Many of us know that children’s rhyme, “Star light, star bright — First star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might…”  We gazed into the sky while the sun slowly sank below the horizon of trees and housetops.  The clear sky turning from blue to magenta and then dark orange, settling into a rich violet.  “First star I see tonight…”

This weary world yearns for something like a guiding star.  As those three sages are said to have followed the Epiphany Star of revelation, we desperately seek to arrive at some saving grace. 

The Christ Child we seek this year is not to be found in a manger but under the rubble of Gaza.  Covered in ashes and dust, covered in the blood of its parents, brothers, sisters, and neighbors.[1]

As Herod had not clean hands, Israel repaying massacre for massacre has not either.  Nor does the Western Church with its blasphemous and corrupt rapture theology which it uses to justify its unconditional support of destruction Netanyahu wreaks on Gaza.

Yes, what Hamas did was evil, but as my mother would caution, “Two wrongs do not make a right.”  The savage brutality inflicted on our Palestinian brothers and sisters will have consequences for generations.  Their blood will cry out from the ground unto the foreseeable years, unto decades.

Just as the blood of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp of Lebanon still today cries out — still, from 1982, when on September 16-18, they were surrounded by Israeli forces which blocked all escape while they and their proxy, right-wing Christian militia allies, raped and massacred over 3000, mostly women and children. 

Our only hope is that some rays of that Epiphany Star reach deep down through the rubble of history, down through the rubble of our hearts.  “First star I see tonight…”

Daily, I search the paper, search my own experience, to find what little rays from that Star there are to be found.  And amid the deepest night, I somehow find enough to keep going.  To keep Hope alive.

The other day, in our Claremont Courier the lead article was, “This Church Saved Me.”  That got my curiosity.  We don’t always see churches up for that sort of action.  I wondered, what did they do?[2]

I wasn’t surprised to see this congregation stepping up to the plate on the issue of hunger.  I had heard that these folks believed in a gospel in action, a gospel “with feet,” as my friend, Pastor Kelvin, likes to say.

Before the pandemic the church’s food bank had been serving a couple hundred a week.  That has spiked to upwards of 1,400.  This is the pet project of Associate Pastor Zamar Alkiezar and his wife Anna. On Fridays, lines of cars are stacked up along Foothill Blvd. for blocks and blocks.

Their good work is certainly a ray of Hope from that Gospel Star for the homeless and unemployed who have come to depend on it. 

It is also a ray of Hope for the 35-some volunteers who take satisfaction in putting their faith to work.  Grace incarnate.  Joy all around.

One person interviewed, volunteer Arthur Munoz, allowed that he had been homeless.  As he “took a break from hefting large boxes of donated food into waiting cars,” he offered, “‘This church saved me.’”

One volunteer with Alzheimer’s disease helps keep the food distribution area clean.  “His daughter told [Pastor] Alkiezar that every week her dad looks forward to coming to the church for his job.”[3]  In that job is dignity.

The world at times can be in a most wretched state.  Just read any Cormac McCarthy novel.[4]  Our Advent journey has been through the time of “not yet.”  It has been a descent into the bowels of Hell.  Not a smidgen of any saving grace to the skeptical eye.  Those without rose-colored glasses who dare to have their eyes wide open — they know the wretchedness.

It is precisely such evil into which Christ comes, healing power in his wings.  As the prophet long foretold, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.  For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will appear over you.”

I insist on finding the “Good in the Neighborhood.”  It’s there in dribs and drabs.  If we seek it.  If we work for it.  Arise.  Shine.  That is the Star that brightens my life these days as they begin ever so slowly to lengthen.  Consigned to be part of God’s “nevertheless.”

Even amid the Gaza ruins, countless aid workers risk their lives to bring what comfort they can.  Almost one a day is killed in the bombing, yet they stay. 

Rushing stretcher patients on foot through impassable roads.  Comforting the survivors who have lost entire families.  One family in the south of Gaza, in a supposedly “safe zone,” lost over 90 of its members in one strike. 

With few hospitals left operational, doctors and nurses do what they can with the exhausted supplies of antibiotics and pain killers.  These desperate efforts are precious Gospel Rays for what little Hope there is for that abandoned Christ Child under the rubble.

As we trudge into the new year, the Gospel Ray of Light from the Epiphany Star will be our companion.

When we met at St. Francis with the folks, clergy and lay, of the Interfaith Communities United for Change, I told them that they were one of my best Christmas presents ever.  “You all look like allies,” I said.  We will definitely be blessed by the “street heat” they can bring to counter the NIMBY crowd, to counter weak-kneed politicians who will oppose our addiction recovery center, House of Hope – San Bernardino.  Brilliant rays of the same Light.

Indeed, “Arise, shine; for your Light has come…”

In Christ we hitch our wagon to a guiding star.  Every bit as sure and trustworthy as that Dipping Gourd for those fleeing their slavers, making their journey North.

This season of Epiphany is the season when, in Christ, the whole people of God make manifest through the real stuff of action, inward graces.

Food banks, addiction recovery, speeding ambulances, and in a hundred other ways, in the season of Epiphany faithful people grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ.  That is what our readings will be all about in the months to come – that long Green Season.  It’s for growth.  Not just in numbers but in depth as well.  In Spirit!

Yes, “See Him in the temple, talking with his elders—How they marvel at his wisdom.  See him at the seashore, preaching to the people – healing all the sickness.”

And see us in His image, making all kinds of good stuff happen as well.  Gospel Goodness is what we’re about this Green Season.  Anointed with the same Spirit.  “Arise, shine, your light has come…”  Splinters off that first Epiphany Star.  Amen.

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[1] This imagery comes from a sermon preached on Christmas Eve, 2023 at Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church, Bethlehem by the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac.  It may be found on YouTube.

[2] Steven Felschundneff, “This Church Saved Me,” Claremont Courier, December 22, 2023.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, for starters.  A very, very dark world.  If you’re depressed, DON’T read any of these.  It would only get worse. .

January 7, 2024
Epiphany Sunday

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14;
Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

“First Star I See Tonight”

As many of you know, I’m sort of grumpy about the commercialization of the most gracious day that rolls around this time of year.  Christmas is the celebration of God’s inbreaking into our often too pathetic human affairs.  It’s not for commercial “Christmas creep” — buying a bunch of stuff we can’t afford for people we hardly know, don’t like that much, and that they don’t need. 

Despite the “grumpy,” I do allow some early Christmas music to seep into my soul.  One of my favorites is the Gospel song, “Mary, Mary, Whatcha Goina Call That Baby?”  That gets special honor right up there with Handel’s Messiah – wholesome, spiritual preparation for December 25^th!

“Mary, Mary,” a folk hymn with a hundred different versions when it comes to the verses.  So, here’s my take:

“Mary, Mary, Whatcha goina call that pretty little baby?  Think I’ll call him Jesus.  Think I’ll call him Jesus cause he’s gonna save his people.

Think I’ll call him Jesus.  Strong to Save.

That might be his name, but he looks a whole lot like Liz Cheney when it comes to saving this republic.

Yes, we couldn’t handle his message so we nailed him to a cross – and Liz Cheney’s party can’t handle her message of warning.  She has been politically crucified as well.

She and I, as you all know, disagree on virtually all policy issues.  But on one thing, the most important thing, we’re absolutely on the same page – saving this republic.

I’ve been listening to her book on my car stereo system.  Often, I find tears of gratitude rolling down my cheeks, listening to what this woman has had to endure from her tribe for standing tall.  For doing the right thing – country over party.[1]

“Think I’ll call him Savior,” because we all need a little help here.  We need a little help on the democracy front right here.  Actually, a lot of help!

Liz Cheney has sounded the clear, clarion call to her party to reject the lies and wackadoodle conspiracy theories swirling around the January 6^th insurrection.

In one of the most closely contested elections ever, she notes that Vice President Al Gore graciously conceded defeat.  But not Donald Trump!

The Former Guy riled up an enraged, armed mob to storm the House of Democracy.

“But by January 6, 2021, Donald Trump had consumed a good portion of almost every day in a rage:  inventing and spreading lies about election fraud, preying on the patriotism of his supporters, and telling them they had to ‘fight like hell’ if they wanted to save their country…

“Some of my Republican colleagues in the House were preparing to use Trump’s stolen-election lies as the basis for an unconstitutional attempt to overturn the election results.”[2]

Tears, streamed down my face.  It’s this sort of political courage that will save our democracy.

“Think I’ll call him Savior,” ‘cause we all need a little help down here.

And he pops up into history right at the time needed, when all has gone to rot.  In history, for God’s sake.  And for ours.

There he is in the stuff of daily existence.  We know the time.  Emperor Augustus is on the seat of power of the Roman Empire.  We know the place –one of the most out-of-the-way places, Nazareth.

And we know to whom:  to the most unlikely of women, actually, a young girl.  Most likely, barely sixteen or so.

Dropped down out from the birth canal right into the messy stuff of our world.  “Think I’ll name him Jesus, for he will save his people.”  Glory, Hallelujah!  And all the angels, stage left, are readying the refrain: “Glory, Hallelujah.

“Mary, Mary, Whatcha Gonna Call that Pretty Lil Baby?”

Think I’ll call him Emanuel, God with Us.

The present-day hammer of God sounding out danger, sounding out warning.

John, the Baptizer, got it right.  The ax is presently laid at the root tree of our human existence.  The planet heats up.  The planet floods up.  Misery is the menu item of the day.

The name might be “Emanuel” but this heavenly presence looks a lot like Jake Bittle, with his warning, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration.

Our gracious present under the Yuletide tree is the prescient warning of disaster to come if we don’t Stop. Look. And Listen.  Read and heed, my dear friends.

We know of the Great Migration out of the South, fueled by Jim Crow.  How millions of newly freed African Americans fled the KKK and abject poverty for decent jobs and breathing room in the North.

Jake Bittle writes of a new Great Migration of the same magnitude now in the wings. This time, due to global warming.  The science is clear.  The time is now. The drowning Florida Keys are the canary in this coal mine. 

 A migration every bit as fraught as all the real stuff of history, as perilous as that of Mary and Joseph; forced to travel for a census enrollment in the City of David, Bethlehem.  That’s how this “God-with-us stuff always happens.  In bits and pieces.  Dribs and drabs. Emanuel!

Danger and promise, as Mary and Joseph begin their fateful journey.

A bumpy, donkey ride, as pastor Heidi Neumark characterizes it.  She recalls a donkey ride she and her son took down the Grand Canyon trail to the floorof the canyon.  A ride that caused her to imagine Mary’s ride to Bethlehem.[3]

Time to cue up Ferde Grofé’s “The Grand Canyon Suite” in your mind.

Pastor Neumark and the other travelers were sternly warned, “…the National Parks Service did not guarantee the safety of any participant and was not responsible for any injury, major or minor, brain damage or death, that might result from our journey.”[4]

They had to guarantee that they had no known serious health problems or heart conditions, weren’t afraid of heights and were not recently recovering from open-heart surgery.  And, especially, that NO ONE WAS PREGNANT!

And “if you can’t follow instructions and advice — If any of this scares you, get your refund and get out now!”  That was the park ranger’s parting shot.

Mary, Mary…such a long road to travel.  Watcha gonna call  your baby?

As Heidi and her son and their couple of donkeys plodded down to the floor of the canyon, she thought of Mary’s journey to Bethlehem.  

Once Mary’ had “said yes to the angel, she signed on for a trip with no way out. No chance to get out now and get her money back.”[5]

“Mary’s journey was just as uncomfortable [as mine]. She traveled on the edge, where injury and death are likely eventualities. The knowledge already pierced her heart. Did she turn her fearful gaze from her feet to the larger view—the seismic shifts in her womb, spectacular as a canyon carved with the signature of heaven?”[6]

Mary, Mary, whatcha gonna call your pretty lil’ baby.  Think I’ll call him Jesus ‘cause we all need a little saving down here.  Think I’ll call him Emanuel, ‘cause we definitely need God with us.  Think I’ll call him Prince of Peace, ‘cause our warfare has been long and we’re sick and tired of the hate.  Think I’ll call him Joy, for unto us He will be born a great joy.  Gloria!  Gloria!

“Think I’ll call him Jesus,” but he’s goina look a lot like you and me.

And, as Charles Wesley, quoting Philippians, put it, “Rejoice Again, I Say Rejoice.”   Amen.

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[1] Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023).

[2] Op. cit., 82.

[3]Heidi Newmark, “Mule Ride,” Christian Century, December 12, 2001.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

December 24, 2023
Christmas Eve

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7; Psalm 96;
Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

“Hey Mary, Whatcha Gonna Call That Baby?”

On November 18, on a clear, bright morning sky, the Starship, one of SpaceX’s efforts to launch humans towards Mars, hurtled into space from the Texas Boca Chica launchpad.  Within minutes of launch, failure of the main booster to separate led to the termination of the flight.

In the cold, clinical terms of science, the dispassionate control announcer informed us of the explosion – “It was a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”[1]  Talk about jargon!  This was a classic.

Isn’t that what this third Sunday, Mary’s Sunday, is about?  Here comes a most troubling revelation to any girl, an unexpected, unplanned pregnancy.  Her world is shattered, dissembled.  What sort of message might this be?

Through Mary we are now given a message, the Word from On High, of incredible “rapid unscheduled disassembly” – her world, our world,  will be turned upside down.  Grace and Hesed (loving kindness) rent the time continuum — God breaking through!

When told she will be pregnant without her consent, Mary is no shrinking violet.  She takes one step back and says to this intruder messenger, “Hold my beer and watch this.”

Whereupon she cuts loose with one of the most radical statements of Torah righteousness in all of scripture.”  Rapid unscheduled disassembly of the Principalities and Powers.  Total ruination of the haughty.

“He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.  He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek.  He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.”

“Sent empty away;” and in that wilderness perhaps they might be prepared to receive this message as one of joy and liberation for themselves as well.

The Advent landscape is wilderness.  Astronomical calamity with stars falling from the sky.  Mary’s shock at an uninvited change in her circumstances.  John the Baptist announcing to the surrounding cities both judgement and promise of one to come. 

A Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly of the current order.

It is more often out of the of desperation that we are prepared to perceive the new that is being born.  One who will reign with equity and justice awaits at the manger.  As one line of my favorite spiritual beckons to the weak and wounded, “If you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all.”

Mary’s revelation is the inbreaking of God into history.  Soon and very soon is the time of the release of those imprisoned.  Addiction, violence, racism, impoverishment, sexism.  These chains are being cast aside.

To replace the ashes of despair, we are given a garland and the oil of gladness to run down our foreheads in rivulets.  This is on the doing of the Spirit of the Lord.  This is Mary’s promise.

Today is Mary’s Sunday.  Let us rejoice and be glad.  Light the pink candle.

As in times of old, God continues to raise up strong women on a mission.  Agents and harbingers of Rapid Unscheduled Dissembly.  Good news to the oppressed and a salve to the brokenhearted.  A couple I wish to celebrate this morning.  All blessings of God.

Yesterday, I saw the clip of two of those women who in the face of lies and defamation have stood up to the powerful.  And did the powerful ever look so pathetic.

Georgia election workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, have had the courage in the national forum of public opinion and in the courtroom to challenge the lies and vituperation of Rudy Giuliani.  And how this powerful man has been cast down from his throne!  How about a $150 MILLION hit to the pocketbook to knock this duplicitous miscreant off his high horse!  That’s what the jury awarded last Friday.

These two courageous women did absolutely nothing to warrant the death threats and harassment at all hours of the night.  Despite all, these two patriotic women stand tall – beacons of democracy.  Ladies, you’re what this republic is all about.

If there is any salvation for our nation it will be due to this sort of lowly election workers who put in long hours for little pay and a lot of grief.  For us all.  They are God’s blessing to America!

I want to lift up a fearless labor organizer, Mother Jones.  She comes directly out of Roman Catholic spirituality.  Her family in Ireland was steeped in the teachings of the church.

Mother Jones grew up in an impoverished family, threatened with the fate of starvation during the time of the Irish Potato Famine in the 1850s.  Death was all about, forcing her father to migrate to America along with several million others.[2] 

One English writer, William Cobbett described the domestic conditions of those living in that Irish rural poverty.

“I went to a sort of hamlet near to the town of Midleton.  It contained 40 or 50 hovels.  I went into several of them…They all consisted of mud-walls, with a covering of rafters and straw…I took particular account of the first that I went into.  It was 21 feet long and 9 feet wide.  The floor, the bare ground…No table, no chair…Some stones for seats.  No goods but a pot, and a shallow tub, for the pig and the family both to eat out of…Some dirty straw and a bundle of rags were all the bedding…Five small children; the mother, about thirty…worn into half-ugliness by hunger and filth…”[3]

This destitution was not far from that which Mother Jones encountered in the hills and hollers of Appalachia.

When congressional stuffed shirts demanded to know her address, she responded, “My address is like my shoes – It’s wherever I am.”

What was that line about the Son of Man?  “The foxes have their holes and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Because, if born in our time, he would have been out there in the coal fields with Mother Jones causing “Necessary Trouble.”

It was out of this heritage of destitution – virtually nothing – that God raised up Mother Jones to become one of the most fearless labor leaders in West Virginia.  It wasn’t for nothing that she was labeled “The most dangerous woman in America.” 

Her model was the great humility and compassion of the Blessed Virgin.  In her persistence, showing up on most any picket line, speaking words of encouragement, suffering arrest and imprisonment for her activism, she was indeed an instrument of the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly of the economic power of the coal oligarchs.

We celebrate today God’s gift of strong, prophetic women who persist.  They are our Christmas blessing.  They are redemption incarnate.

With these women of our Christian heritage, let us magnify the Lord that all might rejoice in a Savior to be born.

With these Fearless Ones, we, too, announce, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon US.  To proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Today we celebrate God’s gift of strong women who have looked oppression in the eye, taken one step back and said, “Hold my beer and watch this!  And light that PINK CANDLE!  Amen.

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[1] “Starship Takes to the Skies Again,” New Scientist, December 1, 2023.  The launch can be watched on UTube.

[2] Elliott J. Gorn, Mother Jones: the Most Dangerous Woman in America (New York: Hill and Wang, 201).

[3] Op cit., 10, 11.

December 17, 2023
Advent 3

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11; Canticle 3, PCP;
1Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28 “A Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly”

In matters of the heart, when it comes to what deeply counts for the soul, Advent is mostly a season of Silence.  Oh, there is much background noise, grey noise. 

Like the traffic outside my hotel room in New York City at night – easily tuned out.  A minor distraction.

Sometimes the news breaks through, but only a story which leads us into the deep silence of an unspoken prayer, maybe deep longing, perhaps a regret. This is the holy silence of Advent.  If we truly are attuned to it.

I came home this last Sunday to a story of homelessness among college students.[1]  I wasn’t aware of how many of our impoverished students are living in their cars in order to afford an education.  In order to do better than their parents’ generation.

“Living in their cars, for God’s sake?” I thought.  Is this the best we all can do for these students working sometimes two jobs and at night typing up their assignments at night in a van.

It was a story of a group of students unable to afford campus housing finding community in a campus parking lot, G11, at Cal Poly Humboldt in Northern California.  Finding community until the school ordered them off campus.

The president of the college refused to meet with any of them, closing off any possible discussion of alternative solutions.  “Just be gone – we don’t care where,” was the official message.

With this, my Advent silence was filled with deep shame.   That we, the richest nation in the world, this is how we treat the “least of us?”  Shame and sadness overcame me.   The angel of Annunciation must be weeping.  Our hearts are nowhere prepared to receive the Prince of Peace.  “Love Divine” is far.  With the author of Isaiah in today’s reading, our lives are rent with sorrow and longing.

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—as when[2] fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name know to your adversaries, so that nations might tremble at your presence!”

Silence.  Waiting.

And in the meantime, we have much to answer for.  We’ve made hash of our priorities and a mess of the planet.

The other day at our common meal at Pilgrim Place, our friend Helen Dwyer read for the noon meditation a poem by another of our Pilgrims, Renny Golden, of her hometown Chicago and its river.  It is a tale of the deep stain we humans have left across the land.^[3]

We’ve come with shovels, dynamite, and bulldozers.  We’ve polluted with run-off oil from our streets, plastic bags and who-knows-what-else.  We’ve dammed and drained until the fish are gone, and only a fool would now eat any pulled from the muck.

And from that river, it could be mostly any river in America, silence.  And in our hearts, in our soul of souls, a silent yearning for what might have been.  What once was.  And if we have any humanity left at all – deep silence within.

“I spoke to the Chicago River today the way

I talk to God. Not begging. Grateful

as Potawatomi mothers dipping water gourds

“in dawn light, a nod to thank the river.

Who, what were you, I asked the river,

when you were tribal, pure, a companion?

“Silence, like God’s, not even a whisper.

We came with muskets, then shovels, then dynamite.

I asked forgiveness. The dog we kids let out

“near traffic. Its hind legs crippled.

This mutt river wounded with sewage,

oil, crop poison. Same sorrow.

Advent is of two messages – judgement, the need of repentance and the promise of restoration.  The babe in the manger grows up, and, if we’re fortunate, so do we in our spirituality.

The words of Isaiah, the promise of End Time Reckoning – this is far beyond nasal chipmunks singing happy Winterfest songs.

In this life not every participant gets a gold medal just for showing up.  To the degree we despoil God’s creation, we are all losers.  There may be no do-overs.  In the damage we do to one another, we are all losers.  With tears of repentance and forgiveness, sometimes a do-over.

The ersatz spirituality of shopping mall speakers blaired across aisles stacked with Christmas specials is no substitute for the biblical Advent message folks will hopefully hear in many of our churches.  If they have chosen wisely.

In his book, What is Vital in Religion, Harry Emmerson Fosdick relates the story of one man who has seen it all, one for whom the platitudes of an easy faith are an insult to the conscience and to the integrity of experience.  I fear this fellow speaks for much of modernity:

“I don’t know what I believe, but I don’t believe all this God is love stuff.  I have been in two world wars.  I have been unemployed eighteen months on end.  I have seen the Missus die of cancer.  Now I am waiting for the atom bombs to fall.  All that stuff about Jesus is no help.” [4]

The wanton slaughter of Palestinian civilians – women, children, the elderly — picks up pace again this morning.  An eerie silence from piles of rubble until we hear the shrieks of horror and sirens.

Truly, the dark night of the soul.  Silence shrouds our fears, the misery we nightly witness.  Repentance is the only authentic response possible.  The beginning of any authentic Advent journey.

These past weeks a friend, a former pastor of Downey First Christian Church, asked me to write a review for his recently published book, Acres of Oak.[5]   The title is taken from a quip by the senior pastor of a church he briefly served as an associate, Pilgrim Congregational Church in Pomona, referring to the rows of empty pews in many of our churches.  In his book, Pastor Rich narrates his story of his entering the ordained ministry and the congregations he has served, 

Pilgrim Church is a very large edifice with a good number of Sunday school rooms, all built with the expectation that when the kids left the Sunday school door, they would enter the sanctuary door.  Instead, they just migrated out the door, and shortly after, their parents followed.[6]

In his pilgrimage he has seen the mainline church become a mere vestige of what it once was in its former glory days.  One congregation he served in San Gabriel, Mayflower Congregational, founded by three breakaway splinter groups grew to over 900 in the 1960s.  Then with amazing rapidity the bottom fell out.

By the 1980s the membership had dropped some 600 members.   In 1984 the church had a remnant of only 52 pledging units.  Acres of oak, indeed.  And high maintenance demands. The world seems to presently have little need of what we once offered.

Even seemingly healthy mega evangelical churches are being rent asunder by conflicting loyalties – to the Former Guy, or to our Lord Jesus Christ.  Their youth leaving in droves over this conflict.

These are tough times. Our world, like that of Herrod, is in great anguish.  The birth pangs of what we cannot yet fathom. 

Expectancy mixed with dread fills the silence of our souls as we scan the morning papers over coffee.  No easy answers.  Certainly not from happy Jesus music or holiday extravaganzas.

This Advent, at St. Francis, we will gather once more, read the ancient texts, await fulfillment in the silence of passing days. Or maybe join in plaintive hymn: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here…”  And we will work for a better tomorrow for the “least of these.” 

But we sing our hymns together in solidarity; and in that I find hope.  Hope as small and as powerful as in a tiny baby laid in a manger.  Amen.

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[1] Debbie Truong, “Living in their Cars to Afford College,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2023

[2] Isaiah 64:1-2, NRSV.

[3] Renny Golden, The Music of Her Rivers (Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2019), 77.

[4] Harry Emmerson Fosdick, What is Vital in Religion (New York: Harpers Brothers, 1955), 1.

[5] Richard Kurrasch, Acres of Oak: A Pastor Rethinks Church in the 21^st Century (Chicago: Windy City Publishers, 2023).

[6] Op. cit., 61-62.

December 3, 2023
Advent 1

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18;
“What the River Said;” Mark 13:24-37

“Mostly Silence”

If you’re my age, you know where you were.  You know where you were when JFK was shot in that motorcade in Dallas, Texas.  You know where you were when Dr. King was gunned down on that balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  You know where you were when those planes flew into the World Trade Tower in New York City on September 11th.

Some tragedies indelibly are etched in memory, living with us throughout the rest of our natural lives.  The pictures at times unexpectedly flashing before our eyes, unbeckoned.  Blindsiding us in moments of vulnerability.

Sometimes it’s a private, family tragedy, like the day my mom called to tell me my father had had another heart attack and was now in Long Beach Memorial Hospital.  He had somehow survived that one; it was his fourth. 

“No, don’t fly back here, he’s recovering.  The doctors say he’ll make it.”

“Be sure and call us every day, and if he takes a turn for the worse, “I’ll be there.”

Mom had waited a few days to call.  Like many families, ours did not do well with bad news.

There are times, public and private, when the bottom just drops out.  Hope dies.  With bated breath time stands still.  When just getting out of bed seems an insurmountable obligation of the day.

It is on those days we desperately long for a way forward.  A word of hope.  The message of faith that this is not the end.

This past week, at a preaching conference put on by our Episcopal magazine, the “Living Church,” a group of a little over a hundred of us, clergy and lay, wrestled with our most difficult of assignments – preaching the Word of God. 

We had three bishops at the conference.  One of those, on being introduced from Saskatchewan, gave the following advice: “The best way to accommodate a bishop in ceremonial functions is to assume he’s blind, he can’t hear, he smells, and he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Now, Jai said that this story doesn’t really fit in here, but it’s too good to pass up – a preacher’s prerogative.

Preaching today — on the face of it, how presumptuous!  To speak for God!?  Especially in a secular age, when such seems most irrelevant.  A task so inconsequential as the world rushes on.  Often, from one catastrophe to another.

And THAT’S exactly why our task is so utterly important – to bring a message of hope and redemption.  To speak to the heart and the mind.  To bring a message that binds up and renews!

Our minds, our hearts, as of late have been transfixed by the calamity unfolding in Gaza and Israel.  Every evening on our TV screens, tragic, sorrowful remnants of families are interviewed, asked to go through their loss one more time.  “How was it in the midst of that music festival, running for your life as all about you your friends were being slaughtered by Hamas gunmen?”  “What do you want to say to those who have kidnapped your three-year old daughter?”  One more day of disaster porn.

Images of total and absolute destruction of Gaza flash on the screen over and over.  Paramedics rushing hopeless cases through piles of rubble, gray with the settling dust of an overnight bombing.  Scenes of distraught survivors picking through mounds of broken concrete, desperately hunting for lost loved ones.

For families on both sides, the End of the World.  Waiting for news that never comes.

And we who watch this unfolding tragedy from across an ocean, from miles away – yes, we’re caught up in the sorrow as well.  If we have any heart at all.  If we haven’t lost our soul.

And we who watch this serial disaster unfold, we wonder, what of our complicity?  Will we find our nation before the World Court, forced to answer for our role in this slaughter of innocents?

Honest contemplation forces us to consider the seeds of this disaster.  It was years in the making.  Since the founding of the State of Israel.  The foundation for some and the nakba, the catastrophe, for others.  As one writer has put it, “The Too-Much Promised Land.”  So many hopes pinned on one small piece of real estate.

How does one preach a word of hope in such a world?  Let alone the Word of God?

A young seminarian is said to have asked the great theologian Karl Barth: what could be preached after the news came of Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany.  What saving word was there to be said?  Barth responded, “Preach as if nothing happened.” 

God’s Word transcends the daily setbacks with a Vision Glorious – the enduring Word of God’s purpose for a restored world, restored relationships.  Take this message to Herr Hitler.

Coming out of Babylonian captivity, the Psalmist could proclaim:

“Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.  Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.”

Such vision has pulled us through the muck and mire of daily tragedy.  Even decades-long disaster.

Reading of those Conductors on the Underground Railroad, they were guided by such hope.  Cold, wet, terrified.  Leading small bands on the journey from slavery, with the baying of vicious dogs of the trackers on their heels.  Follow the Drinking Gourd.  Following that constellation to a dreamt of future.  No guarantees, only keep one foot going in front of the other.  Breath searing aching lungs.

And what inspired them?  it was the faith of a Risen Christ proclaimed and put into action.  A gospel literally with feet.  It was the belief that human beings are meant for something better than drudgery and degradation.  Recited at church Sunday after Sunday, in prayer meetings, and in the hymns your mother sang while at her daily chores about the house or in the field.

And here’s the secret – we all get there together.  On that Last Day, on that “Great Getting Up Day in the Morning,” gathered into glory, only one question – did you give your sister, your brother a helping hand?  That’s the only question on your Final Exam.  Did you give a care for the very least? 

Today we celebrate the consummation of what this whole Christianity thing is all about – The Reign of Christ.  We celebrate a Vision Glorious where all will be seated at the Table of God’s Plenitude.  A seat for all.  Yes, ALL MEANS ALL!

Each one of us who follows that crucified carpenter from Nazareth is commissioned to be a Conductor on this Railroad of Freedom, this Railroad of Promise.  “Get on board, little chillun.”

It is this vision, this hope, shared with friend, family and stranger that daily sustains.  This is what, on our best days, we would preach.  And in this Vision is Salvation.  Amen.

November 26, 2023
Last Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 29
Christ our Sovereign

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 95:1-7a;
Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

“A Vision Glorious”

As I often say, I especially love All Saints Day because with grateful hearts we receive the blessings of God through the lives of so many who have built us up.  These are the ones who’ve helped us to thrive.  Or like my 11^th grade English teacher Mrs. Reiner who did her darnedest on my behalf.

George Regas called these folks his “balcony people” — those living and those who cheer us on from beyond the grave.  They urge us to pull out our best stuff.  They instill confidence and expect that we will strive always to do the honorable thing.  Even when the cost is high.  These are the people who have invested in us.  Because of them we are far better than we might have been, left to our own devices.  These are the Saints of God, a few of whom I want to highlight.

In short, the Saints are those who have brought us along with them that we might thrive.  Their victories are our victories.  They are testimony to the basic truth:  We are all One.

You’ve known them – a parent or other family member who believed in you.  A teacher or maybe a scout leader.  It might have been a neighbor down the street.  Or someone at work.

I want to mention Ruth Jean Simmons.  Ruth, born in 1945, grew up in a Black East Texas sharecropping family.  The last of twelve, the baby of the family.  She not only rose far beyond what life expected of her, but returned that gift to her many students later on.[1]

Her family’s house — actually, “shack,” — in Daly, not much more than a wide spot in the road, had no running water, the only heat being provided by the woodburning stove in the kitchen.

She worked in the cotton fields, beginning at the age of six.  The work was backbreaking and consumed most of her waking days and those of her other family members.  Restricted to purchasing at the company store on the farm, families would sink further and further into debt.

This is what life had laid out for Ruth Jean Simmons.  Her foreseeable future, until she would die.  A life of unending toil, dwelling in a land of ignorance and Jim Crow racism.

Her hope for something better came from her church and the hymns they sang.  They resonated with the promise of something better than endless toil and hardship.

Recitations were one activity young Ruth delighted in.  The passages she memorized for this activity, especially the verses about the Passion and Resurrection embodied hope.

“Come and see the place where he lay,” was an invitation to the imagination to conger up a time of liberation of Blacks from their earthly burdens.

“Even as a child, I understood that these passages gave hope to all of us who sought signs of change from segregation and discrimination.  When churches staged programs and gave us the opportunity to recite stories of deliverance, I understood that these performances were giving sustenance and meaning to many of the famers attending the services.”[2]

It was her Sunday school teachers that opened up the meaning of the Bible to her, and the sermons she heard.  It was the hymns which gave comfort and promise of a better future. 

These comforting hymns her mother often sang through the weekdays of her unremitting toil.  “In the Garden,” “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,” and “Jesus, keep me near the Cross,” were among her favorites.

Because she lived on a school-bus line on Highway 19 after the family moved to Latexo and truancy laws were more strictly enforced, Ruth, unlike her siblings, regularly attended school.

There she encountered one teacher who would set her on the path to an unimaginable future: Miss Ida Mae Henderson.

“Accustomed to my family calling me ‘you ole big-eyed girl!’ I found it remarkable that this woman greeted me with ‘Hello, precious!’ or ‘good morning, baby!’  By telling me that I was valued and speaking to me in this way, she invited me into a world of mystery and magic.”[3]

Ruth remembers the classroom as something special, from the brilliant lighting that was unaffordable in her home to the order of all the desks in a neat row.  More importantly, she had her own desk, her own private space just for her.  And laid out on that desk were all the materials to begin her education.  The whole setup indicated that something very important was to happen here.  This room seemed like magic to a child coming from a house where there was not enough furniture for everyone to have a place to sit.

She recounts, “Everything seemed possible with Miss Ida Mae.”  From that teacher Ruth received the first praise she had known as a child. “Her words made me feel like a unique person rather than an appendage to my family.”[4]

Much later in life Ruth Simmons would be invited back to the little community of Grapeland, the home of that first school.  The invitation came from one of the prominent white churches, a church that back in the day allowed no Blacks in Sunday worship.  This for a program held in her honor.

And up came a very frail Miss Ida Mae.  “I was overwhelmed to see this woman who had set me on the path to a career in education.  She had introduced me to the simple premise that the life and exercise of the mind bestowed enormous power and promise.  She provided me a beacon that guided me toward achievement through education.”

“She was the incarnation of all that it means to be a teacher, a mentor, a guide.  Ever hopeful about what human beings can achieve through learning.”[5]

Saints Alive!  If you were fortunate, you also remember a teacher like Miss Ida Mae Henderson.  Or you had a mother like Ruth’s who sacrificed to make sure you had the basic necessities for school.  But more than that, a mother who taught you discernment.  Ruth, as a young girl, would aspire to “be able, like Mama, to be as observant or as discerning.”

Years later at a ceremony at Harvard, where she had earned her PhD in Romance Languages and Literature, Ruth sat on the stage listening to the encomiums lauding her accomplishments as president of Smith College and later Brown University — the first Black woman to have ever reached this pinnacle of academic achievement, wondering how on earth she got there.  “How did I end up here?”

There she sat, musing about the “improbability of the moment.”   It was through a life’s journey graced with saints galore who sped her along the way.  Saints who had paved the way through their own accomplishments and perseverance, and then given back.

As I sat in Decker Auditorium on All Saints Day as we at Pilgrim Place celebrated the lives of those saints in our midst who are now no longer with us in body, gratitude welled up in my soul as candles were processed up the aisle for those who had nurtured us along the way.  My old ethics professor Joe Hough, an iconoclastic hero who taught me community organizing.  Dean Freudenberger, an agricultural missionary in Africa who returned to teach those skills at my seminary.  Saints galore flooded my being as tears flooded my eyes.

We celebrate those family and friends who have been part of our common life here at St. Francis.  Testifying that we all are One, in the benevolent embrace of one Lord.  Amen.

---

[1] Ruth J. Simmons, Up Home: One Girl’s Journey (New York: Random House, 2023).

[2] Op.cit., 43.

[3] Op.cit, 68

[4] Op. Cit., 69.

[5] Op.cit. 72.

November 5, 2023
All Saints Sunday

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 22:15-22

“One Lord, One People”

Again, I’m amazed at how uncanny it is that the Holy Spirit seems to continue to be working in overdrive.  This past week I just got our taxes in under the wire – with all that was going on we absolutely had to get an extension.  So, October 18 was the bewitching hour.

I remember back to when I had taken over much of the financial aspects of my parent’s construction and real estate company.  I had opened a letter from the California State Franchise Board.  Mail from these people is never good.

It turned out that Dad owed them around three hundred dollars and some odd change.  This was for his share of the employees overhead for about two years previous.  Dad was absolutely insistent that this was all a mistake.  Their mistake! 

I would spend hours on interminable hold attempting to contact someone so this issue could be resolved.  Dad would not be mollified until every last stone was turned over.

We went down to their regional office in Long Beach and spent, I can’t tell you how many hours, while Dad attempted to convince the woman at the counter that he was right.  He really didn’t owe them anything.

It’s no wonder that the Plexiglas window was one inch thick.  They probably get a lot of irate taxpayers like my father.

Finally, after we got home, he somewhat settled down.  My arguments forecasting impending doom and confiscation made an impression.  I had reminded him of the adage of our high school government teacher, Mr. Marchek, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.”  And how dictatorships have most effectively used this mechanism to eliminate their opponents.  This was one fight he was not going to win.

Grudgingly, though he wasn’t going to pay this “unfair and outrageous” tax bill and penalties, he would acquiesce to my writing the company check to satisfy the “greedy so-and-sos.”

Matthew tells the story of religious authorities coming to Jesus with the question about the obligation to pay taxes off to Rome, the colonizing power of their land.  This was a highly provocative question for two reasons.  First, given the brutality of Roman occupation, any payment or cooperation with their demands would be seen as collaboration with a hated enemy.  Second, the face on the Roman coin to pay the tax was that of an infidel who claimed to be divine, who claimed the titles of divinity proper to a god.  To handle this coin was to become ritually unclean.  Haram!  Definitely not kosher.

So here come these pompous leaders thinking to trap Jesus.  Hypocrisy dripping from their lips like honey:

“’Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.  Tell us, then, what do you think.  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’”

“But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?  Show me the coin used for the tax.’  And they brought him a denarius.  Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’”

And you know the rest. “Give to Caesar the things that are Caeser’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

Just whose face is on that coin?

In a democracy it’s all our faces.  All of us!

My friend at lunch the other day said, “If it’s true that it takes a village, then it’s up to all of us to make sure the streets are swept and in good repair, that the sewage and water systems are functioning and that there are decent schools to educate our children.”

Community is a gift of God.  It is up to us to exercise good stewardship of our common life together – paying the bills.  That, in part, means providing the necessary financial as well as the political support.  It means behaving in a civil manner towards one another and accepting our obligations to participate in the process.  It means constructive criticism – and causing “Necessary Trouble” as a last resort.

When serving on the Planning Commission of our town of Ridgecrest, CA, for a number of meetings we were dealing with the owner of a lumber yard.  He didn’t want to adhere to the zoning regulations or pay the required fees for operating his business.

At the last meeting dealing with this obstreperous fellow and his refusal to pay the required fees, our city councilwoman, Florence Green, in exasperation said, “Listen we’ve got to run the city one way or another; which pocket do you want us to take it out of?”

It’s up to us.  It’s our face on that coin.

And I consider it a blessing to pay taxes – it means I’m making money.  Look at it that way if you don’t accept theological persuasion.

Through our common civic endeavors, sometimes amazing excellence breaks out.

I attended an inner-city high school in Long Beach, California, Poly High.  “The Home of Scholars and Champions.”  It was located in one of the poorest, most racially diverse parts of town.

And while our sports teams took home more than their fair share of CIF state victories, a new principal arrived on the scene who academically made all the difference.

She developed within that high school a magnet school for science and math.  That endeavor allowed, and still allows, Poly to send more students to UCLA than any other school in California.  This, from the poorest section of town!

This degree of academic excellence has been underwritten by our taxes and civic support.  Sometimes, we get what we pay for.

Driving through the roads of Connecticut this past week, I noted that they all looked like they had been freshly paved.  No potholes and the lane markings were fresh.  Even on country roads way out of town.  Not anything like our disastrous roads in California which are one big pothole.  Yes, their taxes are a bit higher.  Again, you get what you pay for.

We are Caesar in a democracy.  It’s not only our face on that coin, but it’s our schools and highways, our government services from fire, police to post offices and senior citizen centers.  After-school programs and decent jails, prisons and reintegration programs for those being released.

Our faces on that coin.  All to be counted a blessing.

Should we pay taxes?

As one businessman has said, “I don’t mind giving fifty percent of what I make back to the American people because they give me one hundred percent of what I earn.”

But of course, we need to monitor as to how our money is spent.  And sometimes we get it flat-out wrong.  Like investing in a possible candidate for Speaker of the House of Representatives who has no accomplishments to his name except vituperation.  A person who authored only four bills in some sixteen years and not a one of them has been enacted into law.  Someone who in that brief trip from an assistant wrestling coach is now worth over $30 million.  And for all that, what we got was election denial and the support of an insurrection against the U.S. government!  This, the would-be leader of the Chaos Caucus.  So, for weeks to come, and for weeks into the foreseeable future NOTHING GETS DONE!

A pretty poor result for his hefty congressional salary and whatever funds he can grift off his campaign coffers.  We’ve got to watch the purse.  It’s our head on that coin, and this man would represent us.

No more million-dollar toilets in Air Force jets, or hammers costing hundreds of dollars.  The fact that the Pentagon budget has not been, and apparently cannot, be audited ought to in itself raise red flags about fiscal responsibility.  As I said several Sundays ago, quoting Reagan, “Trust BUT verify.”  It’s our head on that coin.  It’s our money.  It’s our future at stake.

Yes, there will be mistakes.  I’ve made my share of them.  But God’s gift to us is each other and the common endeavor we share.  Always to perfect and renew.

I close with James Baldwin’s take on our responsibility to one another.  That’s a Torah gift and a Gospel demand.  That we can work it out together is both a Gospel gift and a Gospel obligation.

Listen to Baldwin in his essay, “Nothing Personal.”  He says:

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.[1]

As St. Paul enjoins those of us in the Jesus Movement, “Rejoice with those who rejoice” …and, to paraphrase Tom Bodet’s Motel 6 commercial, “We’ll keep the lights on for you.”  Amen.

---

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

October 22, 2023
21 Pentecost, Proper 24 The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-9
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-

It is uncanny how the Holy Spirit sometimes seems to be working in overdrive.  This past week Jai and I flew East to Connecticut so that I might officiate at our younger son Christopher and Alexis’s wedding.

Jai and I headed out a few days early so as not to be caught in the same sort of massive airlines schedule kerfuffle as we encountered when we attempted to fly to Vancouver for our Alaskan cruise with these two.

We drove out to the venue, the Waveny House in New Canaan, a huge mansion built by the Lapham family in 1912, sited on three hundred acres.

As we drove up a long drive to this massive edifice, it had its intended effect – we were most impressed.  On the day of the wedding, we had arrived as the catering crew was wheeling in huge round tables and setting up chairs.  We made our way upstairs to the bride’s room and the groom’s suite.

There was Christopher and some eight or nine groomsmen and one groomswoman, Erin.  She and her brother had grown up in Alaska with our two boys beginning in preschool.  She is part of the family.

This was shaping up to be a most joyous occasion.

The same as in Jesus’ Parable of the Wedding as told in our gospel lesson for today from Matthew.  This was another story to illustrate the mysteries of the Reign of God at the end time.

All sorts were invited but many proved unworthy.  They ignored the invitation.  They made silly excuses.  Some even mistreated and killed the messengers.

So, as all was ready and the fated lamb slaughtered, this king again sent out messengers to invite any and everyone they encountered.  As the guests assembled, there was this one fellow not wearing the customary wedding robe.  A party crasher perhaps?

“’Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’  And he was speechless.  Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

There’s lots of scholarly commentary on this lack of a proper wedding robe.  What I take it to be is evidence of a piss-poor attitude.  At such joyous celebrations no Debbie Downers or Bobby Bummers are needed, thank you.  Definitely not ready to join Kool and the Gang, “Celebrate Good Times, Come On!!!”  If not the outer darkness, at least the penalty box with him!

No rain needed on this parade.  Though someone forgot to tell this to the weather forecaster.  A tropical storm blew into New England and our rehearsal started off with a deluge.

While the outdoor site for the ceremony was a huge, covered porch able to fit the hundred or so guests, it was still cold and a bit windy.  The women with their bare arms and shoulders were definitely chilled.

Finally, the moment arrived.  I walked up the aisle followed by Christopher.  Then Jai on the arm of our oldest, Jonathan.  Then all these wonderful young men and women of the wedding party.  Splendid in their formal attire.  These young kids, previously in jeans and sweats, clean up real nicely!

As Alexis approached on the arm of her father, I noticed a lump already forming in my throat.  Their smiles were radiant.  Though the sky was overcast and still drizzly, she sparkled like the sun.  Christopher’s face was incandescent.

I knew I had to keep remarks short.  Days earlier when I had told Bishop John that I was given five to eight minutes, he commented, “John, I’ve never known your sermons to be anywhere that short.”

So, I began, “Friends and family, we are gathered in the Name of All that is Holy to join this man and woman in marriage.”

I was mostly keeping it together.  Though I told them of my wife’s admonition about some of my sermon stories, “You can’t tell that.”  “Why not?” I asked.  “You’ll cry.”  “They’re used to that,” I would respond.

I told them, that though they thought they knew each other pretty well – actually they had been together about five years – there would still be some surprises ahead.

I recounted that soon after Jai and I were married, asking her what she knew how to cook.  After a pause, she offered, “I can make tuna salad sandwiches.”

“That’s all?” I thought.  “That’s all!?”

We’re going to have tuna sandwiches until death do us part?

Meanwhile, Jai, as she gazed upon several piles of dirty clothes strewn about the floor was wondering, “What did his mother tell him?”  “John, don’t put your dirty clothes in the clothes hamper!  Leave them on the floor, otherwise what will your wife have to do?” 

Is that what his mother taught him?  No Prince Charming here!  Piles of dirty clothes unto death do us part?

Surprises there will be.  Count on it.

I reminded the couple that their new relationship will reveal the divine mysteries of human existence.  When Martin Luther abolished the monasteries in the 1500s, the monks asked him, that without the regular hours of monastic prayer, how would they now know the will of God?”

“Go get married,” he told them.  “Your wives will tell you what God wants you to know.”  And likewise, we might add, your husbands.  Holy insight will be born of this new relationship as in no other.  That is your gift to the other.

By the time each had said their written vows to one another, we were all a bit choked up. 

I followed with the traditional vows.

“Forsaking all others, Alexis, do you take this man to be your wedded husband…?”  Yes, then Christopher, “Do you take this woman…?”  Yes, “To love, honor, and cherish in sickness and health.  For richer or poorer?”

After pronouncing them husband and wife, before I had a chance to say you may kiss the bride, they were locked in a tight embrace.  John Ford Coley got it right, “Love is the Answer.”

I closed with words from 1 Corinthians on love.  I told all assembled that this was for them as well, these words on love.  It is patient, kind.  Does not insist on its own way.  Bears all.  Forgives all.  It is the glue to our humanity.  Among all that passes away, it alone endures.  I think this is what I said.  By this time all three of us were quite emotional.  And there was not a dry eye in the house.

I introduced to the assemblage, Christopher and Alexis Forney, and we then we all smartly proceeded back down the aisle.

For my toast after dinner, I mentioned that in Greek Orthodox weddings crowns are sometimes placed over the heads of the couple to signify that they are now king and queen of a new creation.

They are joined to create a new family rooted in the love and values they bring to their marriage.  They are creating a whole new reality to be a blessing to each other and to their families.

I mentioned that I had seen a coffee cup that said, “I don’t have any favorites among my children…but if I did, it would be my daughter-in-law.” 

Not only are we creating a totally new reality, but the gifts and talents they bring to this relationship they bring to their community.  To America.  They are creating a family that looks like America.

To that agonized question, “People can’t we all get along?”  I told all that the faces in this room were the answer to that plea.  A resounding YES.  Here is now a new family that looks like America.  And I am blessed and proud to be a part of what is being created today.  Right here in this room.

So off they go, “side by side, singing their song.”  God bless ‘em.

Indeed, this is a foretaste of that divine “Kin-dom.”   No Debbie Downers, no Bobbie Bummers, PLEASE!  You come with attitude…to the penalty box with you!

Marriage is understood as a sacrament because it is through such union that we have the opportunity to grow into our fullest selves.  To grow up.  These days our understanding of this union is much more capacious than back in my day.  With marriage equality, this blessing is extended to all.

They’re now off in the Catskill Mountains of New York enjoying a brief honeymoon.  You do know what the honeymoon sandwich is, don’t you?  Lettuce Alone!

I still remember the hate and vituperation at All Saints, Pasadena, when one of Jai’s best friends, Mark, was joined with his male partner, Phil, in a ceremony of commitment (same sex marriage was not yet permitted in California).   Yet, despite all the outrage, their union, and later, marriage, lasted far longer than many straight marriages.  Sadly, years later, it ended in “unto death do us part.” 

The joy of deep human companionship, especially through marriage, is a picture of eternal life.  Our congregations should reflect the same blessings.  If your church does not, you’re in the wrong church.

Find a church that challenges, informs, celebrates good times, lifts your heart.  I believe that’s a good part of what we do here at St. Francis Episcopal Mission Outreach.  Sunday after Sunday.  And often midweek. 

I have been richly blessed to have shared in this transcendent moment, this taste of “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” with my wife Jai, Christopher and Alexis and a whole new family.  With scattered friends across this nation.  And with you here at St. Francis.  Proof positive that God is Good…All the time!   Amen.

The Newlyweds Toasted

The families with the newlyweds – the next day

October 15, 2023
20 Pentecost, Proper 23

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 25:1-9; Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:15-22

“Just Who Let You in Here?”

A favorite character of one of the “Star Wars” films was the diminutive gnome, Yoda.  Wise beyond words as he attempted to teach Luke Skywalker how to harness the power of The Force.

At one point as Luke fails again and again, Yoda exclaims in exasperation, “There is no ‘try.’  There is only do or not do.”

This might be the message of two sons in Matthew’s gospel assigned for this Sunday.  Do or not do.  There is no “try.”

“A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’  He answered, ‘I will not; but later he changed his mind and went.  The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir;’ but he did not go.  Which of the two did the will of the father?”

And for this reason, the “kin-dom” is opened to all who respond to the call.  That is why prostitutes and tax collectors will be received ahead of stiff-necked religious authorities who quibble over theological fine points while the world goes to rot.

A while back, actually, several years ago as chapter head of our Pomona Valley Chapter of Progressive Christians Uniting, I had championed a small group of Muslims being harassed and tormented by their white, supposedly Christian neighbors. 

Their fine Christian neighbors had at points thrown pig parts onto their property to desecrate it (or so they thought).  These people were besieged with one legal action after another by their neighbors.  “Islam” is from the root word for “peace” – salaam — but many in the surrounding community would not have it so.

Our chapter, over several months, raised some ten thousand dollars for the legal defense fund of that Muslim congregation.

Hate, vituperation, porcine entrails?  Definitely NOT what Jesus would do.  But that’s another sermon.

At the annual dinner of An-Noor Mosque (the name of which translates as “the Light”), my family and I were invited to receive a token of their appreciation and friendship.  In accepting the honor on behalf of our Pomona Valley Chapter, I mentioned that if one had asked me several years ago if I would have any Muslim friends, I would have been at a loss for words.  No, of course not.  I didn’t even know any Muslims.  And now, here I was surrounded by an entire group of new friends that I had come to know and admire over the past two years of this saga.  What a blessing to be found through all this struggle!

One of the things I learned about Islam is that while they don’t put quite the same emphasis on theological explication of their faith that we Christians do, there is a much deeper concern for right and righteous behavior.  Doing the right thing – thus the extensive code of ethical writing and rulings.  Say AND do.  There is no “try.”

As I oft quote Mark Twain, “It would be a lot easier to believe in the possibility of redemption if the redeemed looked a little more redeemed.”

When I headed up Project Understanding – Temple City, our ecumenical fair housing program, we had a number of participating congregations.  The three or four I could always count on were the Quakers, the Unitarians, liberal Catholics who believed in the social teachings of their church and the small band of Disciples of Christ folks who gave us office space at their church.  These folks put their faith into action.

They would accompany home seekers who had been refused an apartment.  They would confront apartment managers and landlords with the demands of California’s fair housing laws.

Our volunteers were the incarnation of Dr. King’s aphorism, “It is always the right time to do the right thing.”

They would help put on community education events to help these gatekeepers know the law and educate managers and owners to assuage the fear that if a person of color moved in all that the other tenants would move out.  Actually, no one would leave because people hate to move – and we found that no one did.  And this new tenant, if they could afford the rent, would take the same care of their unit as that older, white tenant.  And that was invariably the case.

Now here’s the real irony – our very first client was an Italian man.  For some reason, the owner hated Italians.  Go figure!

The people in our fair housing organization walked the talk.  And their work often took them far outside their comfort zone.  It’s not easy listening to some racist screaming at you about ruining the neighborhood.  Quick – Where’s the Pepto-Bismol? 

The slogan of our movement was and is: “Good Neighbors Come in All Colors.”  And that’s what we worked at day in and day out.  Every passing month, the blessings of God’s Kin-dom grew by the number of new people who walked through the doors of opportunity.

I’m reminded of the fictional persona, a buxom nurse with attitude, Geraldine, played by Flip Wilson – always a memorable segment and crowd pleaser of his comedy show.  Her opening lines as she strutted her stuff were, “What you see is what you get.”

When our clients looked at these church folks, what they saw was what they got – God’s open arms of welcome.

The church is indeed a door into a smidgeon of eternity when the operative ethic is, “What you see is what you get.”

These were the Christians in the past who sheltered Jews from Hitler’s extermination camps.  These were the Christians who stood with Catholic priests and nuns martyred by death squads in Central American countries for siding with the poor.  These were the Christians who marched with Martin Luther King in both North and South. 

When it came to “Do or Not Do.”  They did!

It’s sometimes difficult to put into context the work we do, which often seems more humdrum than heroic.  Running the copy machine, stapling, attending a community meeting doesn’t seem so exhilarating as joining a demonstration to protect LGBTQ rights or stop the banning of books at one’s local school library.  Yet, little by little it all works to make manifest God’s gracious welcome to all. 

As our planet is besieged by what my friend, Katherine Hayhoe calls, “Global Weirding,” it is time to move to a more responsible stewardship of this earth.  I’m told that this past Friday, New York City, where our younger son and future daughter-in-law live, received as much rain in three hours as would be normal for an entire month.  Christopher reports water in their basement and flooded streets.  Again, the subway was awash.  I’ve been wondering if Alexis made it home from work okay.

Bill Nye, the “Science Guy,” said it’s now time for “big picture” thinking.  Definitely, do not vote for any climate denier.  Do not vote for any who aid, abet and fund them. 

The first step may be to educate oneself on where your dollar goes in the marketplace.   And while there is no salvation in purity of action, at least it’s possible to avoid giving our consumer dollar to some of the worst of these culprits.   Time to educate yourself.  How we spend our income is a Christian responsibility.  You have the “power of the purse.”

Join an environmental group like Citizens’ Climate Lobby that has been working for a sustainable energy future.  Or 350.org, Bill McKibben’s group.  There is no “try,” only “do or not do.” 

What future do we wish for ourselves and our children and grandchildren?  What they see may not be much of a future.

Letters to the editor, a phone call to a missed friend, a welcome to a new person at Sunday Service.  It is all part of the essential work of the Jesus Movement.  All part of the “do” of the journey.

I know, when folks look at St. Francis what they see is indeed what they get.  And while some of us might be “trying” at times, here faith is manifest in action.  And Love is the ethic.

In less than a week, Jai and I head off to Connecticut to marry off our youngest son Christopher and his beloved, Alexis.  We have a stake in what sort of planet we leave them.  What sort of politics we leave them.  What sort of commonwealth we leave them.  And you, likewise, for your family.

“In the beginning God created…”  Light was the first gift of this wondrous event.  Let’s pray that this same Light set our imaginations and will on fire that we keep it all going.  Do or Not Do is the question before us.  The gift of Holy Spirit is to fortify our imaginations and steel our will:  To the Glory of God.  Amen.

October 1, 2023
18 Pentecost, Proper 21

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32; Psalm 25:1-8;
Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

“There is no Try”

Back some time ago when I was running our family’s construction company, “Forney Development Co.,” we had three projects in various stages of refurbishment in Lake Arrowhead.

I would often be up there to monitor progress.  One day I got up there, obviously none of the crew was expecting me as they were all standing around.  When I asked as to why I heard no hammers pounding or saws cutting I was told that they were waiting a delivery of lumber.

I looked about the job site which was a mess.  It hadn’t been cleaned up in some while.  I told the crew that there’s not a single job site around that doesn’t need picked up and swept up.  AND, I didn’t have any pay category for just standing around.

They got the message.  And the lumber delivery arrived shortly after we had the place tidied up.

Employees are often a trying and tricky proposition.  To get the right person in the right job is a knack developed over time.  And sometimes it just doesn’t work.

Alfredo always wanted a raise but his foreman would tell him that if he couldn’t add two fractions together, he wouldn’t be able to figure the layout for roof trusses and rafters.  “If you can’t do this basic math, how can I recommend to John that he give you a raise?”  Alfredo never seemed interested in learning the math but also felt that Manny was unfair in not recommending him for a raise.

I now have one fellow that can be off chasing rabbits in a flash.  I’ve learned that I cannot give him more than one task at a time.  Otherwise, the most important task never gets accomplished. 

Instead of getting a unit ready for a new tenant, this fellow’s under the box truck fiddling with the shocks and the liftgate.  We don’t need the truck now.  Meanwhile our tenant has paid his deposit and is ready to move in.  We have tile to set, new carpet to lay, plumbing to repair, mold to eliminate and a new window to be installed.  Just for starters.

I can only imagine the distressing plight of the harried landowner in Matthew’s story of harvest time at his vineyard.  Everyone grousing about who got paid what!  And a labor shortage to boot!

What is fair? 

Matthew’s little vignette got at this issue for the legalists in his congregation.  And of course, any business owner is going to bridle at the proposition that those showing up at the job site at the last hour would be paid the same as those showing up at 6:00 o’clock that morning.  Owners would shout to the rooftops, “Unfair.”  We can’t run any business that way.  We’d be out of business!

Well, this parable is not about fair wages.  It’s about God’s generous heart.

An early controversy in the growing church was whether and how the gentiles should be welcomed.  Why should these new converts be exempt from the difficulty of laboring under the demands of the Law when the children of Israel have been under that burden for generations.  It’s not fair! 

They waltz right in at the last hour and are yet receiving the same benefits of God’s love as the ones who have had to prove themselves under the Law for generations.  Not fair!

We face the same issue here in America.  Our borders are besieged with immigrants seeking shelter, seeking refuge from oppressive governments, from murderous gangs, from the effects of climate change, from lack of economic opportunity.  Residents in cities besieged by this influx cry, “It’s not fair.  This is not sustainable.”

In New York, Mayor Adams lamented that this issue “will destroy this city.”

As the price of everything continues to climb, wage earners and their families are squeezed.  Since the Age of Reagan, income disparity between the bottom eighty percent and the very top has skyrocketed. 

We now have less social mobility than we had in the Gilded Age of the late 1890s through the end of that century.  Labor actions and strikes are now at an all-time high as workers struggle for a fair wage, a living wage.  And artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate many of the now existing jobs.

We all are hearing a collective, “It’s not fair” resonating throughout the land.  A general disgruntlement.

Statistics say the economy is doing just fine.  But people are not feeling it in their pocketbooks. 

It’s time to take a new look at the covenant that binds us together as a people.  We need to look at the economic arrangement that binds our various nations together in a common economic rule of law.

What’s fair?

The job category of just standing around and doing nothing won’t cut it anymore.

What is fair? 

Last evening on PBS “News Hour” was a segment on the obstacles to people released from incarceration who are prevented from obtaining occupational licenses for many vocations – teacher, public safety officer, electrician, cosmetologist, elder care, real estate agent, nurse, doctor or attorney.

Even though they might now have acquired the education and have demonstrated the aptitude, they are denied access to appropriate employment, in many cases due to a bad decision as a teenager.  Now, THAT’S not fair!

What is fair?  This for starters:

These people have done their time, paid their debt.  It is high time to welcome them back into civil society with all the benefits and privileges.  That’s a mirror in a small way of God’s magnanimous embrace of all.  It’s the reality of the Parable of the Prodigal Son come to life.

Many of these folks will be among our clients at House of Hope.  A part of our two-year program will be to provide the education and employment readiness skills for such new beginnings.

Let’s not forget, many will relapse once or twice before attaining long-term sobriety.  We believe in second and third…and more chances.

Yeah, you’ve still got to do some basic math to get by in life.  You need to pay your bills.  You need to be able to fill out a job application.  Maybe, write a cogent sentence.  You’ve got to be able to get your life organized.

But I’m especially most grateful for an eternal welcome for the disorganized, the ADD folks.  As is our welcome at the Lord’s Table: “Whoever you are and wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you’re invited to this Table to receive the Bread and Wine made holy.”  For you, my friend, even at the eleventh hour, are holy and precious in the sight of God.  Amen.

September 24, 2023
17 Pentecost, Proper 20

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Jonah 3:10-4:11; Psalm 145:1-8;
Philippians 1:21-39; Matthew 20:1-16 “It’s Not Fair”