We live in an age of discontinuity.  The old verities that once guided former generations are now up for grabs.  The traditional jobs that provided a lifetime of security are in short supply while the gig and sharing economy has for many been a race to the bottom.  No benefits.  No pension and no living wage.  Bill Clinton’s mantra for success – play by the rules and work hard these days does not necessarily guarantee much of anything.  If you are born poor, the overwhelming odds are that you will die poor.  Churches that once dominated the skylines in our large cities now stand mostly empty on Sunday mornings.

Change.   Change is the one constant.  And Love is the other constant.  Hear some of the final farewell words of our Lord from the gospel of John:

“I give you a new commandment that you love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love can be a soft mushy word.  Lots of feeling but little substance.

“I give you a new commandment that you love one another.”  Certainly, it is essential that the Church, the Body of Christ be one of affection and deep concern for one another.  But too often, being human beings, we so invariably fall short of that.  Bickering and snark can rule and destroy the community.  Paul in Corinthians, complains about the strife that has consumed that community over speaking in “tongues.”  Strife consumed the early church over the inclusion of, and table fellowship with, the Gentiles, the so called “uncircumcised.” 

So, what does this Love look like?  It is something that goes beyond tribe and kin.  Let me tell you what this Love looks like

The other night we had at Pilgrim Place two of the great hymn writers of the church, Jim and Jean Strathdee.  They were our musicians at the church I served in the upper Mojave Desert, Ridgecrest United Methodist Church.  Yes, I was under Methodist management at the time.

As part of our vespers service that evening Jean told the story of her mother, Inez Stevens.  Early in their marriage Jean’s father was in the navy.  Lou was stationed near Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed it on December 7^th, 1941.  For six months she didn’t know what had happened to her husband.  There was absolutely no word.  In the meantime, Inez was a teacher in the San Joaquin Valley of California.  Many of her students were Japanese.  She loved those children like they were her own.  Many of those families were completely mortified at what their home country had done.  Their shame was more than they and their children could bear.  Yet, when those families were deported to concentration camps, Inez and Lou made arrangements to safe-keep the farms of two of those families during the length of their internment.  After the war, upon their return, she and her husband turned the farms back to them.  This was a gift freely given. 

Fast forward many years to the memorial service held for Inez.  One of the largest contingents at the service were her former Japanese students.  They had never forgotten that bond of affection and the righteous deed that Inez and Lou had done for their community.  By far the largest amount for a fund in her memory came from the Japanese community.  Friends, this is what Love looks like.

“I give you a new commandment that you love one another.” 

What does Love look like?  Paul says that this Love is patient and kind.  It does not insist upon its own way.

I have lately had to take St. Paul’s tutorial on this love.  On every trip to West Virginia.  Early on, our fellow, Scott, who takes care of the farm and now is organizing for House of Hope – Ohio Valley, cautioned me, “You know, John, a lot of these people here voted for Trump.”  And those of you who know me, know that I can be as rabid a partisan as any.  I’m definitely not a fan.

Let me tell you what I am learning about what this Love looks like.  On my part, it has meant a lot of listening.  It means deeply hearing the struggles of many working in an economy of low wages, part-time jobs and no health insurance.  No retirement package.  It means deeply hearing the struggles of families caught up in addiction to painkillers and meth.  It means hearing the despair of communities that have lost the next generation for lack of employment.

And in the end, I know exactly why they voted for Trump.  In my heart, I cannot blame them.  I understand.  Many feel as though this nation has abandoned and disrespected them.  Left them behind.  Let me tell you what Love looks like.  It means the willingness to feel, and take into our being this pain.  This is what I’m learning.  This is what that sort of Love looks like.

So, when I head out to West Virginia, when it comes to politics, I have to say that I’m agnostic.  The only important thing is the work we are doing to combat opioid addiction.  That’s it.  Nothing else counts.  I’m learning that that’s what Love looks like.  “Love one another.”  This is the listening we will have to do as we approach the 2020 election if we are going to have half a chance of making our democracy work.  We are going to have to find those areas where we can work together and let all else rest.  And I’ll try to be on my good behavior.

What does Love look like?  It looks a lot like the effort a group of us put in a week ago at the Cathedral Center.  Six of us represented St. Francis at the Episcopal Enterprises Academy.  For most of us, it meant getting up early, early to brave the 10 Freeway morning rush hour traffic.  It meant spending a good eight hours in class.  It meant homework.  It meant digging in and really working on what our mission might be here in San Bernardino and how we might financially support it with some entrepreneurial activity that would pay the bills but also benefit those we are called to serve.  That’s what Love looks like.  It can involve tedium and some stress.  It isn’t always fun.  It’s often hard work.  And sometimes even drudgery.

In the Inland Empire, in San Bernardino, as in West Virginia, many feel left behind in this new gig economy.  Blight and crime infest many neighborhoods.  Wages are stagnant and our homeless population grows.  Entire families are destitute on the streets.

The other Sunday, at the conclusion of coffee hour, a young fellow came into our midst.  He was a mute and could only with great difficulty understand what was spoken to him.  But we could communicate through writing.  I can imagine how embarrassing it must have been for him to ask for food for his family.  No, he didn’t want cash.  He only wished for someone to take him to Food for Less and buy the few items on his list his wife had given him.  I had no difficulty whatsoever understanding when he mouthed the words several times, “Thank you.”  Yes, Love looks like food.  This man is no longer a stranger.  He’s our brother in Christ.  That’s what love looks like.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

All the talk of the saints gathered up in the bosom of God — all the talk of God wiping away every tear – all the talk of making all things new – it all rings pretty shallow if folks don’t see any signs of newness and hope right here and now.  They’ve got to see and taste it.

As Mark Twain once quipped that would be a little easier to believe in the possibility of redemption if the redeemed looked a bit more redeemed.

Friends, you and I are, most likely the only copy of gospel Love most people will ever see.  As has been said, you and I are the hands and feet of Christ.  You and I are the mind of Christ.  You and I are the beating heart of the gospel Love we proclaim each and every Sunday.

Let us give thanks for those blessed exemplars like Inez and Lou Stevens who have paved the way, who have shown us what this Love looks like.  Let us learn for our own time the new duties and the sublime joys of this gospel Love.

This Sunday after church, I’ll be with Nan Self, a mentor and part of the campus ministry team that is responsible for me even being in the church.  Today Nan celebrates her ninetieth birthday.  She is another blessed disciple who has also left it all on the field.  Through her ministry over the years, the whole body of Christ has been built up and glorified.  Happy birthday, Nan.  Thanks be to God for your example of gospel Love.  Nan, you are what Love looks like.

What does this Love look like?  Let me tell you what it looks like.  It looks like a community gathered around this altar remembering a teacher, a friend, a pioneer, who says to those assembled.  “This bread is my body broken for you.  This cup is the cup of the new covenant poured out for you and for all.  Broken and poured out for the knitting up of this broken world.  This one Lord left it all on the field.  And in his fellowship is our most exquisite joy and purpose.  Amen.

Year C, Easter 5, May 19, 2019

A Sermon Preached at
St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

Acts 11:1-18; Psalm148; Revelation 21:1-6; Luke 13:31-35

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

I have a wonderful friend in Wellsburg who runs what our House of Hope team thinks is the best restaurant in town.  Nicol and her husband are the owners of The Dovetail – dovetail as in wood working.  It is a joint that is made up of interlocking fingers if you will.

Nicol has quite a bit of experience running kitchens, having managed them in several large institutional settings.  She and her husband Rob are a couple of the hardest working folks you’ll ever meet.  She is up early, early in the morning to make sure breakfast is going smoothly.  The Dovetail is a place of wonderful dishes, and in the morning the oatmeal covered with baked apples is to die for.  Along with the coffee.

Unfortunately, Wellsburg isn’t large enough to support the Dovetail the way it should.  As hard as Nicol works, she and Rob barely keep their heads above water.

This is the story of many people these days.  Yes, the economy is booming and unemployment is at its lowest since the late 60’s.  But most workers have seen far too little to show for their efforts.  So it is with many of our clergy.  Pastoral work is a lot like housework.  It’s never done.  Yet in an age that sees less and less need for what the church offers, the long hours most pastors put into their work seem to bear little fruit.

In our gospel selection from John, Peter and some of the disciples have gone out fishing.  Maybe, after the utter disaster of the past few days, they had given up on the disciple thing.  Maybe they were just at odds about what to do.  Anyway, Peter had announced, “I’m going fishing.”  The others decide to tag along.  But they catch nothing.  I have certainly been on plenty of fishing trips like that!

The fishing business has been so unrewarding that now they’re fishing at night to try and survive.  And for all their efforts, in spite of their all-nighter, they’ve caught nothing.  That’s when a stranger a ways off on the shore calls out to them, “Hey, guys!   Have you caught anything?”  Who is this busybody?  What does he care?  “No,” they have to admit.  For all their effort, they’ve come up empty handed.  There’s not even a single catfish in the net.  Zip.  Nada.

At this point everything changes — this intruder has the nerve to tell them how to do their job?  “Try casting your net on the other side of the boat.”  Yeah.  Right.  Sure.  But, having nothing to lose, that’s exactly what they do. Maybe it’s an authority they sense in his voice.  And surprise upon surprise.  The net is now so full of fish they can barely pull it back in.  About this time, they recognize that in the guise of a stranger, they’ve encountered the risen Christ.  And the confirmation is abundance. All in all, one hundred fifty-three fish.  But we’ll get back to that number later. 

How often it is that strangers on the shore alert us to God’s abundance.  Alert us to the presence of divine possibility.

Many of the people I’ve encountered in my trips to West Virginia, though they live sparse lives, experience an amazing abundance in spiritual gifts.  The comradery around a campfire, in family connections and in community gatherings — there’s an abundance that can’t be measured in dollars and cents.  Friendships are deep and rich. And church is often at the center of lives that are well-lived.  In new found friends, over and over I’ve been alerted to an abundance I would have overlooked. This has been the case with our Wounded Warrior project we hold on our farm.

Our little church of St. Francis may never reach its glory days of the 60s and 70s, but we do have an abundance of joy in one another.  We have abundance in the vision of reconfiguring our campus for mission, as we seek to walk with the addicted and homeless. 

Abundance comes in guises we often fail to recognize.  It’s not necessarily about number, what can be measured.  It’s about the quality and the timelessness of events.  The Bible calls this quality Kairos time.  The fitting season – when time is right.  Fishing is like that.

There’s the old saying that any days spent fishing are not deducted from one’s allotted lifespan.  Days spent fishing are days of “miracle and wonder,” as Paul Simon put it.

When I was in about the second grade my family went on a summer trip to Ensenada, Mexico.  I was somewhat upset because the trip was during the time of my birthday.   I was very disappointed that I wouldn’t have any friends over for a birthday party.  I remember my parents assuring me that we would do something special for the day anyway.  They wondered what I might like to do.  I hadn’t the slightest idea.  What did I know?  I had never been here before.  I didn’t know anyone here.  It seemed that my parents had spent most of the time during the drive down in an ugly family fight.  I was most unhappy.

As we drove through the town of Ensenada, we passed all these fishing boats and rows and rows of fishing poles with signs advertising fishing trips.  I immediately knew what I wanted to do for my birthday.  I wanted to go fishing.  My mom knew nothing of fishing and somehow, between my mom and dad, it was decided that he would be the one to take me out on a charter boat.

I remember waking very early.  It was cold and foggy as we walked along the beach front.  I could taste the salt air.  When we approached the boat, the smells of diesel and fish also permeated my senses.  It was an old wooden boat that creaked as it moved with the gentle swells in the harbor. 

Several of the crewmen spoke English and, as I was the youngest on board, they adopted me as their mascot.

As we were leaving the harbor that morning, I remember my dad sternly warning me, “Don’t look down at the water; look at the horizon.  That way you won’t get seasick.”

It seemed that it took forever to get out to the fishing area.  On the way, we stopped by a boat and picked up a load of little fish that we would use for bait.  By the time we had arrived at the fishing grounds, my dad was not feeling too well.  He said that he was going into the cabin to lie down. 

The deck hands helped me bait my hook and showed me how to cast out from the boat.  Within a very short time I had caught my first fish.  They helped me get it over the rail of the boat and off the hook.  It was the biggest fish I had ever seen as it flopped about on the deck.  And to think, I had actually caught it.  Looking back on the episode now, I realize that it was only a medium sized sea bass.  Probably not that big at all.  But to a young fellow, it looked like it might have hooked Moby Dick or Jaws..

We continued to fish into the afternoon.  I caught fish after fish.  By the time we headed back into the harbor, I had quite an impressive gunny sack full of them.  It was so full that I couldn’t begin to lift it.

As we arrived back at port, I saw my mom and brother waving at the railing of the pier.  All I could do was to point to the huge sack of fish.  About this time, Dad appeared from the cabin of the boat.  By his acrid breath I could tell that he had been seasick.  He really didn’t look too good.  As a big orange sun was setting into the sea, I rushed up the gangway to Mom with Dad trailing somewhat unsteadily behind struggling with my sack of fish.  The first thing I blurted out was, “Mom, Dad didn’t look at the shoreline!”  Even, Dad, woozy as he was, cracked a smile.

Together we all walked back home.  For that moment we were a happy family.  It was the best birthday ever.  Nearing our cottage, we passed what seemed to be some shacks.  Even as young as I was, I realized that these were a pretty poor houses, not at all like ours back home.  I had bad feelings about it.  I remember my mom and dad talking to one of the guys standing out in front in a language I didn’t understand, and pointing to the sack of fish.  I was upset when they then gave away almost all of the fish.

Coming up to the patio out in front of our place, my dad explained that these people didn’t have much and their families would certainly appreciate the fish.  Besides, we could only eat a few of them.  No use wasting them.  My mom didn’t like them at all because she said that they smelled up the place.  To my mind, they were they were the most delicious fish I had ever eaten.

Later on, I came to realize what a gift it really was for Dad to have taken me.  Now I, like him, only have to experience the boat going up and down about three times before I’m hanging on the rail feeding the fish.  He knew that he was going to be absolutely miserable and yet he took me anyway.  I now realize what a sacrifice that was for him.

One of the lessons that I have taken from this first fishing trip is that God’s abundance is seen in the sacrifices we make for one another, the big and small ways we go out of our way just because we know that the gift of time or presence will be important to another person. We are Christ to one another in this gift of self.

That day, though I didn’t have the words for it then, I knew that I and my family had been blessed in a way I would never forget.  Life was full and overflowing with goodness.  Abundance.

In our Gospel story from John, we have a continuation of appearances by the Resurrected Christ.

In the risen Christ we experience forgiveness as well.  Why is it that Peter is asked three times if he loves the Lord?  It is to undo the three-fold denial at Jesus’ trial.  Peter is now reclaimed and sent out as an embodiment of the same Easter abundance.

Likewise, as we experience forgiveness for the daily stupid and carless things we do and say, we are restored to gospel usefulness.  Abundance brought so often by a stranger on the shore of our life.  Christ in the guise of a stranger, an interloper.

In the abundance of fish, the Beloved Disciple recognizes the man.  “It is the Lord.”

The net is so full of fish, 153 in all – large fish – that all the disciples come out to the boat to haul it in.  When they get back on land, they saw the charcoal fire with fish and bread roasting on it.  Jesus invites them to also bring over some of the fish they have just caught.

This is a story about abundance and sharing.   John wants his community to know that they will recognize the Risen Christ in the abundance God provides when life is shared.  That’s it.

I could go on at great length about all the theories of the 153 fish.  Looking at the commentaries, there are all sorts of speculations about the significance of this number.  But, I fear, you might have as much trouble staying awake hearing about them as I did just in reading about them.

So, if anyone asks you about the meaning of the 153 fish, just tell them, “Fr. John had nothing profound to say.”  Our salvation does not depend on knowing the significance of this number.

However, John in his Gospel has something most profound to say about abundance, and this revelation has a lot to do with our salvation.   Christians, when gathered together, will experience the Risen Lord in the daily abundance that God provides for us when it is shared.  In the sharing we will know his real and living presence. 

When we gather around this altar, let us remember this teaching.  Food is basic.  It is to be shared.  It is our very Lord who said, “I am food.”  In the sharing of this bread broken and cup poured out, he is present to bless and encourage us. 

In a similar way long ago, I experienced God’s goodness to me on my birthday – in the abundance of a monstrous gunny sack full of fish that were shared with those who had none.  (There had to have been 153 of them!) And in the abundance of love that permeated our family dinner that evening, I now know Christ was present.

Amen.

Third Sunday of Easter
Strangers on the Shore

Acts 9:1-6, [7-20]; Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14;
John 21:1-14

Preached at St. Francis Outreach Center, San Bernardino;

 The Rev. John C. Forney
May 5, 2019

You’ve certainly experienced a traffic jam caused by lookie-loos gawking at an accident in the opposing lane.  Of course, you have.  You live in Southern California, or in some other place similarly overcrowded.  Drives you nuts – unless you’re the one doing the looking.  As you approach the scene of the accident, there’s the patrol officer waving a flashlight saying to drivers as they all slow down to stare, “Move along, folks.  Just move along.  Nothing to see here.”  And as you pass, she gives you the evil eye of consternation.

That is the word from the empty tomb this morning.  “Nothing to see.”  Why do you look for the living amongst the dead?  How often do we Christians find ourselves lost and wandering about amongst that which does not give life?

I came across an intriguing book a couple weeks ago, The Grave of God.  What a title.  I wondered if this was a reprise of the Death of God theology of the 60s or what.  It was a much more damning indictment than anything out of that period.  It concerned the tendency of the church for self-preservation over mission.  For safety over risk.  For condemnation over liberation.  For death over Resurrection.[1]  The church has used God to justify oppression, wars and patriarchy.  God has been used to justify narrow partisan and parochial interests.

When I was a small boy, I wondered why it was that part of the family wouldn’t talk about Aunt Donna.  It was as if she were dead.  It was only after I had become a teenager that I discovered the real story.  Aunt Donna, after losing her husband Frank, went into a deep depression.  Her life literally fell apart.  It was only when a Catholic friend reached out to her and took her to church that Aunt Donna got her footing.  She found such a nurturing community that she converted from the Christian Science faith of my grandmother.  She ultimately became a nun, working as a nurse with the Sisters of St. Joseph in Tacoma, Washington.  I’m sure her work was a blessing to those hospital patients, but to us she was as if dead.  We dared not speak her name or we were hushed.  In retrospect, it was very hurtful, especially to us children.  So much hate.  And this is what the church taught?  Such vindictiveness is indeed the grave of God and the tomb of all that is holy.  The Resurrection Spirit is like the wind.  It blows where it will and it liberated our Aunt Donna from that dark cloud  of depression over her head. Yes, it did! 

Today, we rejoice that these narrow denominational tombs are empty.  Alleluia.  We Christians are a Resurrection people.  We live not in the House of Fear but in the House of Love as my friend Ed Bacon would put it.  I saw that one of his internet friends had responded with the reminder, “The House of Love has room for all, and we need to remember to leave the door unlocked and porch light on for all who want to move in.”

Easter is about Resurrection.  It does us no earthly, or heavenly good for that matter, to have ideas and opinions about that empty tomb unless we are moved by Resurrection Power to leave the tomb and beginning to live as a renewed people. 

Resurrection breaks into our lives sometimes when the Spirit grabs our funny bone. Humor allows the dreary stuff of life to fall into perspective.  Humor is some of the best Resurrection medicine.  Resurrection humor blasts through self-absorption and anger, through custom and the walls of clan and tribe.  It liberates us from the tomb of self-importance.  Nothing to see in there, folks.  Nothing to see.

Ed, in his book, 8 Habits of Love,[2] tells the story of one of his mentors, Rabbi Friedman.  The rabbi recounts a time when his son had to go to court for rear-ending a woman’s car on his way to work.  By the time the father and son had arrived at court the other driver was already there in the courtroom, furiously pacing back and forth.  When she noticed the two, her look became a hateful scowl.  She wanted the judge to throw the book at this young boy.  The rabbi begun to sense that the judge and spectators were becoming caught up in the tension filling the courtroom.  In fact, he himself was getting caught up in it.  As Ed reports the scene, “…he began to sweat; he was getting angrier and angrier.  His son looked at him with pleading eyes.  Everything seemed to be getting out of control.  The rising panic was infectious and debilitating.”

The rabbi moved away from the others to get some perspective and to calm himself, and when he returned, he heard the judge asking him what he as a father thought would be a reasonable punishment.  In an instant that blessed liberating spirit, might we even say that Resurrection Spirit spoke through the humor of the words that escaped his lips: “Life imprisonment,” was the judgement of the father. “This is surely the worst crime a young man can commit – to have a fender bender against this woman.”

The judge and the lawyers burst out into laughter.  The woman’s demeanor began to change as she, too, began laughing.  Holy laughter brought them forth from the tomb in which the proceedings had become mired.  Holy laughter, Resurrection laughter was the medicine which restored reason.  And Ed reports that all went home without any dire consequences.  A Jewish rabbi and Resurrection?  Why not?  Was it not also a Jewish rabbi who burst forth from that tomb on the first Easter morning?  Resurrection cannot be contained in any one religious tribe.  It bursts through whatever tomb in which we contrive to stuff it. 

The power of Christ has been let loose throughout the humane values of not only the West, but it has infected all who have absorbed those values, even though they are adherents of other faiths.  Or of no faith.  The power of Christ is now so diffuse throughout the world that most, even professing Christians, fail to recognize its origin.  Take the power of liberated women.  Yes, it took us Episcopalians a long time to get there.  To our shame, women could not be deputies at General Convention until 1970, when twenty-eight women delegates were finally welcomed to General Convention by President of the House of Deputies, John Coburn.  Yes, Resurrection!  Even in our beloved Episcopal Church.  Male chauvinism is a dark, empty tomb.  Nothing there for anybody.   Absolutely, nothing!

The Church, in John’s account of that first Easter morning, reports trouble with some Pesky Women who beat the men to the Easter miracle.  And then there’s that foot race over which man gets to be there first, as if the women’s testimony accounted for nothing.  This whole episode is a reflection of the argument over who really counts in the church.  It’s all about church politics.  The Resurrection message could easily have been lost in this church skirmish.  And so often it is.  And those Pesky Women?  We men eventually wised up to God’s Resurrection Power residing in their persistence and in their glorious gifts.  In the end, we men had both the good sense and the grace to get out of their way.  And what an Easter blessing these women have been for our church, both as lay and ordained! 

The infection of empowerment has now spread to the women of Afghanistan.[3]  After the most horrific abuse under the rule of the Taliban and ISIS, these women are now rising to their full potential.  They will not be suppressed. Not any longer. Resurrection, I say.

In The Daily Good there was a story about a girl, Hassanzada, who at the age of sixteen becomes a news presenter, the first woman to do this in Afghanistan.  In her hometown of Mazar-i-Sharif such a notion would have been dismissed as a childish dream.  Yet, here she was, broadcasting the news. 

Today Hassanzada is now twenty-five and runs her own magazine, Gellaria.  Sort of like Vogue.  And to think that just a few years ago, women were not allowed to leave their homes alone or permitted to attend school.  Girls who had the temerity to go to classes were sometimes the victim of acid attacks by the Taliban.  Under ISIS, girls had been sold into sexual slavery, considered as mere animals with no agency of their own.  And now, even with the Taliban gone, the oppressive cultural norms internalized by many women remain as a stale tomb imprisoning any aspirations of personal fulfilment.

It has not been easy for Hassanzada.  Shortly after she appeared on television, she began receiving threats from the Taliban and their warlords.  The elders of her own village were furious that a woman dare have her face publicly shown on television.  There were angry letters, threatening phone calls and bullying.  Yet she kept going to work, day in and day out.  She persisted.  Yeah, one of those sorts of women.   Hassanzada is that beloved angelic messenger shouting to the women of Afghanistan, “Move along, ladies.  Nothing here for you in this Taliban tomb.  Only the death of your dreams.  Absolutely, nothing to see here.  Nothing for you.” 

Hassanzada knew that if she gave into this intimidation, every girl in Afghanistan would suffer a diminished future.  The Taliban mentality would have won. “If we quit every time we are threatened or attacked, then women would never get anywhere. We have to be fearless,” she insists.[4]

Even tragedy did not deter her.  One day her younger brother was attacked and brutally beaten, almost to death.  Yes, the family decided to move to Kabul for their safety, but her parents continued to support her work and aspirations. 

What has enraged Hassanzada more than the violence directed at her and her family has been the complacency of so many Afghan women and their servile acquiesce to the Taliban attitude that they are nothing.  Today she continues in her media work to encourage young girls to dream dreams like she had.

The Resurrection Spirt has surely burst forth from the Taliban and the ISIS tomb of dead ideology and dead male privilege.  There is no stuffing it back in.  Don’t even try.  There’s a whole new generation of Pesky Women out there bringing new life to Afghanistan.  God bless ‘em.  Men, let’s face it.  You cannot stifle these women.  So, join them.  Join them and become a part of the Resurrection of Afghan women.  Become a part of a resurrected Afghanistan.

This Resurrection Morning, we celebrate the bursting forth of new life at St. Francis and in our beloved Episcopal Church.  We are so fortunate to have a bishop like John Taylor who has refused to sell off any more church properties, but insists that we, the church, discover our new ministry when the neighborhood changes, when the world thinks it no longer has any use for the Gospel Message in this so-called modern age.

A number of us will be attending the Episcopal Enterprise Institute, training to learn how to reconfigure our ministry in such a way that it will serve the present needs of our neighborhood on Sterling Ave.  We are an irrepressible Resurrection People. 

The watchword of House of Hope is this:  Instead of judging people by their past, stand by them and help them repair their future.  That is Resurrection theology in action.  No dank, smelly tombs for us!  And addiction is the worst sort of tomb.

This Good Friday I so missed our sister Joyce Marx at our Stations of the Cross service.  I still remember following her last year as we processed from station to station.  For those who didn’t know Joyce, she was one of the founders of St. Francis.  And let me tell you this.  She and her husband Gene did not sweat and toil all those years for us to give up.  At St. Francis we’re just getting started.  Hold my beer and watch this!  Or diet soda, if you prefer.

Move along.  Move along, nothing to see here in any old dark and smelly tomb.  Friends, the action’s out there — Resurrection action bursting forth uncontained.  Matthew tells us that following his initial appearances, Jesus went on before them back to Galilee, went on before them, even back to Sterling and Citrus, San Bernardino – back to the world of hustle and bustle, the world both of tears and unrestrained joy.  Back to the sometimes pedestrian world where we’re daily empowered to live Resurrection. To paraphrase David Letterman, Easter has no “off” switch. 

Christ has risen.  (He is risen indeed).   Happy Easter.  Amen.

---

[1] Robert Adolfs, The Grave of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 26ff.

[2] Ed Bacon, 8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind (Boston: Grand Central Life & Style, 2012),

[3] Kiran Nazish, “Afghan Women Making their Voices Heard by Launching their Own Companies,’ The Daily Good, April 27, 2018) http://www.good.is/features/media-women-in-afghanistan-gellara-magazine-zan-tv

[4] Kiran Nazish, op. cit.

Isaiah 65:17-25; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43;
John 20:1-18

Preached at St. Francis Outreach Center, San Bernardino;

 The Rev. John C. Forney
April 21, 2019

Palm Sunday

The first stories I remember hearing from my dad as a young boy were about the Hatfields and the McCoys in Kentucky and West Virginia.  These families had been feuding for generations.  The thing had gone on for so long that people don’t rightly recollect how it got started.  Some say it was because the McCoys supported the Union and the Hatfields were Confederates.  But it could have been McCoy’s belief that a Hatfield had stolen one of his hogs sometime back in 1878.  As I said, the details seem to have gotten lost in the mists of history.

But once it got going, the feud was fought back and forth across the West Virginia/Kentucky state line for several generations.  In 1888 several Hatfields were arrested and stood trial for the murder of two of Randall McCoy’s children. An aspect of that case made it all the way to the Supreme Court.  These were two of the most feuding families that ever lived according to my Dad.  And the only thing that ever came out of it was death and more death, and vows of revenge and tears of loss.

Paul counsels a better way.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.  This is a far, far better way.  That was also Dad’s advice.  Yes, you could be right, in fact, dead right.  A slight, a harsh word — let it go.  Just let it go.  Keep on walking.

Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.  What makes this passage so annoying and difficult is that we human beings aren’t built that way.  It’s not our nature to let it go.  It goes against the grain. Our natural tendency is to put up our dukes.  We’re going to settle this after school is the taunt. 

Put up your dukes on the playground always won out over any silly notions about forbearance and the mind of Christ.  Any boy talking such nonsense would have become a laughing stock.  He wouldn’t have dared show his face in the classroom after recess.  Not one of us sixth grade boys had the spiritual maturity to even remotely have considered such an option.  It was “me first and if anyone else survives, it’s mere coincidence.” So, put up your dukes, you yellow bellied coward was the choice de jour out on the basketball court.

Yet, Palm Sunday is a procession into humility.  It is a drama of emptying out — setting aside one’s own prerogatives, one’s rights.  That is the mind of Christ.  To go to Jerusalem is to willingly enter the pain and suffering of the world. 

This was the choice in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire. “He set his face towards Jerusalem,” is how the story goes.  As the Jewish Passover approached there were two parades in the city that morning.

According to Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in their book, The Last Week,[1]  the choice was between a humble rabbi with a message of peace and rebirth and the full might of the Roman army.  That morning before the Passover festivities, imperial Roman legions marched into Antonia Fortress to ensure law and order during the Jewish high festival.

Those of the Roman procession wore highly polished armor breastplates that glistened in the sun.  Upon mighty steeds and with banners held high they represented all the power and might of Rome.  They were in control.  These centurions were there to prevent the unrest that in the past had punctuated other Passovers.  In the last major Passover unrest in around 4 BC, over 2000 of those who had taken part of the rebellion in Jerusalem were crucified.  Fearsome iron swords and sharpened spears, gleaming helmets and imperial banners carried high aloft were the guarantee that there would be no repeat.  Drummers beating out the cadence announced to all Jerusalem that Caesar was in charge and would brook no opposition.  This is the parade of Pax Romana. The Iron Fist.

That Passover there was a second procession on the opposite side of the city.  This was a procession of a little-known rabbi and his followers from the countryside.  His reputation as a noted teacher and healer had proceeded him.  Some thought that he might be the anointed one come to rid their land of the despised Romans.  Some thought he might be the one to herald in a new age spoken of by the prophet Isaiah – a new age when the crippled would be healed, the blind would see and there would be an abundance of food and drink for all.  People joined the band waving palm branches and little children skipped and ran along side.  But for Jesus this was no picnic.  This was deadly serious business.

It was imperial might arrayed against vulnerability.  Roman armor up against one who whose message was of a new way of living.   Not born of the brutality and force of arms, but a kingdom of the heart, a kingdom of spirit. A kingdom where women had a say and children were valued for themselves.  A kingdom meant to include all.  A regime where the least are first and the hungry are satisfied.

We have such difficult time understanding that all means all.  We still flock to might and prestige.  We honor the prerequisites of tribe and clan. Even after two thousand years and we still don’t get it.

The interesting truth is that one can still encounter the humble followers of that simple teacher while Roman might seems to have evaporated into history.  Empires come and go, yet the mind of Christ still beckons.

Let this same mind be in you.  Do not be swayed by the fickle crowd as variable as the high desert winds that blow first this way and then that. 

To enter the gates of Jerusalem is to enter the pain of any of our large urban areas. It is to encounter the despair of emptied out rural America.  For the church, this means setting our own agenda aside and opening ourselves up to what we hear and see.  That is the mind of Christ that will bring our own healing.  That is the mind, out of death that brings life.

Mike Kinman tells of entering the pain of St. Louis and being confronted by the anguish of Black Lives Matter.  He tells of an experience five years ago, yet still as vivid in his mind as if it had happened yesterday. 

“I feel you. Do you feel me?”  That was the voice of Pastor Traci Blackmon as she grasped the shoulders of Vonderrit Meyers, Sr., the father of a young black youth who had been shot six times in the back on the streets of St. Louis on October 8, 2014.  Mike continues the story:

I can still hear the Rev. Traci Blackmon’s voice ringing in my ears.

I can still see her face against his, hands on his shoulders, eyes piercing into his eyes.

It was near midnight on October 8, 2014, and a few hours before, 18-year old Vonderrit Myers, Jr. had been shot eight times – six in the back – and killed by an off-duty St. Louis City Police Officer. A crowd gathers at the scene and when they begin to move, the clergy who are there split up. Some go with the crowd. Others – Traci and I – we go with Vonderrit Myers, Sr. to the city morgue to be with him as he identifies the body of his son.

We stand outside for what seems like an eternity until the father emerges, the nightmare he had lived with since the day his son was born slowly becoming real. Head hanging to the ground, he almost whispers the words we already know:

“It’s him.”

And then… the pain begins to turn to rage. I could see it happen. He begins to fume … and tremble. What begins as a cry becomes a wail. What starts as a murmur grows into a shout as he says:

“It’s him. It’s my son. Somebody is going to pay for this. I’ve got a gun, and somebody is going to pay for him tonight!”

I am paralyzed. I cannot imagine his rage and know he has every right to it. I will not tell him to calm down. And… this is headed nowhere good. Not only do I not know what to do, I know whatever it is, I’m not the one who can do it.

And then Traci steps up to him. Traci steps up to him and grabs him by his shoulders, and puts her face right up to his face … her eyes to his eyes.
He is trembling. And she is trembling. And she holds him. And he looks at her and she says:

“I feel you. I feel you. I feel you. OK?”

He nods.

“Now I need you to feel me.”

His eyes are glued to hers.

“You have a job right now. You have to be a husband tonight. Your wife has lost her son, and she needs her husband. No one can do that but you. You have to go be with her. That’s where you have to be tonight. She needs you.”

“And tomorrow morning, I’m going to be at your house first thing. I’m going to be there and I’m going to stay there with you for as long as it takes.”

Tears fill the father’s eyes.
Tears fill Traci’s eyes.
And she says again.

“I feel you. Do you feel me?”

Vonderrit Myers, Sr. nods his head, and they embrace. And they cry. And then Vonderrit Myers, Sr. leaves the body of his son and goes to spend the longest night of his life at home with his wife.

And first thing the next morning, Traci is there. And she stays until they don’t need her to stay any more.[2]

To enter Jerusalem is to enter into any of our distressed urban areas, and pray to God, pray, like Pastor Traci, to have that mind of Christ in you.  That is where our Palm Sunday parade is leading the Church this morning and on any given morning.

In city after city, in village and township, Christ is crucified anew.  Crucified as an eighteen-year-old black kid gunned down on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri.  Crucified in the deadened hopes of the homeless man who sleeps on the back steps of our office in Claremont. Crucified in our hospital emergency rooms as doctors and nurses struggle to save the life of yet another overdose victim.

And what about the Hatfields and the McCoys?  Maybe time is the balm that heals all wounds.   In May 1944, an issue of Life magazine revisited the Hatfields and McCoys nearly fifty years after the violence that had consumed those two families.   In that spread was a photo of two young women, Shirley Hatfield and Frankie McCoy, working side by side together in a factory sewing uniforms for those who would in one short year be storming the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe – many of whom would lay down their lives in the ultimate sacrifice of self.

Pray have this mind in you. Dare to enter the pain of Christ crucified daily in a thousand different ways.  With gentle hands receive his body from the cross.  It’s tough stuff.  Not for sissies.  But dare enter this pain and you will find your life. You will find your Easter.

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11;
Luke 22:14-23:56

Preached at St. Francis Outreach Center, San Bernardino;

 The Rev. John C. Forney
March 25, 2019

---

[1]  Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem (San Francisco, Harper Collins, 2006).

[2] Mike Kinman, “The Power of Extravagant Love”, Sermon preached at All Saints, Pasadena, April 7, 2019.

As we were in the midst of the housing bubble and the era of highly inflated stock prices, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, a most dour sort, in a speech on the economy referred to the danger of over-inflated values with the term, “irrational exuberance.”  Overly exuberant realtors and brokers were behaving in a most irrational way.  He was saying, “Let’s tamp it down, folks.”  Was he just being another “Debbie Downer?”  Or was he aware of something that those in the housing market and those on Wall Street didn’t know?

Well!   We all know what happened, when in 2008 our irrational exuberance caught up with us and the economy came crashing down about our ears.  In the blink of an eye, trillions of dollars of wealth was destroyed.  As usual, those suffering most were the poor and communities of color.  An entire mélange of bad actors was a part of the disaster.  Banks selling “liar mortgages,” buyers inflating their incomes, bond rating organizations inflating the value of worthless, bundled mortgages – triple A investment grade, my donkey!  You remember those NINJA loans?   No Income.  No Job. No Assets.  And certainly, no cop on the beat.  It was the worst of wild west economics. 

We certainly learned to be afraid of “irrational exuberance.”  And this goes for the church as well.  I’ve often counted on the church treasurer being our “Debbie Downer,” when it came to putting the budget together.  Let’s just play it safe and hoard up what little there is.  You never know!

In the gospel reading, Judas, the church treasurer, is shocked at Mary’s Irrational Exuberance as she pours a most costly ointment all over Jesus’ feet.  “My God, women!  What are you doing?  Don’t you realize that stuff is worth thousands of dollars an ounce?  Have a care!  We could have sold it and raised the money for the poor and needy.”  Judas has a point – not that Judas gave a fig about the poor and needy.  He only wanted the money for himself, the greedy wretch.  But one has to admit, what he counsels is sound economics.  You never know when a rainy day is coming.

Mary, on the other hand, is overcome by the joy of the Lord’s presence.  It just bubbles up out of her uncontrollably.  The words of Isaiah ring through her soul, “The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.” 

Remember how David Letterman used to boast, tongue-in-cheek, about his comedic ability, “Genius has no ‘off’ switch.”  Well that goes double for the abundance of God’s grace.  There is no “off switch.”  It’s all irrational exuberance.  All the time, twenty-four/seven.

It is the same irrational exuberance embodied in Isaiah’s proclamation, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.”  This is Mary as she wipes the ointment from Jesus’ feet with her hair.  Certainly not something done in polite company.  Definitely not done in an Episcopal church!

But our faith is a celebratory faith.  No Debbie Downers allowed.  So, bring on the irrational exuberance, or at least some modified exuberance.  Something we might call Hope.

I remember our early experiences as foster parents.  We had taken in charge the oldest daughter of close church friends.  The parents had divorced and the dad, being an alcoholic, showed no interest in supporting their five children.  We, being young and idealistic – read ‘stupid’ — took the oldest daughter, the child that caused the mother the most grief, and another family in the church, an older couple, took a very compliant younger boy.  Our two families agreed to care for the children for a year, giving the mother time to get her bearings.  The father was as useless as the proverbial bump on a log.

Well, to say that Nikki was a handful was an understatement.  Nikki had flunked nearly every single one of her courses in her freshman year of high school save one.  She got a “D-“ in PE.

She was sixteen going on twenty-four and her motto was, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”  We had to devise a dress code for school and church.  Her belly button could not be exposed at church and she could only wear clothing which exposed it at school once a week – hey, we were young and thought this a reasonable compromise.

Nikki assured us that her time with us would be an opportunity to start all over again.  We had high hopes she might find an outlet in some wholesome school club or in band.  Anything!  But it only took Nikki two weeks to find another new set of scuzzy friends, mostly boys up to no good.

We had told her that we wouldn’t be micro managing her school work.  It was up to her.  Unless we found out that her approach wasn’t working.  Well, it was by mid-semester that a flurry of purple notices began arriving in the mail.  Nikki was again headed for failure.  Homework was not turned in.  Test grades were abysmal, and unbeknown to us, she had begun skipping class. 

All this culminated with a meeting at the county courthouse with the probation officer – did I mention that Nikki had been on probation for stealing her boyfriend’s car.  Yes, at sixteen this was her claim to fame.  In a snit she took her boyfriend’s car, and he had reported it stolen.  So, there we were in the probation department office with the P.O. and the school vice principal for attendance, a Mr. Fackrat – you can imagine what the kids called him?  I definitely would have changed my name!

The law was laid down to Nikki.  If she cut one more class she would be going back to juvie.  I looked her in the eye and told her, that if she ended back in juvie, don’t call us.  We would figure that this is where she wanted to be.  There was a long silence in the room.  Slowly, Nikki nodded.  She had gotten the message loud and clear.

Now it wasn’t clear sailing after that, but Nikki never cut another hour of class.  Not only that, when the grades came out at the end of the semester, she had received an “A” in art.  It was the first “A” she had ever received in her entire life.  There was great rejoicing in our house.  A time for irrational exuberance if there ever was one.  Nikki was the most surprised of all.  And so were we.

At the end of her time with us, one of Jai’s friends had asked her how we thought we had done as foster parents.  Jai said that we thought we had done pretty well.  Nikki had had a “C” average in school.  She wasn’t on drugs – other than her cigarettes.  She wasn’t pregnant and she didn’t have anymore run-ins with the probation department or school authorities.  Pretty good, indeed!  Oh, yes – this was also my first church appointment.  What a year.

We and Millie and Ray, the other couple, with trepidation did what any church family would do.  We, in irrational exuberance, took Nikki’s family into the embrace of our arms and loved them.  In real and tangible ways.  It was most irrational, and had we been older we might not have been so exuberant.  We might have considered the real and unlikely possibility of success.  We might have put our treasurer’s green eyeshade on our generous impulse.  We might have just turned our backs and hoped that Nikki and the others might have had a good life – somehow.  Somewhere.

In the real world, the human results of God’s grace range from astounding to pretty good to sometimes, barely passable.  At a party in Lazarus’s house – you remember the guy Jesus brought out of the tomb, living, back alive again?  And now here at a feast for him, with Jesus present?  Certainly cause for irrational exuberance.  Grace with no “off switch.”  And, yet, John’s gospel places this story as a foretelling of Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem. All coming to a bad end on a Good Friday.

Out of that ignominious death on a cross, God’s grace triumphed in the raising up of the Church – the Body of Christ in the world.  That is the Easter Story – as someone wrote, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”  That is our story.  Cause for irrational exuberance.  Or at least a bit of modified hope.

Last Sunday, after coffee fellowship, several of us took packets of California poppy seeds and with abandon spread them around our statue of St. Francis.  Not having the budget for water or for a full-time gardener, most of the front yard of the church has gone to weeds.  Yet in the midst of it all, we spread seeds of hope.  Seeds, we trust, will be an offering of beauty.  In, dare I say, irrational exuberance, we went out sowing in faith that a carpet of beautiful golden flowers will be a fitting sign of new Easter life here at St. Francis.

And new life does abound, right here in San Bernardino City.  We have several of our members signed up for Cursillo.  To boot, the Rectora of the whole shebang is one of our own.  We have a volunteer who has agreed to head up our proposed food pantry.  We have received a generous giant from the diocese to install a shower for the homeless.  And I have a newly refurbished office.  When Trent and Jennifer and their children head back to Texas, they will leave with the lived knowledge that at least one church really did welcome the homeless. 

And, given some of God’s generous rain, we will have a most beautiful golden carpet of poppies around St. Francis’ feet.

I have always insisted that we have a category of the church budget on the income side labeled “FAITH.”  It is placed there in trust that God will open doors unseen – doors invisible to the economic eye of the finance committee when they gather to put on their green eyeshades and reckon with the hard, cold reality of our present circumstances.  We need to allow for at least a smidgen of irrational exuberance, for that is what God’s grace is.  With St. Paul, we trust in things unseen, for hope we dared not even dream of. The same hope of those bedraggled Hebrew refugees returning from Babylonian captivity.

Each Sunday we gather around this table with love for one another, in hope that God’s irrational exuberance might anoint us from head to foot with the priceless ointment of grace, poured out to overflowing.

We leave the doors of this place in the same hope that we, let loose in the world, might be the sacramental embodiment of
God’s irrational exuberance.  Grace with no “off switch.”  Fine ointment to heal our bruised world.

And how did Nikki turn out?  The last we had heard was that after having a child out of wedlock, she had found a stable, responsible fellow who was the store manager at one of the chain drugstores up north, in Seattle, I believe. And married him.  And in my book that counts as an “A” grade.   

Yes, Easter is coming.  And with Mary and her jar of costly ointment, we best get ready for it.  Irrational exuberance is the order of the day.  Amen

Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8

Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year C, 2019

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

When I was a young boy and I would insist that other kids were far better off than I – “Jimmy doesn’t have to mow the lawn. He doesn’t have to waste his whole Saturday.  How come I have to?  He has a much better family.”  My father would always say, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”  I wasn’t sure, in my tender years, what that meant.  For one thing, I knew it meant that I would have to mow the grass and I better get to it.  Otherwise my whole Saturday would be shot.  The same with washing the car.  Only years later would I have a more adequate understanding of my father’s saying.

Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; II Cor. 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year C, 2019
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

The genius of Jesus is that he didn’t teach by the logic of rational argument.  No syllogisms for him.  He taught by story, sayings and by example.  Today, we get one of the most familiar stories in all of Scripture.  My friend, Paul Clasper, would say that if we had lost almost all of our written scriptural heritage but we had only a few bits left, this story being one of them, would have had enough to understand the whole thing.  We would have had enough to redeem the world.

So, we have this story of a father and two sons.  One son is sick and tired of mowing the lawn every Saturday.  He’s, like, “I’m outta here. If Jimmy doesn’t have to mow the lawn, why should I?  It’s stupid.”  So, he goes to his father and demands that he give him his half of the livelihood.  And he will just leave, thank you.  So, the father, in sadness hands him a bag of coins, half of the inheritance and bids the younger son farewell.  As the boy disappears down the road, a tear rolls down the father’s cheek.

The boy, gleefully heads off to big city where he will never have to mow the grass.  In fact, he will never have anymore irksome chores.  He heads off to a mythical far country where every day is nothing but a big party – just like those commercials for Carnival Cruises, or the excitement of a Morongo Valley Casino.  No one mows the lawn as far as he can see.  For this kid, the whole world is a twenty-four/seven party.  He’s the high roller at the table.  Glamorous women cluster around him and the action is hot. 

But as the days roll on, like the die at the craps table, his bag of coins isn’t so full anymore.  As he gets down to the nubbins, he begins to wonder why he’s always the one having to buy the beer.  Where are those other Big-Time Spenders?  In a flash, he’s out of chips.  Outta money.  Outta luck.  The barkeep is now insisting the tab be paid.  And all the beautiful women are standing around some other guy.

As hunger settles in and he wakes stiff and cold on a park bench, it’s beginning to dawn on him – something his father said about the grass on the other side of the fence.  He comes to his senses in a far country that is cold and inhospitable, the faint glow of flashing neon a few blocks away.  A far country that is little better than death itself.  Diving through Dumpsters behind the casino restaurant, all he ends up with is stale, dried-out, tough pizza crusts and food poisoning.  Retching in the weeds, it dawns on him that even the lowliest of his father’s servants had it better than this.

He comes to himself in a far country and doesn’t like what he is finding.  All is desolation and abandonment.

In America, we now find ourselves in a Far Country, a country that many of us don’t recognize.

The opioid crisis ravaging our nation is certainly desolation and abandonment.  Addiction is a very far country.  We have abandoned our most vulnerable to the tender mercies of Perdue Chemical and their ilk.  Last year we had some forty-seven thousand deaths from opioid overdose, though various stats give somewhat different numbers – but it’s in that ballpark.  More than all the years of the entire Vietnam War.

I heard from an Episcopal colleague in West Virginia that Bishop Mike Klusmeyer had called all the West Virginia clergy and laity together for a conference on opioids.  He has mandated that every parish will have the antidote to opioids, Naltrexone, on site with some people in each congregation trained to administer it.  It will stop an overdose cold in its tracks.  Instantly.

Now, here comes that other brother, you know the responsible one.  The older one who always did his chores without complaint.  Yeah, the one who was always willing to step in and mow the damn grass and do whatever.  Mr. Responsibility.  If we’re honest with ourselves, there’s a bit of that stuffed-shirt, self-righteous brother in each of us.  I know that brother lurks in me.  That’s right – I am the older brother.  And I’m sure my brother Tom would say at times I could be a real jerk.

In the Episcopal clergy, I discovered we had a number of those older brothers who stayed home and mowed the grass.  Now what these “jerks” said was, “Bishop, why should we bother?  If we’re going to save them from this one-time overdose, won’t they just go out and do the same thing all over again?  Why bother?  We’re just wasting our time.”  Classic, Blame the Victim.  Older brother types can really be insufferable. Why save them?   Really!?  What part of the gospel didn’t you understand?

Yet Today, Tomorrow, and the Next Day

Year C, 2nd Sunday of Lent

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27:10-18;
Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

Preached March 17, 2019

St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

The Rev. John C. Forney

The other day over coffee and donuts an old friend brought up some of his recent theological explorations.  I’ll call him Sam to protect the innocent and the confused.  Sam mentioned a number of people he was reading or had looked into.  He found it all very confusing and disturbing.  My take on Sam’s theological inquiry was that it was interesting, and certainly such armchair discussions are a pleasant diversion, but I didn’t find that they got me much of anywhere.  I said that as an Episcopalian (he was one also), I believed that theology should be sacramental if it is worth considering.

You remember what a sacrament is.  It’s the visible sign of an unseen grace, of an unseen mystery.  Any theology worth its salt should manifest in some way that the Power which moves us all should bring about a greater expression of the kingdom of God in the visible world.  It should manifest itself in changed lives, a greater and a more tender mercy. 

Karl Barth did indeed write many volumes of Church Dogmatics.  Ponderous, indeed.  Yet Karl Barth had a ministry within the jail of his city.  To my mind, his outreach to some of society’s most misfortunate validated his theology. 

There’s the story about Karl Barth’s entrance into heaven.  Upon his arrival he notices a huge, a ginormous crowd, awaiting his arrival.  Barth asks if all this hoo-ha is in recognition of his massive theological production.  “Oh no,” the MC says.  “We forgave you that long ago.”  “No,” she said.  “We are here in recognition of the countless hours you spent with the worst of the worst – to honor the sermons you gave Sunday after Sunday, and the comfort you provided over the years to the inmates in Basel Prison.” 

To sum up: What does your theology lead you to do for your sisters and brothers, for our Mother Earth?  If nothing, it’s all worthless fluff.  Even if there are fourteen or fifteen volumes of it.

“Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today, tomorrow and the next day…”  This is what Jesus told his hostile interlocutors.  You go tell that old fox Herod that this is my business.  “Today, tomorrow, and the next day…”

And these words of Jesus must also be our mindset.  “Today, tomorrow, and the next day…”  we must be about the business of what my friend Ed Bacon calls, “Turning the human race into the human family.”  The kindom of God is the business of Christians every day.  It’s about wholeness and restoration.  Irenaeus tells us that the “glory of God is a man, is a woman, is a people fully alive.”  Yes, I’ve expanded his thought here.  But it comports with the meaning.

Note, I said “kindom of God.”  That’s because in the mind of Christ we are all kin to one another. 

Indeed, we are all kin one to another.  That is why the blasé, dismissive attitude of our president towards this week’s killings in New Zealand I find so abhorrent.  The position of the new – maybe it’s not so new after all – white nationalism that we must fear and demonize all those different from ourselves is tearing at the fabric of our nation.  No, Donald Trump did not pull the trigger in a mosque in New Zealand.  A deranged and twisted mind did that.  But as Rabbi Chuck Diamond of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh – you remember, the place of that terrible massacre of innocent Jewish worshippers — insists, “Words matter.”  To Trump’s assertion that he didn’t know enough to comment, again the rabbi counters, “You know enough to know it’s wrong.”

Today, tomorrow and the next day we are called to stand for what is right and to call “wrong” what it is, flat out “wrong.”  Words do matter, Mr. President.

When our president opines in a freewheeling, unscripted moment, “I think Islam hates us.  There’s something, something there… a tremendous hatred of us.  There’s unbelievable hatred of us.” – that is when Christians should have been crying to the heavens, “NO, NO, NO.  This is not America!  This is not who we are as people of faith. This is not what Jesus teaches.”

This president has tapped into a global market for hatred.  A market spawned and fed by the worst of the internet. 

Today, tomorrow and the next day — that is the time for our witness to what we believe in the Jesus movement and what we’re about.

Chris Matthews, good Catholic that he is, brought on his Hardball program Friday those of other faiths to raise a common voice of denunciation.

Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father, the Muslim whose son was killed in Iraq, set the record straight.  “The shooter in his manifesto wrote, ‘Trump is the symbol of a renewed white identity and common purpose.’”  Yes, Mr. President, words do matter.  Your words matter.  Mr. Khan, speaking of Trump’s hateful rhetoric, continued, “How wrong he is.  There are over ten thousand Muslim soldiers serving in the United States Army that have taken the oath to defend the Constitution and this country…How wrong he is…like on every issue.  This is a politically expedient person.  He is a ship without rudder.  That is why we see all these investigations.  My only concern is how would we recover from this hate and division?”  Chris Matthews’ answer was, “Well, we’re talking about it.”

That’s where we all must start.  We must be talking about it.  Today, Tomorrow and the next day.  And whoever that “Fox” may be, whatever powers and principalities that pejorative stands for, we Christians must be in the public square standing for what is right. Otherwise we’ll have lost our saltiness.  Good for nothing but…well, we probably won’t be tramped underfoot, we’ll just be ignored.

Today, tomorrow and the next day, whether it is with a beaten traveler by the side of a road leading from Jerusalem to Jericho or at the shore of a Galilean lake, we are called to be a transformational people. Listen again to St. Paul:

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]

Today, tomorrow and the next day, here we are alive, blessing others with true riches.  And so, we begin the conversation.  In church.  In the supermarket checkout line.  And in our legislatures.  Silence is not golden.  Silence is death. 

The day after I had left West Virginia, a company began dismantling the Weirton Steel Mill, about twelve miles up the road from where I had been staying.  Work was proceeding slowly but safely until someone got a “bright idea.”  Now whenever someone on my construction crew got a “bright idea,” I would tell the crew to consider just one question, a question fraught with potential legal and economic implications.  The question?  The question was: “What could possibly go wrong?”

Apparently, no one ever asked that question in Weirton at the worksite, or if it had been asked, no one carefully considered the possible answers.  The “bright idea” was, why don’t we just blow it up?  Right!  Blow up the whole thing! And I’m thinking, “Now, what could possibly go wrong?  Sure, blow it up.  And maybe half the town?”

As a monstrous dust cloud began to subside, it became clear that plenty had gone wrong.  For blocks around, windows were shattered and houses were knocked off their foundations.  Worse yet, this cloud was potentially full of all sort of toxins and asbestos and God only knew what else.  Houses, lawns playgrounds were covered by the soot.  It was something out of 9/11 all over again.

As I scrolled down through some of the comments that followed the online news article itself, what surprised me was the anger directed against those who complained, or sent off air samples to the Feds to be analyzed for the sort of stuff that could kill a person.  Don’t say anything.  It will make our president and our town look bad.  It will get us a bad reputation.  Never mind the children and old people.  Never mind those most vulnerable to any released contaminants.

Today, tomorrow and the next day Christians are called to put health and public safety first over the protection of some idiot with a “bright idea” that may have destroyed several city blocks and ruined the health of hundreds.  Christians are called to raise a ruckus when well-being is at stake.  No matter whose reputation might be damaged.

While you and I are compelled to raise a ruckus, we are, more than that, called to raise hope and possibility.  Healing is always the order of the day.  We’re here to more than just point out the problem.  We’re here to be a solution, or at least part of a solution.  That’s what a whole lot of Christians and other people of faith — and also some of no faith — did in Pomona several weeks ago.  The “Pomona Reawakening Conference” brought many residents of Pomona and several surrounding cities together to think about what “Engaged Compassion” might mean for a city.  Think about our schools, employment, policing, the environment, city services, clean neighborhoods, safety. 

Well, folks did think about such.  And this original conference has grown legs.  My good friend Dick put up with more dysfunction, distraction by shiny objects and the chasing after rabbits to get this thing organized – well, let me just say – this project would have tried the patience of a saint!  Meeting after planning meeting, Dick was lucky if even two or three in any group would have been at the previous planning meeting.  Or any other planning meeting, for that matter!  Yes, today, tomorrow and the next day…Dick kept at it.  And the results, when it all came together at Temple Beth Israel on a cold Saturday morning, were absolutely heartwarming.  Listening to the two keynote speakers – there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.  The workshops following lunch propelled action.  And from that beginning has come the continued gathering of a bunch of folks bent on the renewal of that city through the ways of engaged compassion.  The thing has absolutely grown legs.  All key players are now engaged.  This common effort is a joy to behold.

This is the sort of work, today, tomorrow and the next day, that brings blessing to our living.  In it Christ is to be found.  This Lent, today, tomorrow and the next day…let us be in the thick of God’s action for restoration and wholeness.

As I told my younger son who had the idea of “doing something” about opioid addiction in West Virginia, “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into — a most fine, godly mess.”  And that, my friends, is our summons.  To find, or create fine, godly messes that bring true riches and blessing.  Today, tomorrow and the next day.   Amen.

---

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

The word this Lent must be, “Take off your shoes, you’re standing on holy ground.”  Wisdom such as Eddie’s is truly Holy Ground.  What Eddie had to share is no different from that of the great Jewish theologian, Martin Buber.  God is RELATIONSHIP.    

Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; I Cor. 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
Third Sunday in Lent, Year C, 2004
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Preached at St. Francis Episcopal Mission, San Bernardino

I received an invitation from a friend this week on LinkedIn.  I usually don’t use that platform – I’m already busy enough with everything else.  However, since I had just seen him last night, I responded to his invitation.  Looking through LinkedIn, I came across a video of Eddie Jaku, a 98-year-old survivor of the Holocaust.  He was speaking on what it takes to live a good life, the secret he has learned.  Curious about what a person who had experienced the worst of what humans can do to one another, I listened.

You must not hate.  You say, “I don’t like this person,” but you must not hate.  Hate is a disease.  It destroys first your enemy, but you also.  It destroys you.  Hate.  They ask me what is my secret.  My secret is a good wife and friendship.  Friendship you cannot buy.  When I was eight years old my father says to me, “Eddie, there is more pleasure in giving than taking.”  I thought he’s coocoo.  Now that I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren – what you give, you get back – if nothing, you get nothing back.  So, this is important.  I want to teach you, all the people who are younger, if you don’t learn from us there’ll be no future.[1]

You can find it on YouTube.  As I sat there listening to this old Jew sharing the wisdom that has redeemed the most excruciating of experiences, I realized that I was on holy ground.  Through the profound words of this man spoke another as well.  The very same voice Moses heard from an incandescent bush, “I AM WHO I AM.” In an instant, listening in my chair, I was filled with profound awe and an overwhelming joy.  Joy, that this one survivor was now sharing with me and all others on LinkedIn, a truth that has the power to set us free.  Free from the hatred that produced the carnage in a New Zealand Mosque, free from the hatred that floods our airwaves and daily discourse.  “Hate first destroys your enemy, but also you.”

The word this Lent must be, “Take off your shoes, you’re standing on holy ground.”  Wisdom such as Eddie’s is truly Holy Ground.  What Eddie had to share is no different from that of the great Jewish theologian, Martin Buber.  God is RELATIONSHIP.  The gospel of John puts it a bit differently, “God is LOVE.  Those who abide in Love abide in God and God in them.”

To speak of an experience so sublime, so profound…there are no adequate words.  All fails.  That is the quandary of all who in a moment find themselves before the Presence.  The word, “God,” seems inadequate, for in as soon as we’ve uttered the sound, our mind is flooded with images of something less than…less than the present, vivid experience.  Less than RELATIONSHIP that pervades all that is, binding us together as one.  A relationship Jesus called, “Abba” – or Daddy.

We’ve seen this divine reality in the coming together of New Zealanders after that tragic mosque shooting.  As mourners gathered to bury the dead, this is the witness of Imam Gamal Fouda of Al Noor Mosque, one of the two attacked:

“This terrorist sought to tear our nation apart with an evil ideology that has torn the world apart — but instead we have shown that New Zealand is unbreakable,”

Take off your shoes, you’re on Holy Ground.  Indeed!

When in the presence of profound grief, silence is often the only possible response.  Such grief as my friend from West Virginia reported several days ago concerning a suicide of a young girl, Samantha – known to those who loved her as Sammy.  I knew her step-mother Michelle.  She was often at the farm, and she had catered the lunch for our House of Hope community forum in Wellsburg.  The girl had been depressed for some time, I gathered, and ended her life by consuming the entire bottle of antidepressant medication.  What led up to this, I don’t know.  But suicide is rampant now amongst the young.  It is epidemic among our older adults who feel they no longer have a purpose in life.  Suicide is doubly prevalent in depressed areas, like, the entire middle of the nation, like, in our urban areas with twenty percent youth unemployment.  Scott, our development officer on West Virginia, says that the community has surrounded Michelle and the father Joe with a love that can only be said to be divine.  This is the strength within rural communities that is so unique.  Last Thursday many gathered at the Forney Farm just to be together with the Sammy’s family and friends.  To have a cry, to tell stories, to open a beer or two.  Just to be together.

Take of your shoes, that little clubhouse on the farm was Holy Ground that evening.

Our son Christopher reports that among the last graduating class of PhD students at Yale, no one got a tenure-track job.  No one!  In the new gig economy, all are disposable.  To view the waste of discarded lives, to witness the despair of young and old, is to stand speechless on Holy Ground.  Knowing there will be no answer, we still ask, “Why?”  O Lord, are all these not precious in your sight?  And, if we’re attentive, if we’re engaged in holy listening, we ought to hear the only response there is: “Pay attention.  See what’s going on.  Do something.  You there, start something.  Begin a new beginning.  You, go to pharaoh and tell him…  You!  You!”

The one thing we do know is that an endless stream of the idiot tube is not the answer.  Whether it’s Fox News or MSNBC, research has shown that seniors who spend more than three hours before the TV are on a fast track to dementia.  I would have suspected that one of those two outlets, more than the other, would have been directly connected with dementia and Alzheimer’s.  But that’s a political guess.  A life of service and friends will place you on Holy Ground. 

We substitute the fake and plastic for what truly nourishes.  To my mind, Las Vegas is the epitome of the ersatz – the symbol of our cultural junk banquet.  Utter malnourishment.  Built out in the middle of a desert with fake lakes and mindless entertainment, — all substituting for real life.  Glitter, neon and hype. 

One trip I took quite a while with a business partner and his wife was to Las Vegas – Yeah, this really was a business trip.  Really!  However, I must say that I did give my secretary a start when I told her that we would be home late because we would be walking.  We lost the car to the slots.  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.  “Just kidding, Lacy,” I quickly added to relieve her anxiety.

Now let me tell you about real temptation in Sin City.  When I noticed that the band Chicago was playing at the Stardust, I was sorely tempted to stay the weekend and catch the show.  There’s temptation indeed.  The get-thee-behind-me-Satan-and-push-harder kind of temptation. But sanity and responsibility won out.  I did make it home on schedule. 

There’s much to find that is disturbing in Las Vegas, but what caught my attention was a group of several people with large signs over by the crowd watching the pirate battle at one of the hotels.  One of their signs loudly proclaimed “Jesus saves from Hell.”  A second sign was some other theological warning of dire consequences.  Maybe it wasn’t so much the theology – for Jesus does indeed save us from the emptiness, futility, and purposelessness that I would interpret Hell to be.  It was more their demeanor.  These religious scolds were certainly not the heart of the Beatitudes — In that moment I felt embarrassed for the church.  No evocation from these folks of the sublime or even fearsome awe of the Holy.  No blessed tenderness of that Good Shepherd or of a Mother Hen who would gather us under her wing.  Where is the Daddy who envelopes us in loving arms?  How many people, through our vindictive, judgmental attitudes, has Christianity damaged over the years, I wondered.  This is not the Gospel.  The Gospel means Good News.  This is Bad News.  Very Bad News.  Who would take of their shoes for this sort of hateful nonsense?  No one!  This is not the reality Moses encountered in a desert wasteland.

Some Sundays when I look out over the congregation coming forward at the Eucharist, I am profoundly moved as my mind goes from one to another.  We each humbly bring our frayed humanity before the Mystery of Life, seeking nourishment for the days ahead.  Some struggle with life-threatening illnesses, some bring the concern for a child or grandchild.  Some bring an ineffable joy she dares not mention.  But there we all are, standing on the most holy of grounds – our love for one another and for the One who has brought us thus far.

In Exodus we have one of the most profound proclamations of Good News in all of scripture.  Moses, a wanted murderer on the lam, is accosted by a Love behind all and within all.  A force intrinsic to the entire created order.   By the glint of something in a bush, something seen out of the corner of his eye.  A nondescript desert shrub burst into a blaze of fire and Moses’ life is permanently changed – it, too, burst into a blaze of fire. Consumed and not consumed, in ways he could never have imagined.  His identity is no longer that of a murderer, no longer that of an escaped slave.  His identity is entwined with the liberating power of the same Almighty who created out of nothing the stuff of all that is.  He is sent back to bring freedom and a renewed identity to his people.  I AM WHO I AM has hijacked his life to this most incredible end.

And of course, we all know the story.  After some initial protests that I AM WHO I AM has gotten the wrong guy for the job, Moses does descend down the slopes of Mount Horeb into the den of Pharaoh to demand in the name of God Almighty, “Let my people go!”  And before there before Pharaoh, Moses again is standing on Holy Ground.

A simple glint, the voice of a survivor by chance caught on LinkedIn, the tragedy of yet another suicide…in a moment we’re transported beyond ourselves to Holy Ground.

Maybe silence is the first and most appropriate impulse.  As Paul Tillich enjoins his reader,

Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”[2]

In that moment, in a blink of an eye, you are standing on Holy Ground.  All is inalterably changed.  Forever.

This Lent, take time to savor the Holy Ground moments that come to our living.  Let us take courage to incline our ears to their summons — to heed their call that leads to the broken in spirit and to those who weep.  Send us, O Lord, to the brokenhearted and also to those too full of good things, too full of themselves for their own good.  Let us learn to let go of our own inflated selves that we might possibly be put to some good purpose. 

But, in those moments – and you’ll know them when they come — for God’s sake and for yours, take off your shoes. You’re standing on Holy Ground.   Amen.

---

[1] Eddie Jaku, “The Secret of a Good Life,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdbxJKijn5U

[2] Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948).