"DAVID STROUPE!!!"

 “DAVID STROUPE!”

Our son David Stroupe was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on a snowy evening 46 years ago on January 31, 1980.  It snowed six inches in Norfolk on the night that he was born, and he says that he has been trying to get warm ever since. As I write this blog in Decatur, we have just made it through an ice storm, so I am especially remembering the snowy, cold night when he was born.   He has been a great gift to us and to so many others in this crazy world.  He currently teaches science education at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, after a long stint at Michigan State.

David has always had a kind and compassionate heart, and we sometimes ended up with various creatures in our house that he had found or brought home from his class at school.  He also has always had a strong moral sense, growing up at Oakhurst Presbyterian where we emphasized that love and justice had to be woven together.  We also taught that God was at the center of life.  When we took him to the Atlantans baseball games in the summer, we would stand for the national anthem, but we would not put our hands over our hearts, as most other fans did.  When David asked why we did not put our hands over our hearts, we would reply that our hearts belonged to God, not to our country or anything else.

     In his final year of elementary school, he was named as captain of the safety patrol, and he brought home a dilemma.  As captain of the safety patrol, he was required to lead the school in the pledge of allegiance to the flag.  And, in so doing, he would be expected to put his hand over his heart.  He wanted to be true to our heritage, but he also wanted to meet the expectations of the school and the safety patrol.  I suggested that he think about passing that duty along to the next officer of the safety patrol, but he indicated that leading the pledge was part of his duties, and he wanted to fulfill his duties.  He came up with a compromise – he would only put his hand near his heart – he would not put his hand over his heart.  In that way, he would try to fulfill both his heritage and his duties.  We appreciated his struggle over this, so we indicated that this approach would work for us.  He ended up winning the DAR Good Citizenship Award, and on the day that he received it, he wore a statement T-shirt in 1992 saying “How could Columbus have discovered America when people were already living here?”

        He has always been a well-coordinated person, and he played soccer and was a founder of the ultimate frisbee team at Decatur High School.  I also remember playing basketball with him over at the Winnona School playground.  Especially memorable was the era when he got taller than me, and as he grew taller, he delighted in blocking as many of my basketball shots as he could.  He took great joy in being able to do that!

David and Erin moved to Salt Lake City two years ago, where they are now teaching at the University of Utah. He is a Professor of STEM Education, Teacher Education, the Interim Associate Dean of Research in the College of Education, and the Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education. His third book (published by Harvard Education Press in 2023) “Growing and Sustaining Student-Centered Science Classrooms,” won the 2024 Gloria J. Ladson-Billings Outstanding Book Award from the American Association of College Teachers of Education. He also began a multiyear stint as a co-editor of the journal Science Education this year, and they receive about 1,000 articles a year, seeking publication.  He also was inducted as a Fellow in the American Association for Advancement of Science.

We give thanks for David and all the gifts that he has shared with us and with so many others.  YAY FOR DAVID!!!!

"MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR."

 “MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.”

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the establishment of the MLK national holiday.  I was reminded that God has a sense of humor because President Ronald Reagan was forced to sign it in to law in 1983.  Many white people, including myself, had harsh feelings toward King, and it has taken a long time for this holiday to become established, though some people classified as “white” still harbor hard feelings about King and his witness and ministry.  I’ve written about my journey with Dr. King in an online article for The Atlantic – you can check it out at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/doubting-mlk-during-a-strike-in-memphis/550118/

In these terrible days, however, it is clear that Dr. King offers us a vision of life that is sorely needed.  You can put together your own list, but from my point of view, his life and witness offer us at least five guidelines for living our lives in terrible times such as these.

King lived in a time of the violent repression of Black people and white sympathizers, so he had no delusions about what time it was in America.  But, he also believed in the power of the idea of equality, an idea that often had him using this refrain: “How long?  Not long!  How long? Not long!  How long?  Not long?” So, I think that the first thing that King would tell us in this oppressive age is that we must be driven by hope rather than despair.  In these Trumpster days, we live in a time of fear and despair, and King would seek to fire us up to be driven by a vision of hope and equality.  No unrealistic hope here – King lived in an age of white supremacist violence and oppression.  He would tell us that George Wallace and Orval Faubus and Ross Barnett or Donald Trump do not have total control over us or over our imaginations – the idea of equality is a powerful one that will not be denied, no matter that white supremacy is now making its comeback.

Second, King would urge us to stick with the idea of non-violence in our resistance to the forces of oppression and tyranny.  Confronted by the military and police might of the Trumpster, some of us might be tempted to lean into violence not only as a strategy but as a necessity.  King would strongly wrestle with us to stick with the idea of non-violence, not only because it forces us to see the other as “human,” but also because of what violence does to our own psyches and understandings of ourselves and of others.  King used the Jesus approach:  be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves.  Jesus said these words to his followers not because he was in power but because he was not in power – he was subject to arrest and violence at the hands of the Roman Empire at any time.  King wanted his followers to remain true to themselves and true to the humanity of others.

Third, King would urge us to be resisters to the current political rulers.  As the Civil Rights Movement reminded us, there is no neutral ground here.  King’s approach to non-violence did not mean passivity.  It meant a strong dedication to seeing others as human, but at the same time resisting the evil ways that they perpetuated and maintained.  Those who are resisting the ICE raids are showing us the way – resistance is a must in these days.  King was arrested over 30 times for civil disobedience, and one of his great letters was written from a jail cell in Birmingham.  King reminds us that we must resist the unjust powers who are currently prevailing, and his life and his death demonstrated the cost of such resistance.  As he noted in his “Drum Major Speech” in 1968, we must use all our might and imagination to resist the triple threats of racism, materialism, and militarism.

Fourth, King would urge us to refuse to accept the definitions of others about our own humanity and the humanity of others.  He insisted that we see ourselves as children not of racial classification, nor of money, nor of violence, nor of religion, nor of culture.  Rather we should see ourselves as children of God, by whatever name we call God.  King brought a radicalism to this approach to our own humanity and to the humanity of others. Only by knowing our own worth can we withstand the headwinds of the triple threats in our lives. 

I don’t think that King was a Calvinist, though I have my suspicions.  His final word to us would be a caution to keep hold on the understanding of our deep captivity to the triple threats of racism, materialism, and militarism.  They are always with us, sometimes flowing into an underground stream, but at other times roaring at us as they are doing now, seeking to make us bow down and worship them, accepting the definition of ourselves and of others as something to be feared and thus to be oppressed and crushed.  We live in dangerous times, but so did King.  And his witness in those times reminds us that we must be true to ourselves, and we must be organizing and resisting in community, so that love, justice, and equity can prevail.   We need to build and to be a part of the Beloved Community so that we can resist oppression and build a life on love, justice, and equity.

"MURDER IN HIS HEART'

 “MURDER IN HIS HEART”

Some of my friends are not fans of the Christmas season because they see it as over-commercialized and too sentimental, with its emphasis on “sweet, little Jesus boy.”  No argument from me on the commercialization issue – Christmas items started appearing in stores in the Atlanta area in late September, and many businesses count on the Christmas season to make their profits for the year.  And, though there are many opportunities to make Christmas only a sappy holiday, the Biblical witness does not bear that out.  In the Biblical Christmas stories, we get down and dirty, with feet on the ground, in all the riskiness and heartaches of human life – a teen-ager pregnant before marriage by someone other than her fiancé (subject to the death penalty), a baby born on the streets, with the first visitors being foreigners.  Not much sap here – just scandalous and difficult stuff.

The final argument for the human realism in the Christmas story is found at the end of Matthew’s account of the narrative in the closing part of chapter two.   As we saw last week, the magi come to visit the baby Jesus, and they engage King Herod on the way to Bethlehem.  Herod indicates that he wants to worship the baby, too, but we know that he has murder in his heart.  The wise magi visit Jesus, then they decide to go home by another way, rather than going back to Herod to tell where the baby is. They aren’t known as “wise men” for nothing.

Herod is infuriated that he has been beaten at his own game, and he returns to the murder in his heart as his endgame position.  Not knowing who this baby his, he orders his soldiers to kill all the baby boys of Jerusalem who are two years old and younger.  Joseph has had another vision from God, telling him to take his family and flee to Egypt, for the murderous Herod is coming for them.  Joseph takes Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt, where they enter the country as immigrants.  Fortunately for us all at this time, Egypt does not have Donald Trump as its leader, and the Holy Family is welcomed and embraced as immigrants.  The baby boys of Bethlehem do not fare so well – they are slaughtered by the man with murder in his heart.  The scene is horrific – Matthew quotes the prophet Jeremiah to describe it: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children.”  

Matthew’s account of the Christmas story does not end in sweet sentiment – it ends in fear and flight and murder and lamentation, a story close to our time.  The birth of Jesus came not when everything was quiet and still and tranquil, but rather in the midst of the muck and murder and blood of human life.  As we look into the new year and wonder how to use this Christmas story, let us recall that God came into our midst not as an escapee from the terror and violence of the world, but right into the midst of our fear and flight and murderous hearts.  Matthew doesn’t waste any time in proclaiming that God has come into our midst in the places where we live and struggle and hurt one another.

And, in our time, we live in the midst of another leader with murder in his heart.  Like Herod, the Trumpster believes that power and might and violence and death make the world go round, as his adviser Stephen Miller told us last week.  Or, as the Trumpster himself put it, there is no limit on his presidency except his own morality – and there seems to be a severe shortage of such morality.  From killing people in Venezuela in order to snatch its president and its first lady, to celebrating the murder of a mother in Minneapolis by his personal ICE agents (very similar to the soldiers of Herod), Trump seems to be the backhand of Herod in Jesus’ day.

“Murder in his heart” – so it was said about Herod, and now it is said about Trump, both of them being tyrants who believe that there is no check on their power.  If you haven’t known it already, the past two weeks have taught us that we are led by a tyrant, who currently seems to have very few checks on his power.  We are called to be witnesses to another way, the way seen in the Christmas stories, which knew just as much blood as we know.  In those stories, there were courageous visionaries who heard a different voice and who chose a different way.  They proclaimed in word and deed that love and justice and mercy make the world go round, and they made this proclamation not in a sweet and tranquil time, but in a time of blood flowing in the streets, blood shed by leaders with murder in their hearts.  

    We may not be Mary or Joseph or the magi or the shepherds, but we are called to seek visions from God, visions that will enable us to proclaim a different way in word and in deed.  Just as Joseph felt an urgency to move to Egypt when he heard the vision from God, so too must we feel that urgency.  It is time to act up and act out, to be witnesses in resistance to those with murder in their hearts. 

"EPIPHANY"

 “EPIPHANY”

Christmastide ends in the West this Wednesday, January 6, a date which the church has traditionally named as Epiphany. It celebrates the arrival of the magi to worship the baby Jesus.  The story in Matthew 2 is filled with intrigue and slyness and violence.  This is the first story in the New Testament about people coming to see the baby Jesus.  We will get the angels and the shepherds in Luke 2, but here in the first book of the New Testament, we find that it is foreigners who first pay tribute to Jesus.  In this time of nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA, let that sink in for a while – “foreigners” are the first people outside the family who pay tribute to the baby Jesus and to what he means to the world.  

    The magi, or astrologers, have watched a star rising in the West, and they decide to follow that star to find who they hope to be the “King of the Jews.”  The magi arrive in Jerusalem, announcing (undiplomatically) to King Herod that they are searching for the baby born to be king of the Jewish people.  Herod is greatly troubled, which is no surprise because he is a Trump-like figure. We should also note, however, that it is not just Herod who is troubled and frightened, but as Matthew tells us “all Jerusalem with him.”  People are already noticing that the birth of this baby will mean a revolutionary moment and movement for all of us.  Jesus of Nazareth will reverberate throughout human history, and no matter whether we are believers or not, this baby and the life that flows from his birth will engage and confront us all, no matter the place or the century in which we live. 

  Herod gets advice from his palace prophets that the baby is to be born in Bethlehem.  He tells the magi that he wants to worship the baby too, and he asks that they inform him where the baby is, so that he can come and pay homage. He has, of course, no intention of acknowledging this baby – his purpose is to kill him, to destroy any chances of Jesus’ being a rival for his kingdom.  We will visit that part of the story next week. 

    The magi arrive at the place where Jesus and his parents are staying, and they kneel down and worship him as a special messenger from God.  They bring him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  As many scholars have noted, the gifts are symbolic:  gold for his majesty, frankincense for his priestly role in bringing God to us (and us to God), and myrrh for the suffering and price that he will pay for showing us the way to God.  We can only imagine what Mary and Joseph think as they watch these respected royals arrive with their entourage, proclaiming that this baby is the One.  

    On December 30, we had the privilege of watching eleven Buddhist monks pass by our house on their way to downtown Decatur.  They are on a walking march for peace, having started in Texas and heading for DC to proclaim the way of peace.  As we watched from our driveway, waving and conversing with them, I thought to myself that this must have been some of the way that Mary and Joseph felt when the magi arrived.

    On this level, we are called to remember that the first witnesses to Jesus and his meaning are “foreigners” whom we are now hearing are enemies in American culture.  We are being trained to fear the stranger and to join the people of Jerusalem in being troubled and frightened at the appearance of these “foreigners.”  Let us take heart from this story and resist that impulse which runs so long and so deep in our national history.  Epiphany reminds us – the stranger is not our enemy.  Indeed, as this story tells us, the stranger is often the vehicle of God’s grace and mercy and revelation.

     After they have seen the baby Jesus, the magi decide to return home. Herod has asked them to report back to him so that he can come and worship Jesus also.  As we shall see, however, Herod does not have adoration in his heart – he has murder in his heart, similar to our current president.  The magi have eyes to see and hearts to discern, however, so they return home by another way after they have found Jesus.  They do not report back to Herod, and as we shall see next week, Herod decides to take matters into his own hands.  There will always be Herods and Trumps, but let us have ears to hear and hearts to believe – God is calling us to join Her in movements for justice and mercy and peace.