Most of our days are lived in the humdrum of just getting through the day.  Each day has its share of muck and mire.  There’s often enough drudgery to mess up any possibility of joy.

When I returned home from West Virginia, out raising money for House of Hope, here on my desk was a copy of our local newspaper, the Claremont Courier.  In the opening pages, is Matthew Bramlett’s column, “Police Blotter.”

This section contains essentially the log of the calls that came into the dispatcher that week with a bit of narrative.  On Tuesday, January 21, Officers arrested a certain Michael Turner who had been drunk and disorderly.  While in the officer’s patrol car, the suspect kicked out one of the windows in the back seat. 

I can just imagine this officer, not only having to deal with such disagreeable folks but now having to waste a bunch of time filling out the paperwork to his car fixed, cleaning up vomit on the floor of his car, and having to calm down from the undeserved verbal abuse from some of our finer citizens he has the honor of hauling into the station.  Where’s the Light in all this?  Where’s the Glory?  Is this the glamor that was depicted on that recruiting pamphlet he read as a senior in high school?  Is this mess really what he imagined when he considered a career of “helping people?”

Much of life is in the muck and mire of just getting through the day.

And it must have been so many days of those who were part of the Jesus Movement.  It’s not easy living off the land.  Sickness from bad food.  Aching bones and sore muscles from having slept out in a dusty field in the bitter cold.  Thirst.  Ridicule from some of the local townspeople.  Not easy indeed.

In the church, it’s not all that different.  One morning I received a call from our administrator, Faith, about the damage she discovered upon opening up the office.  Someone had kicked in the door of the janitor’s supply room.  To what purpose??  I have no idea?  The men’s room was out of paper towels?   Who knows?  Some Sundays, just getting out of bed and getting ready is a real chore.  Running off the bulletin, going through the phone messages?  Having to deal with the county weed abatement notice??  It’s not all glamor and raa-raa enthusiasm.  Faith will tell you.

But, as our selection from Matthew’s gospel relates — now and then, some most amazing, glorious events spring forth.  Through all the filth and disappointment light breaks forth.  Matthew begins, “Six days later.”  Later from what?  From more wandering and rejection?  Through days of busted out windows and the stench of stale vomit?  Six days later from curses and insults?  Six days later from WHAT???

Six days from dusty roads and parched throats Jesus takes some of his little band of followers, Peter, James and John, up on a high mountain.  There they stop to pray.

As they are praying, Jesus’ appearance dissolves into a dazzling radiance.  He shimmers and shines like a hundred brilliant suns.  He is indeed “Christ of the shining mountains, True and transfigured king.”  “Christ, Whose Glory fills the sky.”  Then and there he is the true and only light.

And in the midst of it all are Elijah and Moses, talking to Jesus.  Elijah and Moses, harbingers of the Messianic age.  These two, when they appear, that’s all there is folks.  Time’s up. The roll is called up yonder. 

The disciples’ minds earlier had been consumed by Jesus’ end.  That day the talk on the road had been of Jesus’ coming departure from this world — the deadly confrontation with the powers and principalities of this world, to be accomplished in Jerusalem.

But now this!   It’s way, way too much for the three followers, and though they are weighed down with sleep, they manage to see Jesus shrouded in brilliant luminosity with two men. 

Dreamily, poor Peter really has no idea of what to make of it all.  He is consumed by the experience.  He might as well be in paradise.  He’s as disoriented as someone coming off a bad LSD trip.  He doesn’t know what to say.  He’s like a little boy hauled in before the principal, afraid and stammering.    So finally, he simply blurts out, “Wow, this is great.  Let’s make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  But, of course, he has no idea what he is saying.  His incoherence is as bizarre as a tweet coming out of the White House at three in the morning.

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

Spiritually, this is the mountain Moses ascended to receive the Law.  Just as Moses entered into the very presence of God – smoke, fire – a luminosity beyond what sight could bear, Jesus shone with that same divine luminosity – the shekinah — the virtual dwelling of God — far beyond anything that might be conjured up in a Steven Spielberg, film, a brilliance no eye could behold.

Zora Neale Hurston, in her 1939 novel, Moses, Man of the Mountain, describes the aftereffects of Moses encounter with God on Mount Sinai.  “With flakes of light still clinging to his face, Moses turned to where Joshua waited for him, ‘Joshua, I have laws.  Israel is going to know peace and justice.’” [1]

“With flakes of light still clinging to his face.”  What an incredible image of the afterglow of a divine encounter.  “Flakes of light.”  I imagine that this metaphor might describe Jesus and his three disciples as they came off the Mountain of Transfiguration.  “Flakes of light” clinging to their faces.

Isn’t this the glow, the beatific aura that envelopes a new mother as she receives her baby from the attending nurse?  Isn’t this the glow that hangs over new lovers who have just found one another?  Sometimes this luminosity is known by a young person coming down to the altar to make her profession of faith in Jesus Christ as her personal savior.

I’ve seen it at a church service as an alcoholic shared his journey to sobriety and recovery. 

But eventually, it is time to leave the mountain.  And for what?  The alcoholic knows that sobriety and recovery can only be lived as they are given away.  That’s the twelfth step.  It is back into the swamp of addiction that the man or woman in recovery goes to take the message of hope and sobriety.  And as it is given to another, the presence of God – that holy cloud of compassion – envelopes the conversation.

All who have been touched by the glory of Christ have come off the mountain with “flakes of light” still clinging to their faces.  In its best moments the Church is adorned with the same “flakes of light.”  And the afterglow remains only as it’s passed along.

The same is also the case for our democracy.  Those men and women who created this nation seem like larger-than-life figures, so shrouded in legend and myth are they.  Much they got wrong.  They were human beings confronted by the contingencies and prejudices of their day.  But in their finer moments, yes!  They come out of Independence Hall with “flakes of light” clinging to them.

You’ve all seen that iconic painting in your grade school history books by John Trumbull of the Declaration of Independence being presented to Congress for signing.  Pure myth.  But an origin story encapsulating the promise of one of the most radical of new beginnings.  A people charts a course from servitude to citizenship.  Something astonishingly new in the annals of history.  Trumbull got it right.  He captured the “flakes of light” of that unique moment.

And we citizens, many generations later, as we give ourselves to the promise of that original vision – we exit that Independence Hall adorned with “flakes of light.”  Their original vision has expanded to include the original inhabitants of this continent as well as those brought here in chains.  Yes, indeed, “flakes of light.”  The guarantee of the promise primordial is the continual expanding promise of liberty.  To all.

This past week of reprehensible pardons of the worst of the worst swamp creatures.  Men who had cheated and duped their fellows, treasonous scoundrels who have sold out the promise of this nation to a hostile foreign power – I began to doubt that there is any saving legacy of that distant convention at Independence Hall.  I grew quite cynical.  Is all for sale?  Do we have nothing of value to pass along to the next generation?

In the midst of dour gloom, I felt I needed a sanity break.  I went over to Barnes and Nobel Booksellers to see if the new book by Robert Reich had hit the shelves.

While I was scanning the “current affairs” shelf, I spotted a book about a Holocaust refugee’s secret mission to defeat the Nazis.  Not many escaped those camps to tell about it, let alone to to work against Hitler’s war machine.

As I leaned against the shelves and began reading, I realized that I was definitely in the company of a patriot.  The “flakes of light” that clung to Freddy, even through the pages of this book, were restorative to my soul.

The book by Eric Lichtblau, author also of The Nazis Next Door, tells the story of Freddy Mayer, a Eastern European Jewish refugee who immigrated to the United States, fleeing the ever repressive Nazi regime.  When the Nuremburg Laws were passed and the Germans invaded Austria, the family knew it was time to get out.  Unfortunately, for most Jews, the door was permanently shut shortly after their ship sailed for America.[2]

Practicing American style capitalism, Freddy found that his German training as a Diesel mechanic enabled him to get better and better jobs in his new home.  But news from the Old Country continued to haunt him.  Only eight months after the family’s arrival, came news of Kristallnacht, the orgy of violence Joseph Goebbels unleashed on the Jewish community.  Thousands of businesses, synagogues and homes were destroyed.  Over one hundred Jews were killed and the roundup began.  Notable industrialists in America like Henry Ford enthusiastically supported Hitler and his program.  Colonel Charles Lindberg denounced the Jews, as did the KKK.

After Pearl Harbor and the Declaration of War, thousands of eager young boys rushed off to recruiting stations to defend their country, Freddy among them.  

Lady Liberty “had ushered him into the country three years earlier when he fled Nazi Germany, and now she was beckoning him once again – this time to fight for his new homeland.”[3]  Unfortunately, Freddy was rejected as being an “enemy alien.”

Eventually Washington realized that it would need every able-bodied man and woman available.  Restrictions were eased and Freddy joined up.  Though a mechanic, his assignment, in the grand wisdom of the Army, was permanent KP – kitchen police – scrubbing pots and pans.

Out in the California desert, under General George Patton, Freddy was finally able to show his stuff.  He volunteered for the “Wildcat” Rangers and rose to “first scout” on training missions.  A general whom Freddy had taken “prisoner” in a training exercise, the next day called him in.  Not for a reprimand, but to offer him an opportunity to join the OSS – an opportunity for foreign-speaking men from Europe to penetrate enemy lines on secret espionage missions.  Freddy would now be working for “Wild Bill” Donovan.

Freddy would later parachute on a moon lit night into Austria as part of a three-person team.  Even after capture by the Nazis and after having been savagely tortured, almost losing his life, Freddy agreed to speak with the Gestapo officer in charge of Innsbruck to spare the city.  Freddy convinced him that any further resistance was futile.  With the Allies were closing in, that despised Nazi officer realized that Innsbruck was completely surrounded. He also realized that this American captive held out his only hope of averting more waste of life. He enlisted Freddy to approach the American lines with a white flag.  What could have been a bloody battle costing many lives was averted, and it was Private Freddy Mayer who arranged terms of surrender.  What a glorious immigrant! 

Looking back, now at ninety-four in his West Virginia cabin, with his trademark shrug (as if to say What’s the big deal?), Freddy remarked to the author, “What more is there to say?”[4]

Freddy was wrong.  It was a very big deal.  There’s a lot more to say, and that story is not finished. 

All those men and women, who were part of the “Greatest Generation,” came back from those battlefields adorned with Flakes of Light from Old Glory, Flakes of Light from that founding vision at Independence Hall. 

The idea they fought for, the proposition that each is a person of worth, the idea that no one should be forced to live under the tyranny of an autocrat, is derivative of the shekinah, the dwelling of God, upon the Mount of Revelation.

Freddy and his team of agents, Lt. Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and countless unnamed loyal civil servants — those who spoke truth at great personal risk to career and livelihood, are in that hallowed line of patriots, Flakes of Light from 1776 upon their faces.

These citizens have done their constitutional duty.  Like Moses, they have come down out of secure government jobs into the muck and mire of the Swamp.  They have given testimony to the enduring values we weakly strive to embody – to the vision of a nation under law, ever in the process of perfection.  The glory of our highest aspirations and values is transfigured in their service to our nation.  Glorious Flakes of Light.  These ideals are indeed godly.

Transfiguration is not some biblical oddity of long ago.  I see it Sunday after Sunday as faithful followers of our Lord kneel at the rail to receive the Eucharist.  I see it in the fresh coat of paint in former Sunday school rooms being prepared for outpatient care for House of Hope – San Bernardino.  I see it in those lovely hands preparing a bag of food for a visiting stranger.  Yes, the Church of Jesus Christ daily descends into the fray bearing “Flakes of Light” on its face.

By the time I had finished reading about Freddy Mayer — when I glanced down at my watch, I noticed that almost two hours had passed.  What a glorious browsing of a bookshelf.

Amen.

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[1] Zora Neale Hurston, Moses, Man of the Mountain (New York:HarperCollins, 1991) p. 233.

[2] Eric Lichtblau, Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee’s Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York, 2019), 27.

       [3] Op. cit., 27.

[4] Op.cit., xii

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

February 23, 2020

Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 2; 2 Peter1:1-16-21; Matthew 17:1-9

Transfiguration Sunday

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  How many have had this insight after suffering the consequences of a really dumb choice.  Or maybe we just didn’t think at all.  Obviously, I wasn’t thinking too hard about my academic success while spending late nights in the pool hall.  And my grades in physics and calculus were what you may have suspected. After two years in the Army, my thinking improved.  By then I definitely knew what I did NOT want to spend the rest of my life doing.  I would leave that choice to such honorable men as Col. Vindman and others.

I remember coming back to our construction yard during the time when i was running our family’s contracting business to find some very expensive aluminum scaffolding all crumpled up by the back fence.  A crew had been working that day taking off a chimney as part of getting rid of a fireplace at one of our projects.  I called the foreman Paul over and asked him what had happened to our scaffolding.  He told me that instead of dismantling the chimney brick by brick, they thought it might be easier to just lever the thing up whole and shove it off the roof.  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  And here was four or five hundred dollars of crumpled up scaffolding that the whole thing hit on its way down to the ground.  What could possibly go wrong?

After that costly mistake I would ask the crews every morning before they left the yard to consider any plan they might be unsure of.  Ask yourselves, I would counsel, “What could possibly go wrong?”  Remember Murphy’s Law.  If it could possibly go wrong, it most likely will.  And remember the corollary to Murphy’s law.  “Everything that hits the fan is not equally distributed.”  ‘Nough said.

On a more serious note, we all need to be asking that question of ourselves as American citizens.  If we disparage the foundations of our democracy, what could possibly go wrong?  If we trash the news media, if we neglect to adequately educate our children – if we fail to support those institutions that are bastions of our communitarian life – our churches, and temples, our service clubs, the PTAs and all the rest – what could possibly go wrong?   If we jigger the tax code so all the benefits go to the top five percent – what could possibly go wrong?  And some businesses like Amazon, Wells Fargo and Google pay hardly anything or nothing at all…?  Go wrong???

Plenty, it would seem.  We become deadly cynical and give up on democracy.

This is the point of our lesson from Deuteronomy put in the starkest terms:  There are the ways of life.  There are the ways of death. 

As the Hebrews were about to enter the promised land Moses is reputed to have gathered the tribes together and instructed them.[1]

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.  If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God that I am commanding you, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.”

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…”[2]

There are ways that lead to life abundant and ways that lead to dissolution, to life squandered.  St. Paul, over and over, reminds his community to choose LIFE.  You know, the part about love being patient and kind, not boastful.

Now, let me digress for a moment.  There’s the false notion some Christians have that the Old Testament being the book of Law.  It’s the book of EAT YOUR SPINICH.  Or whatever food you detested as a child.  For me it was tomato aspic – bluck!  AND the New Testament being Gospel — the book of God’s grace and love.

Those who believe this, I would aver, have read neither, Old or New.  There’s both gospel and law in the Old Testament as there is gospel and law in the New Testament.  In fact, we must understand the law as also a blessing.  The purpose of the law in scripture was to retain the blessings of God’s freedom won for us at great price from Pharaoh. 

How can we enjoy the benefits of civil society if no one can trust that the weights are not manipulated or that testimony given in court is truthful?  It is because, and only because, we have agreed to keep to certain standards and a basic trust in one another that life can flourish.  Thus, these basic laws are solely to maintain and secure these blessings to ourselves and our children.  That’s the entire purpose of the law – to keep the freedom God has won for us from all that would oppress.

Down through the ages, the understanding of law, or Torah, has changed.  Jesus reinterpreted the legal inheritance passed down to him in our lesson from Matthew.  When law fails to secure the blessings of God’s providence, we are not under its demands.  Seriously, is anyone going to hell from eating shrimp???  St. Paul certainly reinterpreted the law.  That is why we have several different injunctions concerning divorce.

The bottom line of our faith is that the glory of God is a woman, a man fully alive.  We need a little discipline and self-transcendence to keep this godly gift.  That’s the sole purpose of the Law, and that’s why the law is indeed a blessing.  The dissolute life is definitely NOT a blessing, though it may feel good at the time.

A Presbyterian clergy friend was telling me the other day how excited he was about the eager youth in his confirmation class.  They were really ready to explore in depth the faith they had received as children.  Unfortunately, too many Christians are left with a fourth grade Sunday school understanding of the faith.  Confirmation classes offer the opportunity to go deeper.

I was taken down memory lane to one of my confirmation classes.  I had come into my office a bit late and apologized for my tardiness.  And I moved to get the class focused, “Okay, guys, lets get started.”  Angie protested, “We’re not all guys.”  Before I could say another word, macho Tom interjected, “Well, you’re sure flat enough.”  This was definitely NOT what you tell a junior high girl!  Angie jumped up in tears and stormed out the door.  I quickly followed her as she almost ran into the arms of our associate pastor, who had been coming up the walkway.  While Peter took charge of comforting Angie, I returned to the class.  

Complete silence.  More silence. After I believed that we had taken in what had just transpired, I finally told them that today’s lesson had just changed.  Today, the lesson would be about what creates community and what kills community.  Slowly, a few began to speak.  Finally, Tom said, “I guess I have to apologize,” at which point the entire class like a massive Greek chorus intoned, “YEAH, TOM.”

Set before us are the ways of life and the ways of death.  If the operating ethic is solely ME FIRST???   What could possibly go wrong?  YEAH, TOM!  Set before us are the ways of life and the ways of death.  Choose life, Tom.

I found out that later that week Tom had in fact apologized.  Angie had accepted his remorse and the following week we gathered back as a group.   A summation of what we call the Ten Commandments could be the title of that Aretha Franklin song: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  Respect your life.  Respect your neighbor.  Respect your community.  And above all, respect the Mystery that brought you and everything else into being.  That’s the sole purpose of the Law.   When we neglect the duty of R-E-S-P-E-C-T what could possibly go wrong?  Most likely, everything.  Ask Tom.

Robert Fulghum, a Unitarian pastor, wrote a wildly popular book some time ago, All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten.  This is just another iteration of the laws which make for human community.  In the pages of that book were common sense guidelines for playing nicely in the sandbox.  You remember some of the rules.  Law, if you will —

 Share everything.
 Play fair.
 Don’t hit people.
 Put things back where you found them.
 Clean up your own mess.
 Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
 Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

 Wash your hands before you eat.
 Flush.

All of which add up to RESPECT.  They are the sort of guidelines that make for kindergarten being a fun place, a good experience.  I also found out that it also helps if you can sit quietly in story circle.  And keep your hands to yourself.  Do these things and kindergarten will be a blessing.

But sometimes folks don’t keep their hands to themselves.  Just can’t.  Some folks grow up in homes that are so damaging they don’t have a chance of success.  In their homes, alcoholism, sexual violation, violence and anger destroy for generations.   They are bound to failure as tightly as Ulysses was bound to the mast of his ship.

Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, a husband-and-wife pair of Pulitzer Prize winning authors, in their new book, Tightrope, tell the stories of Yamhill, Oregon, the small logging community in which Nick grew up.  Almost forty percent of those with whom he rode the number six bus to school every day are gone – gone to drugs and alcohol, gone to incarceration, gone to suicide, victims of sexual abuse and family violence, gone to accidents caused by risky behavior, gone to disease from poor lifestyle choices.

Reading through their book, following some of the families, chapter after chapter – depression set in.  Lack of employment and poor schools, lives of poor health choices.  So many lived lives of desperation.  America has ignored these people.  The result has been death.  The death of a huge swath of our nation.

But in chapter ten, a burst of sunshine floods the pages of their book.  Nicholas and Sheryl tell the story of “Women in Recovery.”  This is a two-year residential diversion program for non-violent drug offenders.  It is a program in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that is helping “shattered people rebuild their lives and families.”  Second changes are the ways of LIFE.

In these pages I encountered women and children who, by ordinary odds, would not have had a chance of escaping the fateful trajectories of their lives.  Called junkie, they die junkies.  But with the blessing of enlightened division programs, many are now taking charge of their lives.  They choose LIFE.  America, choose LIFE!

In the opening pages of that chapter I was invited to a graduation ceremony of seventeen women of “Women in Recovery.”  There they were in their finery with hair and nails done to a tee.  No longer called junkies and whores, these women are proud tax payers, productive workers, and moms.   They had cheated, lied and stolen from most of the hundred or so in the crowd who came to celebrate their accomplishment.  “And in the front row sat a number of the very judges who had sentenced them applauding enthusiastically.  They stood proudly to raucous cheers from family members and even police officers who previously had arrested and scorned them.” 

The attorney general of Oklahoma was one of the graduation speakers.  He called these woman “heroes.” 

“I thought we’d be planning a funeral instead,” said one audience member whose younger sister had started using meth at age twelve and was now graduating at thirty-five.[3]

This is what happens when a society chooses the ways of LIFE – chooses the way of a second chance for those bound for failure.  It is what happens when women such as these take responsibility for their bad choices and seize the opportunity for LIFE.  To conclude:

At the end of the ceremony there was another standing ovation.  Then these women themselves shouted, “Thank you, judges,” and gave a return standing ovation to the judges  The giddy scene offered a crucial lesson that the rest of the country hasn’t appreciated:  there is hope even for people with addictions whom society has given up on—if they get the right help.[4]

Through the hopefulness and the generosity of spirit of those who create and support such programs as Women in Recovery, God offers life abundant.  Such programs make the offer real to the drug offenders that society has given up on – choose LIFE.

These women have weighed, through lives of misery and degradation, those two choices.  Through the grace of God, they have chosen LIFE — as have the police and drug court judges who are the backbone of Women in Recovery.  As has the state of Oklahoma.

Through another innovative program in New York public schools I met a homeless young immigrant from Nigeria, Tani, and his family.

This homeless boy worked his way through an innovative school chess program to take back trophy after trophy to the homeless shelter in which his family was living.  Up until then, Tani had never seen a chess board.  His chess teacher, looking at Tani’s progress remarked.  “One year to get to this level, to climb a mountain and be the best of the best, without family resources…I’ve never seen it.”[5]  Tani worked more chess puzzles than his teacher ever remembered any other student doing.  Tani won the New York state championship for his age group.  That’s God-given freedom to shine like the sun.  LIFE!

America, what could possibly go wrong when we deny opportunity to our people?   Plenty.  We see it in the hollowed-out eyes of those we have given up on.

BUT — here’s what can go gloriously right when we serve up opportunity in huge dollops.  Followed with responsibility and respect.

America, choose Life that your inhabitants and future generations may enjoy the blessings of liberty.   Choose opportunity!  I set before you the ways of life and death.  Choose LIFE.  Amen.

---

[1] Deuteronomy 30:15-17, RSV

[2] Ibid, 30:19

[3] Ibid, p. 124.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Nicholas Kristoff, Sheryl WuDunn, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2020), chapter 10, “Interventions that Work.”

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

February 16, 2020

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; I Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

A snarky old Texan, Jim Hightower, in his retirement runs an amusing podcast, “The Lowdown.”  From 1983 to 1991 he served as elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture.  As Commissioner, Jim dealt with not only agricultural issues but also the problems of rural Texas.  In that role he saw more than one could imagine of abject poverty.  He came to know intimately the lives of those mired in rural poverty. 

As an author and podcaster, Jim is the bane of obscene wealth and undeserved privilege.  He is a thorn in the side of stand-pat politicians whose only goal is to feed at the public trough and then retire with a silk purse stuffed to the limit with your hard-earned tax dollars.

This week, looking at the ginormous haul of Facebook developer, Mark Zukerberg, he wonders what one might do with the extra $27.3 billion Mark made this past year.  Yes, you heard that right – billion with a capital B.  Billion, in just one year!  Now, nevertheless, whether any democracy can survive when a handful of folks are awash in this sort of wealth to spend to mess with our elections – just what does one do with so much?  Besides political ads?  How much, in fact, is enough?

You can only buy so many mansions, hunting lodges in Switzerland, Rolls Royces and Picasso paintings.  None of this actually trickles down to create jobs.  No, it just sits there in a huge pile in some trust fund to waiting to generate even further riches next year because these folks have jiggered the tax code so they need divert only a small portion of this haul to the public good.

What might one buy with even a small slice of this largesse?  Jim, in this week’s podcast, highlights the transportation needs of the uber-rich.  These multibillionaires have created a boom in maximum-security vehicles.  The sort that’s right out of a James Bond double 007 movie set.  These vehicles with names like “Black Shark” and “Marauder” feature 700-hundred horsepower engines, full body armor with bulletproof glass.  On the roof, you can accessorize this vehicle with gun turrets, and for a little extra, thousand-volt door handles which will electrocute any unauthorized personnel who might be tempted to tamper with your ride in the Walmart parking lot.  They are capacious, with room for up to ten fully-equipped bodyguards.  All for the low price of over one half a million US smackaroos.  That’s what gazillionaires can spend their hard-earned wealth on. 

We are told this week that one hundred and sixty some people now own as much as half of all the people now living on the planet.  Of course, they would need something like a “Marauder” to fend off the destitute they have cheated and bamboozled on their way up the ladder of success.  (They might call it success.  It looks more like common tax-dodging criminality). Tell me, how much is enough.

Tell me, exactly how much is enough?  Such wealth is beyond the imagining of the average person in the Inland Empire struggling to make it through the week.  This poor soul can’t even afford a ticket to that James Bond flick with such fantastic gadgets. 

Is it any wonder our youth seek something better, some life that makes a difference?  It has been said that God meets us in our extremity.  The old spiritual says it all:  It’s only when we’re under the boot of Pharaoh that we cry out.  “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt Land; tell old Pharaoh to let my people go.”  Well, we seem to be at a final extremity as a society.  Just look at what’s happening in Down Under.  Australia’s burning up.

The whole bit about Zebulun and Naphtali in today’s readings is about the territory of the two northern tribes of Israel which suffered most from the invasion of the Assyrians 700 years before Christ, when they invaded and burnt down the neighborhood, pillaged, raped and put the population to the sword.  There was no Geneva Convention back then, not that we pay that much attention to it now.  The rules of war were those of a knife fight – there were no rules!  The population of these two tribal areas were like folks of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina went through – no help was on the way.  None ever came, and they never recovered.

So, to say that the “people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned” – well, It’s beyond belief.  It’s a sick joke.  What repent and get ready? 

It should not have been surprising that those fishermen, Simon Peter and his associates dropped everything at Jesus’ summons.  Not surprising at all that they signed up right then and there on the spot.  Don’t worry about the perks and benefits.  Here was liberation from the permanent gloom and depression of what then might have been called a dung-hole country, now under the Roman boot.  Jesus not only proclaimed a New Day; he did the works of this New Dawning.  He went about “healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.”

That is the Good News our people await who live in a land of deep shadows and dark distress – those who live in fearful times.  They look to our communities of faith to not only proclaim such Light, but to live such Light. 

I’m thinking of the rural Americans whom Jennifer Silva, noted sociologist, writes about in her book on the intersection of the pain of poverty and politics “in the heart of America.”[1]

I’m thinking of Roger and Brenda Adams (not their real names, but fictitious names Jennifer gives them to preserve their anonymity).   This couple lives in a delipidated row house that assaults any visitor with an overwhelming stench of fumes from a kitty litter box when one enters.  Roger and Brenda are in their early forties and live in constant pain.  They report that they have been unsuccessful in getting any medical assistance for their ailments.  He suffers from “depression, neuropathy, diabetes, the early stages of congestive heart failure, and obesity.”  Brenda has scoliosis, hypothyroidism and PTSD from the abuse she suffered as a young girl in foster care.[2]

They barely “squeak by” on food stamps and the small help they get from SSI due to their five-year old daughter’s Attention Deficit Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  Due to a “plumbing issue” which resulted in the loss of their older children after a neighbor had complained to child protective services, Roger’s “evil mother” got full custody. 

Roger had worked as an EMT for a short time and volunteered as a firefighter until he was fired as his health deteriorated.  He now spends most of the time on a recliner after surgery for his spleen.  Because of the pain following the operation, he was prescribed opioids from a doctor “infamous for prescribing opioids.”  According to Roger, this doctor couldn’t be bothered finding out what was actually wrong with you and doing something about it.  He’d just pass out more pills.

For Roger, ask him about the American Dream, and he scoffs.  “I think it’s dying.”  Roger’s resentment of those he thinks get all the breaks is palpable.  “If I had a Confederate flag outside, people would say it was a hate crime, but if I had a gay flag, or an Islam flag, people would celebrate it.  Hell, even having an American flag is seen as a hate crime.  But that will come down over my dead body.”[3]

Roger sees himself and his family as the backbone of America, standing tall to preserve a way of life based on self-sufficiency, love of country and neighborliness.  And all around him, it’s dying.  He’s dying.  He believes that things have gotten so bad that a “race war is coming.”  Roger’s incapacitation he considers a blessing: “God made him disabled just so he ‘wouldn’t be able to go out into the world and start shooting people.’”[4]  Roger’s life motto is: “Don’t trust anyone.”

Roger, laying in his recliner, lives in a land of deep darkness – his future, his health, his fears for the country he loves.  It is the Rogers and the Brendas, in places of destitution and vanished hopes, who await a Light – some Gospel Light to shine in their deep darkness.  At least in the waning of their remaining days.  They are the ones we in the church have been commissioned to walk with.  To care for.

Just imagine — imagine the relief a visitor from Meals on Wheels or a visiting nurse might bring to Roger’s or Brenda’s depressing day.  Just imagine a visit from someone from a nearby church just stopping by to see if they were alright or needed anything.  Or just to talk.  I imagine they would be every bit as eager for such Light as were those fishermen, Peter and Andrew, James and John, to whom Jesus called.  Every bit as eager as the inhabitants of Zebulun or Naphtali, or the residents of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans awash in mold and putrid floodwaters. 

And from where comes such help?  From where comes such Light?  Soon after Katrina struck, thousands of American young people poured into New Orleans.  They came on bus and by the carloads.  They came because they heard that clarion Gospel call every bit a clearly as did those fishermen on the shores of Galilee.  Just as distinctly as have those here at St. Francis working to set up a food pantry and establish an opioid recovery center on our church property.  They heard that call every bit as much as the person in recovery who invites a fellow addict to an AA or NA meeting.

Let us pray, that in our waning days God puts us to good Gospel use.  That is the inner yearning of every beating heart.  As St. Augustine said” “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”  Friends, that rest has nothing to do with taking our ease in Zion.  It is an active rest.  Students who used their Spring Break after Hurricane Katrina, to head on down to New Orleans, reported as never having worked so hard in all their lives as they did those long days in the Ninth Ward, mucking out mud from people’s houses, tearing out moldy dry wall.  Yet, they returned back home renewed and spiritually refreshed.  They returned as new persons – yes, new in Christ Jesus.  The lives they touched, the friends they made — this would become a transformative spiritual adventure that would shape the rest of their lives.

In such young volunteers sent by their churches, the Kingdom is drawing very near.  The season of Epiphany is about divinity incarnate in Jesus and in his church.  In as much as we dig in to the work given to our hearts and minds, the world sees that very same New Light in the darkness, Light that the darkness cannot overcome.  It is in some of the smallest acts of kindness or daring that life opens up to becoming a big thing.  I believe such would be the case for Roger and Brenda who many days await some smidgen of Light in their deep darkness.   Pray, we in the Church be their Light. 

And oh, by the way, cancel my order for a new Marauder.  I think God’s found a better use for those funds.  Amen.

---

[1] Jennifer Silva, We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

[2] Ibid, p.31.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, p.33.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

January 26, 2020

Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 5-13; I Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

When Jai and I went to Alaska we quickly learned that there were two sorts of Alaskans:  Cheechakoes and Sourdoughs.  Cheechakoes were the newbies, those ignorant of custom and survival needs.  As you’d guess, Sourdoughs were those who had weathered a few seasons and somehow managed to survive.

We knew of a couple who spent their first year at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in an unwinterized trailer.  These cheechakoes barely survived their first semester.  She reported that it was so cold at night she would awaken in the morning to find her hair frozen to the trailer wall next to her pillow.  They had to put the canned soup in the refrigerator to keep it from freezing solid – cheechakoes for sure!

The two designations came out of the mining days in the early nineteen hundreds.  Now, if one claimed to be a sourdough there was only one test of authenticity.  If he didn’t claim with certainty in the next breath that he was going to strike it rich – he wasn’t the Real McCoy.  He was a fraud and a fake.

I’ll tell you a story of one of those early miners, Max Hirschberg.  Word had come to Dawson City, a staging area during the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada, that a new gold field had been discovered in Nome, Alaska.  This was some twelve hundred miles down the Yukon River from Dawson.  Word spread like wildfire and the town soon emptied out as every dogsled and other conveyance was bought up by men stricken by gold fever.

Max, however had injured his foot on a broken board with a nail in it and ended up in the hospital with a bad infection.  By the time he was finally released in March, there was virtually nothing left in town that would get him down the river to Nome.  Anxious to get going before the ice on the Yukon broke up, all Max could find was a bicycle.  He loaded all he could carry, fastened it in a pack to the springs of the seat and began peddling down the river, following in the tracks the dog sled steel runners had made in the snow much earlier.  When rough shards of ice shredded his rubber tires, he continued on the steel rims.

Some of the Athabascan families in villages along the Yukon would put him up for the night in their dwellings.  The big problem was with what Max called “seam squirrels” — probably bed bugs – they were intolerable.  To get rid of them, Max reports that he would step naked outside in the below zero wind each morning with his clothes and leave them in a pile on the ice.   With the infestation finally frozen, he would then put on his clothes and continue on his way.

After many adventures and misadventures, Max finally made it all twelve hundred miles down the Yukon into Nome on May 19, 1900.  Max Hirschberg was the Real Deal.  A Sourdough through and through by the time he made it into Nome.  We rejoice that he had the good sense before he died in 1964 to tell his story to his granddaughter.

When one reads of Jesus in the Gospel of John, the story we encounter is unlike anything we have in Matthew, Mark or Luke.  Jesus in John doesn’t speak as a normal person.  John’s gospel uses other language and metaphors to convey to the reader that Jesus is the Real Deal.  He’s a gospel sourdough through and through.  Light and Life, he is – that’s what the Baptizer is proclaiming.  Authentically a chip off the ol’ block of the One who set the stars in the firmament and the planets in their courses.  Search no further.

In John’s gospel Jesus makes proclamations.  They look more like pronouncements rather than ordinary dialogue.  The language John uses to describe Jesus and his mission is stilted and formal.  If any of us talked like that, or said these things of ourselves, we would be shunned at best, and at worst institutionalized.  This theological approach is what scholars call a “high Christology.”  It is exalted explanation in flashing neon lights.

What we have in the Gospel of John is the testimony of the Johannine community as to who Jesus is and why he matters.  Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  He is the Incarnate Word of God.  Jesus is the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd.  In John we don’t have miracles so much as Divine Signs. Yes, the Real McCoy.  No Plastic Jesus here.

The question to John the Baptist disciples is still the signal question of the church: “What do you seek?”  It is the question to every generation of seekers.  “What do you seek?”

What we all seek is a life that matters.  A life grounded in what is utterly true and authentic.  That is what people seek from the church, because folks even at their wit’s end know in some inchoate way, have some inkling they cannot give words to, that the church, the community founded on Jesus’ love and radical acceptance, ought to have something to fill the empty, aching void of their lives. 

In an age of Fake News and cynicism about almost every facet of our national life, we are as much adrift as were those early peoples in a disintegrating Roman Empire.  We Americans now live in a society where, with the poet Yeats, we’ve discovered that “the center cannot hold.”  The old verities are no more.  We’ve been lied to so often, our nation’s awash in intellectual anarchy.  As Rudy Giuliani railed to Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” one Sunday morning, “Truth is NOT truth.”  Whatever that means!

Out of this wasteland, they still come asking, is there any ground beneath our feet?  Does anything matter anymore?  And some still stumble into the church, hoping for a saving word — some loadstar to guide. 

And miracle beyond miracle, there are churches of authenticity.  Communities of faith that actually live out the message of Our Lord.  They find in such communities the a Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life, “Light and Life to all He brings.”

On the Village Green in New Haven Connecticut there are two churches of the same denomination virtually side by side.  On his way to church my younger son would pass them both.  He and his girlfriend noticed that behind one of the sanctuaries there was a whole crowd of young people and some older folks.  What my son discovered was that meals were being served and food distributed for the needy.  The next Sunday, that congregation became their church.  They had found something that looked like the message of Jesus, an authentic portrayal of the gospel.  That is what folks at loose ends seek – authenticity.  Something as real as Max Hirschberg.  They want to SEE a sermon, not just hear one.  Mark Twain is reputed to have said that it would be much easier to believe in the possibility of redemption if the redeemed looked a little more redeemed.  This community feeding the homeless out back looked redeemed.

That is what has drawn so many fans, young and old, to Mr. Rogers.  He’s the Real Deal.  One hundred percent there with the people he encounters.  Most people did not know that Mr. Rogers was a Presbyterian pastor.  Early on he made the decision to devote his life to children – their fears and inner terrors, and their joys – the full range of their emotional lives. 

The reporter, Tom Junod, was notorious for what some considered to be “hit pieces” on a number of celebrities.  When Esquire Magazine sent Tom off to do a small piece of just a few hundred words on Fred Rogers for a series on heroes of our time, Tom wondered if Mr. Rogers was for real.  What he discovered is captured by the subtitle to his article: “Fred Rogers has been doing the same small thing for a very long time…”[1]  What he found over not just that brief interview, but over the weeks and months as their friendship blossomed, Fred Rogers was the genuine article, the Real McCoy.

I would say that if anyone wondered what Jesus might have been like, I believe Fred Rogers showed us a pretty authentic face of Jesus.  The respect and kindness he showed to everyone connected with the show, the staff and his young guests – I would like to think this gracious spirit reflected Jesus’ teaching.  This is the Jesus who said, “Let the children come to me.  Whoever welcomes such a little one welcomes me.” 

Tom in his piece which grew to become the full-length feature article for the November issue, tells the story of a teenager with muscular dystrophy who had experienced terrible abuse as a young boy from those who were supposed to have taken care of him.  As the boy grew up, he had come to believe that he was so terrible from what he had suffered that no one could like him.  Not even God.

The one bright spot in his day was the show, “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.”  Even into his teens he compulsively watched it, whenever it was on.  His mother was convinced that Mr. Rogers was the only thing keeping her boy alive.

It so happened through a foundation that it was arranged to have Mr. Rogers visit her boy when he came out to California to visit Koko, the Gorilla, also a fan of Mr. Rogers.

When the boy found out that Mr. Rogers was actually coming to his house, he was overwhelmed.  He began hitting himself with his hand because he was so nervous and began hating himself.  His mother had to take him to another room to talk to him and let him calm himself.  Here Tom continues the story:

Mister Rogers didn’t leave, though. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He just waited patiently, and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. He said, “I would like you to do something for me. Would you do something for me?” On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said, “I would like you to pray for me. Will you pray for me?” And now the boy didn’t know how to respond. He was thunderstruck. Thunderstruck means that you can’t talk, because something has happened that’s as sudden and as miraculous and maybe as scary as a bolt of lightning, and all you can do is listen to the rumble. The boy was thunderstruck because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn’t know if he could do it, he said he would, he said he’d try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn’t talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures Mister Rogers is close to God, and if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean God likes him, too.

When Tom asked Fred Rogers if he had made the prayer request that the boy might feel better about himself, Fred answered back:

“Oh, heavens no, Tom! I didn’t ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me.  I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.”[2]

Fred Rogers gave his viewers a pretty good idea of who Jesus still is for our day – one facet of that divine gem. 

Call him Lamb of God.  Call him Messiah, Christ.  Whenever Jesus is portrayed even in somewhat rough and proximate fashion, Life is kindled.  Joy is found.  The broken are mended.

There’s a reason we, the church, yes, you and I occupying these pews this morning, are called the Body of Christ.  Our only question to those who enter our doors is, “What do you seek?”

Let us pray those who enter our doors find life restored, hope reborn.  Do the lame walk, and are the addicted freed of their slavery to alcohol and drugs?  Do newcomers find justice flowing like a mighty stream?  Do they find Light in their darkness of despair?  Even a bit?  Are the hungry fed and the homeless housed in dignity?  Will they find a Good Shepherd to hold a hand when mentally confused?  Is there a sheltering embrace for the wounded and abused?  Do we, the church, look even a bit redeemed?  That’s what this weary world seeks.

You will encounter such redemption in the authentic Body of Christ, in communities of faith reaching beyond their comfort zones.  Such has ever been the mission that has drawn seekers to the Lamb of God.  In radical acceptance — sin, alienation – is overcome.  Life is restored.

We pray that it might ever be so here at St. Francis, that we continue to grow into the full stature of Christ.   May we be the Real Deal of God.  The genuine article.  Just like loveable Mr. Rogers.

Listen!  You may be the only copy of the gospel your neighbor will ever see.  Pray we be genuine Sourdoughs on our gospel journey as we travel down the river of life – every bit as much as old Max Hirschberg on his bicycle trip down the Yukon River to Nome, Alaska.

Amen.

---

[1] Tom Junod, Esquire, November 1998.

[2] Op cit.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

January 19, 2020

Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-12; I Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Today is the Epiphany of our Lord.  In the Western Christianity we celebrate this event by hailing the arrival of eastern sages who followed the star till it led them to the Holy Family gathered around the manger.  That star sits atop many a Christmas tree.  It is celebrated in verse and hymn.

And sometimes it’s celebrated in church pageants this time of year.  Like the one many, many years ago in a little fishing village in Alaska.  The solemnity of the occasion might have been somewhat lacking when the three wisemen fell into a giggling heap upon arriving at the manger.

But the Epiphany of the Lord is far deeper than the hijinks of any bathrobe drama, no matter how cute the cast.  The celestial display is to make manifest the glory of God residing in a most ordinary event of a birth to a peasant woman in a nondescript, backwater place.  Another child born into poverty was nothing startling or auspicious in and of itself.  Yet this most ordinary of events has turned out to be the hinge of history.  If you doubt it, look at the effects.  In China, of all places!  Where are the results of this birth most widely felt?  The Protestant Church as represented by unregistered congregations is seeing spectacular growth.  Growth that has really rattled its Communist rulers.  Why this explosive growth?  Because the people who have walked in darkness have seen a true and wondrous Light.

But that Light comes to us in darkest night.  As it came to eastern sages in a world torn by imperial rivalries and the rule of the sword.  Likewise, it appears to us in our time of deep global darkness.

“A decade wasted,” is how one environmental writer assessed our response to global warming.  My friend’s wife, Christine, is presently in Australia.  She reports that the entire country seems aflame.  Over eight million animals are said to have perished.  Entire communities in eastern Australia are now cinders.  The loss of human life continues to mount.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Though the sky of Australia is ablaze, it is pitch dark for the planet.  And, their prime minister is a climate denier.  Just ignore that singed Koala. No need to tie me kangaroo down, Sport.  He’s ashes.   Nothing to see here, folks.   Move along.  Move along.  But, wait!  Now, this is rich — Prime Minister Scott Morrison is seeking to outlaw climate protests in order to protect mining interests.  Forget your flipping kangaroo.  It’s the economy, stupid.

Temperatures continue to soar elsewhere, 120 degrees Fahrenheit in New Delhi this week.  Almost nobody has air conditioning.  Wonder how they’re making out!?

O Star of deepest night, reveal some brief sign of hope, we pray.  That we may find our way back to our center.  Some sign back to sanity.

Chelsea Becker long awaited the birth of a son Zachariah.  She would whisper to her youngest, Silas. “Here’s your baby brother,” as Silas would hug her around her stomach.[1]  Alone at a friend’s house the twenty-five-year-old Chelsea began to bleed profusely.  When her mom arrived, she immediately called 911.  

About three hours after arriving at Adventist Hospital, Chelsea gave birth to a stillborn baby.  The nurse handed the mom the baby so she could say goodbye.  The hospital called the coroner’s office.  Two months later Chelsea was arrested for murdering her child.  The autopsy had shown toxic levels of methamphetamine in the baby’s blood.

O blindingly radiant Star, pray show forth a little hope, just a smidgen for those hooked on drugs and for their families.  Pierce the dreaded night of addiction for those who offer what little solace there is to be had.  Show a little love for those with hearts emptied out with grief.

The words of Isaiah seem too facile.  Too glib. 

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,

   And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”[2]

“Nations shall come to your light,

   And kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

I don’t think so.  Proclamations of Hope?   National exemplar of moral leadership?  The fact is, no nation is capable of such.  Israel failed time and again.  And when finally winning release from Greek hegemony, their leaders murdered one another in an orgy of mayhem over the following centuries until Rome moved in and conquered what was left.

And what modern nation has bragging rights?   Yet God sends the Star of Revelation.  Star of Second and Third Chances.  “Behold, I make all things new.”  Sweet land of liberty, would that it be so!

It always seems to be the little folks who rise to the occasion.  Those blessed “nothings” among us who radiate back divine glory and hope.

They are that unnamed nurse who, tears flooding her eyes, handed a dead baby back to its addicted mother for one last touch.  They are those neighbors in scorched Australia running before the flames from house to house waking any who might remain.  They are those Aussie shelter workers tending to the few rescued animals that made it to their care.

These are the magnificent slivers of light from the Star of Christ’s birth.  In and out of fitting season.

“Star of Wonder, Star of Night.  Westward leading, still proceeding.”[3]  Guide us, guide us we pray for the night is long, the darkness deep and the journey ahead most difficult.

Star of Wonder Star of Light, shine upon the peace makers in America and in Iran.  Shine O Star of Light, in skies perilous with drones and bombs — Shine while hearts now rage for revenge.  While folly rules by day and ignorance by night — All forethought having taken flight – Shine O Wondrous Star.  Shine!

Whisper a word or two of hope to pry open hearts both in America and in Iran.  Or shall thou, O Deathstar of Absolute Night, preside over yet more wanton bloodshed in a land already soaked in too much blood?  Where does it end?  What’s the plan here, O Geniuses of War?  Tell us — How does this end?

As always, it falls to the little people, the shepherds in the fields the young too burdened with student debt, to pick up the pieces and carry on with the daily stuff of life.  May their hearts be emboldened with a courage not seen from our leaders.  Give them arms strong to the task.  That’s always how it is, isn’t it?

This Epiphany, we ask for no miracles, no splendid pyrotechnics in the sky.  Only barely the light to find our way back home as did those three ancient travelers.  The promise, as always, remains — no matter how deep the night or absent familiar landmarks, the residual light from that long-ago Star shall be sufficient.  It’s fading glimmer, a true and trustworthy guide.

My wife and I spent part of our New Year’s Eve at All Saints, Pasadena.  It has been rumored that on that one night of all nights, when Jesus broke bread and shared the cup, it was bubbly.  And so, it is ever Champaign that’s been served at All Saints for Communion on New Year’s Eve in recent memory.

But better than that, however, a former priest on staff at All Saints, Wilma Jacobson, preached the sermon.  Wilma was a gift to All Saints by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who gave her his blessing to leave his staff in South Africa that she might come to America.  Of course, the madness in his method was that by sending Wilma Jacobson to the most prominent flagship Episcopal congregation on the West Coast, she would rally American support for the economic boycott against South Africa.  That boycott was in fact brought to a successful conclusion and Apartheid finally ended with the election of Nelson Mandela, its first black president.  All Saints, Pasadena, ever remains a strong supporter of the Desmond Tutu Foundation’s work.

As South Africa is presently racked by unemployment, crime, and corruption, Wilma heads back.  As a white South Afrikaner, she is aware she has little leverage to do much to be of help.  But what she can do, she will.  That’s the Wilma of generous heart that I have always known.  I will very much miss the lilt of her English accent when she leaves us.

In her sermon, Wilma mentioned a web site dedicated to those white South Afrikaners who have committed to remain and do whatever they can to heal the dysfunction of their great nation.  The site’s tag is called: #ImStaying  You can find it also on Facebook.

Here is the story of one of the faithful, generous souls who have screwed up their fortitude and have pledged their lot with their fellow countrymen and women.  It is the story of one white South Afrikaner who’s staying put.  These beautiful citizens of that fabled country brightly reflect glimmers of the Christ Star.  And what they reveal is hope for the planet – the hope of some simple, decent humanity.

The narrator says that on her drive home she saw a man lugging a suitcase on wheels with crutches.  Crossing a bridge, he was struggling mightily as he finally got to the other side.  He was tired and obviously ill.  She told her kids that she was going to stop and help him. 

She rolled down the window and asked the man if she could give him a lift somewhere.  His distorted face indicated to her that he was in some real difficulty.  He seemed somewhat confused.  He handed her a piece of paper saying he was deaf and dumb.  She began to speak very slowly and offered him a lift to where he needed to go.  He wrote on his paper on a board he pulled from his backpack his destination.  She had her son get out of the car and help with his bags.  Then she had the man sit next to her with his crutches.

As she drove along, the man kept writing messages to say thank you on his board, and she used the little sign language she knew to say that it was her pleasure.  She stopped along the way and got him something to drink and withdrew some money at her bank. 

When they got to the taxi station that was his destination, her son carried his suitcase to the cab.  As he left, she had tears streaming down her face.  She handed him a 400 Rand note in South African money and hoped he would make it home safely.

She later told her kids that there was no way that many people would help a man like this, walking with crutches, with a distorted grimace on his face.  Speaking to her children as much to us, she continues:

People need help!  We can only do what we can with what we’ve got.  I’m just happy that being kind costs nothing and we have the potential to do so much good. 

I know that [they] will remember that day in particular for the rest of their lives and I hope it will encourage them to be good to other people.  We need to role model this behavior for our kids.[4]

The woman concluded that she again had tears in her eyes as she typed up her story.  She thanked #ImStaying for all the positive posts on the site, concluding with the prayer, “May God bless Africa.”

As my friend Jim Strathdee has so marvelously turned a Howard Thurman poem to song!

When the song of the angels is stilled.
When the star in the sky is gone.
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home.
The work of Christmas is begun!

The work of Christmas has begun.  Our work.  The work of all the little people, the nobodies, the “least of these” – in whom Christ continues to daily preform the most astounding miracles.   Let it ever be so, even here at St. Francis.  Amen.

---

[1] Alex Wigglesworth, “Addicted Moms, Stillborn Babies,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2019.

[2] Isaiah 60:1 ff.

[3] John Henry Hopkins, Jr., “We Three Kings of Orient,” The Hymnal 1982 (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1983) 128.

[4] Anonymous, #imstaying.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

January 5, 2020

Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12;

Matthew 2:1-12

Celebration of the Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

It was a real surprise to pick up the Los Angeles Times the other morning in my driveway.  Right there on the front page, above the fold was NOT the traditional Christmas tableau of the Holy Family surrounded by adoring wisemen, camels and the like.  NO.  Each figure — Mary, Joseph and Jesus – was surrounded by a chain-link wire cage.  And Jesus lying separately in a manger wrapped NOT in swaddling clothes, but in an aluminum space blanket. 

My friends down the street at the United Methodist Church had made headlines again with another provocative theological statement.  No Pat Boone crooning “Silent Night” or Frank Sinatra softly singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”  NO!  Just the graphic portrayal of the stark realities into which Christ is ever born.   Into every Christmas does Herod rage.  Babies are snatched from mother’s arms at borders around the world. 

And as one might expect, did it ever catch the public’s attention! Police Chief, Shelly Vander Veen has said that she will station two officers on the street near this nativity scene over Christmas Eve and Day to guard against vandalism.  Yes, there are some who can’t handle prophetic gospel truth. 

Jesus was born into a hostile world.  And Christ continues to seek entry into our most resistant world.  Folks, delve into scripture very deeply, and you will encounter a most political document.  Christ was crucified between two insurrectionists NOT because he preached pablum.  His words and actions were a direct threat to the Roman empire.  As much a threat as the church is to autocracies today.  Herod understood completely the gospel message, and does today as well.  The ethic of Christ IS NOT the ethic of Caesar![1]

It is no accident that the Feast of Holy Innocents follows directly upon the angelic hymns of Christmas morn.  As the hymn, Coventry Carol, proclaims, “Herod the King, in his raging charged he hath this day, his men of might, in his own sight, all young children to slay.”[2]  In Syria, in China, Brazil, and at the U.S border with Mexico – Herod would have his day.

So, outrage?  You bet.  The message of the United Methodists has reached unconverted hearts.  One woman indignantly responded, “I’m never going to attend Claremont UCC again.”  Obviously, she hadn’t been there in some while as she was crediting the wrong congregation.  United Methodist pastor Karen Clark Ristine, explained in Facebook, that this scene of the Holy Family “takes the place of thousands of nameless families separated at our borders.”

The ethic of those holding power in Herod’s name, that ethic always stands opposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ.  The ethic of slaveholding society stands over against that of Christ of the Abolitionists and the Freedman’s Aid Society.  Against Caesar Chavez’s struggle for decent wages, deeply rooted in the Christian faith.  Against workers standing shoulder to shoulder against the grower intimidation and the use of state sanctioned violence. 

I don’t want to destroy any Christmas sentimentalities – well, yes, I do.  But only to deepen what t sentiments we might rightly have concerning this most holy day.  Christmas is solely about God’s saving action breaking into our torn and destructive world.  It is definitely not about Grinches and mistletoe, Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Frankly, if I hear “Little Drummer Boy” one more time, I’m going to barf.  Give me any day “The Festival of Lessons and Carols” from the BBC – mainlined straight from Kings College, Cambridge, England.  PBS will rebroadcast this delight.  Give me fresh Christmas tamales.  Something real!

So, let’s stick to the story, just as Linus does.  Just as Bach does: Yes!  “Break Forth O Beauteous, Heavenly Light.”  Stick with the story.  Yes, a new “light shines and the darkness has not overcome it.”

 “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.”[3] 

Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel commanded.  Might we as well awake from our sleep.  For in the dark of night Herod does indeed rage.

“… as the Light of light descendeth from the realms of endless day, that the powers of hell may vanish, as the darkness clears away.”

Let us wake from our sleep.  Listen, we are commissioned as radiant sparks of that very same Light.  We, that the powers of all that diminishes and destroys, the powers of Hell, may vanish.   This is what we celebrate on December, the 25th.  I’m talking about nothing less than spiritual warfare.  The powers of life arrayed against Herod’s powers of darkness and death.  It’s about that old union song, “Which Side are You On?”

John Dominic Crossan notes that Christians have always had two possible responses to Herod:  accommodation or resistance – nonviolent resistance as taught by Jesus and his followers down through the ages.  As taught by Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.[4]  And just plain folk like you and me who say NO to the operating ethic of “me first, and if anyone else survives, it’s mere coincidence.” 

Resistance by simply and humbly exercising our Gospel commission – to give witness in word and deed to the summons to kindle new life into being, to wake the dead — to let the Divine Light shine through daily acts of justice and solidarity.  We simply keep on keeping on, reflecting that pure Gospel Light as best we can.  And that shall be sufficient.

Resistance has been the message of Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia.  There, a small group of Christians over the years has lived in inter-racial community, contrary to the Jim Crow ethic of that region.   Against KKK threats and violence they have stood in the Light of the Christmas story.  By their mere existence, this community has been a rebuke to racism and exclusion.  Welcoming all, they continue to be Christ to their neighbors, born this day and every day in Americus, Georgia. 

Resistance might be the soft, gentle stand against the mentality of the world that bases one’s worth on usefulness, on wealth,

on status.  I tell another story of Pastor Craig Rennebohm, Chaplain to the Homeless in Seattle.  He, certainly, in his active ministry, has been Christ of the streets and alleyways to the homeless.[5]

Craig Rennebohm would certainly second the sentiments on Fr.  Dean Brackley, S.J., “There is a crucifixion on every corner and a resurrection on every block.”  This is definitely the case in any of our large metropolitan areas.  Craig Rennebohm has been no small part in many a resurrection on the streets of Seattle.[6]

He tells the story of a fellow who wondered into his downtown Seattle church.  A fellow who went by the nickname Breezy.  Craig noticed this unfamiliar man in the church lounge one morning at the piano.  His clothes were unwashed and a bag of belongings on the floor indicated Breezy was homeless.  His hair was disheveled and he, obviously, hadn’t had a shower in a while. 

He, actually, wasn’t half bad at the piano.  He had a good strong bass rhythm with solid chords.  Craig listened for a while then approached the man and introduced himself.  Craig had seen Breezy on the streets from time to time.  He had a gimpy leg and whenever the sidewalk would become too crowded, he would duck into a doorway.  Something was definitely not right with his left leg.

The church would let him come in from time to time and play, and Craig and Breezy began to meet at a close by diner for some eggs, hash browns and coffee.  Over the ensuing weeks Craig learned more and more of Breezy’s story.  He spoke indirectly of a hospital stay some time ago.  He had spent his recent years hitchhiking back and forth across the country.

He spoke of a music contract he had been awaiting to arrive.  It was very intricate and most complicated.  In Breezy’s mind, this was reality, though it seemed rather grandiose to Craig. 

Breezy had been sleeping in one of Seattle’s downtown shelters until it closed — closed even though the weather continued cold and damp.  Then he moved around at night from place to place.  Craig continued to urge Breezy to have his leg checked out.  One day when Breezy could barely walk, he was finally willing to have Craig escort him to a clinic and have a nurse look at it.  His problem was diagnosed as cellulitis, a very serious case.  With medicines and a prescription for a bed at a shelter, Breezy began to feel better.

In the following days, Craig and Breezy would walk the streets of downtown Seattle talking together.  Actually, Craig mostly listened.  Craig encouraged Breezy to meet a social worker, Ken, from Health Care for the Homeless.  Ken began to join the two of them for breakfast at their favorite diner – and the circle widened by one. 

On one morning, shortly after the World Trade Organization met in
Seattle and noisy street protests filled the downtown, the turmoil deeply agitated Breezy.  As some extremists began setting fire to Dumpsters and smashing windows, Breezy’s fear and anxiety became palpable.  Obviously, all this took Breezy back to a very distressing time in his life.  “They aren’t starting again?  The riots?” he questioned.[7]  For some time afterwards, Breezy remained at a heightened state of alert.  Fearful of more of the potential chaos he must have experienced sometime in his past.

As Ken and Craig continued to meet with Breezy in the coming weeks, more and more of Breezy’s story emerged.  He began to look upon Craig and Ken as trusted friends.  And over the breakfasts a plan was developed.  Ken would help Breezy in his applications for various benefits.  Though Breezy wouldn’t go to a doctor’s office about his leg, he was okay if a doctor joined the trio at breakfast.  After some getting acquainted conversation, Breezy discovered that Doc played a little guitar, more of a hobby than anything else.  He invited Breezy to stop by his office when he might be in the neighborhood. 

One day, as Craig and Breezy passed Doc’s office, Craig suggested they go in and Breezy agreed.  Doc was between appointments and the three chatted for a while, and Breezy agreed to an appointment.  An appointment that turned into regular visits.  Breezy’s circle widened by yet another.

Ken helped Breezy find an apartment and slowly Breezy formed some friendships with the other residents.  His circle continued to grow. 

He bought a guitar and the church secretary got him several sets of new clothes.  Breezy would hunt the alleys for items of use, or that could be repaired, assembling in his small space a computer he had fixed with a monitor and printer that he was still working on.

Breezy loved Christmas.  The previous year he and Ken had driven to an elaborate Nativity scene with children and live sheep.  He asked if Craig might come by his apartment for a special blessing as Christmas neared.  Shortly before the holiday, Craig and Ken stopped by. 

Craig asked if Breezy had some ideas for what he might include in his prayer.  Breezy asked for a special blessing for his Christmas tree he had scavenged.  Decked out in various ornaments Breezy had come across with a string of colored lights, there it stood.  Should Craig include anything else in the prayer?  “A home,” he said, “is good.”

“We blessed the tree and Breezy’s home, and prayed for his continued wellbeing and healing from all that weighed upon him and caused confusion in his life.  We gave thanks for his special gifts: music and a good heart.  And we gave thanks that in this world we need not be alone, but have the help and encouragement of others to find our way.[8]

After the prayer, Breezy took Ken and Craig over to a small table, and turned on the computer he had rebuilt.  “It did not work perfectly – and might never.”  But Breezy tinkered with it every day. 

His delighted grin said a lot.  It was one of those moments when Breezy’s soul shone forth unmistakably.  His Christmas tree, decorated with castaway treasures from the streets that Breezy had carefully collected, evidenced a coming together, a new iteration of life.[9]

The blessed companionship of Craig, Ken, Doc and Breezy is ever the work of Christmas.  That small circle of love will forever remain unbroken.  It is of God. 

This is work Herod in his raging would never understand, certainly not to expend time and treasure for.  Yet it is priceless.  It is the gift of Mary and Joseph, who many long years ago, gave birth to it in a lowly manger stall.  

This is the gift that lives on in hearts of all who still make pilgrimage to the Christ Child with service and gifts.  On the streets, in jails, shelters, in offices — wherever there is need.  With hands, minds and hearts, pocket books and credit cards honor is bestowed.

Yes, deck the halls.  Raise another cup for Auld Lang Syne.  Trim the tree.  Welcome friends and family.  But never forget:  Jesus is the reason for the season.  Not so much to adore, but as to follow.  Follow, as do those who are companions to the homeless on cold, wintry nights.   

My friend Jim Strathdee, drawing on a poem by Howard Thurman, put these sentiments into a wonderful song:

When the song of the angels is stilled.
When the star in the sky is gone.
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home.
The work of Christmas is begun!

With Tiny Tim, I say, “And God bless us, everyone.”  Amen

---

[1] John Dominic Crossan, God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (San Francisco, Harper Collins, 2007).

[2] Coventry Carol, 15^th Century, The Hymnal 1982: according to the use of the Episcopal Church (New York, Church Hymnal Corp., 1982), 247.

[3] Matthew 1:21-22, RSV.

[4] Crossan, 89.

[5] Craig Rennebohm, Souls in the Hands of a Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Streets (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008). 65 ff.

[6] Dean Brackley, The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times (New York: Crossroad Pub. Co., 2004).

[7] Ibid, p 67.

[8] Ibid. p. 68

[9] Ibid.

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach, San Bernardino

Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 22 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

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.

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[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