!
"Because God 'was not in the storm,' if I might borrow a line from the prophet Elijah. God is in and with the storm-blown, now homeless family in Steinhatchee, Florida. God didn’t cause the rising waters - God is in the evacuees who lost everything to the flooding of the French Broad River. God is in that child who cannot escape the abuse of her of stepfather. God is in innocent children dying in today’s wars. Don’t look for God up there or out there - look for God down here. Don’t look for God in your answer-all theology books - look for God in the question marks and confusion. Don’t look for God in the explanations of religion. Look for God in suffering people. Because that’s where Jesus said God would be - Christ would be there in the 'least of these.' An act of God is not some disastrous calamity - no matter what your insurance policy says. You are an act of God - you can be - when in hope and faith you act to lovingly heal the world."
(See Psalm 19 and Luke 13.)
 
 

Fool Around...Find Out

"There is a discernment, a knowing, that goes beyond - and exceeds mere intellect or intelligence. I’ll state what we all know: A person can have the highest of IQs, advanced degrees, technical proficiency, and have no common sense whatsoever; no problem solving ability. You can be intelligent - and still be stupid. You can have knowledge - more than most people around you - but still be a clueless chucklehead about life. What I'm talking about is wisdom. That is the precious commodity, and it is in desperately short supply these days."
 

Hush...Puppy...

"What are we to make of this strange and wonderful story, this encounter Jesus has with a foreign woman, this talk of dogs and outcasts? The story is told, once again, to reinforce a constant and primary theme of Jesus’ ethic and ministry: He is breaker of boundaries; literally and figuratively. He intentionally moves into the foreign places; into the marginal places; out to the borders; out to where we his followers are often incredibly uncomfortable. Jesus is always pushing the religious limits, always critiquing the institutional rules, always expanding the horizon, always making space for those regarded as incompatible or unacceptable. Jesus has a soft spot for fools, drunks, little children, for starving puppies begging under the table; the poor, the rejected, for those whose noses have been bloodied by a hundred slamming doors; for the weak, the down and out, the stained, the marked, the failures. Jesus is always out there hanging with the crowd we wouldn’t be caught dead with.
 
"For the life of me, I can’t figure out where today’s church came up with this prim and proper, tame and courteous Jesus, who is little more than a mascot for middle and upper class respectability. This man was a revolutionary in the truest sense of the word, come to welcome all who would come, even if it alienated those who thought that they were the ones who had cornered the market on faith and belief in God; even if his words and way was seen as an affront to the religious establishment" (See Mark 7:24-29).

Hands...and Hearts

"How often does a religious authority figure become the actual authority? How often do human-made regulations get inflated and inflicted as God-given commandments? How often do ancient traditions - traditions that may have worked very well for those who first conceived of them - outlast their usefulness - and grow into monstrous, shame-inducing, fear-mongering, finger-pointing, soul-crushing, heart-breaking machines of spiritual abuse and destruction? Be distrustful of - run away from - groups, denominations, churches, and movements that crush the people under their care; that place heavy burdens on people’s backs; that coerce, intimidate, manipulate and malign. That might be religion. But that just can’t be Jesus.
"You see, religious rules can’t protect you. They can’t keep you holy. They really can’t help you. Sure, they might work to get you started; but eventually - sooner or later - external, religious, behavior management can only keep you caged, withdrawn, fearful, suspicious, and judgmental. It can’t set you free. To borrow commentary from the Apostle Paul: 'Christ has set us free…The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love…For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Neither we nor the world need more religion. We need changed hearts. We need transformation from within. And that is possible - as we surrender to the Spirit and direction of Jesus - who makes all things new."