THE POWERS

THE POWERS

            In the middle of the 6^th chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians (6:10-20),  the author begins a description of a Roman soldier putting on his battle armor.   He uses this process as a description of the Christian life, and in a history that is soaked in the blood of people killed in the name of Jesus, such a description is hard to take.  It seems primitive and violent, and coming on the heels of telling people held as slaves to obey their masters as if they were obeying Christ, it seems to have been written by slaveholders for slaveholders.  Yet, thanks to people like Walter Wink and Dorothee Soelle and James Cone and Jacqueline Grant, I have to come to appreciate this “battle” metaphor in a different way.

            The author (likely not Paul) uses the battle metaphor as a description of the Christian life, urging us not to be the conquering slaveholder, but rather reminding us that our journeys, both individually and collectively, will be ones of struggle, if we seek to live a life of love and justice.  He reminds us that our struggles are not just with an individual like Donald Trump but with what Trump represents and with the powers that have captured our hearts to such an extent that we would vote for someone like Trump.  He describes these as the powers, as the rulers. The Greek words here speak not of particular rulers but rather of the constellations of power that take over our collective and individual hearts.  Once I began to hear this passage in this way, I began to understand how good people could support and could even do terrible things.  Male domination, white supremacy, exploitation of those who are poor, the belief in redemptive violence, homophobia – all of these and more began to make sense in this context of “the powers.” 

            We all have received these configurations of power from those whom we love and trust, and thus they are not only external to us in our institutions, but we have also internalized them.  We have believed that these configurations represent the theological and scientific realities of our lives, and it will be a difficult struggle to begin to loosen their hold on our hearts and on our communities.  The answer is not so much a powerful will that enables us to stand against the powers – the answer is rather a vivid imagination that helps us begin to see ourselves and others in a whole new way.  To use the metaphor in Ephesians 6, seeing the world in a different way is a powerful weapon to use to loosen the hold of the powers.

            When Caroline and I visited our daughter Susan in Baltimore at the beginning of April, we had the privilege of touring the new National Harriet Tubman Center on the eastern shore of Maryland.  As a short guy, I was amazed to see that she was even shorter than me, and yet she was such a giant!  One of the things that has always impressed me about her was that she had the imagination to see and dream a different world than slaves and masters.  She imagined a life for herself and for others as a free woman, not as property of masters or men.   She believed that the vision was a gift from God, and then she acted on that vision.  Her life was one of many struggles, but she was led by her imagination to a vision of a different configuration of power.  Life was not necessarily a hierarchy of masters and slaves – there was a different vision:  sisters and brothers, the self-evident truth that we are all created with equal dignity in the image of God.     

            In these days of the struggle with the powers of domination and money and racism and patriarchy and homophobia and militarism, let us recall these words from Ephesians 6, with their acknowledgment that freedom is a constant struggle.  We are asked to recognize the depth of our captivity and to dedicate ourselves to seeing a new vision, a vision that will enable us to find love and justice at the center of life rather that domination and injustice.  The powers will laugh at our first attempts to begin to break free, but if we persevere in this part of the journey, we will find that we may be like Harriet Tubman – our new vision will drive us back again and again to share the good news that there is a different way of life for us as individuals and for us as community. 

CONVERSION

CONVERSION

            I grew up in the slavery-and-racism drenched delta of the Mississippi River on the Arkansas side.  I learned that slavery and racism and Christianity could go well together, because all God really cared about was my conversion to claim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in order to go to heaven when I died.  I wanted so much to find that conversion, and even though I was a believer in that tapestry of race and the white Christ, I could never get the feeling – there was always something nagging at me.  As I look back now, I’d like to think that it was the ragged black Jesus, lurking behind the trees, to borrow from Flannery O’Connor’s powerful metaphor in “Wise Blood.” 

            I’ve come to believe that I have had many conversions and will yet have more.  For me, that term describes where I am opened up to a new reality that I had previously missed – missed because of my captivity or anxiety or inattentiveness.  I want to describe one of those conversions in this week’s blog.  I had begun to be converted on race and gender, but I was still feeling unsettled on sexual orientation.  As I began to move away from the individualistic, repressive Christianity of my youth, I had adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to sexual orientation – just leave the bedroom as a private issue.   But, then I went on the road to Damascus, even though I did not know I was on the journey.

            In 1975, Caroline and I were the first clergy couple to serve as pastors of a local church in the former southern Presbyterian church (PCUS), and our church, St. Columba Presbyterian, was in Norfolk, Virginia.  It was a 12 member church in a low-income apartment complex and was a mission project of Norfolk Presbytery.  We began to build the congregation and the community ministry, and we had new folks show up for worship and work.  One of those was an impressive woman who embodied Christian leadership and love and a commitment to justice and mercy.  After a couple of years of her being a member of the church, the Nominating Committee decided to ask her to serve as an elder in the church.  I called her up to ask her to allow her name to be brought to the congregation, and she responded by asking to come talk to me about being an elder.   One of her great qualities was humility, so I assumed that I would only need to convince her to say “yes.” 

            She came in to my office to give me a shock:  “Nibs, I can’t be ordained as an elder because I am a lesbian, and I know that is not approved in the Presbyterian Church. I don’t even think that God approves of me.”  All my stereotypes flew before me – she was married to a man and had two children;  she looked like a regular “housewife,” and she did not fit my idea of lesbians at all.  I asked her when she first decided to be attracted to women, and with her usual sense of humor, she replied: “About the same age as you did.”  I replied to her, “Well, I didn’t decide to be attracted to women – it just came over me...."  and I caught myself in mid-sentence.  She was wired that way, and so was I.  And, like the apostle Paul, the scales fell from my eyes.  I thought to myself:  “if God would reject someone like Amy, who is one of the few saints that I have ever met, then I have the wrong idea of God and the wrong orientation on this issue.”  So, I changed in my heart, right then and there, and I then replied:  “Amy, we’d be glad to have you as a leader of this congregation, if you will say “yes.”  She said “yes,” and the Session ordained her in 1978, and we’ve been doing it ever since then.   No second-class church membership allowed.

            I still don’t understand same gender attraction, but I don’t understand electricity either, or my opposite gender attraction.   That is to say that Amy’s witness made it clear to me that God had created her to be attracted to the same gender, and if that was the case, who was I to say “no?”  This idea has become much more complicated with LGBTQ issues, but I am glad to be in the middle of those also, and I am glad that we have been supportive of those seeking to affirm that they are children of God when the church and so many others have told them that they are an abomination.

            As the popular phrase now goes, this is what conversion looks like, and I’m still on the road, but I’m glad to be on it. 

MAY 18 -- CELEBRATION AND LAMENT

MAY 18 – CELEBRATION AND LAMENT

            On May 18 in 1974, Caroline Leach and I got married 43 years ago in Ed Loring’s back yard on Kirk Road near Columbia Seminary in Decatur.  He and Sandy Winter, a long time friend of Caroline’s from Chattanooga, officiated at the ceremony.   It was a hot day, and the ceremony was supposed to begin about 2 PM.  Our reception took place before the ceremony – we ate lunch first! We were dressed in “hippie” fashion – Caroline in a dress that her mother had made (that Caroline embroidered), and I was wearing a blue shirt that my mother had made, along with pink bell bottom pants.  Both of us had hair down to our shoulders.  We had no money, so we improvised.  The place was free, and Ed and Sandy did not charge anything for the wedding.  Rather than seeking wedding presents, our invitations asked people to make donations in our names to one of four non-profits.  Or, if they could not support those, we asked them to make a donation to a charity of their choice.  A friend of ours from New Orleans made our wedding rings.  Music was provided by friends who brought their instruments and played them – Carole Etzler even wrote a song for us. 

            For our reception, we asked people to bring covered dishes, which they did, and like the Biblical feeding of the 5,000, we had more than enough.  We noticed that the guests had not obeyed our wishes at this point – most of them did not take their covered dishes home, and we are still using some of those dishes to this day.  Caroline’s parents did not like the consumption of alcohol, so we asked Dan Hamby to buy the beer for us, and we would reimburse him.  If anyone objected to having alcohol at the wedding, we would cite Jesus, of course, and say that the alcohol was a gift from a friend, so we couldn’t refuse it!  It was a great day, and the total cost to us was $400.   These forty-three years have seen a lot of ups and downs (mostly ups), and it continues to be a great trip.

            We got married in May in the middle of my final exams at Columbia Seminary because Caroline did not want to be a June bride.  We had a short, two day honeymoon at the Montreat home of Erskine and Nan Clarke – thank you!  Then, it was back to exams and papers.  We chose May 18 because it was a Saturday, and it was only later that we discovered that May 18 is not only our wedding anniversary.  It is also the anniversary of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896, which instituted legal segregation in the United States.  No split decision there – 8-1, with Justice John Harlan being the only dissenter.  This decision came 31 years after Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Confederate Army to Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army at Appomattox, Virginia.  Over 600,000 people died in the Civil War, and 31 years later, the Supreme Court legalized what had already happened in the South and in other parts of the country:  a return to legalized slavery, no longer called that, since slavery had been abolished (except in prison).  It was now called “segregation,” and is sometimes called “Jim Crow,” but I prefer Doug Blackmon’s more accurate term for it: “neo-slavery.”  In his fine book “Slavery by Another Name,” Doug makes a strong case that slavery, especially in the South, continued until 1945.   Having grown up in the South, as Doug did, I prefer to stretch that projection out until 1965 – we had legalized slavery until the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. 

            Why?  Why did slavery return after at least 600,000 people had been killed in the Civil War?  The simple but complex answer is the power of racism that is woven into our national character.  Not even the deaths of so many people in that great war could eradicate racism (or even slavery), and indeed the power of race began to reassert itself almost immediately after the Civil War.  The Plessy decision in 1896 only affirmed what was already codified in the South and in many other states.   The power of race is deeply embedded in our individual and collective and institutional consciousness, and it is always a battle for our lives and for justice and equity.  The election of Donald Trump as president is a reminder of that deadly power of race – he is the quintessential white man.

            So, May 18 always brings celebration and lament to my heart.  Celebration because of all the great gifts that I have received through my marriage to Caroline – so much to name, but most especially our two children David and Susan, who have grown into such fine adults.  Lament because it is a reminder of the power of racism in my life and in our life together.   Though racism is always in face of brown and dark people, it is now out front and center in all of our faces in the Trump administration.   May we join the great cloud of witnesses who have fought and who continue to fight for racial justice and equity.

For further reading, there are many good books.  I’d suggest these:  “Deep Denial” by my long-time friend David Billings;   “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander; “White Rage” by Carol Anderson;  “Simple Justice,” by Richard Kluger;  and “Slavery By Another Name” by Douglas Blackmon.

MOTHER'S DAY

MOTHER’S DAY

            I’ve always had an ambivalent feeling about Mother’s Day.  Our culture has used it to sell products, to trivialize and sentimentalize women, and to indicate that a woman is unfulfilled unless she has children.  On the other hand, I was raised by two women, my mother Mary Stroupe, and my great-great aunt, Bernice Higgins, whom I called “Gran.”  Gran helped my mother raise me – I never knew my great-grandmother or even my grandmother, but in a strange twist, I knew my great-grandmother’s sister, Bernice Higgins, with whom we lived.   For all intents and purposes, she was my grandmother.  My father abandoned my family when I was a baby, and I never saw him again until I was in my 20’s.  So, if I have ambivalent feelings about Mother’s Day, just wait for Father’s Day in June!

            My mother was a single, working mom who dedicated her life to me, or so it seems as I look back over my life.  She was a beauty operator for most of her adult life, but she was also valedictorian of her high school class of 1937.  Since her family was poor – and it was in the Great Depression – there as no money for college.  She worked 6 days a week for a long while, but she always seemed to have time to play ball with me after walking home from a long day at work.  We also were always in church on Sunday, and I often thought about that in my pastorate, as white women went to work outside their homes (black women had already been doing it for a couple of centuries). In the last ten years of her working career, she taught cosmetology at the local community college, and there she brought her fierce love to the mostly poor women who came there, urging them to see themselves as daughters of God rather than as objects for men.  On election days, she would not allow her students to come to class without a sticker saying that they had voted.

            So, as I think about Mother’s Day, I give thanks to my mother, who invested so much in me and sustained me in difficult days, when I agonized over why my father never came to see me.  I give thanks for my spouse, Caroline Leach, who is mother to our two children, David and Susan.  I also give thanks to all those women (and men) who invested in me – “Gran, “ Caroline, aunts and uncles, teachers, coaches, friends, who taught me the power and the necessity of loving.

             The legitimate power of Mother’s Day is that it reminds us of the necessity of this kind of fierce loving.  Not all of us are mothers, and I’m not a mother, but we, women and men, are all asked to be that kind of presence in the lives of others.  When the feminist and womanist movements came back around in the 1970’s, I had no trouble moving towards feminine language for God, because that was what I had experienced – God as a woman in my mother and in Gran.  A demanding but ever-present love that would not desert me or give up on me.  Who is allowed to do that in my life, and indeed, in American culture?  It’s mothers, not fathers.  Not all of us are mothers, and not all of us had great mothers, but if we know what love is in our lives, it is because we have experienced “motherly” love. 

            Mother’s Day gives us an opportunity to celebrate the women who’ve loved us, but it is also an opportunity to go deeper inside ourselves to discover the power of love and to begin to develop that kind of loving in our own lives, so that we all can become those kinds of lovers, mothers one to the other.  The helpful emphasis of Mother’s Day is not whether we’ve had children come out of our wombs but whether we will allow ourselves to become bound to one another in love, so that we can share motherly love with one another.  So, give thanks for those who have “mothered” you, and then go and do likewise.

THE STUFF OF RECOGNITION

THE STUFF OF RECOGNITION

            I want to share one more Resurrection reflection – the present world is so cruddy that I need to have a bit more radiating power of the Resurrection before coming back down to the grind of this world.   Caroline and I were fortunate to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States in 2009.  It was a bitterly cold day, and about 9 AM the sun rose over the Capitol Building, and we all cheered!  That’s what I’m doing here – seeking one last feeling of the warmth and the light of the Resurrection before getting back to the routine.

            She comes to the tomb alone in John’s Gospel – no other women or men disciples.  Mary Magdalena comes to the tomb of Jesus, not looking for a miracle, but  out of love and compassion for her executed friend – she wants to give him a proper burial by anointing his body.  She then sees that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb, and she runs to get some of the male disciples.  In a semi-comic routine in John’s account, Peter and the other “one whom Jesus loved,” have a testosterone derby.  They look into the tomb, and it is empty, and they see no one else.  They then go back, and Mary is left alone again.  Then the show begins – the actors have waited on Mary to be alone before the curtain goes up.  Let’s make that point clearly – they chose to appear to the woman disciple, not to the men.  They have deliberately waited – she is to be the primary witness to the Resurrection.

            Mary, however, is not able to see the show – she does not have eyes to see.  She sees two angels dressed in white, but she doesn’t get it.  She does not recognize the Resurrection.  Then, the risen Jesus appears in front of her, but she does not recognize him either.   I have always been intrigued by the fact that Mary Magdalena does not recognize the risen Jesus.  It’s not that she thinks that he is a ghost – she thinks that he is the caretaker of the cemetery.   It’s not that he is silent – they talk with one another.  It is not like she recognizes him and just refuses to believe that it is true, just too good to be true.  She is genuinely UNABLE to recognize him.  Why?   Her perceptual apparatus has been captured by the power of death, and she is unable to see the risen Jesus.  She sees the caretaker of the cemetery.  This lack of recognition is a powerful metaphor for us of every age and in every age.  We often simply do not believe that the risen Jesus is standing in front of us, and like Mary Magdalena, we are unable to recognize him.  This story turns not on the power of Mary’s inadequate will.  Her will is powerful – she comes to the tomb while darkness still prevails.  In a patriarchal world, she comes alone to the tomb – her will is powerful.  This story turns rather on her inadequate imagination.  She believes that death has won – there is no possibility of a risen Jesus. 

            Like her, we have come to believe that death rules, that Trump rules, that money rules, that race rules, that gender rules, that sexual orientation rules, that violence and guns rule.   Our eyes glaze over, our hearts shrink, our imaginations truncate.  We give ourselves over to the fallen powers of the world that are glad to tell us that they rule – that violence, death, money and so many other powers rule. And we are like Mary Magdalena at the tomb – we long so much for life, but we believe in death.  We are simply unable to recognize the risen Jesus standing right in front of us.  Fortunately for her, and for us, Mary does come to recognize the risen Jesus.  Do you remember this story?  If so, what causes Mary to recognize the risen Jesus?  If you don’t remember, or, if you have never read this story, please go read John 20:1-18 and let us all know what causes the scales to fall from the eyes of Mary.  And, in so doing, may we all encounter the risen Jesus, and like Mary Magdalena, may we know, and may we run to tell the others, as she does:  “I have seen the Lord!”

MAKE THE TOMB SECURE!

MAKE THE TOMB SECURE!

            In Matthew’s version of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the political and religious leaders gather together to plan their strategy, after Jesus is executed as a revolutionary by the Roman government.  They felt that he was a dangerous person because he was inspiring others to see themselves and see others as children of God rather than as subjects of Rome. So, in Matthew 27:65-66 the Roman governor orders guards to be put at the tomb of the executed Jesus and that a huge stone be placed at the opening of the tomb.  That 27^th chapter of Matthew closes with these words:  “they… made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.” 

            Make the tomb secure!  Make the tomb secure! It has been the call of the fallen powers since the beginning – proclaim that death and violence rule!  It is the orders of Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and the governor of my home state of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson.  Make the tomb secure!  The powerful ministry of Jesus of Nazareth had political implications from the beginning.   As he helped people turn towards God, of necessity we would, sooner or later, turn away from Rome or America or racism or sexism or militarism or materialism as the center of our lives.  McConnell and Sessions and Trump and Hutchinson all understand how dangerous this stuff is – make the tomb secure!  Don’t let life and love out into the world!  Have everyone dominated by fear and death!  That’s why Arkansas wants to kill so many people in its execution chambers before the end of this month – death rules!  Make the tomb secure!

            In this Eastertide, we are asked to remember this story of death and fear and domination and to take it seriously – but, not too seriously!  In chapter 28, Matthew ridicules and makes fun of “make the tomb secure!”  It begins in comic fashion – an angel comes and pops that huge stone out of the tomb.  It is such a powerful force that it is described as a great earthquake.  And, then the angel comes forth – not a fierce, fire-breathing, sword-bearing angel of Mel Gibson movies - but rather a young man who hops up on the rock and sits on it and who speaks to Mary Magdalena and the other women who have come to anoint the dead body of Jesus.  The powerful guards are stunned – they shake all over and go into a catatonic state, petrified with fear. 

            Then the stunning news – death does not rule:  the tomb is not secure.  The power of life and love and justice has come out of the tomb, and that same power of life and love and justice bids us to follow Jesus, by no matter what name we call God, or even if we don’t believe in God.  The four horsemen of fear – McConnell, Sessions, Trump and Hutchinson- all tell us that the tomb is secure, but we know a different story in this season.   Another Magdalena – Magdalena Garcia – put it this way yesterday on her Facebook page:  “Jesus lives – how about His followers?”  We are asked to put our trust in this story of life and love and justice.  Hard to do – we are so afraid, so confused, so shaky.  Yet, it all began with people like us.  Here we go – the tomb is not secure!

ON THE ROAD TO CHATTANOOGA -- THE MEANING OF THE RESURRECTION

ON THE ROAD TO CHATTANOOGA – THE MEANING OF THE RESURRECTION

            In one of Luke’s stories about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Jesus walks several miles on the road to Emmaus with some of his followers.  During this journey, where they walk and talk together, they do not recognize the risen Jesus – the followers assume that he is just another sojourner.  Only when they offer him hospitality in their home and supply him supper, only then do they recognize him.

            I had a similar experience on the road to Chattanooga in 1975.  Caroline and I were driving up to visit her parents in Chattanooga, and I was studying for my Presbytery exam to be ordained.  This was back when the southern Presbyterian Church still existed, and there were extensive examinations on the floor of the Presbytery meeting.  Caroline and I had just accepted a call to be co-pastors at St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Norfolk – we would be the first official clergy couple to serve in a local church in the PCUS.  Caroline had already been ordained to be a pastor by Atlanta Presbytery in 1973 to be a campus minister at Georgia Tech.  I was going over various doctrines to prepare for the Norfolk Presbytery exam. 

            Since Caroline has been my primary theologian for many decades, I felt hopeful when I asked her on that trip on I-75 about a doctrine that was giving me trouble.  “What do you think that the meaning of the Resurrection is?  I’m having trouble figuring that one out.”  At that point, I was not sure that I believed in life after death, and if I didn’t accept that, what could I say about the Resurrection during my Presbytery examination?

            Caroline answered:  “I don’t know what it means for life after death.  I’ll leave that part up to God.  But I see the Resurrection as a way of understanding our lives now.  It has more to do with our lives than our deaths.  In the Resurrection of Jesus, God is calling us into new life now, in this life.”  I knew then that I had met the risen Jesus, that my eyes had been opened, and I now could recognize the risen Jesus.  It was an answer that changed the way I looked at the Resurrection and at the Bible itself.  I came to see that the purpose of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not to get individuals into heaven, as I had been taught to believe by the heritage of the slaveholders. The purpose of Jesus Christ is to enable us to live in the presence of God now.  Just as God rolled away the stone from the tomb of Jesus on that Easter morning, so God continues to roll away the stone from the tomb of our hearts, so that we may be released from the power of death.  Strange to say, but I came to recognize the risen Jesus on the road to Chattanooga.

            We should note that this difficulty of recognizing the risen Jesus is a theme in the Resurrection stories in the Gospels.  As I mentioned earlier, the followers on the road to Emmaus have trouble recognizing Jesus.  In John’s Gospel, one of the primary disciples, Mary Magdalene, cannot recognize the risen Jesus, even though she is seeing him and talking with him.  He’s not a ghost – she thinks that he is the caretaker of the cemetery.   In Mark’s account, the women who come to the tomb of Jesus are so stunned by the news of the Resurrection that they don’t say anything to anybody. 

            In our reflections on Easter and the Resurrection, we should use this entry point, not as a sign that we are unfaithful but as a sign of the depth of our captivity.  We are so captured by the powers of the world, that like those first disciples, we have trouble recognizing the risen Jesus standing right in front of us.  The power of the Cross reminds us of our captivity, and the power of the Resurrection reminds us that death does not rule – not only when we die, but even more especially when we live.  The risen Jesus is out in front of us, calling us out of the tombs of death so that we, too, can have our hearts and our eyes opened to see the power of God in this life, right now.  Let us listen for those witnesses who are pointing us to the risen Jesus, so that we may find that same power that enabled those first disciples to stand up to the Roman Empire and to change the world.