One activity still possible while in a hospital bed is reading.  I’ve consumed quite a few newspapers and periodicals.  In the science section on one weekly, I came across the limitations of our technology – the Google machine, to be specific.

If you had ever wondered how to keep the cheese on your pizza while eating it — use glue.  That was Google’s handy household hint.  Use glue.  I, suppose it might have been a little more helpful if it had suggested a brand.  Now, left to my own devices, I might have used duct tape in error.  Big mistake.

That story just goes to show that there are some things, like “common sense,” for instance, that humans will always be better at than AI or any other whiz-bang invention.

The coming wave of modern technology will astound but none of it will ever be a stand-in for a real father’s wisdom and love.

In Ezekiel we find the promise and wisdom of nourishment.  “Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out.  I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twig; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.  On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar.  Under it every kind of bird will live…”

This is what a good father, what a good husband does, he nourishes productivity and coaxes from the land a good life for his family.  In short, brings home the bacon.

Before our children were born, given my family of origin’s poor dynamics, I had serious doubts about my ability to be a good father.  It wasn’t until I came across the title of a book on parenting that I began to loosen up a bit.  The book’s title?  “Good Enough.”  I realized that I didn’t have to get everything right, that I would make mistakes.  I just had to be good enough.

Mark’s gospel puts the teaching in another light.  “Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then he full grain in the head…’”

These past weeks, with the 80^th anniversary of the Landing at Normandy, we honored those men who were asked to rise to the defense of our civilized society.  They were asked to do something they had never been trained or wished to do, to kill another human being.

Many were fathers with established lives.  Growing up, most envisioned a future as having a good job, marrying their sweetheart, raising a family and contributing to their communities.  In the end, awaiting the golden years of retirement.  Unfortunately, such a dreamt of future was denied to many of our citizens of color at the time.

My father’s generation has been labeled the “Greatest Generation” by newscaster Tom Brokaw in his book by the same name.  After war was declared by Congress, hundreds of thousands flooded the recruiting stations to fight against the Axis Powers – Germany, Italy and Japan.

My father served in the dental corps in Okinawa.  Jai’s father served in Germany, running the motor pool.  He went in as a private and was discharged as a lieutenant with a battlefield commission.

Contrary, to the Former Guy who dodged the draft, these men were not “suckers.”  They were patriots, many of whom paid the ultimate price.  This from an unfit felon who had the audacity to ask his then-chief of staff John Kelly: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.  What was in it for them?” 

Have you no respect?  As a veteran myself, I highly resent the disparagement that felonious draft dodger casts on those who did serve.  But enough of him!  (Had to get that off my chest).

The story of WWII is a story of thousands of individual stories of men like our fathers, like your fathers, who had left shop and farm, left the comforts of home and family, to report for duty when called.  As I read of the first paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines, as I read of the men struggling up the cliffs to get off the killing grounds of those beaches through confusion, withering machine-gun fire and heavy bombardment, my eyes welled up with tears.  These were stories of sacrifice, bravery and solidarity with the people of Normandy.  These were our fathers.

In the early hours of June 6^th, just after midnight, thousands of U.S. paratroopers came drifting out of the skies near the village of Ste.-Mere-Eglise, France.  That was the first town to be liberated. 

One of its residents vividly recalls that day.  “One parachute floated right down into a trench dug in Georgette Flais’ backyard, where she huddled with her parents and a neighbor.  Attached to it was Cliff Maugham.  Ms. Flais refers to him as ‘our American.’”[1]

The German soldier billeted at her house ran out, pointing his rifle at the trench, threatening to shoot.  Ms. Flais’ father jumped up and begged the German not to shoot.  Amazingly, he agreed.  Soon afterward the German soldier realized that the war was over and surrendered to the American, who calmly handed out chewing gum, cigarettes and chocolate.

“The American then curled up for a nap,” she remembers.  Afterward, “we kissed him warmly goodbye.”  He then headed off at early light to the battle.  A lasting friendship was born that morning.[2]

By 1984 Ms. Flais was teaching Greek and Latin some 140 miles away when June 6^th rolled around.  She was watching TV when she caught the glimpse of an American soldier who had come back for the festivities.  “He was broader and wore a baseball hat instead of a helmet.  But he had the same laid-back demeanor.   She jumped in the car and rushed back to her childhood town.

“It was my American,” she said.  “We fell into one another’s arms.”[3]

Year after year, fewer veterans are able to return to Ste. Mere-Eglise.  Townspeople volunteer driving them around as they seek significant places attached to that dark early morning.  It may have been where they lost a friend, were wounded, or first landed.

For the town’s first annual celebration, while the war still raged in Europe, Maj. Gen. James Gavin sent over 30 American soldiers stationed in Germany for the event.

The bond between the citizens of that small town and their American visitors these days is palpable.  One photographer, Jacques Villain, who has been documenting the annual celebrations remarked, “There is a sense of welcome here that’s nothing like anything else in the region.”

In the motion picture, “The Longest Day,” one memorable scene depicts the American paratrooper, John Steele, who had the misfortune of getting hung-up on the pinnacle of the church’s steeple.  Today, a mannequin of Mr. Steele hangs from that church steeple.

This is what our fathers did and endured for a cause greater than themselves, a cause every bit as prone to failure as a farmer’s labors.

Before the day of the battle, Gen. Eisenhower had written two letters – one in case of total disaster and the other in case of success.  Until the end of that day, he didn’t know which he would be releasing to the news media.

I remember vaguely the day my father returned from the war.  Around the house things were awkward and uncomfortable.  He tried to be a good father and I had no idea of the inner demons that pulled at his soul.

One event I still remember, years after his return, was a vacation trip we took to Ensenada, Mexico.  I was a reluctant camper because it was over my birthday.  I must have been ten or eleven.

My mother had asked me what I might like to do for my birthday.  After thinking a minute, my mind lit up with an idea.  I had remembered seeing all the fishing boats tied up at the docks as we drove through town.  “Fishing,” I exclaimed.  “I want to go fishing.”

I had no idea that my dad got terribly seasick.  As the boat pulled off into the open ocean, I remember him telling me at the rail, “Don’t look down at the water; look at the horizon – that way you won’t get seasick.”

I had all kinds of help from the crewmembers who took me under their wing, baiting my hook and helping me pull in fish after fish.  I think they were seabass.  Dad had gone down to the cabin to rest, not feeling well.

When we got back to shore, I ran up the gangplank with a crewmember behind me hauling my gunnysack full of fish.  Dad staggered up, looking three shades of green.  I exclaimed to my mother, this was the greatest birthday ever, but Dad looked down at the water and got sick.

On the way back to our rented cottage we passed several run-down shacks.  Dad stopped the car and gave away most of my fish.  When I objected, he said that those people needed them more than we did.  A lesson I never forgot.

As we celebrate Father’s Day today, these men in our lives who sacrificed and nurtured us – they are tokens of God’s grace.  They protect, guide and support us through infancy and the rest of our lives.  Like God’s promise in Ezekiel, they are sacramental representations of generativity proclaimed to a desolate Israel by a gracious God.

Indeed, God will take a twig and “plant it on a lofty mountain where it will produce boughs and bear fruit and become a noble cedar.”  That twig is a Father’s love. That is exactly a good father’s hope for his children.

We are the soil on which their guidance, hopes and dreams are scattered, fed by their care and wisdom, and today we celebrate the fathers who have been the sacramental presence of such unbounded love – most, not perfect, but “good enough.”   They have loved us from the first and to the end.  For that gift of grace, we say, “Thanks be to God.”  Amen.

---

[1] Catherine Porter, “First Town Liberated by the Allies Still Remembers, With Gusto,” New York Times, June 8, 2024

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

June 16, 2024
4th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 6

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4,11-14;
2 Corinthians 5:6-10,14-17; Mark 4:26-34 “We Plow the Fields and Scatter the Good Seed on the Land”

It was late in the day.  Folks were tired and getting cranky.  It was the second day of our church convention in Juneau.  Many of us could barely keep our eyelids propped open.  This is when Fr. Bob decided to bring up — and go on and on about — an obscure clause in the Nicene Creed.  Whether the Spirit is descendent through God, the Father only, or through both Father and Son – what is known as the filioque clause implying that the Son is co-equal with the Father.

It was this language that was at the root of the separation between Western and Eastern Christianity.

Now, I ask you; isn’t this your most pressing concern?  With a world in tatters and with rents and grocery prices soaring towards the stratosphere – and this is what we’re going to use our time on?  Really???

After ten minutes of Fr. Bob’s monologue, our convention secretary, Holly, had had enough.  Right then and there, she interrupted his speechifying and blurted out in a loud enough voice for all to hear, “Bob, put a sock in it!”  Whereupon the room broke out in scattered applause.  Apparently, she wasn’t the only one sick and tired of the whole thing.  Fr. Bob’s motion was summarily dismissed by a motion to table.  Yes, Bob – give it a rest.

Rest is what many of us need and yearn for in this go-go, 24/7, hyperactive society.  It is said that even God needed a rest after completing the six days of creation.

In our gospel lesson we encounter Jesus in a contentious argument with the religious authorities over the sabbath commandment to rest.  We quibble over obscure fine points of religious dogma and miss the entire meaning of it all.

Back when I ran our Emmaus Center church camp over in Kupreanof Island, right after lunch we would have “Crash Time.”  Everyone in their bunks.  No electronic games.  You could read or nap.  No talking.

As I herded folks to their beds, one of our young campers turned to me and remarked, “Crash time’s really for you, isn’t it?  Not us.”  I said he was exactly right, “Now, into your bunk.”  It always amazed me how many of our campers were sound asleep when the alarm sounded ending Crash Time.

The same with sabbath rest, it’s really for us.  A time to replenish.   Another benefit of running the Emmaus Center was a change-up in the pace of things.  We were dependent on the tides as to when we could come and go.  You might just as well as throw away your watch.

The Bible talks about two kinds of time – Chronos, as told by a clock; and Kairos, sometimes translated as the ‘fitting or due season.”  A qualitative sense of time, when time is ripe with possibility.

To truly enter sabbath rest is to enter Kairos time.  It’s that liminal space where the Holy Spirit has half-a-chance of getting ahold of us.  Of inspiring, of encouraging, of focusing us.

What is the purpose of it all, then?  It’s found in Micah 6.  “…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

All obscure theological disputations and liturgical controversies pale in comparison.  They are but a clanging, noisy cymbal – of little consequence.  “Sound and fury signifying nothing.”   Got that, Fr. Bob?

All our theologizing should be about the good life God intends for all.  The sabbath is made for us.  For doing good.  Not about abstruse matters no one cares much about at 3:00 in the afternoon when we’re nodding off and everybody wants to go home.  It’s with this understanding that Jesus tells the palsied man, “Stretch out your hand.”

As John Wesley said, “If your heart is as my heart in, take my hand.”

This week, in the June issue of “Christian Century,” I came across an ad for a conference, “Hearing Christ: The Gospel for an Exhausted World.”  Many clergy I know are feeling some sense of exhaustion: trying to make budgets work with unmet overhead expenses, diminishing Sunday attendance, more deaths than baptisms.

Unfortunately, most of us clergy, when things are not going well, feel that the only solution is to work harder.  More ideas, more meetings.  More exhaustion and more burn-out.

It’s the same with our natural world – it’s coming close to exhaustion.   It may well be time to give Mother Nature a rest.  We’ve imposed far too great a burden on her.

There on the front page of the Los Angeles Times a while ago was a deep-sea picture of a fifty-five-gallon drum oozing some of the nastiest stuff around.  DDT – toxins we thought we had gotten rid of years ago.  Now, these zombie chemicals were coming after us.[1]

Decades ago, hundreds of tons of DDT were disposed of by dumping them into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California.  Out of sight, out of mind – right?  Well, like the Terminator, they’re back again.

Are you up for a refresher course in oceanography?  You may remember, our former Presiding Bishop, the Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, has her PhD in oceanography.

This will be a “deep dive” – pun intended, so fasten your seat belt.

When scientists began collecting, dissecting and analyzing, one particular fish, the myctophids, also known as lanternfish, caused much concern because they migrate from the depths to the surface and travel great distances.  Moreover, these little critters make up “roughly sixty-five percent of all deep-sea biomass on Earth.”[2] 

They’re among the most abundant creatures on the planet.  Yeah, I’ve never heard of them either.

“The findings have been sobering: Wherever they looked, they found DDT. Even the ‘control’ samples they tried to collect — as a way to compare what a normal fish sample farther away from the known dumping area might look like — ended up riddled with DDT.”[3]

To boot, this toxin has traveled right up the food chain.  It’s now showing up in “dolphins, and coastal-feeding condors (and a recent study by another team even connected an aggressive cancer in sea lions to DDT).”[4]

Oh, did I mention all the other nasty stuff the scientists found – hundreds of tons of discarded munitions left over from WW II?  And don’t forget the ubiquitous “forever chemicals” and tons of microplastics.

Indeed, Give It a Rest!  And clean up this mess. 

What can one do?  Plenty!

Become informed.  Every day follow your browser to a science web site.  I highly recommend “Science Daily.”  It’s free and has a multitude of peer-reviewed articles on health and the environment.   Only takes a few minutes of our time.

Read the “Science News” section of the NY Times.  A digital subscription costs little.

Bring up the topic with friends and family.  The ignorant say “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.”  No!  What we collectively don’t know is killing the planet.

Engage in what my friend, Sister Simone Campbell – head Nun on the Bus – calls “check-out line evangelism.”  Ask those waiting with you at the grocery store what they think about the legacy we are leaving to their children and grandchildren.  Encourage even small, baby steps – for they often lead to more significant action.

March!  In my day an entire generation of young people put an end to a ruinous war in Vietnam.  It’s time to strap on your shoes for a healthy planet.  As Rabbi Beerman was fond of saying, “My marching feet are my prayers.”

And while you’re getting your sneakers on, think about marching for a ceasefire in Gaza.  That war is devastating our environment every bit as much as the worst pollutant.  Time to cut off the money.  Time to cut off the weapons.  As we proclaimed in the sixties, “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” 

Most importantly, vote for candidates who share your concern for the planet.  Unfortunately, too many politicians of both major parties are owned “lock, stock and barrel” by our vulture capitalist system of greed.  Do your research, see where their major funding is coming from.  That, too, only takes a bit of your time.

Thomas Jefferson warned us that only an informed citizenry can save democracy — and also the planet.

Use your sabbath time to do good – to remember that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof – from the heavens above to the waters below.”  We’re standing on Holy Ground.   Let’s take off our shoes and Give it a Rest.  Amen.

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[1] Rosanna Xia, “’Nothing is Untouched’: DDT found in deep-sea fish raises troubling concerns for food web,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2024.

[2] Op. cit.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

June 2, 2024
2^nd Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 4

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47;
Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53 “Give it a Rest

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I ran my family’s construction and real estate company.  At first, I took over the bookkeeping from my mom.  I converted it from a paper-and-pencil system to Quickbooks.  That meant the first purchase of an up-to-date computer.  

After my father passed, I got my general contractor’s license.  Among our various projects were three houses we remodeled at Lake Arrowhead.  It was quite a drive up there, bscott@livingchurch.org but I made it several times a week to keep track of the progress and arrange for inspections.

One day, early on, I showed up at the site of a house we had gutted and were completely remodeling.  It was right on the golf course lake with a turret and waterfall we had put in.  As I neared the job site, I heard no hammers or saws.  I found the crew just standing around.

When I asked them why, the foreman Paulo explained that they were waiting for materials to arrive.

I told them that I didn’t have a pay category for “standing around.”  Further, there’s not a construction site that doesn’t need picking up and swept up.  “Let’s get to work.”  They got the hint and brooms and dustpans were engaged.  By the time the lumber arrived the job site looked well-tended.

In the Book of Acts, we have a similar story of standing around.

Of course, the disciples might rightly have cause to be staring into the clouds if this is how the story actually happened.  You would too.

However it unfolded, the purpose of this account was to say that the gracious reality of Jesus could no longer constrained to time and place, but, as the Risen Christ let loose in all creation.

Luke concludes his gospel with the charge to Jesus’ followers: “You are witnesses of these things.  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

The reality of this glorious story is to proclaim that we, indeed, have been clothed in power, divine power.  In the Risen Christ we are given agency – agency to participate in building the Beloved Community where all count, all are valued.  That means that I count!  This is a saving story with each invited to be a “cooperator with God.”

A long while ago, I was sharing my rudimentary understanding of this story, leading from Creation through Abraham and Sarah to the prophets and finally to Jesus.  And the marvel of it all, here was I.  Also, a part of the story.  That revelation was the Christmas present I received that year.  Our campus pastor asked if I might share that revelation at our Christmas meeting that coming week.  I did – my first homily, if you could call it that.  It wasn’t that great, as I remember it.

So let me attempt a reprise on my thoughts on the glorious heritage into which we are enfolded in Christ.

I find myself blessed to be a part of a culture informed by the “better angels” of this saga – lives infused with purpose and meaning beyond our stunted selves – a greater story drawing us into that reality we call Christ.

We sing an Easter hymn with the line, “Christ whose glory fills the skies.”  That’s wonderful, sublime poetry, but I am more concerned that this glory fills the hopes and promise of all here who below on earth do dwell.

It’s about the humility to be thankful to only play a small, mostly insignificant role.  Take making amends.

I opened my newspaper from my veterans’ organization, “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” this week and there on the front page was an article on the library and learning center sponsored and built by our organization.

One of our Vietnamese partners wrote:  “Thanks to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War grant, we are now building a library at An Nghia…The kids are all over the place, excited by the prospect of the new VVAW library sponsored by an American NGO.”[1]

This, where once we had carpet bombed the entire province, killing thousands of men, women and children.  Amends, allowing our two peoples to see and honor the humanity in one another.  Christ, whose glory fills the hearts of us, his flawed followers – is a more glorious story of making amends and of forgiveness.

Christ whose glory fills the aspirations of the shoved-out and pushed aside.  It’s a glorious thing when these folks realize their God-given power from on high.  Or from deep within.

One of the books I had ordered as a possible Lenten study book this year, Sacred Belonging by Kat Armas caught my attention from the stack of books on my desk a little while ago.

Kat is a “recovering Evangelical,” as I would term it.  She has found in reading the Scripture with fresh eyes and heart, a path beyond the confines of the narrow, stultifying religiosity of her youth.

She recounts a seminal incident wherein she had confronted the senior pastor of her church over the issue of women’s leadership in the community of faith, an eye-opening moment.[2]

Her pastor had asked for a meeting over the matter of her “role” and “place” in the congregation.  Apparently, he was unable to affirm her full humanity as a Cuban woman.

He had been telling the congregation that she was “unsubmissive” because she had gathered with other women in the church for Bible study without his permission.

In fear and trembling, not trusting in her own abilities, a “Spirit came over me.”  Right there in the coffee shop, in front of God and everyone, Kat opened her Bible to Matthew 28 and slammed it down hard on the table.  She now had everyone’s attention. Reading, she added, “All authority has been given to Jesus, NOT you.”

That very day she realized her empowerment by the Spirit.  A most liberating moment.  Christ’s glory filled all of Kat’s being brim-full, from her tippy toes to the crown of her head. 

Kat has since grown in stature as a renowned author and Biblical Scholar where she highlights the stories of women of color, known for her “fierce truth-telling and compelling story-sharing,” frequently writing for Sojourners Magazine among others.

That’s the work we’re given to.  So, let’s get busy.  Christ’s glory is spread all abroad that the likes of you and me are given our place and assignments in his glory here on earth, trusting in Power from On High – and from Deep Within.  What we do and who we are matters.  Matters to God and to one another.

By the way, I rejoice that the United Methodists have recently extended an invitation to us Episcopalians to heal the breach between us which opened over two hundred years ago when Bishop Seabury refused to recognize Francis Asbury’s consecration for work as bishop among the people called Methodists.

I close with Fr. John Wesley’s admonition to his followers:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

That’s our charge.  You’ve got the vision.  You’ve got the power.  Let’s get to work.  Glory awaits!  Amen.

---

[1] Khoi Tran, “New VVAW Library and Learning Center,” The Veteran, Spring 2023.

[2] Kat Armas, Sacred Belonging: a 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI, Brazos Press, 2023), 59-60.

May 12, 2024
Ascension Sunday

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47;
Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

“Get to Work”

Let me begin by saying that after a three-week bout of pneumonia and extended recovery here at home, it is a joy to my heart to be back again with you.  I rejoiced weekly in that period of convalescence over the reports I heard from you.

When I first came out of the fog in the Kaiser-Ontario Hospital, the first thought that came to my mind was, how am I going to get a sermon done for this Sunday?  Then the reality of my hospital bed hit – there’s no way in God’s green earth I would be in any shape to be in the pulpit that coming Sunday.

Shortly, only perhaps a half an hour later, Faith called.  I fumbled through the blankets to find my phone.  When I expressed my concern, she cheerfully responded, “Don’t worry, Rev. Forney, we’ve got six years of your sermons on file here.  One will work.”  And, it did.  Barbara read it.  Ellen made sure the altar was properly set up. Deacon Pat officiated at Deacon’s Mass.  Joseph as acolyte ensured that things went smoothly.  Beth stepped up to provide the music.  Faith made sure the welcome and announcements were read, and you all showed up and carried on splendidly.  And during that week, you oversaw the planting of forty donated bareroot fruit trees in the orchard area of the church grounds.  Fresh fruit in two years for our food distribution program.  A Resurrection People you are indeed!

Shortly after, Christopher arrived on the scene from Brooklyn, New York, to stay with Jai to provide moral support and assist in the immediate needs of caring for me.  Bishop John stopped by my room with the Eucharist and prayer.  Many other visitors followed.

Last Friday, after a trip of several weeks seeing our vast and beautiful country, Christopher, Alexis, Brian the Cat, and Cookie the dog arrived in Claremont after a month-long cross-country road trip.  They had been in Texas to view the eclipse with friends, visited my old Army stomping ground in San Antonio to appreciate the River Walk, Carlsbad Caverns, and then the Grand Canyon – all sights Alexis had never seen.

They are now ensconced in a triplex in Loma Linda.  This past week they’ve been spending hours upon hours assembling Ikea furniture.  I say that if any marriage can survive that ordeal, it’s bound to last.  To boot, Christopher has volunteered during their stay there while the condo in Anaheim is under renovation, to teach English as a second language here at St. Francis for adults in the evenings – a task for which he’s uniquely gifted.  Alexis will finish our church’s website after they settle in and she returns from a brief visit back to New York to be with family and assist an ailing mother. 

Life is good, and it’s all about Love.  All Joy.

This is the bond of care and concern, sacrifice for the good of one another that is at the heart of John’s gospel. It’s his understanding of the core of the faith.  “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”

And from the same community of faith comes the First Letter of John.  “God is Love and those who abide in Love abide in God, and God abides in them…”[1]

This Love is sacramental, which is to say it finds visible tokens of expression in our daily lives.

“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my Love, just as I have kept my father’s commandments and abide in his Love.”

You know these commandments from Jesus reply to an obnoxious lawyer who was testing him in Matthew’s gospel.  Jesus’ reply? — quoting the Torah from Deuteronomy – “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  You know these commandments.  “On these two hang all the Law and the Prophets.”[2]

And the purpose of these teachings?  “I have said these things to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” [3]

Unfortunately, much of the religion that far too many have grown up with was legalistic and punitive – about avoiding damnation and hell-fire.  Toxic.

Far too many have rejected faith as a life-affirming option due to the trauma they bear, often for their remaining days.

I think of my friend in basic training some fifty years ago; he had only a negative understanding of Christianity.  As I was a conscientious objector being trained as a medic in the Army, so were all those in our company,

D-3.  Most were Seventh-Day Adventists, who got the designation automatically along with a few Jehovah’s Witnesses adherents.  And some of us were standard brand Protestants.  Maybe one or two Roman Catholics. 

Then, there was Holderbaum, a Buddhist.  When I asked him, with his last name, how was it that he was Buddhist, he responded: “Well I knew that I wasn’t a Protestant because they can’t drink, have sex or go to movies.  Or have fun.  I knew I wasn’t a Catholic because I didn’t believe in the Pope.  So, that must have left Buddhist.”  So, a Buddhist monk led him through filling out his application for conscientious objector status.  In any case, like me, he was against killing people in the Vietnam War.

The purpose of the faith in Christ is to experience Joy.  Teilhard de Chardin somewhere, I remember, said that “Joy is the most profound evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit.” 

The faith is not about worrying about God’s wrath, it’s about entering into the blessedness of a way of life that affirms all creation, including oneself.  St. Augustine put it this way: “Love God and do what you will,” for those who truly are centered in God will naturally do that which is life affirming.  They can’t help it.

As Mel White wrote in his book, fear leads to “religion gone bad.”[4]  In the opening preface he recounts the gristly torture and murder of a young man solely because he was gay. 

The reason the perpetrators gave for their crime?  “I had to obey God’s law rather than man’s law.  I didn’t want to do this.  I felt I was supposed to…I have followed a higher law…My brother and I are incarcerated for our work of cleansing a sick society…I just plan to defend myself from the Scriptures.”  [5]

All in the name of a perverted and blasphemous version of the Christian faith.  Definitely NOT what Jesus lived and preached.  Definitely, religion gone bad!

Deeply grounded faith in and through the Jesus Movement brings not only Joy but amazing acts of courage.  Acts one might think to be unlikely until the moment arises. 

I think back to my first church I served fifty years ago out in the high desert off Hwy. 395 in Inyokern.  Our lay leader, Bill White, once told me a most amazing story of his father who was a Methodist pastor in Florida.

It was in the time of the sixties, and Bill’s father had begun thinking about how his all-white congregation might learn about their Black neighbors across town.  He thought a girls children’s choir should be pretty non-threatening.  Wrong!

The children arrived at his father’s church that Saturday afternoon to rehearse and spend the night before Sunday’s service.  Around 9:00 PM a group of hostile whites began to gather at the church – many of whom were armed.  Suspecting there might be trouble, Bill’s dad had decided to spend the night at the church with the girls and their chaperones.

When he heard the shouts and looked outside to see the crowd with their torches and weapons, Bill’s dad went outside to meet the gathering, now some fifty in number.  One fellow, holding a shotgun, demanded, “I want you to send those girls outside now.”  To which Bill’s father responded, “If you want those kids, you going to have to come through me.”

A long silence was followed by some scuffling of feet as some of the mob began to melt away.  And then more.  More silence and some whispers as even more left.  Finally, the guy with the shotgun lowered it, shamefacedly turned and left also.

This is the sort of courage his faith gave him.  The next day, those kids gave a marvelous performance, singing their two anthems.  They were not the wiser as to what had transpired the evening before.  The courage of that moment and the joy of that children’s choir lives on through the ages in the retelling.  It’s the sacramental presence of God’s Grace.

It was with a most joyful heart that Bill recounted this event to me.  When I ran an ecumenical fair housing program in the San Gabriel Valley, this was the same joy I would witness as our fair housing volunteers returned after having secured a rental apartment for a prospective tenant of color from a hostile owner or manager – an act of courage to be sure.  Like the anthem proclaims, “There’ll be Joy in the Morning” — for every day holds the promise of Easter Joy.  That’s sort of our thing as members of the Jesus Movement.

It has been said that there are two, and only two, most important days in your life: the day you were born and the day you figured out why.  All the rest flows from the “why,” and living in to that realization usually takes a lifetime.  The novelist Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead, writes, “There are a thousand reasons to live this life; every one of them is sufficient.”  Most of us grow into that understanding.

I close with my favorite quote from James Baldwin from his essay, “Nothing Personal”:

         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]

In this duty, and yes, in the courage, is divine Joy — a doorway to the eternal.  Amen.

---

[1] 1 John 4:15b, NRSV.

[2] Matthew 22:37-40, NRSV.

[3] John 15:11, NRSV.

[4] Mel White, Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), xiii – xiv.

[5] Ibid.

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

May 5, 2024
6 Easter

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98;
1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17 “God is Love”

Food is basic.  Not only is it the staple of life, it is the culinary glue that binds cultures together.  It is warm memories of satiation.  It defines a culture. It is fellowship around the table, or, in some cases around the campfire.  In short, life.

“What’s for dinner,” usually the first words out of my mouth as a boy returning from late afternoon play when the streetlights came on.

Many Americans who live in my neighborhood, have never questioned its availability.  They’ve never known hunger.  Not real hunger.  Not starvation.

We may have had moments of stomach-growling hunger.  Like the time our Boy Scout troop went to a big area-wide jamboree near San Diego.

The event was held on a huge military base.  Each patrol was to spend weeks ahead of the event preparing.  Unfortunately, upon joining the troop I was placed in a patrol with the least competent leader, a young boy a couple of ranks above “tenderfoot.”

And his parents didn’t sit in on our meetings to see if we were attending to all the necessary stuff.  Like, maybe a balanced diet and sufficient food for the week of the camp-out.

When it came time to cook our first evening meal, we had already each packaged what was called “campfire stew.”  That went fine.  By the second meal things went downhill from there.  No one got the fire ready.  They had not even gathered sufficient firewood.

A kid the patrol leader sent out to gather firewood came back over an hour later, only to announce that he didn’t find any snakes.  James was so fixated on catching snakes, snake obsessed, that he had forgotten what he’d been sent out for.  All the while, there was wood lying all around our camp!  Snakes, for the love of Pete!  By this time our stomachs were growling.  Disgruntlement ruled the campsite.

There was no time to cook the potatoes and carrots, so we ended up gnawing on them raw. 

In the middle of the night, two boys in our pack raided the food supply and ate the link sausages raw, so there were none the next morning. 

A most wonderful culinary week, indeed!  Yes, our patrol spent much of the week hungry, though a couple of others gave us some food out of pity.  And the scoutmaster told them to do it.

I totally get that a major complaint Moses had to face from his disgruntled band had to do with food.

“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”

For their rebellion and grumbling, their failure to trust God, so the tradition goes, God sent a batch of poisonous snakes.  Such would have served James and his band of supposed wood gathers right.  But no snakes.

Incidentally, one of the advantages Robin Williams listed upon becoming an Episcopalian: no handling of dangerous serpents in church!  But I digress.

Back to Moses and his poisonous reptiles – the remedy, according to the story, was to affix the image of a bronze serpent on a pole and whoever had been bitten, upon gazing up at the image would be healed.

This is not some magical operation.  In gazing up at the image was the acknowledgement of the sin of mistrust of God’s providence and repentance.  That contrition is what brought healing.

John’s gospel draws on this story from Numbers to make a similar but slightly different point.

Jesus in John is “Revealer.”  As such, he opens a way of life that is eternal.  A way of life overflowing with blessing, with joy and purpose.  In John’s gospel, that blessing is expressed in various metaphors.  But, for our purpose, juxtaposed to the bad food story out in the desert wanderings of Moses’s people, I want us to think of the saying: “I am Bread.”

And what is this, Bread?  It is the nourishment of shalom, of humility, of justice, of forbearance and generosity.  It is life laid down that deeper life be lifted up.

Our Lenten journey is to trod the same path, that Christ be lifted up in us.  As is said, our lives may be the only Gospel some folks will ever encounter.  As Christ is lifted up in us, as Shalom is lifted up.  As Justice is lifted up.  As Humility is lifted up – indeed God’s desire for all to live together in harmony takes root.

The other day, grocery shopping at Stater Brothers, the woman bagging my purchases noticed I was having a bit of difficulty.  It was late in the afternoon and I wasn’t doing so well.  She was a middle-aged Black woman who had the most infectious smile and warm personality.  Robin was her name.

She asked me if she might help me take my groceries out to my car.  Not wanting to put her to any trouble, I demurred.  “No, thanks, I can get them.”  She persisted and said she would just go out with me to take my cart back.  Actually, she helped me get them all into the back seat. 

She was an absolute joy that brightened up my entire day.  In her, Christ was definitely lifted up, and I was refreshed just like Moses’s snake-bitten followers.  I was so moved, I had a difficult time, through tears of gratitude telling Jai about her when I got home.  Lifted up Christ was, in this delightful woman.

Lifted up, not as dogma or ritual, not as doctrine, but brought to life, present-day, in the warm-blooded living flesh of those who walk the Way.  The only version of the Gospel that really counts in the end.  That all who follow this Way might have Life Abundant, a small taste of eternity.

This is the True Bread, Wonder Bread, served up, baked fresh and steaming warm every day by those in the Jesus Movement.  No snakes here!  (Not even in the grass).  The same Bread served up on the path from Nazareth all the way down to Golgotha, where it was elevated for all to behold.  A Way of Life that all might be made whole.

As the question goes, “You may claim the mantle, ‘Christian,’ but would your church treasurer know it?”  Would your checkbook, credit card, know it?  Or your appointment calendar?

Unfortunately, around the world, most journeys do not conclude in such happiness as mine did this last afternoon.  As most of ours do.

Dr. Nick Maynard tells of the torn bodies of those children arriving at the few remaining hospitals that have not yet been totally destroyed in Gaza.  Yes, there is unspeakable tragedy all about.

The wilderness abounds with vipers and other deadly creatures – mostly humans.  And while we have agency, the ability to bring change, to bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice, we have our limitations.

IN THE MEANTIME, IN THE MEANTIME — if Christ be lifted up, there is Bread for the Journey.  Cause for great rejoicing along the way.  Spend a few moments in spiritual daydreaming before getting out of bed.  It is quite likely, if Christ be lifted up in those seconds, you too will be overcome by an “attitude of gratitude,” joy beyond measure.  Yes, REJOICE!

I have a wonderful wife who is adapting to my infirmities’, warm and toasty at night, and who cares for me, and I for her.  Yes, again I say REJOICE.  Love for fifty-seven years.  REJOICE!

Our youngest son was named Christopher, meaning Christ-bearer.  I am flooded with thankfulness when I witness the tender care he shows for his new wife Alexis, and the love she gives back to him.  And the joy this couple brings to friends and family.  That they are moving back here to be with us is a joy beyond measure.  Yes, REJOICE!

Considering our team working on House of Hope in both West Virginia and San Bernardino, I am flooded with gratitude for their efforts and personal support.  Especially, Jim and Verity.  They’re the “Secret Sauce.”  The venomous bites of the sidewinder of delay and toxic politicians who don’t give a rip, the Risen Christ in this team will overcome.

Though I’m told that dialysis is much, much sooner than I had hoped, and a big pain in the patoot, I’ll have plenty of time to read and write during it all.  Another sting of the adder that the present-day Christ lifted up in my heart will allow me to transcend.

The other night I had a dream of wandering through some crowded urban landscape, coming to a dead end of this dirt road.  When I looked to my right and took another byway, I had arrived at an ocean bay, a verdant marsh with a golden sun slowly setting on the horizon.

A sign, that when it’s my time to depart, I might hear, I pray, those words, “Servant, well done.”  Christ lifted up — cause for ultimate rejoicing at the end-time feast.   Always, that I might have been Bread for another’s Journey.  Amen.

March 3, 2024
4 Lent
Laetare Sunday – the Pink Sunday

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22;
Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

“What’s for Dinner?”

This last weekend after church, I drove over to Fullerton for a meeting hosted by CAIR – Council on American Islamic Relations.  I was surprised by two things: the size of the crowd, and that it included a fair number of Christian allies.

I was also impressed by the quality of the three speakers.  One of which was a woman activist from Brooklyn, Linda Sarsour.  If ever there was a woman on fire, she was it!

The passion out of which she spoke was the result of having over seventy members of her extended family killed these past several weeks in Gaza.  “This is a genocide we are witnessing.  A genocide bought and paid for with our tax dollars.  This is not something long ago in a history book.  It’s happening now.  It’s being reported live by the people being killed.  Daily!”

As I took my morning pills this past Friday with a refreshing glass of cold ice water, my mind flashed to the images of those dying of thirst and hunger as the result of the Israeli policy of collective punishment of the people of Gaza.

Today, in our readings we turn to what are known as the Ten Commandments.  Not the “ten suggestions,” as some of my secular friends would tag them.

Here is the reason we have this law code — to preserve the gift of freedom won for us from the hand of Pharoah.   In the text, God makes very clear to Moses and those who would come after, “You didn’t do this.  I DID!  I parted the waters and led you out.”

If you go whoring after other sources of meaning and salvation – false gods – you will lose it all.  You don’t need to steal, lie, covet, defame to have a good life.  Don’t screw this up. I’ve already given you everything you need – the freedom to enjoy the blessings of life in community with one another.  Don’t flush it down the toilet.  Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing.   In the words of that old spiritual, “Free at last.  Free at last.  Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.”

That is the order of God’s action.  First Grace, then Law.  The purpose of the Law is to “Keep our Eyes on the Prize.”  Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing.

It’s easy to become distracted, to go off chasing rabbits.  Especially if you’re one who has attention deficit disorder as an adult.  Runs in my family big time.  When I get sidetracked, my friend Jim always reminds me, let’s keep the Main Thing the Main Thing – which is addiction recovery. 

Now concerning Gospel Action, the Main Thing for those in the Jesus Movement it’s building the Beloved Community.  That certainly begins with “the Least of These.”

You read of them every morning over coffee or tea.  You see them on your TV screens in your living rooms.  Right now, they’re in Gaza.

Linda Sarsour reported that her ten-year-old daughter every day – every single day – calls her congress representative before heading off to school to express her outrage at what we are doing to her people.

I felt guilt that I did not have my congresswoman Judy Chu’s number on my speed dial.  This young girl knows what the Main Thing is for her people.

Her mother’s book, We are Not Meant to be Bystanders,[1] is an incredible read.  It is the story of a life of consequence.  As Michelle Alexander, writing in the New York Times, commented, “If you’re wondering what kind of activism holds the potential to free us all, this book offers an answer.”

Linda is no more a bystander than Simon of Cyrene, compelled from the side of the road to carry Christ’s cross to Golgotha on Good Friday.  Each of us is likewise summoned to heft our cross, to engage a suffering world.

As I sat in that CAIR assembly, I thought, here are many Muslims bearing the Cross far, far better than many of us Christians soothed to sleep in a comforting land of plenty.  Lulled to sleep with entertainment and sumptuous meals.  A roof over our heads and gallons of cheap tap water.

Peace and quiet is not the Main Thing of our faith.  Have I mentioned “Necessary Trouble?”

In John’s telling, Jesus chases the money changers out of the temple early on in his ministry.  Making a bunch of money off people’s faith, he did not consider “The Main Thing.”  In fact, the Wrong Thing, it was.  This one incident would foreshadow Jesus’ entire journey to Golgotha in John’s telling of the story.  God’s definitely “a-gon-na trouble the water.”

For the Main Thing, read Micah,[2] read the bit in our gospels about God’s demands.  “And what does the Lord require?  Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”  The Main Thing indeed!  Not burnt offerings.

This conflict with ensconced, comfortable, self-serving authorities – this conflict over the Main Thing was what led to the Cross.

I hope our main takeaway this Lenten season is an awareness of our mutuality.  As Dr. King was wont to say that all of us “are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Do you remember the flack Elizabeth Warren got for telling a businessman that in fact, he didn’t build his company himself.  “You didn’t do this,” she insisted.

When he took umbrage, she persisted, “You didn’t provide the schooling that educated your workers.  You didn’t build the roads that transport your goods.  You didn’t enact the laws that provide for a level playing field for fair dealing.  YOU didn’t do this.  You relied on others.”

As a vet, I took strenuous exception to the Former Guy’s dismissal of the sacrifice that those troops had made as he visited our national cemetery at Arlington and later in France, just off the beach of Normandy. 

“What was in it for them?”  What did they get out of it but “dead?”  Utter foolishness as St. Paul would say.

Listen, Guy: what they got is something you will never understand; are incapable of understanding.  A free and liberated Europe.  I know of a ten-year-old girl who gets it.  A Muslim girl who hoists her Cross every morning before class!  She gets it.

As Alexei Navalny’s body was lowered in the ground this week, I thought: he understood the Main Thing.  He knew the point of living — a Russia free for all.  Led his people just like Moses.  Though he spent the last three hundred days of his life in solitary confinement in a Siberian prison, he died a free man.  The Main Thing.  Again, something the Former Guy just doesn’t get.

As we approach the climax of our Lenten journey, arriving at the foot of the Cross, we too behold that Man of Sorrows, one who kept the Main Thing the Main Thing the entire journey long. 

Have you stepped off the side of the road to help ease the load?  Might you also stay awake and pray with him in the dark night of the soul of this world? 

As the Gospel Freedom song proclaims, “Come and help me build a land where we all can live.”  That’s what a ten-year-old girl is doing.  Every morning! 

“There’ll be singing in that land.  Big gold bells a-ringing in that land.  Gonna ask my sister, come along with me.  If she says no, gonna go anyhow.  Gonna ask my brother, come along with me.  If he says no, gonna go anyhow.  We’re on our way to build a Freedom Land where we all can live.”  Amen

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[1] Linda Sarsour, We are not Here to be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance (New York: 37 INK, 2020).

[2] Micah 6:6-8.

March 3, 2024
3 Lent

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Exodus 20:1-7; Psalm 19;
1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

“Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing”

Back in the 60s, at the height of the Jesus Freak outbreak, all sorts of folks sported bumper stickers that read, “Honk if You Love Jesus.”  Amid the cacophony of blaring horns, some wit came up with, “Tithe if You Love Jesus – Any Fool can Honk.”

As the Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard put it, “Jesus wants followers, not admirers.” The writer of Luke’s gospel also addresses the discrepancy, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?”

In Mark, always to begin our Lenten journey, we read of Jesus temptations in the Wilderness.  Thought to be a vast empty void, hostile to all life forms but the most dangerous.  Our minds immediately jump to the seemingly endless Sahara Desert of Africa or the Rub’ al Khali, the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula.  Some 250,000 square miles of sand.

Spiritually, those in distress, those who find hope a fragile thing, will look inward to their interior soul.  The mind, the heart, can be every bit as much a dangerous void.  A wilderness.

The uniquely American temptation in whatever wilderness in which we find ourselves, I believe is our individualism.  The belief that we have to go it alone and be reliant on no one and responsible to no one.  Some evangelicals imagine Jesus as a John Wayne character, the paragon of a corrupting individualism.[1]   Christ created in our own image.  This twisted mentality is killing us and polluting our faith.

This isolation and perverted individualism is at the heart of addiction and much of our mental illness. 

We can’t even have a Super Bowl celebration without mass carnage.  Our minds fog over with the enormity of it all.  To the point where it just blurs into a meaningless statistic.  Unfortunately, those killed and injured are real people.  Our friends and neighbors, children we knew.

America has become a deadly wilderness of mass slaughter, denial, and pay-to-play politics.  A virtual shooting gallery. 

Thank you, NRA and your bought-and-paid-for toadies in Congress!  And on the Supreme Court!  Thank you.

The results of insular thinking, our “rugged individualism,” were on full display last November 30, 2021, when an emotionally disturbed young man, Ethan Crumbly, shot up his high school in Oxford, Michigan.

His sociopathic mother’s response to his aberrant behavior?  “You’ve got to learn not to get caught.”  Only this? – Only this when he was discovered at school making disturbing posts on his social media page.  Only this, Mom?  Don’t get caught?  Really?

She was too busy to be a parent.  Lining up new assignations in her swinger lifestyle.  The ultimate result of the Ayn Rand mentality.  Just do “your own thing,” mom.  Kids will take care of themselves.  A deadly wilderness of too many emotionally empty households.

Ethan’s rampage was only one in a long list of mass school shootings.  In the following years, 2022 and 2023, there was no let-up – 82 students killed in 2023.  The highest number in a three-year span.  This does not include the hundreds of others wounded.  Then, add in all the teachers and other school staff gunned down.

These are not just mindless numbers, a statistic.  These are friends and family.

One of the four dead was a young freshman, Hana St. Juliana.  A beloved sister and teammate.  She was a star student athlete on her girls’ basketball team.

“’We will never forget your kind heart, silly personality, and passion for the game. Since 6th grade camp you have stayed dedicated to Oxford Basketball, soaking in the game,’ the team wrote in a post one day after the shooting. ‘Last night was your high school debut. This season we play for you Hana.’”[2]

Nice sentiments.  That, and some memories are all that’s left.  And a lot of sorrow.  And an emptiness as vast as an Asian desert.

It is into the interiority of such places, down from the beauty of Christ’s Transfiguration that we are urged, our Lenten pilgrimage.  The temptation we face is to cocoon ourselves away from all such unpleasantness.  Yes, a “Path of Sorrows” our “Via Dolorosa.”

We don’t want to hear about another mass shooting.  Certainly, don’t want to hear of those young victims cut down in their prime, before any of their dreams had come to pass.  We’re numbed.

Our politics are about as sick as our mental health.  Another empty wilderness.  And as deadly.

Our Bishop John recently posted that we have two old guys running for president.  One sometimes garbles the facts.  The other is unaware of the facts – and has now been seriously fined for massive business fraud.  A whopping $350 million judgement against him.  And his family business.  In fact, they’re outta business in New York.  America, is this the best we can do?  

And how was it that eighty-one percent of white evangelicals supported this “libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith?”[3]

Putting this insurrectionist and his supporters back in office would be a travesty.   A permanent stain on Betsy Ross’s “Grand Ole Flag.”  It’s depressing.  A political wilderness if ever there was one.

That he should now be romping to the nomination of his party, is an absurdity I cannot fathom.  The valley of the shadow of death threatening our republic. 

An evil of ignorance and indifference – of malfeasance and greed stalks our land.  O Lord, we pray, lead us not into the temptation to stick our heads in this sand.  And pretend it’s not happening.

While we cannot solve all the world’s problems, that doesn’t mean we just throw up our hands and let the devil take the hindmost. 

This is where followers step up – those who are true disciples following the path blazed by our Lord through his Lenten journey to Golgotha and the Cross.

Here’s the story of one group of students who entered the wilderness of mental anguish — helping their peers who are struggling with suffocating loneliness, depression, and suicidal thoughts.  Reaching out to those experiencing inner rage which sometimes results in the mass violence on our campuses across our nation.

It’s the national Yellow Tulip Project.  Last year at one high school, some students disturbed by the onslaught of reports of campus violence, decided to do something.  They were not going to passively sit back and allow mental distress to consume their school.

To commemorate Mental Health Awareness Week, a group at Sacopee Valley High School in Hiram, Maine, created what they called a “Hope Board.”  Shaped like a huge yellow tulip in the lobby, it was soon covered with scraps of paper on which students had posted their hopes, dreams and aspirations – ranging from the mundane, for their team to do well in the playoffs – to the slightly more serious, passing a driving license exam. 

Some hoped that they would be less angry and more hopeful.  One wrote, “I hope people are kinder and more mature.”

The leadership of this effort is what, most of all, gives me some assurance that our nation might do more than just muddle through.  It is these young people willing to enter the wilderness of mental anguish.  To bear the Cross.  These are the true followers of the Way of the Jesus Movement.  See Matthew 25.

Meet Elana, National Director of social media for the Yellow Tulip movement.  A young, African-American woman who is whip-smart and dedicated to the mission.

Elana relies on the power of storytelling to bring people together.  With a BA in English, focusing on Creative Writing, from The City College of New York and a minor in journalism, she gets the word out. 

Her specialty is in audience engagement for digital newsrooms to develop social strategies and create content that educates and inspires.  Her goal is to motivate young people to care for their mental well-being so that they can thrive.  She believes education, awareness and empathy will reach beyond the stigma of mental illness and bring people to get the needed help.

This is the sort of young person us older folks are looking for to step into our shoes — the sort who are true followers, not just admirers of some imagined ideal.

She has a deep interest in studying mental health and believes that sharing information and resources about mental wellness can help smash the stigmas about mental illness.

In the grand scheme of things, perhaps not a big deal.  But it surely matters to these students and those helped.  And their school.  And it just might prevent some unforeseen tragedy.

It’s all about being followers in the Jesus Movement, not passive admirers.  Don’t honk.  Roll up your sleeves.

We are here but a moment.  In the meantime, our summons to engage the Journey has been laid out in a poem by a Jesuit brother, Peter Byrne, “We are Simply Asked.”

“We are simply asked to make gentle our bruised world,
To be compassionate of all, including oneself.
Then in the time left over to repeat the ancient tale,
And go the way of God’s foolish ones.”[4]  Amen.

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[1] Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (New York: Liveright Publishing Co., 2020).

[2] Harriet Sokmensuer, “A Football Player, Bowler, Freshman and an Artist: Remembering the Oxford School Shooting Victims 2 Years Later, People Magazine, November 30, 2023/

[3] Op. cit., dust jacket.

[4] 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. 

February 18, 2024
1 Lent

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9;
1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-5

“Followers, not Admirers”

I suspect that like our family, yours also tuned in religiously to the “I Love Lucy” show with Lucile Ball and her husband, Ricky Ricardo.  Time after time, when Ricky would come home from band practice – he led a Cuban dance band in the show – he would find out about some untimely misadventure that centered around his wife Lucy.  Or discover some disaster Lucy and her friend Ethyl had tried to keep secret from their husbands.

Often the first words out of Ricky’s mouth in his Cuban accent when entering through the front door after work were, upon learning of Lucy’s daily disaster, “Lucy, you’ve got a lot of ‘splaining to do.”  As Ethyl would scurry away.

As we contritely approach Lent this Ash Wednesday, the same could be said of us.  “We’ve all got a lot of ‘splaining to do!”

Indeed, we have failed to do that which we ought to have done and done what we shouldn’t have.  We’ve put our self-importance over the welfare of the planet.

Philip Roth wrote a novel set in the 1990s, The Human Stain, the last of a trilogy on American life.  It looks at the messiness of human existence, and how, in finality, there are no complete remakes, no ultimate do-overs.  The American myth of self-reinvention is just that – a myth.  In many ways, we’re stuck with who we are. 

I’m reminded of a high school friend telling me the story of his first and last motorcycle ride.  Several of us were standing around at my good friend Jerry Weisner’s house talking big bikes when he told us why he didn’t ride one anymore.

He had come to a friend’s house to admire his new Harley Davison and the friend asked if he wanted to try it out.  Of course, he knew how to ride it.  What kind of sissy did his friend think he was, anyway?  Of course, he knew!  Though he did have some considerable trouble in getting it fired up.

As he listened to the rumble of its deep bass of the muffler, revving the engine, he popped the clutch accidentally.  If a flash the bike shot across the street at very high speed.  Jumped the curb and roared across a neighbor’s front lawn on the opposite corner.  When he came to, he was lying sprawled out on the remnants of a coffee table in the front room.  Cut to ribbons.  Shards of broken glass of a plate glass window and lamps and other wreckage about.  Did I mention blood?  Lots of it.

When a hysterical woman ran in to her destroyed living room screaming, my friend said that all he could mumble was, “Lady, I’ve really screwed myself up.”   Although “screwed” was not the word he used. 

That disaster’s too often, too accurately, a picture of us and our world. 

Got some big ‘splaining to do.  We all do.  Ashes to ashes we end.

We’re cooking the planet.  We in America are awash in a sea of guns.  Poverty stalks the streets of our cities and rural countryside.  You know the litany.  Got a lot of ‘splaining to do.

What’s left?

What’s left is “in the meantime.”  Only to come before our Maker in the words of that old gospel song: “It’s me, It’s me, It’s me, O lord.  Standing in the need of prayer.” 

Answered with another hymn: “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy like the wideness of the sea.” 

In and through faith we find restoration.  We are lifted beyond the muck and clamoring voices that we might hear that Still, Small Voice.   This is what a Holy Lent is all about.

We are raised up to serve, as shown in the exemplar, Peter’s mother-in-law.  As we pray every Sunday, “It’s in giving that we receive, and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.”  In the Christ let loose in creation, we also rise.  Amen.

February 14, 2024
Ash Wednesday

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 103;
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

“A Lot of ‘Splaining to Do”

I remember back to when I owned a trucking company, gathering with my trucker buddies early, early in the morning at the job site, waiting for the day’s work to begin.

We would stand about our rigs shooting the bull – I usually hauled sand, gravel, asphalt or dirt.  Our group ran dump trucks.  Yes, about ten years ago I finally gave up my Class-A license.  As we would drink our coffee, we would often grouse about the pay or how long it took to get paid – often ninety-day money — or gripe about the truck boss on the job who scheduled our loads at the job site.

I still remember this one old guy, his name on the side door read “Grumpy.”  He swore that if the truck boss on this one job complained about how slowly he was driving – we got paid by the hour – his response would be, “I’m not taking anymore time driving this rig than your company is taking in paying my freight bill.”

Another of his saying was, “No matter how stupid the boss…he’s still the boss.”

We’re all under some authority.  Get used to it.

In the story from 2 Kings, we have the passing of authority from Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of Israel, harbinger of the End Time, one filled with God’s Spirit – as the prophetic office is passed onto Elisha.  Of course, we should be humming in our minds, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

As astonished Elisha, the understudy, looks on, while in the middle of their stroll, “a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind of heaven.”

With smoke and fire, drama and wonder, authority is passed.  The blessing of a “double share of Elijah’s spirit” is God’s seal on this transfer.  The ultimate “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”  There’s a new sheriff in town, indeed!

Likewise, on the Mountain of Transfiguration, authority is similarly transferred.

Jesus, Peter, James and John on a high mountain.  And now comes the Ultimate Epiphany.  Jesus “was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.  And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.” 

The frosting on this cake is the voice from the overshadowing cloud that had now come upon them, “This is my son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

Again, the Ultimate Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!  “Listen to him!”

All of Torah wisdom, as represented by Moses, and all of Prophetic Righteousness and Truth, as represented by Elijah, are now bestowed upon those gathered there as benefactors of these traditions – Jesus, and by extension the disciples.  And ultimately, down through the ages, the Church.

We, now, are under that very same authority.  And, exercised properly, hold its power as “cooperators with God” to bring it into fruition.  Day by day.

Like my friend Grumpy, we are under authority, even if we disagree and rebel against this authority much greater than ourselves.

In a lesser way, authority is passed from parents to growing children.  The saying, “You can always tell a teenager…but you can’t tell them much,” rings true.  Think back to when you were a know-it-all teenager.   The rebellious retort, “well, all my friends get to do it.”

Unfortunately, too many parents have abdicated their authority prematurely.  I remember the mother whose excuse for not bringing her son to Sunday School, but letting him zone out in front of the TV all morning was, “I want him to make up his own mind about religion.”

Fine, she would rather have him learn his core values as taught by the enticing hype of a cartoon tiger selling the latest frosted breakfast cereal on Sunday mornings?  She’s okay with the exploitive predation of a soulless capitalism run amuck, teaching her child God-knows-what?  As his breakfast food rots his teeth out and destroys the microbiome of his gut?  Oh, did I mention an epidemic of youth obesity?  Mom…you okay with all that?  

Get a grip, lady.  Exercise your authority!

In turn, each of us is under authority.  If you don’t believe that, fail to pay your taxes this year.  The IRS does not look kindly on such scofflaws.

Since the beginning, a thriving church, much as a thriving child has been under proper authority.  And woe to any who abuse this authority.  “It would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”[1]

That is what I find so abhorrent and disconcerting about some of our televangelist frauds whose sole effort is to hype themselves and rake in the dough.  Golden bathroom fixtures are the least of it.  It’s the damage done to the message of the Gospel that is the real scandal.  A stumbling block to the Word. 

There’s the telling vignette as John Denver (playing a callow grocery clerk, Jerry Landers) and George Burns (who plays God) in the film, “Oh, God,” were walking by a rural country church out in the middle of nowhere.  Denver’s character Jerry says, he often wonders what goes on in there, to which God replies, “I don’t know…I’ve never been able to get in.”  A not-so-subtle dig at the white segregationist churches of the time.  God had no authority in that place.

Such churches somehow didn’t understand a greater authority over their constricted beliefs and traditions of Jim Crow.   Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker didn’t understand this.  Neither did Jim Jones as he led his followers to utter disaster at Jonestown in the jungle of Guyana.

While, supposedly, he was under the authority of a mainline denomination, he went rogue — caught up in all sorts of spiritual flim-flam, founding a self-serving cult of sexual exploitation and unquestioning obedience to himself.  No one exercising authority over this travesty.  We all know how that ended.  Gave Kool-Aid a bad name.  That’s why we have bishops with the authority of oversight.

My Old Testament professor Dr. Rolf Knierim, was fond of reminding us of the reason for the success of Yahwehism over Baalism – “Yahweh had a house.”   That is, an institution, which would later develop into rabbinic Judaism, of which we are a branch.  Here is true and Godly authority – the authority of institutional oversight.

And as such, we of the Jesus Movement live under the spiritual authority of what took place on that Mount of Transfiguration.  In the passing of prophetic authority from Elijah to Elisha.  And down the line to Dr. King and Abraham Heshel.  Now, to each of us.

No, we don’t get to luxuriate in the beauty and splendor of the vision.  It’s not about building shrines or holy places in places of splendor.

It’s about going back down into the valley of strife, suffering, hunger.  The shrine we are asked to build will be in the hearts of those lifted up, and in our own hearts as we engage the work.  Any authority we have is validated as we give our lives to a Reality and Cause far greater than ourselves, Christ being our helper — yes, in taking some spiritual direction.

As J.B. Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English translates 2 Corinthians 6:1: “As cooperators with God Himself we beg you, then, not to fail to use the grace of God.”  That is the true authority for what we do.[2]

When I get pushback from some well-meaning Christian folks on our addiction recovery work of House of Hope, I ask, “When it comes to recovery, what part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ did you NOT understand?”

Our authority is not grounded in fear — the fear of all the things that could possibly go wrong.  But, trusting in Faith, for a better path to thriving.

Yes, recovery is hard.  A most difficult life-long journey.  “If this was easy, we’d already have done it,” as President Obama would often say.   But it is possible.  And it is Holy.  Folks in recovery are in fact the living Glory of God.  Their authority is transformed lives.  Fruit of the Spirit that has its own authority.

Those in recovery know wondrous authority of such awakening.  The epiphany that dawns, bringing them to the reality of their lives.  And a saving alternative — that there is another path than that of self-destruction and degradation, isolation, loneliness, and ultimately, the death of their soul.

Fortunate are those who awaken to the potential of sobriety.  A life-giving authority that assumes priority.

In his new novel, Martyr!,[3] Kaveh Akbar, a first-generation Iranian-American, narrates the journey of a young addict, Cyrus Shams, under the incipient authority of such a dawning epiphany — that his life has become unmanageable, going nowhere.  This is a Godly authority.  This novel is, incidentally, some of the most marvelous writing I have recently encountered.

“Maybe it was that Cyrus had done the wrong drugs in the right order, or the right drugs in the wrong order, but when God finally spoke back to him after twenty-seven years of silence, what Cyrus wanted more than anything else was a do-over.  Clarification.  Lying on his mattress that smelled like piss and Febreze, in his bedroom that smelled like piss and Febreze, Cyrus stared up at the room’s single light bulb, willing it to blink again, willing God to confirm that the bulb’s flicker had been a divine action and not just the old apartment’s trashy wiring.”[4]

As flimsy as that.  Nothing more than the flicker of some decrepit wiring.  A life-saving epiphany?  A door to eternal life?  Stranger things than this have happened.

In faith, he heeds the authority of that revelation.  A Godly revelation, for the inchoate spiritual awakening it brought on wings of desperation.  Like a drowning man, Cyrus reaches for this outstretched hand.  The hand of God he finds?  In what manor does your faith inform you of such wonders?  Daily astonishment awaits, if we would but perceive it.

To what do you give authority?  I give my loyalty to the vision of those guys and their Master upon that Holy Mountain of Transformation.  For what they brought down from there, I have found to be most life-enhancing, life-changing.  It has filled me brim-full, and sometimes broken me as well – but always, I have found it to be a saving vision.

John Wesley summed up the authority and goodliness of this Gospel mandate in this brief maxim:

“Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.”

With God’s help and Christ beside us, we can.  ¡Sí se puede!  Now, there’s an authority worth our allegiance.  In this endeavor is Life Abundant.  Amen.

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[1] Matthew 18:6, NRSV.

[2] J.B. Philips, New Testament in Modern English (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958).

[3] Kaveh Akbar, Martyr! (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024).

[4] Op. cit., 3.

February 11, 2024
Last Sunday after the Epiphany
“Transfiguration Sunday”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6;
2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

“Under Authority”

I remember as my mother was coming toward the end of her life, her looking up from her sick bed and admonishing me, “John, don’t get old.”

What’s the alternative, I thought.  I was saddened to see this woman I had known as vibrant and socially engaged, now looking so helpless.  The only response I could muster was to silently hold her hand.  And silently pray that she wouldn’t have to suffer much pain.

It was later that evening, around one o’clock in the morning that my father called to say we had lost her.

I know that when I awake in the morning feeling in my prime – at least as much as in the prime can be at eighty – I know the day is going to be fantastic.  I’m going to conquer the world.  Or at least accomplish what’s in my date book to do the day.  And have a great time doing it.

In our reading from Mark, we have the story of much more than relief from a debilitating fever.   Strap in now, we’re going to do a bit of hard-core Bible study here.

The word Mark uses to raise up Peter’s mother-in-law from her sick bed is, a rather rare word in the New Testament.  Used to convey the Resurrection of our Lord.  The very same word – egeiren – to raise from sleep or raise to life from the dead, referring to the Resurrection.  Mark definitely did not use this word by chance.  He wanted to say something much more profound.

 All this is to say that we’re not talking about a simple palliative here, but something much deeper.  It’s metaphor time!

This little vignette is to stand for the entire purpose of Christ and his followers.  A foretaste of God’s intention to raise up all of creation to living life in its fullest.  We’re talking about the purpose of entire Gospel Mission, the Whole Enchilada of God’s will for creation – thriving.  A new heaven and a new earth — the ultimate Kaiser Permanente motto of thriving as a new reality.  End-time joy is present NOW.  A taste of the realized eschaton, Chardin’s “Omega Point.”  Just a smidgen.

But wait, there’s more.

When Peter’s mother-in-law upon getting out of her sick bed begins to serve them.

This is not some male sexist take on the role of women.  Though, truly, had a woman written this account, I suspect she would have given us the name of this woman, our first deacon.  Sadly, the male writer considered her name of lesser importance.  But I digress.

This restored soul responds to her new life by sharing it.  She serves.  The message is, “Go, thou, and do likewise.”  Yeah, men, you too – grab the dishtowel.  Find your purpose.  Be an “Attitude of Gratitude” in action.

And, friends, that is the whole message of the Gospel.  We find our life by giving it away to others.  In and through Christ, we are given the power, the gumption, and the insight as how to do this.

We have a most important hint here in this brief story.

What does, Jesus do?  He takes her by the hand.  Hint, hint…it’s first of all about touch.

Many of our youth are suffering record bouts of depression.  As we’ve learned from the recent hearings before Congress with social media moguls, the impersonal detachment of social media is killing our children.

Kids may report hundreds of Facebook friends, but not with a single one of them will they share touch.  Half of them are most likely Russian bots or predators.  There is nothing personally affirming here.  No touch.

Despite having all these so-called “friends,” our children are suffering catastrophic loneliness.  The more hours stuck in your phone, the less connected you’re likely to feel.

I find it absolutely abhorrent to look across a restaurant at a family at dinner, with the kids in their smart phones the entire time instead of plugged into their families.  Dumb, not smart.  I’m not talking about the kids but the parents who permit this destruction of their families right before their eyes!

The other day there was a news story of the Sesame Street Muppet, Elmo.  Elmo did a check-in, wondering how everyone was doing out there in internet land.[1]

Elmo’s simple query raised a firestorm of reports of loneliness, depression, guilt.  The collective answer, “We’re not doing well, Elmo.  We’re not okay.”

“What transpired was an existential crisis by way of X users sharing their sense of overwhelming dread and anxiety — from the personal to the global — that got even the little red Muppet in his feelings. He probably did not expect the internet to unload its collective anguish in his replies — but that it did.”[2]

By Wednesday, the post on X had gotten 12,000 replies and 47,000 retweets.  Elmo discovered a world in “high anxiety.”  He hit a nerve.

Many responders were our youth expressing the loss of hope for much of any future.

Just the simple, “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” pulled back the covers of a very dark future.

“Every morning, I cannot wait to go back to sleep. Every Monday, I cannot wait for Friday to come. Every single day and every single week for life,” X user ContrarianGuild replied.

“The world is burning around us, Elmo,” wrote YouTuber Steven.

David Leavitt, a journalist wrote, “Elmo I’m suffering from existential dread over here.”

“elmo im depressed and broke,” wrote DatDaDatty.

“Elmo I just got laid off,” added another.

Among the thousands of replies and retweets were such as Dionne Warwick and President Biden, urging folks to check in on friends. 

I can’t tell you how many times, I’ve followed a hunch about a friend and happened to have called at just the right moment when he or she needed a friend.  Needed to hear a comforting voice.  Needed to know that somebody cared.  Gospel Joy, it was.  You, I suspect, have also had that same experience.  Surely, a “Balm in Gilead.”

Is there a balm in Gilead?  Healing ointment for our sin-sick, weary souls?  The Gospel answer today is a definite, “YES.”

Remember the rock opera of the sixties, “Tommy”?[3]  In one poignant line from the work, Tommy pleads for connection,

“See me, feel me
Touch me, heal me
See me, feel me
Touch me, heal me…”

That is what we are all looking for.  Someone to see us, feel us.  Heal us.

 And in that physical connection is healing, deep healing.  And in that touch, we are raised into wholeness, new life.  Resurrection, now.

Our teens are aching for such.  We all are.

As my mother lay, semi-conscious, in silence I held her hand.  Words escaped me.

Yes, she was soon gone.  That very evening.  And yet, very much present.

Yesterday, I went over to Jim and Helen’s to hear the newly restored piano.  Helen sat down to play a piece.  “Alice Blue Bonnet.” This is the song my mother would sing to me as a very young child, cradling me in her arms.  Awakened was the memory of her tenderness and protective care for me.  Helen’s playing definitely touched my heart strings.

Those moments are the gift we leave behind when this earthly life is over.  That joy and love ring down through successive generations.  Spiritual Balm that lives on.  Resurrection.  And all is made new, day by day.

Even those healed eventually leave us.  We all have a short shelf life, some shorter than others.  However, as we are taken by the hand and raised up to Gospel Joy and Purpose in this life, we find sufficient spiritual health to be part of the panoply of God’s Encompassing Grace, deacons of service.  And, in faith, that shall be sufficient.

So, if you’re hesitant, visit that friend at their home, in the hospital or in hospice.  You don’t need to know what to say.  You may not need to say much of anything.  Just hold them.  Take a hand or a shoulder.  In that moment you are the balm of God’s Grace.  And trust that there is healing.  And in that moment, you both shall be raised up as on the Last Day.

Trusting in simple touch and presence, we are transformed, the Balm in Gilead.  Yes, there is a balm to heal all our sin-sick souls.  A smidgen of the foretaste of “Glory Divine.”  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  And, thank you, Elmo, for the heads-up.  Amen.

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[1] Nardine Saad, “Elmo’s Innocent Check-in Takes a Dark Turn,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2024.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The Who, “See Me,” overture, and last song from the rock opera, “Tommy,” 1969.

February 4, 2024
5 Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c;
1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39 “A Balm in Gilead”