Category: Religion

Reimagining Jesus’ Teachings: From Knowledge to Action

Published on by The Rev. Jason A BurnsLeave a comment

From Hearing the Teachings to Living the Truth

Jesus’s teachings are many, and in this case he opens the conversation by asking, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13-20) The disciples list the popular answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. It is safe, easy, and culturally acceptable to talk about who others think Jesus is, but is it safe to share your own thoughts on the matter?

The crowds following Jesus respected him. They elevated him to the status of a great teacher or prophet of old, but they stopped short of recognizing him as their king. Why might that be? Is it because they are afraid of being wrong? Are they afraid of what the Roman or Temple authorities might do to them? Or do they just want to keep their options open? That temptation is familiar to many of us.

Knowing facts about Jesus or surrounding yourself with religious chatter can feel like faith, but it remains strictly intellectual and spectator-based. The crowds knew something about Jesus, but they stopped short of recognizing him as king. Words and admiration are not the same as allegiance.

Person reading a book beside a lit fireplace with tea and notebooks thinking about the teachings of Jesus.
A reader enjoys a warm, peaceful evening with books, tea, and a glowing fire.

I think that many of us fall for the illusion that we know Jesus, when truly we don’t. We know of him, we know some things he likely said, but we don’t actually know him, in many respects we are observing him from a distance and likely waiting for the thumbs up as a sign it is time to fully commit, which is one of the many reasons why living a life of faith and love is so difficult. We place our trust in someone we have not learned to encounter personally, and therefore treat faith as a spectator sport.

Many people live off the theological residue of their parents, pastors, or Christian culture without ever taking ownership of these convictions. Some attend Christmas and Easter services, seek out a church service for a loved one when they die or ask to be married and have their children baptized because that is what their families have always done.

A few years ago, I agreed to assist with a funeral on a Sunday afternoon. A few years earlier, the family had held their mother’s funeral at the church because she and her husband had joined the parish. They felt the service was so moving that when their father died, they decided to do the same, even though they were not religious at all. The church was packed with friends and family and the service was a classic episcopal funeral, but it was also one of the most awkward experiences of my life. No one participated except the priest, me, and the acolyte. No one stood, knelt, sang, or anything. They were purely there because it was what their father would have wanted. The family was honoring the theological residue of their father, but I am not sure how meaningful it actually was for them. They said it was very lovely and they appreciated our willingness to do it. I believe God was present in that room because love was present. Even though the experience felt awkward, perhaps that presence of love was what mattered most.

I am left wondering where in our lives we have settled for knowing about Jesus rather than knowing Him personally. I am not afraid to admit that I have never felt a personal connection to Jesus. The Holy Spirit feels far more present to me because I believe the Spirit resides within us, nudging us to seek God in all things and follow Jesus’s teachings as best we can, like the little angel on our shoulder you sued to see in cartoons.

I think many of us miss a critical step in knowing Jesus: allowing his parables to move from stories we interpret to teachings we practice. The parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, does not simply ask us to admire compassion. It asks us to notice the person we would rather pass by, cross the road toward them, and make their need our concern. We know the stories, we can probably explain or even tell them, but that is not the same as internalizing them. When we internalize a teaching, it becomes more than information we can repeat. It begins to guide our instincts: we forgive when resentment would be easier, serve when no one is watching, and make room for the person we would rather avoid. Knowing the parables matters, but internalizing their teachings shows that we understand them and allows them to shape how we live.

When Jesus asks his friends who they believe he is, Simon answers “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” To which Jesus responds, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church…” he is praising Simon for understanding that Jesus is the one sent by God to help rescue them, but he is also saying much more. In this retelling, we are witnessing the moment Simon understands who Jesus is. Simon is not merely identifying Jesus correctly, he is beginning to know him by recognizing that the stories and parables are not just stories, but the foundation for a different kind of life. To know Jesus is to let his teachings gradually become visible in us, not simply admired from a distance. We will not live them perfectly, but they should begin to change what we notice, choose, and do.

The question, then, is not only who do people say Jesus is, but who is he becoming in us? The faith we inherit may give us words, rituals, and stories, but it cannot answer for us. At some point, theological residue must either become a living conviction or remain only the trace of someone else’s faith. Where do his teachings challenge our instincts? Whom are they asking us to see, forgive, or love? And when we answer who Jesus is, will we speak from our own encounter with him, or only from what others have left behind?

Finding Faith in the Midst of Mental Struggles

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns2 Comments

The human condition is fraught with struggle, though the nature of that struggle varies greatly. Some wrestle with basic necessities like food and shelter; others face what we call “first-world problems,” such as the cost of gas or reliable internet service. We are all aware of the many struggles people face—or are we? Perhaps we are only aware of the struggles we see, or the ones we choose to pay attention to. We notice the visible and the public, the hardships our neighbors share or that society measures and tracks. But there are other struggles—hidden ones—that remain unseen because they are quietly endured or purposefully concealed.

Did you know that over 102.5 million Americans—more than 30% of the population—struggle with mental illness each year, and only half of them seek treatment? “Mental illness” is a broad term encompassing mental, behavioral, or emotional disorders. It does not mean that 30% of the population live with severe conditions such as schizophrenia; very few do. Most experience some form of depression or anxiety, often without recognizing it or knowing what to do about it.

If you have never experienced depression or anxiety, allow me a moment to describe what it can feel like. When I was in my late twenties and early thirties, I was tired all the time. I didn’t want to attend events, see friends, or even play Legos with my kids. I wanted to curl up on the couch, get lost in television or books, and be left alone—yet I also longed for emotional connection. I couldn’t explain why I felt this way because I didn’t understand it myself. On top of the depression, I was living with undiagnosed anxiety. A simple note from my boss asking to see her could trigger a three-day, nonstop internal conversation ranging from “I’m about to be fired” to “It’s probably nothing,” and every possibility in between. My chest would tighten as if in a vise, or I’d have heartburn so severe I wondered if it was possible to replace my esophagus.

Through it all, I kept going to church, though even that began to feel empty. I struggled to understand why I no longer sensed the presence of God. At the same time, I was devouring every book I could find about God—and becoming increasingly angry. How could the Creator of the universe allow creation to destroy itself? Why did God seem so silent?

That struggle—to understand why I felt alone despite being surrounded by love, despite knowing that God loved me—was both painful and life-giving. As I sought medical treatment for my depression and anxiety, I also realized I was walking through a spiritual crisis—a dark night of the soul. Slowly, I began to see that my turmoil was not evidence of God’s absence but part of a process. God was using my pain to shape me, to call me, to show me that divine healing often happens through human hands. God calls doctors and researchers to develop medicines that ease mental suffering. God calls social workers, counselors, and pastors to walk beside those who suffer. God heals the world through the people God calls to serve.

Mental illness is prevalent among us, yet we rarely recognize it because those who live with it often become experts at hiding it. Only in recent decades has our culture begun to speak openly about it—and even then, much of that openness comes from those who do not experience it. Hiding our pain behind a façade is exhausting. It denies others the chance to love us as we are, and it can make it nearly impossible to believe that God loves us. If you cannot believe that your friends, family, or partner love you, how can you trust that God’s love is real?

In this way, the struggle with mental illness mirrors the struggle of faith. Jacob, too, was a deeply flawed man—he deceived his brother, cheated his father-in-law, to gain wealth and power. Yet Scripture tells us he was loved and blessed by God. His greatest struggle was spiritual, revealed in the mysterious night when he wrestled with God and received a new name. Israel—which in Hebrew means “one who struggles with God”—became not just Jacob’s name but the name of God’s people. The biblical nation of Israel is, at its heart, a community defined not by perfection, but by struggle.

This story reminds us that struggle is not the opposite of faith; it is often the birthplace of faith. When we wrestle with God, we are held in the tension between our weakness and God’s strength. That tension is not punishment—it is grace. It is through wrestling that we discover who we are and who God is. Jacob walked away from his encounter wounded yet blessed, forever changed. So too, our own wounds—emotional, mental, or spiritual—can become signs of encounter with the divine.

Depression, anxiety, grief, or despair are not signs of divine abandonment but invitations into deeper relationship. When we face the darkness within and refuse to let go until God blesses us, we participate in that same sacred struggle. God meets us not in our masks of composure but in our honesty, exhaustion, and raw humanity.

The incarnation itself reveals that our pain is not foreign to God. In Jesus, God wrestles with what it means to be human—even unto death—and transforms our suffering into resurrection hope. To live as Israel is to live as those who wrestle with God and yet cling to God. It is to trust that even in the depths of depression or anxiety, the wrestling itself can become holy ground. For it is there—in the night, in the uncertainty—that we find God not as the one who removes our struggle, but as the one who blesses us through it. What we do with that blessing is up to us, and it is my profound hope that the church continue on the path of making our communal spaces sanctuaries in the truest sense, spaces that truly welcome and protect all, including our siblings who hide their pain.

Awakening to New Life: Jesus’ Invitation to Change

Published on by The Rev. Jason A BurnsLeave a comment

Why do we gather, year after year, to retell the same story? We all know how this ends. Jesus was executed on a cross, he was clearly dead and then he wasn’t. We all know what this means, right? It means that if we believe in Jesus then we will also get to be alive after we die and until that happens, we just need to limp along through life and do our best to be good people. The end.

Today the cross is seen as a symbol of forgiveness, redemption, resurrection and even comfort and our adoration of the cross is not misplaced, but I fear that we have lost the most important part of its meaning. In the first century it was ultimate symbol of a painful death. It was a very painful tool of execution, yet we don’t view it that way, which is unfortunate because as Bonhoeffer said “When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die.” Which is not a very inviting message, yet it’s true. It is true because important things have a cost, love requires us to sacrifice a part of ourselves for the benefit of another person; taking the time we need to regenerate after a long day requires that we put aside the to-do list even if it means something important has to wait; living in a committed relationship or raising children requires that we give up some of our desires and habits; and living a God centered life requires us to give up parts of ourselves because the love and joy of Easter, of resurrection, of new life requires that we die, but not just any death, not a peaceful in our sleep death after a lifetime of good living kind of death. It requires a hard death, a death that will involve some pain and fear and even anger. A death that requires us to willingly suffer the very real pain and raw emotions we know will come when we give ourselves over to it. The kind of death we would experience if we were hung from a cross, the kind of death Jesus had.

The reason we need to tell the same story every year is because we very quickly forget that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is not only about the simplified cycle of passive belief in God so many people think it is. It isn’t only about getting to go to heaven, which isn’t even what people think it is anyway. It isn’t only about being resurrected after we die. It is about having a new life now. If the life of Jesus was about life after actual death, then why would he have spent three years healing the sick, and telling parables that are so abstract and mystical that we learn something new about ourselves every time we hear them?

Reducing our faith to the belief that Jesus died for our sins so that we can go to heaven is not wrong, but it also isn’t the whole truth. Jesus invites us to die to this world every day with the knowledge that new life is not only possible, but guaranteed. The Gospels are filled with examples of how Jesus helped people receive new life. He helped countless people walk, and see, and stand, and speak, he helped people feel whole and if that is not new life then I don’t know what is; but in order for these miracles to happen a very specific things had to occur, they had to be willing to give up the life that they knew before they could have a new life.

New life can look like many things, we all know it can literally mean life after death, that is the obvious definition, but also not likely what Bonhoeffer was referring to when he spoke of Christ’s invitation to death. The invitation to death is an invitation to have a change of heart, it is an invitation to change how we view and approach the world. It is an invitation to die to selfishness, to approach every person with the assumption that their intentions are good and trust that they too desire peace; to approach every situation with the assumption that a positive outcome is possible, most especially when it feels like the intentions behind the situation are rooted in selfishness and even evil. This is not an easy ask, allowing yourself to trust other people, to assume that their intentions are good even when their actions indicate otherwise; to trust that the systems we have made to facilitate our interactions, while flawed, are infused with God’s love and that the people who work within those systems want to do what is best to be good people even if the work they’re doing appears contrary to what we would call good. Even when we don’t believe that God is at work in other people, we have to trust that they are, we have to trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in everyone and by loving them, and trusting them, and praying for them, they too will choose death and allow the Holy Spirit to take control.

The miracle of Easter is not just that we receive new life after physical death, it is that we can receive new life now, we can be free from the control of the fear, and anxiety, and sadness that grips us; but to be free of these things we must first choose to face the cause of them because unless we do, death is not possible and neither is new life. Facing the things that cause us anxiety and fear and sadness is painful, but from pain comes new life.

We retell the same story, year after year, not to remind us that we will receive new life after death, but to remind us of the possibility and the reality of receiving new life now; but it is only possible if we first allow our need for control to die and begin assuming that good exists in all people because it does. If we do not believe that people can change, if we do not believe that we can change, then it is a sign that we do not trust God; that we do not believe that new life possible and we are not ready or willing to turn ourselves over to death. Accepting Christ’s invitation to death requires that we do the spiritual work that is necessary to become better people, it requires that we engage with scripture, learn from it, take it to heart, and allow it to guide our thinking and decision making to the point that seeing the potential for good in people and in situations becomes second nature, not because every person is a good person, but because everyone has the capability to be a good person if given the chance and we give them that chance when we believe they are capable and trust that they will not betray us. Sometimes this means that we will be hurt, sometimes it means that events will unfold in unhelpful or painful ways, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because accepting death and new life is not about living a perfectly peaceful life, it is about living a different life, a life that is countercultural, a life that puts the needs of others, telling the truth, and trusting both God and humanity ahead of what we think is best. Jesus often put the needs of the people he ministered to ahead of himself, he always told the truth, and he most certainly trusted God and humanity. He trusted that God would not abandon him and he trusted that humanity has the capability to follow his lead, accept death, and in doing so help God restore creation to its intended purpose. Amen.