The other week there was a segment on “The News Hour” of Afghan women who had come to America seeking to become medical doctors.

Presently, in their nation under the Taliban, women are limited to a third-grade education.  Their voice cannot be heard in public.  They are prohibited from holding most any job, certainly not as a professional – a lawyer, accountant, doctor – virtually every door is closed to women with such aspirations.

So many are now here, professionally stranded.  They can never go back and offer the gifts of their training.  Most were cut off in the middle of their studies, their training and degrees never to be completed.

UNTIL.  Until another woman who had suffered great loss when her daughter, being held for ransom in the mountains of Afghanistan, was killed by a grenade thrown by a Navy SEAL in the botched rescue mission. 

Let me first add some backfill to this story.

Linda was a very accomplished woman, holding a PhD from the University of Manchester in development policy and management.  She had served in rural areas around the world before being employed in Afghanistan.  She had done work for the UN in Pakistan, Mexico, and Laos before taking up her most recent work in Afghanistan.

She held the same high aspirations for Afghan woman as she did for herself.  She made it possible for some of these women who aspired to be doctors to go to Scotland for medical education.

All that, seemingly, came to an end when the Taliban routed US troops from the country in an ignominious departure — deserting the women of Afghanistan and their daughters to their dire fate under the rigid theocratic rule of the Taliban.

Needless to say, Linda’s parents were devastated by the news of her death.  Eventually her parents recovered their footing and her grieving mother, using her influence, using her connections and some family wealth, decided to do what she could for the women of Afghanistan.  She formed the Linda Norgrove Foundation to continue her daughter’s work as well as possible in that nation.

During the time when some could still escape that brutal rule, the foundation brought 19 female Afghan medical students barred by the Taliban from university education to Scotland to continue their medical studies.  The first group was among now more than 100 being sponsored by the Foundation to study medicine.

One of the few opportunities open to women under Taliban rule was to be midwives.  Through patient and arduous negotiations with the authorities, the Foundation has been allowed to establish a health clinic for women. 

Within the limits of what is allowed, her mother Lorna Norgrove continues to do what she can.  She’s a woman on a mission in memory of her daughter.  And it shall be sufficient.

Many pregnant women in Afghanistan have little access to medical care.  They have no prenatal care, no pediatric care for their newborn.  Often, their families are so impoverished that there is not enough food or clothing for a new addition to the family.  For these essentials, they are completely reliant upon donations.

The pilot project permitted in the town of Herat, western Afghanistan, is providing funding for some of these mothers and their families suffering from extreme poverty and malnutrition.

This clinic initiated by the Linda Norgrove Foundation in Herat is run by three Afghan women, a midwife, a qualified doctor and an anesthesiology student. 

These women are now providing healthcare for mothers, babies, and children two days a week. This includes weighing and measuring babies, providing medical treatment, and managing cases of malnutrition.

In the most extreme of situations, these three women do what they can.  And for those they serve, it shall be sufficient.

In our story from 1 Kings, we read of a widow in Zarephath, who, when called to tend to the prophet Elijah, also does what she can.  Even to the detriment of herself and her son.

“As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug:  I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”  She trusts in the prophet’s assurance that out of her meager gift, God’s response will be sufficient for them all.

“For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: ‘The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth’…she as well as he and her household ate for many days.  The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.”

Out of her poverty the Widow of Zarephath did what she could, and it was sufficient.

And is not this the case with an unnamed woman, a poor widow, who places two small copper coins in the treasury?  Out of her impoverishment, she did what she could, and the Lord pronounces it “sufficient.”  A gift far greater than that of all the millions of an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.  For she gave out of her scarcity.

Like some of you, I was pretty bummed out by the results of Tuesday’s election.  My candidate gave everything she knew how to do.  And for now – for now, it was insufficient.  For now.

In her concession speech she told of her phone call to president-elect Trump congratulating him on his victory.  That is what the peaceful transfer of power looks like in a democracy.

But she went on to add, “…while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign—the fight: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”[1]

“On the campaign, I would often say when we fight, we win. But here’s the thing, here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. The important thing is don’t ever give up.”

She left it all on the field, she did what she could, and eventually, it shall indeed be sufficient.  The Promise of America is ever expanding.

I heard a Latino man; the DJ of a Hispanic radio station, proclaim that most men who called in were inalterably opposed to a woman president.  “No one will respect her.”  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”  “Women are not meant to be in charge of men.”  All the tired and hackneyed excuses offered up by little men. 

Well, as my son Christopher pointed out this morning, even though we might not agree with some or many of their policies, women have had a good run as heads of state:  Indira Ghandi in India, Golda Meier in Israel, Margaret Thatcher — the “Iron Lady” — in the United Kingdom.  Other nations have had or do have very successful women heads of state:  Finland, Germany, Australia, Lithuania. You do remember Anglea Merkel, don’t you?

As is often said of Ginger Rogers, she was just as good as Fred Astair only she did it all backwards and in high heels.  Same as these women leaders.

And if we voted against Kamala just because she’s a woman, we deserve Trump and the worst he will do.  This will be divine and righteous judgment against our misogyny.  

Frederick Douglas, one of the few men attending the Seneca Falls meeting of the women’s rights movement in 1888, spoke of his modest role in promoting women’s suffrage and equality.  He was hesitant to even address the gathering.

“I believe that no man, however gifted …can voice the wrongs and present the demands with the skill and effect, with the power and authority of woman herself.”[2]

He summed up the goals and promise of their efforts at that historic meeting:

“…whatever the future may have in store for us, one thing is certain—this new revolution in human thought will never go backward.  When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it.  It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world.  Such a truth is woman’s right to equal liberty with man. She was born with it. It was hers before she comprehended it.”

We trust the women.  Full stop.  End of argument.

These women did what they could, and in the march of time, it was sufficient.

That’s where you and I come in.  I know many who supported the vision Kamala laid out are disappointed and perhaps discouraged.  Those who may have supported the other candidate may be ecstatic, wrapped in victory.

But let us all remember, our allegiance is not to a person, not to a party but to the Gospel and to the Constitution, flawed as it may be.   Flawed as our politics and this nation may be.  Flawed as we may be – let us move forward under the rule of law and in mutual respect.

Only a fool in my tribe would, after this drubbing, not want to talk to folks who chose the alternative.  We need to find out from them what they feel needs fixing and see where there might be common ground.

We must work to find common ground where we can all join in unifying effort to make manifest the ideals of equity and inclusion, the promise of a decent life for all.  Especially those left out and shoved out. 

If the in-coming president elect can be focused on what we can all do together, it’s likely that we can move this nation forward.  As vice-president Harris is fond of saying, “We have so much more in common that unites us than divides us.” 

And our efforts, puny as they may seem, as insignificant as perhaps a small bit of dough and depleted jar of oil, in and through the Grace of God, they shall be sufficient.  We are only asked to now do what we can.  As John Wesley, putting sectarian differences aside, offered, “If your heart is as my heart, take my hand.”  And let us go forward together.  Then perhaps — just perhaps, God will shed a bit more of her Grace on this our marvelous land.  Ame

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[1] Time Magazine, transcript of concession speech by Kamala Harris, November 6, 2024.

[2] Frederick Douglass’ address to the 1888 Seneca Falls gathering of women, public domain.

November 10, 2024
25 Pentecost, Proper 27

1 Kings 17:8-16; Psalm 146;
Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:39-44

“She Did What She Could”

Month after month the Chino Valley District school board has been embroiled in controversy and lawsuits – over religion.  Rightwing, Christian Nationalists have mandated that meetings would be opened with prayer.  Not just any prayer, but the right kind of Christian prayer.

For that reason, Jai and I would not be sending our children to those public schools, for they are being turned into sectarian indoctrination academies.

I’m sure that a Mormon or Buddhist or Southern Baptist would not want their children put upon by the sort of sectarian prayers mandated.  Further, if my Muslim sisters and brothers are excluded – if my Unitarian, Jewish or Hindu friends are excluded — so should I or any Christian refuse to open the meetings.

This movement is definitely NOT the “poor in spirit, NOT the “humble of heart.”  This is Constantine’s unsheathed sword.

Our currency boldly proclaims, “In God we Trust.”

What does this mean. I doubt that it means bludgeon or browbeat any who don’t agree with your ideas about the love of God. 

“In God we trust” – tell that to those massacred on the Trail of Tears.  Tell that to the villagers of the Aleutian dwellings of Biorka, Kashega, Makushin, and Attu – all villages that were obliterated by the U.S. Navy, villages whose peoples were abandoned and left to starve and freeze to death on the mainland of Alaska.

AA and other Twelve Step organizations assiduously refrain from advertising.  They insist on making their fellowship available only through attraction, not promotion.  Theirs is a gentler, more tender, more welcoming Higher Power.

It is through humility and service so as the Gospel becomes manifest and attracts, becomes available to all.  Paul got it right.

As St. Paul says of humility and love in 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on own way.”

This is the abiding path of the Saints we would follow and the Saints who have nurtured us.

The Saints we would honor today lived out this love before us and before God.  They are exemplars through acts of love, mercy and justice.

The summation of the ethic of the Jesus Movement is first found in the Torah mandate, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

Jesus expands on this as he redefines the trap set for him by the religious authorities.  “’…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

This, the Saints of God lived out before us all and before the Almighty.

The previous week we were given the outlines of this Love of God and Neighbor.  It is the journey of servanthood.  It’s the journey of the Beatitudes.  It’s about being led beyond your comfort zone to honor the Christ within yourself and the Christ in neighbor and stranger.

 It’s about bearing the cross.  We do this together.  Even Jesus needed Simon’s help.

The way of Jesus and the mark of his baptism and ours is the way of the cross.  How many are entranced with the little cross they may wear on a necklace around their necks, but won’t carry the true cross on their backs.

The cross is NOT a trinket.  It is sacrificial living.  It is being of service in the Jesus Movement.

The book of Hebrews lifts up those who have born their cross.  Those who have born the spiritual battle in the heat of day and have not faltered.  Those who have run the good race to completion.  It’s that great cloud of witnesses.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…”  Today we honor them – “Saints, both living and gone on before us – Saints of God abiding in the arms of mercy.”

These are those cast in the mold of the One who was “able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness…”

So, no talk about seats on either the right hand or left!  No talk of abandoning the journey down off the Mountain of Revelation into the distress and pain of Jerusalem.

In the Jesus Movement we follow One who gives us grace to become servants of all – even in the toughest of times.

But not so much that presumptuous clique that has hijacked school boards all across the country.  Insisting on their own way, their unholy prerogatives.  This arrogant insistence on theocratic prerogative blasphemes God, does not honor God.  No “poor in spirit” here.

These misguided souls are a part of a larger movement that would change America into a sectarian theocracy.  These are the Christian Nationalists.

Sometimes their mischief backfires.  Opens the door to all sorts of unseen consequences.

It would be ludicrous if it weren’t so serious.  Though some do have the ability for a bit of outlandish humor to troll these misguided souls.

The other day in Harpers Magazine, I came across a spoof of an attempt to insert sectarian chaplains into the schools of one district in Osceola County, Florida.  This was in a letter to the board contemplating such a step.^[1]  The letter read:

“On behalf of the Satanic Temple, I am writing to acknowledge the critical vote you are taking tonight regarding the authorization of volunteer school chaplains in the Osceola County school district.  We are enthusiastic about the opportunity this policy presents for our ministers of Satan.

“We have carefully reviewed the proposed guidelines and note with interest that counseling consistent with a chaplain’s religious beliefs will not be considered proselytization in the school district.  This understanding ensures that the ministers of Satan can offer guidance aligned with our satanic beliefs while remaining fully compliant with the board’s rules.”

Having free office space provided for such chaplains – what could possibly go wrong?

Folks, there’s a reason for the separation of church and state.  Repeat – there’s a reason for the separation of church and state.  AND this is it!

In all seriousness, this brand of Christianity is toxic to all we hold dear as a pluralistic society.

In his book, The Violent Take it by Force, a title taken from Matthew 11:12, Matthew Taylor describes chapter and verse the connection between the cult of Trump and a radical branch of evangelical Christianity.^[2]  These are the Dominionists who believe that America was meant by God to be a Christian nation – the right kind of Christian.  They’re certainly not thinking Episcopalian, Presbyterian or Baptist.  Definitely not United Methodist, UCC or Disciples of Christ!  And Catholics and Unitarians, watch out.  Certainly, not you folks.

As Taylor reports, the riot on January 6 was aided and abetted by these Christian Nationalists.  While most of their leaders did not enter the capital that day, they and their followers were on the sidelines, expectant.^[3]

“These Christian leaders weren’t passive so much as expectant – waiting for God to show up.  They prayed.  They worshipped.  They decreed and declared and sang and beseeched.  They did battle in the spirit realm, they prepared for God’s promised deliverance.  They pined for a miracle that did not materialize.”

These leaders and their followers are just the tip of an iceberg.  They represent a network of non-denominational mega churches with millions of adherents with a vision for this nation significantly different from what most of us have lived under.

Again, from Matthew’s gospel, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.”  And will they ever!  They understand this passage in Jesus’ words not to be descriptive, but to be prescriptive.  By violence, their theology mandates that they seize power.

And the Former Guy is their Cyrus.  You remember Cyrus was the heathen Persian king who delivered the Hebrew captives from Babylonian Captivity to return to Jerusalem.  Just as a most profane autocrat will in their thinking restore America as a Christian nation.

This warped theology is a danger to our democracy.  It is destructive of our liberties.  Those with ears to hear, let them hear.

The other day, when polls were, and still are, looking bad for democracy and a rational voice in our politics, I said to Jai, “Well, if this all goes south, I’m done.  I’m going to swear off politics.  I’m through!”  At that moment I was with Timothy Leary: “Turn on, tune in, drop out”

But later that day I began reading the memoir of Alexei Navalny, Patriot.^[4]  I, shamefully reconsidered.  How dare I?  How dare I succumb to self-pity when this man paid the ultimate price for his resistance to tyranny?

Alexei Navalny, like the saints surrounding us, brings to our hearts courage and steadfastness. 

Saints — like Matthew Taylor — give us the courage to speak inconvenient truth to our own tribe.  To declare the apostasy of Christian Nationalism for the evil it is.

They give us the guidance — like our parents, teachers, pastors and scout leaders — guidance to discern right from wrong.  Reminding us that “it is always the right time to do the right thing.”

They are those in civic organizations like Rotary who have inculcated an ethic of “Service Above Self.”

In the shadow of these giants, how dare I, how dare we, resign ourselves to the worst of our politics?   Resign ourselves to defeatism?  How dare we?

As Congresswoman Val Demings urges:” Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic.  Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year…”  Val Demings — another courageous Saint of God.

No!  With their strength and persistence, I will continue to be a pain in the you-know-what to defend the values of this nation that gave me birth.  (Yes, and my wife knows that I can excel at this).  As John Lewis urged, I will continue to “Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.”  And might we all.

Saints of God abiding in the arms of mercy.  They are our balcony people.  The ones who cheer us on, even from beyond the grave in precious memory.  Saints alive, we remember, we celebrate, and for their witness, we give thanks to God.

Saints of God abiding in the arms of mercy, pray for us.   Amen.

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[1] Letter sent on August by Rachel Chamblis to the members of the Osceola County school board as printed in Harper’s, “Opus Day School,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 349, No. 2094, November 2024.

[2] Matthew 11:12, KJV.

[3] Matthew D. Taylor, The Violent Take it by Force: The Christian Movement That is Threatening our Democracy (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2024), 1.

[4] Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024).

November 3, 2024
24 Pentecost, Proper 26
All Saints Sunday

Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10, 13-14; Psalm 149;
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17; Matthew 5:1-12

“Saints Alive — Honoring God and Neighbor”

I was supposed to be successful.  In my family of origin that meant making a lot of money.  Or entering a prestigious profession that would make a lot of money, or at least be a tribute to the family (mainly my father).  When I was a geology major, that somewhat satisfied his expectations.  It held the possibility that maybe I’d strike it rich.  Find the loadstone of wealth.  Dad knew that there was rumor of oil or natural gas, maybe coal, under our farmland in West Virginia.

It was many years later, through my cousin in Bethany, WV, that I heard back that the ministry did not at all meet Dad’s expectations for me.  I was somewhat of a failure in a profession with little earning potential.

He’d made his millions in real estate and dentistry but that was not my path.

As the poet Robert Frost mused, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Amos, in our appointed reading for this Sunday, rails against the greedy obsession with wealth and power.  All a great distraction from what really counts. 

“Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground!  They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.  Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.  For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins – you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate.” [1]

It shall all come to naught.  We read every morning in our papers of those who plunder the public purse and trust.  We see them on the 6 o’clock news.  Just the other day 71 co-conspirators were snared in Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s net. 

Here in Los Angeles, the U.S. Attorney General has rounded up 68 defendants, associated with the Peckerwoods, a White supremacist gang operating at the behest of the Arian Brotherhood, a group behind bars.  All is for sale – drugs, trafficked girls, guns, stolen goods – whatever.

Amos urges a better path.  “Seek good and not evil, that you may live…Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Again, the Psalmist also urges a rethinking of priorities.

“So, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.”[2]

Yes, so often our priorities are all wrong.  Sometimes we were off the track right from the start.  Other times, it’s the lure of the empire’s glitter that has led us astray.

As Dante begins his poem, The Inferno — “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost…I cannot rightly say how I entered it.  I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way…”

Sometimes — so full of sleep.  Sometimes — so full of our own selves.  Sometimes — so full of all the baubles the world dangles before our eyes.

Perhaps this was the condition of the “Rich Young Man” who approaches Jesus seeking the path to salvation.

When he attests to his life of righteousness, Jesus responds, “You lack one thing…”  When told that he had to give up his obsession with wealth, he went away sorrowful.

You know the rest of the conversation: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

For this fellow, money has been that distraction from the “true path” of Dante’s poem.

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil.  There’s much evidence here.  When one of our Progressive Christians United supporters tried to insinuate himself, attempting to hijack, one of our major grants, our director Peter Laarman advised, “John, when there’s a lot of money on the table, even your friends will behave strangely.”  More evidence.  Sad but true.

In the N.Y. Times last Wednesday there was a glaring example of such avarice in the U.N.  A high-placed official, Mr. Vanshelboim, the Ukrainian director of the U.N. sustainable infrastructure impact investments program.[3]

He met a Brit at a party one evening and steered the entire portfolio of his agency to the guy to invest.  This U.N. dupe got some millions in gifts – among assorted goodies, a new Mercedes, free loans, home repairs and a $1.2 million sponsorship for his budding tennis-playing son Erik – all this from his new best friend forever.   And the U.N.?  It got a song about an ocean.  And…and, the $58 million portfolio disappeared into someone’s wallet.  Still to be recovered.  As President Obama frequently quips, “You can’t make this stuff up!”

As Peter Laarman warned, “Even your best friends will behave strangely when there’s a lot of money on the table.  Let alone, your new BFF you just met at a party.

Joerg Rieger makes clear the conflict between Christ and the world.  The instant one confesses that Jesus is Lord, one, in the same breath, then denies that Caesar and his empire have any divine claim on one’s soul.[4]  Caesar is not the Lord! — one of Caesar’s claimed titles.  Anything, anyone worshiped other than Christ is an idol which will eat your soul…or least, be an utter distraction to what truly is life-enhancing.

Empires in lands of autocracy are pretty easy to discern.  Their demand is: bow the knee and shut up a whole lot and you’ll survive.  Otherwise, it’s the gulag, torture or you just might disappear.  Like Navalny.

In a free society, empire is a much more subtle thing.  Those “powers and principalities” Paul subordinates to Christ may be convention, peer pressure, the enthroned ideas and prejudices between your two ears.   It is whatever distracts you from the mission of the Jesus Movement to justice, equity, freedom and peace. 

It is the “Yes, but” of your inner deliberations that leads one off the true path in the dark of the wood.  It is the self-censorship that temporizes the truth, the temptation to cut corners.

Love of money is definitely at the root of much of idolatry.   But the obsession can also be a metaphor, a token, for whatever has its talons gripping our hearts.

How to free ourselves?  As both H. Richard Niebuhr[5] and Joerg Rieger admit that we all, being fallible humans, make compromises here.

What I find is when I immerse myself in the justice work of the Movement, the compulsion of utter distractions – whatever the siren call – loses some of its grip.

Hal Johnson’s gospel hymn lifts the spirit, “When I’m feeding the poor – I’m serving my Master.  When I’m feeding the poor — I’m serving the Master; ain’t got time to die.”

Just get over yourself.  And the noise in your head.

Ego is the great noise factory for most of us.  And it can lead to astounding disappointment.

Self-absorption is part of what led to the downfall of Hillary Clinton in 2016.  Smug, she thought the election was in the bag as the final months approached.  Thought her wealthy fund raisers had closed the deal.

Not so!  As my mother would say, “Pride goeth before a fall.”

Yes, money can be a distracting, all-consuming idol, BUT, on the other hand it is essential to have enough to live, to send your kids to school and to have a decent retirement with dignity.

I learned from my ministry in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles from those I served that poverty is no disgrace, just damned inconvenient.

This is where unions are essential.  They are about (for the most part) a fair, living wage, worker dignity and enough left over for one’s old age.

Working for worker’s rights IS working for the Master – building the Kingdom of Justice.

This we neglect to our peril.  That is what Hillary discovered in 2016.  In his article, “The Worker Revolt,” Eyal Press lists failure after failure of her benighted campaign.[6]  When it came to supporting the blue-color, non-college workers’ agenda, she had a tin ear.

My son Christopher is right.  To win these folks’ votes, one has only to produce for the working class – a living wage, respect, decent health care, good schools, good housing, dignity in old age – you know the drill.  And LISTEN.  Just evidence some respect by showing up and listening.  Get over yourself and listen.

That was not so much the case with Hillary.  “She didn’t visit a single union hall in Michigan or Wisconsin after she became the nominee, in 2016.”  Even when her top staff was telling her to get herself out there!  

One worker on the rope line at a rally in Pennsylvania had to shout to get her attention.  As he stood there in his union shirt, she just passed him by.  Didn’t take his outstretched hand.

“’Hey, Hillary,’ he called out, prompting her to turn around.  “I’m the union president—we really need your help.”  He remembers her saying, curtly, ‘Oh, I will help,’ then leaving.”[7]  She did not get his vote.

While she cavalierly dismissed the Other Guy’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables,” he was crisscrossing the Rust Belt with rally after rally.[8]

Sad to say, it didn’t have to be this way.  Take this as a parable.  Might we all pray that we number our days so that we gain a heart of wisdom.

Yes, self-importance, conceit, ambition, control – they can all be every bit as deadly distractions as money, sex, fame and power – those tokens of empire we so often bow the knee to.  You know the “seven deadlies.”

I find my freedom in listening to the Spirit, surrounding myself with others who have my best interests at heart — AND THEN, getting to work. 

Invest yourselves in others, especially the “Least of These,” and you, too, will find obsession with the unimportant waning – and refreshing Gospel Goodness flooding in.  Life abundant.  Amen.

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[1] Amos 5:7, 10-12, 14-15, NRSV.

[2] Psalm 90:12, NRSV.

[3] David A. Fahrenthold and Farnaz Fassihi, “He Got Millions and the U.N. Got a Song About the Ocean, New York Times, October 9, 2024.

[4] Joerg Rieger, Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. 34-35.

[5] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951).

[6] Eyal Press, The Worker Revolt, The New Yorker, October 7, 2024, p19.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

October 13, 2024
21 Pentecost, Proper 19

Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 8;Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-17; Mark 10:2-16

“Freed From the Grip of Utter Distraction”

At my first church out in the Mojave Desert, Inyokern, I learned an awful lot.  One thing early on I learned from this very rural community was that many folks did not have the same opportunities as I had grown up expecting.  Not much for teenagers to do in this small town of some 450 people.

I remember asking one of the girls in our youth group what kids did for entertainment out here.  She, matter-of-factly responded, “We go to desert parties, get drunk, get pregnant and then get married.”  That’s it.

And there wasn’t much preparation for tying the knot.  I would try to get any perspective couple to go through five or six sessions of premarital counseling.  I’d start off with an easy question to set them at ease.  “What attracted you to this person?”  I remember the first couple who came to our doorstep.  To that question, the young woman got all moony-eyed and answered breathlessly, “His car.”

I’m thinking, “Lady, you’re not marrying his set of wheels!”  Is this all there is?  Needless to say, this marriage did not last much more than six months. 

The ethic of the sacrament of marriage is mutuality.  I think of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt.  He was certainly a much more successful president because of the work and influence of Eleanor.  Think of Will and Arial Durant who, through their collaboration, produced volume after volume of The History of Civilization.  Theirs was indeed a sacramental partnership, for many have been blessed by that great work.

I think of my friends Jim and Jean Strathdee who as a team have greatly enriched the hymnody of the church. 

I think of my own partner, Jai.  When one or another of us pitches in to help remember a detail or work in a common project, I often say, “That’s why there are two of us.” 

When it comes to the bond that lasts, Aretha Franklin’s theme song, R-E-S-P-E-C-T is at the heart of it.  Any of you who have been married or have a deep and abiding friendship know this blessing.  The essence of a good marriage, of a lasting friendship: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

The Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh gets at this through what is known as “mindfulness.”  Being mindful of the other at a deep level.

He tells the story of washing the dishes.  Yes, that mundane chore most of us plod through without thinking.  Or thinking completely of something else and missing the rich experience of actually washing the dishes.[1]

When he was a novice monk, washing the dishes was pretty primitive.  There was no soap, only ashes and rice husks to do the cleaning.  And all this for over one hundred monks!

Thich Nhat Hanh tells of a visit from his friend Jim Forest, a member of the Catholic Peace Fellowship.  Jim, one evening volunteered to wash the dishes.  Thich Nhat Hanh asked him if he knew how to wash the dishes.  Jim, a little miffed, insisted of course.  He’d been washing the dishes for many years.  Of course, he knew how to wash the dishes!

Thich Nhat Hanh responded, that that may not be so.  For, you see, “there are two ways to wash the dishes.”  Anyone can wash them in a hurry.  There’s a machine that will do that.  That is the first way to wash the dishes just in order to have clean dishes…”the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes.”  It is to be fully immersed in the process.  “If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.’”[2]

Such mindfulness was the habit of our patron saint, the Beloved Francis.  He took in moments by moments and lived in them – in relation to his followers, in relation to the natural world.  He had a mindfulness that revealed relationships.  I say he is the saint of “everything is connected.”

Unfortunately, we don’t always show our closest friends, our spouses, our neighbors the same R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  The first several couples I married in that small desert church had not the wherewithal to live with one another in mindful relationships.  I wonder if that first woman enamored with “his car” had a mindful relationship with it.  Probably not.

When we come from such broken or dysfunctional homes, we never acquire the skills and practices of being mindful of the other – whether it’s a spouse or a long-time friend.

Sarah Smarsh tells of such in her family in her book Heartland.[3]  Coming from rural Kansas, with many from broken families, the abuse and trauma is passed along from one generation to the next.

“I was fortunate to have a kind father in a place where women’s bodies were vulnerable for being rural, for being poor, for being women.  I grew up listening to Betty console my cousins, aunts, and family friends as they sat at the kitchen table after a beating.  They might have a black eye from a fist or a sticky hospital-tape residue on their forearms from an emergency-room visit after being knocked unconscious with a baseball bat.  On my mom’s side of the family that sort of terror was a tradition.”[4]

No marriage, no relationship can long survive that sort of abuse.

Yes, we are all connected and marriage holds the potential of being one of the deepest connections – but too often immature partners are simply not capable of such.

Barbara Brown Taylor says this about marriage: “It’s the only opportunity most of us will ever have to become an adult.”  It’s all about R-E-S-P-E-C-T grounded in mindfulness of the other.

Hillary Clinton, in her new book, Something Lost, Something Gained, reflects on a rich and full life.  In the work there is a chapter on her marriage.  This has been probably one of the most public marriages in recent history.  Despite the ups and downs, the public betrayal and humiliation, tentative reconciliation – through a lot of hard work and soul searching, this marriage has ripened into something beautiful and nourishing.  That’s the sort of connection that would warm St. Francis’ heart and bring a tear or two to his eyes as it did mine.

As she reminisces over the years, “I’m back in New Haven, and this tall, handsome young man is holding my hand as we wander through the Yale University Art Gallery on our first date.  I’m back in the living room of the little red-brick house in Fayetteville, saying ‘I do,’ as Arkansas sunlight pours through the bay window”[5]

“Bill and I have been married since 1975, and there’s still no one else I want to talk to more than him.  About politics, public policy, and our foundation projects, yes.”

Most mornings find Bill and me lingering in bed, on our phones playing Spelling Bee.  That’s the New York Times’ online game when you rearrange seven letters to form as many words as possible.  After a few minutes, Bill will sidle over to compare lists.  ‘Pizzazz’ he’ll ask.”  Then he’ll call out ‘Queen Bee,’ the highest score possible.  And she’s wondering how he does it so fast after a half-century at his side.[6]  This is mindfulness that has blossomed into deep R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Today we will bless the animals, for all of creation was in the purview of Francis’ mindfulness.  In our time of the onslaught of global warming, we objectify Mother Nature at our peril.  Yes, it’s happening now.  Not someplace off in some distant future.  Now.

Mindfulness as we go to the polls would guide us to consider only those candidates grounded in the reality of what is going on all around us.  Vote Climate.

Mindfulness grounds in the actual political realities of this world.  Listening to the Vice President Debate last Tuesday, I’m with Lawrence O’Donnell’s assessment of one of the candidates, “J.D. Vance may be the only vice-presidential candidate in history who doesn’t know who the president is.”  C’mon, guy…get real.

As we celebrate our patron saint, let us mindfully be connected as a part of the natural order.  The earth and stars, planets and galaxies, centipedes and sow bugs…And yes, “lions, tigers and bears, O My!”

Its all a part of our glorious creation.   In this garden, at the deepest level we are meant for relationship, friendship and marriage.  And we are meant to be one with this splendid natural order.  Sheer Grace!

Remember in the biblical story, when Adam first gazed upon Eve, he exclaimed, “this at last!” speaking of the dazzling sight before him – which should be far better translated as, “Holy Smoke!”  We are indeed meant to delight on one another.  It is not fitting that man, that woman should be alone. 

As Martin Buber asserts, “God is relationship.”  The Letter of John puts the same point a bit differently, “God is Love and those who abide in Love abide in God and God in them.” Francis was in love with all creation.  His invitation daily awaits if we’re but mindful.  Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this.  Amen.

---

[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975). 4-8.

[2] Op.cit., p8.

[3] Sara Smarsh, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth (New York: Scribner, 2018).

[4] Op. Cit., 78.

[5] Hillary Clinton, Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, Liberty (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024), 277.

[6] Op. Cit., 271.

October 6, 2024
20 Pentecost, Proper 18
Blessing of the Animals

Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 8;Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-17; Mark 10:2-16 “Unto Death Do Us Part

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published a story that would not only rock Hollywood but also the rest of the nation.  It was an expose of one of the most powerful men in the film industry, Harvey Weinstein.  It detailed decades of sexual abuse by a producer who promised career advancement in return for sexual favors.  Several women came forward to tell their stories, among whom were actresses Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.[1]

This was just the tip of the iceberg.  Within days, Weinstein would be sacked by the board of directors of his company.  Soon, more women would come forward with charges of molestation and rape.

At about the same time a liberating breeze had blown across the land, the #MeToo movement.  This group of women were putting piggy, entitled males on notice that their bad behavior was not to be tolerated.  These women meant business – and a good deal of that business would be conducted in a court of law.

While Anita Hill never got her due from the cavalier dismissal of her story by then Sen. Joe Biden and a bunch of other obtuse men on his committee – the Hollywood women blowing the whistle on Weinstein did. 

On March 11 of 2023 Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment for rape and sexual assault involving two of these women.[2]

The outpouring of blame against these women by many was unbelievable.  Poor, poor boy.  They’re just making this stuff up to get in the spotlight or squeeze money out of him.  After all, he has very deep pockets.

The rich, the famous, other entitled folks who claim prerogatives over those without power  –  the so-called entitled First folks.  You know them.  They’re on TV nightly.

“If you’re famous, you can do whatever you want.  Grab ‘em by the [wherever].”  That from one of our most famous sexual predators – and buffoons.  One without a clue!

This behavior from the entitled had even insinuated itself early on into the Jesus Movement.

“Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.  He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be the first must be the last of all and servant of all.”[3]

We see in the letter of James, a warning against showing favor to the entitled. 

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?  For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”[4]

God’s preference is for the poor, the shoved aside, the locked out.  God meets us in our extremity.  Jesus said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Those considered Last, the “least of these,” are regularly discounted by the powerful and those claiming privilege.

Sarah Smarsh, coming from a “dirt-poor,” working class family, certainly knows the struggle to be heard, and believed.  Yet she is now a college professor with another work that has also become a National Book Award Finalist, Bone of the Bone. [5]

“Today in America, for instance, a woman who accuses a celebrity of rape is presumed to be seeking money and attention, and a dark-skinned man who insists he’s minding his own business is wrestled to the ground by police officers when a White finger points his way.”[6]

When slave memoirs were written – works of the “least of these,” the “last” – they had to be published with accompanying testimonials by a White person to their veracity and the good character of the author.

When Harriet Jacobs published her memoir, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in 1861, her editor attested at the introduction to the readers that Jacobs had “lived with a distinguished family in New York and has so supported herself as to be highly esteemed by them…I believe those who know her will not be disposed to doubt her veracity, though some incidents in her story are more romantic than fiction.”[7]

These are stories of the “Last.”  How shall they be first?

In this life, the Holy Spirit, that teacher, that stirrer-up-of imagination, that paraclete, advocate, comforter pulls us up to our full personhood.

Like the Black kid seen on the playground with a shirt saying, “I am Somebody, ‘cause God don’t make no junk.”[8]  Also, that pride slogan serving as the title of an album by the Halo Benders, an indie rock band of the ‘70s.

This God “…raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to sit with princes, with the princes of God’s people”[9]  Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Teachers who pull out of us our best stuff, who guide us into full personhood – they are the agents of this one same Spirit.  We’ve most likely encountered one or two of such guardian angels in our lives.

Mentors and friends who have guided us.  Allies who have struggled alongside of us – all agents of the Spirit.

This is Sarah’s story.  Raised up out of the dust and grime of poverty to amazing accomplishment.  She worked in a biker bar in her twenties to complete her first book, Heartland, the story of growing up in a poor family. A National Book Award Finalist.[10]  “You go girl,” prompts the Spirit!

Praise to the Spirit who lifts those of no account up out of the dust, giving them power to exercise their agency and native talent.  The Last ever becoming First.

She grew up on a wheat farm in Kansas and was the first in her family to graduate from college.  She knows well how class defines people. 

From West Virginia comes another such story, Hill Women by Cassie Chambers.[11]  Cassie grew up in the hollers of the Appalachian Mountains in one of the poorest counties in Kentucky.  With the coal mining industry and tobacco farming in decline, not much was left but crumbling buildings and poverty.

“You don’t go to Owsley County, Kentucky, without a reason.  You can’t take a wrong turn and accidently end up there.  It’s miles to the nearest interstate, and there’s no hotel in town.  It doesn’t cater to outsiders.”^[12]

She tells of Granny, who had been a child bride, who raised her and gave her the values of family, hard work and faith.  Her own mother, Wilma, who was married at nineteen and pregnant with Cassie and brought her into the world only months later.  Moved by that God Spark of Possibility, Wilma beat the odds and managed to finish school. 

Guided by her “hill women” values and the grounding of kin, Cassie would go on to graduate from Harvard Law.  Yet, as her Ivy League education opened up many doors, Cassie felt that this privilege was pulling her from the reality of her home and clan.  So, she moved back home to Owsley County to work with her Kentucky folks to set up free legal services.  Raised up out of dust is she and the clients whom she assists.

Yes, the Last are ever being raised to sit among those who consider themselves the privileged First.  And most remember their roots, the struggles that have molded their character and values – and Paying it Forward.  Giving back as agents of the Spirit’s creative generativity.

Blessed be the name of the Lord who would lift us all out of the dust of that which constricts, that binds our sight, that diminishes our full personhood.  The Last – a mentality which so often inhabits each one of us – becoming First in the eyes of God.  Because God “Don’t make no junk.”

Praise to the Lord who lifts the weak out of dust, placing them, placing us, among those who are important somebodies in the eyes of God.  Fit for Gospel service.  Amen.

---

[1]“ Harvey Weinstein timeline: How the scandal has unfolded,” Reuters, February 24, 2023.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mark 9:33-35, NRSV.

[4] James 2:1-4.

[5] Sarah Smarsh, Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class (New York: Scribner, 2024).

[6] Op. Cit., 72.

[7] Op. Cit., 74-75.

[8] “God don’t make no junk” was an empowering slogan of the Black Power movement in the seventies.

[9] Psalm 113:7-8, NRSV.

[10] Sarah Smarsh, Heartland (New York: Scribner, 2018).

[11] Cassie Chambers, Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains (New York: Ballantine Books, 2020).

[12] Op. cit., vii.

September 22, 2024
18 Pentecost, Proper 20

Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 54;James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

“The First and the Last”

Like many of you, we watched the debate Tuesday night.  We had a group of friends over, ate a lot of pizza and a very good salad.  And drank a little beer and coffee.

Several of our guests almost injured themselves when convulsed with fits of uncontrollable laughter at one of the Former Guy’s assertions – the outrageous lie that immigrants in one Ohio town were eating people’s pets.  Perpetrating a lie first told by J.D Vance.  I almost fell out of my seat and spilled my beer.

How is it that so many gullible folks believe such patent nonsense?  Of course, none of this is true.[1]

I told Jai that I might gin up a MAGA cookbook for cats, dogs and parakeets.  It would go straight to the top of Amazon’s charts.

Yes, the dog may have eaten your homework, but no immigrant has eaten your dog.  Or cat.  Or parakeet.

Tongue in cheek, I fault our teachers for failing to teach critical thinking.  What are we educating our students for?  Jai responded that in her kindergarten classes she does teach behavior and consequences.  And year after year, almost all her kindergartners and first graders were reading to state standards.

My best teachers have taught me how to discern nonsense from reality.  Mostly, they have succeeded.  A worthy goal of all education, the power of discernment.  Good teaching is also about vocation.

All three lessons and the Psalm this Sunday have to deal with teaching.  This from Isaiah:

“The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.  Morning by morning [the Lord] wakens—wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.”[2]

Teaching is a fraught responsibility we learn from the Epistle of James – as any seasoned teacher knows.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.  For all of us make many mistakes…”[3]

All of us who are parents have taught, whether or not we have a state credential.  And, for one, I’ve made some glorious mistakes, which I hope haven’t resulted in too many therapy bills for my boys.

Paulo Freire, in his Pedagogy of Hope, asserts that the goal of teaching ought to be to enable us to live more fulfilling, more liberated lives in community with our fellow brothers and sister.  The goal is to empower us to become more aware of what oppresses, limits, and degrades.[4]

Pedagogy as understood by Paulo Freire opens up horizons.  “History is time filled with possibility.”  Exactly what Jesus’ parables do. These simple stories open up a multiplicity of possibilities.  They open the soul to its fuller, more complete potential – liberation.

Freire uses the term, La concientización – conscientiousness arising.  It’s about developing clarity on one’s existential situation – what one truly needs, what binds and what would liberate.  This should be the goal of any worthwhile education.  Yes, facts, numeracy and critical thinking are good.  But to what end?  Only that they are tools for those who are enlightened to their true situation.[5]

Concientización prompted by the Spirit opens the eyes of both oppressed and oppressor.  “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”  This from a former captain of a slave ship.

Genuine teaching prepares us to understand why we are here and what we are meant to do and be.  “Then he began to teach them…”  He opened their eyes.

The lesson of the day was about the cruciform way of life.  Concerning himself and those who would follow after, “…the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by elders, the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” 

Far too extreme for Peter who begins to rebuke him.  But Jesus, in turn, rebukes Peter for getting the mission all wrong.  “Get behind me Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

This lesson can be summarized in the prayer we close the service with every Sunday.  A prayer that in part reads,

“Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

And when it comes to those who have sacrificed their prerogatives and self-interests in service of a greater cause, there’s no thought about “what was in it for them.”

As John Lewis counseled, “This is the way another generation did it, and you too can follow that path, studying the way of peace, love and nonviolence, and finding a way to get in the way.  Finding a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.”

It’s the willingness to risk scorn and doubt.

Those intrepid “greens,” attempting to alert an unbelieving public to the dangers of environmental degradation and global warming were shunted aside in political considerations.

Some, under the pressure caved to the opprobrium of the skeptics, softening the rhetoric to call it “climate change,” when in reality it’s a massive, systemic dose of “global warming.”

Too many have become captive to an oppressive cultural narrative that leads to self-censorship.  Softening and thus preventing a true analysis of our situation.  The other day, Christopher taught me the academic term for the force of this cultural expectation, “hegemonic narrative” — the domineering story.  Adhere to it or be shunted aside, or worse in some autocratic nations, be jailed or disappeared.  It’s the velvet glove, and sometimes iron fist, of dehumanization.

Euphemisms act to prevent a true understanding of the situation.  “Collateral damage” disguises the reality of the mangled bodies and grief caused by indiscriminate bombing of schools, hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza.  They act to soften the reality of what we are doing.

The other week the U.S. was in high dudgeon over one American killed by an Israeli soldier on the West Bank, but not much was said of the bombing of a refugee camp that killed 19 and wounded many more.  We certainly did not cut off the flow of weapons and dollars funding these atrocities.  Does an American life really have the same value of so many more Palestinian lives?  Really? 

We once were lost but now are found, were blind but now we see.

Now, these chickens of environmental destruction are coming home to roost.  The eyes of many are finally being opened.

We’ve recently learned of the so called “forever chemicals,” cancer causing substances, that take centuries to degrade.  The New York Times had an article alerting us to the contaminants found in fertilizer made from municipal sewage.  Not only did this stuff contain many nutrients but it also contained chemicals from popcorn bags to firefighting gear and nonstick pans.[6]

“In some cases, the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing livestock and are turning up in produce.  Farmers are beginning to fear for their own health.”  The state of Maine banned the use of sludge for agricultural purposes after finding contamination on at least 68 of the 100 farms checked.

Millions of tons of this stuff have been spread over millions of acres of farmland at the behest of the federal government as a way of keeping this sludge out of landfills.  Now, remediation is neigh on impossible, the costs astronomical.  Are our eyes opened yet?  Can we see clearly now?

Our vocation is to find some trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.  To wake up, then get in the face of those still asleep as to what we are doing.  Let the Spirit open our eyes that we get a true assessment of our situation.

Global warming certainly has a face in Southern California – fire.  In the past couple of weeks hundreds of thousands of acres have burned, causing the loss of dozens of homes.  And they’re still burning.  Wakey-wakey.  Time to open our eyes and smell the coffee.  And avoid nonsense pretending to be reality.

Jesus sat his disciples down “then he began to teach them…”  He informs us of our true cruciform vocation.  It’s about living a life for others – through which we discover the meaning and purpose of our own lives.

I close with something Joan Baez said:

“You don’t get to choose how you are going to die.  Or when.  You can only decide how you are going to live.  Now.”  Today — that choice is ours.  Now.  Amen.

---

[1] Patrick Aftoora Orsagos, Julie Car Smyth, and Elliot Spagat, “An Ohio city reshaped by Haitian immigrants lands in an unwelcome spotlight, Associated Press, September 11, 2024.
2 Isaiah 50:4, NRSV.
3 James 3:1-2a, NRSV.

 

 

[4] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).

[5] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 50^th Anniversary 4^th edition, 2018), 30.

[6]Hiroko Tabuchi, “Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Turn up on Farms in U.S., New York Times, September 1, 2024.

September 15, 2024
17 Pentecost, Proper 19

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 116:1-8;James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38 “The MAGA Pet Cookbook”

Like many other people, my days are filled with things to do and places to go.  Right from the get-go, I’ve got a “to do” list and the internal dialogue between my two ears is the ordering of it.

If there’s a problem, I’ll quickly jump to possible solutions before carefully assessing the nature of it in all its complexity.  This is especially true, if the matter brought to my attention involves another person.

How many times have we all been that busy, hostage to the chores of the day?

In our lesson from Mark, Jesus is confronted with a personal problem on his busy journey.  He also has places to go and things to do.  In the midst of the busyness, he seeks some respite in a private home.  He just needs a few moments of peace and quiet for himself. So, an interruption comes as a big annoyance.  A thing to be dispatched with quickly.  It is the story of the Syrophoenician woman who seeks healing for her demon-possessed daughter.

When the woman makes her request, Jesus abruptly dismisses her with, “’Let the children [of Israel] be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’  But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’”

Her clever response cuts him short.  To listen, really hear what the other is saying and be affected by it.  That’s the “Power of Love.”

A favorite from the film, “Back to the Future” by Huey Lewis and the News, “The Power of Love,” soared right to the top of the charts.

The Power of Love is deep, down really listening to what’s said and what’s not said.

The chorus nailed it:

You don’t need money, don’t take fame
Don’t need no credit card to ride this train
It’s strong and it’s sudden, and it’s cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life
That’s the power of love
That’s the power of love

The power of Jesus Love was intense, active listening.  He let that women get to him.  And she WAS RIGHT! 

The God spark in him was changed by her plea.

In the midst of his annoyance, Jesus listened.  Actively listened.

That was the first lesson of my married life.  I had to learn to really listen to Jai, to let her inside and take account of her concerns.  To be emotionally available.  It’s taken fifty-seven years and I’m still working on it.

Jai gets the first crack at each and every sermon.  My first question to her after she’s read it, “Was it interesting?”  Second, “Did it give you a better understanding of the scripture lesson?”  My writing has profited immensely from simply listening to my wife.  Her gift back to me is the Power of Love.

The Church also listened, realizing that its mission is far more comprehensive than to a small, select group of the “chosen”.  The Gospel mandate transcended culture, race and gender.  We’re still working on that lesson.  Indeed, “In Christ there is no east or west, no north or south.”

The broader mission all began with truly hearing the anguished plea of this outsider, this foreigner.  In hearing those on the margins, we also may learn to listen to our own lives.

Frederick Buechner points the way, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”  Listen to the lives of those around you and see their lives as sheer grace.

And in listening to those whom we would too quickly dismiss, we stumble upon the amazing grace of who we are – renewal for ourselves and for the world.  That’s the Power of Love.

When I was teaching, and had to referee a dispute between two young fellows on the playground, one of the first things I learned was to listen deeply to both sides.  The matter was never so simple as it seemed to either of the disputants.   My duty was to give both boys voice, let each be heard.

Recently, Nicholas Kristof had some very important advice on listening in his latest op-ed column, “Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters.”  And, yes, I have to plead guilty.

Quoting Bill Clinton, he writes “’I urge you to meet people where they are,’ said Clinton, who knows something about winning votes outside of solid blue states. ‘I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you.’”[1]

Kristof continues, “It’s more than politically stupid – it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re disparaging.”  But it’s more than that.

Kristof adds, “It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults.”

Good politics begins with deep listening and really hearing the other. 

When Kristof shared with some of his colleagues the nature of his forthcoming piece, many were aghast.  “Plenty of readers replied hotly: ‘But they deserve to be demeaned!’”

Kristof counsels that we step back and all take a deep breath.  He recalls FDR’s radio address, a “Fireside Chat” of April 7, 1932.  His talk, “The Forgotten Man,” addressing a nation at the height of the Great Depression, roused a nation to believe in one another.

FDR did not scold, did not cast blame.  He heard and empathized.  I like to think that this demeanor came deep from what he had learned over the years in his Episcopal congregation.  And listening to his Eleanor.

“These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”[2] 

As his funeral train made its way across the nation, a man was found weeping along the route, and was asked if President Roosevelt had been a close friend. “I didn’t know him,” the man replied. “But he knew me.” This was a feeling shared by millions of Americans.

Roosevelt listened.  He listened to his former colleagues in congress.  He listened to the reports Eleanor brought back from her trips throughout the land.  In the grace of his listening our nation was healed.  That’s the Power of Love.  Gospel Love.

The Power of Love is the willingness to listen, especially when the news is not good of favorable to oneself.  And let that message into your soul.  To be affected by it at the depths of one’s being.  To risk being changed by it.

This past week, on the front cover of The Economist was the headline on Sudan.[3]  This is a tragedy that has received far less coverage than the war in Ukraine and Gaza, yet it is deadlier than both combined.

“Africa’s third-largest country is ablaze. Its capital city has been razed, perhaps 150,000 people have been slaughtered and bodies are piling up in makeshift cemeteries visible from space.  More than 10 million people, a fifth of the population have been forced to flee from their homes…6 to 10 million people could die from starvation.”  Folks, this is not “Morning in America.”  And the world stands by as a collection of bad actors – Russia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey have played both sides to their own benefit. 

We, in the West, need to impose biting sanctions on those fueling the conflict with money, weapons and soldiers.  We need to hear the cries of the ignored.  We must heed their call.   I wonder how long we would turn our heads if these victims were white.  And don’t think that this disaster will not find it’s way to our door.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy upon us.

We have abandoned this part of the world just as we have abandoned the women of Afghanistan.  As far as they are concerned Biden has been no different than Trump.  They both conspired to sell these women and girls into a future of misery and abject servitude.

No education beyond the sixth grade is permitted for girls.  For women, no employment in virtually any job.  Women are not to be allowed in public spaces – parks, gyms, shopping areas.  They are virtually restricted to the home, being housewives and having children. 

We sold them out.  They were not consulted in the negotiations and abandonment that extinguished their hopes.  All decided by a bunch of men who cared not a whit about their future or aspirations.  Colin Powell once said, “It’s Pottery Barn rules.  You break it, you own it.”  Apparently, not us.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy on us all.

A widow, Ms. Rahmani, who had worked for nonprofit groups for nearly 20 years before the Taliban seized power, cannot now provide for her four children since women were barred from employment.

“’I miss the days when I used to be somebody, when I could work and earn a living and serve my country,’ Ms. Rahmani explained.  ‘They have erased our presence from society.’”[4]

This is our doing.  We invaded their nation then walked away leaving a complete disaster.  The men in charge took no thought for what they left behind for one half of the population, the women and girls.

Can you hear them now?  Let us deeply listen to their pain.  Listen as Jesus deeply listened to that Syrophoenician woman.  As he listened to so many along the fraught road to Jerusalem.  This is the first act of love.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy upon us.

Listen we must.  And become aware.  Support aid through whatever channel.  “Your thoughts and prayers” are insufficient here if not acted upon.

The Power of Love may seem insignificant, but when infinitely multiplied by the Spirit that stimulates creative solutions, empowers our gumption and fortifies courage, who knows what the Almighty can do through those of us willing to listen and to act?  For the present, perhaps the best we can do is to immerse ourselves in the spirituality of the Serenity Prayer.  Ask and accept forgiveness.

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

Then we’ll see the amazing Power of Love. 

May it be so.  Amen.

---

[1] Nicholas Kristof, “Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters,” New York Times, August 1, 2024.

[2] Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Forgotten Man,” Fireside Chat, April 7, 1932.

[3] “Why Sudan’s War is the World’s Problem,” The Economist, 9.

[4] Christina Goldbaum and Najim Rahim, “With New Taliban Manifesto, Afghan Women Fear the Worst,” New York Times, September 4, 2024.

September 8, 2024
16 Pentecost, Proper 18

Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146;James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

“The Power of Love”

More about food this Sunday.  Some religious authorities insisted that the dietary law be followed scrumptiously – washing hands.  Now, even my mother insisted on that before dinner.  Not that we scrupulously followed her directions about hands. 

But these ultra-religious leaders insisted that dirty hands, or not sufficiently-washed hands would lead one into the outer darkness and gnashing of teeth, utter doom.  You might be defiled for all eternity.  Even Mom did not go that far.

In addition, there were certain foods that might defile one.  Now that I could believe.  At least liver and onions, rutabagas, parsnips and tomato aspic could come close to leading to eternal damnation.  At least that’s what I told Mom (or something like that).  She didn’t buy that either.

Now, before we shift all the blame to religious leaders long gone, maybe we should point this passage to our hearts.

Sometimes, we Episcopalians can be just as pompous and self-righteous about our traditions.  Our hoity-toity attitudes can get in the way of Gospel love.  We can be standoffish and aloft when it comes to working with others in the Christian family.

I remember one of our more Anglo-Catholic priests upbraiding me for having children’s sermons during worship.  She asserted, “The Episcopal Church is an adult church.”  To which I responded, “Jan, if we really believe that, we soon will be a cadaver church.”  Do children’s sermons really defile our traditions?  Really???

Some religious big shots confronted Jesus concerning all the nit-picking traditions and superstitions in the practice of their faith.  “Why do your disciples not live according to the traditions of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”  To which Jesus responded, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…’”[1]

When it comes to “defile,” there are far more serious failings to consider than dietary laws.  As in what defiles a nation.  As in what defiles the whole community.

A while back, we passed two significant anniversaries – the conviction of Lt. William Calley in the massacre at My Lai and that of Charles Manson and his cult followers’ – “The Manson Family” — murderous rampage in Los Angeles.  March 29, 1971 was the day of both convictions.

Lt. Calley gave the orders that resulted in the wanton slaughter of some 450 innocent villagers, men, women and children – many raped and brutally tortured by U.S. troops before being shot and bayonetted.

That day was a moment of complete desecration of this nation, the military and all that we as Americans hold sacred.

That very same day Charles Manson and his followers were convicted of the brutal murders of the La Biancas and those at the home of Sharon Tate.  Utter Desecration.

But there’s an alternative.  In the midst of our worst, many more are bending their efforts to lift us up.

Most of us will attempt to live lives of decency and compassion for both neighbor and stranger.  And as Machele Obama proclaimed last week on the “contagious power of hope,” “America, hope is making a comeback.  Big time!

Most of us will be good neighbors.  As Oprah Winfrey said that last week’s Democratic Convention, when a house is on fire, we wouldn’t ask who the owner voted for, we don’t ask what party they are a member of, or whether they are black or white.  And even if they are a “childless cat lady, we’ll try to get the cat out.”

These efforts range from the minor to the sublime, from those of seemingly no consequence to those of political import.

It’s about standing up for truth and rebutting misinformation and lies.  The other day at Vons in the checkout line, I was practicing what Sister Semone Campbell of “Nuns on the Bus” dubbed “checkout line evangelism.”

I had asked the clerk totaling up my bill if he had seen any of Vice President Kamala Harris’ speech.  The clerk responded, “She’s anIndian.” “No,” I asserted, “she’s biracial.  Her father is a Jamaican black man.”  “No, she’s Indian,” he persisted.  I challenged him to look it up on the Google machine.  “She’s biracial.”  Meanwhile, Jai was attempting to shrink into the groceries as others nearby listen in on this exchange.

This little episode might not have convinced him, but it did in some small way rebut the misinformation and ignorance that’s out and about in our political landscape.

In the aftermath of the defilement by the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15,1963, one man stood tall for justice, Doug Jones.[2]

Due to the rampant violence, that city had earned the moniker of “Bombingham.”  At the trial of a KKK member, the only person to have been charged with that crime, a young law student, Doug Jones, had skipped classes to sit in on all the proceedings.  When a guilty verdict was announced, Doug swore in his heart that he would somehow work to bring the others to justice.

His perseverance and efforts paid off.  Amost four decades after that trial, Doug had risen to become a U.S. Attorney based in Birmingham, and that bombing still haunting his days and nights.

Despite the advice of well-meaning friends, he began to dig into that case. “Let it lay.  Nothing to be gained by digging all that old stuff up again.”

Doug would not allow our nation to wallow in justice denied.  It would not be denied for Addie May Collins, Cynthia Morris Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair and their families.  He would dig and dig.

There was a lot to cover up.  The FBI was well aware of the threat the KKK posed to anyone, even their own agents and informants.  There were KKK sympathizers within their own ranks.[3]

Bending Toward Justice is Senator Doug Jones’ story of how, in the midst of abject defilement, justice finally triumphed for these girls and their families.  He lifted up, he restored faith in our system of laws.

On the other end of the spectrum, I came across a story of a family working to restore what is broken.

In the Los Angeles Times I read this article on the little Mojave Desert town of Amboy.  I suspect many of you have never heard of the place.[4]

I knew it as a geology major.  There’s an extinct volcano right outside the town.  We would take trips out there to climb it and collect “bombs.”  These were rocks ejected from the volcano.  As they fell back to earth, the mouton lava solidified in a round form with a tail on both ends, thus a “bomb.”

The town of Amboy dried up and was abandoned when bypassed by the interstate highway.  Finally, an immigrant named Albert Okura enamored by the cultural heritage and mystique of the place, purchased the entire town.  Albert’s son, Kyle, upon inheriting it, has labored to restore the small café, Roy’s Motel and gas station in hopes of having a portion of Route 66 named in honor of his father, Albert Okura.

Albert, the “Chicken Man,” founder of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain, had originally purchased Amboy some twenty years ago.  As a former geology major and a bit of a “desert rat,” I am overjoyed to see the restoration of Amboy and some of its iconic buildings.

Yes, “Get your kicks on Route 66,” and explore wonderful places like Amboy.  Just a minor tribute to one man building up America.  As Kyle, now the owner of Amboy, proclaims, “It’s unlike any other place you can visit. There’s nothing like it and no way you can replicate something like Amboy.”[5]

It is folks like Doug Jones and the Okura Family; it’s teachers and attorneys, farmers and students, all working to lift up and perfect this nation.  We don’t have to deny the worst of the desecration that has been perpetrated on the body politic and our citizens, especially those on the margins – but we can accept these truths and move beyond the worst in our history.  We don’t banish that part of our history but allow the better angels of our nature to lead us into greater light. 

That is what most of us believe and work for – restoration, perfecting, aligning our efforts with our best vision and values.  That is what will be on the ballot this November.

Again, I close with my favorite James Baldwin passage from his book of essays, The Price of the Ticket.

“For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; The earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us.  The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”[6]

Amen.

---

[1] Mark 7:5-6, NRSV.

[2] Doug Jones, Bending Toward Justice (New York: All Points Books, 2019).

[3] Op. cit., 49.

[4] Alex Wigglesworth, “Saving a Patch of Americana,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2024.

[5] Wigglesworth, op cit.

[6] James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 393.

September 1, 2024
15 Pentecost, Proper 17

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

“What Defiles and What Builds Up”

Food is basic – necessary for survival.  Call me whatever you want but don’t call me late for dinner.

It is unconscionable that the civilized world stands by as famine stalks Gaza and Sudan – where just in Sudan three fourths of a million are on the verge of starvation.  And the world sits idly by.  Especially, when virtually all food shortage is the result of wars, mismanagement and government indifference. 

Food is one of those areas in life where we can be most critical.  At Pilgrim Place, our retirement community, if the string beans are undercooked there will be a flood of comments from the residents – at least one from me! 

Some foods do not please and there’s no getting around it.  My brother Tom could not abide Brussels sprouts.  With me it was liver and onions.  If I was quiet, when my parents’ attention was directed elsewhere, I could slip most of that in small pieces to our dog Skippy who waited expectantly at my seat.

One night as dinner was concluded, Tom still had five or six Brussels sprouts on his plate.  He placed a napkin over them and proceeded to take his plate off the table, something he never did.  As Dad looked up from the evening paper, he reached over a hand and whisked that napkin off Tom’s plate.

“Sit down,” he commanded.  “You’re going to finish those.” 

As Dad went back to his paper Tom mulled his options.  Then a flash of inspiration.  Maybe these horrible things might taste better if he put them in his glass of lemonade.  Nah, that didn’t improve them.  Well, what about some ketchup.  That always made food taste better.  By this time, Dad had lost his patience.  “Tom, you’re going to eat those…NOW!”

Tom tried to choak one down, gagging and sputtering lemonade all over.  He was soon in tears when Mom, the peacemaker, came over.  She got Dad to agree to let him dump the concoction if he would eat just one.  And promise to never do that again.  I was sure glad that I didn’t mind eating my Brussels sprouts.

In scripture, food is symbolic of the goodness that God intends for all.  It is what the end-time feast is all about, a metaphor for God’s bounty that all are invited to share in on the Last Day.  “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.”[1]  All the stuff I now can’t eat due to my renal diet I’ll be able to indulge in.  And…I’ve already notified St. Peter that if there’s no beer, I’m not going.

Again, this week’s passage from John’s gospel brings to mind the Eucharistic feast.  I consider this sacrament as Christ’s invitation to all the sit at the Table of God’s Free Bounty when the dinner bell is rung.  That wafer is the sacramental token of God’s desire that all are welcome to partake in the riches of creation.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Food is a metaphor of God’s graciousness, the whole shebang – God’s will that all are satiated with the entire goodness of creation.  As we, the Church, — Christ’s Body — cooperate with the Spirit to bring this vision to reality, we are Christ present to our neighbors.  It might not be much – a few tomatoes, some peaches and apricots – but it shall suffice when offered up with all the other food that’s donated and distributed every Wednesday at St. John’s.

Unfortunately, this is not how the real world works within our economic system.  If one examines that word, “economy,” it comes from two Greek words – “oikos,” meaning house and “nemean,” meaning to manage. 

In the teachings of Jesus, there is about those left to manage affairs for an owner who is away — just as we are given responsibility to manage our affairs in the physical absence of the Lord.  And how are such managers to be judged? – not on the Last Day but now, in the daily grind of our economic system?  I like to think the standard to which they are held is how the wealth of the household is distributed equitably to all.  Especially the “least of these.”

Now, if we had a manager who was responsible for say, one hundred souls, and say only two of them ended up with 90 percent of all the goodies.  And forty of them had virtually nothing, or near nothing — how would we rate that manager?  If half of them had untended illnesses and never saw a doctor or health care professional, how long should that manager remain in charge?  If sixty percent went to underfunded schools or mostly missed classes, would you keep paying that manager?  If ten members of that household actually had to live on the streets, or were sold into servitude because the manager refused to provide for their essential care, would you keep that manager?  Does this regime the look like the Beloved Community of the Jesus Movement? 

“You’re FIRED!!!” would the end of that operation.

Indeed, you would say that manager ought to be relieved of his or her position and, if not cast into the outer darkness with the mournful whaling and the gnashing of teeth — he or she at least ought to be compelled to live in a tent city on Wilshire Blvd. or some Skid Row among those suffering is the result of the neglect this manager has wrought.  And maybe after a bit of eternity, we might hope that this derelict manager would have developed a little compassion for the cast aside.

Is it any wonder that a good number of the younger generation have given up on the capitalist system?  Their beef?  All it’s done is saddled them with massive amounts of student debt, mainly because the uber rich have refused to support public colleges the way they were previously compelled to under a tax code when they paid their fair share. 

When I went to a community college, I think my tuition didn’t amount to much more than $25 a unit – no longer the case.  Even at public colleges, our students end up graduating with $30,000 to $40,000 in student loan debt.  Hundreds of thousands if they go on to graduate school.

Jorge Reiger, in his book, Christ and Empire,[2] takes the analysis of the disparity further than H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture by noting that most theology is done in the context of a comfortable middle-class culture.  If we are going to look at the context from a comfortable, highly educated standpoint, that’s not the group Jesus was interested in.  The “Least of These” was his focus.  We must ask, what does it mean to do theology from the bottom?   Yes, Jesus was interested in the well to do, but only in that they might develop a heart for those at the bottom, the dregs of the empire’s economic and political system.  How often are we are that rich, young man, woman, sent empty away?

The emphasis on the importance of food enough to satisfy all is a stand-in for God’s will that all have enough of life’s goodies to flourish.  Not only are we talking about freedom from hunger, but the freedom for each woman and man to be fully alive, to reach their full potential.  It’s about being fed with the freedom to have decent work at a living wage.  The freedom to have political agency.  The freedom to love whom you love.  It’s about the freedom to have decent housing in a safe community.  The freedom to learn and go as far as your talent and effort will take you.  In short, to thrive.  St. Ignatius proclaimed, “The Glory of God is a man [a woman] fully alive.”  That means, not only us middle class folks but especially those at the bottom the heap.  The heavenly dinner bell is rung for those who hunger, not for the well satiated.

At my favorite bookstore in Charleston, West Virginia, this past week, I came across a new biography of Harriet Tubman by Tiya Miles.  In her new work, Night Flyer, Dr. Miles centers her story in the context of Harriet’s spirituality and African traditions.  Harriet Tubman rang that heavenly dinner bell loud and clear for those would escape the brutality of their enslavement.  Her’s is a theology from the bottom.  Freedom was the nourishment she served up.

Though Harriet never learned to read, she was deeply immersed in the fabric of the Christian story.   In her work, God was a reality providing comfort, assurance and guidance.  Immersed in a patriarchal society wed to the institution of slavery and domination, she developed a countercultural belief centered on freedom and liberation.

“God set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength to my limbs; He meant that I should be free.”[3]  She followed that North Star, the apogee of the Drinking Gourd,[4] to lead her to her own freedom, and would by it, lead hundreds of others out of the yoke of bondage to their own freedom.  This notion of freedom “stemmed from her lived experience, moral intuition, critical inquiry, cultural learning, religious feeling and environmental surroundings.”[5]  That call to liberation was Harriet’s dinner bell ringing.

Would that the Church learn from Harriet Tubman and realize that if we are to be faithful to the vision of the Jesus Movement, we too must stand against the norms of a society that leaves far too many in the dust.  Ours must be a countercultural stance.  As Christ’s option is for the poor, so must ours be as well. As managers in the Jesus Movement our task is clear.  The poet spells it out: “We are simply asked to make gentle this bruised world.  To be compassionate of all, including one’s self.  Then in the time left over to repeat the ancient tale and go the way of God’s foolish ones.”[6]  May it be so.  Amen.

---

[1] Isaiah 25: 6, NRSV.

[2] Joerg Rieger, Christ & Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press, 2007).  H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1975).

[3] Tiya Miles, Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People (New York: Penguin Press, 2024), xviii.

[4] the constellation we now call the Big Dipper.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Peter Byrne, “We are Simply Asked” as set to music by Jim Strathdee, “Light of the World,” Caliche Records, Ridgecrest, CA, 1982. Words copyright 1976 by Peter Byrne, S.J. Music by Jim Strathdee, copyright 1981. 

August 18, 2024
13 Pentecost, Proper 15

Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm 34: 9-14
Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

When I was in the Army, our cook was often a favorite target for scorn and derision – and bad jokes.  We knew they believed in hiring the handicapped because we joked that Cookie must have had his taste buds shot off in the Korean War.

But mess hall food was far superior to C-rations.  Various items in tin cans we called “mystery food.”  I still remember the end of a long day out on bivouac after having marched for miles when we finally sat down to dinner with our various cans of C-rations.  I searched through the pile of them and was overjoyed to find a can marked “lima beans and ham.”

We had these small devices to open the cans we carried around in our pockets.  I got mine out and could soon smell the odors of my anticipated meal wafting out into the still, late afternoon air.  When I finally got the can opened, it was a major disappointment.  What’s this stuff?  There, I beheld one lima bean floating in a sea of grease.  Having nothing else, I managed to choke it down.  Enjoy.  “Bread of angels…food enough,” our Psalm asserts.

There’s a Passover song that’s traditionally sung, “Dayenu.”  It translates as “it would have been enough.”  If God had only brought us out of Egypt, and left us at the Red Sea, “It would have been enough.” If God had led Moses’ band to the Red Sea and left them there, “It would have been enough.” 

If God had split the sea for us, and had not taken us through it on dry land, it would have been enough.  Dayenu.

 If God had led them through the desert wilderness and had not given them the Torah, “It would have been enough.”  Dayenu.

If God had only provided manna and nothing else, “It would have been enough.”  Dayenu.

It’s an exclamation of gratitude for that which is actually provided.  Dayenu!

If God had only provided one lima bean floating in a sea of grease that evening, “Dayenu.”

When confronted with this white stuff that arrived in the morning – supposedly food – that’s what the children Moses had asked for – What’s this?  Which is the literal translation of manna – “What’s this stuff?” – a variation on the question we soldiers asked of Cookie’s offerings.

It’s the answer to Moses’ band’s complaint about the food.

“In the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.  When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as the frost on the ground.  When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’…Moses said to them, “it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”  Dayenu!

What’s this stuff?  Sometimes you don’t want to know.

When we had our diocesan convention in the interior of Alaska, an area mostly populated by the original inhabitants, Athabascan peoples, we would have delicacies of the cooking of that region.  Minto was spectacular in their hosting of us all from around the state for an entire week.

Among the offerings were fish head soup and moose head soup.  Don’t ask what’s in those dishes.  Just enjoy and be a polite guest.  In the face of such gracious hospitality, no one dared ask, “What’s this stuff?”  It was all the largess of God’s free bounty.  Enjoy.  “Bread of angels…food enough.” Dayenu!

If all we can provide from St. Francis Garden this year is a few tomatoes and some fresh fruit – Dayenu.

As we wander through a wilderness, much of it our own making, we often feel helpless and depressed at the choices.  In the darkness of the journey, we are so polarized that many have dropped out, given up hope.

That’s the burden of a democracy where we all have a voice.  Sometimes those voices are shrill and racist.  They speak revenge and retribution.  And do so with millions of dollars.

So, I would say, if only we had two, out-of-touch guys competing for our votes for president, Dayenu.

If we now have a completely different race with a clear choice, and folks still stay home. Dayenu.

If we are still at gridlock but at least can’t pass any harmful legislation, Dayenu.

If Simone Biles had only won the silver and not the gold.  Dayenu.

If she had won the gold but not been given a shout-out on the Wheaties cereal box, Dayenu.

This summer fire season started earlier than ever.  By July just one fire, the Park Fire, had burned an area comparable to the size of Rhode Island.  If we just can’t summon the political will to address global warming, but more folks are engaged in the conversation, Dayenu.

But, every now and then, the odds do break in favor of those who are oppressed, those unjustly imprisoned.

Like, many who witnessed the release of captives unjustly held by Putin in Russia, I was overjoyed to see their arrival back In the good old US of A – and even though we didn’t get them all out, Dayenu.

For the families of those journalists and activists held in Putin’s autocratic regime, we got quite a few released.  It was through months and, sometimes years of hard work we freed the ones we got.  Dayenu.

In the wilderness of our longing there are no secret cures, no magic, but we have by God’s grace the manna of hope and perseverance.  Dayenu.

If sickness assaults us, and there seems no cure, we have the power yet of accompaniment with those who travel that wilderness.  Dayenu.

Steady acts of faithfulness, often don’t seem like much but they are enough.  Dayenu.  An “attitude of gratitude” shall be sufficient by the Grace of God to not only find a path forward and survive, but maybe, just maybe, to thrive. 

And yes, we grumbled about mess hall food but Cookie did the best he could, which on occasion was stellar.  And if nothing else, quantity made up for quality after a long day’s marching.  Dayenu.

On this Sunday, my eighty-second birthday: for what has been, my teachers and family who have brought me thus far; for what is today, friends and family, my business associates and partners who support me now in the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead; and for what the future holds – it’s been one heck of a ride, and I say, DAYENU!  Amen.

August 4, 2024
Pentecost 11, Proper 13

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; Psalm 78:23-29;
Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35 “What’s This Stuff?”