tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71323526659629651712024-03-14T02:15:11.983-07:00Red Poppy FieldsWorking together, because we reap what we sow.Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-22293036700396601002014-12-31T15:59:00.000-08:002014-12-31T16:00:33.711-08:00Wailing at Christmas<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This sermon was preached at Wesley United Methodist Church in Marysville, PA on Dec. 28, 2014.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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Thank you so very much, Wesley bunch, for welcoming me and
giving me the opportunity to share God’s Word with you today. Some of you may
not know me very well, but like many you at Wesley, I practically grew up in
this church. When I moved to Chicago back in 2010, you supported me with your
prayers. Then when I began seminary in 2012, you began supporting me
financially, and due in part because of that support I will graduate in May
from Chicago Theological Seminary. One the last challenges I have in my seminary
education is an internship called CPE—clinical pastoral education. It’s meant
to present pastors-in-training with heavy, often emergency, pastoral
situations. I have been serving at Ingalls Hospice in the southern suburbs of
Chicago, so God’s been working on me to share some of what I've been learning
in those hospice cases. I hope that explains a little why I feel so moved to
share about “wailing at Christmas.”</div>
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Why might someone wail at Christmas? And when I say “at
Christmas,” I do mean both “during” Christmas and “about” Christmas. There are
a number of famous stories of people who kinda wailed “about” Christmas. Think
of Scrooge, that <span style="background: white;">squeezing, wrenching, grasping,
scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner. Or the Grinch, who was so unlike the
all the Who’s down in Whoville, at least until his heart grew 3 sizes one day. There
are also plenty of real-life anti-Christmas folks in the world today, and a lot
of them seem to like making top-10 or top-8 lists on the Internet to explain
why they don’t like Christmas. While some of them are proud pagans and
atheists, others are from Christian denominations such as 7<sup>th</sup> Day
Adventists or the United Church of God. And you know what? They have some
pretty good points, usually wailing about how commercial Christmas has become.
To borrow from the great 20<sup>th</sup> century cultural critic, Lucy Van
Pelt, whom you probably know from yanking the football away from Charlie Brown,
“We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big
eastern syndicate, you know.” Good point, Lucy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"> Then again, there are some other good reasons to wail at
Christmas, and this time I mean “during” Christmas. I recall meeting a woman
with the campus ministry I work for in Chicago. We hand out about five dozen
bagged lunches to homeless and hungry people we encounter around downtown, and
we intentionally go to the places where others don’t often go. We encountered
this woman at the corner of Lower Wacker and Lower Michigan, which is one story
below what is considered street level. If you liked the movie <i>The Dark Knight</i>, Batman chased the Joker
down on Lower Wacker. It was early December last year, and winter was setting
in. She was grateful for the food, but soon she began to break down in front of
us. She had no place to go but these dingy, noisy streets, and it was getting
cold out. She cried and she wailed with us, “I’m just so tired of being so cold
and so tired!” Her voice is what I think these days when I think of wailing at
Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"> And there was wailing
at the first Christmas, too, or at least shortly thereafter. Once the magi from
the East had offered their honoraria to the Christ child in Bethlehem, King
Herod had all the infants two years old or younger massacred. Traditionally
this episode is called “the massacre of the Holy Innocents.” The gospel writer
then adds a new voice to the story, that of the ancient Jewish matriarch
Rachel, who was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel’s voice is heard
coming from Ramah, and she wails and laments loudly, forsaking all consolation,
because her children, her dearest family and hope for her people, are no more.
There was wailing at the first Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> Before we look at more modern Christmas wailing, let’s
dive into this story a little bit more. After all, I’ve spent all that time and
money in seminary learning to “dive into the story,” so I’m darn well going to
do it now. Rachel’s voice, which Matthew adds to lament the massacre of the
innocents, is a reference from the prophet Jeremiah, who was active in the 6<sup>th</sup>
century BC and talked a lot about the coming destruction of the southern Israelite
kingdom, Judah. In fact, he talked so much about impending doom that his peers
got tired of him and put in a dry well. Sure enough, that nay-sayer Jeremiah
got it right. The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC, and they took all
the nobles and VIP’s of the kingdom into exile afterward. It was a nasty
business, including severe famine caused by the siege of Jerusalem and a
systematic execution of military leaders. It was also the occasion of the
destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. The event had such an effect on
the Hebrew people that Jews commemorate it in a day of mourning called <i>Tisha be-Av. </i>We might imagine Rachel
wailing for her lost children on that day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> So this is what Matthew wants to remind his readers of
when he quotes Jeremiah—death, destruction, and wailing. But Matthew doesn’t
say, “Remember what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah,” but “then
was fulfilled.” Most biblical scholars would say Matthew was playing loose and
fast with his interpretation of Jeremiah’s 31<sup>st</sup> chapter to get a
prophecy about the messiah. However, what if something else was fulfilled in
the massacre of the innocents? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> Let me first be clear about God’s will is NOT “fulfilled”
in this passage. It is not God’s will that King Herod, whom the Roman imperial
authorities called “the great,” should have killed children. It is not God’s
will that <i>any</i> person, whether
innocent child or convicted murderer, should suffer in such a way. It is not
God’s will that thousands in West Africa still suffer from ebola or that bombs
explode in Syria or that young black men are killed in the streets here in the
USA. God’s will is not fulfilled when a homeless veteran in Chicago gets locked
up for not appearing for a court hearing he never knew was scheduled. It is not
God’s will that a trusted police officer would abuse children in anyone’s
hometown, especially not this one. God’s will is <i>not </i>fulfilled when these things happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> But these things do happen, nonetheless. So what was
being fulfilled in Herod’s massacre of innocent children? Maybe…it has
something to do with Rachel’s voice heard coming from Ramah. Maybe Matthew was
saying the prophecy was fulfilled in how Rachel didn’t stop wailing for her
lost children even centuries after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.
Maybe Rachel was <i>continuing </i>to wail
for the loss of children and loved ones even as God became “Emmanuel,’ God with
us, God among our wounded, hurting, throbbing people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> Here’s another thing: there’s no evidence outside the
Bible, even outside this one passage in the gospel of Matthew that this
massacre of the innocents historically happened. Now, of course this is not the
kind of thing that official historians on the king’s payroll would record, so
maybe we shouldn’t expect archeological evidence about the massacre of the Holy
Innocents. You may believe that it literally happened, or you may believe that
the story is more metaphorical. There’s a lot of stuff in Bible like that. In
this case, it’s not belief in facts or metaphors or whatever else that matters.
In this case, faith matters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"> Paul Tillich, a German Lutheran theologian who was pretty
existentialist and whom I think is pretty awesome, says that faith is “the
condition of being ultimately concerned about something unconditionally.” In
other words, what matters to you more than anything else in the entire world?
What makes you get in the morning? What keeps you up at night? What makes your
pulse run faster? What would you sacrifice for? The answer to those questions
will help you understand where you have faith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> Given all the awful stuff that has happened on the earth
since the dawn of humanity, I have to think that God must have a lot of faith
in us. Why else would God trust a working class Jewish family to care for Jesus
Christ during one of the most violent regimes in the history of violent
regimes? When bad stuff happens, our faith in God might be challenged. We may
doubt God’s absolute power or complete goodness, and that’s perfectly all
right. Paul Tillich also said that the opposite of faith is not doubt—but certainty.
Considering that Tillich lived in Germany during World War I and then was
exiled by the Nazis before World War II, I can understand why he might not be
so keen on certainty. After all, both Herod and Hitler were certain that they
should defend and grow their power by all means available.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> So those of us with faith in God through Jesus Christ
come to Christmas. Do you want to wail? I’ve already mentioned that I work with
a lot of homeless people in Chicago. There is this one homeless couple,
probably teenagers (I haven’t asked them their ages), who have helped with our
bagged lunch program. They started coming back in September in the hopes that
they would get a bite to eat, and then they stayed to help make the lunches and
hand them out. Angie was several months pregnant, so after that first week she
stayed back in the church where we have an office. Her boyfriend Tony walked
with us to bring food to the streets, and boy, did he bring energy to our
little group! Angie and Tony became such a part of our ministry that we planned
a baby shower for Angie for the last Sunday of November.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> Then it was like Angie and Tony disappeared. It’s not uncommon
for homeless people to come and go, but these folks had become part of our
little family. My boss even tried calling their schools in order to try to find
them. The day of the baby shower came, and we still weren't sure what was going
to happen. Thank God, Angie appeared at the church for the shower. She had come
with about six other relatives to celebrate with her, but Tony was not among
them. Bit by bit the story came out. Tony had missed a parole hearing, which
isn’t surprising given how he is homeless and has a hard time getting his mail.
He arrested and sent to jail. We had a great time at the baby shower despite
Tony’s absence, but Angie would spend the Christmas season without her
boyfriend. In fact, she had her baby while Tony was locked up. So you know, sometimes,
you just want to wail at Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"> Wesley bunch, I know you feel some absences this year,
too. This is your first Christmas without Allie Speck, and I know you miss her.
I remember how shortly before I left for Chicago, you laid hands on Allie and
me. For Allie, the prayers were for strength and healing. For me, it was safety
and boldness. I tracked Allie’s progress through emails which my mom forwarded
me, and I continued to wear my “Praying for Allie” t-shirt. By the way, a classmate
of mine told me that the Korean characters on the back mean “strong tiger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> Like so many people, I was inspired by Allie’s story. I
even included her story in a sermon about the power of prayer which I preached
last year while I was interning at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago
Temple. Then on Ash Wednesday of this year, I saw the news on Facebook, and my
sister Jess confirmed it. <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/03/hundreds_say_final_goodbye_to.html" target="_blank">Allie was gone.</a> I have to admit, it was only in
preparing this sermon that I finally read Zina Speck’s final update. Maybe
living far away made it harder for me to find meaning in Allie’s passing. Maybe
it makes me want to wail at Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> But like Allie said, God has a plan for her, even while
she dances in heaven today. And God has a plan for us, too, no matter what
terrible things happen around us, among us, to us. God had a plan for Jesus
even when Herod was trying to kill him. And even nay-saying Jeremiah had more
to God’s plan to tell us. After giving us Rachel’s wailing, Jeremiah goes on to
say, “There is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come
back to their own country.” God had a plan for those exiles taken away to
Babylon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> So go ahead! Wail at Christmas! Do not cover your tears
with that lovely sweater your Aunt Betty gave you. Do not quiet your voice with
your favorite holiday beverage. Do not hide your mourning with faux festive
cheer. As the prophet Isaiah says, shout out! Do not hold back! Lift up your
voice like a trumpet! Wail at Christmas and the God who comes to be with us at
Christmas. Wail in your loudest voice, “Where are you, God? I need you because
I am hurting so much right now!” And I promise you, God will come. God will
come to you and say, “I’m right here, I’m right here. And I have a plan for you
while we both hurt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"> God’s plan is to come to us at Christmas because we were
and we are hurting. God’s plan isn’t necessarily to stop the pain, but God is
with us in the midst of the pain. When we hurt, God hurts with us. When we
wail, God wails with us. God’s plan is salvation. God’s plan is redemption. No,
it’s not the palliative care that Christmas commercialism offers. It’s deeper
than that. God saves us in the midst of our despair, and God redeems our doubt
and grief. Even as we wail at Christmas, God comes to us and says, “I have a
plan to save and redeem you.” Even as we wail at Christmas, God’s plan of
salvation and redemption is being lived out among us. Let’s live into God’s
plan this Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="background: white;"> Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-78686559443204688012014-08-31T05:44:00.000-07:002014-08-31T05:44:49.259-07:00An Open Epistle to the Chicago Temple<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear friends of First United Methodist Church at the Chicago
Temple,</div>
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Grace and
peace to you in the name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ! I have gratefully
served as a ministry intern for the last year among you, and God has blessed my
time with you in a great many ways. I came to Chicago as a young adult
missionary of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries in 2010,
and God led me to stay in Chicago for seminary at Chicago Theological Seminary.
I grew up in a mid-size United Methodist church in the rolling ridges of
central Pennsylvania. Not only was this Midwestern metropolis strange to me,
but my interactions with different Christian denominations and non-Christian
faiths stretched me in ways I had never imagined as country boy from
Harrisburg. As a young adult missionary I worked at Interfaith Worker Justice,
working with organizers and low-wage, immigrant workers of many faiths. At CTS,
I am one of the very few United Methodists at that United Church of Christ
institution. When it came time to choose a field placement as required by my
degree program, I knew that I wanted to re-connect with my chosen faith
tradition and serve in a United Methodist parish setting. God brought me to the
Chicago Temple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Chicago_Temple_Building5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Chicago_Temple_Building5.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Chicago Temple building from the<br />perspective of Daley Plaza <br />(photo credit <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Temple_Building5.jpg" target="_blank">Wickimedia</a>).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And what a
setting it was! With a building that rose far above the streets and bells that
chimed over <br />
Daley Plaza and beyond, the Chicago Temple was clearly making its
presence known. When I stepped inside the building, I was amazed to find that
the main sanctuary was open to the public as long as there was a security guard
present at the entrance. Being a cyclist, I went down to the basement washroom
to change into more formal attire, and I discovered that there a theater down
there—Silk Road Theater. You have so many ways of telling your story, First
United Methodist Church!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I took
the tour of the Chapel in the Sky, I learned the long history of public witness
of First United Methodist Church, even before it was “at the Chicago Temple.”
The stained glass on the 22<sup>nd</sup> floor showed the Wesley brothers, and
other paintings, photographs, and memorabilia which highlighted some of the
important events that have occurred in your church. Once finally in the Sky
Chapel, the tour guide connected the woodcut of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem,
which is embedded in the altar of the first floor sanctuary, with the woodcut
embedded in the altar more than 20 stories above it. The woodcut shows Jesus
standing in a bank of clouds overlooking the Loop of Chicago from the
perspective of the Sky Chapel. Just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem because her
inhabitants did not recognize “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:41-42),
Jesus continues to weep for the city of Chicago because her modern residents
likewise are blind to the things that make for peace.</div>
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These are
the stories that you tell the people who look upon your edifices, the visitors
who wander your halls, the tourists who ascend to the Chapel in the Sky. These
are stories of witness in the public square, hospitality for the weary, and the
prophetic cry for justice in a world that has forgotten the things that make
for peace. These are you stories, but they are also the Church’s stories, the
stories told by the body of Christ. You are truly like the branches connected
to the vine that is Christ, and you bear much fruit. Praise be to God for the
fruit you bear for your sisters and brothers in Chicago and around the world!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You proudly
call yourselves “the church that stayed,” and proud you ought to be. When few
other faith communities remained on Washington Street after the Great Fire in
1872, you stayed put. Your foremothers and forefathers realized that the
location on Clark and Washington would continue to be the heart of the city.
That street corner became even more important when the city government built
its grand hall on the opposite corner. Then the iconic elevated train tracks connected
the rest of the outlying neighborhood to that street corner in a circle that
would give the neighborhood its name—the Loop. And so for the sake of the
continued witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you stayed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like the
heart of the body, the heart of the city brought its lifeblood into her center.
The city’s lifeblood is her people, and indeed they have come to the Loop. Just
as substances consumed through the mouth make their way to the heart, so did
new people make their way to the heart of the city. Every kind of person made
their way into the Loop, and so did many of these people make their way into
your building on the corner of Washington and Clark. However, many of these
people did not look like the members who had faithfully built and rebuilt on
that street corner. There is a photograph in the office suite on the second
floor, close to the pastors’ offices, and it shows the Chicago Temple men’s
club in the 1940’s. It is a proud group of determined men, and every face is
white. Let us praise God that no such photograph can be taken today! In any
given worship service there is a diversity of people who lift their voices in
praise and prayer: young and old; white, black, Latino, Asian; men and women;
rich and poor and everything in between. Few other local churches in the United
Methodist connection have this array of diverse people in their halls. Praise
God for this diversity of people with which God has blessed you! Praise God
with the stately organ and with the whisper of a harp! Praise God with the
intricate harmonies of the chancel choir and the powerful emotion of the gospel
choir! Praise God on bended knee, and praise God while standing with arms wide
open! With whatever you have, however you are, whatever time of day or week it
is, praise God!</div>
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Yet, as
your building rises into the Chicago skyline, you also walk a fine and
dangerous line. It is the fine and dangerous line of any prosperous people with
a richness of stories. You may fall into the sin of idolatry of a story that is
only your own and not of the body of Christ. As you choose which stories to
tell, you also choose whether you a modern Tower of Babel or God’s house of
prayer for all peoples.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In his
book, <i>Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence
for a Changing Church</i>, Soong-Chan Rah engages the story of the Tower of
Babel that is found in the 11<sup>th</sup> chapter of Genesis. A common
interpretation of the story is that God punished the people of Babel for their
pride by confusing their languages and scattering them throughout the world.
However, Rah points out that such a communication failure should not be
confused with racial and ethnic diversity, which is already recorded in the
previous chapter. Rah says that the precondition for the people’s offense is
fear and distrust. The people do not trust the promises of God, particularly
that God would protect them and not destroy them again in a terrible flood. The
people feared that God would not keep them safe. This seems like a reasonable fear
considering that the Babel generation probably grew up with stories of the
flood from which their ancestor Noah was spared. Build a tower tall enough to
escape a flood just in case God changes God’s mind!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However,
God did not create humankind to live in fear. No, God’s intends for us to live
freely, and we should love God and love one another. If we are high up in a tower,
how can we love our neighbor? Are we closer to God if we are high in the sky?
Is not God in the alleys of the city as well as the penthouses of the
skyscrapers? When God saw the people building a tower to heaven, God knew that
only a small number of people would fit in such a tower. The rest would
languish in the margins, forever making bricks to endlessly repair a tower
which was never part of God’s plan in the first place. When God saw this, God
confused the people’s speech so that they would have to find other ways to
relate to each other. God caused the people to turn away from their vain labors
and care for each as they explored a world waiting for their unlimited creativity.
We should praise God for stopping the construction of the Tower of Babel so
that people would learn to love one another in new, creative ways.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the
other hand, the prophet Isaiah foresaw a different kind of building, a temple
which would include all the peoples of the world. In the 56<sup>th</sup>
chapter of the book, the prophet has already seen how the returning exiles of
Jerusalem would rebuild the temple to continue the sinful ways of their
predecessors before the Babylonian captivity. Therefore, Isaiah speaks of a
temple where the eunuchs who hold fast to God’s covenant will have an
everlasting name, and the foreigners who join themselves to God will be made
joyful in God’s house of prayer. God’s house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples (Is. 56:7). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite
God’s righteous anger against the people of Jerusalem, God remained faithful to
the exiles in Babylon. God brought them back to the ruined city under the
leadership of Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of the city, and God raised up Ezra
to restore right worship on God’s holy mountain. However, God’s people were
blessed to be a blessing for the rest of the peoples. God’s people should show
the rest of the world how to love the widow, the orphan, and the stranger so
that all the world would come to know God. All who seek God and cling to God’s
promises would find a place in that holy house.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which
building do you have, First United Methodist Church? Is the Chicago Temple a
modern Tower of Babel meant as an escape from the doubt that clings to you
every day you see your city change even more? Or is the Chicago Temple a house
of prayer for all peoples where the eunuchs and foreigners, the lost and the
weary peoples of Chicago can find the blessings of God? Oh, please make up your
mind, First United Methodist Church, so that the huddled masses can find the
true house of God’s promises!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stories
you tell the outside world sound like you want to be God’s house of prayer for
all peoples. And indeed there are many things you do that are consistent with
those stories of peace, hospitality, and justice. You host a meal that provides
food for hundreds of needy people on Saturday mornings. You keep your sanctuary
open for any person seeking respite from the restless cold outside. You support
other organizations that seek justice in the halls of political power. You play
music that lifts the spirits of anyone who can hear the melodies soaring
through air. Praise God for these good things that make for peace!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However,
very often your worship is wholly of the Anglo-American tradition, and a quite
elitist strain of that tradition at that. While lifting one person’s spirits to
God on high, it is a clanging cymbal to another person. This may be true of any
one tradition which is held above all others, but in a diverse body of people
like the First United Methodist Church, myopia is not only unnecessary but also
sinful. Your children grow up in your halls not knowing what diverse ways of
worshipping God exist in Chicago. How can this be when your own body is so
diverse? Let us not only honor African-American forms of worship and Christian
practice during African-American heritage month, but throughout the entire
year. This is true for the many other cultural traditions that your people
bring into the Chicago Temple. Do not limit yourselves to only one way of
worship and Christian living, for that is the way of Babel and not of the God
of all peoples.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We also
know that your beautiful building and elegant programs require vast sums of
money to maintain. Based on the faithful planning your predecessors, First
United Methodist Church does not have to raise funds to maintain the
infrastructure of the building, which is quite unique among the local churches
of the connection. However, to manage the complex workings of the Chicago
Temple, you find the need to attract people with an understanding of vast sums
of money. Often these rich people garner special attention that the poor people
of the church do not garner. The wealthy people receive special opportunities
to lead the church that poor people do not receive. Of course there tasks that
knowledgeable managers of money should do in the church, but these roles should
not be given greater honor than other roles. Why should the chair of the
endowment receive more honor than a teacher of the children? Did not Christ say
that in order to enter the reign of God we must become like children? Did not
Christ also say that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich person to enter the reign of God? Beware of your riches, First
United Methodist Church, for in it may lay your hidden sins.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God brought
your foremothers and forefathers to this city and to this street corner for a
great purpose. You should be a witness to God’s power and mercy in a city that
does not know the things that make for peace. You, as a fruitful branch of the
true vine of Christ, know some of the things that make for peace. You must
distinguish your building, the Chicago Temple, from the other buildings around
it. As you welcome the stranger, increase your hospitality so that all may find
peace and rest. As you raise up the songs of heaven, broaden your worship so
that all may join in your singing. As you cry out for justice for the
marginalized, sharpen your critique of oppression that all may find freedom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the
Holy Spirit came upon the believers on Pentecost, the believers immediately
began to speak in languages that everyone in the city of Jerusalem could
understand. As the diverse people heard their own languages, they questioned
each other how simple country people from Galilee could know so many different
languages. First United Methodist Church must similarly amaze the people of the
city by speaking the different languages of the city’s people. Pastor Blackwell, when he was with you, called for the mayor to take the business and civic leaders of the city to
the top of the Willis Tower and show how every part of the city is theirs as
well. You, First United Methodist Church, who chooses to stay in the heart of the
city, must also look out and realize that all the peoples of the city are
theirs as well. Your worship must speak not only to the residents of the Gold
Coast and Lincoln Park but also to Roseland and Humboldt Park. By choosing to
stay in the heart of the city, you must accept the lifeblood that the city
brings to you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Changes in
the city and the church are coming and indeed already are here. The Holy Spirit
will guide you through your transitions, but the Holy Spirit will also change
you as she guides you. Trust God’s Spirit, for God does not break God’s
covenants. Hold fast to God’s covenant with you as the church that stayed.
There is still life in that heart that beats in the center of the city! Just as
the city has brought her lifeblood, the diverse peoples of God, to you, you will
also pump lifeblood back through the arteries of the metropolis. With each
heartbeat, send hospitality, welcome, joy, peace, and above all, love, to the
far reaches of the city to which you are vitally connected.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As you continue to cope with the departure of Pastor Phil, trust the guidance of Pastor Wendy, and Pastor David.
They have received a double portion of the Holy Spirit, and they are more than
able to help the church change and grow in love. Already you have strong
relationships with the Northern Illinois Conference and with the varied
seminaries of the city, especially Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
The leaders of the conference and the seminaries will help you as you change
and grow in love. I see a bright dawn on the horizon for you, First United
Methodist Church, and much of it comes from the children and young people among
you. Teach them your stories, and they will add to your stories with their
vibrancy, imagination, and energy.<br />
Even more, trust your new senior pastor, Myron McCoy. He has been tested and refined in the fires of ministry, and he will boldly take you in directions which you may not anticipate. I encourage you to follow his leadership. I am confident that he will not lead you astray, and with his guidance you will discover blessings which God has already given you but of which you had not been aware.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I sincerely
thank you for all that you have given me: financial help, professional
guidance, and spiritual support. As God led me to serve with you for the last year, God will keep
us connected in Christian love. Trust God and take courage in God’s promises.
God will truly make you a house of prayer for all peoples, and your stories
will echo throughout all the city. Grace and peace be with you in the name of
our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Amen.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-86813126134423528972014-07-27T05:47:00.001-07:002014-07-27T05:47:51.217-07:00Fear, Folly, and Power<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/King-Solomon-Russian-icon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/King-Solomon-Russian-icon.jpg" height="320" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King Solomon's got it goin' on. (Photo credit <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:King-Solomon-Russian-icon.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Who doesn’t want to be King
Solomon? I mean, he’s got it all. He comes from the right family—I mean, move
over, Daleys. He’s got enough money to look Bill Gates in the eye and seriously
play poker with Warren Buffet. And he’s so famous that other world leaders come
just to see if the hype is true. The Queen of Sheba looked Solomon up and down
and, “Dang, Sol, you got it goin’ on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> King
Solomon’s legacy even lasted into the incredulous Scientific Revolution. The
Freemasons adopted symbolism that connected their fraternal order with the
splendor of Solomon. And who could forget that classic Nick Cage movie, <i>National Treasure</i>, where the protagonist
discovers King Solomon’s treasure in, um, Manhattan, but where else would King
Solomon’s treasure be? That’s just one of many reasons why it’s a classic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> But
setting aside Solomon’s celebrity, let’s get some back story here. A kind of “behind the music” look at Solomon, you know,
like if Bob Woodward worked for VH1. So Solomon is the son of King David, a man
after God’s own heart, and Bathsheba, whom King David pursued apart from God’s heart.
If you don’t remember <i>that</i> story,
after he had become king, David played peeping Tom after Bathsheba while she
was bathing, had a child with her while her husband was off fighting in David’s
army, then had her husband killed, and finally admitted his guilt once the
prophet Nathan called him out. That’s Solomon’s daddy, all right. Now Solomon
wasn’t David’s only son, no far from it. Solomon’s step-brother, Amnon raped
Solomon’s step-sister, Tamar, and Solomon’s other step-brother, Absalom, killed
Amnon in revenge. Then Absalom staged a military coup against David, in which
he killed most of his step-brothers, except, obviously, for Solomon, but
eventually Absalom’s head got in the way—literally, his head got stuck in a
tree branch. If you want the whole story, read it in the Bible. It’s even
better than <i>Game of Thrones</i>. So, back
to Solomon. He and his mother convince King David, who eventually gets old and dies,
you know, like kings do, that Solomon should succeed David to the Israelite
throne. David agrees, and then Solomon goes and kills everyone who might oppose
him. I think Francis Ford Coppola was reading the Bible when he was directing <i>The Godfather</i>. Now stay with me, we’re
almost to the best part about Solomon. He was humble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Yes!
Believe it or not, Solomon was incredibly humble. See, Solomon knew that the
Israelites he was to rule were a great people and were difficult to rule, as
evidenced by the deaths of all of his step-brothers. That’s enough to humble
anybody, I suppose, even a Kennedy of antiquity like Solomon. But one night
after a long day of sacrificing all sorts of things on a high mountain to the
Lord God, God comes and asks Solomon what he wants. I kinda bet the first thing
that comes to Solomon’s mind is, “I’d like know if I have any more
step-brothers who might want to kill me,” but no, that’s not what Solomon asks.
Solomon recognizes that God is steadfast in love and mercy, and he asks God for
an “understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and
evil step-brothers (no wait, he didn’t mention step-brothers), for who can
govern this your great people?” No, seriously, God, who can govern these
people, because they are, like, crazy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Solomon’s
request for an “understanding mind” strikes a deep, harmonious chord with God,
and God grants Solomon’s request, along with a bigger bank account than the
entire Saudi royal family and more fame than all of the One Direction guys plus
Justin Bieber put together. If you don’t know what One Direction or a Bieber
is, then blessed are you. I bet you didn’t expect a beatitude tonight. But God
does bless Solomon! God blesses Solomon so much! God blesses Solomon so much
that Solomon makes a bunch of alliances with the historic enemies of God’s
people, and Solomon develops a harem of hundreds of women, and Solomon
conscripts thousands of peasant Israelites to build the temple to the Lord,
because God blesses Solomon to be a blessing—and a slavemaster. Yes! God.
Bless. Solomon. I even bet he made a patriotic song out of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> In
case you haven’t been able to cut through my sarcasm, let me make this plain. I
don’t really like King Solomon. I don’t really like his daddy, either.
Honestly, I have a hard time reading a lot of the historical books of the
Hebrew Bible. I might enjoy watching <i>House
of Cards</i> on Netflix, but I don’t enjoy reading the same plot lines in the
scriptures that leads us to salvation and liberation and redemption. Blame it
on the highfalutin seminary education I’m getting in Hyde Park, but I can’t
read the story of God’s gift of wisdom to King Solomon without my hermeneutic
of suspicion leaking out my ears. Of course King Solomon starts out on the
right foot! I mean, besides killing a bunch of political enemies, but Solomon
is all right to start with. But so was King Saul before God replaced him with
David. And so was King David before he had that fling with Bathsheba, Solomon’s
mom. I can’t help but recall the prophecy of Samuel, through whom God said,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">“These will be
the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and
appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his
chariots;</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">and
he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties,
and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements
of war and the equipment of his chariots.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">He will take your daughters to be
perfumers and cooks and bakers.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">He
will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give
them to his courtiers.<b><sup> </sup></b>He will take one-tenth of your grain
and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">He will take your male and female
slaves, and the best of your cattle</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">and donkeys, and put them to his
work.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">He will take
one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">And in that day you will cry out
because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="small-caps"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">will
not answer you in that day.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Who doesn’t want to be King
Solomon?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> I
grew up with the saying, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.” Even well-meaning people have a really hard time resisting the
corruption that often accompanies power. I am a student of major revolutions in
world history, and I can get pretty disheartened when I survey them. The
American Revolution cast off the bondage of the British crown, but Americans
kept African-descended people in bondage for another century after that, and then
established Jim Crow and systematic mass incarceration came after that. The
French Revolution brought down the Bastille, but after a decade or two of
beheading each other, Napoleon warped the revolutionary spirit to conquer most
of Europe. The Russian Revolution promised the dictatorship of the proletariat,
but instead got secret police, gulags, and Ukrainian famine. It’s enough to make an idealistic
revolutionary leave the Occupy camp, put on a tie, and sit in a cubicle. At
least there’s a better shot at good health insurance. Eventually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> It’s
enough to make somebody fear the folly of power, too. I remember during a
community organizing training a faith leader shared that he was afraid of
getting too much power. Now this faith leader had more musical talent in his
little finger than most whole church choirs do, and he had a magnetic
personality that sucked you into whatever project he’s working on. But he’s a
man of God, and a Christian of undeniable integrity, so he was very nervous
about associating with the corrupting nature of power. He didn’t want to be
another Elijah Muhammad, who fathered several children by his secretaries while
he was leading the Nation of Islam in the 1950’s and 60’s. However, he also
wanted to participate in the great <i>missio
dei</i>, the mission of God to liberate and redeem all of creation, and, well,
what can I say but the <i>missio dei </i>needs
<i>powerful</i> people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Yes,
we may be afraid when we decide to get into God’s mission of liberation and
redemption. In fact, we <i>should </i>approach
the great throne of God with more than a little fear and trembling, but let’s
not let that fear stop us from accepting the liberating power of God. Rather
than leading to the worldly folly of greed, malice, and lust, the power of God
works in us so that we can have power over the temptations of our culture.
Accepting the power of God moves us while still amidst our folly to overcome
our fear and participate in the holy <i>missio
dei.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Dear
friends, God did not wait for King David or King Solomon to be perfect before
God began using them for God’s great mission. And what about Moses before them?
While Moses was a prince in Pharaoh’s corrupt court in Egypt, he murdered a
man, and yet God still used Moses to lead the Israelites out of their bondage
and embark on the great exodus to the Promised Land. Rahab was a prostitute in
Jericho who betrayed all her neighbors to the invading Israelites, but God
still used her to help set up the sabbath communities where widows, orphans,
and strangers would be cared for. And who could forget how Paul locked up
Jesus’ followers and thought it great fun when they were stoned to death. That
didn’t stop God from busting into Paul’s life, messing him so much that he
blacked out for a couple weeks and then started answering to a different name. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Our
worldly folly does not prevent God from busting a move and delivering us from
the tempter’s snare. We get caught up in our security and safety and a life
where nothing surprising can ever happen, trying so hard to live out a life
that doesn’t need God, turning away the unaccompanied immigrant children,
ignoring the disheveled street people, and denying our LGBTQ sisters and
brothers the opportunity to marry with the blessing of our church. We are so
caught up in playing it safe that we are caught in the same fear and folly that
we were trying to avoid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> But
fear not, sisters and brothers! God doesn’t wait for us to get it right to work
the holy <i>missio dei </i>in us and around
us. God’s love is so great that Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God, lived and
died amidst worldly fear and folly so that all of creation, even you and me,
might know salvation, liberation, and redemption. There’s no mountain too high,
valley too deep, or expressway too busy that God’s love in Jesus Christ
wouldn’t cross to save, liberate, and redeem all of creation, even you and me. In
the words of the apostle Paul, written once he had recovered from that nasty
blackout, “I am convinced <span class="text"><span style="background: white;">that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white;"> </span></span><span class="text"><span style="background: white;">nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Not even Solomon’s corrupt politics nor his
daddy’s crooked wheeling and dealing can stop God’s love from blessing them
from blessing the world around them. <i>That
</i>is the power of God’s love!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span class="text"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="text"><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> So let us
seek power, dear friends, not the power that leads to folly and fear, but the
power of God’s love which organizes us for the holy <i>missio dei</i>. With the power of God’s love organizing our lives, fear
and folly lose their corrupting power. With the power of God’s love organizing
our church, no walls can exclude any of our sisters and brothers from Christ’s
body. With the power of God’s love organizing our world, all widows, all
orphans, all strangers, indeed all of God’s creation will be reconciled and
redeemed back to God and to each other. Praise God almighty! Amen.</span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-13567427191252658352014-07-19T11:14:00.000-07:002014-07-19T11:14:00.317-07:00Weeding the Kingdom of God<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Lm1-6YMdRA-8Og8qGL6BHWFIUso75BJBXUGQNF0wpXh2hHvzDwIfGyHZzhiv7KjruH4ew0wsQuTJyXoJr5upEEu7-nbvCb8F7g386W_AftEDgUdyzifGS_ZV_ESoqy3_eQ2Okj9Jwufh/s1600/crabgrass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Lm1-6YMdRA-8Og8qGL6BHWFIUso75BJBXUGQNF0wpXh2hHvzDwIfGyHZzhiv7KjruH4ew0wsQuTJyXoJr5upEEu7-nbvCb8F7g386W_AftEDgUdyzifGS_ZV_ESoqy3_eQ2Okj9Jwufh/s1600/crabgrass.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crabgrass: the demon weed from the 7th circle of hell. <br />(Photo credit <a href="http://turf.msu.edu/crabgrass-control-in-home-lawns" target="_blank">Michigan State University</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me tell you a golf story. Well, at least it takes place
at a golf course. The summer after I graduated from college, I worked for the
maintenance crew at a resort and golf course close to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
I was primarily raking leaves for six weeks when my boss gave me a new
assignment: weeding. Now being the son of a self-employed landscaper, I know
the ins and outs of weed removal, but this was a different brand of weeding.
See, there had been an infestation of crabgrass in the first cut of grass
around couple of the greens—it’s called the “fringe”. My boss was baffled at
how the crabgrass had snuck into the fringe of several greens, but she sure
didn’t want it there for the big tournament in the middle of August. However,
she also didn’t want any holes in the fringe where the crabgrass used to be.
The first commandment in golf course maintenance is to keep greens smooth so
that the golf ball can roll naturally. That meant that I had to remove each
piece of crabgrass individually with a pocketknife and fill in each little hole
that I had created with sand and a bit of grass seed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I spent
almost two weeks doing this—kneeling on the fringe, using a pocketknife to
remove individual blades of crabgrass, filling each little whole with sand—so
that golfers would never know that somehow the crabgrass had been there. There
was one day I spent 12 hours doing this. I called that number 11 fringe “the
seventh circle of hell”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>A landowner sowed good seed in his field;
but while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat,
and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds
appeared as well...<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I
started with a story about golf, then this parable from Matthew 13 is a story
about weeds, which means, of course, that it isn’t. Jesus knew that to get
through to his audience in 1<sup>st</sup> century Palestine, he had to talk
about agriculture. And he knew how to tell good story, too. When he told this
parable about the wheat and the weeds, I can picture the people, many of whom
are migrant farmworkers, cringing at a story about weeds among the wheat.
They’d especially cringe at the mention of this kind of weed, too. See, the
word which is translated “weeds” or “tares” in English can also be translated
as “darnel”, which looks an awful lot like wheat. In fact you can’t even really
tell the difference between the two until they produce grain. It’s pretty
important that you don’t mix the grain of wheat and darnel, too, because darnel
has the tendency to attract a fungus that quite noxious when eaten by humans,
even fatal at times. So you see, the landowner had quite a problem on his
hands, and the poor slaves would have been the ones to painstakingly separate
the noxious darnel from the useful wheat. Perhaps with a pocketknife, going
plant by plant, for maybe 12 hours a day, for acres and acres in the hot sun.
Yes, cringe I’m sure Jesus’ audience did.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But you
know what? Sometimes you just have to pull those weeds, you know what I mean?
You can’t have crabgrass on the fringe around number 11 green, and you can’t
mix darnel with wheat. You just gotta do what you gotta do. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s look
at this allegorically, a little like Jesus did. Sometimes we can’t leave the
children of the evil one among the righteous. After all, scripture also says
not to associate with nonbelievers and people who are just gonna bring you
down. In the church we call some moments like this “reform”. Martin Luther was
a master metaphorical weeder. He was obsessed about whether he was a child of
the evil one or one of the righteous, and the church as it was in the 16<sup>th</sup>
century couldn’t resolve his anxiety. There are stories about how Luther as a
young man would do confession with his priest, think, “Wow, that was a great
confession,” and then immediately run to the back of the line so that he could
confess the sin of pride. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course
Luther also looked around his beloved church and saw extreme corruption. See,
back in Luther’s day the Vatican was building St. Peter’s Basilica off of
people’s anxiety about the eternal life of their loved ones. For a price, folks could get priests and
monks and nuns to pray for the souls of specific people, thus shortening their
time in purgatory and getting them into heaven faster. They were called
“indulgences”, and it was the snake-oil fraud of the 16<sup>th</sup> century
church. Luther saw indulgences for what they were, and so he boiled down
Christian doctrine to his slogan “sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia”. That
is, scripture alone, faith alone, and grace alone, and that’s how the
Reformation began with some theological weeding.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Methodists
were metaphorical weeders when we began, too. John Wesley experienced a
severely watered-down faith at Oxford in the early 1700’s, and so he too went
back to the basics. Wesley often said that he was trying to emulate the early
Christian communities of Acts and the New Testament epistles with the Methodist
societies he helped organize. Like Luther, Wesley loved his slogans, too.
Probably the most famous were his “3 Simple Rules”: do good, do no harm, and
stay in love with God. And Wesley wasn’t afraid to weed out folks who weren’t
putting a good faith effort into the Methodist way of life. Back in the day, if
you wanted to go to a class meeting, you had to have a ticket, and I’ll be
darned if you could get past good ol’ John Wesley if he had taken away your
ticket. Call it Christian accountability, if you will. I, being a landscaper’s
son, might call it Wesleyan weeding.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The slaves said to landowner, “Then do you
want us to go and gather the [weeds]?” But he replied “No; for in gathering the
weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow
together until the harvest…”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, hold
up. When Jesus breaks down his own allegory he identifies the landowner as the
Son of the Man, which means Jesus. So that means Jesus is telling folks <i>not </i>to weed. Just when I had my
pocketknife and bucket full of sand together, Jesus comes and tells me that
should leave that crabgrass in the number 11 fringe. I’m honestly pretty happy
about that because I <i>hated </i>that job,
but what gives? Everybody knows that you can’t have crabgrass on the fringe,
and it’s downright irresponsible and dangerous to have darnel among the wheat.
So come, on, Jesus. What’s your game here?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m gonna
confess something here, friends. Sometimes I get a little over-exuberant about
weeding. It’s just that I focus on one task at a time; I do that one task
really well before I move on to the next task. So sometimes when I get to weeding
I start yanking up every last little plant that seems just a little out of
place. It’s my job, right? But here’s the thing: even though I’m a landscaper’s
son, I didn’t plant this flowerbed. I don’t know exactly how it’s supposed to
be, so that means I need be quite careful about weeding in someone else’s
flowerbed.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear
friends, we are merely stewards of God’s great garden of creation. In the
second creation account in Genesis, God put the first human in the garden of
Eden to till it and keep it. But the human didn’t plant the garden; God did.
The human didn’t know what was supposed to be in the garden and what was a
weed; God had to tell the human what to eat and what not eat, specifically that
one tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even though our mythical ancestors
were driven out of that first garden, we still inhabit God’s garden today. That
means we better be careful about how we weed God’s garden.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That means
we better be careful when we go to further and further lengths to extract fossil
fuels from deep within the earth. We build our oil rigs further into the ocean,
and somehow we are still shocked when something goes wrong and 4.9 million
barrels of oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico. We develop new technologies that
hydraulically fracture shale formations, that is intentionally causing
mini-earthquakes, to collect natural gas, and we are somehow still perplexed
when people’s tap water becomes flammable. More people than ever before are
burning these substances and emitting all kinds of gases into the air, and then
we still argue about whether our climates are changing because we raced past
the scientist-recommended 300-parts-per-million ratio of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. We better be careful about how we are weeding God’s garden.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now Jesus
specifically says that his allegory is about people, so we better be careful
when we start weeding out people, too. In Gaza the Israeli army is currently
trying to weed out Palestinian militants by shooting missiles and marching in
heavily armed soldiers. In the United States many people are trying to weed out
undocumented immigrants, including unaccompanied children who showed up at our
doorstep to escape the poverty and violence of their home countries. In our
churches, many people are trying to weed out LGBTQ sisters and brothers, that
is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer folks, from leadership and
from marriage. Dear friends, don’t we know that when we are weeding out people
we are violently wrenching our fellow children of God from God’s garden of
life? Or are we so blind that we insanely dig and tug and yank every last weed
we see in God’s garden even though we cannot see the things that make for
peace? Let anyone with ears listen!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Jesus put before them another parable: “The
kingdom of heaven may be compared to…”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The kingdom
of heaven may be compared to…what? A weedy field of wheat? A mustard seed?
Maybe some yeast? Come on, Jesus, speak plainly! I don’t have time for these
parables when there is so much darn crabgrass on the number 11 fringe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So let
anyone with ears listen. When God gave the Israelites the laws in Sinai, God
told them to especially care for the widow and the orphan and the stranger.
We’ve got some widows in Gaza today and we’ve got some widows on the South and
West Side today. We’ve got some orphans who are traveling to our borders for
the hope of a better life. We’ve got 11 million strangers who live among us
without any official documented status. How are we caring for them?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And when
the disciples tried to shoo away the little children who wanted to see Jesus,
Jesus welcomed the children and blessed them. And when Jesus ate with tax
collectors and prostitutes, Jesus said that the last will be first and the
first will be last. And Jesus shocked the disciples by saying that it’s easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter
the kingdom of heaven…but with God all things are possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you know
what? Let’s freely admit that we don’t know exactly what the kingdom of God
looks like. It doesn’t make sense to us. It runs counter to so much of our
middle class, American dream, and if I can’t just pull some crabgrass out of
the fringe of the number 11 green, well, I don’t know what to do. Maybe we
should just let the weeds grow up with the wheat and let God sort it out, because
I just don’t know what to do. It’s such a big mess that only God can clean it up
at this point.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so Jesus
says, “Yeah, that’s the start of what I call repentance. Repent, for the kingdom
of God has come near.”</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-23153964569550202252014-06-29T05:32:00.000-07:002014-06-29T12:33:06.923-07:00No Taming This River<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">(Preached at the Historic Methodist Campgrounds of Des Plaines, June 29, 2014.)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="text"><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">When
the poor and needy seek water, </span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">and
there is none, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">and
their tongue is parched with thirst,</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">I the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> will answer them, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">I
the God of Israel will not forsake them.</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">I will open rivers on the bare heights, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">and
fountains in the midst of the valleys;</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">I will make the wilderness a pool of water, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">and
the dry land springs of water.</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">I will put in the wilderness the cedar, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">the
acacia, the myrtle, and the olive;</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">I will set in the desert the cypress, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">the
plane and the pine together,</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">so that all may see and know, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">all
may consider and understand,</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">that the hand of the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> has done
this, </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><span class="text">the
Holy One of Israel has created it.</span></span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">Isaiah
41:17-20<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Then
the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing
from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the
city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of
fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the
healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the
throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and God’s servants will worship God;
they will see God’s face, and God’s name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no
light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign
forever and ever.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">Revelation
22:1-5<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">These passages—the one from Isaiah 41 and the other
from Revelation 22—are pretty special to me. They were both read at my wedding,
which occurred only four weeks ago. I know, I know—not traditional wedding
scriptures. No 1 Corinthians 13 of “love is patient/love is kind” fame or 1
John 4, which declares that God is love. It’s not even the wedding at Cana,
which is recounted in the beginning of the gospel of John, but that one would
have been weird at my completely dry wedding. Nope. My wife, Kacie, and I chose
some <i>prophecy </i>for our wedding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTPgp237kgC1hl6ekH9hjF-yhqSTwGem7s15DpAl3_ikaGhXeu5uAAdGLnMAQmp4oQt7d2hrK7HcHlAbDghHAjtlF1X6BypNo-eTEnk5wiVakx1TxQRWNo_-abP041gtujVpyO45dqUMM/s1600/wedding+lawn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTPgp237kgC1hl6ekH9hjF-yhqSTwGem7s15DpAl3_ikaGhXeu5uAAdGLnMAQmp4oQt7d2hrK7HcHlAbDghHAjtlF1X6BypNo-eTEnk5wiVakx1TxQRWNo_-abP041gtujVpyO45dqUMM/s1600/wedding+lawn.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The Susquehanna River in the background</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">of the Fort Hunter lawn where Kacie and I</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">were married. (Photo credit <a href="http://www.dougaustinphoto.com/home.html" target="_blank">Doug Austin</a>)</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Ok, so we didn’t really
choose these passages for their prophetic prowess, though it’s pretty cool,
too. We figured out our wedding scripture by looking around us when we did our
site visit at a country park called Fort Hunter, just north of Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania. See, we got married on the lawn between the old Victorian mansion
of the park and the Susquehanna River. It was the <i>river</i> that inspired us. I grew up beside that river—the mighty
Susquehanna, which divides the state of Pennsylvania between east and west (and
Eagles and Steelers, if you follow football) and upon which no boat bigger than
a flat-bottom motor boat can travel. It starts somewhere up in the hills of New
York and then cuts through the Northern Tier and coal country, going past my
little one-traffic light hometown (which is one more traffic light that it had
when I was living there), surrounding the Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant, which nearly blew up in the late 1970’s, and finally empties into the
Chesapeake Bay down by Annapolis, Maryland. It’s a beautiful river, even if
it’s not particularly useful for shipping like the rivers of the Midwest. It
also passes Lewisburg, the town where my overeager Methodists in central PA
like to think Robert Lowry wrote the hymn “Shall We Gather at the River”—he did
have a house there after all. Too bad Lowry was Baptist and actually wrote the song with different
lyrics about a church in Brooklyn. It’s nice story, though, and it’s a nice
river, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">But I’ve seen the
Susquehanna show its untamed side, too. In 1996 after hard winter with a
blizzard or two, the high river and its ice took down a span of the Walnut
Street Bridge in Harrisburg. In my senior year of high school the remnant of an
Atlantic hurricane whipped up the river until there was 6 feet of water in the
square of my hometown. I recall folks fishing there, where cars usually parked
to pick up their pizza at Zeiderelli’s, though I hope they didn’t eat whatever
they caught, considering the sewage treatment plant was less than a hundred
yards away. Then again, maybe that’s why Zeiderelli’s had a limited-time-only
small-mouth bass pizza that autumn. Hmm…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">There’s no taming rivers,
really. There’s always been that tension about rivers, and water in general.
Get too much, you’re knockin’ on Noah’s door. Get too little, you join
Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones. Of course, all the great civilizations of the
ancient world—the ones that started building their cities 20,000 years ago—were
by great river systems. Egypt had the Nile. The Chinese had the Yangtze and
Yellow rivers. Mesopotamia in the Middle East was the land “between the rivers.”
The rivers brought not only the water which no human can live without but also
the rich silt of dirt that accumulated as it flowed inexorably down-hill. In
fact, many of these civilizations were successful at early agriculture because
their rivers regularly flooded and renewed the soil with its floodwaters. Maybe
that is to say that untamed flooding isn’t all bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">However I know that you
all have a pretty tense relationship with your river, too. You already know
that there’s no taming this river. The mighty Des Plaines River has left its
mark on your little civilization here at the Historic Methodist Campgrounds. I
remember when I first came here last summer. The mud was mostly dry, but it was
still visible in the grass and on many of the cottages. I understand many of
you have been in the process of putting your cottages on stilts, and I
understand that some of you didn’t make those stilts high enough for those untamed
Des Plaines River floodwaters. I understand that these floods were supposed to
be hundred-year floods, and they occurred twice in 5 years.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>
Still, let’s praise God that we can meet in this tabernacle of the Lord without
floating around in anchored dinghies. I’m confident that God would meet us
nonetheless, but I’m glad that God has kept the ground here dry, at least for
today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">What do we make of these untamed
floods? How do we understand these watermarks five feet above where we stand or
sit now? And if God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omni-benelovent God
that some our doctrine declares God to be (hope you don’t mind me getting
theological in here), what does it mean that God doesn’t tame these floods? My
seminary professors say that these are issues of theodicy, coming from the
Greek <i>theo</i>, which means God<i>, </i>and <i>diche</i>, which means justice. So we are treading in the untamed waters
of God’s justice now, and the water looks as murky as the Des Plaines river
floodwaters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Pat Robertson, that sage
of the 700 Club who told New Orleans and Haiti that their natural disasters
were because of their deals with the devil, might say that these floodwaters
are sent directly from God to punish unrepentant sinners. Then again, Pat
Robertson also recently said that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/pat-robertson-tattoos_n_5531002.html">tattoos were worthy only of heathen</a>. If Pat
Robertson is consistently right, then you have word of God coming to you from a
heathen today. Well, I was taught to respect my elders, but I don’t respect Pat
Robertson’s theology. I don’t respect Pat Robertson’s theology because, as some
of my African American colleagues would say, the Lord God Almighty is no
respecter of persons. That is, God will work good things in us and through us
flawed humans despite our sin. That is, God will take the weakest parts and
honor them the most. That is, God will redeem even the greatest sinners, like
maybe some Roman soldiers whose job it was to crucify uppity Palestinian Jews,
and transform their most terrible instrument of humiliation and death, like
maybe some old rugged cross from the reign of Emperor Tiberius, and make the
most glorious symbol of victory, justification, and grace in the history of
creation. Let’s give God some praise for God’s untamed river of redeeming grace!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Now I love praising God.
It’s one of my most favorite things to do, whether it’s an old Charles Wesley
hymn like “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”, or it’s an African American
spiritual like “Go Down Moses”, or it’s some praise chorus fresh off the pen of
David Crowder. Coming together to praise God is so good, we can rise up from
these murky floodwaters into that third heaven that Paul visited long ago. I’ve
heard experiences like that called “mountaintop” or “burning bush” moments, and
if you haven’t experienced one yet, I pray that you will, because it is so
good. Fresher than the freshest spring, sweeter than the sweetest honey, warmer
than the warmest sunlight. Hallelujah!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Here’s the thing: we don’t
spend all our lives in the third heaven. In fact, we’re really, really lucky if
we get to spend even one nanosecond up there. No, dear friends, we spend nearly
all of our earthly time here on earth, often stuck in the mud or trapped in
floodwaters. So, to repeat an earlier question, where’s God’s justice in the floodwaters
of this untamed river?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Let me drop a bomb on you
now that sends a shockwave more powerful than any thermonuclear warhead our
military or any other military can hope to build. God’s justice is not our justice.
You might be shell-shocked now, so let me repeat that. God’s justice is not our
justice. Just to make sure it’s getting through that Lake Michigan fog, say it
with me: “God’s justice is not our justice.” No! It’s not! And let’s praise God
for that! God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s justice is not our justice.
God doesn’t throw away black and brown and poor folks into jail for profit or
for election-day boasting. God doesn’t sentence minors to a lifetime of prison
rot. God doesn’t execute folks whose innocence would be proven with just a
little more effort. No, dear friends, God’s justice is not our justice, praise
God! Hallelujah!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">See, dear friends, God’s
justice does actually flood us. God says, “Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Yes! Maybe God’s justice really
<i>is</i> in those untamed Des Plaines River
floodwaters, just not the way Pat Robertson thinks. See, God doesn’t want us to
suffer, and God doesn’t make us suffer. Why would God want to do that when we
humans are so good at making our own sinful selves suffer? No, God’s not in the
suffering business, but God IS in the redemption business and the repentance
business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">When our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ started his ministry in northern Palestine 2,000 years ago, he
said, “Repent! For the reign of God has come near.” That word for repent is the
Greek <i>metanoia</i>, which more precisely
translated means to “re-orient” or “re-center”. It’s like when we’re caught in
water over our heads, and we get off course. When I was in Boy Scouts, we
always started summer camp with a swim test. I was always finished the test
strongly, but I was always swimming off course for whatever reason. I always
felt bad for the Boy Scout swimming next to me because he was in danger of me
strongly swimming directly into him. I needed somebody to “re-orient” me so I
could finish the test. I needed to repent of my wrong course so I could get to
the place where I needed to go. That’s what repentance is about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Dear friends, maybe the
floor under our feet is dry today, but let’s confess that we are awash in the floodwaters
of sin. We need to repent. Yesterday marked the 45<sup>th</sup> anniversary of
the Stonewall Riots which took place in West Greenwich Village of New York
City, and today a million people are gathering on the North Side of Chicago for
what is known as the Pride Parade. Maybe you don’t like some things that are
part of the Pride Parade, but you probably don’t like some things in the Bible,
too. If you think that you do like everything in the Bible, then I challenge
you to read the Bible more closely. Then I challenge to check out Pride again.
Because the men and women of Pride know some stuff about repentance. They know
what it’s like to repent of the isolation and shame and endless bullying that
they suffered for years. The real question is when will the rest of us repent
of our idolatry of the white, heterosexual man who has the body of an underwear
model and the bank account of a hedge fund manager. When we repent of our
sinful idolatries and truly worship God the way God calls us to—that is, by
doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God—then maybe we too can
celebrate the new heavens and new earth that God has prepared for us through
Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">So even when we are in the
midst of murky floodwaters, let us praise God for justice that cuts through the
clouds like a ray of sunshine. Let us praise God for throwing us a life
preserver was the river rages around us. And let us even praise God for that
lovely untamed river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing untamed from
the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of North Halsted Street in
the city of Chicago. On either side of this untamed river is the tree of life
with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, but especially
at the end of each June; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the
nations, but especially for these United States of America. Nothing accursed
will be found there in Chicago any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb
will be in Chicago, and God’s servants will worship our most gracious and
loving God; they will see God’s face, and God’s name, “I am what I am,” will be
on their foreheads. And there will be no
more night where innocent people get beaten up just for being who they are;
they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and
they will reign forever and ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">May it be so. Amen.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-54418516846463116732014-05-26T18:40:00.000-07:002014-05-26T19:34:46.316-07:00Act. Reflect. Repeat.<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Preached at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple on May 24, 2014 on Acts 17:22-34.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have a confession to make, First United Methodist Church
at the Chicago Temple. I’ve been cheating on you with another internship. No,
no, let me finish. It gets worse. My other internship is with a campus
ministry…sponsored by the Episcopalians. And the Lutherans. Yes! There it is,
out in the open. Let me explain…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been on staff at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/southloopcm">South Loop CampusMinistry</a> since early 2013, and it’s been an exhilarating roller coaster ever
since then. See, the pastor of First Trinity Lutheran Church on the South Side
started working as the official campus pastor in 2012, and he offered me, a
professing Methodist, a job. I’d been attending his church for a couple years,
and I figured that if someone would pay me to work with college kids, I better
take the offer. The thing is that Pastor Tom needed some help. See, one program
he had started was a free community meal on Sunday nights at Grace Place
Episcopal Church. I guess Pastor Tom remembered his days as a college student
and figured that if you cook it, they will come. Well, they came, but they
happened to be homeless folks from the South Loop and not students. Somehow he
didn’t see that one coming.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of
casting out the homeless folks, he had dinner with them. It was small group,
and one night </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQzQ5kLy0GSsEWtH7nrsqol_fwi_5OE8pEwtHnA5zDMSjJZTyGVmetK7LwHzBInLkAgU9iPPgTtyJrxrVbttK4iQf1tAkUuHyA7MdwlO1bcI7Om9TasIVjdVusKt3rUK7cXxY7CPq9XC3J/s1600/13+-+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQzQ5kLy0GSsEWtH7nrsqol_fwi_5OE8pEwtHnA5zDMSjJZTyGVmetK7LwHzBInLkAgU9iPPgTtyJrxrVbttK4iQf1tAkUuHyA7MdwlO1bcI7Om9TasIVjdVusKt3rUK7cXxY7CPq9XC3J/s1600/13+-+1.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Takin' it the stairwells at Lower Michigan<br />
with South Loop Campus Ministry.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
they had so much food left over that he and a few other people
packaged the leftovers into plastic bags and wandered into the streets to see if
anyone would take food from a plastic bag being carried by strangers. The
answer to that quandary is yes, and that’s how SLCM’s “Takin’ to the Streets”
program began. We still have free community meals at Grace Place, but now we
only do them on the last Sunday of the month. We focus a lot more on preparing
60 bagged lunches of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a piece of fruit, a
small bag of chips, and a doughnut from a friendly local bakery. We walk with a
couple carts overflowing with paper bags up State Street and then down to Lower
Wacker and back, offering food to anyone we encounter along the way.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then, when
we get back from our 2 mile journey through the Loop, all the time looking for
the people that society tries to ignore, we get to the really exciting part. We
evaluate our experience. We borrow our evaluation structure from community
organizing, and we do it in three parts. In the first part, each person shares
one word that sums up what that person is feeling after the evening’s
experiences, after which we open discussion for unpacking people’s words. The
second part is what we call points of tension. When did you feel tense
throughout the night? It’s very rare that a Sunday evening passes without some
tension. I mean, really, just wandering into that subterranean mess of streets
beneath the Loop is enough to put your stomach in a knot. We call the last part
our “theological learning”, which corresponds with community organizing’s
“political learning” which ends most meetings. Theological learning means
anything you learned about God, faith, or even humanity, because we recognize
that some people aren’t well practiced in looking for God. Then we pray.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So let me
recap this program for you. We act. We reflect. Then we repeat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
action-reflection model is called “praxis” in some academic circles, and it’s
how we do theology at SLCM. It is also, historically speaking, how we do
theology as Methodists. A lot of scholars have called John Wesley a praxis
theologian, and that’s why the United Methodist <i>Book of Discipline</i>, our official church rule book, has “a
theological task” instead of a distinct confession or catechism. Methodists
act, then reflect on what we just did, and then we repeat, only a little more
perfectly or holier than the previous time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So in the
spirit of praxis, I really want to join the Athenians in heckling Paul. Maybe
not for the same reasons as the rest of the crowd in Athens, but dude, Paul,
can’t you see that your speech just didn’t work? Let me set the scene a little
bit more. Paul has been traveling around the Aegean Sea to different cities
proclaiming the lordship and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and he’s been
getting into a lot of trouble for it. The keepers of first century civil
society keep putting him and his comrades in prison to stop his blaspheming
against the emperor in Rome—or at least to stop bothering people in the
marketplace. In fact, Paul’s hosts in Beroea sent him to Athens because his own
people, the Jews, were going to politely ask him to shut up before they
impolitely shut him up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now Athens
was a different kind of town than the other places Paul had visited. It was a
college town, and it attracted people who liked to learn for the sake of
learning. Basically, Paul had been in the South Shore, and his friends gave him
bus pass to Hyde Park. The Athenians at this point were an open-minded,
academically-inclined bunch. Sure, they had forcibly poisoned Socrates a couple
hundred years earlier, but they had matured since then. They even had a place
called the “Areopagus” for crazy religious fanatics to entertain them. You
know, crazy folks like Paul. So Paul got into Athens, did his Jesus thing, and
the open-minded Athenians said, “Hm! This guy seems crazy to us. He would be
perfect for the Areopagus. Let’s give him a soap box and let him go to town.”
And so Paul did, and the Athenians politely humored him, at least until Paul
started talking about how they would be judged by a man whom God has appointed
and resurrected. That’s when the less polite Athenians, probably the ones who
were only there for the extra credit for their religious studies class, started
heckling him. Some were polite, but Paul had had enough of this over-educated
crowd and left. Clearly Paul had not gone to the same evangelism workshops that
I’ve gone to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then again,
maybe any critique I have of Paul’s performance at the Areopagus is really
about my hang-ups with Christian evangelism and not about Paul at all. I grew
up in rural, central Pennsylvania as a very active member of my little United
Methodist church in Marysville, and I became quite evangelical by the time I
was a teenager. I even once turned down a romantic relationship by using the
excuse that I wanted to focus more on a revival in my high school. Yes, I was
one of <i>those</i> people. I continued in
my holy rolling ways during my freshman year of college in dormitory hall of
drunks, potheads, and other inhibition-less people. By my second semester, I
was ready to start witnessing to them. I had a pretty good relationship with
one atheist engineer two doors down—his name was James—and I got my opportunity
to witness to him one night while I was on crutches and I had his sympathy. We
went to the cafeteria for a late supper, and I started questioning him about
why he didn’t believe in God. And you know what? My hallmate didn’t want to
talk about his atheism. Drats! Foiled again! I kept trying to bring up the
subject again, but all James wanted to talk about was how difficult it was to
maintain a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend. Girlfriend,
shmirlfriend, James. Don’t you know that your soul is in peril? Flee from the
wrath that is to come, James! <i>Fleeeee!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had my
evangelical Christian agenda, and it was not meeting my hallmate’s need for
care and support that night. James didn’t need an evangelist. He needed a
friend, and I wasn’t being a very good friend. I was lucky that a year later
when <i>my</i> somewhat long-distance
relationship fell apart, I did have good friends who were willing to give me
the love and support I needed. In the middle of a deep, dark depression my
friends brought me bit by bit back into the light. They were witnessing to me
through their actions of care and love and support. They were preaching the
good news to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know,
Paul got this kind of good news once, too. Not the proclamation kind, but the
knock-you-on-your-keister-and-accept-help kind. Back when Paul was still known
as Saul and was holy rolling his way through Judea, putting Christians in
prison and generally being a jerk, Jesus came and literally knocked him on his
keister on the road to Damascus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t
think Jesus gave Paul all the instructions that he gave his disciples the night
before his crucifixion, but Jesus still got the point across. “They who have my
commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be
loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” That’s one
of the things Jesus told his disciples in the upper room that night long before
Jesus revealed himself to Paul. “They who have my commandments and keep them…”
Jesus only really gave one commandment that night to his disciples: “Just as I
have loved you, you also ought to love one another.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love one
another. Maybe Paul received some tough love on the road to Damascus, but he
got the more caring, supportive kind of love from the Christians in Damascus.
They housed him and fed him and cared for him while he was sorting out his
life. Even though this guy, still known as Saul, had a record of Christian’s
lives living hell, they still loved him. Paul witnessed the good news through
the loving action of that Christian community in Damascus, and so he witnessed
Christ among them. That love brought Paul out of the darkness and bit by bit
back into the light.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One maxim
I’ve learned about preaching is to avoid preaching what I don’t know. I
shouldn’t try to make gleaming metaphors about astrophysics and faith because I
barely passed my behavioral statistics class. I’ll leave the astrophysics to my
dear friend Elizabeth who is getting her PhD in that field, and who was a great
friend when I needed one after a certain nasty breakup. So I’ll leave
astrophysics to her. I can, however, preach about love because I have witnessed
an awful lot of love. I have witnessed love in the support that my family and
friends give me even when I act like a knucklehead. I have witnessed love in
how a little Lutheran church on the South Side welcomed me as a Methodist
missionary and let me live in their former parsonage for nearly four years. I
have witnessed love in how my fiancée, Kacie (who will be my wife in one week),
is okay with me preaching tonight even when we still have SO much to do between
now and our wedding.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have
witnessed love among you, too, First United Methodist. I have witnessed love in
how you help each other out when in hard times, like when someone’s mother dies
or when finances are running really low. I have witnessed love when you not
only provide a free breakfast for homeless guests on Saturday mornings but also
when you cross lines of economic class and really listen to someone’s story.
And I am witnessing love as you struggle with how to care-fully, that is, full
of care, host marriages of same-gender-loving people in your building. These
are acts of love, and they preach volumes about who God really is.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Friends, we
can love because God first loved us. That love very often comes through the
actions of other people, but it is God’s love, nonetheless. This is God’s
righteous action—to love us. As my boss at the campus ministry, Pastor Tom,
likes to say, “There is nothing we can do to make God love us—me, you, and
everybody else—more. And there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.
God just loves us. Period.” Whether you experience that love on a mountaintop
or on Lower Wacker, it’s still God’s love. God meets us wherever we are,
however we are, because God just loves us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think
that’s what Paul was getting at while he was on his soap box at the Areopagus.
He was just doing his best to witness to the love he had received from God
through a faithful community of Christians. Maybe he would have done better to
just get out of the way and let God love some people, but God loved the
Athenians anyway. I know <i>I</i> would have
done better back in college if I had gotten out of the way and let God love my
hallmate, James, but God loved James anyway. It’s just what God does. It’s just
how God acts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God acts. Yeah,
God acts. Then we reflect. That’s what I’m really doing right now. I am
reflecting on how God acts. That’s what we really do when we gather to worship.
We reflect on God’s holy, righteous, and loving action. That’s what we’re
really doing tonight. It’s good. It’s really good. Let’s keep doing it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Act.
Reflect. Repeat.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-58070158495941597792014-04-24T20:09:00.002-07:002014-04-24T20:10:57.441-07:00The Resurrection and the Struggle<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="background: white; color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two
maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>He took them and sent them across the
stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man
wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail
against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of
joint as he wrestled with him.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Then
he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let
you go, unless you bless me.’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>So
he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Then the man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>said, ‘You shall no longer be called
Jacob, but Israel,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>for you have
striven with God and with humans,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and
have prevailed.’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Then Jacob asked
him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’
And there he blessed him.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>So
Jacob called the place Peniel,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>saying,
‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>The sun rose upon him as he passed
Penuel, limping because of his hip.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Therefore
to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip
socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.</span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: center; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Gen. 32:22-32<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Resurrection
happens when you least expect it, where you’re least likely to look, to the
person you’re most likely to ignore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Like when
everybody’s gone away, and the sun is setting on the banks of the River Jabbok,
to that exile, that wanderer, that trickster, that heel of a person we know as
Jacob. Really—that’s what his means.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Jacob isn’t
somebody I want to like. He was never the once and future quarterback of the championship
football team; that’s his brother Esau. Jacob gets what he wants through
trickery, through withholding food to the hungry, through dressing up as
someone else and fooling an old, blind man. And then when his sins catch up
with him, he runs away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Jacob’s
trickster nature follows him in exile. He manages to seduce Rachel, Laban’s
daughter, but then somehow ends up marrying both of Laban’s daughters. And then
he has sex with not only both of them, but also several of his maids. That’s
not even why Laban eventually evicts Jacob. That happens because Jacob has been
tampering with his father-in-law’s herds of cattle. And then Jacob runs away
again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That’s when
Jacob gets word that his estranged brother, whose last words directed to Jacob
were “I’m gonna kill him first chance I get!”, is looking for him. With 400
other guys whom Jacob assumes want nothing more than to take turns hitting
something. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And what
does Jacob do? He sends all of his family to the other side of the River Jabbok
where Esau and his bloodthirsty band of brass knuckles are waiting for him.
Like I said—I don’t want to like Jacob.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Maybe I don’t
want to like Jacob because his story reminds me of my own character defects.
Jacob’s story reminds me of all the times that I have struggled—struggled with
my own identity and purpose, struggled with my relationships with other people,
and struggled with God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So where is
the resurrection in this story? Well, let’s have a look at Jacob when the sun
comes up. Jacob is visibly limping. He answers to a new name. And he confronts
the demons of his past with the confidence of someone who has experienced true,
life-altering blessing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Jacob had
experienced resurrection, resurrection through struggling with God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Funerals are
another place where we don’t expect resurrection. Loved ones gather to share in their grief and
their loss, to give their last good-byes to a corpse that is as empty as a
deflated balloon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And yet we
often call funerals services of death and resurrection. We often refer to John chapter
11 where Jesus declares that he is the resurrection and the life. And then we
pray “<i>Requiem aerternum dona eis Domine</i>”—“Grant
them eternal rest, Lord our God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But rest
isn’t the intention of resurrection. The purpose of resurrection is life, yes,
even life abundant! And what is life but struggle—struggle with the world,
struggle with all the wicked and wonderful people that inhabit it, struggle
with God, great God Almighty, <i>Dominus
Deus Sabaoth!<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">God is the
resurrection and the life. God is the resurrection and the struggle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
struggle! Yes, sisters and brothers, God is the struggle, or as our
Spanish-speaking sisters and brothers call it, <i>la lucha</i>. I’ve heard my Spanish-speaking sisters and brother talk a
lot about <i>la lucha</i> since I decided to
join them in solidarity with <i>la lucha.</i>
<i>“¡Viva la lucha!”</i> they shout at
rallies, and I’ve gotta tell you, sisters and brothers, Anglos like me should
listen to them. White folks like me should listen to our sisters and brother
from the global South because they know an awful lot about <i>la lucha</i> and resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ehj_KVZeTnhrfIAsMqKhO_f0N3KwX7NDJeCSoUupJeJuk54r27q7Sr5mqOQtB3UzbHkSN-J5gJM-U8tQUUQzWMkpi1RWr6etBXo2S5kHQEWchox9tP4KP7ugC4JFi1D51i3ZdFOBXwKY/s1600/pic+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ehj_KVZeTnhrfIAsMqKhO_f0N3KwX7NDJeCSoUupJeJuk54r27q7Sr5mqOQtB3UzbHkSN-J5gJM-U8tQUUQzWMkpi1RWr6etBXo2S5kHQEWchox9tP4KP7ugC4JFi1D51i3ZdFOBXwKY/s1600/pic+3.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Metodistas de BsAs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I learned
about <i>la lucha</i> and resurrection when
I had the blessing to study in Argentina while I was an undergrad. I’m tempted
to say that it was another one of those unlikely times and places where
resurrection occurred. Some young people in the little Methodist church in
downtown Buenos Aires graciously accepted me into their clique, and then began
educating me in the ways of the <i>la lucha</i>.
My friends invited me to march with them in the Veinti-cuatro de Marzo parade,
that is the twenty-fourth of March, which marks the anniversary of the last
coup-d’état in that country. See, during the military dictatorship that began
on March 24, 1976, some 50,000 political dissidents were “disappeared”, many of
them young people who were learning to struggle, to be in <i>la lucha</i>, against injustice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The day
ended with a concert by León Gieco, the Bob Dylan figure of Argentina, at the
Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada—the Naval Mechanics School—which had served as
a center for detention, torture, and execution during the dictatorship. Shortly
before the concert began, a branch of the Peronista party, which had been
viciously persecuted during the dictatorship, began a rally to remember their
fallen comrades. I can still see the flags, banners, and posters lifted high
into the air. I can still feel the exuberant bodies of the crowd around me. I
can still hear their chants of liberation. The leader would read a name of a
disappeared person, and the crowd would shout back, “<i>¡Presente!” </i>As León Gieco sang his most famous song, <i>Solo le Pido a Dios</i>—I Only Ask God—and
everyone sang with him, I could feel resurrection around me. And <i>la lucha—</i>the struggle—continued.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A classmate
of mine at seminary, Tito, had some thoughts about resurrection during our
first semester of classes together. While we were struggling with the concepts
of early Christian theology, Tito shared that resurrection was very important
for him and his comrades in Latin America, particularly in El Salvador where he
had served the victims of the civil war there. He said that resurrection was important
because no right-wing death squad, even when armed with best weapons the
American government could sell them, could stop a revolution based on
resurrection. Such resurrection-minded revolutionaries could cry out like St.
Paul, “O death, Where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” <i>La lucha</i>—the struggle—continues and you,
O Death, can’t stop it. You, O Death, can’t beat it. You, O Death, are overcome
by the power of the resurrection and the struggle!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Dear friends,
witness the power of the God of resurrection! Let the power of resurrection
blow apart all of your expectations! Let the power of resurrection touch you
and change you forever! Let us say yes to the God of the resurrection! Let us
say yes to the God of life! Let us say yes to the God of the struggle! <i>¡Que viva la lucha! ¡Amén!<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[Sermon was preached at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple on April 23, 2014.]</span></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-2733469128092480382014-02-18T09:11:00.000-08:002014-02-18T09:21:13.783-08:00Getting away with it<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<i>This sermon was shared at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple at the Saturday evening service of Feb. 15, 2014. It used the scripture of </i><i style="text-align: center;">Matthew 5:21-37.</i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s talk about rules. We’re in a Methodist church, right?
So tell me, who here is good at following rules? Please raise your hand. Okay,
who here is <i>bad</i> at following rules?
Please raise your hand. Who here just doesn’t like to raise their hand?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m a guy
who actually likes rules. Really, I do! Give me a checklist and I will go down
and systematically check those things off the list. You would be amazed at the
impressive list of checks on my checklist, were you to check out my impressive
list of checks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or even
better, instructions. Give me a collection of instructions, and I would
probably be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. My parents were
fairly well convinced that I would be engineer when I grew up. Seems pretty
unlikely now, but when I was playing with Legos as a kid—dude, I looked like an
engineer. I always had trouble completing a project when I just had one my big
bins of jumbled up blocks, gizmos, and dismembered Lego people bodies, but give
me step-by-step instructions and I could build anything. I still remember one
of my favorite Christmas gifts—a Lego battle droid from Star Wars Episode I.
You know, the one with Jar Jar Binks? I spent the afternoon of Christmas Day in
my grandparents’ basement following those step-by-step instructions until that
2-foot-tall masterpiece would not only walk but also unholster its ray-gun in
one fluid motion. Behold! The power of plastic pieces, some detailed
instructions, and one little anti-social 8-year-old.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I got
older, I learned other kinds of rules and instructions, namely social norms.
Those don’t necessarily come easy to a kid who would prefer a dim basement and
Lego instructions to actually spending time with my Iowan grandma. But over
time, I learned how the world worked. Namely, identify the authority figures,
find out what pleases those authority figures, and then subtly fulfill the
desires of the authority figures, especially the desires that they don’t
explicitly make known. And I was good at that. I suppose I still am.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But here’s
the thing about rules: they’re meant to be broken. At least in America, that’s
the common ethic. Break the rules and get away with it. That’s what the smart
ones, the cool ones, the fast ones, the successful ones all do. Break, or at
least bend, the rules and get away with it. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UtP0jH2MTQ&feature=kp">Guy Forsyth</a>, a blues and folk
musician from Austin, Texas gets the American ethos: “Everyone wants to pull
off the crime of the century—steal two hundred gazillion dollars, enough to buy
myself an island and build an honest-to-God train on it for no one but me. And
get away with it. Get away with it. We Americans are freedom-loving people and
nothing says freedom like getting away with it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or even
more colorfully, there’s the allegory that my dad likes to use. The speed limit
allegory of the American spirit: So we have a speed limit of 55 miles an hour.
I know that 9 out of 10 cops will let me drive 60 miles an hour and not pull me
over. And when there aren’t any cops around, I can go 70. And get away with it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just look
at some of most beloved heroes. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer float on a raft,
defying their frazzled families and all that comes of it is one of the more
memorable funeral services in American literature. Indiana Jones rescues the
Ark of the Covenant and the damsel in distress without ever worrying that his
lack of office hours at his tenure university post will adversely affect his
evaluations. Harry Potter slinks around in a cloak of invisibility and not only
defeats the Dark Lord but embarrasses all the bullies along the way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Break the
rules. Get away with it. Behold, the great American ethos.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what’s
up with this gospel lesson? I don’t know about you, but I came to reclaim my
Christian faith with a strongly Methodist flavor because Jesus is constantly
bending the rules until they break. Jesus hung out with drunks, prostitutes,
and racketeers; disrupted orderly worship services by healing outcast lepers;
and then embarrassed his snobby hosts by talking religion and politics at the
dinner table. <span lang="ES">That’s
counter-cultural Jesus, Jesus de la resistance, Jesus de la revolución! </span>He
probably had stylish facial hair, thick-rimmed glasses, and skinny jeans, too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the
Jesus of Matthew 5 is giving even <i>more </i>rules.
Not that it’s big deal since we’re so good at bending rules, but Jesus is
making it really hard to get around these rules. Holding onto anger is akin to
murder, ogling equals adultery, and no matter how important your grandmother
was to you, don’t swear on her grave. Then there’s the very troubling afterlife
of the commandment about divorce. Couple that passage with Paul’s instructions
for women at church and at home and we’ve got serious issues. It’s no wonder
America, that ever-so Christian nation, is so good at breaking the rules and
then getting away with it. What else are we gonna do with ridiculous rules that
we can never actually follow?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is, if
we look at Jesus’ sermon superficially. See, these commandments don’t stand
alone in the Gospel of Matthew. They’re part of a much larger Sermon on the
Mount. Just before Jesus starts telling his disciples or the multitudes or
whoever it is who is sitting on the mountain with him, Jesus tells his
congregation that they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
These are encouraging words, but now Jesus is saying what flavor the salt is enhancing
and what exactly the light is illuminating. Then Jesus references the law and
the prophets, primarily that he has come to fulfill them and not abolish them.
What we get next in these commandments are the parts of the law and prophets
that Jesus is flavoring and illuminating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then
there’s the cultural context. I could quite easily give four separate sermons
for these four commandments if I wanted to delve into the historical criticism
of each commandment, six sermons if you include the two next commandments that
tonight’s reading did not include but directly follow in the Bible. I know you
must be terribly excited now, but I must disappoint you by admitting that I
only prepared this one sermon. Suffice to say Jesus was addressing real issues
that his listeners were really dealing with back in 1<sup>st</sup> century
Palestine, much like preachers tend to do these days.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what is
Jesus saying with these commandments if not instructing us in the whiles of
litigation, sexuality, marriage, and public speaking? Scholars often call the
style that Jesus uses here at <i>antitheses</i>,
the plural of antithesis, which is that pattern of “you have heard…but I say”.
It was a common rhetorical technique of rabbis of Jesus’ time, who were
constantly interpreting and reinterpreting the Torah, the Law of Moses, the
rules of Jesus’society. So let’s call Jesus “rabbi” here and recognize how
truly counter-cultural Rabbi Jesus ben-Joseph is being when he gives this
sermon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See, Jesus’
community was full, overflowing really, with inequality, much like today in our
communities. There were levels of interlocking oppression ranging from the
Roman occupying military to Hellenistic household hierarchies to the laws of
the Torah that folks had been abusing for years. Women and poor people were
perpetually at the bottom, though there were always inspirational stories of
folks who escaped the doom of poverty and made it big. The general rule,
however, was that these interlocking rules of state, culture, and religion
systematically kept the folks on the bottom from moving up and threatening the
status quo. While Jesus couldn’t have been happy about Roman and Hellenistic
oppression, he really got mad about the oppression from the Jewish law. Because
Jesus was Jewish. Because Jesus was a scholar of the Jewish law. Because Jesus
knew that the Law was supposed to free people, not enslave them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Any good
American might kinda snort, roll her eyes, and say, “So what? Just be creative and break the rules. Get
around them and get away with it.” But when we bend the rules until they break,
we are admitting that the rules aren’t doing what they were meant to do. It
seems a little self-evident. We break the rules we don’t like. We get around
the rules because they do not lead us to fuller, more abundant life, so we
break the rules and hope to get away with it. However, getting away with it
abandons our responsibility to the multitudes who are trapped in the mire.
Getting away with it assumes an ethic similar to the ancient ethic of Cain,
that when someone asks us where our sister or brother is, we respond, “How
should I know? Am I my sister or brother’s keeper?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s think
about that for just a bit. What happens when we abandon our responsibility to care
for our fellow children of God? What happens when we focus on getting away with
it instead of getting it right? Maybe we’ve seen <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20140114/swedish-judge-defends-dominant-sex-rape-aquitall">a lesson in the country of Sweden</a> where a judge recently ruled that a rapist can only commit rape if the
rapist believed that the rapist was raping. According to court testimony the
survivor of the sexual assault told her rapist to stop time and time and time
again, but that he didn’t believe her. The rapist testified that he knew she
really wanted to be raped. So he should get away with it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe we see
lessons in news coming from the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan when
American missile strikes kill children. Unmanned drones deliver smart bombs
with surgical precision, so innocent people who die in these strikes just
happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides, everyone knows that
you shouldn’t be hanging around the wrong kinds of people. So our military
should get away with it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe we
see lessons in our own state capital when legions of lobbyist, working in
concert with armies of accountants, make sure that <a href="http://www.iiron.org/revenue-not-cuts/">2/3 of publically tradedcorporations pay nothing in state tax.</a> Never mind that we have to close
schools, cut pensions, and forcibly tighten the belts of the already hungry. We
have to make sure that businesses keep jobs here in Illinois, whatever the
cost. So multi-billion-dollar corporations get away with it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What have
we done? Listen! The blood of our sisters and brothers is crying out from the
ground! Even if we did not give that cruelest cut, we have not cared for our
neighbor the way we ought to. This is confession time, and it’s good for the
soul.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is why
Jesus broadens the rules so that it’s so hard to get around them and get away
with it. While some of the rules in the Torah don’t seem to apply to 21<sup>st</sup>
century America, there are others that can preach volumes in not only this
pulpit but from the middle of Daley Plaza as well. Yes, I know there are weird
rules about avoiding hoopoes for dinner and things of that sort, and my youth
group had a great time laughing about it. However, the books of especially
Leviticus and Deuteronomy also command that farms and eating establishment not
throw away all their left-over food so that poor people can eat good food. The Torah commands that we treat immigrants
with respect and dignity because we were all once immigrants, too. The Torah
commands that every seven years debts must be canceled so that people remain
equal and in right relationship with one another. The Torah is a blessing to
God’s people so that God’s people may be a blessing to the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus
doesn’t want us to just get away with breaking the rules, even bad rules,
because these are kingdom rules, where the Lord our God reigns with wisdom and
justice. Or even better, Jesus is highlighting kin-dom rules, where God is
gathering her children back to her as a hen gathers her brood. Instead of
seeking to use rules like a cop might use a nightstick, these kin-dom rules
remind us that we have a common divine parent and we must care for our family.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These
kin-dom rules have echoed throughout the history of the church, and different
leaders have emerged to preach them from the public square when we started to
care more about getting away with than getting it right. St. Francis said
preach the gospel always and when necessary, use words. Martin Luther preached
the priesthood of all believers. The Methodist movement’s own John Wesley
declared that there is no religion but social religion, and John Wesley knew
some things about rules.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know that
there are times when we need to break rules because some rules are simply
unjust. However, when we know the kin-dom rules by heart (not necessarily
memorized, but know them by heart), we realize that we can no longer hope to
break the rules and get away with it. We have to care for our sisters and
brothers along the way. That’s what Harriet Tubman did. She broke the rules
time and time again by guiding African-descended slaves from the South to free
land that is just across the Ohio River. She was not following a self-serving,
ego-aggrandizing ethic of simply “getting away with it” but knew the kin-dom
rules so well that she could see that the other slaves were indeed her own kin,
her own sisters and brothers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that
was why folks called Harriet Tubman “Moses”. Harriet Tubman followed a higher rule
and sent her people across the Ohio River like Moses sent his people across the
Jordan River. Harriet Tubman knew the kin-dom rules and would follow them
wherever they took her. And so the words of Moses continue to echo through to
us today through the redeeming power of Jesus Christ who took the care to sit
down talk about the rules with us. The words call from not only the mountain
and the pulpit but also the streets which shall be restored so that children
can live and play in them again. The words will echo in springs and river
valleys flowing with clean water, purified of the taint of greed. The words
will echo even in the dark places as sisters and brother reclaim their kin from
the shadows of addiction and exploitation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And those
words will echo throughout all the neighborhoods, all the cities, all the
suburbs and small towns, throughout all the nations where disciples grow
knowing these kin-dom rules by heart. And those words will be: See, I have put
before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity…Choose life that you
and your descendents may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying God, and
holding fast to God.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So dear
friends, let’s put away our petty desire to get around the rules and get away
with it. Let’s get to know God’s kin-dom rules by heart, get to know who our
kin, our sisters and brothers, really are, and then, and only then, can we get
to know what it is to truly choose life.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Amen.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-33366646947397385512013-12-24T20:49:00.001-08:002013-12-24T20:49:52.774-08:00The Baby of the Star<div class="MsoNormal">
The following poem was written by
Tim Muckian, a volunteer with the Takin’ It to the Streets program of South
Loop Campus Ministry. He usually stays at the Pacific Garden Mission on the
Near South Side. Tim is a member at Grace Place Episcopal Church, where SLCM
hosts the Takin’ It the Streets program, and he always brightens the mood with
his off-color jokes and proudly Irish heritage. Tim has been writing poems
for Christmas for a number of years, and this is the one for this year. Many
thanks are do due to him for sharing this with all of us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The Baby of the Star<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Christmas
time is almost here</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A
day we all hold so dear.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Three
wise men traveled every so far</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
To
find the baby of the star.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
They
found the baby while at rest</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Nuzzled
to his Mother’s breasts.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
She
held him close and with such love</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Then
gave him a kiss, and a tender hug.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Then
placed him back where he laid</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
On
a bed made of hay.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Not
much of place for a new born King</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The
ruler of everything.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
But
all the same he came to be</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Part
of the Holy Trinity.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
He’s
the one who loves you most</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
So
wherever you come from, and wherever you are</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
On
Christmas Day drop to your knees and pray</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
For
the baby of the star.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>By Timothy Joseph Muckian<o:p></o:p></i></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-41603364049009464312013-12-13T21:45:00.001-08:002013-12-13T21:48:36.628-08:00Season of darkness, season of light<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><i>John 1:5<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a dark time of year. It just
is, at least this far north. Within a few weeks of the longest night of the
year, the shadows seem to creep deeper. The sun seems further away. Slowly but
surely the status quo seems to freeze into place.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhYmqyFKYNgzrmHOiveaG9auANwglqtUnvg28nITHXp3Du9p_rS0MmYEr-7ub_8UIU6JePNg1w3XITo2aGCf9iKFI7dXQIq9d8ABerKu8DqOj9H9vX6Uj-36fUFqWvS3sn2dt_FBYbzLgP/s1600/Zoolight+south.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhYmqyFKYNgzrmHOiveaG9auANwglqtUnvg28nITHXp3Du9p_rS0MmYEr-7ub_8UIU6JePNg1w3XITo2aGCf9iKFI7dXQIq9d8ABerKu8DqOj9H9vX6Uj-36fUFqWvS3sn2dt_FBYbzLgP/s320/Zoolight+south.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lights and dark at the Lincoln Park Zoo makes for an odd, if <br />
bewildering, contrast. 'Tis the season.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And
at most universities, this dark time of year just happens to coincide with the
end of the semester.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sitting
at the cafeteria at Roosevelt University’s Wabash Building, I observed a sort
of dry anxiety among students. It’s like they’re too little butter spread over
too much bread. Jobs claim many hours to pay tuition and other bills, and
classes claim many more hours. Sleep comes in naps between study sessions and
take-home finals. A “personal” life seems like a cruel mockery, and the future
is even more frightening.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And
oh! The irony of Daley Plaza’s Christmas Village and Lincoln Park Zoo’s winter
wonderland. </div>
Wander into Macy’s material maze of festive magic that appeared
before the Halloween cobwebs had been put away. Get a cup of coffee while an
electronic jazz band contemporizes an Irving Berlin classic. Okay, will you
just stop trying to force joy, dammit?!<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
We
in the Church know these things. We feel them, too. Especially during this
season we anxiously look toward an empty crèche, searching for the boy-king who
will brighten the darkness with all his Baby Jesus Powers. How long, Lord? How
long?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
feels to me like we’re stuck at the foot of the cross. We’re looking for some
miracle on the mountaintop, but all we see is death. Perhaps we forget that the
miracle of the resurrection didn’t occur until the darkness was perfect in the
sealed grave. We prefer the open air of Calvary to the claustrophobia of the
empty tomb. We feel like we have more control if we can just have a visible
escape route.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m
often surprised that the gospel reading for Christmas Day is the first chapter
of John, but within a few weeks of the darkest day of the year, it seems so
appropriate. We so desperately need light—in our final exams, in our finances,
in our overworked and underappreciated bodies—and we celebrate the light on
Christmas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
is the message we in the Church have to offer. We call it like it is. We see
death around us, we see the darkness, but the darkness did not and <i>does </i>not overcome the light. We’re
scared of the dark, too, but our hope is greater than our fear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So
yes, it’s dark out. All the lights on the Magnificent Mile can’t stop that.
However, the light that the darkness cannot overcome doesn’t come from the
retailers. The light that truly brightens the dark world doesn’t come from
spotless resumes and transcripts. The light to which baptizers testify comes
from inside the still, deep darkness of the tomb.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And
then that light—unexpectedly—rolls away the stone.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-24772026191699946282013-11-19T15:02:00.000-08:002013-11-19T15:11:02.919-08:00A time to lament<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
[Presented as part of November, 2011 South Loop Campus Ministry board meeting.]</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>When the darkness appears</i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i> And the night
draws near<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>And the day is past and gone<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>At the river I stand, </i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>guide my feet, hold my
hand<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIhFs-40Va_pEIwrHI9JlPvWviJC5lbAQhWlwowCueFkBCOgpRREo78VBoxDwAdpEcBUfiPlOpECU_dhUD7zlj7k6RoDvsAcYgDmzqmU0aEHMXPCf8aj9oUXGxHFzw-0FVDpzSb60CMwLf/s1600/Lower+Wacker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIhFs-40Va_pEIwrHI9JlPvWviJC5lbAQhWlwowCueFkBCOgpRREo78VBoxDwAdpEcBUfiPlOpECU_dhUD7zlj7k6RoDvsAcYgDmzqmU0aEHMXPCf8aj9oUXGxHFzw-0FVDpzSb60CMwLf/s320/Lower+Wacker.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Seeming to based on Romans 5:20, this is written on a <br />wall of a loading dock by Lower Columbus Drive. SLCM <br />volunteers regularly deliver sandwiches to homeless <br />folks who sleep there.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I don’t know how long we would
have stood there, at the corner of Lower Wacker and Lower Michigan, <br />
with the
homeless woman crying and wailing about the cold, about being hungry, about the
conditions in the shelters…about so many things. I don’t know how long we would
have tried to hold her hand, squeeze her shoulders, pray silently and pray
aloud, nod empathetically and stare blankly back at her. I don’t know how long
we would have felt helpless to help.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
don’t know how long we would have been stuck in our not knowing if Thomas, one
of our homeless guides, hadn’t tapped me on the shoulder and said, “She’s like
this all the time, and now I probably won’t get any sleep tonight. Time to move
on.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Walter
Brueggemann wrote in <i>Prophetic
Imagination</i> that lament is a necessary action to break out the paralysis of
what he calls the “royal consciousness”, that state of being stuck in whatever
state we’re in right now. That status quo always serves the already powerful
and always hurts the already hurting. And damn—that woman at the corner of
Lower Wacker and Lower Michigan was hurting <i>and
</i>lamenting.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In
a much quieter manner students were lamenting up on the 14<sup>th</sup> floor
of Roosevelt University’s Wabash Building where we had set up a Reformation Day
door. Students wrote their grievances and their visions for change in the world
on pieces of paper and then literally nailed them on the door. People wrote
about everything from a living wage for workers to legalization of pot to “some
lovin’ for Mexicans”. I don’t know exactly what spurred them to write what they
did, but a lot of people liked the action of nailing their “theses” to the
door. I suppose it was an avenue to release some of their pent up anguish. I
doubt our flimsy door could survive a full release of their anguish.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes
in ministry pastors can get to thinking that people have such petty problems.
Don’t these people know that while they’re whining about their roommates other
folks are freezing down by the Chicago River? And don’t get me started on
economic inequality…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s
the thing—lament is lament, even if I don’t understand why a certain issue is
problematic. If justice is “right relationship”, then injustice must be broken
relationship. And that is something to lament.</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Kyrie eleison.</i></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-66035723592955531982013-08-28T14:48:00.002-07:002013-08-28T14:50:01.225-07:00The Church of the Misfits and the Dissidents<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><i>Sermon given at First Lutheran Church of the Trinity on Aug. 25, 2013 based on Acts 11:19-26, 13:1-3.</i></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 150%;">I had a great week at church this
week.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRpFAefx3GTFEzojJeHU6NA9Yxqp1S4L8J-L1C0-8ITRtwapNL7GaDHCD4ilrnCZGHbnmucODSDtZtKHeD2v_fYVS-PWocF2UU8ExaIMk9A-jWQlaCfhod-yzEGSQwB8z7YdGBZUMcrPGm/s1600/Jesus&Jesusnametags.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRpFAefx3GTFEzojJeHU6NA9Yxqp1S4L8J-L1C0-8ITRtwapNL7GaDHCD4ilrnCZGHbnmucODSDtZtKHeD2v_fYVS-PWocF2UU8ExaIMk9A-jWQlaCfhod-yzEGSQwB8z7YdGBZUMcrPGm/s320/Jesus&Jesusnametags.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A few of the misfits and dissidents on the first night of<br />
Jesus and Justice Camp (photo by <a href="http://tombobjr.blogspot.com/">Tom Gaulke</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Every night from Tuesday until
Friday a group of about 15 to 20 people got together for what we called a
“Jesus and Justice Camp”, and it highlighted what I love so much about this
particular church on the corner of 31<sup>st</sup> and Lowe in South Side
Chicago. On Friday night we started with the story of stone soup, a folk tale
where people collectively make a “feast fit for a king” by sharing their varied
foods with a protagonist stranger and with each other. Naturally, we acted out
the story by making our own “stone soup”, and it was indeed darn good soup.
Then we went upstairs to the auditorium of the First Trinity Community
Center, AKA the Orphanage,<span style="line-height: 150%;"> and we shared our diverse views on more stories of wisdom and justice.
Finally we ended with songs around a campfire, which miraculously did not spur
the neighbors just across the alley to call the fire department. Surely God is
with us!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And it was such a weird group! This
church was like a former commercial emporium that was downsized to a gas
station convenience store where the homeless rest, the revolutionaries plan
their protests, and the dedicated faithful continue their mission come hell or
high water. Hallelujah!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Though I risk aggrandizing this
little South Side congregation, I can’t help but feel that maybe this is what
it felt like to be part of those scattered, first century Jesus communities.
The church lives with the tension of honoring the storied traditions of our
forebears from centuries before and living into the unknown realms of a world
that has already changed so much that we can hardly recognize it; staying
within the good graces of the neighborhood and regional authorities and also
challenging the rot that consumes so much of what we stone soup cooks can
scrape together; recognizing the world as it brutally and beautifully is and
conceiving the unfolding eschatological world that God is still creating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Maybe the reason why I get so
excited about this congregation at First Trinity is because I come to it as an
outsider.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In 2010 I graduated from a small
liberal arts college in the wooded hills and valleys of central Pennsylvania,
and I had not a clue of what I was doing. I had been accepted into a young
adult missionary program of the United Methodist Church (yes! I am Methodist!
Hear me roar, you Lutherans, hear me roar!), and by May of that year I knew I
was headed to Chicago to work for a non-profit that did a bunch of things I
didn’t begin to understand. A week-long intern training helped clarify what
Interfaith Worker Justice was all about, but I thought that I could find my own
living community. After all, this was my chance to live the way that my hero,
that Philadelphia ordinary radical with dreadlocks and an eastern Tennessee
accent, Shane Claiborne, lived! I couldn’t <i>wait</i>
to move half-way across the country to a bad neighborhood, befriend all the
gang-bangers, and do everything that my parents and youth leaders warned me not
to do!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And then I got a call that the far
North Side co-op couldn’t accept me because I wasn’t a seminarian or a grad
student. Not the call I was waiting for considering that I was still plucking
crab grass out of the fringe of number 13 green at the golf course where I was
biding my time. I frantically called my future co-workers at IWJ and my
supervisor at the United Methodist Church. My chance to be Shane Claiborne was
about to slip away! <i>Help meeee!</i>
Somehow those good Methodists booked a flight for me to Chicago for a weekend
to take part in another North Side co-op’s membership meeting. As I frantically
made my arrangements, I got an email from one of my co-workers at IWJ about a
Christian co-op on the South Side. But it was far away from the office. And the
pastor had a last name that I didn’t know how to pronounce. And when I called
that pastor, he told me to just use his first name anyway. What a weird place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I spent that weekend doing my best
to schmooze who I confidently thought would be my future roommates (15 of
them), but out of courtesy, I made the long trip down the Red Line to see that
weird place down south. I thought it was cool that it was so close to where the
White Sox played, but otherwise, I wasn’t sure about it. I even saw two guys
getting booked on Morgan Street just south of the coffee shop.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
When I left Chicago at the end of
that weekend, I still hadn’t heard of the North Side co-op’s decision about my
place. Having less than a week to pack up again, I called the only cell number
I had for the co-op. He reluctantly gave the bad news—they didn’t think I would
be good fit. I curtly said kaythanksbye, and called Pastor Tom on the South
Side to say that I would take the room in their community center.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I believe his response was,
“Wait—you will?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It was a hard transition from rural
central Pennsylvania, what some of my college friends called “Pennsyltucky”, to
the South Side Chicago. After accidentally driving into McCormick Place while
trying to get to Lake Shore Drive and then scraping the car in front of me
while trying to parallel park, I decided to stay dedicated to the CTA. The same
coworker who found the room at First Trinity for me called the decision akin to
a battered wife staying dedicated to her abusive husband. I was woken up by
Chicago police detectives one morning after the gas station next door was the
site of a shootout between a couple burglars and the cops. And I witnessed
“thundersnow” for the first time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
What the crap is this place?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Well, apparently it was just where
God wanted to work on me. It was at First Trinity where I first was introduced
to <a href="http://www.soulinchicago.org/">SOUL </a>and <a href="http://wwww.iiron.org/">IIRON</a>, the community groups with which I learned so much about
grassroots organizing. It was Pastor Tom who directed me to Paul Tillich when I
confessed that I could no longer turn to my evangelical theology to understand
the social justice work I was doing. First Trinity even got me to get my
trumpet back out when I had left it in Pennsylvania.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But more than those things, First
Trinity has been my home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
When I read about start of the
church in Antioch, how Luke describes it as the place where Gentiles were first
accepted as Christ-followers, how it was so full of the Holy Spirit that
Barnabas brought Saul (later called Paul) there, how they were so weird there
that got a new name—Christians—I see bits of my journey through First Trinity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
For a church that was started as a
place of refuge for the scattered German laborers of 19<sup>th</sup> century
Chicago, First Trinity has had to reinvent itself and its mission. In the way
that the Antioch community had to re-imagine community outside of born-and-bred
Jews, First Trinity has had to re-imagine its mission as the only progressive,
mainline Protestant church in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic neighborhood. In
that re-imagining process, it has become what I call the Church of the Misfits
and the Dissidents. I hope First Trinity bears its title proudly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In the way that First Trinity
welcomed me in my desperate times, I pray that it welcomes the many desperate
people in its midst. In the way that First Trinity developed me to fight for
justice locally and nationally, I pray that it prepares even more people to
catch that Holy Wind of righteous indignation when violence and oppression
occur. In the way that First Trinity challenged me to use my creative talents
in worship, I pray that it moves even more people to express themselves
artistically. In the way that First Trinity has been my home community, I pray
that it will be a sanctuary for many other people.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
First Trinity is also a missional
church, much like that Antioch church. I am moving on with my seminary training
by beginning a year-long internship with First United Methodist Church, better
known as the Chicago Temple, and it is my new mission field. Though I will
continue to live at Trinity House, that re-commissioned parsonage next to the
church, I will not be able to be part of First Trinity’s church life this year.
The Chicago Temple is very different than First Trinity, and that will be
difficult for me. However, First Trinity has trained me well to accept all
manner of people and their various quirks, and it has taught me to boldly bring
my own quirks to ministry. Be prepared, Chicago Temple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
First Trinity both welcomes
missionaries and commissions them again. And for that, I thank you.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-35556701217050047012013-08-01T09:11:00.000-07:002013-08-01T09:11:22.069-07:00Austerity, abundance, and my American psyche<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHDp_jATSqqcRn5rQ9R6NLaghwqcOe3XGnka3hQZ_ig_3ZmOonhYJyFbR586PD8FoT_fqkRn33zB9p7cRWSdxnS1fx2I7qYrx7r35LU-xwjhL8INyk_p3wLLST8xoj4jpYqQbjDnq3hNV/s1600/Mount+Bridgeport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHDp_jATSqqcRn5rQ9R6NLaghwqcOe3XGnka3hQZ_ig_3ZmOonhYJyFbR586PD8FoT_fqkRn33zB9p7cRWSdxnS1fx2I7qYrx7r35LU-xwjhL8INyk_p3wLLST8xoj4jpYqQbjDnq3hNV/s320/Mount+Bridgeport.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of downtown from on top of Mount Bridgeport <br />(photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesbondsv/sets/72157625159902856/with/5084313211/">Steve Vance</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was such a pretty day in Chicago. The July heat had
broken, and October-like cool had moved in, much to my pleasure. My fiancée and
walked up to the top of a hill in Palmisano Park in the South Side Bridgeport
neighborhood (a place I’ve also heard people call Stearns Quarry Park for the
quarry that formerly occupied the site or Mount Bridgeport for the rare change
in elevation). Cotton-ball cumulus clouds drifted above us toward Lake
Michigan. Children flew kites around us. It doesn’t get prettier than that in
Chicago.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then Kacie asked me what I was thinking about. For some
reason, I mentioned how I was worried about money. Suddenly frowny-face clouds
rushed in, covering the happy-face sun, and all the kites immediately dropped
to the ground with no wind and only suffocating humidity to keep them afloat. A
child started softly crying, “Why is it ALWAYS personal finances? Why?” It
wasn’t very pretty now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After some uncomfortable conversation, Kacie started to get
visibly upset. She expressed that she didn’t know why I didn’t trust her to
help us to achieve our dreams together—careers in ministry and fashion design
(respectively) with a strong emphasis on advocacy for the poor and
marginalized, traveling around the world to experience different cultures,
eventually have a couple of kids (<i>eventually</i>).
I felt distance between us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I took a deep breath for a bit of self-reflection, and I
stepped in to the confession booth with my fiancée on the other side of the
screen. See, I wasn’t so concerned about how our dreams were too idealistic or
grand. I was concerned about how I, and I alone, would resource those dreams.
After all, as the husband of an American family unit, it will be my
responsibility to make sure that everyone’s dreams come true. Unfortunately, I
have a couple more years of grad school and internships before I could come
anywhere close to fulfilling that role. And then there’s that student debt I
accumulated so that I could break into a generally low-paying profession. The
central Pennsylvania realist in me recoils at these thoughts, and suddenly all
I want to see on the menu is ketchup sandwiches (preferably complimentary
ketchup snatched from the nearest McDonald’s franchise). I would do anything to
avoid becoming dependent on other people’s charity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One can see this reaction to personal finances as either
incredibly ironic or deeply hypocritical. After all, when I preach, I preach
about a God who provides for her children with abundance, and then I go on to
denounce austerity policies in various legislatures. And full disclosure, I
survive off of the generous support of my home church in Pennsylvania, family
all over the country, and my stipend for one of my internships (yes, I said <i>one</i> of them). My personal austere
attitudes simply matched neither my theology nor my lived experience.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These attitudes run deep in the American psyche. Patriarchy.
Rugged individualism. Meritocracy through sheer grit and determination. And
they run deep in my psyche, too.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that these attitudes are counter to my
Christian faith and the kind of relationships I want to have with
people—especially with my fiancée. I want to base my relationships on mutual
love and respect. We trust that we will do what we say will, but we also share
responsibilities, whether financial, household, or social. Together we worship
God who gives abundant provisions to her children, and then we earnestly look
where God is touching our world.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The scary part is that we can’t depend on just ourselves any
more. While we are individual agents of creation in God’s world, we are meant
to work together for the reign of God. Period. We give up control of our lives
to God, and God works through ordinary events and ordinary folks around us to
make sure we’re all okay. Because of our fallen nature, that system of communal
care breaks down a lot. However, God still calls us to trust God and each
other, even through the cloudy and stormy days.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The confession on top of Mount Bridgeport helped the two of
us quite a bit. We were able to enjoy the beautiful weather and the prairie
flowers and the flying kites all over
again. After all, isn’t that the surest sign that God still provides
abundantly?</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-57422430905801025822013-07-24T08:20:00.001-07:002013-07-24T09:35:17.224-07:00Peace, love, and justice: a dialogue<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">[Dialogue written and presented for Community United Methodist Church of Naperville, IL for vocational discernment service on July 21, 2013. Also posted at <a href="http://kcanne107.blogspot.com/">Rich Experiences</a>.]</span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: This is Kacie. She is southern girl from just north of
Nashville, Tennessee.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: This is Joe, He is a Pensyltucky boy from the mountains
of central Pennsylvania.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Kacie knows just about every country song on the radio and
about every Nicholas Sparks-inspired movie in the theater.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Joe is not afraid of camping in the mountains where
there are hundreds of bears, plus he is a big sports fan, maybe not the Chicago
bears but definitely a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Kacie is an artist. She is very visual, very tactile. She
sees scenes of color and texture and transforms ordinary things into works of
art.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Joe is very intellectual. He uses big words, mainly
because his head is always stuck in a book. It’s a beautiful site to see him so
concentrated on his reading. He reads books by authors like Paul Tillich and
Alice Walker.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Kacie is also very passionate about justice for women.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Joe is also very passionate about justice for workers.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: And so it makes perfect sense—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: That we met in—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Both: Washington, D.C. at <a href="http://advocacydays.org/">Ecumenical Advocacy Days</a>.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: I feel that we both have a call to advocacy, which means
joining with the voices of the poor, the weak and the marginalized to make
change in our nation and world by speaking stories of truth in our communities
to our local, state and national leaders.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: We’ve both had strong religious experiences where we felt
transformed by God—what John Wesley would call “justifying grace”—but we also
continue to feel the Spirit move us toward acts of mercy and justice for people
around us. Wesley called that part “social holiness.”</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: One of the biggest issues we advocate for is poverty and
food justice. We both help with a student and homeless ministry in the South Loop
of Chicago. We have a community meal with students and people from the streets,
make sandwiches together and walk the streets with our friends to pass out the
sandwiches.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: There’s this one community off Lower Michigan where about a
half dozen homeless people usually sleep. Someone wrote a Bible verse on the
wall there. We always drop off a couple of sandwiches for the folks there. Last
week, they were all gone and the Bible verse had been painted over. We figure
that the city had evicted them for the Taste of Chicago and a movie someone was
filming.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: This is community, and we feel like we are part of
the community. We are all equal, and deserve equal treatment in our society. We
go to our local, state and national leaders to remind them about our friends on
the street. These are the stories of truth that make up our society.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Jesus and his followers also spent much of their ministry
among the sick, the poor, the socially marginalized. As two followers of Jesus
Christ in 21<sup>st</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>century
Chicago, we continue to practice ministry with our friends and neighbors—Black,
white, Latino—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Gay, lesbian, transgender—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Native born and immigrant—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Rich and poor.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: We are all one in Jesus Christ.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Last week I completed my internship with <a href="http://www.bread.org/">Bread forthe World</a>, a national organization that works with churches to end hunger
through advocacy. I am using this training to start a sewing ministry for
homeless women.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: And I’m in seminary, making my way through the process of
becoming a United Methodist pastor. I’m finding ways to incorporate God’s call
for justice in acts of preaching, teaching, and service.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: One thing I’ve done in response to my call to justice is
write letters to my congressional representatives. I was able to do this
through Bread for the World’s offering of letters program. I invite you,
too, to write a letter to your member of congress on issues dealing with food
justice or just an issue you are very passionate about, especially if you cannot
travel to DC or Springfield. Get a group of friends together and write an abundance
of letters. This is definitely a way to raise your voice and speak for justice.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: If you’d prefer a more direct action route for justice, I
encourage you join with me and my friends at <a href="http://www.iiron.org/">IIRON</a>, a regional community
organizing network. We’ve set up shanty-towns in Federal Plaza, had flash-mobs
at the Apple store, and occupied abandoned properties to show how too much
money is going to excessively wealthy corporations at the expense of our
friends and neighbors.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Even though Joe loves brown and his Carhartt jacket—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: And Kacie loves pink and lace.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Joe is very talkative,</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Kacie is a bit more introverted.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Both: We both have a place at the Lord’s table with—</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Joe: Peace</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Kacie: Love</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Both: and justice.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQbWydP_OztZp7LeBcdGdyKJgoiBTeuP-KPEC98eqMFI38Pn4Q3tsvyUbjYqYUHtMNxX7lWb8tp42Mp_XYA5cwp2GeqB748ZzlyfW_opmUAUN61aWHX98zqFNTnAwOtc4gGTiJ5hZoOeGx/s1600/Kacie&JoeDC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQbWydP_OztZp7LeBcdGdyKJgoiBTeuP-KPEC98eqMFI38Pn4Q3tsvyUbjYqYUHtMNxX7lWb8tp42Mp_XYA5cwp2GeqB748ZzlyfW_opmUAUN61aWHX98zqFNTnAwOtc4gGTiJ5hZoOeGx/s320/Kacie&JoeDC.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kacie Greer and Joe Hopkins outside of Sen. Mark Kirk's office<br />
in Washington, D.C. They are now engaged and plan to marry in <br />
June of 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-78005128939636122342013-07-15T08:57:00.000-07:002013-07-15T08:57:15.314-07:00Brother Trayvon, Neighbor George<div class="MsoNormal">
[This sermon was preached at the Des Plaines Methodist Campground on July 14, 2013, based on Luke 10:25-37.]</div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out from the ground!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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This is not the sermon that I expected to preach today. I was going to be creative and interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan in a way that I had never heard before. And it was good, yes’m. But to paraphrase <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;">Jürgen</span> Moltmann, preachers today need to preach with the Bible in one hand and their New York Times app in the other. Recent events call for a different topic.</div>
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When the lawyer approached Jesus, probably indignant that his kind of folk weren’t included in the accolades that Jesus doled out to the seventy disciples, he wanted to be justified. See what I’ve done, Jesus? I’ve dedicated my life to knowing the Law of Moses, the covenant that makes our people different, more blessed, more exceptional than anyone else. I have all the right answers. If anyone is right, it’s me. So, Jesus, son of a construction worker, tell me this…</div>
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The lawyer got his chance to give his right answer, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to show his folks were the better than the other folks. After all, they sacrificed so much of their lives to know the law better anyone else, and everybody knows how much law school costs these days. It isn’t good enough to be right. I need to win, and that means someone else needs to lose. So, Jesus, son born out of wedlock, tell me this…</div>
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Well, shoot, the lawyer wasn’t expecting a story like that, and he didn’t expect a loaded question either. Who are my choices for neighbor of the year again? The priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan#Tensions_between_the_Samaritans_and_the_Judeans">But only the Samaritan, one of those less-than-half-breeds, one of those who refuses to worship the Holy of Holies where He resides, it’s only the Samaritan who helps an innocent man beaten nearly to death?</a> How can I answer this without admitting that one of <i>those</i> people is my neighbor?</div>
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“The one who showed the man mercy.”</div>
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Didn't even mention who that one is. What a lawyerly move.</div>
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Dear friends, we gather today contemplating justice. The Greek word that shows up in the New Testament can either be translated “justice” or “righteousness”. I first learned this while reading a Spanish Bible that had one of the beatitudes saying, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice”, instead of the traditional “hunger and thirst for righteousness”. In other words, we gather today contemplating who is right. We want the same thing that the lawyer wanted when he asked Jesus who his neighbor was: justification. We want to be justified. We want to look into the eyes of the people we love most, the people who trust us most, the people who depend on us, and we want them to think we were and are right. Right with them. Right with others. Right with God.</div>
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How can we be right, dear friends? Nearly a year and a half after a 17-year-old Black boy was killed in Florida, and much, much sooner after so many other young people’s blood have washed the pavement of our streets, how can we assert that we are right? When whole neighborhoods look like bombed out war zones, but those war zones far away, not here, dear God, how can it be here, how can we be right? When our choices are either to convict and lock up one more brother or to allow even more violence in our streets, how can we be right?</div>
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<i>Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out from the ground!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Dear friends, I grew up around guns. I grew up in rural central Pennsylvania where we got off school for the Monday after Thanksgiving because it was the first day of buck hunting season. There was one year that we did have school on that day, and forty percent of students, staff, and faculty were absent. I was part of that statistic. I was a pretty good shot with a rifle back then.</div>
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I’ve also grown up some more since I moved to the South Side of Chicago. There are guns there, too. On the first day that biked down to seminary last year, I came back to see the block next to where I lived. It was blocked off with yellow police tape. There had been a drive-by shooting. There was another one maybe two months later eight blocks away. I don’t like that there are so many guns around my neighborhood, and I don’t want more, either.</div>
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What does it mean to love my neighbor? What does it mean to be my brother’s keeper? Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother? Don’t you know the world is falling apart? Don’t you know that we have to get what we can while we can and then keep it for ourselves for as long we can? And don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do with my own property.</div>
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Dear friends, there are so many young people who grow up without an ounce of hope. In those bombed out war zones on the South Side, on the West Side, in Newtown, Connecticut, in Cairo, Egypt. Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother? Instead of being politically correct, instead of worrying about upsetting the biggest donors in the congregation, let’s be clear about who our neighbor is and who our brother is. Instead of referring to that Samaritan person as “the one who showed the man mercy”, let’s call him who he is. Let’s use his name.</div>
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My neighbor is Trayvon Martin. My brother is George Zimmerman.</div>
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<i>Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out from the ground!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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What have we done indeed? As Saint Paul observed in his letter to the Romans, no one is righteous, not even one. We are all convicted under the weight of the blood crying out like the shrieks on that 9-1-1 tape from that night in Florida. This is the world we live in, and in a nation which we just recently celebrated on July 4<sup>th</sup>, we must take responsibility for it. Even if a jury won’t convict a man for shooting and killing a teenager, we are surely convicted by a higher court, an infinitely better informed jury, a perfect justice.</div>
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But we praise God for God’s infinite compassion, perfect empathy, and most steadfast love. Again I must publically proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing can make God love us more or make God love us less; God just loves us. Period.</div>
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This morning we bear the mark of Cain, but we also bear the mark of the overcome cross. The passion story of Jesus Christ does not end on Good Friday in a tomb, but resurrection is the new beginning. We recognize that we are not holy like God is holy, but we also walk into the light with the knowledge that God is actively redeeming us and the world around us. As people who have been born again of water, fire, and spirit through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus we move past the sin of Cain and to the mercy of the Samaritan. When we see Trayvon Martin sauntering around in our neighborhood, we, like the Samaritan, feel our hearts moved with pity and show him trust. When we see George Zimmerman cruising up behind us, we, like the Samaritan, feel our hearts moved with compassion and show him mercy.</div>
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So let us love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind; and love our neighbor as ourselves. Through Jesus Christ, we are made right. Do these things, and we will live.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-74665152605124232372013-07-06T19:10:00.000-07:002013-07-06T19:10:09.811-07:00The Gospel power<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Sermon written for evangelism class at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and then preached at the Des Plaines Methodist Campground. It is based on the scripture Acts 3:1-10.</i></div>
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During the summer after my sophomore year of college I
worked as an intern at a large United Methodist church in the suburbs of
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I did mostly youth ministry, which was evident from a
goatee on my chin, acoustic guitar strapped around my shoulder, and a couple
Frisbees in the back of my ’96 Geo Metro. Ah, those were the days. The church
was having a kids’ fair in their ample parking lot one night, and that’s when
the news came. A young man who had grown up in the church had suffered an
accident while doing gymnastics, and he had broken his back. The young adults
and youth who knew him best gathered in prayer circles and called out for God
to help Brian. Within a week, it was apparent that Brian would be quadriplegic
for the rest of his life. Within a blink of an eye, he went from being the
Eagle Scout who chose his college based on the rock-climbing nearby to someone
who couldn’t even feed himself with his own hands.</div>
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And so the
“Pray for Brian” campaign began.</div>
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I promise
that I’ll come back to add to that story, but it’s events like Brian’s accident
that really make the stories in the Bible true. It’s not just that the events
of the ancient Hebrews, the prophets, and the New Testament apostles happened
once upon a time; it’s that they happen in our lives over and over and over again.
That’s how we know the Bible is true.</div>
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The story
in the third chapter of Acts is like that. Peter and John, two of the leaders
of the apostolic community in Jerusalem, walked up to the Temple with the
intention of praying to God, as was their custom. It was a regular day, just
like any other day, complete with the cripples and devastatingly sick people
who had to panhandle to survive from day to day. The scene reminds me of the
Catedral Metropolitana in the Plaza de Mayo of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s a
holy place and a place of incredible political power, located only a
quarter-mile away from the president’s office. And every time I went by there
while I was studying in Argentina, there were always dozens of homeless people
sitting in the neo-classical façade. People would walk by them to see the
mausoleum of José de San Martín, the George Washington of Argentina, or snap
pictures of the Casa Rosada where the president worked, or protest whatever the
cause-du-jour happened to be. The homeless, the crippled, the sick—they stayed
there even when everyone else left.</div>
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Back in
Jerusalem, one of these homeless people called out to Peter and John and went
through his well-rehearsed spiel about needing money because he is just SO
hungry and could they help a lame man with only a few coins,
God-bless-you-sirs. Peter was one of those few people who actually stopped, and
he said with some funny, redneck Galilean accent, “Look at me.” I can only
imagine what was going through the lame man’s mind at this point. Would it be
another lecture about pulling himself by boot-straps, because that one is SUCH
a hoot with his shriveled legs on display for all to see? Or maybe it would be
some amateur rabbis who would debate who had sinned to make him crippled. Or,
then again, they might just give him something useful for once…</div>
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Here’s what
Peter says, “I don’t have any money (dammit!, thinks the crippled man) but I
give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up.” And
much to the man’s own dismay, he stands up.</div>
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Friends, we
need more stories like this, not just because more cripple people should be
able to walk given the amazing advances in medical science, but because the
Gospel of Jesus Christ has this kind of power. My Methodist upbringing doesn’t
usually lead me to believe in spiritual healing, nor does my seminary training
to this point, but my life experience does confirm that faith in Jesus Christ
is accompanied with POWER. It is power from the living God, Creator, Redeemer,
and Sustainer of all that is, seen and unseen. It is power that breaks through
systems of oppression that cripple as surely as a disease or gymnastics
accidents. It is power that breaks through the apathy of a crystallized status
quo. It is the power that strengthens sinews and quickens compassion of all
that it touches. It is the power that raises an army supplied not with guns and
tanks and Hellfire missiles but with empathy, solidarity, and a zeal for God’s
holy justice.</div>
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See, the
formerly lame man suffered not only his personal disability, but he was also
caught in the social disability of his time. Anyone who couldn’t care for her-
or himself due to a disability, whether in mind or body, had to survive on the
charity of other people. Praise God, he was in a Jewish community that was
governed (at least socially) by Mosaic Law which mandates care for those who
can’t care for themselves. Of course, in desperately poor society where most
people were just north of starvation themselves, it’s hard to imagine that
panhandlers knew any kind of security, whether in food, lodging, or body.</div>
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Peter and
John enter the scene with the knowledge and personal witness that the status
quo is not the only option. They knew, not just with head knowledge but with
the unshakable experience of an encounter with the greatest power the universe
has ever seen or will ever see again, that pain, suffering, and death don’t
always win. They knew that the new rule, the new reign, the new emerging
reality is resurrection. Peter and John, empowered by the Holy Spirit on
Pentecost, are two of the first evangelists, that is the heralds of the new
reign of the resurrected Christ.</div>
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Before I go
on and on about how earth-shattering and hell-harrowing this Good News really
is, I feel the pragmatism of my Methodist upbringing surging up. You see,
friends, Peter and John are able to be vehicles for God’s grace because they
were prepared to do so. The passage that precedes this healing story is perhaps
the most famous description of the first-generation apostolic community. Acts
2:43-47 tells how the believer shared all their possession in common so
everyone would have enough to live well and they spent “much time together in
the temple”, yes, that same Temple where Peter and John had the occasion to
heal the lame man. Peter and John were evangelists in the traditional sense,
proclaiming the Gospel to folks who had never experienced it before, but they
were also living a life that made such proclamation possible. When Peter said,
“I give you what I have”, that’s just what he had been doing since Jesus
ascended into heaven some undisclosed time earlier. His reality was marked by
sharing with the folks around him, including the power of the resurrected
Christ, so the healing was simply the most natural thing in the world for Peter.
Similarly, the practice of “going up to the Temple” where all manner of people
would be, provided the perfect stage for sharing the Gospel. We don’t know how
many times Peter and John passed by this group of panhandlers in the Temple
before the miraculous healing occurred, but the discipline of being with people
outside of their small, tight-knit apostolic community provided the
opportunities to share what they had. In the Wesleyan tradition, I think that
falls somewhere between personal <i>and </i>social
holiness, but it is certainly sanctifying grace at work.</div>
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Of course,
evangelism has its dangers as well. When Peter explains to the gathered crowd
where exactly the power that healed the lame man came from, namely Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, they got folks’ attention, and not only well-intentioned kind.
They were proclaiming the power of the resurrection of a man who had been
condemned and executed within a few miles of the very spot where they were
standing. Oh, and all those people did the condemning and executing were still
there. Um, awkwaaard. According to Acts, it was the Sadducees, a Jewish sect
who had made a name for themselves by denying any sort bodily resurrection, who
heard them first. Peter and John were threatening the power of the Sadducees by
demonstrating the power of resurrection, and the Sadducees reacted in the way
that people of status quo power often do: they had the apostles locked up.</div>
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I want to
be sure that we recognize how common this phenomenon is. A lot people in our 21<sup>st</sup>
world make an excellent living off of denying the resurrection, and they even
go further by making record profits off industries of death. The
military-industrial complex is giddy at the thought of selling more bullets and
bombs to our government and government far across the ocean. Insurance
companies fight tooth-and-nail to keep from paying their customers after
catastrophe strikes. And corrupt politicians and government bureaucrats build
up their Cadillac pension plans by using whatever means available to maintain
the status quo. My experience tells me that locking people up is their
preferred means to maintain the status quo. Walter Brueggemann, one of the preeminent
Hebrew Bible scholars of the late 20<sup>th</sup> century, calls such a
situation the “royal consciousness”.</div>
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Praise God,
we are a people of a different consciousness! Jesus Christ has awakened us to
the truth that death does not win the day. Instead the resurrection continually
announces that life and love wins. In fact, in the presence of the redemptive
power of the resurrection, death looks pathetic. When the court came together
to judge Peter and John following their arrest, they had no choice but to
release them because “all of them praised God for what had happened” (4:21).
Not even all the assembled political power could quell the surge of the Good
News to the masses!</div>
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So what
does all this have to do with us today? I see three lessons that emerge from
Peter and John’s evangelism: 1) preparation leads to perfection, 2) the Spirit
will give us the power for and the opportunity, and 3) love wins the day.
Dealing with the first lesson, Peter and John were empowered to share the
Gospel with the lame man, the crowd in the Temple, and even the court because
they were already living in a community where such sharing is natural and
incarnational. We, too, need to create communities where the common good is
held up as God’s preferred way of living. We also need to boldly go out as
representatives of the resurrected Christ among people where opportunities
abound. This means we must be missionaries every time we go out into the world.</div>
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Second, we
can trust that the Holy Spirit will provide what we need when the opportunity
arises. In the campus ministry where I work, we go out to Lower Wacker and that
maze of streets that literally undergird downtown Chicago and hand out
sandwiches to homeless people there. Opportunities abound to share the Gospel,
and though I am often caught completely off-guard by the requests and stories I
hear from folks on the streets, the Holy Spirit gives my comrades and me the
power to minister to these folks. Sometimes the Holy Spirit kindles my
righteous indignation at how our country, the richest in the history of the
world, can allow such suffering. And you know what? The Spirit keeps that
righteous indignation with me when I go and visit those corrupt politicians in
city hall and at the capitol. Never box the Spirit in, friends.</div>
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Third,
despite a menacing mountain of terror and intimidation, not so unlike Mount
Doom in the <i>Lord of the Rings</i> books
and movies, God’s love wins the day. I am reminded of Paul’s words to the
Romans: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). The keepers of the status quo may
not like it when we proclaim the resurrection, and they may even lock us up
from time to time, but folks will be too busy praising the living God for the
signs happening among them to keep us down too long. Our hope and faith in the
love of God is so great that we can laugh and sing when they put the handcuffs
on us. Dear friends, I know this is true because I’ve done it!</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-rw7yXkgHEpHEHqLyidfOOT9_nHS9sOAd7722tavDbyDyW8K4x6pLHj6gxC4oDKk-06jC3ftwi_ahy_HRjbAvD3cnYHcqJ6KDjcL28VpqzS3J1rPPD4m5QhPX0BFeAKZC4gbP0fDPqS1L/s1600/20110619__web_061911-pmk-3-extreme_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-rw7yXkgHEpHEHqLyidfOOT9_nHS9sOAd7722tavDbyDyW8K4x6pLHj6gxC4oDKk-06jC3ftwi_ahy_HRjbAvD3cnYHcqJ6KDjcL28VpqzS3J1rPPD4m5QhPX0BFeAKZC4gbP0fDPqS1L/s320/20110619__web_061911-pmk-3-extreme_400.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Brian with his three
brothers and a producer from the show. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.ydr.com/extreme/ci_18308234">(Daily Record/Sunday News - Paul Kuehnel)</a></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what
about the “Pray for Brian” campaign? Brian’s friends originally set out to
raise money for his medical treatment, which we did by selling LiveStrong-style
bracelets, doing carwashes, and a variety of other fundraisers. However, after
I left that church to continue my studies and eventually go to Chicago as a
missionary, I learned that word of Brian’s story reached the producers of
“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. They were touched by the tragedy of the
accident and the faith of Brian’s friends, so they decided to do an episode at
Brian’s family’s house. They raised millions of dollars to completely renovate
the house so that it was completely wheelchair accessible. The story reached
millions of viewers with the ABC broadcast. Now that’s evangelism.</div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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Friends, I
am continually dumbfounded by how God works in the world, both inside and
outside the church. Sometimes all I can do is collapse to my knees with tears
running down my cheeks and praise God for being so much bigger and better than
I can ever humanly conceive. So how will you respond to God’s goodness? If you
don’t have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, if you’ve fallen away
from a relationship with God, I invite you to come to God and begin the journey
of faith. If you are already a follower of Jesus Christ, then I invite you to
reflect on how God is calling you to share the Gospel with the world. God gives
us so many different gifts, and we can use all of them to join in the
liberating reign of God! Finally, I invite all of you, as a body gathered
together to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ, to see how we can share the
Gospel with our neighbors, all of together. We are bearers of Good News, and
the most natural thing in the world is to share it everybody else around us.
Amen.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-38727957566552421412013-05-23T09:37:00.000-07:002013-05-23T09:37:33.459-07:00A community of sharing<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are a couple words for church in the New Testament.
When Paul writes to the “church of Such-and-Such”, the word is <i>ekklesia</i>, which literally translates to
English as “assembly”. It’s just some folks who get together and follow the Way
of Jesus, which was pretty radical back in the day. The other word the New
Testament uses is <i>koinonia</i>, which is
more like communion than organized church. The much cited apostolic community
in Acts 2, the one where everyone shares their stuff so that everyone has
enough, is described as a <i>koinonia</i>.
Otherwise stated, the essence of <i>koinonia</i>
is sharing.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I like to
think that at South Loop Campus Ministry we are developing <i>koinonia</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See, at SLCM,
we originally intended to only minister to college students, but when homeless
folks showed up to our Sunday night community meal, based on a Christian ethic
of love, we couldn’t just turn them away. However, very quickly, homeless
people outnumbered students on Sunday nights, and I know that I started having
doubts about continuing to serve them. This is a <i>campus </i>ministry, for crying out loud!</div>
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</div>
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But then I
starting getting glimpses of <i>koinonia</i>
breaking through our well laid plans. As we kept handing </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9wHcTbr4ZNeubLmMyxPUC12fzdbDXbqy5BgcMMOnlNhEm8rt3e6BrpiCzZuhZM2hKIkan0TzX0fcyobpW_BmYniXumuYktoS75hjQ0z1qX_aNoFXmHBZSzludhz2DxuAATVgsGj4Hqc5/s1600/Giac's+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9wHcTbr4ZNeubLmMyxPUC12fzdbDXbqy5BgcMMOnlNhEm8rt3e6BrpiCzZuhZM2hKIkan0TzX0fcyobpW_BmYniXumuYktoS75hjQ0z1qX_aNoFXmHBZSzludhz2DxuAATVgsGj4Hqc5/s320/Giac's+pic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's a lot of agua. Photo credit <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GiacomoTheJournalist">Giacomo Luca</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
out sandwiches to
homeless people on the street after dinner, a couple of homeless people, Ashley
and Tony, started guiding us. That meant that we didn’t have to keep wandering
around aimlessly hoping that we would happen upon some folks under Lower Wacker
Drive. In another instance, during one particularly chaotic night when we
already had a skeleton crew to set up, one of our student leaders stepped up to
keep everyone (mainly over 30 homeless people) occupied and calm. Another
student leader realized that all the leftover dining dollars from students’
meal plans could be used to purchase drinks and snacks for SLCM. Giacomo raised
$5,000 in just two weeks. Another time we arrived at Grace Place with supplies for
dinner, and we were surprised by a group of homeless folks already preparing
dinner for the group. Sometimes the Holy Spirit just moves, and I sure as hell
want to move with her.<br />
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There are
more challenges for South Loop Campus Ministry, both now and in the future. It
continues to be difficult to reach out to students at a university where
religion is an unwritten taboo. I know that we haven’t figured out the ideal
balance of working with homeless folks and with students. However, what we’ve
started at SLCM was without a doubt inspired and resourced by the Spirit of
God. I am sure that God does give us enough to live abundantly here in the world,
but it is up us to share what God gives us. At SLCM, our essence is sharing. As
we work through the quieter months of summer, we have the opportunity to figure
out better ways to share not only material stuff, like sandwiches, bottled
water, and socks, but also our empathy and love. That’s a <i>koinonia</i> worth developing.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-53534259866834442922013-05-16T12:41:00.003-07:002013-05-16T12:43:41.920-07:00Coming to dinner--scars and all<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This sermon was given at First Trinity Lutheran Church on April 21, 2013. Really. I preach this way.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s get one thing straight right now: I’m not going to
talk about sheep today. Yeah, I know we sang Psalm 23 and the lectionary Gospel
reading is about sheep and there is even a picture of a sheep on the cover of
the bulletin, but really, I won’t talk about sheep today. Unless it’s about
lamb chops or mutton stew because what I really talk about is food.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
resurrection appearance story in Luke spoke to me in a way that the sheep
passages didn’t. Maybe it’s because I sang the “I Just Wanna Be Sheep Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba”
just one time too many. Maybe it’s because I spent just a little too much time
next to livestock as I was growing up in central PA, and I just don’t want to
be like those dumb animals that I kept prodding with a wooden stick.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But
food…that’s something else. Maybe a story about food speaks more clearly to me
because I spent a weekend in Washington, D.C. talking about food justice. Maybe
it’s because I’ve spent so many Sunday evenings in the last six months making
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for homeless folks. Maybe I’m just hungry
right now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whatever
the reason why this passage in Luke speaks to me right now, it does seem like
the resurrected Jesus likes to eat. Verse 36 of this passage begins with the
remaining disciples talking with each other about—you guessed it—a meal. That
meal was with two other guys who were walking towards some town called Emmaus,
and the resurrected Jesus snuck his way into dinner with them by explaining all
of the Hebrew scriptures concerning himself. I think a lot of my Jewish friends
would think that that conversation would be rather short, but it was enough to
get these two walkin’ dudes to invite Jesus to dinner. Apparently dying and
coming back to life doesn’t help Jesus’ table manners because he disappears
just as the three of them are about to eat. I guess it’s better than dining and
dashing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So then
these two walkin’ dudes rush over to the disciples and tell their story, and
just as they’re arguing about whether Jesus had picked up the matzo or the
foccaccia loaf, Jesus appears again. At this point I would think that the
walkin’ dudes are pretty sure that phantom Jesus has decided to haunt them for
the rest of their miserable existence, perpetually correcting their
understanding of the prophet Isaiah and then preventing them from chowing down.
But luckily Jesus puts them totally at ease by saying “Peace be with you”. That
works every time, right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus
convinces everybody in the room that it’s really him and not just the most
annoyingly know-it-all phantom ever (so those walkin’ dudes can breathe easy).
And then he eats some fish. Resurrection Jesus sure does know how to crash a
dinner party, but that’s okay because he explains the Hebrew scriptures again.
Sorry, walkin’ dudes, you’ve seen this part before.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I’m
going to try to release this image of Jesus as a know-it-all seminarian in
search of free food, though that’s admittedly not easy for me. I am really
struck at how resurrection Jesus keeps eating with people. I remember in my
Bible studies as a teenager that we used to try to figure out the significance
of that eating, that it has serious Christological implications about the dual
nature of Jesus Christ. Or that’s what teenage me would have said if I had
taken systematic theology instead of joyriding through the Pennsylvania
mountains. But forget dual nature-whatever for now because even more than a
free meal Resurrection Jesus is still really concerned that the disciples learn
some really important things about, yes, his own identity—that’s the Christological
part—and how to act with each other. Especially when eating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3RAMj_rS_tjFtG5fxl5pK413sK6tNqyzP_PxLu1hRyQ8LnRX2hke1wm3PI4j2slZ_qie6NxsuXabnbRggJ4PKSf0bLafHTo3qaBY7QBshoNNyXhTU4yao3VB46nRRN3rWyKg8hXOJoLRw/s1600/1st+Trinity+meal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3RAMj_rS_tjFtG5fxl5pK413sK6tNqyzP_PxLu1hRyQ8LnRX2hke1wm3PI4j2slZ_qie6NxsuXabnbRggJ4PKSf0bLafHTo3qaBY7QBshoNNyXhTU4yao3VB46nRRN3rWyKg8hXOJoLRw/s320/1st+Trinity+meal.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Easter brunch at <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/firsttrinitylutheranchicago/">First Trinity Lutheran Church</a>. No jacket<br />
required.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently
I’ve learned that there are rules for dinner behavior, assuming you’re not
eating pizza over the sink or something. Part of that comes from watching a lot
of <i>Downton Abbey</i>, which is this BBC
television series about English high society in the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century and their many varieties of spoons, but even more comes from eating
with my girlfriend Kacie. See, Kacie was super active in 4-H in Tennessee, and
much to my surprise, she didn’t only raise sheep for the county fair (sheep!).
No, Kacie also learned to dine <i>finely</i>—that
is, with more class than I ever learned in my years in the Boy Scouts. We’re
talking which fork goes in which hand, what to do with the napkin when it’s
blocking the eating area of your plate, and how not to send a Tweet from your
smart phone while someone important is speaking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah, there
are <i>rules</i> for eating with other
people, and while I can respect a lot of those as they show respect for the
folks around you, I don’t see Jesus following a lot of those rules in this
passage. In fact, I really only see Jesus following one rule here—be authentic
when you’re sharing a meal. Jesus doesn’t dress up to impress here. On the
other hand he has one of the classic guy conversations in all guy-dom: check
out my scars. Now maybe that’s cool porch talk, but I think conversation about
scars usually doesn’t occur at the dinner table. Yes, Jesus is soothing the
disciples, especially those poor walkin’ dudes, but I have to think that he is
teaching by example. Jesus recognizes that everybody in that room is
traumatized at that moment, especially himself, and he draws that out as soon
as he appears.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then Jesus
eats a meal and, as always happens after a communal meal, he shares a story: “Thus it is written, that the
Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins is to proclaimed to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem.” Sounds vaguely like the Great Commission in the closing
words of the Gospel of Matthew, huh? It’s not quite an explanation of the
trauma that just occurred, but it does orient how Jesus’ listeners will respond
to their trauma. Bad stuff happens in the world, but good stuff also happens,
and now we need to tell everybody to change to world based on those
experiences.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See, this
week has been awfully traumatic for a lot of people. Bookended by a terrorist
bombing and a violent manhunt for the perpetrators, with a giant factory
explosion and local flooding here in Chicago, folks have seen some trauma this
week. Maybe we feel scared and want to withdraw from a scary world. Or maybe we
want to go out and fight the bad guys. Maybe we do actually feel a little like,
well, sheep in need of a shepherd. Whatever your reaction has been to this
week’s events, let’s recognize that we have experienced trauma, and let’s
recognize that trauma before we take a bite at the dinner table.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Something I
love about this church is that First Trinity has a weekly dinner table that is
really open to everyone. And I am continually impressed at how people are
willing to be authentic as they approach that table. However, this week let’s
especially recognize that we are a mixed body, as Luther said, and we are a
traumatized body. If you would like to work through some of that trauma, please
come to the table. The church is also blessed with some wonderful deacons who
truly care about caring for people who serve the church as deacons. These folks
are committed to helping people in this mixed, traumatized body work through
our trauma. Please seek them out if you’d like some space to continue to work
through that trauma.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now finally
in closing, let’s remember that we still have to go out after the meal. We have
a lot of repentance and forgiveness and world-changing to do when we get up
from the table. The punch-line is that we will never be as holy and ready to go
out as maybe we feel we need to be to this work. We need to do it anyway.
Whether you feel like a lost sheep(!), a haunted walkin’ dude, or just somebody in
need of some food, this is a good starting place. So please come, be filled,
and then go, still your scars, because that’s what Jesus did, too.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-18053305343629601152013-03-30T20:20:00.000-07:002013-03-30T20:24:40.981-07:00Resurrection Work<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; color: #010000;">Then he said, ‘Jesus,
remember me when you come into</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> your
kingdom.’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>He replied, ‘Truly
I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><i>Luke 23: 42-43<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[Note: This reflection was part of <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/firsttrinitylutheranchicago/">First Lutheran Church of the Trinity</a>'s Good Friday service that featured 7 different speakers who gave reflection on the last seven words of Christ.]<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not much of one for
pie-in-the-sky theology. I mean, why would God make the varying hues of a
summer sunrise over Lake Michigan or the smell of lilac blossoms or the
laughter of best friends—why <i>do </i>all
that stuff if the world is only supposed to be a holding pattern for the next
one?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These words of the crucified
Jesus kinda strike me as promised pie-in-the-sky. It seems like final
absolution that degrades all the life that was lived beforehand. Of course, in
the midst of crucifixion, maybe all victims want is to forget this tortured
life. After all, the thief to whom Jesus was speaking was not only slowly
dehydrating and collapsing his internal organs; he seemed to be considering his
entire wretched existence. Please, Lord, just get me the hell out of this cold,
nasty, brutish, and short life!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then again, Jesus was suffering
the same things that the condemned people to his right and left were suffering.
That’s not paternalistic absolution; that’s the ultimate solidarity. Jesus was
literally speaking on the thieves’ level. Jesus had spent his life among poor,
militarily occupied and terrified people. Jesus was just as naked and
humiliated as the other two.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That puts Jesus’ words in a
different light, and 1<sup>st</sup> century people didn't understand “paradise”
the same way we do today anyway. As a pharisaic Jew, Jesus thought of paradise
not as an eternal escape, the ultimate vacation get-away, but it was a place
for divinely justified people to wait for the earthly resurrection. The kind of
resurrection Jesus meant was the kind that the prophet Isaiah talked about:
eating the fruit of one’s own labor rather than working as wage-slaves; living
in safe, dry lodging instead of under bridges when they've been evicted;
raising kids that can learn about all the beauty of life rather than being
shoved about for the benefit of corrupt politicians.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And Jesus told this thief at his
side that they will be together today in this place. That phrase seems to me
like Jesus was inviting this condemned guy to come home to meet his folks. But,
no, it’s even more than that. This convict simply asked Jesus to “remember” him
in that resurrection-world—because obviously he won’t be there—but I think
Jesus takes it even further. I think Jesus, by telling the criminal that he’d
be with him, is saying that this criminal will also be part of the
resurrection-work that brings the resurrection-world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of an immigrant doing
day-laborer work in the yard, the immigrant is building Solomon’s temple.
Instead of a homeless person dragging oozing, blistered feet to Catholic
Charities, they are directing the Thanksgiving dinner for the whole family.
Instead of the hardened gang-banger selling dope in the park, he coaches Little
League teams for neighborhood kids.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we pray for God’s kingdom to
come on earth as it is in heaven, what kind of kingdom do we pray for? Is it a
balcony view of all those sinners’ suffering like Tertullian talked about, or
is it taking up the cross for the resurrection-world?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So tonight let us grief for a
world that locks up teenagers for an ounce of weed, but then let’s get to the
resurrection-work of being with me. Being with you. Being with your neighbor. Being
with Jesus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In paradise. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And we’ll be together today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZQ79cOIbH4NomI2MLkPRy5tt0wny8wEADoxiX1kqpL835fyylbUrF4ChiP8fpKpDiHAshIitQ_Nk0tEsAbJjqWNK3z-ItE4TvVSDpEuscJy7z6QAnL6YUUrC7Ks40tr2F7X2KGQ1X3YW/s1600/Ceasefire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZQ79cOIbH4NomI2MLkPRy5tt0wny8wEADoxiX1kqpL835fyylbUrF4ChiP8fpKpDiHAshIitQ_Nk0tEsAbJjqWNK3z-ItE4TvVSDpEuscJy7z6QAnL6YUUrC7Ks40tr2F7X2KGQ1X3YW/s320/Ceasefire.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Want an example of resurrection work? Check out <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/April-2011/Kartemquin-Films-The-Interrupters-by-Steve-James-and-Alex-Kotlowitz-Goes-Inside-CeaseFire/">CeaseFire Chicago</a>, the nonprofit <br />
organization that was featured in the documentary <i>The Interrupters.</i> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-71183912300503657252013-03-22T18:42:00.000-07:002013-03-22T18:42:11.299-07:00Ministry on the 14th floor<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Up on the 14<sup>th</sup> floor
of the Wabash Building, conversation was meandering just as conversation often does.
We were a small group—three of us total—looking at the passage in the Gospel of
John where Mary anoints Jesus’ feet. We talked about the different characters
in the story, what it means to honor both devotion to Christ and sincere care for the poor, and what a funny word “nard” is. There were some long,
somewhat awkward silences as we considered different images in the Gospel, and
other times we rambled and waxed poetic. It was a good Bible study.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then a couple students stopped by
us and asked about our shopping cart. For the past two weeks Pastor Tom and I
had brought a shopping cart with us to Roosevelt University to collect socks to
hand out at our Sunday night community meals with homeless people. We hung out
in the caf with our cart and “socks for the homeless!” posters, and students
mostly gave us strange looks. Staff tended to be more positive about the
impromptu sock drive. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hQmEv3T_if4KHDpDCRBwKFDo1YHsF4eafv6aoPXN4bDTguQgSvimhU5DVg534eIxrZxUJT6vEE7cigSOgGZc-ZAFtV9GxAH8Q7nJG0feZH1wvL-ZdyjwNV-3DMlVXsSV7yMjsvlF378d/s1600/SLCM+socks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4hQmEv3T_if4KHDpDCRBwKFDo1YHsF4eafv6aoPXN4bDTguQgSvimhU5DVg534eIxrZxUJT6vEE7cigSOgGZc-ZAFtV9GxAH8Q7nJG0feZH1wvL-ZdyjwNV-3DMlVXsSV7yMjsvlF378d/s320/SLCM+socks.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo taken by <a href="http://tombobjr.blogspot.com/">Pastor Tom Gaulke</a>, the campus minister for<br />South Loop Campus Ministry. And, yes, that's me in the hat.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then, surprise! We got a
couple dozen socks as we finished Bible study on the 14<sup>th</sup> floor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One pair of students had met us
as we waited for the elevator on the 2<sup>nd</sup> floor, and they returned to
give us socks. Another pair of students saw our cart as we talked about the
Himalayan origins of nard, and they too came back with socks. It felt like
progress.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s when Roosevelt University
security stepped in. See, the 14<sup>th</sup> floor separates the classroom
part of the Wabash Building from the student residence section which includes
the 15<sup>th</sup> floor to the 32<sup>nd</sup> floor. The 14<sup>th</sup>
floor has two separate elevator banks: one set that goes down and another set
that goes up. The 14<sup>th</sup> floor is a transition space from public to private,
and so it is also a natural meeting space.
Or at least it is a natural meeting space as long you follow the proper
protocols through the university administration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oops.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The security guards on the 14<sup>th</sup>
floor asked if we had gotten prior permission to ask students for socks. We
responded that we had been collecting socks on the second floor, but we had
brought the cart with us for the Bible study with Roosevelt students on the 14<sup>th</sup>
floor. Oh, and we usually work with an RA to book rooms, we quickly added. The
guards told us that without prior permission, a sock drive is solicitation and
is strictly forbidden. At least it is on the 14<sup>th</sup> floor, they didn’t
add.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My natural inclination is to
follow instructions and respect authority. I suppose that comes from my upbringing in rural central Pennsylvania and
all those years as a Boy Scout. That day on the 14<sup>th</sup> floor was no
different—we packed up and left down the elevator with our sock cart. One of the
students asked why we hadn’t stood up to the guards. We were collecting socks
for homeless people, for crying out loud.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of my favorite teachings of
Jesus comes from the Mission Discourse of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus tells
his disciples to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16) in the
midst of trouble. In my experience in community organizing, that means know
when to back down (strategically, of course). Especially when I’m on the 14<sup>th</sup>
floor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I've found that ministry with
South Loop Campus Ministry is a very 14<sup>th</sup> floor kind of ministry.
With our “accidental” ministry with the homeless folks of the neighborhood and
our outreach to the “anti-sectarian” folks of Roosevelt, we’re a bit on the
edge. What we do makes people occasionally uncomfortable, and going back down
the metaphorical elevator would ease the tension. However, being present on the
14<sup>th</sup> floor with our sock cart does open up that transitional space
into a meeting space. It stretches us, molds us, makes us available for meeting
each other, as well as meeting with our God.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even though Bible study and our
sock cart may move to another floor, I think our ministry needs to stay on the
14<sup>th</sup> floor. On the 14<sup>th</sup> floor, where community, action,
leadership, and faith all meet.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-8549169390718192872013-02-15T11:22:00.000-08:002013-02-15T11:24:08.045-08:00Opening Doors: Cultural Exchange as Christian Mission<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqO785DZ7i3qin6suJ1QiWeOYJIv90gEU6lqq99BFldz5Lzis61zrx43snwnHUdwCRJf9HN16nnK0ejHC5SJAS7V6hx7w1UxomrFyijlukh2ASDbu3oDQ9rYeaLEM_7LEZa5hEYA9yMkXc/s1600/anchorbible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqO785DZ7i3qin6suJ1QiWeOYJIv90gEU6lqq99BFldz5Lzis61zrx43snwnHUdwCRJf9HN16nnK0ejHC5SJAS7V6hx7w1UxomrFyijlukh2ASDbu3oDQ9rYeaLEM_7LEZa5hEYA9yMkXc/s1600/anchorbible.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For more information about United Methodist<br />
mission, check out the <a href="http://www.umcmission.org/">General Board of Global Ministries</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i>The following post was adapted from my Interpreting the Gospels final paper from December, 2012. The inspiration for the exegesis of Matthew was reflection on the stated mission of the United Methodist Church as found in the 2008 Book of Discipline: "The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs."</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The Gospel of Matthew gives a
sketch of how powerful intercultural exchange through a mission context can be.
Matthew portrays Jesus as the Jewish messiah who fulfills the Jewish
scriptures, and the Matthean Jesus talks clearly about the mission of his
disciples. There are two passages in Matthew where Jesus commissions his
disciples: 10:5-42 and 28:18-20.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="text-indent: 0.5in;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
The important thing to note for this discussion is that Jesus directs the
mission to different groups in each commissioning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The first is called the “Mission
Discourse” by New Testament scholars and is quite explicit in the narrowness of
its target. In fact, Jesus begins instructing the disciples with a prohibition:
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans” (10:5). Jesus
instead directs the disciples to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v.
6). From this instruction the reader can assume that all of Jesus’ previous
instructions, from the opening proclamation to repent (4:17) through the famed
Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7), are addressed to Jews. Jesus seems to be
firmly positioning himself as a Jewish reformer concerned almost exclusively to
Jews. We will discuss the exceptions to this rule and their implications to
Christian mission later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The second commissioning is
commonly called “The Great Commission”, and as it ends the Gospel, it broadens
the scope of discipleship to all nations. The resurrected Jesus tells his
eleven remaining disciples to teach the new disciples “to obey everything that
I have commanded you” (28:20), which seems to include even those commands that
were part of the narrow Mission Discourse. Assuming that the later Great
Commission supersedes the exclusivity of the Mission Discourse, then Jesus is including
the same people that he had earlier excluded from his reform movement. The
mission has apparently changed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The major part of the commission
that changed is the attitude toward outsiders. If one sees Jesus of Nazareth as
a rabbi intent on reforming and purifying Judaism, then his attitude towards
outsiders seems consistent, even if it is intolerant of the cultural Other. The
one interaction with a Gentile prior to the Mission Discourse is with a
centurion who asks healing for his ill servant (8:5-13). Curiously, Jesus
responds very positively, offering to go and cure the centurion’s servant,
which would violate the later prohibition to ministry with Gentiles. However, we
know from other stories in the New Testament that centurions were not always excluded
from the company of Jews. The prime example is the Lukan account of Cornelius,
in whose house Peter has the vision regarding the new cleanliness of earlier
ritually unclean foods (Acts 10:1-7). With this in mind, then Jesus may be
following the tradition of Jews honoring righteous Gentiles. Considering the
centurion’s military authority, this Gentile is certainly not what could be
considered the marginalized of society.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In contrast, Jesus acts very
differently when a Canaanite woman begs Jesus to exorcise a demon from her
daughter (15:21-28). While the woman is crying out, Jesus ignores her. He does
not respond until Jesus’ disciples ask him to deal with the woman so that they
do not have to. Whereas the politically connected centurion received an offer
for a house visit, the Canaanite woman is forced to shout after the disciples
who seem to be intent on keeping Jesus’ command to stay separate from the
Gentile woman. In fact, Jesus responds to the disciples by repeating the
exclusionary tactic from the Mission Discourse (v. 24). The Canaanite woman
seizes the moment and goes directly to Jesus, to which Jesus responds by
essentially calling her and her race “dogs”, a common racial pejorative in the
Jewish tradition. However, the Canaanite woman seems to know Jewish traditions
quite well, too, and she answers that “even the dogs get the scraps from the
master’s table” (v. 27). This may reference the rabbinic tradition of honoring
dogs by throwing scraps to dogs for not growling at the Israelites during the
10<sup>th</sup> plague of the Exodus (Ex. 11:7).<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
No matter what the Canaanite woman may be referencing, she impresses Jesus
enough that he changes his mind, and he praises her faith in a way similar to
the centurion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Beyond Jesus’ treatment of the two
Gentiles, there are two other important differences between the centurion and
the Canaanite woman. First, whereas the centurion’s origins are never
mentioned, the Matthean author is very clear about the woman’s ethnicity. She
is Canaanite, one of the races that the Israelites were commanded to
exterminate from the face of the Earth during the conquest of Canaan found in
the book of Joshua. Though the historical difference between Canaanites and
Jews is probably minuscule at most, the cultural differences lead to palpable
racial tension. Second, unlike the centurion, she is a woman. While it would be
fallacious to label 1<sup>st</sup> century Judaism as blanket misogynist,
Jesus, on the other hand, seems to treat her in a quite misogynist way. This
makes the interaction with the Canaanite woman all the more extraordinary in
the Gospel of Matthew, and it sheds light on the change in missional attitudes
from the Mission Discourse to the Great Commission.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Whereas Jesus’ interaction with the
centurion apparently does not change any of his ethnocentric attitudes (hence
the narrowness of the Mission Discourse), the exchange with the Canaanite woman
seems to have had a radicalization effect on Jesus. Shortly after the exchange
there is a discernible shift in Jesus’ ministry. Before the interaction with
the Canaanite woman, Jesus had only been leading a reform movement of Judaism
in Palestine. Afterwards Jesus begins taking a more messianic role. Jesus draws
out Peter’s messianic declaration (16:13-20), starts to speak of his death and
resurrection (16:21-28), and is transfigured (chapter 17). The interaction with
a man of authority, a bit like Jesus himself, allowed Jesus to remain narrow in
his scope. The interaction with a woman of a different ethnicity, who was quite
different than Jesus, forces Jesus to repent of his ethnocentrism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
This transformation of Jesus, whom
Christians call the Messiah, through his exchange with his cultural Other has
important implications for discipleship both in the 1<sup>st</sup> century
Mediterranean world and today. From the Great Commission, Christians understand
Christian mission to be global, and the words that end the Gospel of Matthew
are commonly used to commission missionaries for their service. However, what
missionaries and missiologists often miss is that the global nature of
Christian mission is a product of cultural exchange between different peoples.
Too often mission occurs from an imperialist motivation to impose 1<sup>st</sup>
World values on majority-world peoples, serving only the interests of the
already powerful in the missionizing group and the missionized (i.e. colonial)
group. Colonial action is often hidden in missionary action, and the wolves
often earnestly believe that they are the sheep they are impersonating. This
model of mission is uni-directional, where the missionary assumes that he knows
right and must provide for the missionized community.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
True mission, however, is not
uni-directional; instead it is mutual. This is evident in the exchange between
Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Jesus and his disciples do not even recognize
the exchange as mission work until the cultural Other breaks through their
dominant culture assumptions. When that breakthrough occurs, Jesus opens up and
fulfills his own unrealized missional purpose. While Jesus assumes that he must
remain within his stated mission (i.e. the lost sheep of the house of Israel),
the Canaanite woman is the truly active mission agent in the story. This
phenomenon is akin to the church group who returns from a mission trip and
reports that while they expected to bless others through their service (and
material resources), they were surprised that <i>they </i>received the greater blessing. While the experience is
powerful and important for the spiritual development of the missionizing group,
how weary the missionized group must get as they have to repeat the process
again and again!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It is important to note that the
cultural exchange that takes place between Jesus and the Canaanite woman is not
in an exotic, far-away destination which is often the center of short-term
mission trips. Jesus and his disciples are in “the district of Tyre and Sidon”,
which was the district next door to their native Galilee. The importance of the
mission experience was not the exotic location but the relationship with the cultural
Other that Jesus and the disciples encountered. Likewise, while Mission Central
sends flood buckets to inundated areas of the country and mosquito nets to
Africa, the truly transformative experiences will likely occur much closer to
home. Only by mutual exchange can transformative discipleship play out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The first line of the Unite
Methodist Church’s mission statement is what often gets the prime space in
newsletters and websites, but the second part of the statement is just as
important: “Local churches provide the most significant arena through which
disciple-making occurs”.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
While the disciple-making process in the local parish can be a transformational
process toward greater personal and social holiness, it can be an oppressive
and alienating process. If the new disciples receive instruction like that in
the Mission Discourse, then many neighbors will be left to the margins and the
homogenization process of the church only accelerates. However, if local
churches engage in mutual mission work with cultural Others, then the disciple-making
process moves toward the salvific project that Jesus of Nazareth embarked on
after his exchange with his own cultural Other. The goal of disciple-making is
an opening up of the individual disciple and the discipling community, which is
a process that can truly transform the world.</div>
<div>
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<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
All biblical references use the <i>New
Revised Standard Version</i> translation.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Kayama, Hisao. “The Cornelius Story in the Japanese Cultural Context”. <i>Voices from the Margins: Interpreting the
Bible in the Third World</i>, 129-141. Edited by R.S. Sugirtharajah. New York:
Orbis. 2006.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Ken Stone. “The Exodus and Other Pentateuchal Stories”. Class lecture at
Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL, Sept. 26, 2012.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Soares-Prabhu, George M. “Two Mission Commands: An Interpretation of Matthew
28:16-20 in Light of a Buddhist Text”. <i>Voices
from the Margins: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World</i>, 331-346.
Edited by R.S. Sugirtharajah. New York: Orbis. 2006</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Ronald/Downloads/OPENING%20DOORS%20Gospels%20final.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <i>The Book of Disciple of the United Methodist
Church—2008</i>,<i> </i>87. Edited by Judith
E. Smith. Nashville, TN: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2008</div>
</div>
</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-31392257316887892012013-01-16T21:44:00.000-08:002013-01-16T21:44:10.248-08:00L’audace d’espére<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I just don’t know what else I
can do.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After an evening of eating with people
who live on the streets of Chicago and then giving bagged lunches to people who
were escaping the January cold in Union Station, the students had reached a
point that good people always reach eventually. It’s not quite compassion
fatigue, but it’s not far away from that either. Just by walking from Grace
Place, an Episcopal church in Chicago’s South Loop, to Union Station—about a
mile—we had gotten a taste of the winter outside. What good is a bagged lunch
in the face of freezing in the streets?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqaN6rv48njnjS7RZfScGCTZmfyMQZ7ilalP5g67cFyrtu01iT6U_JwOLZmLDdInXYcSBfpC0RXXQ4-J-4-BXwEbNy-tPoz7a43aMvkDZ0oFi6lH5H6Y-t6jD2iNU3evAovoQpp79AQTX8/s1600/SLCM+1.13.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqaN6rv48njnjS7RZfScGCTZmfyMQZ7ilalP5g67cFyrtu01iT6U_JwOLZmLDdInXYcSBfpC0RXXQ4-J-4-BXwEbNy-tPoz7a43aMvkDZ0oFi6lH5H6Y-t6jD2iNU3evAovoQpp79AQTX8/s320/SLCM+1.13.13.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preparing to deliver bagged lunched with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/southloop.campusminstry?viewer_id=3806144">South Loop <br />Campus Ministry</a>. (Photo by Kacie Greer)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question came up in our
debriefing session in Union Station just before the students boarded their
train to return to the suburbs. I didn’t have enough time to delve into root
causes and how through grass-roots organizing and advocacy for smart public
policy we can address them. It was a shame, too, because that same day I had
been part of a public meeting with <a href="http://www.soulinchicago.org/">S.O.U.L.</a> that 1,000 people attended where we
addressed public transportation, abandoned properties, and state and federal
budget crises. Just imagine the homeless shelters, health care, and public jobs
that we could fund if we had a more progressive tax code! <i>That’s </i>what else we can do!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The thought stayed with me when I
saw <i>Les Misérables</i> with my girlfriend
in a Naperville theater. Victor Hugo’s story that the movie is based on touches
a lot of themes—justice, mercy, idealism, courtly love—and between the tears that
Tom Hooper’s rendition provoked, I kept thinking about what runs the entirety of
a story that covers 20 years. Hugo seems to say that among the Platonic ideals,
there are few permanents. Not beauty; the beautiful Fantine dies and is buried
in a public grave. Not justice; the principled Javert throws himself into the
Seine because he can’t face a world where a fugitive can be free. Not
idealistic revolution; the barricades are broken and all the revolutionaries
are killed. The one constant seems to be,well, death.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, somehow the protagonist
Valjean continues to help everyone around him. He knows about mass
incarceration, lack of health care, and the exploitation of low-wage workers,
yet he only joins the June revolutionaries to get close to the man whom his
adopted daughter loves. Of all the characters in <i>Les Misérables</i>, why does Valjean survive?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then it occurred to me. I had
just finished an intensive J-term class about prophetic proclamation that was
taught by the famed Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Until that class, the only sermons I
had heard from Rev. Wright were the ones that the mass media had cut up and
edited to make him look like a Black nationalist demagogue. In fact, Rev.
Wright turned out to be one of the great voices for reconciliation with whom I
have ever come into contact. One the sermons that the news media didn’t show
the public back in 2008 was titled <a href="http://sweetness-light.com/archive/wrights-sermon-the-audacity-to-hope#.UPeL1B3LR2A">“The Audacity to Hope”</a>, which Barack Obama
would later borrow for his best-selling book. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this sermon, Rev. Wright waxes
philosophic about a painting where a young woman is playing a harp while the
world below is similar to the one Victor Hugo described a century prior. Full
of injustice and pain, how can a person still find room for hope? And that is
the great existential movement of Christianity—the movement from the conviction
of personal and social sin to the liberation of grace. However, the movement
does not end with the recognition of salvation by grace. The pilgrim’s progress
continues in the guise of love, the kind of love that drives Valjean to the Parisian
barricades and sewers. It is the all-sacrificing love of a parent for a child,
what the Gospel writers called <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">ἀγάπη</span>,
or “agape”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Friends, that is what I propose drives us to help other
people despite the seeming futility of the endeavor. We continue to do acts of
mercy and organize for social justice, but it is only because of the love
movement afforded us by divine grace. We do indeed have the audacity to hope,
or perhaps as spoken by the kindly bishop who saves Valjean from prison labor, “l’audace
d’espére”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-76100978793037192592012-10-15T13:54:00.001-07:002012-10-15T13:56:51.751-07:00Crack open a can of worms<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recall
the first time that I sat through a presentation on the origins of the
Pentateuch. As a first year university student from a conservative, evangelical
upbringing, my attitude was very incredulous. After all, what do J, P, E, and D
sources have to do with my Methodist faith? I did not begin considering the
historical context of biblical literature until the next year with my first
in-depth Bible study and an introduction to the historical critical method. I
soon found that once the lid is off of the metaphorical can of theological
worms, the squirmy annelids do not return to their enclosed home. In fact, the
theological worms bore new holes in unexpected places, and, in a surprising
twist for a former conservative evangelical, they make the theological soil
even more fertile.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is in
this fertile, theological worm-infested soil that the myths that parallel the
Hebrew Bible stories are scattered. The process is indeed as messy as it
sounds, but the revelation that the writers of the Hebrew Bible may have
borrowed from religious stories from neighboring peoples does not have the
shaking effect that I experienced as a sophomore undergraduate. I already was
familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish, but I must admit that
I was surprised by the sheer number of myths, histories, and documents from the
ancient Near East that are awfully similar to my favorite Bible stories. In the
face of this religious milieu, I have tried to imagine what a perpetually
occupied or conquered people might do in order to keep their people’s identity
alive for posterity. I hope that it would not include molding a golden calf,
but I can see how a priest or elder would borrow a popular myth and spice it to
their people’s taste.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksi28mjfcjIyjwGUCCoLyyseGG_K48vWD10ViPucsH5Wm8t59abNIrh6dzFhJalQDGm9uj3y4RXPNCh8lnHp_gx7KCVidDp9G6Jim_m1CBLFo-K0KMiuC9bhgl5ipMDYy0gFStn8gp9pZ/s1600/Sargon_of_Akkad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksi28mjfcjIyjwGUCCoLyyseGG_K48vWD10ViPucsH5Wm8t59abNIrh6dzFhJalQDGm9uj3y4RXPNCh8lnHp_gx7KCVidDp9G6Jim_m1CBLFo-K0KMiuC9bhgl5ipMDYy0gFStn8gp9pZ/s320/Sargon_of_Akkad.jpg" width="168" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sargon of Agade, yet another dude who <br />
needed to learn to swim at an early age<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A good
example of this could be the story of Sargon of Agade. Sargon was a famous king
of a great city-state who as an infant was plucked from a river by a royal
attendant, raised in the royal courts, and then achieved great, miraculous
exploits that cast a long shadow on the descendants of the ancient city-state.
It roughly parallels the narrative of Moses, one of the most important figures
in the Hebrew Bible. The story also precedes the biblical narrative by well
over a thousand years, which is certainly enough time for an entirely different
culture to acquire and add certain details to the life narrative of a great
patriarch. The familiarity of the story adds authority to the Israelites’
traditions, and the J-source writers did not have to worry about intellectual
property hounds on their tail. It makes perfect sense to me that the writers of
the Hebrew Bible took details from other neighboring people’s myths to create
their own traditions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, it
is not easy to remove myself from 21<sup>st</sup> century, Western ears and
inhabit the space of a priest in 6<sup>th</sup> century BCE Palestine.
Christian and Jews alike regard the Pentateuch as the Mosaic Law, and the Torah
lays the groundwork for the ancient ethics that multiple empires later used for
their own societal laws. Needless to say, the stakes are quite high. Even so,
whereas religion and state are separate in Western democracies, this is simply
not the case for the civilizations of antiquity. Mythologies were a way of
understanding the world, including the place of civil authorities, which
students even find in the “right of kings” argument as late as 17<sup>th</sup>
century European monarchs. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In that way
the Mosaic Law is not so unique in grounding its ethics and mandates in a
covenant between a deity and ruler of the people. The beginning of the Code of
Hammurabi is replete with honors from Babylonian gods that protect the empire
and guarantee its prosperity. Hammurabi clearly wanted to show that his laws
were not simply whims of a tyrant, though it seems likely that he could have
ruled that way if he wanted. The king grounded his rule in religious imagery
that is found throughout Babylonian mythology of Marduk, who is present in the
Enuma Elish stories as well. The Israelites did not have a monarch until well
after the establishment of the Law, but Moses did act as de facto leader of the
Israelites during the Exodus. Ascending the mountain of God to receive the laws
of the chosen people is not so unlike invoking the national god in unveiling a
new system of imperial laws.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
individual laws of the Torah were at times also surprisingly similar, but
nations today also borrow laws from constitutions that existed beforehand. For
example, Hammurabi ordered that slaves be freed after three years, and the
Sabbath laws of the Torah make many references to the fair treatment of slaves.
Of course the Torah’s laws are to a whole different degree of justice than
Hammurabi’s laws were, and considering that the priestly writers were in
Hammurabi’s descendants’ empire while writing their notes, perhaps that makes
sense. An oppressed people would naturally be more concerned about freedom for
the captives, and they would likely have a vested interest in showing how much
further their laws of justice go than the laws of their captors. Rather than
lessening the power of the Mosaic Law, the context strengthens the claim that
the Hebrew Bible is special in a way that other codes contemporary with it were
not.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is all
to say that I personally am quite comfortable with the documentary hypothesis
and that the Hebrew Bible is likely a conglomeration of ancient influences,
many of which came from non-Israelite cultures. The debate enters an entirely
different phase if I am to facilitate the same discussion within a local
congregational context. As my conservative evangelical upbringing attests, many
congregations do not teach the historical critical method. Many people base
their faith in texts that they confidently assure each other have divine
origins, namely that of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I would not be so
quick to point out that the stories about the patriarchs are very similar to
patriarchs of other ancient Near East civilizations, and that is not only
because I want to keep a pastoral assignment.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recognize
that it took me years to come to grips with how my favorite Bible stories had a
historical, cultural, and indeed even a political context. While the goal of a
full-time student is to learn many new and exciting concepts that shake up
prior conceptions, parishioners are often part of faith communities for very different
reasons. It is like a community garden: most people participate in the
community garden for fellowship and to get fresh produce. I am not sure that
most community gardeners would want to know the fine art of bonsai, and the
sort of pruning that is part of bonsai is not generally healthy for a bell
pepper plant. There is a time and place for such teaching, but the pastor
should be careful in introducing concepts like non-traditional origins of holy
scriptures.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, I
do think that teaching the story of the creation of the Hebrew Bible (and the
New Testament for that matter) can be quite communally edifying. In the same
way that Americans celebrate the creation of the Constitution, people who claim
the Pentateuch as holy scripture should also celebrate the creation of the
Torah. That it survived at all is an incredible testament to favorable
circumstances that could be viewed as the very hand of Providence. The writing
process is also a testament of how different religions gave rise to an amazing
prophetic tradition that has an afterlife that continues today. As a pastor, I
would like to celebrate the diverse origins of the Hebrew Bible instead of hide
them.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Various
faith traditions claim that God is still speaking in the world today, including
several Christian denominations. In my own Methodist tradition, I understand
that scripture is only one-quarter of the revelation of God. Just as the
writers of the Hebrew Bible used their creative and rational faculties to draw
from millennia of ancient Near East mythology, increasingly Christians today
draw from a variety of religious traditions to understand the world around
them. This is the exciting, relatively new realm of postmodern interpretation,
whether post-colonial, womanist, or some other tradition. In deconstructing
metanarratives about the origins of holy scriptures, I become free to engage in
the same creative processes that my spiritual ancestors did thousands of years
ago. It is a can of theological worms worth opening.</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-20080424547171994042012-09-16T14:17:00.002-07:002012-09-16T21:24:57.152-07:00Messiah of the misfits, marginalized, & minjung<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjLTbMqm7z-rBFy6aIvO5N0wNfe7sNaCZyctLtdPyDUnWWoxP73XhvOAo6nUUeVZegunScm6EOSVqtUiRqr1WLTgVErE9t1KGFghvYS1FkVNGw8sjPrXIu_eZNnyOUMFSGYsvO14n6q8Fy/s1600/jesus_of_the_people_mckenzie__23216_zoom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjLTbMqm7z-rBFy6aIvO5N0wNfe7sNaCZyctLtdPyDUnWWoxP73XhvOAo6nUUeVZegunScm6EOSVqtUiRqr1WLTgVErE9t1KGFghvYS1FkVNGw8sjPrXIu_eZNnyOUMFSGYsvO14n6q8Fy/s320/jesus_of_the_people_mckenzie__23216_zoom.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jesus of the People</i>, by Janet McKenzie, <br />1999,
<a href="http://www.janetmckenzie.com/">http://www.janetmckenzie.com/</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I was in college I did what I thought were some pretty
intense Bible studies with my campus fellowship. After two weeks in seminary,
maaaybe those Bible studies don’t seem quite as intense as they seemed when I
was a sophomore at dear Bucknell, tucked away in the central Pennsylvania
hills. But hey, times change. The Bible study that InterVarsity pushed hardest
was a semester-long class on the first half of the Gospel of Mark. I did that
with some of my closest friends, somehow interpreting Jesus’ cross-country
trips as a pirate in a Winnebago. Studying the Bible does weird things to you,
I guess. But while I can’t say that any of my classes for credit struck me and
challenged me the way Mark study did. In fact, I enjoyed that study so much
that I spent the week after classes ended that year studying the <i>second </i>half of Mark. That, too, was an
amazing experience where I saw God’s Spirit whip around the room and inspire us
to raise $5,000 to make sure one of my best friends could go back to school the
next semester. It was awesome.<br />
<br />
But looking
back, there was something that could have been better about those Bible
studies. See, we finished Mark 1, as we called the first-half Bible study, with
the first half of today’s Gospel reading. I’m sure that ending the semester
that way was intentional. Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah, so after a
semester of studying an account about Jesus, who do we say Jesus is? (Hint: we
do have a preferred answer.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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The problem
is that I don’t think the story should be cut up that way because Peter only
gives an incomplete answer. Peter answers Jesus question, “Who do you say that
I am?” with “You are the Messiah,” so let’s dig into what exactly that means.
Messiah, or the Greek title Christ, means “anointed one”, and there actually
several people in the Old Testament were “anointed ones”, usually with
monarchic and militarist implications. During the 1<sup>st</sup> century
Palestine under Roman occupation, a lot of folks were looking for such a
messiah. You know, someone who would take names and kick arse.<br />
<br /></div>
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So maybe
when someone answers with Peter’s words to Jesus’ question, we should then ask,
whose Messiah?<br />
<br /></div>
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Moving
forward in the story, Jesus does start to define what kind of messiah he’ll
be—one who will suffer, be rejected by the political bosses, die along the way,
but then rise again after three days, so don’t worry. So hold up, where’s the
glory to that? Peter says something along those lines, with maybe some
fisherman’s preferred speech, and probably reminds Jesus what a messiah <i>actually </i>does. Except Jesus doesn’t need
that. Jesus immediately tells Peter whose messiah that is—namely Satan’s.<br />
<br /></div>
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Btw
(pronounced bee-tee-dubs for short), that’s the second time Satan shows up in
Mark’s Gospel. The first time was Jesus temptation in the wilderness.
Connection, anyone?<br />
<br /></div>
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So if
Jesus’ way of doing Messiah isn’t about kicking Gentile oppressors’ arse and
plates heaped with steaming glory, it must be something less appealing. Or at
least at first. But take a look at who Jesus talks to. It’s not the apostles;
it’s the crowd. In Greek the word is “<i>ochlos</i>”.
Korean liberation theologian Ahn
Byung-Mu noted that this word is found throughout Mark’s Gospel referring to
crowds, but especially when Jesus is curing sick and unclean people and
generally caring for the folks that the Pharisees marginalized with their
interpretation of Jewish law. For Korean liberation theologians, these folks are represented by the <i>minjung</i>, a marginalized group in that country, and their theology is named after them.<br />
<br /></div>
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So whose
Messiah is Jesus? Well, it kinda sounds like the misfits, marginalized, and
left-behind folks’ Messiah, the <i>ochlos</i>’
Messiah. And when Jesus talks about suffering and how his followers must also
suffer, maybe it’s because those folks are already suffering. I’m Methodist,
and I love me some John Wesley, but I’ve really connected with Martin Luther’s
concept of the theology of the cross. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, <i>chose</i> the path of the poor, the
desperate, even the criminal, and he suffered like they suffer. Like they
continue to suffer. And when Jesus warns against being ashamed of the Messiah,
I must believe that Jesus is also warning against being ashamed the <i>ochlos</i>, the poor, desperate masses that
so want to free of their situation.<br />
<br /></div>
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However,
there is a second reason why Jesus tells the crowd that his followers must
expect suffering, specifically from persecution. See, Jesus had this practice
of not only hanging out with the <i>ochlos</i>,
but he also brought them into the center of the stage with him. Unclean women
take precedence over the child of a local political boss. Lame folks distract
from the sabbath laws. And Jesus parties with the loan shark whom he just
called into his inner circle. Being with the <i>ochlos</i> is fine and good with the ruling class as long as the
invisible curtains of caste remains, but when Jesus tear through that curtain…well,
he ends up suffering, rejected by the ruling class, and eventually executed.</div>
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<br />
And Jesus
calls us, his followers, to do the same.</div>
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<br />
I am truly
proud and humbled that I am in a place that takes solidarity with the <i>ochlos</i> seriously. I like to call First
Trinity the Church of the Misfits and Dissidents, and it is really unique. Last
week at Hildegard Rastutin’s beautiful funeral we talked about how and why she
loved this place. It’s so open and welcoming. Open enough that even why I had a
conversation with Hildegard about religion, her response was lending me her
copy of the Book of Mormon, because, you know, it’s important to learn about
other people’s traditions. Yes, this is the Church of the Misfits and
Dissidents, and it’s great.</div>
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<br />
However,
let’s take our solidarity with the <i>ochlos</i>
of Bridgeport and Chicago even further. Let’s follow in Jesus example and tear
down that invisible sheet between our ruling class and our <i>ochlos</i>. It’s a wall made of numbers, and it separates revenue and
expenses on the ledger. It’s a wall that separates the sick from needed health
care, unemployed workers from jobs, students from a good education, neighbors
from a 31<sup>st</sup> Street bus. Dear friends, tearing down that wall is as
much the work of the Messiah as clothing the naked for a day. And it is what
will bring us up close and personal with the persecution of the Messiah.</div>
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<br />
So I ask
you the same question my campus minister asked my class at the end of my grand
study of Mark: who do you think Jesus is? But if you answer like Peter, “the
Messiah,” be ready for me to ask a follow-up question: whose Messiah is this
Jesus? I pray that you, as part of the <i>ochlos, </i>the <i>minjung</i>,
this group of despised, misfit, and marginalized folks, answer “This Jesus is
my Messiah.”</div>
Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132352665962965171.post-33410514792262780602012-08-13T10:01:00.000-07:002012-08-13T10:02:59.509-07:00Upstream or downstream: a reflection from a kayak<br />
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The central Pennsylvania sky had cleared, and the sun was
shining over the green ridges into the river. I paddled my kayak towards the
western shore of the Susquehanna with my sister a few yards behind me. Herons
and egrets took off as we approached them, and the nearby train tracks rumbled
with coal-laden cars dieseling their way south. I had forgotten how beautiful
this country is and how much it is a part of me.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I think it’s easy to forget our connection with the land
when one lives in a large metropolitan area. I know that’s been true for me
after living two years on the South Side of Chicago. The experience of going to
sleep with the sound of crickets and frogs around hardly compares with the
voices, car horns, and sirens that are the normal city night’s soundtrack.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
My three days in central Pennsylvania were part of a
longer vacation that was otherwise urban. I had started with a conference in
Arlington, Virginia where we celebrated over 60 years of young adults in
mission in the United Methodist Church. Next I moved to Philadelphia where
several friends and family members have settled, and where soft pretzels lie
down with the steak sandwiches (come, Lord Jesus). Then central PA, and now
Pittsburgh, where I sip yerba mate with my cousin in the shadow of Pitt’s
Cathedral of Learning (don’t judge).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
However, the question that seems to keep surfacing is one
about the future. I begin seminary at Chicago Theological Seminary in
September, and I can’t even imagine what kind of adventures wait for me there.
But the question is less about seminary and more about where God is calling me
in ministry. I’m talking about geographical location. John Wesley famously declared
that “the world is my parish” in response to mounting pressure for him to take
his father’s place at the rectory in Epworth, England, but every vocation
occurs in a geographical and cultural context.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I have recently seen the stark contract between two contexts
that I have called home. One is urban Chicago, a wildly diverse and dynamic
setting, a setting which has been my home for the last two years and will be my
home for the next three years as well. People come and go like a Lake Michigan
breeze. The other area is central Pennsylvania, where rolling mountain ridges
seem to stand guard against sudden, unexpected changes, and generation after
generation maintain traditions that run deeper than any social media thread.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I’ve met people who have left central Pennsylvania and
never plan to come back, and I’ve met others who did indeed return after a time
of personal growth. I can see how my experience in community organizing and
interfaith work could easily fit in one conference, but I also see room for
growth in the other. I’ve gone to two United Methodist annual conferences in
two years, I’ve seen two very different styles for ecclesiastic culture, but
now both of those conferences are welcoming new leadership in the episcopacy. Where
does that leave me?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I make some connections with my short foray into kayaking
in the shallow Susquehanna waters. I had tried so hard to make my way upstream,
but I found that I couldn’t pass a set of rapids no matter how hard I tried.
However, by going downstream just a bit, I managed to continue upstream by starting
up the Juniata River, which joins the Susquehanna at my hometown. God has
called me to address root problems that plague our varied communities, and my
experiences in Chicago have given me tools to fight those problems. However, I
don’t need to always fight my way upstream through rapids that push me
backwards and might even overturn me if I’m not careful. God is making a path
for me that may require to me go downstream before I start to address root problems
further upstream. How far downstream will I need to go, and where might that
other river take me? I don’t know, but I have faith that God will provide a way
to the source of life that will quench the thirst of a dry land. I just need to
keep the nose of my kayak straight and paddle hard.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYa5dTN4Jz4SjhbR_bLEa7n8jqBDTKikcMb95S52JyQwdn_eX1LvGV_zN5QlxqmgV_ib4nrN42Vw2V37Az4IZ0KRI9tPexck-Zqivd4ao1g9k3H2cjcjf3No1qe6k0MH1JD56OhYfYNYSG/s1600/confluence+from+Hawk+Rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYa5dTN4Jz4SjhbR_bLEa7n8jqBDTKikcMb95S52JyQwdn_eX1LvGV_zN5QlxqmgV_ib4nrN42Vw2V37Az4IZ0KRI9tPexck-Zqivd4ao1g9k3H2cjcjf3No1qe6k0MH1JD56OhYfYNYSG/s400/confluence+from+Hawk+Rock.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The confluence of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers at Duncannon, Pennsylvania.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02157423542396992776noreply@blogger.com0