I was naïve enough to think that with the election over, my in-box would empty out.  No more political announcements or pleas for contributions.  No such luck.  The campaign now goes 24/7, 365 days a year.  To preserve my sanity, I just delete these messages wholesale.  Gone.  You’re done!

Only…only to now be besieged by Christmas messengers urging me to buy everything under the sun.  As one wit put it:  We are asked to buy a bunch of crap for people we don’t know and don’t care that much about that they don’t need and we can’t afford.

All to the nasal tunes of cartoon chipmunks crooning insipid tunes to trite words.  How is it that in this season of Peace on Earth has been transmogrified into a blizzard of annoyance?   Definitely these are not messengers of Peace and Goodwill to all people on earth.

The Old Testament reading comes from Malachi.  Actually, that was not his name.  It is a title.  It means in Hebrew, “My Messenger.”

Malachi prophesied in that time when the Hebrew exiles were returning from Babylonia to Jerusalem, sometime from 515 to 445 BC.  Jerusalem lain in ruins.  The culture of Judaism was dismantled with the destruction of the temple.  Not one stone resting upon another.

Malachi was God’s Messenger sent to these despondent and wayward returnees.  Much remained to be rebuilt.  The question was where to begin. 

That is the question for America following the 2024 election.  Many folks with many answers now appear.  Which one or ones should be listened to.

Of all the messages on various and sundry issues, how do we discern those that might have divine residue?  Those which build up?  Those which give hope?  Those which tell needed truth?

There’s an old song from Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, folk singers of the sixties.  Pete Seeger grew up in a Protestant home and much of his music caries the ethic of his early religious teachings.

This song most of us sung at rallies and on marches – known as the “Hammer Song.”  The verse I refer to goes:

“If I had a song
I’d sing it in the morning
I’d sing it in the evening
All over this land
I’d sing out danger
I’d sing out warning
I’d sing out love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land, oh”

“Well, I’ve got a hammer
And I’ve got a bell
And I’ve got a song to sing
All over this land
It’s the hammer of justice
It’s the bell of freedom
It’s a song about love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land”[1]

I believe that messages like this protest song that relate danger, warning and a universal love between all our brothers and sisters are of holy import.  They convey divine impact.  They are God’s Hammer.

That was the message of Malachi.

“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.  The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight – indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

“He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descents of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”

He will refine the descendants of Cranmer and Wesley, Augustine and Calvin.  Who can endure the day of his coming?  Her coming?

The Hammer Song gives us criteria for Holy Discernment of the many messages that besiege us.  Warning, Hope, Love – the key.

One of the messengers bearing the hope of Advent is Dr. Jamil Zaki.  His new book, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness[2], relates recent research underlying the case for hope.  In most of us there is an innate goodness and trust in our fellow human beings that wins out.

He relates the tale of a boy who should have grown up cynical and distrustful as a result of early trauma from a rejecting mother.[3]

When Emile was born, this event changed his mother’s life completely.  After giving birth, Linda was plagued by “cruel, demonic voices that mocked and accused her – the torment of schizophrenia.  Trapped in her own mind, she left Emile and Bill, her husband, and lived on the streets of Palo Alto.”[4]

Disheveled, unsheltered and alone as a twenty-five-year-old woman she was subject to unspeakable abuse.  From time to time she would appear in Emile’s life but the relationship was extremely insecure.

Emile survived because his father went to extraordinary lengths to provide a loving household.  Being poor and single, Bill was an excellent, loving father.  “…Bill was doggedly present with his son, offering the ’underbearing attentiveness’ that Emile cherished.”

And amidst the uncertainty of the relationship, over the sporadic visits, it was clear that Emile and Linda cared for each other.

“Outside his house, just before the two would meet, she would sometimes be visibly distraught, fighting the voices.  Then, through force of will, she’d compose herself for as long as they were together.  Family members recall their reunions as peaceful and affectionate.  Mother and son carved out a small space, away from the devils in her mind.”[5]

When Emile was in his thirties, his mother Linda died.  By then she lived across the country and Emile flew back East to be with her in her last days.  He advocated for her with the doctors and others who attended her in the hospital.  He slept by her bed on the floor.  He provided the mothering to her she was unable to provide for him.

“After her death, Linda lived on in his memory, not despite her pain but because of it.  He lacked a ‘normal’ mother but had found a hero, and the beginnings of his world view…Linda marked him with inner ‘superpowers.’”

As a friend would remark, “He understood from early on that wonderful people could end up in terrible circumstances through no fault of their own.”[6]

This psychologist, in telling reality-based stories of hope and the attendant research, is certainly a Messenger of God, every bit as much as Malachi, every bit as much as all Holy Messengers, Attending Angels, sent to us down through the eons of time.  Every bit as much as those visitors who had appeared before the opening of Abraham and Sarah’s desert tent.[7]

Daily we’re attended by such.  Echoes of the Holy One we yet await.  Who are they?  I end with a portion of poem, “A Song of a Man who Has Come Through,” by D.H. Lawrence.[8]

“…. Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.”

Yes, admit them this Holy Advent.  Amen.

---

[1] Pete Seeger, Lee Hays first released “If I Had a Hammer” on Hootenanny Records in August 1, 1950.  Later to be picked up and further popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962.

[2] Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2024).

[3] Ibid, 38-39.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Genesis 18.

[8] D.H. Lawrence, Selected Poems, “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through (New York: Viking Press, 1959), 74/

December 8, 2024
Advent 2

Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 16 (Luke 1:68-79);
Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

“Many Messengers in Real Time”

There’s a story the dean of Grace Cathedral, Alan Jones, told of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul’s in London from 1621until his death in 1631. 

You may not immediately know the name, but you know one of his famous lines, “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls.  It tolls for thee.”

Much of his poetry and writings were considered by some, including King Henry VIII, to be of dubious orthodoxy. 

The story goes that the king was concerned enough to announce his attendance at St. Paul’s on a coming Sunday.

That Sunday in the pulpit, John Donne soliloquized to himself, “John Donne, be careful what you say today, the King is present this morning.  John Donne, be careful what you say today, the King of Kings is present this morning.”

I believe that every morning I enter this pulpit, the King of Kings is present.  Therein lies my first loyalty and duty to speak our first loyalty and duty is to speak the unvarnished truth and give voice to the fervent hope in Christ Jesus.  Especially in this dark, uncertain time.  To do so is to be “putting on the armor of Light.”  So let it shine!  The King of Kings is in our midst — our armor of Light.

So, to begin, let us be absolutely honest concerning the darkness that presently enshrouds our days. 

God’s Grace so often pierces the darkest times.  At the very time the Light of Christ breaks into the world, the Church remembers the Holy Innocents slaughtered by Herod.

You know the hymn, “Lully, Lullay.”  The second verse,

“Herod the King, in his raging/charged he hath this day.
his men of might, in his own sight/all young children to slay.”

And this wanton slaughter of the innocents continues unto this day in Gaza and Lebanon.  Paid for with American dollars.  Putin continues to target the innocents in Ukraine.  For want of care, Holy innocents are killed and brutalized by gangs and famine in Haiti and Sudan.

Friends, these are dark, dark days indeed.

But so often in the midst of such wretchedness, God breaks in and works wonders.  Wonders in an out of-the-way place in a no-account village.  Wonders in a freezing outdoor manger.  Child of impoverished parents.

Such miracles were also wrought out of the dreary cruelty of slavery.

I’ve picked up the autobiography of Frederick Douglass this season for inspiration.  In this season of despair, I turn to such luminous souls who have confronted the darkness and blazed a path to hope.  They sustain us.

Frederick Douglass had been separated from his mother when he was but an infant.  His father was a white man, most likely his master, a consummate master of cruelty. Douglass relays the trauma he suffered as a young boy witnessing his aunt stripped naked to the waist, and whipped until her back was bloody.

“After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose.  He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook…after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor.  I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet.”[1]

This trauma lived with him the rest of his life.  How he got beyond it is indeed a miracle.

Later he was sold to a naive, young mistress in Baltimore, who against the convention of the time, taught him a few basics of the alphabet and reading.  

Her husband absolutely forbade any further instruction.  It was unlawful and unsafe.  Douglass relates the warning given to that young wife.

“If you teach that N. (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him.  It would forever unfit him to be a slave.  He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master…It would make him discontented and unhappy.”[2]

The more vehement the master was against reading; the more certain Frederick became concerning the necessity of reading.  The words of that admonition sank deep into Frederick’s heart and impelled him forward.

From this rudimentary instruction, he tricked white boys into teaching more of the letters and soon taught himself to write.  He continued working on his reading every spare moment he had to himself.

When coming across the abolitionists and reading of them in newspapers he would stash away in secrecy, his mind exploded.

(And I remembered my abysmally ignorant teacher in the fourth grade, when asked about the treatment of slaves, telling us students that “they were happy because they were treated so well.”)  I’m sure she never read Frederick Douglass or any other slave narratives of that period.

In the bleak, dark cruelty of that savage institution, a most brilliant, heavenly light burst forth in Douglass’ mind.  Freedom!

He continues the narration of the opening of his mind in this journey towards the Light.

“The words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought.  It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain.  I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty – to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man.  It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly.  From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.  It was just what I wanted and I got it at a time when I least expected it.”[3]

Frederick Douglass would escape to the North and in time become one of the leading intellectuals of his age.  His essays and columns would be widely disseminated by the northern press.  President Lincoln would esteem his presence.

Would that we might also value the heritage of our education so highly.  But alas, a large percentage of Americans can only read at a fourth-grade level or below.  Half of my eighth-grade history students could not read the text.

Sometimes it takes a while to perceive and prize the light of learning — the Christ Light of innate potential.  For me that light didn’t dawn until the fifth grade.  Out of the raw material of my failure to care and my lack of industry, the light finally dawned when I came across my father’s college entomology book.  Yes, insects!  Bugs absolutely fascinated me and through those creepy crawlies I became hooked on reading. 

Almost as hooked as Frederick Douglass became on the idea of his own innate worth and his striving for freedom.  “The whole armor of light.”

In our darkest times, this season – in the midst of Herod’s raging over “wokeness,” tariffs and stolen elections — we at St. Francis have an inextinguishable hope — the coming of the bearer of Light Eternal.

Yes, let us be careful how we live.  In the fearsome presence of Caesar, let us also be mindful that each day the King of Kings is present to hallow our days.  Let the Light of Douglass’ perseverance and courage enlighten our Advent days.

Amanda Gorman, poet laurate, expresses the hope of our Advent this season:

When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Amen and Amen.

---

[1] Frederick Douglass, Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (New York: Library of America, 1994), 19.

[2] Op. cit., 37.

[3] Op. cit., 37-38.

December 1, 2024
Advent 1

Jeremiah 33:14-16 Psalm 25:1-9;
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

“Putting on the Armor of Light”

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

---

[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.

---

[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.

---

[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”