Today we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath.  This is Mary’s Sunday.  And this is Stir Up Sunday – the clue that it was time for folks to get their Christmas puddings started.  Why, you ask?  The collect that begins worship for today begins, “Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us;” Ladies, get your puddings stirred up.  Christmas is coming.

On a more serious note, this Sunday, we also turn our attention to Mary, who sang Magnificat.  In the Ave Maria, the Mother of God.  Highly exalted in song and poetry.  Yet, historically, we know almost nothing about her. 

Unwed, expecting a child.  Poor, of Middle Eastern peasant stock.  Illiterate with no formal education.  Marginal, to say the least.  Of the Creed, the most scandalous assertion concerning Christ was that he was born of a woman – a simple peasant women, pregnant and with no husband.  Of course.  These things are always the woman’s fault.  Out of such simple and lowly beginnings, God turns the world upside down.  Gloria.  Gloria!

That is the scandal of Mary’s child.  To make the point that there was something amiss with this liaison between Mary and Joseph, Matthew in the lineage which introduces his gospel, mentions three other women: Rahab, Ruth, and “the wife of Uriah” – that is Bathsheba — all women of questionable moral character.  Only four women mentioned in this long litany of male ancestors proceeding forth from Abraham.  Only four, and these four in particular. 

Some scholars believe their insertion in this genealogy was Matthew’s rebuttal to rumors being spread about concerning Mary’s unorthodox pregnancy.  She was an early victim of the Cable News Slime Machine.  And Matthew’s rebuttal was that whatever Mary’s sexual history and whatever her marital status, it makes no difference.  God works through all sorts of women – and men.  These sorts!  Gloria.  Gloria!

God, out of all sorts of questionable people, even some pretty scandalous men and women – you and me, sisters and brothers – Right here.  Standing in the need of prayer – God carries forth the story of salvation.  Yes, Matthew reflected the sexism of his culture.  But, that’s not the point in this story.  Let’s set that aside for another sermon.  The miracle here is that from those accounted as nothing by the movers and shakers, accounted as most lowly, in their very flesh and sad-sack backgrounds, God intrudes into our sorry world – even through people like us here this morning.  Yes, we are also to be accounted as part of the Christmas Miracle.  Gloria.  Gloria!  Can you hear the angels warming up over on yonder mountain?  Do you hear what I hear?

And why Mary?  She said YES.  She yielded herself to God’s story of salvation.  And might we do no less?  Blessed art thou among women, indeed!  “Let it be unto me according to thy word.”  And blessed might we be as well, we of so little account.

While in West Virginia these past weeks, if one was looking for meager material of humble beginnings, Jim, our director of development for House of Hope – Ohio Valley, and I, visited a rehab center run by the clients themselves.  In recovery jargon, it is known as aa peer-to-peer operation.  There were no medical or other professional staff.  The curriculum is solely The Big Book of AA.

As we were shown the facility and spoke with residents there, it was obvious, one could not get to more humble beginnings.  While leaving, a fellow in an orange jump suit and in shackles was being escorted in by a couple of armed deputies.

Behold, this place was, in living color – orange, the Christmas miracle come alive.  Out of degradation and desperation, God was including one more person in God’s great plan of salvation history.  Yes, from Abraham, Joram, Ruth, and a whole bunch of other people we’ve never heard of – right up from Bathsheba, Solomon, to Joseph and beyond – the story continues until it comes to such as you and me.  And a smelly, sorry-ass fellow in an orange jump suit.  Gloria. Gloria!

Recovery Point in Huntington is solely a men’s facility.  It seemed like there were about one hundred living there.  I was astounded at the organization and the ethic of recovery I witnessed in those men.  Two of the biggest learnings accompanying the journey to sobriety are respect and accountability.  All chores are done by those living there from cleaning up and making one’s bed to kitchen duty and mentoring those coming out of detox.  The place ran like clockwork.  Discipline was strict.  Consequences were meted out for screw-ups.  And it was all accepted with equanimity by those who knew in their gut that Recovery Point was their last, best chance.  Now, I sure wouldn’t want any of these men seeing the office and desk I came home to.  They’d know I’d flunked recovery from chaos.

This visit to Recovery Point was my Christmas Present indeed.  As John’s disciples were asked concerning Jesus, what do you see? “Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”  And did I ever see the dead raised up!  Right there at Recovery Point, Huntington, West Virginia!  Gloria.  Gloria!  This was far better than any Miracle on 34^th Street.  This was the real deal.

We had a most delightful lunch while in Charleston.  Our host cautioned Jim as he was about to get in the back seat, “You’d better sit on the other side.  It’s…umm…a…er…a little full on that side…of…um…er… McDonalds wrappers and cartons.”  It was landfill size full.  We wouldn’t want to rat him out.  But he wears a purple shirt and a collar as part of his professional attire.  We all had a good laugh.

And to top it off, the following day back in Charleston at Starbucks, I spied a young woman in a Recovery Point jacket with a friend.  I introduced myself and they told me that they were staff on the woman’s center here in Charleston.   After they picked up their orders, they came over and set at the table with Jim and me.  Thinking back, mine that morning was probably one of the weirdest, unlikely pickup lines that may have ever worked.  Anyway, they shared some of their stories.  One shared of her seven-year old boy in an institution.  He had been damaged from her neglect when she was stoned.  Recovery’s not easy.  She will live with that reality the rest of her life.  But here she is, picking up the pieces.  Here she is – Stayin’ Alive!  Stayin’ Alive!

The dead are brought back to life and the blind see with new eyes.  She finally has hope for something better.  Christmas Miracle in Charleston, West Virginia!  Gloria.  Gloria! 

To boot, Jim and I have a date to tour their facility on our next trip back in February.  I’m sure that when we staff up House of Hope we will be looking to some of the alumni from Recovery Point.

While we were out in West Virginia, in the midst of all the chaos and vituperation of impeachment that was consuming the twenty-four-hour news cycle, the New York Times ran a most sobering front page article on the losses in Appalachia from addiction.   Above the fold was a montage of photos of the Minford High School Class of 2000 in Scioto County, Ohio — a small town right across the Ohio River just forty miles from where we were staying in Wellsburg.

Virtually no one in this community has been spared.  Everyone knows someone whose life has been touched by opioids.  The headline said it all: “We Could Have Been Anything.”[1] 

Scioto County led Ohio in drug overdoses, drug-related arrests and babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Of the stories featured, here are just a couple of the 110 members of the Class of 2000.  The ones whose pictures were in color were some of the survivors of this epidemic.  Here is the story of Jonathan Whitt.

“I started seeing a lot of pills around 15 years old and I told myself I was never going to do them.  But kids were selling Oxys at school for $3 a pill.  By the time I was 19, I was looking in every medicine cabinet and bathroom.  All my close friends, we all turned into drug addicts.”

Mr. Whitt was on the gold team and became addicted to painkillers when he was 16.  At 28 he switched to intravenous opioid use and then heroin.  He has been jailed at least 10 times and has done multiple stints in rehab.  He has been in recovery for four years.

This is Melissa Kratzenberg’s story.

“I don’t remember a lot of high school because I was messed up on drugs.  By senior year, I realized I had a problem.  I had one good friend in high school who helped me through it.  Once I got cleaned up, other people were getting into it heavy.  I kind of stay away from the area, it’s heartbreaking to even go back.  For me, once you’re truly recovered you have to fight to stay clean.”

Ms. Kratzenberg was in the honor society, marching band and art club.  She started using pain pills as a freshman and stopped after she drank nearly an entire bottle of liquid hydrocodone when she was a senior.  Several relatives have struggled with drugs, one of whom died after 20 years of addiction.

The men and women we met from Northpoint – in their reclaimed lives, God is again preforming the Christmas miracle.  The dead are brought back.  Deserts bloom even in this drug-saturated wilderness.  In the stories of these former members of the Class of 2000 of Minford High who volunteered to go public – so that we in America might understand the full-blown disaster devastating our nation, God is doing a mighty work.  In these stories of recovery, here is our Christmas Story.  Gloria.  Gloria!

Each of these people in recovery began with one single decision — the admission that they had a problem, that their lives had become totally unmanageable.  That, and a decision to get clean.  Like Mary, when offered the hope of a new life, they answered, “Let it be to me, according to thy will.”  This spirit of Mary is most vibrant and astounding in the recovery community people I met this week.

Each and every day these people will join millions around the world in the Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

One day at a time, the men and women I met will “let go and let God.”  As my friend Fr. Mike says in his invitation to the Recovery Eucharist, “Come, join us.  In this crazy, mixed up and dehumanizing world, we are all recovering from something.”

And Mary answered, “Let it be unto me according to thy word.”   Gloria.  Gloria.   Amen.

---

[1] Matthew Sedacca, with Susan Beachy and Jack Begg, “We Could Have Been Anything,” New York Times, December 3, 2019.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Isaiah 35:1-10; Canticle 3 (the Magnificat); James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Today the rain falls softly.  Much needed.  As a young boy, I remember looking out my parent’s bedroom window which opened to the front yard.  Watching the rain fall and hoping that it would fill most of the street.  That meant school would be canceled.  That meant I could delight in a gentle day of reading, building something with my plastic blocks and listening to the classical records my dad had bought me when the store below his office had gone out of business.  A favorite was “Cappriccio Italien” by Tchaikovsky.  From time to time I would go back to the window to make sure the street was full.  Yes, school will be canceled again tomorrow.  This was a most cherished time.

As the rain falls softly, I write.  No anticipatory Christmas madness.  In this time of Advent preparation, I wonder if we are ready to put aside distraction and enmity.  Might we be ready to hear the words from the prophet Isaiah?  “…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Are we ready for the Prince of Peace?  Are we ready for a world turned upside down?  That’s what Fred Rodgers did to children’s TV.   Yesterday Jai and I went to see the film, “Mr. Rogers” starring Tom Hanks.  At first, I was somewhat skeptical that Tom Hanks could pull it off.  But, only a little bit into the picture, I was captured.  From Mr. Rogers putting on his sweater and changing into sneakers, all of us would be invited into a special time.  Everything slows down and we wait with anticipation for Mr. Rogers’ regulars: King Friday XIII, Mr. McFeely, Daniel Tiger or Lady Aberlin.  Advent is always a special time.  Like watching from my parent’s bedroom window at the soft rain falling on a gray, quiet day when I was a boy.

That is what I wish for every Advent.  That soft, gentle time of preparation.  Time alone with my own thoughts.  Time alone with a message of Hope.

There are endings and beginnings.  Yesterday, I learned that my friend in West Virginia huddled with a few friends in a hospital room as her husband was read his last rites.  In the days to come there will be sadness and loneliness.  There will be friends to comfort and hold her.  Family will gather.  There will be a service of solemnity in her church.  There will be the comfort of ritual and familiar words.  A time of loss.  A time filled with the mystery of grief.  Advent time.  Silence.  Endings and inchoate beginnings  –preparation for a new life to unfold for my friend.

We in the church, like Tom Hanks, need to learn to slow it down if we are going to enter the wonder of this season.  Just like Tom Hanks had to slow way down to be Mr. Rogers.  Listen to some good music.  Read a good book.  Go for a walk.  Be in silence.  Be open for an opportunity for making the world a better place.

As I left the supermarket the other day, I heard a faint bell tinkling.  High pitched as it grabbed the attention of shoppers to that familiar Salvation Army kettle.  It’s that time of the year, a time for giving.

The boys are grown, no need to stock up on toys.  You know the line, “some assembly needed.”  Yeah, that and an advanced degree in engineering.  Oh, yes, patience, too.  I’m glad those days are over.  Now Heffer International will, in my name, bring a goat or some chickens to a family in rural Tanzania or Kenya, Columbia or some other far-away place.  That will be the boys’ present.  Though it’s small, it brings a minor measure of joy to my heart as I send off my order.

As I prepare to head out to West Virginia to meet with prospective donors to House of Hope – and with several right here in Southern California — I pray for generous hearts and open billfolds.  The tragedy of overdose does not skip Christmas preparations.  This, too, is part of my Advent preparation this year.  I give thanks that I remain of sound enough body and mind to make the trip and contribute to someone’s recovery.  I give thanks for those who have joined in this effort.

Yes, there will be Advent cooking.  A bag of Granny Smith apples awaits transformation into homemade apple sauce.  Persimmon pudding – Jai’s specialty – it’s to die for.  Covered with hot lemon sauce.  We anticipate Christopher’s arrival this year with Alexis.  In preparation for the twenty-fifth, family and any guests will spend the coming days cooking up a storm.  I can still see in my mind’s eye a young Jonathan scrapping the cooked onions into the trash.  “Jonathan, what are you doing?” I demand with dismay.  “Dad, no one likes onjins,” came the reply.

As I anticipate the opening hymn for this Sunday, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel,” my mind goes to the gift of the awaited Christ Child.  As my Christmas coffee cup says, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” 

And what is this godly Christmas gift, so long awaited?  Yes, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel.”  God with us.

Today, it’s still raining, coming down in buckets.  Is this the beginning of the great flood of which Matthew speaks?  Is this a time of impending disaster we ignore to our peril?  As in the days of Noah?  When people went about their business oblivious to the darkening clouds and pelting drops?  Do not be caught unawares like them.

It looks like we are far into denial.  Elizabeth Rush in her book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, depicts in starkest terms the waters that all around us are rising.  If ever there was a planetary Advent warning![1]

Right out of the Bob Dylan song book:

And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone[2]

Yet we continue as if nothing were amiss, just as those in Noah’s day.  Elizabeth tells the story of one science teacher trying to convey the seriousness of the situation to a classroom of teenagers in South Florida.

Harold Wanless, or Hal, lectures to about sixty students in his geology classroom at the University of Miami on sea level rise.

“Only seven percent of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gasses is stored in the atmosphere,” Hal begins.  “Do you know where the other ninety-three percent lives?”  One teenager rubs sleep from her eyes while the student behind her roots around in his briefcase for a granola bar.  No one raises a hand.  “In the ocean,” Hal continues.  That heat is expanding the ocean, which is contributing to sea level rise…” [3]

Hal, who is in his seventies, says “the same damn thing” five days a week.  No one seems overly concerned that the warmer water is seeping under the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, causing them to melt faster than anyone had predicted.  Causing ocean rise to speed up ever more.

Like a thief in the night,

Christ with us in stories of today’s Wise Men and Wise Women      still seeking divine inspiration and offering peculiar gifts in his honor.  With us, in angelic joy sung from any old mountain top.  With us, in wonderful stories full of grace and hope — a story of a waiting father’s welcome back for a wastrel son who’s lost it all in addiction and bad choices.  With us, in a story of the joy of a lost coin found, a story of a miraculous cure at a pool in Bethsaida in a far-away land.  And Jesus’ only question being, “Do you want to be healed?”  The only question asked of each one of us.  O Lord, this year especially, we so need to be healed.

This is the gift we wait to open this Advent with the anticipation of the hungriest hearts.  The Advent message to each is, in the very same words of Mr. Rogers, “I like you just the way you are.”  Jesus’ message to the entire planet.  To all.  No exceptions.

The power of those very words, the power of God’s gift this Advent – power of the entire message and life of Jesus – it’s enough to turn the world upside down.  Power is what love looks like in the public square.  Power grown out of solidarity for the common good.  That, too, is the shape of Advent hope.

Tonight, at our holiday party, the Democratic Club of Claremont will recognize the work of Gene Boutilier.  Gene is steeped in Isaiah’s teaching.  He is the embodiment of the Peaceable Kingdom.  His whole ministry has been one of turning spears to pruning hooks, shields into plow shears.  More accurately, greed into worker security.  Gene offers a Master Class in turning the world upside down.

Gene was an original troublemaker, beginning with the sixties.  He worked in the fields and in the offices of the United Farm Workers Union.  He was organizing in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley during the time Jai and I had grape strike workers from Delano living with us in L.A.  Later, Gene worked in Los Angeles to solve the problems of homelessness.  He was staff for the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C.  In his spare moments he served several congregations of the United Church of Christ.  Gene is the incarnate word of hope, of possibility.  For Gene, every day is the day of Christ’s arrival.  Hope arriving as alluring as fresh baked bread just out of the oven.  Si se puede.  Yes, you can!

When St. Paul writes, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”  It is that divine love we await this Advent season.  But more than await, we work for it.  As Gene has done all his life.  We work for that love with all our being.

My favorite hymn in this season is Bach’s tune to “Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying; the Watchmen on the heights are crying, Awake…”  Yes, Christ comes fresh every day, like the beckoning smell of morning coffee, not like a thief to break in and destroy, but as Love incarnate to refresh and renew.  Wake up!  It’s a happening. Now, in 3D and in living color.  No commercial interruptions.

Sometimes Christ looks like a union organizer and now and then, Christ comes to the side of a hospital bed in the form of a surgeon. A surgeon who has done everything possible to save his patient, and yet watches her slowly sink into a coma.  At his wits end, in desperation, this doctor took hold of his patient, Helen’s hand.  In the words of Dr. Youn:

I pulled a chair next to her bed and, purely by instinct, grabbed her hand … I did the only thing I could think to do. I prayed to God to please help Helen. I didn’t know if God or anyone was listening, but I didn’t know what else to do.[4]

After ten days, Helen was off the ventilator and sitting up in her bed when he dropped by.

This Advent, might we prepare daily with all our being to receive the Holy in our midst, the Christ Child seeking to be born again to expectant hearts – to sanctify our journeys ahead.  Born again also to expectant hands and feet, and wallets and credit cards.

Whether it’s on a union picket line or in a hospital ICU room, Jesus again approaches on little cat’s feet.  Silently, gently.  To turn the world upside down.

And yes, Helen’s Christmas present?  How did that work out for her?  At eighty, she now has, hopefully, a good number of years remaining to pay Dr. Youn’s loving care forward.

Helen gestured for me to come closer. “I want to tell you something, Dr. Youn,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I knew.”

I must have looked confused because Helen pushed herself forward a little and said with quiet urgency, “I knew that you came in every day and held my hand. That made a big difference. I looked forward to seeing you every day. I just want to say, thank you.”

“I was just doing my job,” I said.[5]

That could be said as well of our coming Lord.  “I was just doing my job.”  And so, might we all reply this Advent, “Just doing my job.”  Si se puede.  Amen

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[1] Elizabeth Rush, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2018).

[2] Bob Dylan, “The Times They are A-Changing,” Warner Bros., 1963.

[3] Rush, op. cit., p. 73.

[4] Anthony Youn, M.D., “I’m A Surgeon. Here’s What Happened When I Held My Patient’s Hand and Prayed For Her,” Huffpost, November 30, 2019.

[5] Ibid.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 24:36-44

First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Shadows lengthen.  It’s now dark at quitting time.  Temperatures are dropping, absolutely chilly when our intrepid band of cyclists leaves my house on Wednesday mornings at seven o’clock.  I keep saying, “The heat’s in the pedals.  Faster, faster.”  Who am I fooling?  It’s still freezing.

As the year draws to a close, we get those apocalyptic passages of impending doom from Luke on the end-time.  A warning about frightened folks, or charlatans, running hither and thither yelling about the end – the Roll-is Called-Up-Yonder END.  Tha…tha…that’s ALL, folks.  It’s enough to scare the socks right off you. 

I met an older couple the other day at Pilgrim Festival, our two-day money raiser we do at my retirement community and they got to talking about all our problems.  “These are the end-days,” the woman asserted as her husband nodded.  Such terrible times that we can’t go on.  God can’t go on.  In Luke, Jesus counsels his band of followers not to be fooled.

Do you remember Hal Lindsey, the author of The Late Great Planet Earth?  He was an itinerant preacher of the end of days who got his start at UCLA.  He even had the arrogance to actually set a date for when God would call the roll up yonder.  Such arrogance to usurp the prerogative of God!  Yes, you guessed it.  The date came and went…and we’re all still here.  Nothing happened.  No end-time rapture.  Poor Hal, he had to move to UC Berkeley to continue his ministry after he was laughed out of Southern California.  Listen to Luke.  Don’t be fooled by Chicken Little.

“Take heed that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and “The time is at hand!”  Do not go after them.  And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified…Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various paces famines and pestilences; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven…”[1]

My Mama said there’d be times like this.  What has always puzzled me about these radio prophets pushing this theology is, why do they need my money?  If the world is ending on very short notice, what could they possibly do with the money?  Unless it’s to get even more money?  Don’t be fooled!

You remember Flint, Michigan?  You remember that great plan by Governor Rick Snyder to save money by changing the source of the town’s drinking water?  You remember how this new supply corroded the coating off the lead pipes serving most of the houses in the older part of town?  How lead got into the water and poisoned folks, especially growing children?  You remember all that, don’t you?  And you remember how he and all his partisan toadies covered up that disaster?  Covered it up for months as people got sicker and sicker?  Nothing to see here, folks.  Just move along.

Well, these chickens have come home to roost.  The public-school system in Flint is now having to deal with some thirty thousand special needs children who are developmentally impaired.  Due to lead poisoning.  For those children and their parents, it would seem like the end days.  What is the future for these families?  “…neurological and behavioral problems – real or feared – among students are threatening to overwhelm the education system.”  Thirty thousand children have been “exposed to a neurotoxin known to have detrimental effects on children’s developing brains and nervous systems.”[2]  Thirty thousand children permanently brain damaged!

Knowing that your child is going to be permanently impaired – how would that make any parent feel?  And who’s going to pay for the life-long care?  And who’s going to provide that care once you’re gone?  And what do you tell your disabled child?  “Well, at least the water bill was lower?”  Right!  For these families this catastrophe must seem as drastic an end as any the writer of Luke could possibly conjure up.  How does a family go on?

God weeps.

As if we were not short of disastrous news, this week eleven thousand climate scientists issued a call to the leaders of our world to declare a “Climate Emergency.”  Global warming is happening far more rapidly than scientists have reported.  Exponentially faster.  With the warming comes enhanced positive feedback mechanisms. 

For decades, most scientists saw climate change as a distant prospect. We now know that thinking was wrong. This summer, for instance, a heat wave in Europe penetrated the Arctic, pushing temperatures into the 80s across much of the Far North and, according to the Belgian climate scientist Xavier Fettweis, melting some 40 billion tons of Greenland’s ice sheet.[3]

As more ice melts, ice that reflects the sun’s rays back into space, heat-absorbing blue ocean is left, which melts even more ice.  And on it goes.  Just ignore that burning smell. That’s Australia.  That’s California.  As more trees burn, more CO2 is emitted, causing yet more warming, more drought, more fires.  And so it goes.

God weeps.  Those who care for our fragile, blue-green island home — they weep.  For those caught up in the maelstrom of flame and smoke, for some it was indeed the end.  For them and for their families, we should all weep.

The temptation is to throw up your hands and say, “Why bother?”  Turn off the news and cancel the paper.  Or “Tune in, turn on and drop out,” as Timothy Leary counsels.

St. Paul writes to a community also beset by such calamity and fear.  Apparently, there were those who just plain gave up.  They were idlers and lay-abouts.  They contributed nothing to the common good.  On the other hand, that was not the example of Paul and his companions.

“We did not eat any one’s bread without paying, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you…we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.  Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in well-doing.”[4]

Do not be weary in well-doing, indeed!  No time to mope about with long faces and cry in our beer, St. Paul would tell us.  Yes, we may end up with what Bill McKibben calls a “tough new planet.”  We’ll end up with many of our fellow citizens damaged through such unbelievable folly.  We’ve got some ‘splaning to do,” to paraphrase Desi Arnaz’s charge to Lucy.

But when the going gets tough, the tough do not go shopping.  We “sing to the Lord a new song” through our prayers and our labor.  Rolled up sleeves and marching feet are our prayers.  It is through our hands and feet, hearts and minds, credit cards and checkbooks we make a “joyful noise unto the Lord.”  What’s the alternative?  To pout and sulk like a two-year old?  St. Paul says we get to work.  Do not be weary in well-doing.  And in the work is ineffable joy, “joy of heaven to earth come down.”  Joy in the morning! 

As my friend Ed Bacon would sometimes shout from the pulpit, “Wake up!  Get up!  Get involved.  And don’t be attached to the results.” This is how we turn the Jesus Club into the Jesus Movement.  This is how we roll.  Jesus doesn’t need simpering, moony-eyed admirers.  He needs followers.  Remember, as he emerged from the baptismal waters, the charge to all who heard, “This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.”  He needs doers, not legalistic partisans arguing over who he is.  A service of beauty has its place, but only as it moves us back into the streets and lanes.  Only as it returns us to a world in need.  Doers!  That’s what our Lord needs.

Addiction is hard.  It destroys individuals and families, but in the community of recovery there is Hope.  And in Hope there is Life. In my reading I came across a very rare high school.  Virtually every student in this school is in recovery.  The greeting every day is, “Hi.  My name is ________, and I’m an alcoholic.”  Or “I’m a drug addict.”

There is a new movement for recovery afoot.  It is “Recovery High Schools.”   These are safe spaces for students who are struggling to acquire sobriety.  Seattle Public Schools have designed such a recovery school, a campus wherein along with math, language arts and PE, students may learn to lead lives of sobriety and earn their diploma.  There is now a nation-wide organization of recovery schools.

A study by Vanderbilt University professor Andy Finch found that students in such schools were “significantly more likely than those not in such schools to report being off drugs and alcohol six months after they were first surveyed.”  Absenteeism declined significantly. 

How did Seattle develop this program?  The idea and motivation came from a parent whose son had died from a heroin overdose.  There was a devastated father who by any rights would not have been blamed for sinking into his grief.  Don Keister, however, organized an advocacy group, “Attack Addiction”, and pushed the school district to provide space.  The group came up with the $2 million needed to cover staff and other costs.  These parents rolled up their sleeves and did a great gospel work.

One student shared his story after being on any drug he could get his hands on – OxyContin, Xanax – it was all for sale on school campuses.  He, himself, was finally suspended for selling drugs at his school.  Marques Martinez had been sent to an in-patient rehab facility and found his way to this school through an alumnus.  He knew it might be his last chance. 

What was different about this school?  He felt safe here.  “It’s the last class period of the day.  The students lean back on couches and take turns describing the most important day of their lives:  the day they became sober.”[5]

Every day sober is another gift on the journey of new life for these students.  It takes a very special teacher to teach at such a school.  It takes a special community of recovery to make such a school even possible.  It takes special administrators to make space in a school district’s educational program for such a school.

What is it like to teach at such a school?  Most teachers might rarely witness a dramatic change in one of their students.  Hear the witness of Sonny Sanborn, a social studies teacher, at Archway Academy in Houston, Texas:

Sanborn says he’s taught in other schools where he might have seen one or two students go through a major transformation during a school year.

“Here, I see it almost 30 times a year. I’ve seen so many teenagers come into Archway with such serious issues that earning a diploma is the last thing on their minds. Their parents would tell you—two or three years before they graduate—that their kids have no shot of walking across the stage,”

Sanborn reveals. “I’m often asked why I keep coming back to a tough environment, and I counter with a better question: Why doesn’t everyone else want to teach here?”[6]

I’m reminded of the story of a country preacher encountering a farmer out in his field plowing.  The preacher yells over to him, “Farmer, if you knew that the world was ending tonight, what would you do?”  Without a pause, the farmer answered, “Finish the row.”  No matter what calamity or terrors might await, we are called to finish the row.  Sonny Sanborn will persist in finishing his row.  Would that we all.

These days are tough, not for sissies, not for the people without an anchor.  It is a “tough, new planet.”  No escape through instant rapture.  We and our children face challenges unlike most any other generation, with perhaps the exception of nuclear annihilation.  It’s enough to lead to complacency and resignation.  But now is the time God needs us most.  Jesus stretches out his hand and bids us, “Come, follow me.”  Do not be weary in well-doing.

As shadows lengthen and a blazing orb dips below the western sky, one of my favorite hymns comes to mind, “Come, Labor on.” 

Come, labor on. 

Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain,

while all around us waves the golden grain? 

And to each servant does the Master say,

“Go work today.”

Come, labor on. 

No time for rest, till glows the western sky,

till the long shadows o’er our pathway lie,

and a glad sound comes with the setting sun,

“Servants, well done.”[7]

When we contemplate what St. Francis has accomplished these past few months in bringing to birth House of Hope – San Bernardino, the resounding, well deserved echo is indeed, “Servants, well done.”

Amen.

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[1] Luke 21:5 ff, RSV.

[2] Erica L. Green, “A Legacy of Poisoned Water: ‘Damaged Kids’ fill Flint’s Schools, New York Times, Thursday, November 7, 2019.

[3] Eugene Linden, “How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong,” New York Times, November 8, 2019

[4] II Thessalonians, 3:6 ff, RSV.

[5] Anna Gorman, “Inside the Specialized ‘Recovery’ High Schools Designed Just for Teens With Addiction, Kaiser Health News, January 23, 2019.

[6] Shasha Mclean, “Recovery High School Teachers: Behind the Scenes Recovery,” Project Know, American Addiction Centers,

[7] Jane Laurie Borthwick (words), The Hymnal 1982 according to the use of The Episcopal Church, The Church Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1985. 541.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Malachi 3: 13-4: 2a, 5-6; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

All Saints Sunday, November 17, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

A few days ago, the streets of our communities were swarming with all sorts of goblins, witches and fairies.  Halloween is arguably the most favorite holiday of children in America.  Maybe even more beloved than Christmas.

It is an occasion to vanquish through the magic of pretend and make-believe the subterranean fears that haunt our days.  Real fears.  Not the monster under the bed.  Though when I was a small child, I really, really knew that if I didn’t run fast enough to get to the bathroom and turn on the light, I would be a goner for sure.

I remember our boys’ first Halloween in the Bay Area, San Leandro.  Christopher was going to be a ghost.  But when we got the sheet over him and he looked out of the eye holes to see himself in the mirror, he decided that that was way too scary.  He decided to go as just a little boy.  Jonathan went as Coco Bunny in his jammies.  When we got to a friendly neighbor’s house Jonathan grabbed Christopher and shoved him forward, mashing him into the screen door, “You say it, Kefu.”  He couldn’t pronounce “Christopher” at the time.  Through our years, fears, real and imaginary continue to haunt us all.

The real terrors that we adults face are many times more threatening:  eviction, loss of job, children falling into drug addiction or being recruited into gangs. Don’t forget crippling student debt.  Almost one half of our people now live in poverty or near poverty.   Most of the families falling into medical bankruptcy actually had health insurance.  Garbage policies.  Many seniors worry about running out of retirement savings before they die.  Some have little or none, or they cashed out their 401K to survive the Great Recession.  These are the terrors that keep Americans awake at night.

Our selection from the Book of Daniel is an apocalyptic scene of terror.  In Daniel’s dream of the Great Sea, what we moderns know as the Mediterranean Sea, — its waters are churned up by the “four winds of heaven.” This is a cataclysmic and cosmic earth-shaking scene of wonder and terror.  That sea was believed to be the habitation to the worst sorts of foul creatures and monsters lurking in its depths.  It is a sailor’s nightmare in a raging storm.  And out of the towering waves of this tempest arise “four great beasts.”

I have images out of some Ghostbusters scene dancing in my imagination.  A phantasmagorical swirl of witches, poltergeists and zombies, wreaking havoc amongst the living.  It’s Mussorgsky’s “Dark-Night-on-Bald-Mountain time.”  As the orchestra crescendos towards the climatic end and the quickening swirl of phantoms reaches towards the darkening sky…Okay…, I have a very vivid imagination.

Anyway, the beasts are revealed by an interpreter of Daniel’s dream are to be understood to be four kings.  All of whom portend no good thing for him and his vulnerable community.  Indeed, there are external threats that have the power to be our undoing and extinction.  Threats that would scatter us each in our all-consuming fears.  In childhood, it was the monster under the bed.  Later on, it was a period of aimlessness and fear of failure.  In young adulthood it was the draft and the ruinous conflict in Vietnam. 

For a friend, the fearsome beast he battled was the fear of what he might have done the night before when he was totally blitzed – what he could not remember, but what became terrible reality when he went out to the street and discovered the grill of his Chevy all smashed in.  What, or who, had he run into?  He had absolutely no memory.  For my friend, his monster was King Alcohol.  It had taken complete and utter possession of his soul.

As a nation we presently sink into the black hole of impeachment.  Night after night, headline after headline, comes the steady drumbeat of malfeasance and corruption.  Witness after witness reveals a sordid story of electoral fraud and great danger to our national security.  Yes, definitely, there was a quid pro quo.  We would sell out the Ukrainians in a heartbeat.  All for dirt on a potential opponent in the upcoming 2020 election.  If a crime novelist had made this up, nobody would have believed it.  It is fantasy run amok. This Halloween, the specter of civil strife stalks our land.  No monster under the bed or small Frankenstein at our door gleefully chanting, “Trick or Treat.”  A narcissistic King of Political Ambition and Hubris presently haunts our national psyche.

Out of the existential tempest of these days awesome creatures have arisen.  Some of the worst are those which lurk in the inadequacies and failings that inhabit our imaginations.  The fear that I’m not good enough.  That I have awful misdeeds hanging over me.  The fear that if anyone knew, they would not like me.  These fears we bring from childhood – the fears that run rampant in our teenage years.  The fear in adulthood that some screwup will grab us in the dark night of our wounded soul.  We give the King of Inadequacy superhuman power.  That little voice that whispers, “you’re a fraud and a fake – people will find out.”

Yes, after Daniel’s vision of cosmic terror comes reassurance, “But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”  Just wait a second, Daniel.  Not so fast.  That’s not my experience.  This all sounds too glib, too easy.  I’m not, by myself, capable of such happy endings.  Yet isn’t this the promise?  Isn’t this what the Beatitudes are all about?  Blessed are the sorrowful, blessed are you hungry, and the persecuted. Blessed are you heaped up with student loans and no job – yes, definitely poor!  In times of catastrophe, no one individual can endure such calamity.  An individual alone sinks in desperation beneath the foamy brine.  Isolation is the worst enemy.

Hillary was right, it does take a village.  It takes a village to survive, especially in our time. It takes a village to be our best.   I’ve been reading a book recently on the power of positive peer pressure.  For instance, we find out that if one person paints his house it is not uncommon for a neighbor to likewise spruce up his house next door.  We experienced this at our office.  We had a terrible front yard of devil grass and unruly shrubbery.  I had my friend Jaime and his crew from Greenland Landscaping come in and replace it all with drought tolerant planting.  It now looks great.  Within a month the State Farm Insurance office next door also redid their front yard, which had become as unkempt as ours.  There’s something contageous about a good example.

And there’s something contagious about courage.  Last Wednesday we at Pilgrim Place celebrated those no longer with us this year.  For each of the dead, a friend or a spouse processed up the center aisle of our assembly room with a lighted candle.  It was gently given to the officiant of the service and reverently placed on the altar.  After several light bearers had made their way to the front, our community sang together, “Saints of God abiding in the arms of mercy – be with us.”  Concluded by an affirmation of those in the struggle for workers rights, “Presente.” 

One man who had lost his wife a couple of years ago gave a moving homily on the Twenty-third Psalm.  As he spoke of the “valley of the shadow of death,” he acknowledged the fear of loneliness.  But more than that, Dwight affirmed the hope of one living surrounded by community.  His greeting to each new day as he prepares to take his Dachshund Sammy for her walk is, “Hello, Morning.”  Hello, Morning indeed!  “Each morning,” said Dwight, “I choose HOPE.”

The glorious affirmation of hope at last Wednesday’s service was not the affirmation of one but of many.  It’s when the community gathers that “hearts are brave again and arms are strong.”  That critical mass of courage resplendent is the Body of Christ assembled in bright array.  Saints alive — those still with us and those, only in memory. 

That was the gathered courage that moved an entire farm village in rural Germany to hide Jews from Hitler’s savage henchmen – at great risk to themselves.  That is the gathered courage that has brought brave civil servants to testify recently behind closed doors to the sordid events they had witnessed.  Gathered courage is what brought them at some personal peril and at great professional sacrifice.  That is the courage we gather from those who love us to enter rehab and begin the journey towards sobriety.  And if the physical visage of God-with-us is only in the form of a small wennie dog, it’s still God’s presence that yields up the courage to pull back the drapes, open the door, and lustily proclaim, “Hello, Morning.”

This past week a hearty band of folks from St. Francis presented our proposal to the Episcopal Enterprise Academy for House of Hope – San Bernardino, a proposed opioid recovery center.  We had been working at this for some months as we were tutored by seasoned entrepreneurs in the basics of starting businesses — businesses that might be congruent with and undergird the work of small mission congregations – like St. Francis.

Those meetings have meant folks, especially the ones living in San Bernardino and nearby, getting up on Fridays at O’Dark Early and braving the traffic on the 210 Freeway for a couple of hours to drive all the way into Los Angeles.  Left to our own devices, not a single one of us would have had the insanity to get out of a warm bed and make that trek.  But together!  As part of a Critical Mass of Courage – the Church – we prevailed. 

This past Friday, such perseverance and courage were rewarded with success.  St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach was chosen as one of three groups going through the Academy to present their project at our upcoming Diocesan Convention this November.  As my friend George is ever wont to say, “Keep your eyes on the prize and celebrate the incremental victories along the way.”

Paul proclaims to his community at Ephesus a fierce strength that comes from unity in Christ, “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will.”  It is in and through this power alone that we go forth. 

Goblins and ghosts be gone!  It is as the Body of Christ assembled, this Critical Mass of Courage, that we proceed to do what any one of us would have dismissed as folly.  With what the historian Stephen Ambrose called, “undaunted courage,” and with trepidation we at St. Francis venture forth in hope.   Just as our early founders would have wanted us to. Just as Joyce Marx and her husband Gene, did — who persevered when the path was not clear ahead, when skies were overcast and the treasurer was reporting that the church was running on fumes. It was that Critical Mass of Courage, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone – it was that faith of our founders, that carried St. Francis along, even in years of decline.  Those blessed saints have now passed the baton for us to run their race.

 And now, folks, here we stand.  As St. Paul writes of the Saints at Corinth: 

“Ever dying, here we are alive. Called nobodies, yet we are ever in the public eye.  Though we have nothing with which to bless ourselves, yet we bless many others with true riches.  Called poor, yet we possess everything worth having.”[1]

On this glorious All Saints Sunday, we are bold to proclaim, “And hearts are brave again and arms are strong.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.”  Please join with me — Presente!  Presente!  Presente!   Amen.

---

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

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31

All Saints Sunday, November 3, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

I hear that in the city of Chino, there has been a strong push from some groups of Christians to institute prayer in city council and school board meetings.  However, those heading up this effort have in mind the right sort of prayers.  They aren’t thinking of my friends in the Amadea Mosque or the Church of the Latter-Day Saints around the corner and down the street.  They don’t seem overly enthusiastic about the folks from the Buddhist temple on Central Ave.  Only the “right” prayers please.

We settled this issue early on in our nation’s history.  The VI Article of the Constitution prohibits any religious test for office.  The First Amendment in the Free Exercise Clause states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” 

We got to this understanding, not by virtue of any enlightened notion of tolerance or the magnanimous inclusion of all points of view.  If we will remember our American history, we had a multitude of religious expressions in the several states.  If we were to have a United States, we couldn’t be waging the religious wars that lead to the slaughter of millions in Europe.  Yes, we burnt Quakers at the stake.  We demonized Baptists.  Catholics were anathema in many parts of the country.  Episcopalians were suspect because of their origin in the Church of England.  Expediency won in the end.  In our wisdom, we decided not to kill one another over what might be the correct form of prayer.

Prayer, used to promote tribalism is not prayer at all but hypocrisy.  The ludicrous supposition that God is compelled by pious utterances to impress in the halls of our public assemblies – well it turns the stomach.  To paraphrase my mentor, Joe Wesley Matthews, such prayer is to religion as pigeons are to statues.  Don’t take it from me, but from our Lord – Matthew 6:6.

Close your closet door, and in silence, open your heart to God.  There, God has half a chance of getting hold of you.  And listen.  Do not bring your laundry list.  Ask not what God can do for you, but what you might do for God – to paraphrase a famous quote.   Ask how you might be a living blessing to your neighbor, which is in fact to be a blessing to God.

Will there be prayer in school?  As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in school.  When I taught junior high in Oakland, so many of my students were ill-equipped to do eighth grade work. They didn’t have any hope of passing even a simple quiz, much less the end of the chapter test.  Of the kids in what was called a “normal” class, almost one half could not read the textbook.  Of those who could, many had no idea of how to get any useful information out of it.  The test was just one more assault on their fragile self-esteem.  One more message that you are failing.  You’re worthless in this school.  I could almost hear the inward groans of the spirit as my students stared blankly at their exam papers.  Many could not write a complete sentence.  It was so painful to watch the body language of these defeated souls.  Of course. there was prayer.  Fervent prayer — prayer born out of defeat.  An inward groaning that broke my heart.

Of course, I remember my feeble prayers before semester exams. I remember a prayer before my chemistry exam.  And it was answered.  Yes, answered loud and clear – “Forney, you really screwed up.  Next time, open the textbook.  Go over your notes.”

As a small child I wanted a pocket knife so badly, that desire was front and center of my bedtime prayers.  Even when I was told that this was not a proper thing to pray for, that didn’t stop my silent add-on before the “amen.”  I never got that pocket knife until much later when I purchased my own.

So, what is persistence in prayer?  Prayer is an alignment of our spirit with what gives life.  I would call that the will of God.  It is the voiced or unvoiced desire of our hearts for goodness – a cry from the heart.

Rabbi Beerman used to say that his marching feet were his prayers.  Now, this is something I resonate with.  I find prayer most efficacious as I respond to the spirit within.  If I allow my prayer to move not only my heart but also my feet.  My wallet and credit cards.  My datebook — those things I clutch most tightly to my chest.  Good thoughts alone don’t go anywhere.

Engaged prayer has the power to fill my spirit and brings joy to my days.  Such prayer connects me to my neighbor.  The end result may only be a smidge deeper understanding on my part.  A bit more compassion for one less fortunate and beat down.  Such prayer, when I allow it to move me, results in listening that hears beyond words.  To pray without ceasing opens up all of life to be a vision of wonder.  And it opens me to the cries and moans those around me.  It is spiritual persistence.

I have been as of late, especially sensitive to the cries of our Kurdish allies.  This past Sunday I had a chance to speak with a friend who is married to a Kurd.  Suzann’s husband, Fouad, is from northern Iraq, far from the disaster unfolding in Syria, yet they feel the pain as deeply as if they were next door to the carnage.  Speaking with Suzanne, she shared the anguish of our betrayal.  Her pain and that of her family was palpable.  My prayers have led me to be in solidarity with her and Fouad, to reach out.  I have spoken out.  I have written to the editor to express my dismay.  These are not people half way around the earth.  They are dear friends, next to my heart.

Such is the sentiment I hear from members of our military who have fought shoulder to shoulder with the brave men and women of the Kurdish forces.  Yes, they do have women in their military.  Northern Kurdistan is perhaps the most democratic society in the Middle East.  The pain of their betrayal on the whim of someone who knows nothing of the bond between our two peoples is incomprehensible.  To see the pictures of Kurdish prisoners summarily executed on the side of the road by the Turkish army and their proxies is more than the heart can bear.  To paraphrase Tom Paine in part, through the childish actions of one man, we have unleashed the “full contagion of hell” on these people.  And they weren’t even invited to the negotiations that sealed their fate!

And as they are driven from their cities and villages, are we prepared to build them new habitations.  Are we prepared to replant their olive orchards and pistachio trees?  Will we restore their belongings or just leave them to freeze this coming winter?  I doubt we will give them so much as a thought. 

O Lord, may we be a powerful people of prayer – prayer that would move us to make restitution for this unbelievable act of folly.  May the deep groans of prayer move us to reach out to the refugees already in our midst.  May the deep groans and sighs of prayer, too deep for words, move us to “engaged compassion.”

Thank God for Senator Mitt Romney for having the rare courage to denounce this dereliction.  Censure by Congress is prayer in action.  May we persist as did that elderly woman in Jesus’ parable.  Prayer without ceasing — groans and sighs too deep for words.  Yes, they have the power to move people of prayer to action.

But before action, however, prayer, fervent prayer of the heart awakens us.   Urgent prayer awakens us to what we are doing and what is going on around us.

Prayer is like my old training sergeant bellowing at the top of his lungs, “Wake that man up,” when one of us would fall asleep during a training film.  It is through prayer we wrestle with God as did Jacob.  Wakefulness is the blessing we receive.  Matthew enjoins us to be alert.  “Therefore, stay awake!  For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”  For the person persistent in prayer, the Lord appears daily, like the light show that begins every dawn.

Prayer alerts us not only to life’s crises but also to the beauty and satisfaction to be had in this life.  What welled up in my heart this past week along with my anguish over the devastation that had befallen the Kurds, was deep gratitude for the life of Elijah Cummings.  My heart and that of our nation has been opened to the beautiful life of this man.  Gratitude — that is what prayer can bring.

Representative Elijah Cummings was a kind man.  His empathy for those who came before his House Committee on Oversight was legend.  As a faithful member of New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, Elijah was a man of tenacious prayer. 

The grace he showed during Michael Cohen’s testimony, his overture to Republican congressman Mark Meadows, called a racist – that is what set Elijah apart.  It was that ability for empathy, even towards those with whom he disagreed.  He was the embodiment of “kindness, empathy, compassion, grace, dignity and love,” wrote Mika Brzezinski.  That is why she and Joe Scarborough asked Elijah to officiate at their wedding.[1]

We looked to Representative Cummings for hope.  He inspired in us what he embodied, grace, love, peace, patriotism.  Elijah was the light in dark times.  Nothing came easy for this son of a sharecropper.  But his love and dedication to people and the truth, and his humanity, made him a force for good.  His voice will be missed.  We are heartbroken at his passing.[2]

It has been said that we only use a small portion our minds, maybe as little as forty percent, or even less.  And how much more is lost to mindless activities?  Game shows and mind-numbing television, boredom, fantasy, daydreaming, stewing over past slights, and the video games on our electronic devices, games that suck our brains right out of our skulls.

A life of prayer, of meditation, pulls us back into life, back into thankfulness.  It pulls us into engagement on the streets and into personal renewal.  Prayer pulls us back into our families and those who love us.  It pulls us into beauty.  It pulls us into resistance to the systemic forces of racism, consumerism and militarism.

Prayer is silence.  Prayer is song and poetry.  Prayer is deep meditation.  Prayer is persistence.  It is marching feet.

Out of a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, came one of the most beautiful prayers of the women’s movement.  Helen Todd, in 1911, covered that labor action.  She told her readers that not only did the women fight for fair wages, but decent conditions and life’s other amenities as well.  Workers need “life’s Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books…”[3]

That strike would later be known as the Bread and Roses Strike.  It was to be memorialized later in poetry by James Oppenheim and then set to music, sung by Judy Collins in a lilting, heavenly voice.  It’s is a prayer of the yearning of hearts for a just and decent society.  In our time when three persons own as much as ninety percent of the rest of Americans, it is a prayer for our time.  When workers are ground by the gig economy and living on the streets of our cities,

it is a prayer for our time.  A most fitting prayer.

As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing, “Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.”

As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men—
For they are women’s children and we mother them again.
Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes—
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient song of Bread;
Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew—
Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too.

As we come marching, marching, we bring the Greater Days—
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler—ten that toil where one reposes—
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.[4]

Luke concludes this parable with the question, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?  Indeed, as long as “Bread and Roses” is sung in our streets and on the commons – yes, he will find faith.  Bread and Roses — A most glorious, and urgent prayer for our time.  Amen.

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[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/know-your-value/feature/remembering-elijah-cummings-why-joe-i-asked-him-officiate-our-ncna1068331

[2] Ibid.

[3] Helen Todd, The American Magazine. Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. 1911. p. 619.

[4] James Oppenheim, American Magazine. December 1911, Colver Publishing House. p. 214.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

Proper 24, Year C, October 20, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Last week Science Times had a piece about cats.  Now there are cat people and dog people.  You know the difference.  Dogs have masters and cats have servants.  At times we have been both.  Most recently we took care of our younger son’s two cats, Brian and Larry, while he was working on this dissertation in Spain and Morocco.  My wife gave me for Christmas a door mat with a snarky cat glaring at you.  The caption read, “It’s about TIME you got home.”  Such attitude.  Such impatience.  And there would be Brian and Larry waiting for me to get in the house and acknowledge their presence.  I looked forward to it.

If you’re wondering where this is going, just hang in there for a bit.  Anyway, the piece about cats brought forth recent research showing that cats actually do bond with their human companions.  It’s not just about the tuna.  Or whatever is for dinner on any given night.  Some cats even recognize their names.[1]  Brian did.  Larry did not.  But both cats quickly became affectionate.  When Christopher took them back to New Haven, I did indeed miss them.

One recent post by a woman pleaded for friends not to say, “It was just a pet,” when her beloved cat had died.  No, the woman was devastated.

I bring this up because, between humans and their pets, true bonds of affection develop – a mutuality, a relationship of gratitude, one for the other.  And that’s where this is going.  Life reaches out to life.  It’s the attitude of gratitude, even for stand-offish cats.   Their insouciance is part of what we celebrate when we bless the animals today.  Everything is connected.

My friend, Mike Kinman, rector at All Saints, explained how that community had changed the traditional greeting which begins community prayer in our tradition.  You know it.  “The Lord be with you.”  And the response, “And also with you.”  The radical change at All Saints is, “God dwells in you,” with the response, “And also in you.”  Why the change?  Mike says that it had happened at All Saints long before he had arrived.  But the affirmation in the words, “God dwells in you,” is a statement of radical inclusion.  It is the proclamation that God dwells in every human heart.  Each of us is a sacred vessel for divine goodness.  That is surely the heart of Franciscan spirituality.  God – whatever reality we mean by that word – the divine spark, dwells in all life.  Especially, in our furry companions waiting at the door to greet us.  Yes, Brian and Larry, God dwells in you.  (Though we didn’t appreciate how you scattered your cat sand all over the laundry room floor – definitely not pleasant for bare feet in the morning).

Luke, in this morning’s gospel, presents a story of ten lepers who have been cleansed by Jesus.  He meets them at the edge of a village he and his disciples are entering.  With upraised hands the ragged lepers beg, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests.  As they do, they are healed.  When one returns out of gratitude, Jesus asks, “Were not ten cleaned?”

Yes, ten were cleansed.  But the one who returned was the one who was truly healed.  He, through his thankfulness, was restored to community.  And that is what healing and wholeness is about.  The circle of blessing was closed.  In his gratitude he knew deep down that God dwelled in him, and in his healing.

The Lukan story parallels that of General Naaman, the Syrian.  Though a great general, Naaman has leprosy.  It is a little Hebrew servant girl, a slave, who implores her mistress to have her husband go to Israel, and ultimately to the prophet.  And yes, after being healed, Naaman does return to the prophet Elisha with his entire retinue.  God dwelled in this great general and gratitude welled up.  I hope he also thanked that servant girl.  Any life worth living is all about an attitude of gratitude.  That’s how folks are healed day in and day out in twelve-step meetings.  Twelve-steppers viscerally know that a Higher Power dwells in them.  And in all others.

Today at St. Francis we celebrate our patron saint, Francis.  Around this time, I dig out some of my material on Francis.  It is good for the soul.  And I usually come across a story for my sermon.

As I was perusing a large tome, Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, I came across a vignette of his life that exemplified his humanity and deep humility.[2]

The story of St. Francis hugging the leper is the better known of Francis’ exploits.  But the story I came across about a pious fraud might be more instructive for our time. 

Francis and his companions had heard of a most pious brother, a man of great renown, and set out to visit him.  This brother could explicate the scripture with such enthusiasm and his message was so pleasing to the ears.  “Everyone considered him holy three times over.”[3]  This was surely a man of “great and unmatched wisdom.”

Upon encountering this pious one, this man considered, at least by himself — if not all, a “very stable genius,” a brother with “all the best words” — Francis was not fooled.  Though his fame had spread across the land, upon encountering this pretender, Francis denounced him as a pious fraud.  “You should know the truth.  This is diabolical temptation, deception and fraud…And the fact that he won’t go to confession proves it.”  Francis’ companions were aghast.  “How can this be true?” they asked.  “How can lies and such deception be disguised under all these signs of perfection?”   After having been exposed, the man “left religion on his own, turned back to the world and returned to his vomit.”

His unwillingness to go to confession was the key to his unmasking.  No need of contrition.  No self-transcendence here.  Just get over yourself, fellow.  That would have been Francis’ guidance.  Settle down and know that God dwells in you.  It’s that simple.

We make it so difficult.  I’m reminded of Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler, who had famously remarked, “Contrition is bull___,” when Nixon contemplated acknowledging his responsibility for the entire, sorry Watergate mess.  Just how far might an attitude of gratitude have gone for Nixon and his cronies?  Poor old Tricky Dick, had he only known that God dwelled in him.  And believed it.

This brother’s piety was all an act.  Everything about him was pretend.  This pious fraud cared not a wit about others, and his story ends with a warning.  The leper in our gospel story displayed something this plastic saint would never know: gratitude.  The joy of being at peace with himself and with those around.  This little vignette in the life of St. Francis ends rather sadly, as such stories frequently do.  “Finally, after doing even worse things, he was deprived of both repentance and life.”  Had this brother’s life reflected the reality of an indwelling God, who knows?

Unfortunately, some of us have been so damaged that it’s hard to detect this divine essence.  It’s so deeply buried.  This past week I have been on jury duty.  I ended up getting tossed from the panel.  I suspect the reason had to do with the nature of the case.  There, across from me sat a sullen defendant in a spouse abuse case.  When the judge asked us if any of us had had any previous experience with such, I had to reveal that my wife and I had offered our house as a safe home in Alaska for women who needed to escape violence and abuse.  We would put them up until the ferry came into port and they could flee our small town for the safety and anonymity of Seattle.  I’m sure the defense attorney did not want me on the jury.  Besides, being clergy.  That, in some minds, equals being a “religious nut.”  So, I got the rest of my afternoon free. 

As I drove home, I reflected on this sad looking defendant.  Of course, I have no presumption as to his guilt or innocence.  I never heard any evidence.  My experience with abusers is that they are inevitably passing along the violence to which they had been subjected in their formative years.  While this is certainly no excuse, it helps me understand how violence is perpetrated from one generation to the next.  As the prophet Jeremiah says, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”  Because of the sins of the father, the children’s’ teeth are set on edge “even to the third and fourth generation.”  While we may reject this theology, the prophet knew that dysfunction and criminality are often transmitted from one generation to the next as surely as night follows day.  Passed right along like a winter head cold.

I wondered about this young fellow sitting in the dock of that courtroom.  What sort of household did he grow up in?  What abuse or neglect might he have suffered?  How often did he witness his father beat his mother?  Or beat him?  What anger did he bottle up?  From his demeanor, it seemed to be a most dark and dreary day.  I’m sure that it didn’t help that his lawyer was such a grandstander he had to be shut up several times by the judge, even in the brief time I was there in the courtroom.  Spare us all!  Would that all lawyers know deep in their hearts, God dwells in you.  No need for pompous puffery.

Those haunting questions stayed with me through my drive home on the 10 Freeway.  Those questions are at the root of our work to build the House of Hope, an opioid addiction recovery center.  Those questions are the nerve that connects our hope to action.  As we put together the final touches of our business plan, I felt a profound sense of gratitude washing over me.  Gratitude for all who have been part of this holy journey.  For those in San Bernardino and in West Virginia who have gotten us to this point.  Blessing filled my heart as I began to proofread our plan.

I’ve always figured that one is either part of the problem or part of the solution.  We who claim to follow Jesus will be known by what my friend Dick calls “engaged compassion.”  Francis alerted his followers to pious nonsense, what young climate activist Greta Thunberg called “empty words” as she excoriated the world’s leaders at the recent United Nations Climate Action Summit.  Inaction is betrayal.  To claim not to be informed is willful ignorance.  No excuses.  Read a science book!

Yes, God dwells in you, and in this young man awaiting his fate in a West Covina courthouse.  He probably was not feeling that reality at the moment.  And, if guilty, he sure had some accounting to do.  But, regardless of any transgression, we hold out potential redemptive possibility.  Yes, God dwells in him.  Even if he is not yet aware of that truth, God dwells in him.  I nurture the possibility that some day he will be able, in gratitude, to acknowledge the precious gift that he is.  Make restitution for any wrong and get on with his life – see it as a blessing.  Restoration is ever God’s will. 

I am profoundly grateful for those like St. Francis.  Francis is a window to God’s love for all creation.  If the stories and legends are even only halfway true, Francis is a most wholesome spiritual guide.  He got it right.  Everything is connected.  Let us delight in one another and give thanks for our animal companions. 

When we lived in Anchorage, we shared our lives with the most enthusiastic Dachshund, Nevada.  That is the name a previous owner had given him.  He slept in the garage at night so he could use his doggie door when nature called.  Most mornings Jai was up before me tending to our oldest.  She would open the door from the garage to the dining room.  I would hear her saying to Nevada, “Go get him.  Go get him, Nevada.”  And I would hear Nevada bounding through the hallway, his dog tags jingling.  Into the bedroom in a flash, and before I could pull up the covers, Nevada would be up on the bed licking my face and hands.  If I got the covers over my head, he would be burrowing under the sheet.  No escape.  And such tail-wagging enthusiasm!  “Get up! Get up!  Lick-lick-lick-lick-lick.  I’m here.  Aren’t you happy to see me?  Let’s go have fun.  I’m so happy, happy, happy to see you.  Get up.  Get up.  Come on, time’s a wasting.  Time to eat.”

Nevada was God’s summons to spring into a beautiful day.  Indeed, morning has broken like that first morning.  This is the memory I celebrate as we bless all the animals, great and small.  Jonathan would later bring his tarantula to the blessing of the animals.  Yes, God dwelled in it, too.

God dwells in all — Nevada, Brian and Larry.  My furry friends, God dwells in you.   The leprous man at the roadside so long ago —  God dwells in you and all we marginalize and shove to the side.  No matter the transgression that might have landed that young man in court, God does not judge any of us by our worst day ever.  You, in the dock of justice, God dwells in you. 

As we sing, “All creatures of our God and King.  Lift up your voice and with us sing.  O praise him, O praise him!  Alleluia.  Alleluia. Alleluia.”   Amen.

---

[1] Rachel Nuwer, “Aloof?  For Cats, It’s Just an Act,” New York Times, Science Times, October 1, 2019, p. 3

[2]Regis Armstrong et al, ed., Francis of Assisi:  Early Documents (New York: New City Press, 2000) 264.

[3] Ibid.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c); Psalm 111; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19

Proper 23, Year C, October 13, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

This past week we all received a just and well-deserved scolding from a sixteen-year-old girl from Sweden.  Greta Thumberg at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.  

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction, and you can only talk about money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?[1]

Her warning is no different in kind than that of the prophet Habakkuk.  He castigates a political leadership that has distorted justice and perpetrated violence upon the land.  And for this reason the Chaldeans, the predatory nation to the north shall be God’s rod of chastisement.  Swift and terrible, they descend on Israel.

Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on…They come for violence; terror of them goes before them.  They gather captives like sand.  At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. (vv. 1:6-10).

Every bit as urgent and as terrible as Habakkuk’s warning, Greta does not mince words in her message to the leaders of our day. 

You are failing us but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here and right now is where we draw the line.[2]

To reinforce Greta’s message, millions upon millions of young people and their friends and parents poured out into the streets in cities all around the globe.  Here in Claremont many gathered on Foothill and Indian Hill to sound the alarm.  To warn our politicians that the time for empty words and half measures is over. 

The science is clear.  More than clear, as we celebrated this past week the patron saint of Mother Earth – St. Francis.  Already we are in the middle of the Sixth Extinction, as many scientists refer to the great die-off presently taking place around the world.  America has lost one third of its birds.  Some 2.9 billion birds.[3]

Our oceans are in peril.  Acidification and ocean warming are proceeding at breakneck speed.  We run the risk of killing off the very plankton that produces some fifty to seventy percent of all the earth’s oxygen — some current research estimates it at eighty percent.  It’s not all trees that keep us alive, but little creatures in the trillions that we can’t even see with the naked eye.[4]  That study is now almost ten years old.  Has it gotten better in the meantime?  I highly doubt it.

And on and on it goes.  We have really fouled our nest.

So, what to do?  We might dismiss and ridicule such folks like Greta Thunberg and the scientists.  Fake news.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Just move along.  Or try vituperation as did our president on Twitter: “disturbingly redolent of a victim of a Maoist ‘re-education’ camp.”  Or like Laura Ingraham we can label Greta and her companions the pathetic victims of “climate hysteria.”  But no amount of ridicule will make this problem go away.

Or we can resort to complacent, magical theology, throw up our hands and proclaim that it’s now all in God’s hands.  There’s nothing we can do.  That option reminds me of a story of a country preacher walking along a dirt road when he spotted a farmer out in his field.  He hadn’t seen this guy in church since he’d been there.  He motioned the farmer over and noted that this was a mighty fine farm the fellow had.  “If I had a farm like that, I come to church and let God know how thankful I was.”  “Well, Sonny,” drawled the farmer, “I want to tell you — it certainly didn’t look like this when God had it all by himself.” 

When it comes to creation care, some stewardship activity is required on our part.  Further, as God did not poison the oceans or heat up the place, why should God take the rap for it?  God didn’t do this.  No, it is not all in God’s hands.

Peter W. Marty proposes another consideration.  Repentance and restitution.[5]

The other day he was surprised to receive a letter from his seventh-grade science teacher.  He hadn’t thought about Mr. Erickson in almost fifty years.  Included was an old photograph of the Amateur Radio Club with a few of its members.  There were the club officers in the front row with Mr. Erickson and off to the side in the back was a kid named Eric.  Eric was physically disabled with few social skills.  He had halting speech and a definite limp.  Needless to say, Eric was the laughing stock of his classmates.  Enthusiastic, but just not fitting in. 

Eric was on the receiving end of ridicule and insults.  Classmates lobbed nasty names at him and pushed textbooks from his arms.  They dumped his milk at lunch when he turned his back.  A few kids were practiced at bumping into him as he carried his food tray.  If he swatted back at those who teased him, they only bullied more.  This wasn’t just a small group of hooligans; it was a whole cadre of outwardly pleasant middle schoolers.[6]

As memories came flooding back, the most painful of all was the recollection that he had done absolutely nothing to stand up for Eric.  Yes, he sat with him occasionally and helped pick up the things the other boys knocked from his hands.  But Peter did nothing to really include Eric.  He never spoke up.  He never admonished those cruel classmates.  He never invited Eric to the cool kids table.  As he admits, his moral compass was frozen.  No compassion here.

Looking back on all those years, Peter realizes that there is no real way he can make his repentance meaningful in anyway to Eric.  Too much time has past and he has no idea what ever became of Eric.  So how does one make restitution at this late date?

Peter concludes that perhaps there is no real way to atone for past wrongs and shameful behavior.  But that doesn’t mean we must just wallow in the sins of our past. 

Confession can deepen compassion.  It can instill a greater kindness and promote understanding and empathy.  It can be the beginning of serious midcourse correction.  And that is what Greta would urge up on us adults in the room.

I used to scoff at what I took to be small, half-way measures to environmental remediation.  How could changing out lightbulbs be restitution for all the damage we have wrought?  What difference did recycling really make?  I derisively called it “eco-pietism.”

Then one day, I read that changing lightbulbs for more efficient versions really was important.  Not in the small amount of electricity saved and the less coal burned to produce that electricity.  No!   Changing out lightbulbs and other small actions was often the beginning for most people of a serious midcourse correction.  It led to other things – like walking more and riding one’s bike for local errands – taking the Metrolink into L.A. instead of sitting for hours in exhaust fumes on the 10 Freeway – joining a group like Citizens’ Climate Lobby or 350.org.  Changing that lightbulb, for many people, was a first step to an environmental sensitivity that could build the political will for change.  Repentance does not mean feeling sorry for past misdeeds.  It means turning around and amending your ways.

Like the Chaldean horsemen with rapier edged swords, CLIMATE CATASTRPHE will soon be upon us.  Few, if no prisoners will be taken.  Just ask the Pacific Islanders or the farmers of Bangladesh.  Devastation will be swift and complete.

In a past issue of Time magazine, Bill McKibben, the prominent writer on the threat that global warming portends, lays out a possible alternative future to impending disaster.[7]   In his piece, Bill writes as if from the year 2050.  He lays out a somewhat hopeful scenario.  Yes, we will still have to take our lumps for our past foolishness and inaction.  But he describes a future that, though tough, is livable.

My takeaway from his future world is that we will have survived by wising up and acting on what was easily done – the low hanging fruit.  Doing a bit more of what many are already doing, only much, much more rapidly.  We will have survived by educating ourselves and our children.  We will have survived by electing leaders at all levels of government who understood the existential threat to our planet and who acted.  No matter be they Republican or Democrat, the only qualification for office – were they willing to move on positive solutions.  And do it quickly before it was too late.

Yes, Greta, there are sincere people in both parties willing to join forces.  Citizens’ Climate Lobby has proved that.  CCL’s tax — they call it a fee because politicians do not get to spend it — on carbon is a plan that both Republicans and Democrats have endorsed.  It is a plan that reduces CO2, creates jobs, and does not grow the government.  This fee is returned in its entirety back to the American people less a small fraction for administrative costs.  Those at the bottom of the economic pile benefit the most – mainly because they consume less.  No airplanes or yachts for them.  No ten-thousand-square-foot McMansions for the destitute.  So, of course, the poor will come out ahead.  And if other nations cheat or refuse to tax their own carbon pollution, we can extract the tax at our shores.  It can be calculated relatively easily.  I’m sure Russia, China or India would rather collect the money themselves than have us do it – and keep it.

Mr. Habakkuk is correct in his warning of eminent danger.  I do not believe that God sends invading armies to punish wayward nations – we’re perfectly capable of punishing ourselves.  It’s called consequences.  Warnings are a means of grace.  They’re an opportunity to understand where our behavior is taking us, and to change.  Bill McKibben is a hopeful prophet in that he lays out a plausible future. 

Yes, we all have an impact on the planet.  Every time we turn on the stove or fill up our gas tank, we impact the planet.  Every time we board a plane.  None of us is pure.  Even Greta. But there are actions each one of us can each take.  Change that lightbulb.  But more than that, we can vote for political leadership that will allow us to take collective action on climate.  Folks, the government is not some evil behemoth out there.  It’s us.  The “Deep State” is the Constitution.

With faith as big as a mustard seed, we can move the climate mountain.  Maybe not move sycamore trees, but with mustard seed faith, you might be like that proverbial tree planted by a clear, ever-flowing stream.  A tree that bears its fruit in due season, a tree that prospers in all seasons.  And this is how we will save this earth, “our island home.”  Only needed is the mustard seed faith that I can make a difference.  That you can make a difference.  That we can make a difference.  Add water, sunshine and love.  Amen.

---

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haewHZ8ubKA

[2] Ibid.

[3] Carl Zimmer, “Birds are Vanishing from North America, New York Times, September 19, 2019.

₄ Lauren Morello, “Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950,” Scientific American, July 29, 2010.

[5] Peter W Marty, “Dealing with Past Sins,” Christian Century, September 25, 2019, p. 3.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Bill McKibben, “How we Survived Climate Change,” Time, September 23, 2019.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Habakkuk, 1:1-4, 2:1-4; Psalm 37:1-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Proper 22, Year C, October 6, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

We have here one of the most problematic parables that Jesus was ever said to have uttered.  It would have not been surprising, upon listing to this parable, for one of the disciples to have muttered, “Jerusalem, we have a problem.”  This teaching is unacceptable.  Completely!  This is not the ethic of the Beloved Community.

The Parable of the Unjust Steward is so morally reprehensible that the gospel writer concludes it with a number of possible interpretations in an attempt to clean it up.   Many of which are contradictory.  Taken together the parable and the following commentary looks like the word salad of some politician as to why they were caught for what they were caught doing – a bunch of words strung together without any sense or meaning.  Just words with no connection.  A refrigerator magnet poem put up by your second grader.

This parable would seem to counsel the sort of behavior that Reuters recently reported as getting several top FEMA presidential appointees indicted from criminal wrong doing.  The ethics of the swamp seem to be slowly permeating throughout all the ooze.  From top to bottom.

To wit, Reuters reports that a top FEMA official overseeing the rebuilding of Puerto Rico along with several others has been indicted by a grand jury for taking kickbacks to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid after Hurricane Maria.  Ahsha Tribble, who oversaw the reconstruction work for FEMA allegedly accepted gifts, including a forty-foot long catamaran boat and sack loads of money, to pressure the government of Puerto Rico to steer business to Donald Ellison and her benefactor’s firm, Cobra Acquisitions.

This, after a contract was previously jerked from a small company with only two employees in Montana – a company that had been awarded the contract to rebuild Puerto Rico’s entire grid.  Can you imagine, an outfit with only two employees getting this contract?  That would be like our administrative assistant Verity and I, strapping on equipment belts and just the two of us heading off to the devastation of Puerto Rico with nothing but billions of dollar bills in our pockets and absolutely no idea of which end of the wire to stick into the outlet.  Tell me, what’s that story about, if not massive corruption.  Just who’s benefiting somewhere out there in Montana?  Certainly not the people of Puerto Rico.  They’re still waiting for power in many places.  Is that the sort of business ethics Jesus is promoting in this parable?  The ethics of Eden’s snake?

And today, we hear that the leader of Ukraine is being pressured to turn over dirt on a potential political opponent in our upcoming 2020 election. 

Where does it end?  In the mire of this cesspool it would seem that everything we Americans hold dear is for sale to the highest bidder.  Any end justifies any means.  Maybe the hope is that the American people will just tire of the so much corruption and simply tune out.  Friends, we do that at the peril of our enduring values.  We do that in betrayal of what Americans have lived and died for.  I can’t believe that this is where Jesus’ teaching wants to take us.  What???  Rot is good?

Listen to Amos’s counsel:  Woe to those who ask when shall the Sabbath be over that we can make hay?  When we can jigger the weights and tweak the scales.  Make the ephah small and the shekel great?  How soon can we deal deceitfully and grind the poor into dust?  Money’s there for the making.

Amos warns that such a generation shall be cast adrift.  They shall be utterly lost.  To such a generation the Lord will send an intense hunger.  “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.  They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”[1] 

The denizens of the swamp shall prevail.  As Hobbs predicted, it will be a war of all against all.  And Gordon Gekko rings the opening bell of Wall Street trading every single day, even on the Sabbath.  That’s the dystopian future that derives from the business ethic of the Unjust Steward.  Jesus, is this your counsel?

These are consequences for a generation that has lost its mooring, that has lost its soul.   They are not like a tree planted by a living stream with deep roots, but like the chaff which the wind quickly blows to the four corners of the earth. 

Is this the business ethic Jesus is recommending to his followers?  If this is the course of action Jesus was suggesting through this story, it has certainly taken hold in our time with a vengeance.  In such a society no institution is exempt from the seeping mire.  A parent with a wad of cash can buy admittance to the most prestigious schools in the nation.  Bankers cheat their customers with fake accounts they concoct out of thin air in the middle of the night.  Even the church is not exempt.  We, too, are a very human community not exempt from temptation and malfeasance.  However, I can assure you that here at St. Francis we have no golden faucets or a huge bank account stashed away.   

No wonder the gospel writer was so perplexed.  No wonder Luke was hunting for any rational explanation for this parable. 

It happened that I was sitting at lunch last Thursday at Pilgrim Place with a noted biblical scholar.  I told Dennis what the upcoming lectionary selection from Luke was, and how on earth was the preacher to make any sense of the Parable of the Unjust Steward?  Was Jesus commending the ethics of a snake like Bernie Madoff to his followers?  Or was something else going on that I was missing?  Please, Dennis, give the preacher some help here!

Dennis suggested that there was indeed another way of understanding this problematic story.  Perhaps Jesus was telling his hearers that they should be just as wise and artful in doing good as those steeped in the corrupt ways of the world.  We were not to do as the Unjust Steward but were to be just as clever as he in building the Beloved Community.

Lift each other up with the same determination and the same foresight.  Not for evil, but to a different end.  Be wickedly smart in doing good, just as smart as that crooked steward.

Well, that makes sense.  Such sentiment warms the heart. Much better sense than that Jesus would be counseling us to loot, steal and cheat.  And sink into the mire of the swamp.

Listen to the wisdom of our biblical heritage: “Choose life that you and your children may live.”  And as the writer of 1 Timothy urges, we should commend all in prayer, even the vipers of the swamp, that “…we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.”  Despite all evidence to the contrary, we must hold out for the possibility of redemption – even for ourselves.

Yes, let us be adroit and canny in doing good.  Let us be persistent in such things as compassion.  We’re talking about patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness – the fruit of the Spirit.  The attitudes that make for life.  It’s the “attitude of gratitude,” as they say in the twelve-step movement.

And where does such a moral compass lead?  Here’s where such gifts of the Spirit lead us.  It’s a story I came across scrolling down through the AOL news one morning last week.  It is about a young, sixteen-year old high school girl named Whitney Kropp. 

Whitney has always been a fairly quiet girl, usually sitting in the back.  She wasn’t known for having many friends, and her family came from fairly modest means.  They were certainly not among the movers and shakers in their Michigan community.

Well, some of the school bullies — girls of the so-called “in” clique, as a prank, decided to put forth Whitney’s name for homecoming queen.  What a joke, they thought it would be, on such a nothing girl who wouldn’t have had a prayer for that honor.  Yuck it up, ladies.  Lots of fun at a nice person’s expense.  Of course, no one told Whitney.

Well, it turned out, the joke was on them.

As you can imagine, Whitney was flattered.  Flabbergasted, really.  Could it be that, after all those years of being the quiet girl in the background, high school life was finally opening up for her?  Maybe she wasn’t the ugly duckling after all.

Whitney soon became suspicious when, after the homecoming court was announced and she had heard her name over the speaker, that she happened to glance over at a group of kids laughing their heads off.   She noticed the group of the soch girls – you know the ones – the snooty, moneyed girls who think they’re better than everyone else — giggling and pointing at her.

However, she decided to ignore this.  Just pay no attention.  They’re of no account.  On the day of the announcement Whitney couldn’t wait to tell her family and friends.  One of her friends posted the news on Facebook.

As Whitney didn’t fit in well with her classmates, it began to make sense to her when she discovered that her nomination had been a cruel joke.  It was the work of this little group of school bullies.  To make matters worse, she discovered that many in her school had been in on the joke. 

Whitney was devastated, and her mind went to some very dark, destructive thoughts.  In her depression she even contemplated suicide.  She also discovered that one boy so did not want to be associated with her that he had rejected a nomination to homecoming court.  You can imagine how the news hit this vulnerable, young girl!  She began to feel like SHE was nothing but a big joke.  She didn’t belong.

When she finally mustered the courage to tell her family, of course, they were devastated.  But they encouraged their daughter to attend the homecoming game anyway.  It wasn’t going to be easy for this fragile girl whose confidence had been completely shaken, but they would have her back.  Myself?  I think I would have hidden in my closet and never come out.  But Whitney’s family was strong and Whitney discovered an inner strength from their support.  They would show these bullies what real family strength was.

Whitney’s sister started a Facebook group to support Whitney and inform the wider community what had happened.  In a flash this group exploded to thousands as the story spread.  And as community businesses learned of the recent events, they offered all sorts of support:  shoes and a new dress fit for a queen, a complete makeover by a local hairdresser, a homecoming dinner and a limousine for a ride in style to her coronation.

That night as Whitney walked across the field at halftime, under the glare of stadium lights, escorted by her proud father, she was still nervous.  And then she looked up.  She saw hundreds of folks in the stands cheering her as they stood in her honor.  They held signs and wore orange tee shirts to match her stunning, new, orange dress.  And there were the news teams.  Whitney, who had thought she was a big nothing, was overwhelmed by the awesome embrace of so, so many strangers who come out to honor her that night.

When being interviewed that evening by reporters, Whitney had a message for every girl in America, “The kids that are bullying you, do not let them bring you down.  Stand up for what you believe in and go with your heart and go with our gut.”

This is what happens when an entire community excels in doing good, when a family is wise in the ways of social media and reaching out, every bit as creative as those who had intended evil.  Just as clever as that Unjust Steward.  Every bit as cunning as that proverbial serpent.  Just as adroit as that reptile in its serpentine deceit, but this time, for doing good.  And in the doing, God was most highly honored that evening.

Gospel faithfulness is life indeed.  Whitney, her family, and entire community chose life.  What some self-absorbed and inconsiderate classmates intended for evil, they chose for good.

Friends, that’s my take on this most problematic of parables.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

St. Paul reminds us that the gifts of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.”[2] 

That night, at the coronation of a radiant girl in a small, mid-western American town, all the gifts of the Spirit were let loose.  They gushed forth like an ever-flowing stream of righteousness.  Whitney and her clever Beloved Community chose life.  Life abundant.  Brimful and overflowing.   

As songster Jim Manley writes: “Did somebody say that you’d never be queen?  Send them our way and we’ll paint their nose green.”  Amen.

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[1] Amos 8:12, the RSV.

[2] Galatians 5:22-23.  RSV.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13

Proper 19, Year C, September 22, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

We have all lost something from time to time.  I could sure identify with my dad this last month.  I remember that we would scour his bedroom hunting for a lost hearing aid.  The search would soon move into the bathroom, the kitchen and then encompass the entire house. 

Well, on my last trip to West Virginia, when I was on my connecting flight from the Denver Airport, heading back home to Ontario International, I realized that one of my hearing aids was missing.  The only thing I could think of was that I had been listening to a recorded book through my noise canceling headphones.  While waiting for our flight back to Ontario, I had received a call and took off the earphone on one side.  I must have pulled one of my hearing aid off in the process.  Back home, when I asked the hearing app to find my hearing aid, it duly displayed it on a map of the Denver International Airport. Unfortunately, no one at the airport had found it. 

To compound matters, it wasn’t but a few days later I lost the other one.  At this point I was ready to have myself committed to our memory care unit.  I shouldn’t be allowed out of the house with anything more expensive than a pencil or a paper towel.  However, on Saturday Jai found it…in a bedsheet she was removing from the washing machine.  Fortunately, grace abounds.  Or maybe just dumb luck.  When I installed a new battery, I couldn’t believe my good fortune.  It worked.  And is still working.  And maybe it’s a bit cleaner.  Maybe the grace is having such a wonderful wife who notices such things.

Of course, all of us have had much more serious losses.  Like the time Jonathan and Christopher decided to go on an “Explore” late one afternoon.  Behind our house in Petersburg, Alaska, it was all forest.  It was only when we called them to dinner that we realized that they were nowhere to be found.  As it became darker, our worry increased exponentially.  A friend had come over for dinner.  He, Jai and I were scouring the neighborhood and the forest behind the house.  Finally, I spotted them coming back on the walking path that led from the airport into town.  Fortunately, they had stayed together and were as relieved to see us as we them.  I can’t even begin to describe our relief.  I didn’t know whether to bawl them out for leaving like that or just to hug them and cry.  We all had a very grateful dinner, a bit late, a bit cold.  But the family was together.

Now this was serious loss.  The kind that drives parents and friends out of their minds.  I believe it must be as close as I can possibly imagine to the loss God must feel.  The only worse loss I can imagine would be that of a kidnapped child or the loss so many experienced on 9/11.

When I see pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian’s devastation, I am dumbstruck.  The section of the Bahamas called The Mud is where many undocumented Haitians had been living.  It is a jumble of splintered wood and crushed cars and other debris.  As far as the eye can see.  It’s hard to see how any searchers can even move through that pile of splintered wood and twisted metal.  The overpowering stench is witness to the many lives that must have been lost there — bodies that no one can get to until the water recedes.  And those who managed to survive?  They have no idea as to where their loved ones might be, or if they’re even still alive. 

But we, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave — we’re going to deny the stragglers from this hellish landscape entry into our country because they don’t have the proper papers?  Please, pray tell me — where are these poor souls with nothing but the ragged, filthy clothes on their backs – just how are they to obtain get proper documentation? 

God must be weeping a river of tears.  That magnificent Lady who bids wayfarers welcome out there in New York harbor – who offers sanctuary to the tempest tossed, she must be sick with grief.  A lot has died, not the least has been compassion.  America is being lost.  The Author of our sweet liberty must be so grievously hurt at what we have done with our promise.  Like a distraught woman hunting for a lost coin, God searches in vain for  a shred of decency in this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

Such overwhelming loss is numbing.  Such loss blocks out any rational thought.  We’re overwhelmed in shock.  Unfortunately, one response to overwhelming loss is denial, or the resort to magical thinking. 

The children of Israel, left behind at Mt. Saini completely lose it when Moses fails to return.  They’re blaming Moses.  “Why didn’t you just leave us out there to die in Egypt.   Didn’t they have enough graves back there?”  They’re blaming God.  They decide, in the absence of Moses or God, to make their own god, a golden calf.  Just like we are prone to look to magical thinking when faced with disaster and loss.  Just as I resorted to irrational thought when I lost my second hearing aid, hunting in places where I’d hunted before, where I knew it couldn’t possibly be.  Magical thinking wouldn’t be too far back.

Like this poor woman seeking that coin, turning her house upside down, God is every bit as desperate and distressed at loss as are we.  How do we know that?  We know it because the God dwells within the human breast that heaves with such great sobs at loss and ruination is the same God who is as near to us as our beating hearts and the fleeting thought of mind.  Our anguish is God’s.  Whether it’s the loss of a child who’s wandered off or a loved one who’s drowned in the floodwaters of a storm.  This very one and same God who bears up our grief and cradles us in despair.  Like a shepherd seeking out a lost sheep, I imagine God searches through the wreckage of our loss.

This very same God is equally distressed when an entire people, an entire nation, has lost its way.  Lamentation is real.  God crying out from the distress of our people.  I fear we have desperately lost our way as a nation.  Is tragically divided.  Our farmers are committing suicide at unprecedented rates.  The average family is barely making it anymore.  We bury our pain in addiction. 

In the previous Atlantic Magazine, there was an incredible article on how some of our biggest businesses and their CEOs are gaming the system.  If anything is to destroy our capitalist system, it won’t be the likes of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, or my son and his girlfriend who are Democratic Socialists.  It will be the greed of the so-called captains of industry themselves.  I’m not talking about the Mom and Pop Grocery, but the huge multinational corporations that, though once American, have no loyalty to their workers here.  This outlandish, self-serving greed must surely cause a flood of tears to flow from the divine Author of our liberty.  We have lost our way.  God’s heart surely aches.

Here’s the story.  It’s not sexy.  It’s pretty into-the-weeds economics.  It’s junk-yard-dog ugly.  It’s not a story that would spark not a bit of interest from most of us.  Its far from our minds as we are concerned with getting to our usual morning chores, the stuff you have to do to get out of the house. 

The money we worry about is that little bit in our bank account that will, hopefully, get us through to the end of the month.  But as I’ve said, while we may vote at best once every two years, money votes every day.  BIG MONEY, that is.  Corporate money.

Someone has begun to look into the huge windfall many large companies have reaped from the recent tax till.  Oodles and oodles.  Take Home Depot, for instance.  Well, did their CEO, Craig Menear, share any of that bounty with those “what brung him to the dance?”  Did he give his employees any well-deserved raise?  Did Home Depot lower prices?  Did they build more factories and hire workers?  No.  None of these.

They bought back their own company’s stock.  So why should we care?  Let me connect the dots for us.  As a result of this buyback, the remaining shares on the market became worth more, much more it turns out.  There were now far fewer of them.  Basis econ 101.  The less there is of something, the more valuable it becomes.  Including the shares owned by a CEO, who often gets a big – a very big – chunk of their salary in company stock. 

Yeah, I bet you didn’t expect to get an econ lesson this morning.  In fact, one of the most frequent themes in scripture is the wise and just use of wealth and privilege. 

Soooooo.  To continue…This president and CEO of Home Depot, Craig Menear, went off on a buying spree of their own Home Depot stock – four billion dollars’ worth – 35 percent of all outstanding shares!  President Meanear’s stock, in the process, became worth a whole extra bunch and he promptly sold a lot and netted a nice $18 million.  Not bad for a day’s work.  To reward him, Home Depot turned around and gave him another gift of stock, over 24 thousand shares.  On the spot, he unloaded another batch of that payout.  And, KA-CHING!  He walked away with somewhere around $4.5 million.  It’s amazing what a little bit of hard work will get a fellow.  I’m sure president Menear’s worth every cent of it.

But what about his workers?  You know, the helpful folks with those orange aprons who are there to assist you in finding things and will check you out at the register?  What about these workers making only $23,000 a year?  What if that money, instead of being used to line the pockets of the very wealthy, had been used to provide a living wage for the folks what make Home Depot happen every single day?  The folks who struggle to pay rent and scrape together car payments.  Those who live on the ragged edge?  The ones who collect up the shopping carts we leave strewn about the parking lot?   What about them?   The Roosevelt Institute and the National Employment Law Project have calculated that every Home Depot worker would have an additional $18,000 a year in their paycheck IF Home Depot had made a different decision about their pile of cash.  IF – such a small word and such a big potential difference.

But the story doesn’t stop there.  One more dot to connect.  What do these folks do with this ill-gotten lucre.  They use it to corrupt our political system.  They invest that money in politicians at all levels of government.  And that is why the stuff the ordinary voter cares about never happens.  America, you are better than this.

As our democracy is increasingly financialized, I’m sure the Author of liberty must weep most grievously.  The idea of America is on the verge of being lost.  Sold out to the highest bidder. We should all weep.  With such disparity of opportunity, we have indeed lost our way.  Our workers are shoveled into impoverishment.  Addiction rates continue to climb.  God is saying to each one of us, “America, you are better than this.”

You ask, but what can we do?  Well, we can do something.  It may not be much, but if a lot of folks do it, it adds up to a lot.  We can vote for leaders with integrity.  Leaders who have a record of serving the public interest and not their own pocketbook.  We can pay attention.  Democracy is not a spectator sport! 

It’s time for all of us, for this nation to be WOKE.  It’s Mend-Thine-Every-Flaw time. 

Look how we got through another time of despair in our nation’s past.  People pulled together.  Churches and voluntary organizations pitched in.  We had political leadership.  And the Greatest Generation did get us through the Great Depression.

Different folks learned different lessons from that searing national experience.  My dad learned that a person could never have enough.  So, he saved up a huge pile of money.  My mom’s parents learned that, even if you weren’t personally struggling – Grandpa had a safe, pretty high-up job in the Lodi Post Office – there were a lot of desperate folks out there on the verge of starvation.  Give a care.

I heard the story growing up of how every evening Grandma would make an extra amount for dinner.  She would set it in a big pot with paper dishes and spoons for the destitute who wandered through their back alleyway. It wasn’t much, but she did what she could.  Grandpa, like thousands others, planted a Victory Garden during and gave away vegetables.

Hundreds and thousands of Americans did similar acts of charity all across the country.  Churches of every stripe and denomination pitched in.  Synagogues and mosques as well.  Grace abounded for the distressed.  The nation voted for political leadership that devised national recovery programs, putting its idled men back to work.

It is no coincidence that the leadership — that FDR — came right out of the of the church.  The Episcopal Church.  FDR served on the vestry, the ruling board of the congregation, and even through the duration of that war, he never missed a single meeting.  Not one!  And many of our other leaders in both the administration and in Congress exercised the same bold leadership reflecting the values they had learned in Sunday school or Sabbath school.

By the grace of God, a lost nation found its way.  Yes, some would argue that it also took the tragedy of a world at war to get the nation moving again.  But in the progress, we stood up against some of the most murderous regimes history has known and liberated a world. 

All is lost.  All is found.  Yes, we can do this again.  We can find our moral compass.   Again, arms are strong.

How does Jesus’ story of the Lost Coin end?  The story becomes the celebration not of one woman, but the joyful victory of her entire community.  Ultimately, it’s a story about us, not me.  “See, I set before you the ways of life and death.  Choose life, that you and your children may live.”  That your nation may live and flourish.

It is the inner urge to tirelessly seek what has been lost. – just as my son some time ago scoured his Portland neighborhood when their orange striped cat Morris didn’t come home one night.  For days, he walked the neighborhood calling.  He and Rachael truly mourned that beloved cat’s loss.  At odd moments they would imagine they had heard his license tags jingling, when it was only a passing kid on a skateboard or maybe a car going by.  That is surely how the heart of God must ache for us when we’ve lost our way.

God plants within each one of us the restless need for restoration and connection.  We feel that painful sense of loss when one is missing around the table at dinner, even if it’s only Morris the Cat.  God seeks us out when we’ve gone astray with the same dogged (excuse the poor choice of words, Morris, wherever you may be) persistence, as of a woman scouring her home for what is missing — Just as God seeks out a crooked tax collector and remorseful thief on a cross at Golgotha.  Or a repentant member of the NIMBY crowd.

In the sentiment of that beloved song, “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches over me.”  He watches over each and every one of us frail creatures, ever searching us out.  And His – Her eye — is over our very endangered democracy.  Yes, His eye is on our good, old US of A.  AND on this frail and dying planet, our island home.    Dear Lord, give us eyes to seek out the Right and the courage to do the Right.  Amen.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Exodus 32:7-14; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Proper 19, Year C, September 15, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

There’s an old freedom song from the 60s we used to sing.  Sometimes, still, I hear it today.  When I read todays passage from Luke’s gospel, that old song bubbled right up in my mind.

Ain't gonna let nobody turn me ‘round,

Turn me round, turn me ‘round.

Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me ‘round.

I'm gonna keep on a walkin', keep on a talkin',

Walkin' into freedom land.

Those were heady days when we thought America was on the verge of a new birth of freedom.  Working in Los Angeles, our church was right smack dab in the middle of that birthing.  The Pico Union Neighborhood was alive with bustle and we had our eyes on the prize.  If you wanted slacker Christianity, if you wanted your ease in Zion, there would be no rest for you here.  Yes, you had to let go of the old stuff.  Let go of old attitudes.  Let go of old priorities.  Our parents couldn’t understand why we would ever want to work in such a vermin, such a gang, such a poverty infected neighborhood.  All who worked at our church had some version of that discussion with parents.  Yet we kept on marchin, kept on talking all the way into a new freedom land.

And because that congregation in very real ways worked to live up to both the mandate and the promise of the gospel, it was a most joyful place.  Most every Sunday church would conclude with the music group and choir rocking out to that song from the musical “Hair.”   “Let the sun shine in, let the sun shine in, the sun shine in.”  And off we’d all go, energized and focused for another week.  And we made a difference.

I can still remember that old Latina who one evening a week taught some of the neighborhood girls cooking.  Many of these girls came from homes where mothers were sometimes working two and three jobs just to keep it together.  So, we taught cooking.  But that wise old Latina taught much more than cooking.  She held out the promise of a future for these girls.  If nothing else, they picked up the message that their whole existence didn’t depend on any boyfriend.  These girls held the future of being women of promise.  You want to be a teacher?  You want to be a nurse or a doctor?  You want to be a sheriff?  Follow your dream.  The last thing you need right now is to have some parasite boyfriend get you pregnant and then disappear.  You need to graduate.  You need education.

That is the same singlemindedness Jesus urges in today’s gospel reading.

My wife thinks I sometimes exaggerate, blow up a story for dramatic effect.  Yeah, I can sympathize with poor Joe Biden.  Sometimes the story gets away from those of us who make our living with our mouths.

But we don’t hold a candle to Jesus on this account.  He was the master of hyperbole, exaggeration for dramatic effect.  As we move through the long green season of the church year, more and more the lessons focus on the “Cost of Discipleship.”  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  Tough stuff indeed. 

This is an echo of the summons from Deuteronomy.  As the community of faith gathered at the Jordan River, about to enter the so-called Promised Land, they were instructed by Moses, “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil…that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life…that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God…”  Choose life.  Stay in school. Get your education.  Graduate.  Become that doctor, that teacher.

This stark choice is front and center in the two antithetical life modalities the writer lays out in the first Psalm.  “Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scoffers…They are like trees planted by streams of water.”   “It is not so with the wicked, they are like chaff which the wind blows away.”  Choose this day, life or death.  Keep your eyes on the prize.  Marching into Freedom Land.

Talk about a sharp morality tale!  The ways of healthy religion are the ways that lead to life abundant.  They lead to a life worth living.  And they require a conscious choice.  A decision.  A decision for a life of sisterhood, brotherhood.   A life where all are invited to the table. 

The ways of the world are not the ways of the Gospel.  Au contraire, Gordon Gekko, greed is NOT good.  Do not leave your chances to the Snake.  With the Snake, there’s absolutely no future for any Garden of Eden.  The way of the Snake is paved-over cities choked with pollution and rates of childhood asthma that are stratospheric.  Greed is definitely NOT good.  Ask the homeless family living in a tent on Wilshire Blvd. who couldn’t make the last increase in rent.

We all, each and every day, have a choice set before us.  The ways of life and the ways of death.  Each and every day America stands before the same fateful choice.  Will we learn to live together as brothers and sisters?  Or will we perish as fools – and take the planet with us?

The ways of Jesus’ gospel require self-transcendence.  As the kids would say, “Get over yourself.”  Survival is not an individual project.  It is a “we” project.

The other morning, I heard our back doorbell ring.  There was my neighbor Sue with some disturbing news.  She was there to inform me that I had a dead rat out on our side lawn.  I made a facile quip as to which political party this rat might have belonged to before recalling a book I am currently reading, Love Your Enemies.[1]

This is the sort of book I would normally pass over with hardly a second glance.  But as how I had mentioned several Sundays ago from the pulpit that this Jesus stuff was a pretty difficult challenge – like loving your enemies – I thought I should at least pick it up and see what Mr. Brooks had to say.

Then I noted on the back cover that it had been given a promo by a couple of folks I respected: David Axelrod and Deepak Chopra.  What I discovered was a book which, if put into practice, could help heal our national conversation across the political divide.  This approach seemed to be an echo of what Jesus had in mind.  It could be a choice for life over evil and death.  I picked it up and kept reading.  The author got me with a story, and what a story!

He begins the book by relating an event at a Trump rally.  The usual battle lines were drawn up.  On one side, the folks with the red MAGA hats and on the other, a group from Black Lives Matter. 

As the two sides traded insults and curses the situation grew more combustible.  Hawk Newsome had recently arrived nursing an injury from Charlottesville, Virginia.  A white supremist had thrown a brick which had hit him in the face.  Hawk and his team were ready for battle.  He approached the Trump supporters with the same distain he had held for those white nationalists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.  The Trump supporters responded in kind. 

Then the most amazing thing happened.  The leader of the Trump rally, Tommy Hodges, invited Hawk Newsome onto the stage. “We’re going to give you two minutes of our platform to put your message out.”  Tommy added, that Hawk shouldn’t be concerned with whether the Trump supporters agreed or disagreed with his message, “It’s the fact that you have a right to have the message.”

As Hawk accepted the invitation and mounted the stage with no little trepidation, he flashed back to what a little old white lady had told him as he had been prepared to throw a rock in Charlottesville, “Your mouth is your most powerful weapon.  You don’t need anything but that.”  As a Christian, Hawk said a brief, silent prayer as he took the mic.  In that moment a voice in his heart told him to just let them know who he was.

“My name is Hawk Newsome.  I am the president of Black Lives Matter New York.  I am an American.”

He had the crowd’s attention, and he continued. “And the beauty of America is that when you see something broken in your country, you can mobilize to fix it,” he said.

To his utter surprise, the crowd burst into applause.  Emboldened, he said, “So you ask why there’s a Black Lives Matter?  Because you can watch a black man die and be choked to death on television and nothing happened.  We need to address that.”

“That was a criminal,” someone yelled, as boos started emanating from the crowd.

Hawk pressed on. “We’re not anti-cop.”

“Yes you are!” someone yelled.

“We’re anti-bad cop,” Hawk countered.  “we say if a cop is bad, he needs to get fired like a bad plumber, like a bad lawyer, like a bad…politician.”

At this the crowd began cheering again. 

These days, there’s nothing political ralliers hate more than bad politicians.

“I said that I am an American.  Secondly, I am a Christian,” Hawk said, once again connecting with his audience.  “We don’t want handouts.  We don’t want anything that’s yours.  We want our God-given right to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

The crowd erupted in cheers.

Then someone shouted, “All lives matter!”

“You’re right, my brother, you’re right.  You are so right,” Hawk said.  “All lives matter, right?  But when a black life is lost, we get no justice.  That is why we say black lives matter.”

As Hawk prepared to step off the stage, his two minutes over, he left the crowd with one passing thought, “Listen, I want to leave you with this, and I’m gone.  If we really want to make America great, we do it together.”

The crowd roared.

To the amazement of many, including Hawk himself, he was mobbed by well-wishers who embraced him.  A member of a four-thousand-man militia upon noticing that Hawk had cut himself took out a medical aid packet and began bandaging up his finger.  Another fellow from a group called Bikers for Trump approached Hawk and told him, “Your speech was amazing.  I’d be honored if you meet my son.”  The biker introduced his son Jacob and asked Hawk to pick up the boy so they could have a picture together. [2]

Yes, it cost Hawk something.  Some in his group called him a “KKK-loving Trump supporter.”  Another said what he did was treasonous.  It costs us all something, it might cost us to give up what Arthur Brooks calls our “addiction to hate.”  But, oh, the benefit!   The video of the event on social media has had over fifty-seven million views.  Look at it yourself.  What does Democracy look like?  This is what Democracy looks like.  What does the Gospel look like?  You got it!

Keep on marching. Keep on talking.  Marching on to Freedom Land.  No turning back here!

This Jesus stuff is tough.  But it is redemptive.  Choose Life, indeed!  Now, before you think I’ve gotten all sappy and am ignoring the real values that do, in fact, matter – yes stay strong and hold fast to those values – AND…and, we can also have political discourse that doesn’t demonize and is not contemptuous of the opponent. 

Yes, lets struggle together.  Let us fight it out at the ballot box and in public hearings.  But as Hawk said, let’s remember that if we are to make America great, we will have to do it together.  It’s a “we” project.

And should we get a bit raucous and rambunctious, let’s pray God sends us the stern John Bercow, Speaker of the British House of Commons, crying above the bedlam, “Ohduhr, Ohduhr. Ohduhr.”  You can see it all on YouTube.[3]  Marvelous to behold.

If our nation pursues the path of respect, of truth, of decency, of fairness, we will have chosen life.  Might that sacred Tree of Liberty be planted by an ever-flowing stream of righteousness.  Choose life and goodness. 

Now, in the past it was said that the Tree of Liberty was watered by the blood of the patriots and tyrants.  I say, let the Tree of Liberty be watered by the deeds of the righteous.  Let it be watered by the faithfulness of all those who have kept their eyes on the prize.  Let it be watered by a vision of unity where all are invited to the feast.  All of us — walking into Freedom Land.

Those wonderful women in our midst working to prepare a food pantry – they’re taking us all by the hand.  Walking into Freedom Land.  The faithful who prepare each Sunday, week after week, that our worship might be an act of praise and recommitment – they’re taking us all by the hand – walking into Freedom Land.

Yes, those folks who put their pledge without fail into the collection plate.  They keep the promise alive that St. Francis might remain a bold expression of God’s gracious will and abundance here in this little corner of San Bernardino.  Yes, indeed – they’re taking us all by the hand — Walking into Freedom Land.

The faithful six who month after month make the trip into Los Angeles to be a part of the diocesan Episcopal Enterprise Academy, dreaming the vision of a House of Hope – San Bernardino – they’re taking us all by the hand — Walking into Freedom Land.

Let our motto at St. Francis ever be: “Whoever you are, and wherever you are on your journey of faith, there’s a place for you here.  Come right in.   Sit right down.  ‘Cause…  ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around.  Turn us around.  Turn us around.   Aint gonna let nobody turn us around.  Keep on walkin’.  Keep on talkin’.  Walkin’ into Freedom Land.  Amen.

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[1] Arthur Brooks, Love Your Enemies (New York: Broadside Books, 2019).

[2] Ibid, 5-6.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY7EIZl4raY

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1-21;

Luke 14:25-33

Proper 18, Year C, September 8, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney