"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.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH?"

 “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH?”

If you are of a certain age (like me), you can remember when white American churches were booming and growing.  Over the five decades since I became an adult, the church began to fade fast.  Indeed, my home church – First Presbyterian Church in Helena, Arkansas, is now closed, as is First Baptist, right across Porter Street.  Caroline’s home church in Chattanooga is closed.  Part of the reason they closed is that they had big, old buildings which the dwindling membership could not maintain.  But, this story is being repeated all around the country.  In this series, I’ll be concentrating on white churches, but much of the same can be said of Black churches – two large differences between Black and white here is that Black churches are often led by “tent-making” pastors, meaning that the pastors have full or part-time jobs in addition to pastoring.  The second difference is that only the wealthiest Black churches had large buildings, so the cost to maintain a much smaller building is easier to navigate.

And, speaking of race, that is one of the central reasons that white churches are failing and falling – those of us classified as “white” did not allow Black people to worship or become members in the congregation.  In small Southern towns like mine, that meant that at least half the population was automatically excluded from potential membership.  As MLK put it, the 11 AM worship hour is the most segregated time in the United States.  And, though some churches are notable exceptions to this, even now the vast majority of all churches are segregated.  

    This exclusivity not only applies to race – it also applies to sexual orientation.  All churches have had and continue to have LGBTQ+ members, but very few churches have allowed such members to be themselves in church.  Caroline and I have been part of church bodies ordaining LGBTQ+ people since 1978, but the Presbyterian denomination did not approve such ordination until 2011.  When they were in high school, my kids asked me why the churches were against ordaining LGBTQ+ people.  Since we ordained them at Oakhurst, I did not have an adequate answer, but David and Susan assured me that many of their young colleagues were departing the church because of this mean and oppressive policy.  The meanness and judgmental approach of the church has been – and continues to be – a huge turnoff for young adults.  Even though the Presbyterian denomination (and many others) have changed our minds on this issue, the horse is already out of the barn.  Young people know that we don’t mean it – on race, on sexual orientation, on money, on social class.

    Running all through this is the triumph of individualism in American culture.  We all believe in one form or another that the individual is the fundamental reality of human life – the idea that what is most important is the individual.  The necessity and value of community is seen as an antiquated approach to life.  Nowhere was this seen more clearly than in the Covid time, when most churches closed for extended periods of time.  Zoom/You Tube came to our rescue to stream services online, but that very service reminded us that we could get by pretty well without being in the physical presence of others, that we could do OK without the incarnated existence of the church community.  All churches were affected by this power, seen so clearly in the Covid time.  The need for community was lessened by this time in Covid, and we are still recovering from that loss, but we may never recover.

    The longtime split between spirituality and justice in the white American churches is also at the root of the demise of the church.  This split came because of the power of slavery and neo-slavery in American history.  In order to hold people as slaves, the enslavers had to lop off “justice” from the Christian faith, and though neo-slavery ended in 1965, the power of this split remains strong.  Neo-slavery is making its comeback now, and it is no surprise that Christian nationalism is one of the driving forces behind such a comeback.  Those of us classified as “white” have a long history of such a split.  The Religious Wrong (not “Right,” as they are often called) has combined spirituality and politics and is using it a powerful tool, but they have not united spirituality and justice.  (For more on this, see “The Spirituality of the Church” by Ernest Trice Thompson, or more recent books  “The False White Gospel” by Jim Wallis, “The End of Theological Education” by Ted Smith, and of course, the book that Dr. Catherine Meeks and I wrote called “Passionate for Justice.”). The moral bankruptcy of Christian nationalists shows how low we in the church world have sunk.

    This split between spirituality and justice means that most mainline churches have little community or engagement with those who are poor.  For us Presbyterians, we believe in a rigid order of worship which emphasizes our educational level and our desire not to display any vulnerability.  In that sense, we are almost saying that we are giving God a break by coming to worship Her together in a building whose history and existence have proclaimed to those who are poor that they are not welcome.  We may have many commendable church programs which seek to serve those in need, but we have rarely seen those in need as prospects for our community of faith.  For Black worshippers and for those who are poor, worship of God is life-giving because when they step out of the church sanctuary, the forces of racism and sexism and materialism await them to seek to crush them.  Those of us in mainline churches have not often been aware of this chasm, much less sought to bridge that gap.

    With these forces at work among us, it is no surprise that the white mainline American churches are in trouble – indeed, though there are notable exceptions, most of our churches are in hospice, waiting for a dignified death.  There are possible answers and signs of hope for the mainline American church, and next week, I will look briefly at those.  In the meantime, I’ll be glad to get your comments on this – what other causes for the demise of the church would you cite?

"REFORMATION SUNDAY"

 “REFORMATION SUNDAY”

This Sunday, October 26, is Reformation Sunday, and it marks the 508th anniversary of Roman Catholic monk Martin Luther posting 95 theses for debate about the nature of the church – legend has it that he posted them on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.  His actions were part of a movement to reform the church, but his actions also helped to spark a revolution in Western thinking and led to what we now know as the “Reformation.” He posted his articles for debate on All Hallows Eve,  also called  Halloween, and it led to a tidal wave of new religious organizations known as “Protestants,” or those who protested the Catholic religious order of the time.  

The Reformation, as its name implies, was a restructuring of what people believed, how people worshipped together, and how church bodies were organized and governed.  It was a re-formation that lasted over 500 years, but now that system of religious order in the West is beginning to break down.  We are currently in a time of another reformation in Western religious structures and understandings, and it will be a while before we understand how this new reformation will shake out and re-structure.  In my humble approach, I want to look at some of the causes and maybe some of the new directions that the church in the West will take for the rest of this century.  Today, I’ll share background – next week the causes, then the next week, some possible new directions.  

The mainline white churches of the West are dying – though there is some discussion about it, there is little debate about it.  Since Caroline and I have been retired, we have worshipped in many churches, including the one with which we are now affiliated – North Decatur Presbyterian (NDPC).  While NDPC is alive and dynamic, most of the others where we have worshipped are not.  Most of them are struggling to survive.  Saddled with huge and deteriorating buildings and shrinking memberships and funding, these communities of faith are holding on by their fingernails, most with old, dedicated members whose loyalty keeps the institution going.  Some have endowments that helps with budgetary issues, but there are deeper issues, like a lack of younger people and families, an unwelcoming atmosphere, and a lack of a community vision.

As I begin this discussion, I want to say that the church will never be dead.  God will call forth the communities of faith whom She wishes, and people will always be responding to that call.  So, while the current form of church in the Western world may be on life support, the church of God in Jesus will not be confined to this slow death.  Though we are not experts on this history of the church, we do have experience with it through our long ministry at Oakhurst.  Oakhurst was a dying church with a huge and deteriorating building, shrinking membership, and dwindling budget.  I will use this experience as a springboard for these thoughts.  

Right off, my mind goes to a story from former Oakhurst member Nancy Friauf, who wrote about her decision to bring herself and her young bi-racial girls to Oakhurst.  I want to share part of that story that she wrote for a Stewardship season reflection in 1998: “Since my daughter was young, I have been searching for a church home in Atlanta.  Every few weeks I would visit another congregation that I thought might fit.  Many were nice, but not what I was looking for.  I wanted a church that was racially mixed, where my family’s racial diversity would not be tolerated or ignored, but embraced. I hoped to find a place that was not so liberal they were afraid to talk about God, but not so conservative that I would have to struggle to find God in their message.”

I am grateful to Nancy for sharing this (and for her joining Oakhurst – she was a great leader there until she retired to Florida.).  Her insights point to a fundamental split in American church history – spirituality vs. justice.  Given the influence of slavery and neo-slavery in American culture, churches in America have often had to choose between the two. But, they can be combined into a wholistic pattern, and I shall look at that later.  Her insights also point to another fundamental problem for the Western church – we have been exclusive, judgmental, and mean.  Next week, I’ll look at these and other causes for the Western church’s demise – let me know your thoughts and comments on this.

"INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY"

 “INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY”

Since we are currently in the overlap between the beginning phase of the Israeli ceasefire in attacking Gaza and between Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and since the Trumpster and the MAGA white supremacist movement have disavowed IPD and proclaimed it once again Columbus Day, I am reposting a blog from 2022, which touches on the same themes.

{The following are short excerpts from a much longer work of poetry and prose by Layli Long Soldier from her book “Whereas,” drawing on the official US government language of the Resolution and Apology.  She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Native Artist Fellowship, and a Whiting Award.  She lives in Santa Fe.  I was introduced to her work by one of her poems in worship at North Decatur Presbyterian Church.  As I write this, Israel and Hamas are at war, and I am thinking of the many parallels of the white treatment of Native Americans and the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people.}

“WHEREAS” BY LAYLI LONG SOLDIER

“On Saturday, December 19, 2009, US President Barack Obama signed the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans.  No tribal leaders or official representatives were invited to witness and revive the Apology on behalf of tribal nations.  President Obama never read the Apology aloud, publicly – although, for the record, Senator Sam Brownback five months later read the Apology to a gathering of five tribal leaders, though there are more than 560 federally recognized tribes in the US.  The Apology was then folded into a larger, unrelated piece of legislation called the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act.

My response is directed to the Apology’s delivery, as well as the language, crafting, and arrangement of the written document.  I am a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation – and in this dual citizenship, I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly, I must live. 

Whereas at four years old I read the first chapter of the Bible aloud I was not a Christian

Whereas my hair unbraided ran the length of my spine I sometimes sat on it

Whereas at the table my legs dangled I could not balance peas on my fork

Whereas I used my fingers carefully I pushed the bright green onto silver tines

Whereas you eat like a pig the lady said setting my plate on the floor

Whereas she instructed me to finish on my hands and knees she took another bite

Whereas I watched folds of pale curtains inhale and exhale a summer dance

Whereas in the breath of the afternoon room each tick of the clock

Whereas I rose and placed my eyes and tongue on a shelf above the table first

Whereas I kneeled to my plate I kneeled to the greatest questions

Whereas that moment I knew who I was whereas the moment before I swallowed”