"ANOTHER CHANCE ALLOWED"

 “ANOTHER CHANCE ALLOWED”

My friend and colleague the Reverend Rachel Anderson posted these damning words on Saturday about the release of the Epstein files:  “The fact that people need a dead man’s files to believe a thousand living women tells us everything about whose voices they value and whose they don’t.”  It is a reminder of the fight that is always with us about who is valued and who is not.  I am grateful to Rachel and to many others who are fighting for all voices to be heard and valued.

It is also a reminder of the scandal of the Christmas story – one woman had a vision from God and decided to seek to live it out.  She risked her life in saying “Yes.” She was fortunate that she was not the only visionary in the family – her fiancé Joseph had visions from God also, and he decided to live out that vision also.  His decision gave Mary protective cover in a patriarchal society, where her getting pregnant by someone other than her fiancé was a crime punishable by death.  He understood that while the society did not value women, God did value women as well as men.

    I also listen to Christmas music in this season which I love to do – there are many old favorites, and I especially like newer ones like “Rebel Jesus” by Jackson Browne and “Nothing But a Child” by Steve Earle.  Earle’s song especially reminds us of the fragility of the story of the birth of Jesus – born to a woman who got pregnant before marriage, born on the streets, hunted by the government soldiers, a Palestinian refugee crossing borders in order to escape execution.  The “glory of a King born to rule the earth” is stunningly absent from the details of the birth story of Jesus.  

“Nothing But a Child” puts it this way:

“Once upon a time

In a far off land

Wise {men} saw a sign

And set out cross the sand

Songs of praise to sing

They travelled day and night

Precious gifts to bring

They were guided by the light

They chased a brand new star

Ever towards the West

Across the mountains far

But when it came to rest

They scarce believed their eyes

They’d come so many miles

The miracle they prized

Was nothing but a child

Nothing but a child

Could wash those tears away

Or guide a weary world

Into the light of day

Nothing but a child

Could help erase those miles

So once again we all can be children 

     For a while”

So, as we approach the new year with trembling, let us remember the fragility of this story and how radical it is.  It challenges our point of view of ourselves and the world itself.  And it asks us to remember how fragile life is, how precious life is, and how, like Mary and Joseph, we are asked to be bold and courageous and visionary in a time that looks dark and dreary.  And, indeed that’s why the church chose the holiday of the Sun to attach this Christmas story.  We are asked to be like those magi who set off on a journey, looking for a vision that will fill us and sustain us, and which will make a stunning claim about the power and force at the center of the universe.  It is powered by visionaries who are high on love.  And, most of all, we will find that vision in very surprising places.

"THE VISIONS OF ADVENT - MARY"

 “THE VISIONS OF ADVENT – MARY”

        In Luke’s Gospel, Mary is a young woman engaged to be married in Nazareth, when she has a vision from God.  She sees the angel Gabriel, who comes to her with a message from God.  “Ave, Maria,” as the Latin puts it.  Gabriel tells her that God wants her to allow herself to be the vessel for the conception and birth of the Messiah, whom she will name “Jesus,” meaning “God saves.”  This request places Mary in a precarious position – pregnant before marriage by someone other than her betrothed, she will be shamed, shunned, and perhaps even stoned to death.  It is the first of several steps where God chooses to come among us, not as a glorious king or president, but rather as one conceived in scandal, born on the streets, hunted down to be killed by government soldiers, a refugee whose family seeks political asylum in Egypt.  ICE is on the way to Nazareth.

Mary says “yes,” that she will be a “handmaiden of the Lord,” as the King James Version of the Bible puts it.  Yes, that same “handmaiden” of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” She is anxious and frightened, but she finds comfort in her cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously pregnant.  The community of women gives her courage and power, and she shares her song of vision and justice, called “Mary’s Magnificat” in Luke 1:46-55.  It is not a song of “sweet, little Jesus boy,” but rather a radical vision of what God intends in the birth of this baby: “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”  In the birth and life and ministry of this baby, God intends to affirm a much different vision of what life on earth should look like.

We are in the midst of a time when the values of the Christmas story are being contested in modern culture.  God is indicating in these stories that our call is to move away from the center of capitalist culture towards the margins where so many people live.  What will guide us in these days?  On what narratives will we base our lives?  The Christmas stories point us in the direction of sharing, caring, and community rather than greed, hoarding, and individualism.  As we take some time in this season to consider who we are and whose we are, what visions will we be seeking?  These Christmas stories don’t speak of the sweet baby Jesus.  They speak of visions of God’s movement and of God’s demands on us to make tough decisions to re-orient our lives.  We all enjoy the warmth and lovely feelings surrounding the Christmas season, but we must also remember that at the center of the stories of the birth of Jesus are tough demands for tough decisions.  Joseph is asked to give up his masculine dignity and pride and take Mary her baby as his own, even though he is not the biological father – and likely is unsure who the biological father really is.  Mary is asked to totally disrupt her life – indeed, even risk her life – in order to allow the Christ to be conceived in her and to raise him.  As Simeon puts it later in the second chapter of Luke, because of her “yes” to God, Mary will know deep pain.  “A sword will pierce her heart” – that is the metaphor that Simeon uses to describe Mary’s situation after her decision.

I am not intending to be a downer here at the great season of Christmas.  Yet, I want to emphasize that at the heart of this powerful season are stories that are scandalous, demanding, scary, and life-changing.  We may not choose to have the kinds of visions that are at the heart of these Christmas stories, but God is offering them to us.  May we find ways to say “yes,” as did Mary and Joseph.

"THE VISIONS OF ADVENT - JOSEPH"

 “THE VISIONS OF ADVENT – JOSEPH”

There are two versions of the Christmas story in the New Testament.  As we saw last week, the first one is in Matthew and centers on Joseph.  The second one is in Luke and centers on Mary.  Partnering with the Holy Spirit, Mary is the driving force in the Advent stories, and I’ll look at her story next week.  This week I want to focus on Joseph, since his story follows right on the heels of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew, which we reflected upon last week.

We hear from Matthew that the “birth of Jesus the Christ took place in this way.”  Then Matthew proceeds to tell us the birth story from Joseph’s point of view.  Joseph is engaged to be married to Mary, but she brings him disturbing news of a very difficult sort:  she is pregnant by someone other than him.  It was not unknown for couples who were engaged to have sex, but Matthew’s version does not address this issue.  We can only imagine Joseph’s anger and cynicism when Mary tells him that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit: “Wow, Mary, I’ve heard some twisted tales about people getting pregnant, but this one is about the worst – and, it really hurts.  How could you do this to me, to us?”

The Jewish law at this point allows for several punishments for Mary’s apparent transgressions.  Joseph can require her to be publicly humiliated in front of the elders of Nazareth, or he could ask that she be stoned to death by the elders and other males in the village.  Joseph’s heart is full of pain and anger, but he will not allow his male dominant position to express itself in a degrading way towards Mary.   Matthew tells us that Joseph is a righteous man, so he decides to divorce Mary quietly, dismissing her and sending her back to her family – let them deal with this mess.  At least he has not publicly shamed her or given her the death penalty.

But, Matthew also tells us that Joseph is a man of visions, and after he has decided how he will end the engagement to Mary, he has a vision from God telling him not to be “afraid” (the Greek word here is the root of “phobia,” meaning a deep anxiety.)  The messenger from God tells Joseph to take Mary as his wife and to take the unborn baby as his son.  The messenger also tells Joseph to name his son “Jesus,” whose root meaning is “God saves.”  Matthew does not reveal to us the wrestling that is in the heart of Joseph, but the righteousness of Joseph wins out.  He accepts the vision from God and marries Mary and fathers Jesus.  In this way, Joseph is protecting Mary and Jesus – single women with children in this time are in a very vulnerable position, as well as their children.  Joseph provides them cover in a male-dominated world – he gives them shelter, no matter the hurt in his heart or the ridicule that he will face from his male buddies.  “Oh, yeah, the Holy Spirit, huh, a likely story!”

Joseph is a man of visions.  He looks for God and finds a vision which tells him what to do in this difficult and humiliating situation.  He acts on that vision, and he gives Mary the shelter that she needs.  His visions do not stop there, however.  In the second chapter of Matthew after the birth of his son Jesus, Joseph receives another vision from God, which tells him to take the Holy Family away from Bethlehem into the land of Egypt, because ICE authorities from King Herod are coming for them, with murder in their hearts.  Joseph obeys this vision also, and they flee in the middle of the night, heading for the land where Moses was born.  The second chapter of Matthew closes with yet another vision for Joseph – he is told to take the family back to Israel, for those commanding ICE have passed on.

I’ve always wondered about these visions of Joseph – are they really true?  Or are they just stories created by the early church in response to the tremendous curiosity about the birth of Jesus.  To borrow a phrase from Marcus Borg, “these stories may not have happened in just this way, but they are true.”  I also remember that for all of her life the great freedom finder Harriet Tubman swore that she received the times and places for her freedom runs in visions from God.  So, that raises the question for us:  what visions is God sending to us in our time?  Visions for us personally like Joseph?  And visions for us communally, as with Harriet Tubman?  In this Advent season, may the Spirit give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

"ADVENT IS UPON US"

"ADVENT IS UPON US"         

        We have begun the Advent Season, with all its promise and peril and demanding qualities, and danger of being sentimentalized.  When we were preaching dialogue sermons, Caroline and I rarely ever used the lectionary passages for Advent, because the Biblical passages were so disconnected from the season itself.  We preferred to concentrate on the Biblical stories about Advent and Christmas, and there were two biblical books that used these stories - Matthew and Luke (though John has a spiritualized version.)  Not using the Biblical Christmas stories in Advent allows the culture to take them over, which we obviously have allowed.

         The first Christmas story in the Bible comes in Matthew's gospel, in which the author begins the New Testament with a genealogy of Jesus - dull reading until you notice that Matthew infuses the usual "male begetting" genealogy with 5 women - and what five women they are!  If you haven't encountered their stories, take time to do so in this Advent season:  Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah (also known as Bathsheba), and Mary.  Here's a brief synopsis of them.

        In the 38th chapter of Genesis - in the middle of the Joseph saga - comes the story of Judah (head of one of the 12 tribes of Israel) breaking a promise to his daughter-in-law Tamar.  Tamar has been widowed twice by Judah's sons, and he promises to let her marry a third son when he comes of age. But, wanting to keep his third son alive, Judah does not allow the son to marry Tamar.  At this time in the Bible, a woman's main value is in having children, especially sons, so Tamar takes matters into her own hands.  She disguises herself and dresses as a sex worker.  Judah takes a fancy to her and has sex with her.  She becomes pregnant, and when Judah hears about it, he wants to have her killed for being pregnant outside of marriage. Tamar shows Judah the signet ring that he exchanged for the sexual work, and Judah sees his error in not providing for her.  He gives her sanction and shelter, and she gives birth to twins named Perez and Zerah.

        Rahab's story is mentioned in Joshua, chapters 2 and 6.  After the death of Moses, Joshua leads the people into Canaan to begin the intermingling and finding a new home.  Like the Europeans who came to America, he feels that he must conquer and subdue the people who are already living in Canaan.  He sends spies into Jericho and tells them to check things out.  They stay at the home of Rahab - it has a reputation for welcoming strange men.  When the people of Jericho hear about the spies, they come to kill them, but Rahab hides and saves them.  When Joshua "fit the battle of Jericho," his fighters spare the home of Rahab, and then she joins them as they travel into Canaan.  She eventually marries Salmon, and her son Boaz will figure prominently in the story of Ruth.  Ruth is an immigrant to Israel (good thing that Trump's ICE police were not around when she entered the land).  After the death of her husband, Ruth pledges herself to her mother-in-law Naomi, and their powerful story is found in the book of Ruth.  Suffice it to say that Ruth will become the great-grandmother of King David - a foreign woman in whose line Jesus is born.

        The fourth woman mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus is not named.  She is called "the wife of Uriah," and you can find her story in Second Samuel chapters 11 and 12.  We know her as "Bathsheba," but Matthew wants us to know that King David stole her from her husband Uriah, raped her, then got her pregnant.  When these events take place, Uriah is off fighting for Israel, and David tries to cover his crimes by giving Uriah time off from war, in order to come home and have sex with his wife Bathsheba.  However, Uriah has taken a vow of celibacy during the war, so he does not have sex with Bathsheba.  Finally, David then commits an even worst crime - he arranges to have Uriah killed in battle so that he may "officially" have Bathsheba to be his wife.  The prophet Nathan comes to David to confront him on these events.

        The fifth woman mentioned in Matthew's genealogy is Mary, who will become the mother of Jesus.  We will look at her story later, but for now, we can note that as teenager pregnant before marriage, by someone other then her fiance, she joins with the litany of women in Matthew's genealogy who live their lives on the margins.  In mentioning women - and especially these five women - Matthew reminds us that the lineage of Jesus pushes him (and should push us) to the margins of life.  Most of us want to move towards the center of life, but this genealogy asks us to hear that God wants us to move towards the margins of life.  On what kind of journey will we embark in this Advent and Christmas season?

        

        

"A SONG OF MYSELF"

 “A SONG OF MYSELF”

My 79th birthday (November 27) falls on Thanksgiving Day this year – I was born on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1946 in Methodist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and though I grew up in Arkansas, the city of Memphis was always the urban area to which I related.  So, I’m celebrating myself and my life this week, and I love using the line from Walt Whitman’s poem as the title of the blog.

If you’ve read my semi-memoir “She Made a Way: Mother and Me in a Deep South World,” you’ll know my story.  If you haven’t read it, get it somewhere and read it and let me know what you think.  Many people have found it profound and provocative, and have found it to be an invitation for them to enter into reflections about their own journeys.  Short summary – I was raised by a single mom in a white, male supremacist world, and while I drank in the kool-aid of racism and sexism and homophobia and militarism, my mother and others helped to shape me in a different way.  Thanks to my mother and to many others, I’ve had several conversions which have enabled me to move towards a sense of liberation from many of those captivities which I breathed in as a child (to use the Apostle Paul’s powerful image from Ephesians 2).  That captivity is so deep, however, that I am afraid that I always stand in the need of more conversions.  I give thanks for my life and for all those who have loved me, challenged me, comforted me, delighted me, and stayed with me – THANK YOU!

I want to close with a Mary Oliver poem, but before I do, in this Thanksgiving week, I must simply add a feeling of disgust and revulsion at the Trumpster’s and the Republicans’ use of SNAP and food benefits as a negotiating tool in the struggle over the government shutdown.  Though I thought he could no longer shock me, I still must register a fundamental outrage that he would allow people to go hungry in order to win political points.  These first ten months of his reign of terror make me tremble for the remaining 3 years – or at least the one year before the Democrats regain control of Congress.

And now on the poem “Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.  The poem is a familiar one to many of us, but it also reminds me of the great gift of life and the call from God to be grateful and to share that gratitude with others.

“SUMMER DAY”

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean —

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

 Mary Oliver

"A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING"

 "A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING"

For my blog this week, I am using a prayer by my colleague, the Reverend Irv Porter, pastor of the Church of The Indian Fellowship in Tacoma, Washington.  He is also PCUSA Associate for Native American Intercultural Congregational Support, and he is a descendant of the Nez Perce, Pima and T'hona O'odham tribes. He and I served together on the Presbyterian Intercultural Network Board.  May we all feel and find this sacred connection to God’s creation, including our own selves and others.

A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Creator God,

From the rising of the sun in the east to its setting in the west, you have blessed us with life, family, food from creation and spiritual ways drawing us closer to you.

You gave us this land, Turtle Island, to care for, to live in and to preserve for coming generations. Stop our ears when talk of destroying the land for temporary gain is heard. Teach us to respect the land and all her gifts of life. We are all related so what happens to any part of Creation affects us all. We are reminded that the land holds our ancestors, making it sacred.

As we work to end intolerance of people and cultures and our tolerance of historic injustice, open our hearts to reflect your image, your peace and your love to all. Open our spirits to peace and healing with those from all nations.

The wind, the sunrise, the sound of water moving forward, the songs of the bird, the beauty of the butterfly — all these things are where we find you, always. Help us to find you in this beauty and grant us lives centered upon you, Creator of the universe.

For all these blessings and more, our hearts are full of thanks. At this gathering of family and friends, this great feast of blessing, we thank you. Guide us to know your ways with respect. Hear our prayer of Thanksgiving. Let it be so.

Amen.

"WHENCE THE CHURCH?"

 “WHENCE THE CHURCH?”

In his fine 1971 song “City of New Orleans,” Steve Goodman wrote about the demise of the passenger railroad trains throughout the country.  In that song were these lines about the death of the passenger railroad trains:

“And the steel wheels still ain't heard the news

The conductor sings his songs again, the passengers will please refrain

This train's got the disappearin' railroad blues”

“The old steel rails still ain’t heard the news” is a line that reminds me of the situation of the mainline white church in America these days.  As an institution, the church is in hospice care, but some of us are in denial or are simply unaware that the era of the white church in America is ending, with God waiting to birth a new form in the decades ahead.  

In the midst of the rebirth of the church, in which directions can we look?  First, in one of the great ironies of life, just as the church is dying, we as a culture are in great need of a vital church which can speak to the powers about justice and can act in loving and welcoming ways, building community with all whom God sends.   Whatever forms the new church of God takes, it must be grounded in this guideline from the prophet Micah:  love kindness, do justice, walk humbly.  In a time of food insecurity, when the federal government and some state governors act like those passersby in Jesus’ parable of “The Good Samaritan,” the church would do well to be a source of food for the belly and food for the soul for those of us in need.

Second, we need new imaginations about what our worship services will look like.  Covid dragged us kicking and screaming into a virtual technological age, and though I am so glad that I had retired when this occurred, it forced church leadership to think and sometimes act imaginatively about worship.  It will not be possible for the church to go back to a non-hybrid age, when the incarnation of the church meant everyone physically together in one sanctuary.  In our Oakhurst days, we instituted a time of sharing joys and concerns, when people got up in worship to ask for prayers for themselves, for loved ones, for the world.  It was a powerful time of vulnerability, and in an age when we are taught to seek to be individualistic and self-sufficient and independent, it was a profound way of building community.  Though the church membership grew so much that we no longer took the time to have people stand up and share, we still retained the approach by having worshippers write down their concerns and joys and have the worship leader share them.  Those kinds of risky approaches are needed in mainline white church worship in these days.   In a time when the community is falling apart, we must find ways to rebuild authentic communities based on the values of love, justice, equity and compassion.

    In regard to church buildings, there are many options.  Some churches have already started transforming their space into something more useful to the community.  Our friend Richelle Patton has started a company that works with churches to adapt church building space to become affordable housing.  In most of these situations, Richelle’s company,  Collaborative Housing Solutions, works with congregations to convert their property into affordable housing, all the while remodeling some of the space to meet the congregation’s need for worship and educational activities.  If you or your church leaders want more info on Richelle’s work, contact me, and I’ll put you together with her.   There are all kinds of possibilities for churches to share space with other congregations, day cares, elder cares, food banks, and other non-profits.

As I indicated earlier, churches must return to the Christian tradition’s emphasis on weaving spirituality and justice together into one tapestry. In the USA, we split them apart in order for our “Christian” members to be able to hold people as slaves and to exploit others in neo-slavery.  And, notice that I did not say “spirituality and politics.”  While there is an authentic intersection between spirituality and politics, that can quickly go awry, as we see in today’s Christian Wrong movement.  Most of them would not recognize justice if it walked up and kissed them.  No, this necessity for the future of the church is much deeper and wider.  It asks those who claim as Jesus Christ as Lord to begin to witness and to work for justice in the society.  This work is the only way to meet the risen Jesus – otherwise, we are meeting a puppet of Jesus that we have made in our own image.

Where does the church go from here?  These are some of the guidelines for us to follow: building authentic community where everyone is welcomed;  imaginations to see new ways of worship and life together;  sharing our building capacity with those in need in our community;  re-weaving spirituality and justice together so that the tapestry of the church has both threads running through it. In this way, when outsiders look at the church community, they see not a mean, judgmental community but rather a community centered on the God we know in Jesus, a community whose main characteristics are love, compassion, justice, and equality.