Bishop Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in his new book, Love is the Way[1], tells the story in the opening pages of a woman with a mission who became an integral part of their family.

Michael’s mother died when he was eight years old.  Into the midst of the sadness of this event stepped a woman who fleetingly knew the family. 

Josie Robbins would stop by his father’s church on Sundays to drop off a neighbor kid for Sunday school, and then proceed to her own church, a Baptist Church up the street.  When Josie heard of the death, she asked that Sunday, “How can I help?”  She did not shy back from the despair of this family tragedy.  She entered it.

At first Michael’s father was somewhat hesitant.  Letting in a stranger in the midst of such emotional transition?  He wasn’t sure.  But he obviously needed help.  A church to pastor and two children to care for – it was overwhelming.

That day Josie entered the house, Michael’s father brought her into the spare bedroom to a pile of clothes heaped up on one of the twin beds.  He had managed to wash them, but that was it.  They lay there in a rumpled heap.  Josie set to work with an iron and ironing board, lovingly preparing those clothes, mostly for two children she had not yet met.

From that day on, Josie would take on more household responsibilities:  making lunches, shopping trips, dinner. 

“Moved by love, Josie jumped in with both arms and never let go.  She would take me and my sister to the W.T. Grant store in downtown Buffalo so that we could head straight for the parakeets and hamsters, like we had done with Mommy.  She made the hurt go away.”[2]

Over the ensuing years, Josie was an essential part of family celebrations, from high school and seminary graduations to weddings and baptisms. 

Michael concludes by asserting that Josie is what love looks like.  A woman with a purpose, grounded thoroughly in a gospel notion of sacrificial love.  She was not hesitant about stepping into tragedy and loss.  She was willing to enter the valley of loss and desperation.

At the time Bishop Curry wrote his book, Josie was still in his life at 85 years old.  Still a part of the family.  That’s what love looks like.

When our boys were both young, and we were living in Southeast Alaska, we had the visit of our bishop George.  George was an affable man with many years’ experience in parish ministry.  That Sunday, he not only preached and celebrated at the Eucharist, but also did the children’s sermon.  Later at lunch one of the boys announced that he wanted to be a bishop.  I was somewhat surprised and asked why.  “Dad, did you see how big his ring was?”  This was the bright shiny object that caught Jonathan’s attention.  And true, Bishop George had a large purple amethyst stone in a rather prominent ring, given to him by the Diocese of Alaska.

Of course, we know that a bishop is much more than a handsome ring.  He or she deals with many knotty problems:  parishes in financial trouble, those in decline who have lost their sense of purpose, depressed or struggling clergy.  A godly bishop does not shy away from difficulty and pain.  She enters it.  He enters it.

And beyond the hurt and difficulty of the moment, bishops are expected to pursue a hopeful vision for the mission of the church.  Much of their ministry is down in the depths of some pretty lonely valleys.  It’s not just the mountain top experience of consecration and a splendid ring. 

The same with the rest of us, whether ordained or lay. 

That, I take as the point of the gospel story of the Transfiguration in Mark’s gospel for this morning.

In Mark’s gospel Jesus takes his followers James and John up on the high mountain of God’s revelation.

His appearance is suddenly dazzling.  He shimmers and shines like that first star which led the Wise Men.  It is indeed “Christ of the shining mountains, True and transfigured king.”  The voice speaks almost the same words which began his ministry at baptism.  “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”

And in the midst of it all are Elijah and Moses, talking to Jesus.  Elijah and Moses, harbingers of the inbreaking Messianic Age.­­

And poor Peter has no idea what to make of it all.  He is consumed by the experience.  He might as well be in paradise.  He doesn’t know what to say.  He’s like a little boy hauled in before principal, afraid and stammering.”    So finally, he blurts out, “Wow, this is great.  Let’s make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  But, of course, he has absolutely no idea what he is saying.

Peter is so painfully all of us.  He just doesn’t get it.  Clueless.

These are strictly Old Testament rumblings:  the mountain, the cloud, the voice, the luminescence, and Moses and Elijah.  The glory of God is fully manifest in Jesus as the culmination of revelation.

By locating this passage where it is, Mark lets the reader know that this Transfiguration narrative is not to be taken as the substance of Jesus ministry.  It is only a pre-Easter glimpse of its consummation, a “foretaste of glory divine” as the old hymn puts it.  It is also an essential step onto the road of Calvary.

But of course, they will not stay basking in the glory of Transfiguration.  Jesus will not hear of it.  Splendor is not his purpose.  His mission is firmly grounded in lived reality of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  He’s a man with a mission and that mission is to drag all of creation through the knothole of human suffering and depravity into a New Creation.  Jesus is not into purple amethyst for its own sake.

I remember my college days working in Central Juvenal Hall in Los Angeles.  I had the night shift, which was mostly quiet as all our little charges were asleep.  We had kids as young as fourth and fifth grade in my wing up through junior high.  I had a dim desk light by which to work on my homework, and usually nothing memorable happened.  One night, however, firmly took root in my memory.  One of the young boys woke up and alerted me that he needed to go to the bathroom.  I walked down the hall with him as he shuffled along in his PJs to the boy’s room.  After he had finished his business, we headed back to the dorm.  As he climbed back onto his mattress on the floor, he said to me, “I wish I had been like you and stayed in school.  Then I wouldn’t be here now.”  It about broke my heart.

 So many boys here, many certainly not for the first time – in fact they’d made a career of juvey hall even at their tender young ages, are lost not only to themselves but to society as well.  These were throw-away kids with no hope for much of any future than crime. I remember asking what one boy might want to do when he got out.  “I don’t think much about it.  I’ll probably get shot.”

In our school-to-prison pipeline, those who plan prison construction can get a very accurate count on how many cells will be needed by just asking third grade teachers how many of their students can’t read.  That’s one of the best predictors of how many of our kids will become lifers.

My good friend Hal served some twenty years as a prison chaplain.  He could have had a great ministry in a large suburban church but he instead chose a great ministry behind bars bringing whatever gospel hope and aid he could to the incarcerated men and their families he ministered to.  Hal came down off the glorious mountain of seminary studies and chose the Valley of Broken Dreams and Dashed Hope.  And it has made all the difference in the world according to Hal.  I say God bless him.  He has had a life richer and fuller than most clergy in quiet suburban churches with great pay and green lawns.   And a nice pension to boot.  Down off the mountain is where life is actually to be had.

We recently celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King’s holiday.  Listen to his summons to a congregation of organizers and activists on that evening before he was shot.  He didn’t have to get caught up in a labor dispute involving sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.  Some of his followers argued against it.  Garbage workers, for Christ’s sake.  Yes!  Indeed.  For Christ’s sake.  But on hearing the story of two black sanitation workers taking shelter during a heavy rainstorm being crushed to death on February 1, 1968, when the compactor mechanism of the trash truck was accidentally triggered, Dr. King knew he would very soon be in that city.

There he saw clearly his vocation, and it was there with a bunch of garbage workers – nobodies in the eyes of society, that he gave one of his greatest speeches on the eve of his assassination.  It is indeed a speech clearly directed to us at St. Francis, and Christians sitting in pews all across America this morning.   King’s theology was not escapist, prosperity gospel nonsense. This is what he told the assembled folks that sweltering night:

It’s all right to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism.  But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here.  It’s all right to talk about ‘streets flowing with milk and honey,’ but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day.  It’s all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the new New York and the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.[3]

Looking back on my life as an older adult – much older now, I have now come to realize that my unique journey had to run through my particular dysfunctional family with all its rage and heartache.  It had to run through academic failure and two years in the Army.   It had to run through my trucking and construction companies.  But only by traveling through the valley of my teenage insecurities, screwups and failure, would I come into the personhood that Christ intended for me.

 But it’s tough.  Yes, the mountain top is easier but it is not the journey.  No, I’d much rather be on the front lines in the struggle against global warming and white supremacy.  I’d much rather be with this wonderful church family here in San Bernardino.  This is where Christ seeks to make all things new in our particular part of creation.  It’s because I see that we have not given up.  And I pledge not to give up. We understand that there are more steps to be taken on our journey together, and our journey with those with whom we will come to minister.  More steps to a House of Hope.  Ours is a journey of hope that sees beyond the grubbiness of addiction.  Ours is a journey of hope that sees beyond the poverty of many of our neighborhoods.  Ours is a journey of hope that sees beyond the school to prison pipeline.  Ours is a journey that sees beyond fine rings and the vestments of splendor.  Our journey is what love looks like.

The mountain top is long past.  Yet, with Moses and King, and all who have gone on before, we’ve seen the promised land.  We’ve caught a glimpse of divine purpose working itself out.  Now we set our eyes firmly on the dusty Lenten highway. Our hearts are not heavy.  It is with joy that we come down off the mountain to be among those whom Christ loved, and for whom he prayed and toiled and died.  We will find in faith that there is bread sufficient for this journey. 

As St. Paul writes of the Christian calling: “Ever dying, here we are alive. Called nobodies, yet we are ever in the public eye.  Though we have nothing with which to bless ourselves, yet we bless many others with true riches.  Called poor, yet we possess everything worth having.”[4]

I am one in spirit, with George Bernard Shaw when he said, “I want to be thoroughly used upwhen I die, for the harder I work the more I live.”  That’s the down-the-mountain ethic.

O Lord, we pray, give us strength for our journey down from the mountain to begin our Lenten journey here at Saint Francis Episcopal Mission.  Give us strength and courage that we run the good race set before us and claim the blessing and the joy of Christ’s Beloved Community where all have a seat at the table.  Amen

---

[1] Michael Curry, Love is the Way (New York: Penguin Random House, 2020), pp. 12-15.

[2] Op cit., p. 13.

[3] “I’ve Been to the Mountain,” 1968.  Delivered at Bishop Charles Mason Temple, Memphis, Tennessee.

[4] The New Testament in Modern English, J.B Phillips 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. II Cor. 6:9-10.

“Into the Valley of Despair”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

February 14, 2021, Transfiguration Sunday

2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6;
Mark 9:2-9

Anyone familiar with the 12-step recovery movement would recognize this introduction: “Hi, my name is Joe, and I’m a recovering QAnoner.” 

I case you’re wondering about QAnon; it is a loose collection of conspiracy beliefs centered around Donald Trump and the Republican Party and the BIG LIE that he had in fact won the election – an election that has been stolen by a secret cabal of bad actors.  The core assertion is that a secret, “deep state,” coterie of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is festering among our elites.  They are conspiring to take over the government, Hollywood, and big business.  They could certainly have the mess on my desk if they want to take something over.  If this conspiracy theory weren’t so dangerous, it would be laughable.

The QAnon conspiracy theory grew up on the fringes of the internet.  The origin hinges on one person, “Q,” with supposed inside government information, who began posting pieces about this plot, His assertion is that Trump is waging a secret war against it.  Trump is the new messiah who will lead us all out of the darkness of this conspiracy.  QAnon has grown from a handful of deluded souls to a mass movement within the Republican Party, with almost sixty percent of Trump supporters claiming allegiance.

Beyond lending credence to the belief that it was necessary to storm the Capitol last January 6^th – beyond the death and destruction that the bizarro myth legitimated – is the damage it is doing to its adherents.

Those who have gone down the QAnon rabbit hole are discovering that this cult is as dangerous and as life-destroying as any other.  Those lies spawned by Jim Jones, Ruby Ridge, Scientology, David Koresh, Birtherism…you name it…they’ll kill your soul.  They consume every waking moment.  The Bible calls it idolatry.  And getting out is nigh on impossible.

Those ensnared are often loners looking for answers to the insurmountable problems assaulting them over the airwaves and on the internet.  For some, life has simply become too difficult.  These convoluted ideas provide easy answers to complexities that at the same time, assure them that whatever they are experiencing, it is not their fault.

Deep, mysterious, dark forces are at work beyond our feeble powers to influence.  Do your “research.”  “The TRUTH is out there.”  “Q sent me.”  The unfortunate adherents of QAnon languish in a fever-dream of half-baked reality.  Life is slowly sucked out of them.  Just like with any addiction.

After Trump left the White House, shattering the hopes that He Would be the new Messiah to lead America out of the “deep state” wilderness, even more elaborate stories were needed to shore up belief. 

Many evangelical Christians bought into this fantasy, believing that Trump indeed wore the mantle of heaven. He was God’s anointed to save America.  All that was tawdry, the lies, the women, the cheating – it was all overlooked.  Explained away.  Of no real consequence.

Trump had secretly won the election, and on the original date for the Inauguration, March 4^th, he would reveal himself in all his electoral splendor as our REAL PRESIDENT — to wage war against the satanic imposters – read Democrats (socialists) , Muslims, Jews, scientists, the media, and non-believers.

Friends, this is a fever dream.  A sickness of the soul and of the mind.  Difficult as it is, there is an exit ramp.

This is every bit as much a fever as we read of in the Gospel story this morning of Simon’s mother-in-law.

“When Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.  Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.  He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.  Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” [1]

I wonder what Gloria Steinem would have made of this story.  I’m sure that I know what my friend Marilyn Reynolds would have made of it.  “Only a man could have written it.  What is this anyway?  Jesus healed the woman just so she could go make lunch?  Indeed, only a man could have written this.

The point here is not a discussion about sexism and the marginalization of women.  The point is that she was restored to usefulness — as limited as that might have been in a patriarchal society. 

That is the point of healing, restoration to agency and purpose.  That’s why at House of Hope we insist, “There is no recovery without a job.”  A job provides a source of inner satisfaction, a network of relationships, a means of making a way in the world.  In short, community and purpose.  A reason to get up every morning.

“Touch me.  Heal me,” might have been her silent prayer.  And at the touch of One who cares, is healing.  Every bit as much as in that closing song of the 1960s rock opera, “Tommy,” by The WHO. 

Here’s the take-away from this lesson.  In and through touch, love is communicated.  Touch as vivid as Michelangelo’s painting of God reaching to touch Adam amidst celestial splendor.

Touch as immediate and healing as the hand on a shoulder of another wracked with loss.  Touch as powerful as hands anointing the head of another in prayer.

Touch me.  Heal me.  And there are the beginnings of wholeness.

In our present day of COVID-19, touch has of necessity taken on an electronic form.  I know; this is not near as satisfying and comforting.  But, trusting in God’s Spirit, it shall suffice.

Back to those stuck in QAnon Wonderland. 

 One escapee from the QAnon cult, Ceally Smith, had spent a year chasing QAnon phantoms and mysteries.  She was recruited into it by a boyfriend, with whom she has since broken up.  It was now destroying her life.

Ceally would spend hours at her computer monitor doing “research,” attempting to validate the web of lies and stories she was discovering at these fringe sites.  Until her eyes glazed over, until she could barely keep them open — often until three and four in the morning, chasing one shadow after another.  Sleep deprivation had turned her to a zombie.  She could no longer be a fit mother to her children.  Her work and studies took a nosedive.

Her life destroyed, emotional exhaustion her daily fare, Smith now wanted out.  Through the healing touch of those who did not condemn, she was slowly restored to the usefulness of her own life – having a reason to smile at the morning.  Restored as a mother with children who loved her and missed her terribly when she had disappeared down that dark hole of the QAnon cult.  The warm embrace of those who care is the necessary healing touch.  Even if it’s only possible over the internet.  Touch me.  Heal me.

As in any addiction, these followers soon lose family relationships, are fired from their jobs and sometimes end up homeless on the streets.  No different than if the drug were alcohol, a gang, the home shopping channel, gambling, a toxic relationship, or opioids.

For those fleeing the QAnon addiction, restoration of connection to trusted friends and family is essential.  Touch me.  Heal me.

Michael Frink is a Mississippi computer engineer who now moderates a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said that while mocking the group has never been more popular online, it will only further alienate people.  Derision does not promote healing.

As the old telephone commercial put it, “Reach out and touch someone.”  Or in the recovery movement, “Make a friend, be a friend.”

That is what Michael Frink does electronically.  His digital touch is healing for many who enter his electronic recovery community.

Frink said he never believed in the QAnon theory but sympathizes with those who did.

“I think after the inauguration a lot of them realized they’ve been taken for a ride,” he said. “These are human beings. If you have a loved one who is in it: make sure they know they are loved.”[2]

Healing becomes reality as it’s given away.  One ex-believer, Jitarth Jadeja, of Australia, has formed an internet recovery community to help others like him who had been sucked into this death cult.  QAnon Casualties offers advice to recovering QAnoners and to the relatives of those still meshed.

Within weeks of Trump’s loss, the membership of QAnon Casualties exploded to now over one hundred thousand.  It has grown so fast in the last few weeks; three new moderators have had to be added.  In this compassionate work, I would affirm that a greater reality is involved.  The One who is the Source of All Healing is offering a warm embrace.  Touch me.  Heal me.

The approach is empathy through electronic touch: “They are our friends and family,” said Jadeja,. “It’s not about who is right or who is wrong. I’m here to preach empathy, for the normal people, the good people who got brainwashed by this death cult.”[3]  That is the offramp for people like Ceally Smith.

His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get off social media, take deep breaths, and pour that energy and internet time into local volunteering.  Give your recovery away.  Touch me.  Heal me.  Heed the desperate cry.

The tragedy of COVID-19 is that for those hospitalized, the touch of friends and family is not possible.  Our dear St. Francis sister, Alicia, died this week without the comfort of family to hold her.  So often this last ministration to the dying falls to a nurse, doctor or orderly – a complete stranger — to hold a hand in the final fleeting moments of life.   We can only grieve that that reality is what we’re forced to endure.  The best we can do.  And pray.

To touch, to heal, is the vocation of us in the church.  As with Simon’s mother-in-law, as with those caught up in the QAnon death cult, as with those is the last hours of life in an ICU ward – we are called to reach out.  Touch.  Heal.  If only online or by phone.

Our nation will heal as disillusioned souls find their way out of the shadows of lies and conspiracy fevers.  Even if, for now, virtual touch is the only possible means of healing.  Today, let us simply listen to the cry, “Touch me.  Heal me.” 

For those living alone, as the saying goes, “Reach out and touch someone.”  Offer comfort.  Encourage them to be vaccinated ASAP.  Make that call.  Today.  Amen.

---

[1] Mark 1:29-39, New Revised Standard Version.

[2] David Klepper, “Some QAnon Supporters Checked By Reality Seek A Way Out,” AP, January 28, 2001.

[3] Op cit.

“Touch me, Heal me”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

February 7, 2021, Epiphany 5

Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23;
Mark 1:29-39

I remember when we lived in downtown Los Angeles, Jai and I were the dorm parents at what had been a boarding house, Dorcas House, next to the church.  College-age women who were interns at the summer program and for our tutorial programs we sponsored during the school year lived there.  The guys lived in the apartment on the second floor above the church.  It was even worse shambles than Dorcas House.

We really had no experience at this, but we were a “mature, older couple” who would make sure these girls were safe and sober.  It was an eye-opening experience.  As I say, there are no failures, only learning experiences.

We assigned teams responsible for keeping the common areas downstairs picked up and sharing in preparing evening meals.

There was one woman who didn’t even know how to make Jell-O.  As I had been cooking for my college roommate and myself, and then for Jai and I, I could not comprehend the ineptitude of these people when it came to the kitchen. 

Some of our housemates did not know a spoon from a spatula, didn’t not know their right hand from their left in the kitchen.  Interpersonal dynamics were often as chaotic as egos rubbed up against one another.

And cat poop all about, from several of the girls’ cats.  Did I mention that?  And the plaster of Paris clogged drain in the kitchen because, that seemed the best place to put the leftover remains of an art project?  Must have been a good idea at the time.

We now have an entire nation that is about as clueless as those young people in the Dorcas House kitchen.  And as clueless as Jai and I had been at being house parents.

We’re like that great city of Nineveh to which Jonah was sent – a large urban population of some hundred twenty thousand souls, a hapless people that “doesn’t know their left hand from their right.”

Nineveh has nothing on us for shambles.  We in America these days would give them a run for their money when it comes to folly.  This is the most divided we have been since the Civil War.  The legacy of grift at the highest levels staggers the conscience.  Incompetence is mind-boggling.  We’re a clueless people, not knowing our left hand from our right.  Wandering in a great darkness of the BIG LIE.

Incompetence of Alex Azar, former Health and Human Services secretary is criminal.  He and those placed in charge of the worst health crisis in over a century are a failure at every level.  They have over 400,000 dead Americans on their hands to prove it.  This need not have been.   Is that staggering death toll enough proof of ineptitude for America?  Tell me, Alex, tell me, Donald – how is 400,000 dead a great success?  By what measure?

As we begin the inauguration of a new administration, the FBI must now vet national guard and police forces, because their commanders cannot guarantee at whom they will be pointing their guns.  How many QAnon crazies have infiltrated the ranks?  How many white supremacists?  One National Guard sniper commented that it was a sad, sad day when he had to worry whom to be scanning as a potential target – someone inside or someone outside the security perimeter. 

How was it that the FBI was able to quickly round up so many insurrectionists who trashed our capitol?  Easy!  They all took selfies and posted them on Facebook.  The cops have the videos.  They left a trail of breadcrumbs all over the internet. Guys, was that with your left hand or with your right?  Not your best thinking.

We’re a nation that doesn’t know its left hand from its right hand.  And we’re dying as a result.   Every bit like those clueless and disolute Ninevites.

Seeing the chaos of those insurrectionists surging through the halls of Congress and prowling about the Senate chamber – is it any wonder my mind took a road trip down memory lane to Dorcas House at that little downtown church in Los Angeles some fifty years ago? 

We’re presently dying like flies in the midst of the worst pandemic in a lifetime, and half of us refuse to wear masks or social distance.  It’s all a Democratic hoax, they proclaim.  We attend Superspreader events in large crowds and then wonder how it happened that grandma’s stone-cold dead two weeks later.

Now, I ask you.  Is it any wonder that Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh?   Nineveh?   Seriously, Lord???

This would not have been on anybody’s top-ten pulpit list.  It’s like what one friend early on asked me soon after I had arrived out in the desert for my first church appointment, “Forney, what did you do to the bishop to get sent out here?”  When I told him that I had actually requested the desert, he probably thought I was as hopeless as those Ninevites.  Not a good career move.

Little did Simon and Andrew know what they were getting into when they left their nets to join up with this itinerant preacher beckoning from the shore.  James and John, never would their days be the same.  And you and I? 

All we can say that, in some inchoate and mysterious way we answered, “Yes.”, This is what we enlisted for when we affirmed that call to join the Jesus Movement, s call from darkness to light, from falsehood to truth, from bondage to freedom, from death to life.  Maybe not the best career move in the eyes of the world.  Yet,this is our call each and every morning when we awake — given afresh with the rising sun and a cup of java.

This is a journey that none of us takes alone, but in the company of others who challenge and encourage us.  It’s in and through this glorious company of the saints of God.

As we move forward as a nation under the leadership of a new president, the call to each of us is similar. 

President Biden has received bipartisan support from our former presidents (well, almost all of them).  He will need our support and prayers.

Upon President Biden’s address, Bill Clinton said that “everybody needs to get off their high horse and reach out to their friends and neighbors” to try and make unity possible. “You have spoken for us today,” he continued. “Now, you will lead for us. And we’re ready to march with you.”

Obama told Biden that he’s proud of his former vice president. “You and Kamala need to know that you’ve got all of us here rooting for your success, keeping you in our prayers,” he said, with Bush and Clinton in agreement. “And we will be available in any ways we can as citizens to help you guide our country forward. We wish you Godspeed.”

Martin Luther King framed the challenge somewhat differently in his last book.  The choice before us is either CHAOS or COMMUNITY.

Will we choose the chaos of climate catastrophic or will we recognize global warming as a problem on our doorstep confronting all of us?  Will we choose LIGHT from the lamp of knowledge or will we retreat into infantilism, crying FAKE NEWS, FAKE NEWS. 

Little time is left.  When those climate tipping points come, they will be sudden and cataclysmic.  A mass methane release from that which is frozen at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and under the northern tundra, will put us on an irreversible path to melting all the planet’s land ice.  Does a sea rise in relatively short order of around 90 feet sound cataclysmic enough?  It would be enough to impact eighty percent of the world’s population that lives within 200 miles of the ocean.

Choose the LIGHT from the lamp of science.  This is not fake news.  Even if you didn’t hear it on Fox or didn’t read it on Facebook or in a tweet.  Our call to discipleship is to TRUTH.  It is to heed the urgent warning.  Rejoin the Paris Accords.  Push for tough public policy equal to the threat.   Our call is to be the biggest, loudest pests our representatives in Congress have ever encountered.  Join Citizens’ Climate Lobby – the most effective group addressing global warming with a tax on carbon.  Before you poo-poo this, do your own research.  Check them out. Whether you join or not, this is your call to follow. Or choose Bill McKibben’s 350.org.  God is calling you to be part of the solution.

Our call to discipleship is to put aside egos and find places where we can cooperate to rebuild our economy.  Push for economic policies bold enough to address the pain of those who are now entering their eighth month, their twelfth month without a pay check.  It is to fight for them with the same fierce urgency as if we were the ones to discover an eviction notice stapled to OUR front door. That is Jesus’ summons to us today.  He’s calling to make common cause even with those with whom we disagree to get something done.  To find ways to be bold together.  It is the call to make trouble.  Good trouble.  Necessary trouble.  This is our call from darkness to LIGHT, from falsehood to TRUTH, from chaos to COMMUNITY, from death to LIFE.  Choose LIFE that you and your grandchildren may enjoy the fruits of this wonderful life.

This call to follow is discerned in the pain of those who have lost dear friends and family in COVID-19.  Our call is to remember.  Remember and mourn those whom we’ve lost.  Then recommit yourself do all you can to stem this tide of this pandemic.  If your neighbor’s not taking it seriously, your call to discipleship is to be a complete pain in the behind.  Get in their face.  It is to insist on competency and equity in rolling out vaccines to the most seriously impacted communities.  It’s not about you.  It’s about us. 

No privatized theology of “me and Jesus in the bushes.”  You don’t “Come to the Garden Alone.”  You come to a feast ladened table prepared for ALL of us.  A table sagging under gospel bounty.  A privatized spirituality is a perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our call is about developing the spiritual resources to sustain the Beloved Community, and to reflect the face of Christ in our midst.  Passing the Peace is more than catching up on the latest gossip, though that too.  It’s the sacramental expression that we belong to one another.  The same for our call as American citizens.  I cannot be who I am meant to be unless you are fully who you are meant to be – the theology of Ubuntu.

Look about.  The pain you see may be your only call to follow – the only call you are going to get from Our Lord. The pain of the world is your summons.  That call is as clear as that clarion call those fishermen heard over two thousand years ago.  As clear as the nose on your face.  Those who have ears to hear, LET THEM HEAR.

And in that call to heart and mind, to conscience and date book and checkbook  – in that call is ETERNAL LIFE.  Whether you are Jew or Gentile, Buddhist or Muslin, Christian or None-of-the-Above – in your answer to that summons is BLESSING and ABUNDANCE — the only life worth living.

The choice is yours – are you part of the problem or part of the solution, part of God’s redeeming work, or part of the world’s distraction?  Part of chaos or community? 

Set before each of us in these days of peril is an open door to God’s abundance.  Choose LIFE over that which numbs and kills the soul.  Choose LIGHT over the dark and despicable.  Choose TRUTH over the convenient lie.  Choose FREEDOM over bondage to that which is of no consequence. 

Enter into that Glorious Company of the Faithful — that Glorious Company of Apostles and Martyrs, seen and unseen, who surround us every Sunday with their witness and prayers as we gather in Christ’s name.  Those who run with us.

Gracious Lord, may your Church ever sit at the Right Hand of all that is Holy, all that is Beauty, all that is Compassion, of all that is Justice. (with apologies to the lefties out there).  Amen.

January 24, 2021, Epiphany 3

“Not Knowing Left from Right”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31;
Mark 1:14-20

I remember as a young boy awaking one morning to a disagreement between Grandma and my brother who was then in the first grade.  It seems she had been going over some of his science notes with him and he was attempting to tell her that the sun went around the earth.

When she insisted that, absolutely, the earth went around the sun, he argued back, “No, it’s in my notes.  The teacher said that the sun goes around the earth.  It’s right here in my notes.”

There was nothing she could say that would disabuse him of this notion.  Being in the third grade, I knew that Grandma was correct.  The earth goes around the sun. Tom insisted that they go show Mom.  She would know that he was right.

What I learned that morning was not an astronomy lesson, but a psychology lesson.  Once people get a notion in their minds, it’s very difficult to convince them otherwise.

Will Rogers spoke this truth when he said that it’s awfully hard to convince a man of something when his getting a paycheck depends upon him believing exactly the opposite.  Logic in many cases only goes so far.  Maybe, in most cases, doesn’t count at all.

The mind is a strange habitation of all sorts of stuff.  What is really real?

Who would have ever thought that our 2020 election could turn on a conspiracy theory that Hillary, and later, Joe Biden, were part of an international child sex trafficking ring, holding kids in the basement of a pizza parlor?  These QAnon fever dreams have infected an entire national political party.

It seems that such bazar conspiracy theories are now a national past time.   Like baseball or the NFL.  I was astounded as I watched Trump’s former national security advisor General Flynn and his entire family, take the QAnon pledge, “Where we go one, we go all.”  Go figure.  This lunacy has reached the highest levels of national life.

Now, one could say that such notions are harmless.  We can dismiss their adherents as kooks.  Pay no attention.  Harmless.  Until they aren’t.

Americans were horrified to watch thousands of rioters breaking into the halls of Congress, filled with the notion that the past national election had been stolen.  “Stop the steal,” was the chant of those surging down the passageway.

All to show that much of life is not rational, but emotional space filled with need, desire, and fear.  All highly irrational.  And that is the case of this strange call of the disciple Nathanael.

When Philip finds Nathanael, he implores him to come and meet Jesus, the one of which the prophets and Moses wrote — Jesus from Nazareth.  With a shrug, Nathanael dismisses the summons, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” “Look, man, you’ve gotta to be kidding.  Nazareth?   Really?”  

“No, really.  Come and see.”

When Jesus sees Nathanael approaching him, he exclaims, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”  Nathanael is astonished.

“How is it you know me?”

“I saw you sitting under a fig tree,” Jesus answers.

“Say what?”  Nathanael incredulously responds.  This is crazy stuff.  “You think I’m reliable just because you saw me under a fig tree??”

“Philip, where did you meet this dude?  I don’t think he’s all there.  He’s off his meds.  Let’s get going, I’ve got work to do.  No time for this nonsense.”

This is WHAT Nathanael should have said.  What you or I would have said.  Or at least thought.

But, no.  Nathanael exclaims in wonder, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!   You are the King of Israel.” 

Now, it’s Jesus’ turn to be astonished.  “You believe because I told you that I saw you sitting under a fig tree?” 

This has to be the weirdest recruitment call in history.  Can you imagine Human Resources bringing on a new employee in such a fashion?  Can you imagine this interchange at a Diocesan Commission on Ministry interview?

“Do you believe because I said I saw you sitting under a fig tree?”

The candidate and the members of the commission would all have been referred to an appointment with the shrink.  This is totally bonkers.

STOP.  STOP RIGHT THERE.

Think about it.  Isn’t this the basis on which we make most of our important decisions? 

How did our oldest son meet his wife?  He was late to a concert in Portland and when he got there the doors had closed.  So, what to do?  He wonders into a video game parlor down the street.  While he’s zapping space aliens or whatever, he looks at the women at the game next to him.  They get to talking, and the rest is history.

I met Jai on a bus trip to Lincoln, Nebraska.  Our younger son Christopher, probably went about the relationship thing more systematically, more logically. He met Alexis through some online relationship web site.

And how did each of us come to faith?  How did each of us come to such matters of the heart?  It wasn’t through the logic of some syllogism; I can tell you that.

We were immersed, at least in America, in a culture saturated with Jesus.  It may have been what we grew up with.  It may have been a friend who said, why don’t you come to church with me.  It may have been through despair, the “dark night of the soul,” when everything else we had tried had fallen apart or seemed empty.  But, as a mature person, we made a decision that Jesus had something for us.  He was important.

To finish the dialogue between Jesus and Nathanael, let’s re-enter that story.

“You believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things than these.”  

“Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Whatever this means, I take it to be saying that in Jesus, we will encounter all that brings vitality and meaning to life.  Its “On-earth-as-in Heaven” time.  A way of living scripture calls “eternal life.” Kairos Time – the fitting season when everything hangs together.  It’s about our hearts’ deepest desires – something that causes all the busyness of our days, and the nothingness of our days to hold together.  In short, it’s about a heavenly banquet here on earth.

We taste smidgens of those brief moments – your child’s first word.  A lover’s embrace, overhearing your boss praise you to another employee.  A concert that stirs the soul.  The face of a dear one at church.  The enthusiastic welcome home by a beloved and faithful dog.  Watching the line of faithful receiving communion at the altar rail.  We’ve all know those moments.

It’s about stepping outside the bounds of logic into a space where there are no guaranteed answers.  “Come and see.”

It really is about the “leap of faith.”  That’s the price of the ticket.   Absolutely NO GUARANTEES for this ride.

The call of Samuel, the call of Nathanael?  The call of any the rest of us?  Where’s the guarantee?  The proof of the validity that this is about something real?  There is none.  The only reassurance, if any is to be had, is that of our heart and of those who care for us.

“Come and see.”  “Come and see.”

And many do.

These days, the conspiracy theories that swirl around are probably no more bizarre than those of Nathanael’s day. 

I read that many are heading to Washington this coming week with all sorts of fantastical nonsense filling their minds.  Many are absolutely convinced that the election was stolen by a pedophile, or that the recent insurrection at the Capitol was staged by Antifa just to make Trump look bad.

It’s all a jump shot.  A million distractions vie for our attention.  And yet there’s Philip: “Come and see.”  And he  will reveal all the secrets of your heart’s desire.

The summons to day is still the same, “Come and see.”  Our hearts and good friends will direct us to what gives life.  Scripture, a community of faith are yet good guides.

Those who reside outside this sphere of influence are not exempt from a “Glory Attack,” as my friend Ed Bacon calls it.  Could happen on a lonely night of desperation, the sight of a homeless person asking for some spare change outside her sidewalk tent, or on some dusty road to Damascus.   

“Come and see.”  And it might just be that the heavens are opened with angels ascending and descending.  In a moment of splendor everything is made clear.  Life is full with an overflowing abundance.  Yes, on some days we do experience that goodness.  “Come and see.”

This week we remember one such disciple who not only came and saw, but led many others to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  Martin Luther King was a beacon for those hungering and thirsting for justice and inclusion.  His way of nonviolence freed oppressed and oppressor. 

In the days to come, we have a lot from which to recover in America. The bonds of affection have been sorely tested. 

For our fellow citizens, the summons is still the same, “Come and see.”  See what gives life and binds us to one another.  The proof is that of the Spirit-filled heart.  Life brim-full and overflowing.  Even on a day in the sun with hundreds of thousands at the Lincoln Memorial.  Or on a day filled with snarling dogs and Billy clubs on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, “Bloody Sunday.” 

Nathanael came.  Martin Luther King came.  Ella Baker came.  John Lewis came.  Rosa Parks came, and so have countless others.  They made it to the mountain top.  Saw the Promised Land.  How good it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity.  “Come and see.”

The gladness of your heart will be the only proof, the only guarantee you’ll get that this way of life is the way for you.  “Come and see.”

Amen.

January 17, 2021, Epiphany 2

“Faith and Habitations of the Mind”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

1 Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139:1-5,12-17; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20;
John 1:43-51

Water, the stuff of life or dangerous high seas.  The staff of life or chaos and death.

I find it fitting, and intriguing, that the story of Jesus baptism is paired in our lectionary readings with the first creation account of Day One in Genesis.

But let me get there with a story from my early childhood.

As a young boy, one of my favorite stories was about a little tug boat, “Little Toot.”  Little Toot was the most rambunctious screw-up in New York harbor.  Up to mischief of one sort or another.  He had no sense of propriety.  Just like boys my age.  His father’s constant refrain, “Won’t you ever grow up?”  Sounds like a parent, doesn’t it?

Well, the little boat finally goes one prank too far and is escorted by police boats out of the harbor and banished.  Out there alone at night out on the high seas as a storm gathers itself.  Soon waves are crashing all around.  Lightening streaks the skies.  Thunder deafens the ear.

Amidst mountainous waves, completely dwarfing the small tug, Little Toot spies a S.O.S. flare high in the sky.  The story ends most satisfactorily as Little Toot rescues the distressed ocean liner and, as clouds part to sunshine, brings the ship safely into harbor to his father’s praise.

I had been given a record of this story.  With all the terrifying sound effects of the raging storm and towering waves, that’s where my mind froze.  In my imagination I can still hear the fog horn, the music swelling as Little Toot was lifted on one gigantic wave, only to plummet down the other side.

It may be that I identified our family’s dysfunction with Little Toot’s predicament.  My father’s volatile moods and temper were that storm that crashed around helpless Little Toot.  At most any evening meal, the tension in our family was like waiting for the first thunder clap of that story.

The raging seas of our family were always seeming to swamp me.  Like Little Toot, I was tossed about in a storm of emotions beyond my comprehending.

As we look back on this disastrous past year and the chaos of our nation’s capital, it is no wonder my mind flashed back to this early childhood experience, to Little Toot.

The first act of creation is the construction of order out of the vast ocean of chaos.  It is to set the limits of the sea.  It is to establish the hours of day and of night.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…”

That disordered void, that consuming darkness was often meal times at night.

That disordered void and consuming darkness has been our nation adrift in a sea of disease.  Like that small boat in my children’s story, we have been buffeted about by forces beyond our control. 

Help has never seemed more elusive or far off.  Trump rioters roam the People’s House with flags of insurrection and sedition.  Trashing the place.  Never had our nation’s capital endured such disaster since the British burned the place to the ground in 1812.  This, the doing of the most chaotic presidency in our nation’s history.  CHAOS.

As the chaotic scenes flood in from Washington, D.C. equally distressing scenes flood in from our nation’s hospital emergency entrances.  As President Tweet fulminates against a “rigged” election, his messages egging on the mob, images flash across the TV screen of utterly exhausted medical staff.  The camera lens zooms in on long lines of ambulances in hospital driveways to unload patients for whom there is no room.  Nurses scramble to find one more bed.  Even gift shops and lunch rooms are repurposed to accommodate the sickest.  Outside, beyond exit doors, are morgue trailers stuffed with the bodies of the dead. The hallways are utter disorder.  Staff rushing to critical patients with IV lines and bottles as various monitors beep a cacophony of alarms.  Doctors flipping frantically through charts of the newly admitted patients.  Long lines out the front doors awaiting triage assessment. Who will live?  Who must die?   CHAOS.

And every Friday night on the PBS Newshour, Judy Woodruff presents a new roll call of those we’ve lost.  Chaos, disorder, all around.  Nurses and doctors in brief breaks cling to one another, shedding tears of exhaustion.  Bereft of hope and comfort. 

The politics of the nation well resemble the chaos of that hospital hallway and the ICU rooms.

The Black Lives Matter movement has devolved into communities of despair, the focus shifting from the rage at police killings of the innocent to hopelessness over the disproportionate toll communities of color have borne as a result of a legacy of our racist health systems of neglect.  Disproportionate numbers of deaths have wracked minority communities and our reservations.  CHAOS.

Our government seems incompetent to manage.  Like that little boat in my story, we are buffeted about with no rudder.  The great ship of state, America, has lost steam.

One woman, Kathy H., reflecting on the gross mismanagement of this disease, in desperation begs, “How can he have this much power to kill thousands upon thousands of Americans and not be removed or held accountable?”  Another, “They have unleashed a Frankenstein monster on us.”  The pandemic sea rages.  Darkness engulfs patients and survivors alike.

And there is no leadership from Congress.  “I object,” are the only words Senate leader Mitch McConnell can utter when considering a mere $2000 economic life saver of a stimulus package.  “I object,” with those two words, millions more jobs are lost and hundreds more businesses closed.  “I object,” the lines at food banks and soup kitchens lengthen.  “I object,” and hope dies.

Yes, we had an election.  But forty percent of all Americans refuse to accept the results.  The federal prosecutor who filled the president’s mind with fantasy notions of fraud now now resigns in disgrace.   The damage incalculable.  His conspiracy fiction is the diet the mob storming the halls of Congress has feasted on.  Too late for “sorry.”

In last-minute desperation Trump’s toadies concoct one scheme after another to overturn the election.  Even at the late date of the counting of electoral votes in the combined House/Senate session.  Legal desperation concocted out of thin air to force the vice president presiding over the session to toss the will of the voters.  Is nothing sacred?   CHAOS. 

Chaos on a national scale as the waters of disorder threaten to drag our democracy in to the dark void of partisan rancor and mob rule.  Militias descend on Washington, arming themselves to “protect” an election they consider stolen.  Many throw up their hands in disgust, and switch the channel to reruns of “MASH” or “I Love Lucy,” as the mob ransacks our capital. 

It is into these roiling waters, that, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, we are pulled to the surface, sputtering and coughing through our baptism.  BY THE GRACE OF GOD, we are raised up into a community of healing, possibility and solidarity.  This is not a private event.  It is a joyous celebration of the entire Blessed Community of Life.  Over the nurture of a lifetime, we grow into the promise of this sacrament.

Out of the darkness, LIGHT.  Out of chaos, order and grace.  And we hear the firm, strong voice Jesus heard, “You are my Son, my Daughter, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  Yes, you are beloved of all that is holy.

This is the same summons to each of us at our baptism as we are welcomed into the company of the faithful: “You, Jane – You, Louise – You, Jesse – You, Judeo – You, Barbara.  You — Hayden….  Yes, all – beloved daughters and sons, with each and every one of you — am I well pleased.  Continue to grow into your baptism.  No matter your age, the journey’s not over.

As a young boy, I remember being taken from our Sunday school class one morning and solemnly walked up the center aisle of this huge sanctuary with my brother.  There the minister in a black robe said something and water was sprinkled on my head.  I didn’t understand what it was all about at the time.

But as I grew into the community of faith, I began to know I had sort of a second family.  This was a family grounded in peace and constancy, caring and dependability.  Baptism is not some act of magic conjuring.  It is not a spell cast out of the world of Harry Potter.  Baptism is an act of incorporation into a spiritual reality, the outward manifestations are those same verities that build the Beloved Community of Dr. Martin Luther King.   Water, Spirit, incorporation in the name of the Holy Trinity, it’s all a mystery beyond logical comprehension – a mystery one grows into over a lifetime.  It is a recognition of a spiritual reality working as a peculiar treasure over generations of the faithful, and not-so-faithful.

I have had Spirit-filled mentors along the way who enlarged the promise of my baptism.  By word and example, they were “Little Christs” to me.  They were seeds of hope.  By their steadfast persistence and belief in what I could become, they kept that hope alive, even when I had lost it.

“Weeping may endure the night, but joy comes in the morning.”  And the light of that joy cannot be overcome by the darkness. 

In the midst of the chaos of these last days and months, we have held on to each other.  We have held on to the promise of America, as have faithful communities all across this nation – And we hold on until this land becomes “sweet land of liberty” for ALL our people.

We continue the work to strengthen and uphold one another.  The House of Hope in both the Ohio Valley and San Bernardino continue paths forward as funding begins to materialize and a competent and loyal staff is recruited.

This great republic shall endure the chaos of the night. True and authentic patriots of both our parties will perform their duty to the Constitution of this nation.  Republicans and Democrats stood fast against conspiracy theories and threats from a seditious president.  They did their job to ensure that the will of voters prevailed.  They barred the door against the raging mob.

WE HAVE SO MUCH MORE WORK awaiting us in the days ahead. The problems we face are legion:  racism, voter suppression, a right-wing disinformation media complex, apathy, starvation and homelessness in our streets.  AND not the least, a raging pandemic.

As we reaffirm our baptismal vows today, the bottom line is our pledge to respect the dignity of all persons.  In that dignity we behold the Face of the Divine.  This pledge is colorblind, non-partisan, transcending all artificially constructed boundaries.  It is true for the native born and the immigrant alike – yes, even those without proper papers.  It is true for young and old, abled and disabled, stretching across all religious boundaries, to include those who claim no creed as well.

That is the full meaning of our baptism into the Jesus Movement.

When this promise is fulfilled in actuality, when it is true for the “least of these,” we will have come as close as humanly possible to that Blessed Community, we will have seen in the face of Jesus.   Amen.

January 10, 2021, The Baptism of our Lord

“Out of Chaos”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7;
Mark 1:4-11

There’s a story of two small Baptist churches at an isolated Midwest crossroads.  Both across the street from one another.

This is the story.  Somewhere along the line in the mid-fifties one of the pillars of the one of the churches died – and left, what was for that poor congregation, a significant bequest.  Within what was judged to be an appropriate time after they had put him in the ground, the Board of Deacons set about discussing what they should do with this handsome sum.

It was obvious to everyone that needed repairs on the roof had first claim.  And right after that came a new furnace.  And maybe even A/C.

But there was a great desire to make the place more attractive.  Face it, nobody is going to see the roof or even the furnace.  Paint was in order.  Inside and out.  And since they were painting, shouldn’t they also replace that threadbare carpet down the center aisle.  Mary Jane going down the aisle on her father’s arm almost tripped.  Can you imagine a new bride on her honeymoon in a leg cast? 

What color?  The interior decorating committee began to realize that this was a most thorny issue.  Some wanted a burgundy red and others opted for blue.  Red is nice it matches the color of the hymnals.  It’s bright and cheerful, especially on a drab, snowy day.  The blue faction argued that it should be blue because Mary wore blue.  Well, we’re a Baptist church, what does Mary have to do with anything? 

Round and round they went.  And went.  To exhaustion.

And today, there are two very handsome churches, one across the street from the other.  One with red carpet.  The other with blue.

Amongst my tribe, Mary is also problematic.  When the subject arises, the Anglo-Catholic faction clutches their roseries just a bit tighter to their breasts, as they gaze over to the statue of Mary in powder blue pastels behind the altar.  The Protestant crowd begins to hum “A Mighty Fortress” and wistfully recalls Luther’s “Ninety-five Theses” nailed to the church door.  A polemic against all the Roman accretions to church tradition and dogma.  They think that Cromwell got it right when he striped the churches of statues and all the froufrou on the altars.  Gone are the candles.  Gone is the cross.  Gone are fine vestments.  This, after he deposed King Charles and chopped off his head.  This austere Protestantism was an anti-Roman screed if ever there was one.  Mary’s nice but we’re not gong to pray to her.  Reformation is the not-so-secret word of the day.  And by the way, it’s NOT an altar.  It’s a TABLE.  The High Church vs. Low Church argument, now, has mostly subsided, eclipsed by far more weighty concerns. Now, maybe it’s either one or the other, depending on one’s theology.  Says he who is snake-belly low.

So, what is the truth about Mary?  And how do we understand her place in current thinking?  The actuality of Mary is lost in the mists of time.  At best, we can say she was a young, impoverished, peasant girl.

Several years ago, I heard Mike Kinman place Mary in her rightful place.

“The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus, for he will save his people.” 

Here is this terrified, impoverished peasant girl, pregnant, with no husband.  In that society, her grim situation is virtually a death sentence.  She will be shunned and cast out.  And, to boot, she had absolutely no choice in the matter.  No agency.

Like many young girls today, being pregnant, out on your own with minimal education is almost a death sentence.  How many will end up in dead-end jobs, or, worse yet, walking the streets, addicted, homeless and battling bouts of depression?

Not a much brighter future now than two thousand years ago.   But our Mary is no shrinking violet.

“God, if this is your plan, then let’s play it out all the way.”  Mary takes two steps back and says to the angel, “Hold my beer and watch this!”

With a fierce love bursting from her heart, Mary launches into one of the most radical songs in all human history, the “Magnificat.”  Hold my beer and watch this, indeed.  This action is going to turn the world upside down.  I might be a poor peasant girl in rags.  I may not make the cover of Vogue magazine, but through me, God is going to start shaking the pillars.  Some serious shaking:

“The high and mighty will be thrown off their thrones.  The humble and meek lifted up and the self-satisfied hot shots sent empty away.  The hungry will be fed and the rich will exit stage right empty handed.” 

With the last notes of Mary’s song dying in the distance, the angel Gabriel slinks away muttering, “Nasty woman.”

Here is the real miracle.  Out of those society regards as of no account; Out of Mary’s burning love, God pulls off one of the greatest social justice movements of all time.  And today, God still does.  God still remembers that mercy and justice are at the heart of anything that matters. 

So, just who is this Mary?  Through the centuries many images abound.

The picture that wells up in my mind is of a strong woman of agency.  Not quite Zena, Warrior, but also no wallflower.  My Mary looks more like “Rosie the Riveter.”  A face set in determination.  Muscular.  No nonsense.

I’ve had teachers like that.  Teachers who were going to pull us through the knothole of long division, no matter what they had to do.  And they weren’t about to take any crap from us wiseguys in the back row dinking around.  And learn long division we would, by God.  And, by Mrs. Tomkinson.

I’m sure we muttered under our breath, “Nasty Woman.”  Or something similar. Nasty Woman — my sixth-grade teacher was.  Mrs. Tomkinson had deadly aim with a chalkboard eraser.  Those of us who talked during worktime, knew the power and accuracy of her arm.  I speak from experience.

Those who follow in the prophetic tradition of Mary’s Fierce Love continue to raise up a mighty ruckus on behalf of the left out, the locked out the discarded. In this same tradition of NASTY WOMEN down through the ages.  They raise up a ruckus to fight for their students and pull them through long division.  Mrs. Tomkinson loved us enough to not let us make a career out of being screw-ups.

A long line of God’s cherished “Nasty Women” has sprung forth from the instant Mary refuses to be that self-effacing, passive, demure peasant girl of the patriarchy’s conjuring.  Here is a strong woman of agency.  If Mary was given the power of divine revelation, she, by God, was going to use it.  Mary, in the instant of revelation, understood the full potential of what God was doing in that moment.  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant…He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.”

The prophetic lineage flowing through Mary has stretched down the ages to women to great effect.  Wonderful, strongly compassionate women.  Nasty Women.

All those determined, women on a mission who have come to congress in these past few years come to mind.  Let me tell you, these women are not dressed in simpering, pastel blue.  No!  Suffragist White.  Just like those who filled the streets demanding the vote over one hundred years ago.  Like the women of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.  Look it up.  It’s in your history book.

Men, to their discredit would demean and marginalize them.  “Let us explain the facts to you.”  “She was warned.  It was explained to her.  But she persisted.” “They’re just the SQUAD.”  If we can put a silly label on them, we can dismiss, demean, ridicule – and ignore their voices.  Pay no attention.  “Nasty Women.”

WE NEED THESE WOMEN.  They are the salvation of this Republic!  They are going to tell us things we don’t want to hear.  Inconvenient truths.  TRUTH.

These women are exposing the rot at the foundations of this republic.  They’re forcing us to face facts.  And to do justice for “the least of these.”   We absolutely CAN NOT have a democracy when forty percent of our citizens live in poverty and near-poverty.  Listen to James Madison!  Listen to Mother Jones.  This is fierce, tough, love.

Powerful men are learning firsthand the strength of moral force behind these women.  Like Mrs. Tomkinson, their aim is true and delivered with great power.  Ask Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.  Ask Mitch McConnell.  Ask Joe McCarthy after Margaret Chase Smith bit into him with her “Statement of Conscience” speech.

A number, like Rashid Tlaib, represent the poorest districts in our nation.  These are the neighborhoods of dilapidated housing stocks, mind-crushing poverty, crap schools and over-policing.  These are the breeding grounds of the school to prison pipeline.  “You tell us how many kids in the fourth grade are not reading and we’ll know how many prisons to budget for.”  Women of Fierce Love get it.

Several of these neglected districts are now represented by Nasty Women who are raising a ruckus over this immoral and shameful neglect.  “Hold my beer and watch this.”  Indeed!

Congresswoman Tlaib has taken on the obscene profits and rank plundering bby Amazon.  One might raise objections to bringing up such “inconvenient truth.”  One might say it was going to incite “class warfare.”  Ms. Tllaib would reply that we already have class warfare.   And her district lost.  We’ve all lost.

With a Fierce Love every bit as determined as Mary’s who sung Magnificat, Representative Talib joins the fight.

“World leaders have accused Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, of “acting with impunity” by pocketing profits while “dodging and dismissing [his] debts to workers, societies, and the planet” in a recent scathing open letter.[1]

“Rep. Rashida Tlaib is among the signatories to that letter and one of Bezos’ chief critics.

“This pandemic has exposed just how broken and wrong it was to allow a man with this amount of wealth to get away with not paying his fair share.”

“Amazon paid no U.S. federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018 despite posting income of $3.03 billion and $10.07 billion for each of those years respectively. In 2019, Amazon paid roughly 1.2% or $162 million on eleven and a half billion in income.  Tell me, how much did Jeff Bezos walk away with?  His secretary at the front desk paid at a higher rate on her paltry income.  Way to go, big-time spender!

Bezos and his billionaire class fight tooth and nail to keep it all.  The latest one and a half trillion in tax cuts benefited mostly those at the top five percent.  Not so much, that distraught mother or father facing an eviction notice.  Not so much, that owner of a corner deli, heartsick about laying off his last worker.  Not so much, that teacher wondering how to scrape together a few dollars to buy her own supplies because her school ran out months ago.  Probably, years ago.

Reporter Sibile Marcellus is the blessed Nasty Woman who spilled the beans on Bezos.  Cut from the same cloth as Mary and Mrs. Tomkinson.

These strong, determined women of The Squad fighting for the survival of their people – they are Mary of the Magnificat.  They’re coming after these guys in their gated mansions who give the rest of us male chauvinist piggies a bad name.

The mighty will indeed be cast from their seats.  Many of these newly elected women, Republican and Democratic alike, wrested seats from dinosaurs who have done nothing for years.  Most never actually showed at townhall meetings.  They relied on cash, cash and more cash along with name recognition to sail through.  Year after year.   Well, no more. 

There’s a new Nasty Woman in town and she looks a lot like the people of her district:  black, brown, working class white, and feisty.  Blessed Nasty Woman.  And she’s fighting for ALL our own good. 

You dink around, and that eraser’s already airborne.  You stuff your wallet with unpaid taxes, you cheat your workers and expose them to disease, make wagers on how many will get COVID-19 and die — watch out.  Nasty Woman’s hot on your trail, lawsuit in hand.

Today we celebrate Mary, no more a tool of a patriarchal church that would limit and subdue women.  No pastels.  Powerful voices, right out of the prophetic tradition of Amos, Isaiah, Miriam, Rebecca, Hagar, Jeremiah, Jael – running through the pages of prophetic activist voices directly to Jesus.

Light that fourth Advent Candle for LOVE — Mary and her Fierce Love for the “least of these.”  Let us join her song: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”  Our gracious and revolutionary God would magnify all of us to raise a ruckus, a holy ruckus.

Amen

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[1] Sibile Marcellus, “Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos cashing in on pandemic at workers’ expense is ‘immoral,’ says Rep. Tlaib,” Yahoo Finance News, December 17, 2020.

December 20, 2020, Fourth Sunday of Advent

“Mary’s Sunday”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Canticle 15, BCP, p. 91; Romans 16:25-27;
Luke 1:26-38

This time of year, unless we’ve got COVID-19 or have been served an eviction notice, our hearts turn to the delights of the season.  It may be our favorite dishes, a fond Christmas memory, a special gift you gave someone.  For me, one cherished holiday favorite is Jai’s persimmon pudding topped with lemon sauce.  More about that later.

Memories flood in – the good, the bad and the ugly.  We probably won’t have a tree this year for just the two of us, but one memorable tree stands out.

When I was in junior high, my mom got on this artsy-craftsy kick.  We were informed that we would not be having our usual decorations and lights for the tree that year.  From a holiday season designer magazine, she came upon some gaudy monstrosity to replace our cherished family decorations.  Way too froufrou.  I could see Christmas already going down the drain.

What had usurped the place of honor on our tree were these new creations she spent weeks making out of four-inch Styrofoam balls covered with gold netting and glitter.  God-awful is what I called them. I was soon not on her favorite-person list.  She spent weeks on end putting them together – must have been forty or fifty of these suckers. Boxes full.  As we had just moved into a new house with a eighteen foot high ceiling in the entryway, we could have a really huge tree.

This brings me to the second disaster of the season.  My dad was never one to pass up a bargain.  He figured that if we waited until the very last moment to get a tree, we wouldn’t have to overpay for it.  As time grew closer and closer to Christmas Eve, and my mom had finished her growing collection of these wretched glittery balls, my brother and I were increasingly fearful that all the trees were going to be sold out.  Snarkily, I suggested that if we waited until Christmas Day, they’d probably PAY US to haul one away.

It was either Christmas Eve, or maybe the night before, when we drove from empty tree lot to empty tree lot.  My brother and I were about in tears.  This was shaping up to be the WORST CHRISTMAS EVER.

We finally found a lot with lights still on and one or two sales clerks.  Not much of a selection left.  And then my dad spied it.  A tall, fifteen-foot, white, flocked tree.  The price must have been right because Dad snapped it up in an instant.  As we drove home, he went on and on about what a deal he’d gotten.  “Let that be a lesson, boys.”  Yeah, Grinch.  A really memorable lesson on how to ruin Christmas for everybody.

It did have, though, more than enough space for Mom’s creations, and multiple strings of white lights.  I still missed our old-fashioned colored ones.  Especially the ones that bubbled up like little candles. This ersatz tree would have looked most handsome in some bank lobby or maybe a Sears department store.  But I didn’t say that, as we set about distributing presents around it.

Ready or not, the time draws neigh.  Our collect for this morning expresses the urgency.  “STIR UP YOUR POWER, O Lord, and with great might come among us…”  With Isaiah we proclaim, “…the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

STIR UP YOUR POWER, INDEED!   In England, this is called “Stir-Up Sunday” – the reminder for the women (I guess men don’t make the puddings)  to stir up their Christmas puddings.

In our family, it’s about persimmon pudding and joy.  We light the third candle.  You notice, it’s pink.  Actually, in your Zoom-isolated home you might not actually have a pink candle.  But pretend.  It’s pink.  Got it? 

It’s pink because the third Sunday in Advent is known as “Gaudete Sunday,” from the Latin first word of the ancient introit, “Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, Gaudete — Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say, rejoice.” – BE JOYFUL.  Be of good cheer.

When I had asked my friend, Dick, how was it even possible, with our country in such a sad-sack state of affairs:  a pandemic with Americans dying like flies, rampant conspiracy theories, homelessness, hunger, and the flat-out denial of electoral reality – how was it at all possible to have any good word to say this coming Sunday about JOY?  I recalled my preaching professor Dr. K. Morgan Edwards admonishing us students, “In scripture it is said, ‘The word of the Lord was rare in those days,’…BUT you have to preach this Sunday anyway!”

I was beginning to wish it was Deacon Pat’s turn to preach again.  Any word from me was going to sound like the really “FAKE NEWS.”   Plastic Christmas brought to you by Fr. John.

And this is the advice from my friend.  When things are looking pretty crappy — when there’s not much good news – look for the small moments of joy that break into your life.  Look for small moments for gratitude.  Great advice.  I probably owe him a beer for that one.

As I said, Jai makes the most scrumptious persimmon pudding ever.  To die for.  Top that with her lemon sauce and it’s an express ticket straight to the Land of Bliss.  As close that we’ll get in this lifetime to heaven.  Well, maybe I exaggerate.  But it’s really, really, really good.  What wouldn’t be a cause for jumping-up-and-down joy?

Being cooped up has had some very good moments.  There has been some excellent programming on television.  It’s not all a wasteland.

If you can get it, watch “The Children of Windermere,” the story of some three hundred child interns rescued from Hitler’s death camps at the end of WWII.  It follows these children from Czechoslovakia to a new home in Northeast England.  There, under the guidance of enlightened professionals and others these children were restored to wholeness as best as was possible.  By the time they were of high school age they went to live with individual families..  That they found fulfilling work, some entering the professions and academia…that they  married and raised successful children – all of it was heartwarming testimony that sometimes humanity out does itself.  We do the right thing and succeed wondrously well.  That program was enough to bring gallons of joy to my heart.  Advent joy.  Watch it with your children.  They need to know of such goodness that springs froth from the human heart.  Find it on your PBS station.  Or order it for Christmas from the PBS catalogue.

Another, most joyful event, was Kamilah Forbes’ adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, Between the World and Me, which builds on the 2018 Apollo Theater stage production.  Showing on HBO, Direct TV and Amazon Prime.  It is about “The Talk.”  That’s the instruction that parents of color must give their children around their sixteenth birthday on how to survive an encounter with law enforcement.  It’s that necessary talk that will allow them to survive such an encounter.  It is not a talk that white parents need to give their children.  Therein is the racial divide in this nation.  It’s the talk that our son Christopher and Alexis, should they marry and have children, will need to give theirs – and give our grandchildren.  It’s an existential concern.  It is a moment of quiet joy that white families are presently being brought into this discussion.

What I found to be most joyful about such a depressing topic is that such a crucial national discussion could be held on TV.  You know, that cultural “wasteland.”  That some white parents might get a glimpse of what others with teenagers of color must endure. 

As a white kid, I never received a talk like this from my parents.  It wasn’t necessary.  Being white and middle class, most any officer would have treated me with respect.  And they did.  Never once was I harassed, abused, or in fear for my life.  The worst worry I had was how to explain the speeding ticket to my father.  Sixty, in a thirty-five-mile-an-hour zone???  Never demeaned, even on that traffic stop –though, I did get quite a lecture from the officer.  And the ticket.

What I find to be a cause for joy is that now, for the first time, white parents are learning right there in their living rooms, in their own gut, the racial disparities that so many others must endure.  The film is beautifully done – doesn’t pull any punches – but it, in ANY decent heart, causes a surge of empathy to well up.  Such understanding is the essential ingredient to any racial healing in our land.  And that is a cause for the most profound Advent Joy.  Right there on HBO, I think MSNBC also carried it.  Order it from Amazon.  It will leave you hopeful that, together, we can fix this.  Racism need not have the last word. 

To underscore the need, another black man was shot as he was entering his home in Columbus, Ohio.  Carrying two Subway sandwiches, as his two toddlers and 72-year-old grandmother looked on in horror    Casey Goodson, 23, was killed by a sheriff’s deputy, the shooting ruled a homicide by the coroner.

When hearts and consciences are aroused, even by such tragedy, I’m taken back to our first Advent candle – HOPE and, now, our third, JOY – all part of God’s PEACE, our second Advent candle.  With a new administration committed to ending police violence, committed to dismantling Jim Crow — I choose to be hopeful. 

Tears of grief, as flowing in a New Orleans funeral procession, God can turn to joy.  Out of dirge, ragtime JOY can bust out…IF, AND ONLY IF, WE DO THE WORK.  Only if we sing a new song.  Only if we do the organizing, the voter registration and get the souls to the polls.

We can vote for a decent America – an America where #BlackLivesMatter – an America where all lives matter.

STIR UP YOUR POWER, O Lord and with great might come among us.  We hunger for even the slightest smidgen of JOY.

Now that we’re on a Zoom schedule at St. Francis, the most profound joy these past weeks is just seeing your beautiful faces.  We are Advent Joy to one another – a gift of the Lord. 

Whether it’s small family gatherings, if only by Zoom gathering, or persimmon pudding with lemon sauce, whether it’s a documentary that stirs the soul and quickens the conscience, Advent Joy is creeping in “on little cat’s feet.” In ways big and small.

Let us light that pink candle on this Third Sunday of Advent.  Light it, remembering Casey Goodson.  And light it with hearts thirsting for God’s goodness.  Light it with commitment to BE THE CHANGE you seek. 

The Spirit of the Lord is abounding in the land with Good News to the oppressed, the poor, the hungry…not only those of whom we read of in the papers and see on TV, but also for folks right here, right now. 

Light a candle for JOY.  And stay away from tacky Christmas tree ornaments. 

Amen. 

December 13, 2020, Third Sunday of Advent

“Of Persimmon Pudding and Advent Joy”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Canticle 3; 7; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24;
John 1:6-8, 19-28

Many, many gone.  Over seventeen thousand since election day alone.  So many gone in this Dark Night of Despair.  This Sunday we are summoned to wakefulness.  We light the first Advent candle for HOPE.  We are summoned to wakefulness.  WAKE UP!

When I was in medic training in Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, we learned all the various aspects of what would be required of us, whether we be out in the field or assigned to a hospital or dispensary stateside.

After lunch, in the hot, humid afternoon, we were marched to our training bungalow and shown old training films produced for the Army of WWII.  No air conditioning.  These were old scratchy, black and white films introduced with the sort of music that you may remember from the newsreels that were shown before the main feature.  If you’re around my age, you remember that music.

One afternoon, the feature of the day was a film on “folding the forty-five-degree corner of the hospital bed sheet.  The lights went off, the projector began grinding away.  The narrator was droning on, “Notice how the corner of the sheet is folded back to make a forty-five-degree fold.  Let’s look that again, this time in sloooow mooootion.” 

The lights went on with no warning and Sarge was bellowing, “Wake that man up.  Wake that man up!”  He was assigned to KP duty for the next two decades and told to stand up against the wall.

The lights went off.  Again, “Let’s see that one more time in sloooow mooootion.” 
The actor in the film hadn’t even gotten the blankets pulled up before we heard a loud crash.  Again, the lights flicked on.  This poor slob against the wall had fallen asleep again – and had fallen to the floor.  He was probably scrubbing pots and pans until Vietnam was over.  Lord have mercy.

This Advent a stirring sound is heard.  WAKE THAT MAN UP.  WAKE THAT WOMAN UP.

If we don’t sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” it would be no First Sunday in Advent at all.  Like a birthday with no cake and candles.  The Fourth of July with no fireworks.  “Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!”  Yes, indeed.  Rejoice!  Something’s happening.

In this dark age of COVID-19 the night is indeed long Yet’ God is ready to bust out doing a new thing.  It’s Jessie Jackson’s chant raised to a cosmic level, “Keep Hope Alive.”

In Mark we get the wake-up call.  No gentle, “Wakie, wakie, wakie.  Here’s your coffee, dear.  Time to rise and shine.”   NO!  It’s earthquakes, thunder, planets and stars falling out of the sky.  All the powers of heaven shaken.

Mark doesn’t want anyone to sleep through the alarm.  No snooze button here.   And why all the ruckus?

“Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of the lord Jesus Christ.”

WAKE THAT WOMAN UP!   WAKE THAT MAN UP! 

This IS THE DAY OF THE LORD.  ARISE, SHINE.

He is here in clouds of glory.  His angels have been dispatched and are presently gathering among us.  Folks WE are the angels appointed for this dissolute day.  WE are the power and glory for this hour.  WE are the ones elected.  Called into tender fellowship with the Living God who now appears among us.  Emmanuel.  So…

WAKE UP.  GET UP.  GET ENGAGED.  And don’t be attached to the results.”  This was always the summons from my friend Ed Bacon every first Sunday in Advent.  To whom else did you think the Lord was shouting?

And while the summons is dramatic and abrupt, so often the work seems mundane.  In this time of pandemic, it seems a most modest request.  Wear your mask.  Keep social distance.  Don’t have people over for the Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Don’t sing.  Don’t have indoor worship.  Such common sense, but a great burden on the heart.  Be awake to what will give life, to what will allow us to celebrate a most Merry Christmas together next year.  After the vaccine.

We are summoned to lift up in prayer all essential workers whose health is at risk so we can minimally carry on.  Grocery store clerks, nurses, therapists, tellers, police officers, pharmacy assistants.  We lift up in prayer students struggling to master lessons from afar, across the internet.  Teachers baffled by new technology.  Something they never learned in their ed classes.

We lift up in prayer those who have lost everything:  wives and husbands, homes and incomes.  If you’re in the supermarket parking lot and hear the tinkle of that little bell.  Do drop something in the Salvation Army kettle.  They are Christ’s hands, heart and wallet.  They serve those we probably don’t run across in communities like Claremont or Alamo Heights.

In this darkness drear, STAY AWAKE.  You may be the only light about.  Let it shine.  COVID-19 will not have the last word.  It may get some of us, but it will not subdue the full Body of Christ.  Even in the midst of death, LOVE WILL PREVAIL.  Do not despair.  Hold on to each other and be of good courage.

In the early days of the Jesus Movement, in the midst of plague and death, followers of The Way, nursed the sick and dying.  It was not so among the fearful, those not of the household of faith.  Even their dearest — a child, a husband, a wife or beloved servant who took ill, would be cast out into the street.  Left to die in the gutter.  Not so with those of the Christians.  Those who gave the last ministrations to the dying, were soon, in their turn, the recipients of the same care. 

Even pagan philosophers were astounded and won over by such love.

Knowing much more about the spread of disease, we sophisticates, certainly, would do otherwise.  You think?  Walk down any city street and encounter the many wearing no mask.  Look at last summer’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.  Corona virus followed those cyclists home to communities all across the country, spreading the contagion.

Tell me how sophisticated we moderns are.  Look at Trump’s Superspreader Rallies that left behind waves of illness and filled hospital ICU wards fourteen days afterwards.  And morgue trailers.  And now, mass graves.  Speak to me of our modern enlightenment, and I say, “Lord have mercy.”  Tell that to the exhausted medical staffs with nothing left to give.

STAY AWAKE.

Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us, “It is always the right time to do the right thing.”  Now is the RIGHT TIME.  Today God gives us every good gift and a sound summons:  Heal the sick.  Feed the hungry.  Shelter the homeless.  Wear your mask.  Write that letter to your congress critter.  Demand relief for the destitute, the hungry.  This illness IS a national emergency.  We need to be on a war footing.

In earthquake, in sunset, in the exhausted face of a doctor, in the hopeful smile of a young girl, in the cup of coffee offered a homeless man, we discern the inbreaking of divine illumination, the urgency of the moment. The Call of Advent.  However God gets our attention, it’s wakie, wakie time.

In this fragile body of Christ, yes, we the Church, in we who feebly struggle, Christ is here to shine.  No matter how downcast we might be, Christ is come in our midst with great power and glory.  WAKE UP.

Let us light that first candle for HOPE.  WE are that HOPE.  WE are the Light of the World.   “Signed. Sealed. Delivered.”  Reporting for duty.

Amen.

November 29, 2020, First Sunday of Advent

“Wake Up”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Isaiah 64:1-9a; Psalm 80:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9;
Mark 13:24-37

When I would stay with my friend Artie for a sleepover – yeah, we probably didn’t sleep much – I can still see in my mind’s eye his picture of Jesus at the door knocking.  The thing about this picture was it glowed in the dark.  As Artie’s family was Roman Catholic, and he always asserted that his church was the “One True Church,” I thought it was fitting that his Jesus glowed in the dark.  I didn’t even have a picture of Jesus on my wall.

In our Sunday School room was a picture of a blue-eyed, blond hair Jesus with Nordic features.  Harmless as a small puppy.  He certainly wouldn’t be whipping folks, yelling and screaming and turning their money tables over.  In college I called it the Cocker Spaniel Jesus.  Harmless as a sweet, adoring pet.  AND of absolutely no consequence.

Throughout the years of Christendom, we have had many images of Jesus the Christ.  Many versions of Christ Crucified, Christ Risen, Clean Cut Chamber of Commerce Capitalist Christ, Beatnik Poet Christ, Christ of the 1960s Jesus Freak. I found most intriguing that elusive figure of Flannery O’Connor in her stories of the Christ-haunted shadowed woods of the South darting from tree to tree.

In Matthew’s gospel, the Parable of the Last Judgement, we have a very different picture of the Christ, a portrait I find most compelling.

Those welcomed into the embrace of the Holy are the ones who have been in solidarity with those who suffer, those who hunger, those imprisoned, those abandoned.  This Christ is one at heart with mercy, justice, forgiveness.

I remember visiting my son in New Haven, walking on Sunday morning to the Episcopal Church on the corner of the green.  On the way to my church, I would pass two UCC churches, one next to the other.  One always seemed so quiet that I wondered if it was even open for business.  At the other I noticed a huge group of people in the back.  They were serving up breakfast and engaging a bunch of folks in conversation, passing out lunches.

I asked my son about that church.  He admitted that that is where he and his girlfriend had been attending.  Yes, they had tried the Episcopal Church out of loyalty, but it had nothing for them, nor had it had much of anything for the community.  It really was the House of the Frozen Chosen.  If you weren’t already part of the tribe, there wasn’t much of a welcome mat.  They were now at the church where Christ was visible, feeding the homeless, visiting the addicted, caring for the mentally challenged. 

Though he didn’t say it exactly that way, what he was describing was the Compassionate Christ of Matthew 25.  This is the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel, who gathers up the scattered and discouraged.  The students of that congregation were in fact Christ to those who gathered each Sunday behind the Church.  They were the only face of Christ some of those homeless would see.

In our day of COVID-19, this is Christ in a Mask. 

This Sunday we celebrate the Reign of Christ, the conclusion to the season of Pentecost.  Featured up front this Sunday is the Risen Christ of Great Compassion let loose in the world.  This Christ appears wherever those, driven by his power, embody the hallmarks in Matthew’s Parable of the Last Judgement – wherever that Shepherd of Ezekiel gathers up the fallen and lost.

Yes, we celebrate Christ in a Mask in these days of pandemic.

My friend Katy writes a response to a Facebook friend who had insisted on her freedom not to wear a mask.  This “freedom” is American individualism run amok.  In South Dakota the governor, confronted with overflowing hospital wards, exhausted staffs and filled morgues, has finally signed a mask order.  BUT refused to include any enforcement mechanism. 

You can’t tell us what to do.  Born Free.  Free to die like rats, coughing our lungs up having swallowed the strychnine.  Yes, siree, you can’t tell me what to do.

It is out of her assertion of rugged individualism that Katy’s friend strenuously objects to her freedom being curtailed.  It’s her life, and if she gets sick that’s her business.  This friend has no thought of who she might spread it to.  It’s all about her!  Sound familiar?

A weeping Christ stands at the door of this friend’s heart, patiently knocking, asking that she might have a care for the rest of us.

Katy shared this touching Tlingit story from Southeast Alaska.  It’s a story of a Christ her Facebook friend would not understand, but those native people of Southeast Alaska embodied to the fullest.  Katy, admonishes her friend:

“I remember a heartfelt Tlingit story of a village that got sick from a disease brought by the Europeans. Many were sick and many were dying. One family was healthy and the tribal elder told them to get into their boats and leave before they got sick too. They did so, but it was hard.

“Others whose families were sick wanted to go too. The family that left in their canoes came upon another village, one that was happy to see them. But they didn’t go ashore. They communicated with their paddles that there was a sickness in their home village and they didn’t want to bring it to the ones on shore.

“So, the people on shore built big bonfires in their honor and they sang songs across the water to one another. There was much grieving. The next day the family in canoes left to find a new place to build a home and did not visit others until they knew the sickness was gone.

“They must have felt lonely, but they also wanted to keep the sickness from spreading.

Here is a fulsome portrait of Christ in a Mask. 

When did we see you isolated and lonely, cut off from friends and family?  You wore a mask, you visited us in a park and kept social distance.  You would not risk spreading this contagion to us or our family.  We sang songs to one another across the green.   Christ in a Mask.

Being part of the Jesus Movement in this time of great national upheaval and contention is a true test of faith.  As a political pugilist, I fear I often fail the test.  I hear from afar the Lord of all Hopefulness saying, “Fifteen minutes in the penalty box, Forney.”  For I was not the least bit hopeful, but a chastening rod.

After listening to our Presiding Bishop’s message to our diocese this week, I think I finally comprehended the enormity and the difficulty of the challenge.  When asked how one remained true to one’s commitment to equity and inclusion, how did one answer an opponent who was a white supremacist?  How did you relate to such a person as Christ might?

First, Bishop Michael said this was not an easy task.  Most difficult, one at which he often fails.

Second, Bishop Curry remembered an admonishment from an elder early on in the first days of his ministry.  You need to stand tall before that person with what you believed – stand tall but also humbly kneel at the same time before the image of God in that person.  Most difficult.  A superhuman request for many of us.

No matter the invective and racist innuendos, the slurs and the misogyny, without accepting that verdict and holding fast to the truth within yourself — realize that deep within this most wounded human being is the image of God.  Though well hidden.

His wise council caused me to remember a day, late in the afternoon when I was working for then Candidate Obama in Akron, Ohio.  I had been instructing high school students how to canvass a precinct.

The students had all left for home and I had just a couple of blocks remaining to finish that tract.  As the sun had set behind the trees and shadows lengthened, I came to an old battered, yellow, wood-frame house with peeling paint.  To step on the front porch was a broken leg waiting to happen, as it had mostly rotted out and was sinking into the front lawn.  Above the door hung both a tattered Marine Corps flag along with a very faded and threadbare American flag.  Not the hallmarks of what looked to be a progressive person, I thought.  But who knows?

A sign next to the doorbell said, “Deliveries Around Back.”  So, I trudged around the side of the house and up the driveway and knocked on a sliding glass door.  I could hear the sounds of a televised sports event as an elderly woman in a faded housedress cracked it open just a bit. 

What did I want?  She could see my Obama T-shirt and cap.  I told her I was from the campaign and would like to give her some information on Obama’s health plan.  She hesitated, then turned to whomever was watching the game and yelled, “Honey, who we voting for?” 

A voice came back, “The nigger.”  For a moment I was speechless.  That’s not how I was raised.  Then it began to sink in.  This was just how he was raised.  Since he was willing to give Obama his vote, I guessed he didn’t mean anything offensive about it.  As my pastoral counseling professor, Dr. Kemper used to say, “He’s just doing the best he can at this moment.”  This fellow just didn’t realize, or want to acknowledge, how hurtful that word is, not just to black people, but to many of the rest of us.

At this point, his wife was willing to take my literature and we talked a bit about where to vote and the hours of early voting. 

When we encounter those who use vile, offensive language, who believe in the most bazaar conspiracy theories about Democrats drinking children’s blood in the basements of pizza parlors – while most disgusting and unbelievable — let us acknowledge that somewhere, most hidden in that soul, is the Image of Christ.  How might we honor it while staying true to what we hold fast?  The same for those crazy, lefty adherents of Antifa.  Somewhere a wire gets crossed in too many of us.  Lord have mercy.

Maybe the best we can do at the moment is to wish our interlocuter, “Have a nice day,” and admit to that person, that we presently have not enough in common for a civil conversation today.  Maybe at some later time.  But not now.   And pray not only for them, but for patience and sufficient compassion to see beyond both our damaged exteriors.  Pray for the insight to see this person, to see ourselves, as doing the best we can at the moment.  And pray, trusting God to perfect the poor, pitiful results of that encounter, the bare surface the human eye presently sees

Christ is that Great and Good Shepherd who would gather all into the arms of Welcome, much as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings.  Christ is that Power, living still today, leading the naive and hopeful to reach out to the homeless and hungry.  Christ is the Perseverance to go through the mountain of paperwork to bring publicly supported housing into being, especially in fearful, exclusionary cities – to see beyond excuses for exclusion. “We have no homeless here.”  Christ is the Foolishness to believe that we can actually make a difference.  Christly love is not some vapid sentimentalism.  It’s doing the right thing to keep our neighbors healthy, to save lives.

Christ in a Mask, moves us to put our neighbors first before our own prerogatives and rights.  In our retirement community there’s a sign: “Behind every mask is a person who cares.”  

Christ in a Mask inspires us, over the distance of time and political ideology, when this pestilence is over and done with, to sing songs back and forth to one another across the divide — to celebrate this Christ in a Mask who has shown us how to enter the eternal realm of LIFE ABUNDANT.

Amen.

November 22, 2020, Last Sunday in Pentecost

The Reign of Christ Proper 29

“Christ in a Mask”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 95:1-7a; Ephesians 1:15-23;
Matthew 25:31-46

The election is over.  Some may be gnashing their teeth.  Some may be rejoicing.  Whatever your political persuasion, it’s been a most frightful season.  Is it possible that we can ever put America back together again?

I’m reminded of one of our boys’ favorite books.  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.[1]  Alexander knew it was going to be a terrible day when he woke up with his chewing gum in his hair.  His best friend abandoned him.  On top of that, his mom had forgotten to put dessert in with his lunch and, One disaster after another.  Alexander knew partway through, it was going to be a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”  And it didn’t get any better that evening.  Yuck!  There was kissing on TV.  Alexander threatens to move to Australia, but nobody is listening.  Australia is his favorite go-to place to escape to when the world is against him.  I, myself, always consider France.  They eat very well there.

As his day comes to an end, Judith Viorst concludes this sad saga:

“The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me.
It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My mom says some days are like that.  Even in Australia.”

Much of Alexander’s terrible day is the scrapes and knocks a young boy goes through, especially the youngest of several siblings.  Stuff happens, and when it does our immature reaction so often makes it worse.

Amos paints the picture of really bad stuff the self-satisfied, religious elite will endure.  These are they who consider themselves most favored in the eyes of the Almighty, yet do not abide by the will of God when it comes to the poor and the socially marginal.  The religious phonies will indeed endure some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days, Amos predicts.

Through Amos’s thunderous excoriation, God breaks through smug self-delusion:

“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!

     Why do you want the day of the Lord?

It is darkness, not light;

     As if someone fled from a lion,

     And was met by a bear;

Or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,

     And was bitten by a snake.”

And why all this grief for the favored and chosen?  It is because the institutions of religion, divorced from the substance of mercy and honesty are nothing.  It all rings hollow as pretense.

“I hate, I despise your festivals,

     And take no delight in your solemn assemblies……

Take away from me the noise of your songs;

     I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”

I come from the tribe of beautiful, stately worship.  Incense and fine vestments.  We have wonderful tracker organs and magnificent, chanting choirs.  We worship in stately buildings.  So why is God not pleased.

It is because too often, it’s only a Sunday morning show.  And not just my tribe.  When church becomes entertainment divorced from the needs of the “least of these,” it’s plastic, ersatz grace.  Such self-congratulatory religious exercises are an offense to the One of the Holy Torah who commanded justice and equity in the land, the One who reminded the faithful settled in the land that at one time they were all foreigners, strangers.  We are that caravan of dispossessed children at our southern border, though we don’t know it — though we dwell in fine houses and live fat on the land in splendid isolation from their desperation.

God, through Amos, promises the religiously smug a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  Many such days, for they are without vision or discernment  Yeah, we’re all there sometimes.

And such will be the case for the nation that does not abide by the very same standards of loving kindness and righteousness. (Remember the Hebrew word – tsaddik – that which we translate “righteousness,” should best be translated as solidarity —  as one who is in SOLIDARITY with one’s fellows.  It refers to a complete human being, one whose life carries the weight of doing what is right and just in the eyes of both God and all humanity.  It does NOT denote a pious goody-two-shoes demeanor.  It carries the full intent of the command to love the “Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

America, I believe, enfolds that commandment in our foundational documents.  We know the watch-words: “Liberty and justice for all.”  A “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  These intentions are the bedrock of who we are.  Or who we wish to be.  They are aspirational, not reality.

Unfortunately, we do not even come close to living up to that standards.  For much of our history, our solemn national occasions have rung hollow.  As Frederick Douglass, out of slavery in the 1800s, confronted the self-satisfied white establishment: “What is your Fourth of July to Me” is a speech Douglass was invited to give at a gathering of the well-to-do on the occasion of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of to the Independence in Rochester, New York, July 5^th, 1852.

He gave this speech as one left out of the fine promises assumed for others.  This is an address which echoes Amos’s denunciations of the elites of his day, the piously indifferent.

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

Woe to that nation which does not live up to the simple standards of decency and fairness for ALL its citizens. 

We have been through one of the most contentious elections since that of Jefferson and that of Lincoln.  We are now at the politics of grievance and tribe.  Personalities and program matter not a wit.  The only determinant is, does the candidate have a “D” or a “R” following their name.

Too many throughout the land feel excluded from the high and lofty promises of our founders, whether they be a floor worker in a factory in the Midwest or a grocery checker in downtown East Los Angeles.  They resent those who abuse their authority whether as police or as a city planning clerk.

They have had it with an economy that has loaded them up with massive student debt or cheated them in a house mortgage with fine print only a well- trained lawyer could understand.

Now, in the midst of a pandemic reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt, we, our loved ones and neighbors are dying like flies.  The incompetence of our government in managing this disease staggers the mind.

Like those whom Amos addresses, like those to whom Frederick Douglas, James Madison, Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony spoke, we have fallen far short.  Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy upon us.

What is the fine rhetoric or our anthem, its lofty vision — to the dejected family sitting at curbside with their worldly belongings piled up as trash?  What is the vision to the mother and father with no food in the cupboard?  What are the promises of this nation to that black family mourning the death of a son beaten by police at a traffic stop?  What mean these promises to a mentally ill homeless person living on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles?

We Americans on the conclusion of the election of 2020, find ourselves at each other’s throats.   We vilify those we judge to be responsible.  We seethe with anger and boil over with plots of conspiracy. 

Someone has to be responsible for this pitiful state of affairs.  Are we at the dead end of Sartre’s play, “No Exit”?  Are we doomed to a Hobbesian war of “all against all?”

LISTEN UP!  Amos does have a saving word, a restorative word.  Those with ears to hear, let them hear:

“But let justice roll down like waters,

    And righteousness (solidarity) like an ever-flowing stream.”

The cure is simple.  This truth is not so far away, so high that we need send someone afar to bring it to us.  It is right here, planted in the heart and mind of each of us.

We know what must be done.  We need only take a deep breath, accept the reality of our condition and allow the Divine Wisdom to flow through us.  We know how to treat neighbor as self.  This truth is not hidden or so obscure that only the smartest can discern it.  We know that when one suffers, all suffer — all are diminished.  We know this.  We learned it in Sunday School, in kindergarten.  We learned it at a parent’s knee.

As the South African saying goes, “I cannot be who I am meant to be unless you are who you are meant to be.”  That’s the principle of “Ubuntu.”  Call it “solidarity.”  We all rise together.

Let justice roll down like waters and solidarity like an ever-flowing stream.

What will get us there?  Listening, to start. 

As Joe and Kamala become our next president and vice-president, I would suggest the first order of business for them would be to pack suitcases, board the bus, and embark on a national “Listening Tour.”  Get out into our cities and suburbs, into our prairies and the foothills of Stone Mountain.  Talk with those who make the “amber waves of grain” happen.  Speak to workers on shop floors and students in the classrooms of our nation.  Simply listen.  Not just to the words but to the sentiments.  To the aspirations.  And ask that toughest question: “What are you willing to do to make it better?”  Of each of us — What am I willing to do?  What are you willing to do?  Today, we might have to do it all by Zoom instead of on the road.

If American does climb aboard, this train is bound for glory.  The glory of a reborn people fully alive.  Indeed, the glory of God!

At the end of it all, I want to be accounted among the tzaddikim — The Righteous.  I want to be numbered as among those abiding in Divine Solidarity with all the others.  Don’t you?  What greater hope?

What are we willing to do to become grounded in the reality of global warming, to become grounded in our national plight of poverty and homelessness, mental illness, addiction? 

Where might we make a difference for a child in a crap school deprived of the necessary resources and good teachers?  Are we willing to share and demand fairness in our tax codes that we overcome present economic realities – where just thirty some families have as many marbles as one half the nation? 

America, “I set before you the ways of life and death.  Choose life that you and your descendants may live.”  That you may enjoy the bounty of this land.

Are we, in the face of this pestilence, willing to do our part — to wear masks and social distance?  Yes, it’s a pain.  So was Valley Forge and the Edmund Pettis Bridge march.  So were the beaches of Normandy and the killing fields of Vietnam.  So is slogging through a chemistry textbook and learning all those Latin names in a zoology class.  A total pain.  Citizenship is hard, requires effort.  Every single day.

Matthew reminds us that the reality of this holy vision is like unto an approaching bridegroom to the wedding feast.  Our sole responsibility is to be ready to celebrate the feast.  We are simply asked to rejoice in the happiness of the couple soon to be united as one. 

We are summoned to embrace opportunity before us, lying fallow in fields of despair and anger.  We but must ready hearts to greet it, like an approaching bridegroom.  Like a bride anticipated at the altar as she approaches down the center aisle.  Christ only enters the open door of the heart and mind.  Love does not force.

Look at the promise, as the feast is ready and the band strikes up the beat.

“Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul.  I want to get lost in your rock-n-roll and drift away, drift away.”  Drift away into the delicious imagination of God’s glorious possibility.  Set before us.  Always approaching, never quite arriving. 

Such a nation will flourish.  Such a people so grounded are like a mighty tree planted by a living stream.  Such a people will flourish and be a blessing to the nations.  Such a nation will do its part.

Let our God’s honest truth and mercy flow through us.  Today, tomorrow – we need it more than ever.  

Yes, there are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.  Even in Australia.  Even in America.  Sometimes an adder hidden on the wall.

But we are not left as orphans with no hope.  Let God’s ever Loving-Kindness, God’s Justice, God’s Truth, God’s Liberty – a vision already implanted in our very being — flow through us.  Amen.

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[1] Judith Viorst, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (New York:  Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1987).

November 8, 2020, Pentecost 23

Proper 27

“A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18;
Matthew 25:1-13