Moving on from 2017

I had been planning to write a blog entry centered on the Gospel for today, which is John's prelude in which he tells about "In the beginning was the Word." There is actually a lot to say about the incarnation of Jesus, the importance to us...still...in 2017 to remember that God actually entered into our experience as a human being with human flesh and bones. But I'm going to hold that discussion to go directly to the secular or cultural discussion of the end of 2017. 

I posed a question on Facebook to my friends to describe 2017 in a word or a phrase. The clear favorite among them is "shit show." There are many variations on that theme, but that is the two word answer that seems most popular. And, on the whole, I would have to agree. I really do hope there are people, or at least more people, in the United States who are realizing that electing a totally self-absorbed man with a strange love of Nazis as president of the United States may be the the most colossal error we have ever made since we took up arms against each other to defend the inhumane institution of slavery. I am not going to be deferential or attempt to find some neutral ground here. The man in the White House is a terrible buffoon. Worse, however, is that there is a Congress which is also largely run by cynical, greedy twerps who wrap themselves in the flag and place a Bible out on their coffee table to feign a faith in the Messiah who encouraged us to look out for the lost, the lonely, and the persons who were in need. If they actually read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested Scripture, they would be hard-pressed to continue punishing the poor and middle-class while giving away our tax dollars to corporations and extremely wealthy people. 

I do know that part of my charge if I am to live into the Love that is unconditional is that I must be able to still feel compassion for those with whom I disagree to the point of truly despising them....which is where I am now with the president and his lapdogs at the Capitol. The only way I can successfully muster anything close to warmth for these individuals is to remember that they are human and, just like me, they want to be happy and free from suffering. That latter part has been the most helpful because I'm pretty convinced that Mitch McConnell and the others must be suffering. There is no other logical explanation for being OK with taking away people's health insurance coverage, despoiling our planet with more drilling, and giving middle-income people a few hundred dollars in tax breaks for a couple of years while slashing the tax rate for corporations forever. There must have been something that warped their sense of right and wrong, or they must be so miserable that they have to take down other people. I'll never know because I doubt I'll ever meet McConnell or any of them.

So I will pray for the leadership of our country. And in 2018, I will be doing all I can to help them move out of Washington, DC, forever. 

Purify Our Conscience: A Prelude to Christmas Eve

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation,
that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a
mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.--Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

For many of us, today is going to be a crazy and dizzying day of two different church services. This morning is Advent 4 in which we hear the annunciation and we learn that a young girl, Mary, agrees to be the mother of God. This evening, we will all reconvene in a church sanctuary bedecked in green and white to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In church liturgical time, nine months goes by rather rapidly!

Real time, of course, doesn't move so fast. So let's slow it down for just a moment...and stay in this moment of the morning with annunciation. This is a special mission, this idea that God will be manifest in the world in the form of a human baby and born in the same fashion that all human babies of the time came into the world. I imagine that this was also a method that was fraught with lots of danger in those days. Childbirth is dicey medical business and there were no incubators or sterilized surgical equipment. Heck, the mythology of Jesus' birth is that he came into the world in a stable with animals and hay. Talk about poor and lowly!

And that's really the main point: the Christ child, the one who was born to lead his people with Love as his sword and shield, was not born into comfort. Even the times of that day were hard and difficult for the Israelites. Their temple had been destroyed, they had been conquered and scattered, and the Roman Empire was notorious for being every bit as harsh as the Egyptians had been to the Jews many centuries before. The Jews were permitted to have their religion, but were heavily taxed, and were expected to keep their heads down and not disturb the balance of power...which was against them. Those who did attempt to revolt were killed and their deaths were on display as a reminder to anyone else who dared to question the Emperor or his subordinates. And yet....

The angel Gabriel comes to a teenage girl and doesn't pose a question: Will you bear a child who you will name Jesus who will be Emmanuel--God with us? Instead, the story the evangelist Luke gives to us is that Gabriel basically voluntold Mary that she had been chosen to take on this incredible responsibility. Mary, like anyone who has experienced a call from God to step out and do something they weren't prepared to do, is mystified and does some push back: how is this possible? I've never had sex? Look at me: I'm barely in my teens! And, just like anyone who has experienced a call from God to step out and do something they weren't prepared to do, the answers come back to her: trust this. Nothing is impossible with God. Girl, you're gonna be alright. You are exactly the one and this exactly the time and place. 

We are living in a time so many thousands of years later that still has extreme poverty and cruelty and oppression where those with means and money work to crush the hope of those without the capital. I suppose then as we celebrate this story of how Mary trusted in God enough to allow herself to be a main player in the story of his birth, we need to look at our own selves and see how perhaps God is searching out the people who will embody Christ and give a figurative birth to that one who will lead us back to Love in these times of despair. And this isn't going to happen in those places of comfort and fancy houses and mansions  on a beach in Florida. It will be coming from the many who are meek and lowly of our world...the 99-percent. Prepare ye the way.

Hear What the Spirit is Saying

Jerusalem Window in St. John's Episcopal Church's Carter Chapel.

We are finishing out the First Week in Advent, and I can say this has been a week like no other Advent that I can remember in recent years. Past Advents have felt introspective and--how to say this--a little more private in their impact. But given our current state of affairs in the world with this particular administration and Congress in Washington, D.C.,  this season with its emphasis on patient waiting, self-reflection and examination, repentance, turning around and preparing for the return of Jesus Christ into the midst of our human condition, the words in the daily office spoken by the prophet Amos are echoing loudly. 

A phrase repeated in one of the Amos readings this week has stuck with me for a couple of days. Amos is listing out calamity upon calamity that have befallen the people of God. Prophets do that sort of thing and in the past, I might have heard these words and shrugged them off as what we always hear from the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures to make their point. But as I listened to the lector going through one natural disaster after another as God's "punishment" for Israel's transgressions, there was the repeated mantra:

"Yet you did not return to me, says the Lord." 

Tears began to well up in my eyes as I stared at the Jerusalem window in the chapel. So many truly terrible things are happening now because we have a president who is a liar, thief, and abusive man. Our Congress is run by even smaller tyrants operating out of a place of greed and shamelessness. And the height of all that is wrong from my perspective could be seen staring into that window depicting the landscape of the Holy City, and knowing that it was destined to be a scene of bloodshed and terror once more after our feckless leader announced that the United States now recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel only. Our president, and Vice President, are catering to the extremists of Christianity who believe that the events foretold in the Book of Revelation can only happen if all the Jews return to Jerusalem, while also pandering to the crazed Zionists who oppose the presence of Palestine. This, of course, has led the Palestinians to rebel, and will egg on extemists in Islam who want to kill all the Jews and have hated the United States for our attempts over the decades to broker a peace that includes Israel, not to mention the corporate dealings we've had that have polluted water ways or backed oppressive regimes around the world. Attacks will happen, people will die...Muslims, Jews, and likely Christians, too..."yet you did not return to me, says the Lord." 

I contemplated the new sexual ethic we are living in where, after centuries of ignoring the voices of women when they say they have been harassed, abused, or raped, we now say "We believe you." As a woman, I am happy that there seems to be a recognition of the wrongs that have been done to us. Seems to be a recognition. What seems more like the reality of this new found belief is that we only seem to care if it is politically expedient to care. U.S. Senator Al Franken, who had been a very effective leader for the Democrats and was showing signs that he might be a potential presidential candidate, has been drummed out by his own party because of allegations that he sexually harassed women. Long-time Detroit U.S. Representative John Conyers, also a Democrat, was similarly forced out of office for having paid off claims of sexual harassment. Many praise these moves as "the right thing to do." Because we seem to care about women now. In fact, we care so much, that the Republican National Committee is funneling money to support the campaign of a man running for the U.S. Senate in Alabama who has been banned from the Gadsden Mall in that state because he was a child sexual predator. We have a justice serving on the U.S. Supreme Court who we learned from Anita Hill during his confirmation hearing is a porn-addicted sexual harasser. And then there is the president who bragged about grabbing women by their private parts, admitted that those comments were wrong, but we were told by his wife that it was all "boy talk." Twenty women...with names...have come forward to say that the man who is now president acted inappropriately with them. "Yet you did not return to me, says the Lord." 

I prayed for all those in Southern California surrounded by a ring of wildfires, for the people in Puerto Rico who are stuck on island that still has less than 50-percent of the population with electricity after a hurricane, for all of us here on the mainland who are bracing for what type of future we'll have if the tax bill that was so hastily pushed through gets to the president's desk for his signature. Among the many purported problems with the legislation, losses due to natural disasters such as a wildfire will not be counted as a tax deduction. Graduate students will see their tuition waivers taxed as "income." And already the talk of how to pay for all of this comes back around to more cuts to Medicare,  Medicaid, and Social Security. Those programs, by the way, are often all a family has to work with when their parents become too frail or become otherwise so dependent that they must be moved into an assisted living facility or a nursing home. Without those, families would be out thousands of dollars a month. "Yet you did not return to me, says the Lord."

Indeed, this First Week of Advent is bringing home to me more and more the chaos and the desperation of the world we now live in here in the United States. The warnings of the prophets of old are sounding more current than they ever have before. So the question is: will we repent and return to the Lord? What does that mean?

For me, it means what it has always meant: we take care of the planet. We tend to those that are dependent on us, be they animals, children, elderly, people with special needs for assistance. We treat everyone with dignity and respect in the same way that we wish to be treated. We honor one another. "Returning to the Lord" is about restoring relationships and recognizing that we are not the center of the universe.

When will we return to that?

"Lord, Let Our Eyes Be Opened"

As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. There were two blind men sitting by the roadside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’ The crowd sternly ordered them to be quiet; but they shouted even more loudly, ‘Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!’ Jesus stood still and called them, saying, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, let our eyes be opened.’ Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him. --Matt 20:29-34

Typically, I do the morning office readings, but today I was thrown off my game. I woke up and made the terrible mistake of looking to see what had happened in the world overnight. And I saw where, when given the chance to choose life and be a sheep instead of a goat, the Republicans of the United States Senate approved a destructive tax bill that is not going to help anyone who isn't the owner of a private jet or a hedge fund operator living on the U.S. Virgin Islands. The plan will eliminate many standard deductions, end access to health insurance for 13 million people, and put us another trillion dollars into debt. In order to do this, the Senate kept giving away more pieces of the American Dream to buy off Republican votes and they ended up with a bill that was 500 pages that nobody had time to read, much less understand the handwritten amendments in the margins of the pages. This was not a great day for the Senate, and it was a terrible day for the country.

So, I guess it was helpful that I decided to end the day with the office and give myself some time to sit in reflection on this passage of Matthew in light of today's events and the dawning of a new calendar year in the church tomorrow.

Here we have two men, blind men at that, sitting on a road side as this itinerant and revolutionary rabbi is passing by with a large crowd in tow. Obviously, these two must have been hearing something about Jesus and his ministry of healing because they start yelling out to him. The crowd, the ones who were already part of the following of Jesus who could see just fine and could hear quite clearly, were annoyed at these two for creating a spectacle. Or perhaps the crowd was afraid that these two were bothering their beloved leader. And, at any rate, they wanted the blind guys to sit down and shut up. But they won't be bullied into silence and in fact got louder. Jesus stops and asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" We don't know the tone of his voice in asking that question: was he exasperated? Was he perturbed? Was he calm? Jesus does this many times throughout his ministry. Somebody is in need, and instead of just instantly fixing whatever it is they want addressed, Jesus makes them an active player by inquiring of them what is it that they are seeking? "Lord, let our eyes be opened." 

This answer, I think applies beyond the story of these two men. They are seeking to have their physical eyes opened so that they are no longer blind. And while Jesus meets them in that place and does restore their physical sight, they also began to follow him. To me, this says that not only did Jesus give them the ability to use their eyes to see the world, he opened their hearts and their minds to "the peace of God which passes all understanding" that causes them to follow him. They see beyond just the tips of their noses. They now see the bigger picture of what it means to be in relationship with Jesus Christ and with God.

I think that plaintive cry, "Lord, let our eyes be opened," is a perfect set up for this upcoming season of Advent in which we are a church living in a land of destruction and fear. I think there is much that we all could be turning to Jesus and asking, "Open my eyes so that I may see you more clearly":

+see the poor and the homeless not as an "other" but as a "mother" or "brother";

+see the hopeless as a person who has not felt the warmth of acceptance or felt anyone has listened;

+see the depressed as one feels as though they are always looking up from a pit of hell and instead of sitting at the edge looking down, sit with them and meet them as you offer that they are never alone;

+see the pained and scared about our political climate and offer them the hope that you will never abandoned the mission of bending the arc of history toward justice.

Open our eyes, Lord, and in so doing, break open our hearts and our minds to be your people...the peacemakers, the justice seekers, the lovers of liberation, and the compassionate listeners, so that we can usher in an Advent of new beginnings, and greater resolve to find the common bonds with our neighbors and build up our strength and never be deterred from that mission to love and serve the spirit of what is good, right, and Holy. Amen.

Matthew 25: Leaders, You're Doing It Wrong

Today's Gospel passage from Matthew is probably one of the most famous of Jesus' sayings. It is the answer to all the evangelicals with their "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets:

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'  And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." --Matt 25:31-46

At this point, there are certain members of Congress, most notably my United States Senator Marco Rubio, who are also familiar with this part of Matthew's gospel; that is, if his staff has been passing along my post cards to him. And if not, some staffer in his office has problem never read as much scripture in their entire life. Since Senator Rubio has decided that he wants to appeal to the 'base' of the Republican Party by quoting the Bible in 140-character tweets, I have encouraged him to consider this message from Matthew...as well as countless other pieces of Scripture...when he votes for legislation that harms millions of people. Because if politicians and their 'base' are going to claim the mantle of Christ to do their dastardly deeds, they need to be aware how what they propose is not even remotely in the ballpark of what Jesus was all about.

Is taking away Americans' access to affordable health insurance coverage...allowing them to see specialists and have necessary life-saving surgeries as well as get routine physical check-ups...in keeping with the Matthew 25 narrative?

Is passing a tax plan that will result in the poor paying a higher percentage of their income to the federal government, graduate students being taxed for their work study which lowers their out-of-pocket tuition expenses, people on medical devices who are unable to work being forced to pay taxes on the equipment that keeps them alive...all so that the very richest among us can enjoy a lower tax rate and buy another yacht or Aspen villa...looking out for those who are strangers, sick, hungry or in prison?

Is undoing regulations that protect our food, water, and preventing banks and financial institutions from using predatory lending practices the actions of sheep or goats?

I'm sure there are members of Congress who are headed into their houses of worship this morning to be with their families one last time before heading back to Washington. Some of them attend churches that using the lectionary and thus they will hear these words read by a priest or Deacon or pastor or even a lay reader in some places. Will they hear these words and actually "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them"? Perhaps a few post cards from constituents might help.  

Hurricane Irma

We are in the final stages of prepping for what many are calling Irmageddon. I have to agree. This is a whopper of a storm like none other that has been seen before. We have bottles for water. We have non-perishable food stuff. Here we go.

Dear God, you know the power of water and you have calmed the seas of chaos, be with all of us who are in the path of hurricanes, especially Irma and Jose. Give us strength to endure. Give us the patience to proceed. And above all, fill us with your love and hope so that we may resist the temptation to fall into despair. Be close to us, O God, and guide us through this tempest. In your Holy Name we pray. Amen. 

Standing on Sacred Ground and Marching Forward: a sermon at UCT

Texts from the Common English Version of the Bible

Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:21-28

“Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but it was not burning up.” I’m sure many of us would find it hard to imagine a bush that is on fire but isn’t being destroyed. So is it any wonder that Moses…who had thought he was simply moving his father-in-law’s flock to another area to graze…would be drawn to such a curious sight? We can also imagine how unnerving it must have been for Moses to hear, from this fiery bush, God calling him by name. And perhaps we can sense the power of this moment when God, in the manifestation of this flaming bush, tells Moses not to come any closer. “Take off your sandals—the ground where you are standing is holy.” Moses is in the presence of a power beyond all powers and is about to receive the charge to confront an earthly power and take a stand on behalf of his oppressed Israelites in Egypt.

Let’s remember that Moses was simply tending sheep and goats. According to the mythology, he was a Hebrew baby boy who was rescued by the Egyptian king’s daughter. He was also supposedly a stutterer, and he had run away after killing an Egyptian who he saw abusing his fellow Israelites. In other words, Moses was not some perfect and polished figure. Now, he’s being tapped to go beyond himself to do extraordinary and mighty works of justice.

In the reading we had from today’s Gospel, Jesus talks of the trials he is about to face as he heads toward Jerusalem. He rebukes Peter for trying to put up a fight over Jesus’ destiny. And he reminds Peter, and all the others with him: “If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me.” Forget yourself, take up your cross, follow me. Those are words that can really leave a lump in the throat.

Three images: a burning bush, sacred ground, the cross.

In his book, “The Bush Was Blazing But Not Consumed,” the Rev. Eric Law uses the burning bush image from Exodus as his jumping off point to talk about how faith communities can build multicultural relations within their churches. He notes that a bush that’s on fire ought to be disintegrating into ashes. That’s what happens when fire meets leaves and branches, right? The fact that this bush can be on fire and NOT be destroyed is Law’s metaphor for God amid heated tensions, or flaming rage and anger. Think about it: God is showing up in the form of this burning bush because God has heard the cry of the Israelites. They are oppressed. They are under the thumb of the Egyptians. Their passions are all aflame and God is in that heat but God is not destroyed. Instead, this fire has consecrated the ground on which Moses is standing.

This burning has become, as Law describes it, a holy fire and an example of how people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds can have passions and experiences that can be blazing, but through commitment to a listening process, faith communities can become places where multiculturalism thrives. If, however, a community doesn’t engage in the honest and sometimes difficult work of a true listening process, the danger is that it will stoke those same burning embers of the past into an unholy fire that will not only burn the bush but will take the whole house down with it as well. Since the Rev. Law works as a consultant on multiculturalism, he has seen examples of when a faith community gets it right…and has also witnessed those who get it wrong. Often, the ones that fail are the ones that weren’t really invested in listening to anyone but themselves and whatever was their predominant racial and ethnic outlook.

We can take that example beyond faith communities…and even beyond the continued difficulties that we face in our country on race and ethnicity. We seem to be isolating ourselves from each other based on whatever differences we have or that we perceive to have. We seek out media sources that confirm our worldview. We stop talking to each other. We unfriend each other on Facebook. We retreat to our corners and refuse to engage with anyone we don’t like. This probably feels safer.

But it really isn’t. Because whether we like it or not, that same burning bush is steadily glowing and alight and is consecrating the ground upon which we stand even today. Especially for those who feel strongly that stewardship of the earth is important, we are constantly reminded that the same God who told Moses to stand on sacred ground and hear the command to go speak truth to power on behalf of the people is always reminding us that we must do the same. And this fire in the bush is also the fire in the belly that will give us the power to speak and to know that we, too, are on sacred ground when we stand for justice for the earth and all that inherit this planet.

So what about the cross? Well, it is all fine and dandy to feel that flaming righteousness as we stand for justice, peace, equality and fairness for all people. That makes for great bumper stickers and talking points. But it also is liable to meet with resistance, push back, or worse violence. It’s a whole lot safer to “like” a rally or march event on Facebook than to actually attend it. We can say “Black Lives Matter” but will we actually talk to people in positions of authority about why we believe it’s important to listen to the pleas of black people about why they don’t think they matter, and then join with our brothers and sisters in changing the culture to make them true equals? Again saying it is one thing, but when Jesus tells Peter and the disciples that they must “forget about yourself” and “take up your cross and follow me,” he is being just as fiery as that burning bush and is telling them…and us so many centuries later…that if we, who stand on this sacred ground, want to be true to his mission of love and justice, we must put our trust in God and go sometimes to those places we do not want to go. We must engage in those issues and with those people whom we would just assume avoid. It is not enough simply to stand on the sacred ground and hear the call to action. We must be ready to keep going forward and actually act on behalf of justice for others and not just ourselves. May we be ready.