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

---

[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.

---

[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

Any number of quotes come to mind as we move towards All Saints Day, Halloween, and perhaps the most consequential election in a lifetime.  All in the midst of the scourge of the greatest pandemic since the so-called Spanish Influenza of 1917-18.

While the White House declared that the virus has been defeated, that we have “turned the corner,” I’m remembering the favorite quips of my grandpa, “He’s gone round the bend.”  “Mission Accomplished?” — when we’re spiking new infections at the rate of over 90,000 last Thursday?   One sixth of these will end up needing hospitalization.   I don’t think so.  The cruel trick’s on us.  And no treat.

One survivor of COVID-19 writes of her recent recovery.  Heather Sellers, in The Sun, a literary magazine of essays, poetry, journaling and personal biography, narrates the onslaught of her infection:[1]

“March 28, 2020:  This Afternoon, for the first time in what feels like a long time but has only been a week, I step outside my Florida home and into my garden, a small shady space ringed by a high wood fence.  I’m hidden from the world.  Barefoot in my damp nightgown, I walk slowly across the pavers.  One step, one breath.  I have one hand on my throat.  I’m not sure why, but somehow this feels absolutely necessary.

“The virus is hidden inside of me.  I feel its force and power.  My body aches.  Cold knots snarl in my calves and my thighs; my back feels frozen; shivers ripple up my arms.  By the time I reach the birdbath, I’m sweating in the soft breeze.

“I close my eyes.  The hardest part is taking the next breath.  I must breathe very, very slowly, in a very specific way.

“Breathing has become like remaining steady on a balance beam over a dark pit.

“I’m stunned to find I cannot take another step.  I don’t have the breath.

Thus, begins Heather’s nightmare odyssey through her infection.  A month later she closes her journal, expressing gratitude in her trailing convalescence for the small gifts she does have – electricity, fresh water, cotton sheets, a car, a bottle of Tylenol, a washing machine. 

‘I can’t see the virus, but feel its seeds in me.  I can’t see my faith, but feel its seeds in me, too.

We Christians in the Episcopal tradition have tended to give the book of Revelation short shrift.  It’s phantasmagorical imagery, looking like something out of a Halloween apocalypse, is too bizarre.  It’s like a scene out of “Ghostbusters.”  The symbols and metaphors are too distant from our time to be comprehended by us moderns.

But this is not a book of doom and destruction, though some churches use it as did Tim LaHaye to express their most twisted, distorted versions of the faith.  Projecting the anxieties of their damaged souls onto the message of the life-affirming Jesus Movement, they do great harm.

Revelation, more than anything, is a message of hope.  Hope for those who have endured great tribulation.  The saints are those of the entire community of faith who have persisted in the face of enormous evil.  These are they who stand in solidarity with one another, with all humanity, and with the natural world, to be the harbingers of a new, “Beloved Community.”   The saints are those who have confessed the name of Jesus through deeds big and small.  Acts of justice and mercy, knitting up the Church one halting stitch at a time.

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”[2]

Today we celebrate the Saints of God, known and mostly known to God alone.  These saints are the entire company of the faithful, and not-so-faithful, who look to Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  The exemplar and head of the Jesus Movement.  The chief Cornerstone of the “Blessed Community.” 

We “little saints” – “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine…” Revelation is a book of hope for those of us who strive to sometimes do the right thing.  And trust the results to God.

In bearing witness, Heather Sellers is one in my compendium of that Blessed Company, one who inspires and fortifies the soul.  She is a member of the Hallelujah Chorus boldly making her confession of faith.

One of my Facebook friends, looking with despair at the long lines of voters being suppressed by indifference and massive incompetence posted, “Jesus help us. Or someone help us. I don’t care.”  To which I responded, “Jesus has already given us the power and the grace to help ourselves.  We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.” 

Let me tell you about some of us others we’ve been waiting for.

In hours at bedsides and in sweeping floors, way beyond human endurance, in countless unselfish acts, unacknowledged saints confess the name of Jesus.  Around the bedsides of the dying, they gather, as around the throne of God.  Though their white lab coats and PPEs be stained with blood, they are spotless in the reckoning of all that is Holy.

Clasping the hand of the dying at the moment of death, nurses, orderlies and doctors fill in for missing family members not allowed to be present.  The hand of that nurse, that doctor, that janitor – is indeed the Hand of God.

As even one patient is wheeled down the hallway to go home – surrounded by cheering staff lining both sides of their exit – that is the best Hallelujah Chorus ever.  These “indispensable” workers have left nothing on the field.

Accompanying  Heather are countless nurses, doctors, therapists and “essential workers” to tend the victims of this pandemic in overloaded hospitals across the land.  These acts of solidarity, big and small are witness to the ethic of the Jesus Movement.  These are the Saints of God we celebrate this day.

Mopping up filthy hospital floors and cleaning soiled linens, saints at work.  Those who assist the navigation of mountains of paperwork – saints indeed.  And those who prepare the dead for burial, they are counted among that holy assemblage.

This pandemic has brought out the worst, and also the best of who we are.  This virus has dipped deep into ancient fears and concocted a toxic brew of the most bizarre conspiracy theories and magical thinking.  It has brought out denial and complacency.   We are not learning to “live with it, we are dying from it.”

But it has also brought out sacrifice and humility.

A favorite hymn[3] reminds us that the saints of God are just folks like you and me.  You can see them at tea (read coffee, and over a beer).  You can see them on trains or at sea.  These days, you will find them on ICU wards and stocking shelves in grocery stores.  They will be at computer screens teaching by Zoom.  And they will be at home learning third grade history on the internet.  They will be delivering the mail and answering calls at church offices.

Matthew’s “Beatitudes” is a window into the souls of these saints.  We’re talking humility, patience, kindness, endurance, sacrifice.  If ever there were cardinal virtues, we know those who show forth these in abundance.  In ways big and small these gifts abound in the saints of God.

One man of such virtue is a politician.  A politician!  And a Muslim, to boot. Imagine that!

I tell you the story of Qasim Rashid, a Democrat (Alert! This is NOT intended as a partisan story) running for Congress in Stafford Virginia.  He writes of a recent outdoor campaign event with about 30 supporters:[4]

“Today, Trump supporters crashed our event.

“With a large RASHID FOR CONGRESS sign behind me, it wasn’t long before Trump supporters began driving by, honking, and waving their flags.

“Soon a few Trump supporters showed up on foot, waving their flags. Perhaps it was an attempt to interrupt or intimidate, or, just to exercise their free speech. After all we respect the First Amendment. In any case, I had a decision to make. Do I ignore them or do I tell them to leave?

“I decided neither. Instead, I called them over.

“I had the mic and called out, “Hey y’all, you don’t have to stand over there waving that flag. You can come join us. Our events are open to all. We’re expanding our tent, not closing it down.”

“To their credit, they came and joined our group and listened in.

“What’s your name?” I asked one of the gentlemen. “Chad,” he responded.

“The Q/A continued with our supporters. Eventually, Chad asked about the Supreme Court and the claim that Democrats want to ‘Pack the Court.’

Qasim explained his view that, if they were to have an honest conversation about “packed” – that hundreds of appointees submitted by President Obama had been held up for no reason whatsoever; then, after the 2016 election, replacements were rushed through blindly by the new administration by a compliant Senate.

“You can’t accuse Democrats of a hypothetical event that never happened while ignoring the actual court packing done by Republicans.”

“Chad, the Trump supporter, was silent and finally responded, “Yeah, I agree that’s hypocritical.”

“I gave Chad credit for being honest and calling out the GOP hypocrisy and responded to Chad, ‘Thank you. Here’s the truth. I’m running as a Democrat because I believe the Democratic platform is more aligned with justice. But if you’re looking for me to say that Democrats can do no wrong, and Republicans can do no right, then you’ve found the wrong guy because I don’t believe that. I’m committed to upholding justice as the supreme standard. You have my word.’

“Chad responded, “I can agree with that.”

“The tone changed from one of hostility and distrust to one of recognizing that we as Americans truly want the same things—justice and fairness. Soon after Chad left the gathering on his own, but not before sharing with our host that he walked in viewing us as the enemy, and left realizing we actually have a lot in common in wanting to uplift our nation.

“But it’s what happened after all this that truly left me in awe.

“As the event ended, at least 5 of the (Trump) attendees walked up to me and shared that they’re life-long Republicans who have never voted Democrat before, and have always voted for my GOP opponent. But now, for the first time in their life they’re voting for a Democrat—Qasim Rashid—for US Congress.

“Why?

“They’re drawn to our campaign that refuses to respond to hate with hate. They’ve seen my opponent’s attacks on my faith and see us responding with compassion and justice.

That could have been any Republican, any Democrat, but regardless of who votes for whom, civility and respect won the day.  E Pluibus Unum.  Out of many kind and respectful conversations, the saints of God shine brightly, Red and Blue.

Neither Chad nor Qasim will forget that day, I suspect.  Yes, there are a few saints, Republican and Democratic, to be found at political rallies. We differ on many issues, but the whole is stronger than the parts.  Let’s work together on what unites us and save the rest for another day.

As we head to perhaps the most contentions election of any recent history, I offer up MLK’s watchword: “It is always the right time to do the right thing.”  Let us remember that this whole election thing ought to be about making the American tent bigger.

And would that we Christians live out the virtues of our faith as well as a Muslim did on that day.

This Sunday, let us celebrate the Saints of God, both living and those having entered into Glory, all across the land.  In ways big and small they confess the name of Jesus.  Yes, there’s a Jesus Mosque in Amaan, Jordan. You can meet them most anywhere.

“And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.”[5]

Now, get out there and VOTE.  And do what you can to bring in the vote. 

Amen

---

[1] Heather Sellers, “Just This Breath,” The Sun, June 2020, Issue # 534.

[2] Revelation 7:9-19.  New Revised Standard Version, 1989, Division of Christian Education, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

[3] “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God,” The Hymnal 1982 (New York, The Church Hymnal Corp., 1985), p. 293

[4] I thank my friend Merrill Ring for passing this story along.

[5] “For all the Saints,” The Hymnal 1982, op.cit., p 287.

November 1, 2020, All Saints Day

“Sometimes We Do the Right Thing”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22; I John 3:1-3;
Matthew 5:1-12

I remember my geology teacher at Cal. State. Los Angeles, Dr. Ehlig.  He taught optical mineralogy, a highly abstruse, conceptual subject.  It required the ability to think in three dimensions all at once.  And it was held after the lunch hour in a hot, stuffy classroom.  When several of us had just returned from the Cabin Inn, stuffed with their huge hamburgers and French fries and a Guinness Stout.  And as Dr. Ehlig droned on, it was hell trying to stay awake.

Dr. Ehlig was a tough grader and we knew that given the small size of our class – only about 15 – there would probably only be one “A” awarded, two at best.  As we held the last review class before the mid-term exam, the question amongst us guys, who would get that “A”s?  (No women, there in fact was only one woman student in the entire geology department at that time).

We, for sure, knew it wouldn’t be Bob Stanton.  He didn’t seem to understand much of what was going on.  As we filed out of the room that day at 5:00 p.m., my money was on my friend Ron.

On the following Monday, when the exams were passed back to us, were we in for a surprise!  Who got the “A”?  SHOCK UPON SHOCK!  It was Bob Stanton.

After class, several of us clustered around him, asking how he had done it.  He said that after we had all left that Friday, he went up to Dr. Ehlig and told him of his confusion about the material and the methods.  He said that Dr. Ehlig had said, “Let’s start at the beginning.”  And he did.  He stayed until after 7:30 that evening explaining the principles and methods of optical minerology to Bob from the beginning. 

That, in my book, made Dr. Ehlig the finest professor I had ever had in my college career.  Dr. Ehlig was like that stout old tree in Psalm 1, planted by an ever-flowing stream of water.  The water of righteousness – the righteousness of kindness, and commitment.  The righteousness of devotion to both his subject and to his students. 

I don’t know if all he did prospered, but that semester, Bob sure prospered.  And so did we all when we discovered the quality of the human being who was our professor.

This is what the writer of Leviticus meant in his admonition for the people of faith to be a “Holy People.”  A people devoted to a vision and a reality beyond and within themselves.  Jesus put it correctly in his answer to a lawyer’s trick question.  “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all you mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Two points about the translation of Psalm 1.  Firstly, the rendering of the Hebrew “baruch,” should be “blessed” — as in “Blessed is the one…”  NOT “happy,” as in our leaflet from Church Publishing for this Sunday.  Happiness is an ephemeral state of being having little to do with the blessedness of God.  “Happy” is to the “blessed” as a Twinkie is to hearty oatmeal.  Incidentally, our last president’s first name is derivative of that concept – every child is a blessing.  Including the ones locked up in cages at the border.  Especially them.

Secondly, the Hebrew tsaddiq, frequently translated righteous, can convey a self-aggrandizing, stuffy piety, the appearance of being holy.  My Old Testament professor, Dr. Knierim of blessed memory, insisted that a more accurate word would be “solidarity.”  The tsaddiqi, the plural, are in solidarity with God and with one another.  Their will and actions are in alignment with that of God and the well-being of the community.  Jesus put it: Love of God and love of neighbor.

Dr. Ehlig is surely one of the tsaddiqi.  His teaching prospered, and so did the geology department for his having been on staff.  For those able to stay awake at one o’clock in the afternoon after a monster hamburger and a glass of suds, he was a dedicated teacher.  After class Dr. Ehlig was a fount of wisdom and a refreshing delight and a true friend – though a tough grader.  He was the personification of “blessedness.”  He was one who stood in “solidarity” with his classes.  His devotion to those of us, even the ones who nodded off, was “holy.”

That image from Psalm 1 of a mighty tree standing straight and tall, was captured in the spiritual of the 60s Freedom Summer.  “We shall, we shall not be moved.   We shall, we shall not be moved.  Just like a tree a tree that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.”  The tsaddiqi are that unmovable tree. So were those courageous freedom riders.  Those martyrs, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, tortured and shot at close range in Meridian, Mississippi are to be accounted as among the tsaddiqi.  Their sacrifice has been a blessing to every person fighting for the right to vote.  It was the cowards, the racist scoffers, the chaff which the wind blows away who will be remembered only for the evil they did on that dark night.   

An investigation by the FBI and local sheriff authorities would later reveal that members of the local White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department were all involved in the murders.  Worthless chaff.

America loses track, jumps the rails, when we fall out of solidarity with one another.  David Brooks, in a recent column, “How to Actually Make America Great,” based on a new book by Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone) and Shaylyn Romney Garrett, dates the failing of America from the time America was more about “I” than “We.”  Even the frequency of the word “I” in the titles of books published between 1965 to 2008 doubled. [1]

That’s why I tell our House of Hope team, this is a “we” project.  You never begin your report with “I.”  If you believe that “I” is the only one who accomplishes anything, “WE” will never accomplish anything.  And the most important audience for this sermon is myself.  This is a WE project.  Yes, some of us will sleep through the Zoom meetings.  Or miss them entirely.  But, even the lackadaisical, who knows how God might use them, no matter how much they frustrate and annoy the rest.

That is why the redactor of Proverbs can say of a good wife and partner, “She is better than gold, even much fine gold.”  Every sermon, I am blessed to have written, Jai has read through.  She picks up the errors and tells me when I’m not making sense.   When I’ve gone off the rails.  Better she finds this out than you, dear reader.  It’s about “WE.”

But I digress.  Back to Brooks, Putnam and Garrett.  When it comes to our national fragmentation, Putnam and Garett focus on that issue of solidarity.

“The story of the American experiment in the 20^th century is one of a long upswing toward increasing solidarity, followed by a steep downturn into increasing individualism.  From ‘I’ to ‘we’ and back again to ‘I.’” [2]

Is Gordon Gekko right?  Greed is good???  It’s all about MY 401(k)?

If our nation continues to pander to self-interest, to self-justifying racial stereotypes, we will have earned that reward.  We will end as a nation like the “chaff which the wind blows away.”  No matter how many nukes we have.  No matter how the stock market is soaring.

Sometimes, laughter is the best medicine.  The only medicine.

I remember one comic who ridiculed Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and his dissembling about the racism implicit in it.  In a skit portraying Nixon, the comic, mimicking Nixon’s reprise of George Wallace, portrays Nixon as saying, un that droll cadence, “Some believe in instant integration.  Others believe in segregation forever.  But I believe in INSTANT FOREVER.”

 It’s a relief we can laugh at the folly of bigotry, laugh at ourselves as a nation.  The “Saturday Night Live” opening skits have often been my saving event of the week.  And, they’re often an equal opportunity pox on both political houses.  Laughter brings solidarity, when we laugh at ourselves, at pretense and fake piety.

Amy Hunter is an activist out of St. Louis, MO, as well as a diversity and inclusion specialist for Boeing.  Previously, she served as director of diversity and inclusion at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.  Before that, as director of racial justice for the St. Louis YWCA.  She has written of the Black Lives Matter that originated in Fergusson, Missouri, after the killing of Michael Brown.  Amy is surely one of the tsaddiqi in my book.

Amy Hunter in her TED talk lets in on the secret of those who just happen to live in the right zip codes, “lucky” zip codes she calls them.  It was privilege, mostly that got them there — privilege they presently benefit from.  The chances of someone from Watts or East L.A. zip code making it to a Beverly Hills zip code is about 5 in 100, if that.  Forget the “Beverly Hillbillies.”  Doesn’t happen.

How can people of conscience respond in good faith?  Amy presents the idea of “Fictive Kinship.”  It means living in solidarity with those didn’t have the good fortune to be born into these “lucky” zip codes.

Her bottom line is that America will live up to its promise only when it is as important to you that a child living in South Side Chicago or Willowbrook (you insert any underserved community across the nation here) – that it is as important to you that a child attending a crap school in that underserved zip code go to a school every bit as good as the one your child attends in Claremont or Oak Park, Piedmont, Montecito or The View.[3]

Those of us who have access, those of us who don’t have to worry about being followed around by security in a department store will only “Make America Great” when we can treat these folks as our own kin.  Though not biologically related, we need to consider others living in “unlucky zip codes” as precious as our own.  Our niece, our aunt, our brother.  The Constitution is our birth certificate, each one of us.  The Gospel mandate is what binds us together.  If we don’t get that, our faith is hollow and we are but an empty, clanging cymbal.

Only if we get relationship right, only then America will be accounted among the righteous.  We will be like a strong oak planted by that ever-flowing stream of righteousness.

The haters?  Their works will shrivel and perish.  They will come to nothing.  We can vote for that kind of dissolute nation.  We can make that dead-end choice.  Or we can heed Amy Hunter’s wise counsel.

It’s all about LOVE OF GOD and LOVE OF NEIGHBOR.  Pretty much one and the same.  We rise or fall together.  In America there is no “I” that is as important, as powerful as “WE.”

I give Amy the “Last Word.”   What she wants, each of us wants, no matter our zip code or race.  She, in daring to share this, is that strong oak tree planted by the stream of righteousness.  What she does and who she is prospers.  This is her testimony:

“When my son was 12, he walked home less than a mile away from our house. And he saw police officers circling. And he knew he was going to be stopped. He was about five houses away from home. And sure enough, at 12, he got stopped. So he came home to me because he was 12, and he was flustered. And he was asking all these questions about what happened and why it happened. And so he said, you know, Mom, I want to know, like, is it because I’m black? I said, I don’t know, maybe. He said, well, I knew you were home, and I actually thought about running home to you. And I said, whatever you do, don’t run.

“And he looked at me, and he said, Mommy, I just want to know how long will this last. And then I looked at my 12-year-old son, and I said to him, for the rest of your life. I want this to stop. I honestly believe that we are the right people to make a change in this community, to be role models and examples of how to get this right and create the kind of world and reality that we’d like to see, to create a more equitable society where there are no lucky ZIP codes.”[4]

Amy, indeed, gets the “last word.”    It’s truly a Gospel word.  Amen

---

[1] David Brooks, “How to Actually Make America Great,” New York Times, Op Ed Section, October 16, 2020.

[2] Op. cit.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdX8uN6VbUE

[4] Amy Hunter, TED Talk, “Lucky Zip Codes.”    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdX8uN6VbUE

Dear friends in Christ

October 25, 2020, Pentecost 21, Proper 25

The Rev. John C. Forney

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18; Psalm 1; I Thessalonians 2:1-8;
Matthew 22:34-46

“We Shall Not Be Moved”

I remember my dad talking about the coal industry of his boyhood home in West Virginia.  And while he grew up in a rather privileged home, he did have a sympathetic heart for miners that virtually had no future in the mines.  Wages were poverty level, the conditions were dangerous and the only future many miners faced was black lung disease and indebtedness to the company store, in a company town that exploited those families at every turn.

When Tennessee Ernie Ford came out with his ballad, “Sixteen Tons” in the fifties it surely resonated with the stories Dad had told us kids.  The company store extorted the families in those company-owned towns unbelievably, he said.

The purpose of his morality tale was not to express sympathy for those consigned to that life of backbreaking labor and poverty, but as a warning, to stress to us the importance of getting an education so we wouldn’t endure the impoverishment his family had avoided.  It meant getting the hell out of there.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go

I owe my soul to the company store.

Such has been the hardship of the impoverished since time immemorial who are deprived of agency.  Folks ground up by predatory coal companies. Sixteen tons and a short life of misery. It meant poverty, illness, drunkenness and ignorance to my father. I call it the “sixteen tons” mentality of sweatshop and the mine.  It’s work till you’re all used up and then you drop. 

When Jesus is asked about the lawfulness of paying taxes to the imperial state that has its boot on your neck, he slips through a most cleaver trap.  If he answers “no,” he and his followers risk all the might of imperial Rome coming down on their little movement.

If Jesus answers “yes,” he will be complicit with the exploitive, demonic power of Rome.  It will mean giving approval to those tax collectors roaming the land confiscating the livelihoods of those already barely able to feed their families.  Not unlike those presently evicting families in the midst of this economic collapse.  Paying taxes would only be feeding the insatiable greed of rapacious tax collectors.

Back then it was, as now a short life of brutality and deprivation for far too many.  It was Hobbs “war of all against all.”

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

St. Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go

I owe my soul to the company store.

It’s the company store or Cesar – one and the same.  Jesus asks for a coin used to pay the taxes.  Whose face is on the coin?  “Cesar’s,” someone answers.  “Then give to Cesar what is Cesar’s, and to God what belongs to God.”

Niebuhr’s insight into human nature was spot on.  He noted that most of us, when left to our own devices, usually do the right thing.  We are compassionate.  If we see a lost child, we attempt comfort and if we see suffering, try to get help.   If a neighbor’s house had burned down or flooded, we will work with others to provide emergency clothing and a place to stay until lodging can be found.  We will give to refurbish the neighborhood baseball field.  That’s just human nature.

These are the duties belonging to God.  Virtually every church would applaud such.   Most of the world’s religions as well.

Niebuhr says that such empathy and compassion tends to break down when it comes to nation states and large organizations – a number of which are actually larger than many entire countries.

From such, we might not expect much compassion or understanding.  AT&T is not going to care if you have lost your job and are being evicted.  In a number of hospitals, you will not be treated without insurance.  Or at least, not treated well.  Even if you are bleeding on the floor, before the emergency room nurse, they’ll send you to the “Accounts” window.

Management will close ranks to protect the institution.  The marginalized will be sacrificed.  Those with no power sold out.  That’s the story of Reconstruction after the Civil War.  Look how the U.S. regarded those butchered in the My Lai Massacre.  Swept under the rug.  And the war criminal Lt. William Calley?  Let off with a wrist slap.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Just move along.  Stuff happens.

On the failings of large organizations, I’m reminded of one priest’s understanding of the sometimes perversity of the institutional Church.  “I’m never disillusioned by the Church because I have no illusions about it.”

My dissertation was a study of clergy who had left the parish ministry over a thirteen-year period back in the seventies.  I remember one former pastor, who still had much anger when relating the story of one church he had just been assigned to.  This, years later.

He reported a call by the conference treasurer demanding to know where the monthly payments were.  What payments?   No one mentioned to him any mortgage payments.  When told the treasurer in no uncertain terms that there was no way the congregation could make these payments, the treasurer told him that if he walked the neighborhood, about one in ten would be Methodist.  He had a vision of his life going down the tubes at a ratio of one to ten.  After a few sleepless nights, he told the treasurer what he could do with that job.  Not the empathy one might hope for from Mother Church…

It’s the same story on COVID-19, the economic devastation of small businesses, and a host of other problems facing our nation.  Twisting slowly in the wind we are.  “Benign neglect,” Nixon counseled back then.  When fifty-seven families own as much as one half the country, don’t expect much sympathy.  You read it right – fifty-seven families!

But every now and then…  EVERY NOW AND THEN!   Someone in power does the right thing.  Somehow, out of nowhere.  Out of the blue.  Someone does the right thing.  A righteous woman, a righteous man rises up.  And we say, “Thanks be to God.”  A leader who’s cause for a “Glory Attack.”

This is why, in Isaiah, the foreign potentate Cyrus is called messiah.  Cyrus is to be the means of freedom for the Israelites from Babylonian captivity. They would return rejoicing.  “Every valley lifted up and every mountain laid low.”  The path of the Lord made straight into freedom.  Every now and then…  Israel took it as divine providence.  Out of Babylonia as out of Egypt.  As, centuries later, following the drinking gourd, escaped slaves boarded the Underground Railroad made their passage to freedom in the North.  Completely done with “Sixteen tons” till you dropped. 

Abraham Lincoln was similarly regarded by the enslaved and the abolitionists in America – Father Abraham.  Every now and then someone in the behemoth of big government does the right thing – the saving thing.  A strong deliverer arises.

In Matthew the question is whether people of faith are required to pay taxes, to cooperate with what was then a despotic reign. 

Whose face is on this coin.  It is the faces of the American people.  Yes, mostly old, dead white guys.  But even now, a bit of light shines.  Susan B. Anthony.  Sacajawea.  And, hopefully, Harriet Tubman.  And more exemplary women to follow.

We can turn around the “sixteen tons” mentality that uses up men and women in sweatshops and the gig economy.  Uses them up and spits them out.

In America, the discussion is more nuanced.  And as we head into perhaps the most contentious election since that of Lincoln before the Civil War, we have Christians of many opinions.  On both sides of the partisan divide.

There is no vigorous King Cyrus liberator figure on the ballot in this 2020 election.  It is America that is on the ballot. 

Jon Mecham is right, this election is for the “soul of America.”  My side believes that.  I’m sure the other side believes that as well.  And we all have our reasons.

So where to, America?  What does it mean when WE are Cesar?  It is our heads on the coin of the realm.

In America, each of us is a citizen with inalienable rights and duties who are to be the strong deliverers. We are anointed, each as a “little Christ” as it were.  To our families, our neighbors, our communities.  Each of us is divinely empowered to leave this nation a little better than when we arrived on the scene.

All of which is to say, that if we look around, we have the opportunity to do more than just pay taxes.  We are called to the joy of having skin in this game called America.

We can march for justice, we can support quality schools in our communities, serve on the school board. 

As St. Augustine said, “Faithfulness in the little things is a big thing.”  Our little things in the coming year will add ot a “big” thing.

But, right now, most of all, vote.  Vote for candidates that are problem solvers.  Vote for candidates who have a lived track record of empathy for the “least of these.”   Vote for candidates who respect the opposition and can work across the aisle.  Vote for those who can see beyond the interests of their own wallet.

It’s “Shinning City on the Hill” time.  Away with the “sixteen tons of number nine coal” until you drop, consumed by black lung disease or polluted water.

It can be “Morning in America” if we work for it.  Whose head on the coin?  All of ours!  WE are morning in America.

Not to vote is a sin.  So, do it!   Amen.

Dear friends in Christ

October 18, 2020, Pentecost 20, Proper 24

The Rev. John C. Forney

Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-13; I Thessalonians1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

“Sixteen Tons of Number Nine Coal”

When families get together, or when we used to get together before COVID-19, it didn’t take long before favorite stories to be shared around the circle. 

In our family, one of the favorites my brother and I regailed the family with was about our mom and the construction of the western village from the back of the Cherios box.  On each box of Cherrios cereal there were one or two houses, maybe a barn, or something like a general store.  You cut these out and followied the directions on which way to fold each portion, or which tab to insert into which slot.  On completion, one had a house, a general store or whatever.  For a quarter and a boxtop or two, one could get a layout for the entire village.

As Mom continued working on one of the structures,  I became increasingly anxious that she was not following the instructions.  Finally, in desperation, worried that she would ruin it, I blurted out, “Mother!  You’re not following the instructions.”  To which she responded, “Only an idiot would need these instructions.”

Within minutes, she began searching around on the floor.  “Where are those instructions?”  I delighted in reminding her, “Mother, you said that only an idiot would need these instrucitons.”  And we’d all have a good laugh.  Then it would be someone elses turn in the barrel.

Family stories are what binds us together and brings to memory the good times.  And sometimes the trying, difficult times.  It broke my heart yesterday to open the paper and see the picture of a forlorn man, downcast, staring at the smoldering ruins of his home.  “We’ve lost everything, he said to the reporter.”   Indeed, it was all gone.  Only the remnants of a fireplace and chimney remained.  Like tens of thousands, he and his family will tell their depressing stories of starting over.  The tarnished trinket found in the ashes, the melted dog dish. the charred mailbox out front.  All that was salvaged.

Scientists and climatologists will tell a more encompassing, less personal story of an erratic climate, drought and spruce bark beetles.  They will piece together the evidence of global warming into stories of coming hardship and disaster for much of the planet.

We tell our stories to bear witness.

When I looked at the editorial pages of the NY Times, there was a picture of a sodden village in Pakistan.[1]  People aimlessly wandered the drenched street where nine inches of monsoon rain had recently fallen.  The highest amount ever for a single day.  Novelist Fatima Bhutto, lays out the ecological and human disaster awaiting her nation as the glaciers in the Himalayas melt and temperatires soar to over 124 degrees F.  With the loss of drinking water for millions, drought and famine stalk the land.  She tells a most sobering story.  And yet many would still deny the reality of her cautionary tale at the highest levels of our government.  Fatima writes her story in sadness and in dread that it may not make a difference.  No hearts will be warmed, no minds changed, no action taken.  Yet, she offers up her story in hope.   To bear witness.  Before it’s too late. 

As humans, all we have left so often are simply our pathetic or sometimes hopeful stories.  Stories that should be warning, or stories capable of inspiring hope and resolve. 

Stories are remembered and told to formulate excuses and lay blame.  To justify myths of superiority and to scapegoat.

Years from now, political commentators will weigh in on those officials who ignored the science and evidence of global warming before their eyes.  Or, on the other hand, belived those stories concocted to give credence to the fake news and the “alternative facts” behind this ginned up, so-called hoax of global warming.   Which story did our generation believe?

By this time the science and any proposed solutions will have become so politicized, so costly, that there will be no hope of consensus.  The truth, as in battle, will have become lost in the “fog of war – partisan warfare.” 

We saw that political combat in vivid and tragic display at the first presidential debate.  What a farce.  And this is our democracy?  God help us all.

The disaster was so discouraging that even I, a political junkie of long standing, couldn’t stay engaged.  The president’s continued interruptions were tiresome.  I, and the millions watching, had never in all our born days seen such a performance.  And Chris Wallace, the moderater, struggled mightily to constrain Mr. Trump and wrest control.  What on earth had we just witnessed?  Joe was also a bit out of order at times, calling the president a “clown.”   Though not without provocation.

Last night we saw a bully on full display who coddled White Supremacists And we saw a decent man who called us to to be our best selves.  A choice between the Proud Boys and their ilk or the legacy of those who fought to preserve freedom on the shores of Iwo Jima.  They are not “suckers” and “losers,” Mr. President.

With elections only weeks away, it remains to be seen how the public will come to a judgement between these two narratives.  However, on November 3^rd we  voters must process this most unusual of campaigns  And make a choice.  It is one for the history books.  And certainly the nail in the coffin of civil discourse.

“And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,” that’s the snippit of a favorite hymn, “For all the Saints,” that’s floating through my mind this morning.

Why is the fight so fierce?  Whoever shapes the narraitve has the power to determine political outcomes.  The story becomes weaponized.  A cudgel with which to bludgeon the opponent.  To claim the moral high ground.  Is it all just about power?

In Matthew we have an old parable from Isaiah used by the church –weaponized to delegitimize the Jewish tradition.  The new community employed this old story to claim the mantle of God’s favor.   According to that story, the Jews through their treatment of the prophets and Jesus had lost claim to Israel’s salvation history. 

Like the wicked tenants (we all know who they are) of the vineyard, through the murder of the owner’s son, they had the vineyard taken away.  The owner of that vineyard will “…put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”  Let those with ears to hear, understand what is being said here.

Looking at the disasterous failings of the church over the subsequent centuries, we have absolutely no claim any superior moral authority.  The Holocaust was the final capstone to our pitiful record of failure.  Jim Crow representing the abject failure of Christians to resemble anything like the Beloved Community.  As Mark Twain frequently reminded Jesus’ followers, “It would be a whole lot easier to believe in the possibility of redemption if the redeemed looked a bit more redeemed.”

Row upon row of empty pews in many of our churches are testimony that the Church has lost it’s mandate.  We might not have killed the son, but we sure have too often killed the people with borerdom. 

For our youth, the church is certainly not where the action is.  Except now and then.  Now and then, like those youth pilgrimages to New Orleans after Hurrican Katrina.  Now and then, like those groups doing House Builds for Habitat for Humanity.  Or lately serving at food bank distributon lines.  Every now and then the gospel bites us in the get-go.  And we get a case of Holy Gumption.  And did I mention marching?  And signing up to help at polling stations so the usual crew of seniors won’t be put at risk of COVID-19?

It is said that it is the victors who write the history.  And that is why the stories of history and the overall narrative arc is so important.

Looking back to the time I taught American history in an Oakland public junior high, the source of my failure to reach many of those students was the inability to weave into my students’personal and family histories the story of our nation.  And to keep it real.  I might as well have been talking about creatures on some far-off planet.  Nothing to do with the “hood.”  Nothing to do with the reality of vicious gang leaders and a drug culture.  Nothing to do with empty shelves in the kitchen, distraught parents and rats skittering across the floor at night.

As stories from the daily papers flood my mind, as the larger story of America and the group of companions that gathered about Jesus intrude, I discover the saving grace as I allow my heart to be touched.  For isn’t that finally the aim of all stories.  It’s about what we bring to them.

Today, my small parish celebrates it’s patronal feast day, St. Francis Day.  The enduring blessing of this favorite saint, the real take-away is that everything is connected.  Joined together in the abiding love of God. 

As I remain in lockdown, Deacon Pat will bless the animals in Franciscan tradition as they and their keepers drive by in the parking lot of the church.  She will sprinkle them and their owners with holy water, enjoining the drivers to “remember your baptism and be thankful.”  She will slip into a back window a suitable treat for a dog or cat and a copy of this sermon.

The larger story we are acting out today is that no matter what hash we make out of it all – personal relationships, our nation or this planet – redemption is at hand.  The only question before us is the one Jesus asked the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to be well.” 

Eddie Glaude in his book, “Begin Again,”[2] holds out hope that, deep down, we will claim healing.  That, this late in the day, we might be willing to forsake the foundational lie at the heart of our nation.  That we will come to terms with the “original sin” of America.  The most pernicious lie being that a white life is of more worth than a black life.  This is that perennial “lie” at the root so much hate and distrust.     This is “lie” that has from the beginning poisoned any promise of what America might have been.  So, now to Begin Again.  There is Grace for nations and whole peoples.  Ask Germany.  Ask Japan. Ask South Africa.  America is at a transitional moment.

Healing begins when we acknowledge the falsehood of those tired, old stories concocted to demean others.  Jim Crow.

I found most hopeful a story in the L.A. Times of the Latino and Latina staff at the paper there.  “Revisiting an anti-Latino past,” was written to celebrate the promise of change.[3]  A paper that routinely refered to Mexicans as “greasers,” “wetbacks, “border jumpers” and only employed such as janitors and in other low-level positions, now celebrates them as staff writers, editors, and columnists. 

The Times Latinx writers have won Pulitzers for their work on local L.A. politics and California exposés.  Courage and anger wore down racist barriers.  The ownership of the Times, over the years, had hearts changed.  A new, more inclusive story, told the heritage of this paper and it’s mission to it’s reading public.  And to themselves. 

That is why we celebrate St. Francis today.  His story is paradigmatic of the larger story of God’s love.   It is a more inclusive story.  In Christ Jesus all are invited to God’s bountiful table.  “Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith, you are invited to this table.”  We in the Church are called to ever renew that story that it take wings in minds young and old.

In Sunday school we used to sing a favorite, “I Love to tell the Story.”  What I learned there was a expansive story of joyful generosity.  A story of changed hearts and minds.  The lost are found.  Enemies reconcilled.  It’s the story of a God reaching deep into us and pulling out the very best.  As persons.  As a nation.  As a world.   Glory abounding!

Tell me the old, old story.  But don’t just tell me.  Make it real.  Make it come alive.  I want to see this Jesus story in action, how it plays out in real life.  How it might play out in my life.

“And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumph song, and hearts are brave again and arms are strong.  Alleluia, alleluia!”

“The golden evening brightens in the west…”  Yes it does.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Amen.

---

[1] Fatima Bhutto, “Pakistan’s Terrifying Battle with Climate Change,” New York Times, September 29, 2020.

[2] Eddie Glaude, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for our Own (New York: Crown, 2020).

[3] Gustavo Arellano, “Revisiting an Anti-Latino Past,” Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2020.

Dear friends in Christ

October 4, 2020, Pentecost 18, Proper 22

The Rev. John C. Forney

Isaiah 5:1-7; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

“Tell Me A Story”