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Teach the “King”

Teach the “King”

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Birds, streams and wetlands, Nigerian immigrants, Palestinians, people counting on Social Security, civilians exposed to landmines … all facing a much more perilous future because of actions taken by the present US administration in just the last few days … and, “the best is yet to come.”

With nation and media fixated on impeachment, one executive fiat after another is quietly rolled out, rolling back years and even decades of hard-won protections for vulnerable people and a vulnerable earth.

Teach the king to judge with your righteousness, O God …
He rescues the poor who call to him,
     and those who are needy and neglected.
He has pity on the weak and poor;
     he saves the lives of those in need.
He rescues them from oppression and violence;
     their lives are precious to him. (Psalm 72:1, 12-14)
One

One

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In response to the hate crimes of the last several days — mailing pipe bombs to Democrats, shooting worshippers at a Squirrel Hill synagogue because they are Jews — and in response to our seeming inability as a nation to unify and mourn together even in the face of such horrors, I offer this reprint of a sermon preached in Waterloo, Iowa, on September 11, 2016 …

(Play video)

That brings back a host of feelings, doesn’t it?

Fifteen years ago today, our world changed.  Fifteen years ago today, we changed.  For the better?  Did we change for the better?  We might have …

The events of that day shocked us, overwhelmed us, pierced our hearts, flooded our spirits with grief, but brought us together.  It was the grief itself, our shared loss, that brought us together, not just all of us with each other within the bounds of our own nation, but all of us with so many others from so many other nations too who shared our horror and our grief.  It was not a common enemy that united us that day, but shared suffering.  It was not anger that brought us together, but empathy.

And we were humbled.  Suddenly, we too were vulnerable.  We were not untouchable, impregnable, immune from threat.  We lost, for a moment, some of our hubris, and it was replaced by coming together to console one another and replaced by wisdom, wisdom that understood that we too are just one part of this wide world, all of us subject to the same threats and the same challenges and the same opportunities.

That was a piece, I think, of what engendered so much empathy for us around the globe.  That day we experienced for ourselves some of the suffering, the anguish, the vulnerability, that so many have experienced themselves for generations and some must now live with every day.That day opened for us a window of opportunity: to leave behind hubris for humility, to leave behind unchecked ambition for shared purpose, to replace suspicion with empathy and mistrust with compassion.  It was an act of evil that transformed us that day, but the first impulses it raised in us were good.  We wanted not revenge, but comfort, not a war on terror or anything or anyone else, but peace.  We wanted peace, for all.  Our heroes that day were not victors, but healers, not warriors, but people who tended to our wounds, our wounds of body and spirit.

We might have become better and wiser people because of that day.  Did we?

What is the tenor of our national mood today?  Humility or hubris?  Unity or fragmentation?  Common purpose or polarization?  Compassion or fear?  Empathy or anger?  You know!  We are more divided, more anxious, more cynical, more defiant, more cynical, more desperate than at any time in my lifetime.

And our politics is broken.  I am not saying our system is broken, not yet, but our system, our way of doing democracy, our way of being a nation, is threatened because our politics, our way of doing things together, is broken.  Our system depends on checks and balances, but also on shared purpose, shared values, and, dare I say it, mutual respect.  But in our politics, respect has been trashed, there are few if any shared values, and the only shared purpose is a unfettered desire to win at all costs.

So we need to talk.  You and I need to talk, here, about politics!  Now let’s be clear, I am not about to endorse any candidate or party.  Even if I could or even if I wanted to, there is no candidate in this presidential race I would be ready to endorse.

No, we don’t need to talk about Republican politics or Democratic politics, but the politics of Jesus.  We need to talk, here, about the politics of Jesus, because before we are Democrats, before we are Republicans, before we are Americans, we are Christians, followers of Jesus, children of God, and it is this identity, this allegiance, that puts all the rest of it into perspective.

Jesus … politics?  Yes, the politics of Jesus!  Talk about politics here?  Yes, here!

Listen to this definition of politics:

Politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community.

Politics is concerned with the ways power and resources are distributed in a community.  Jesus is concerned about the ways power and resources are distributed among the members of the community of God’s people, so Jesus has something to say about politics.

Jesus had something to say to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law about politics.  They objected to the time and attention Jesus was giving to people they considered unworthy of such an investment.  By welcoming them and eating with them, Jesus was giving them much too much credit and therefore much too much power.  By welcoming them and eating with them, Jesus was making them members of the community on equal footing with rest, entitled to the same respect, entitled to the same consideration.  But if you give your respect away so easily, what of all those good people who have worked so hard to earn it?

So Jesus told them a story:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them — what do you do? 

The beauty of the story is that everybody knows what you do: you go look for the lost sheep!  Any of the Pharisees, all of the teachers of the Law, would do the same, because when you’re a shepherd, every sheep matters.  Each one matters.  One matters.

The holy God is a shepherd.  The Lord is my shepherd … and every sheep matters.  Each one matters.  One matters.

This is a key tenet of Jesus’ politics: one matters.  Each one matters.  The Pharisee and the tax collector.  The teacher and the outcast.  But you don’t divert all your resources to tending the ones who are already safe!  It is the outliers, the vulnerable ones, the threatened ones, the lost ones, the disconnected ones, who command the attention of the shepherd.

It is with people as it is with sheep: when one is at risk, that is your priority.  You go, you seek, and you keep on seeking, and when at last you find him, when you finally come to where she is, you sit with him and welcome him, you embrace her and you bring her home.

One matters.  So what are the implications for our politics?  This is what you don’t do.  You don’t spend the majority of your resources improving the lives of the majority of the people, expecting the outliers to find a way to help themselves.  When a sheep is lost, you don’t blame the sheep.  It doesn’t matter who or what is at fault.  The sheep is lost and that’s what matters.

You don’t congratulate yourself for taking such good care of the ninety-nine and happily sit with the flock waiting for the lost one to find its own way home!  Or not.  You go, you look, and you keep on looking until the lost one is found, because one matters!

One matters.

Our world has changed.  We are more interdependent than ever and yet more divided than ever, more powerful than we ever have been and yet more vulnerable than we ever have been, sick of war and yet always at war.  This brave new world is frightening and baffling and ever-changing.  We face political and social and environmental challenges of such enormity that there may well be no answers even if we had the political will to seek them, which, at present, we do not.

So what do we do?  We put our trust where it belongs.  The Lord is my shepherd, not any politician, not any party.

Don’t put your trust in human leaders;
no human being can save you.

And we seek God’s kingdom, the community where vulnerable ones are protected, where lost ones are looked for, where one — each one — matters.

Drawing the line

Drawing the line

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The sermon I preached this morning at the Deer Isle/Sunset Congregational Church, UCC …

Were you listening on Thursday? Did you listen as Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, providing her account of being sexually assaulted at age fifteen by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh? Did you listen as he vehemently denied any participation in that assault or in any such behavior? Did you listen as senators from one side of the aisle and the other asked questions of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, or more accurately, made their own statements intended to score political points for their side and to humiliate the other?

If you did listen, or even if you just followed the story in the news, how did it make you feel?

I felt pain and sadness for Ms. Ford, for her and for any woman who might have to endure such brutish treatment. And I felt astonished and baffled by the absolute incongruity of what she said and what he said. They were not expressing differing takes on an ambiguous encounter. She said it absolutely happened and he said it absolutely did not. Somebody is telling the truth and somebody is not and that’s scary, because it means that either she is knowingly undermining a man’s reputation and threatening his career, or that he, instead of taking responsibility for his own mistakes, is covering over his guilt with bluster and unconscionable lies.

But what disturbed me most was the process itself: the attacks, the gamesmanship, the bitter partisan divide. The senators were focussed not on getting to the truth, but on winning the fight. It was all about winning sympathy, winning votes, showing strength, putting on a show, prevailing over … the enemy.

The Thursday hearings reflected once more the deep polarization in our society. The divide between Republican and Democrat, between left and right, between white and black, even between women and men, has become so wide and so deep it is hard to believe that there is any longer any core of commonly held values or first principles that keeps us together as Americans or even as human beings. We do not debate, we demonize. And even if our politicians do not really believe their opponents to be evil, they surely encourage their constituents to believe so.

What do we have to say to all this? Do we have something to say? Do we have something to say as Christians, as followers of Jesus? Do we have something to show, by our own words, by our own attitudes, by our own behavior? When we say, “The peace of Christ be with you,” who is you?

Let’s play a little word game. It’s kind of like word association, where I say a word and you say the first word that comes to mind, only in this case, I will say a word and I want you to say ”good” if you think it’s a good word or “bad” if you think it’s a bad word.
For example if I say “peace,” you would say … “good.” Or if I say “cruelty,” you would say … “bad.”

Hate …

Love …

Justice …

Favoritism …

Forgiving …

Judgmental …

Blueberries …

Lima beans …

Evangelical …

Pentecostal …

Baptist …

Roman Catholic …

Where do you draw the line? Whom do you consider part of your group?

John was clear: “He doesn’t belong to our group.” He was not asking Jesus a question, but proudly reporting the action they had taken on his behalf. “We told him to stop … because he doesn’t belong to our group!” He doesn’t belong to our group. He doesn’t belong.

How do you think they defined “our” group? The band of followers traveling with Jesus? Those who had listened to him and watched him and eaten with him and slept beside him day after day? Those whom he had called and invited to follow? The chosen ones? “Our” group?

How did Jesus define “our” group? “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Whoever does not separate themselves from us, whoever does not make us the enemy, is for us, part of us, part of our group. They must draw the line, not us.

How do you define “our” group? Where do you draw the line? The question matters because if we cannot live in peace with each other, with brothers and sisters who call themselves too by Jesus’ name — if we draw a sharp line between “our” group and “their” group, between us and them — then what hope is there for making peace in the world??
But look at us! Evangelicals, progressives, soul-winners, justice-seekers, left, right, those who like everything done decently and in order, and those who want the Spirit to move. Isn’t the church of Jesus Christ on this earth today as partisan, as parochial, as polarized, as bitterly divided against itself, as everybody else? Do we have anything to say? Do we have anything to show?

It has been my personal mission throughout my ministry to try to bridge this divide. This mission is born out of my own history, my own experience of Jesus: raised in an evangelical home, taught early to love Jesus with all my heart and soul and strength, with everything I am and everything I have, choosing to be ordained in the United Church of Christ, not raised in it, but choosing it, because of its emphasis on bringing people together, because of its commitment not to following tradition, but to following Jesus, because of its urgency not just to talk about faith, but to live it. I was and am an evangelical Christian gladly serving in the most liberal of denominations.

But I hate labels! What purpose does a label serve except to draw a line? I am … a follower of Jesus, no more, no less. I appreciate the evangelical church at its best: passionate in faith, loving God with heart, worshipping with passion. And I appreciate the progressive church at its best: putting love in action, opening wide the arms of love, offering freely the embrace of God’s grace — “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here!” And I pray as Jesus prayed, that they may be one, that they may learn to appreciate each other, learn from each other, love each other, be the church together.

But that prayer is getting harder and harder to pray, and the work of bridging the divide harder and harder to do. The evangelical church of my youth is not the evangelical church of today which has taken a hard turn to the right, wrapping itself in a new phariseeism, seemingly losing the message of God astonishing grace along the way, defining very precisely who is in and who is out, who is “us” and who is “them.” But the progressive church can be just as harsh, just as judgmental, just as eager to make sure you know that “those” people who call themselves Christians are NOT part of our group.

During my lifetime the dreams of ecumenism, of a worldwide church coming together, have been replaced by the reality of an increasingly divided church, divided not so much by faith itself, but by allowing itself to be co-opted by one political agenda or another.

It is hard work to bring the church together, but we must try, mustn’t we? Listen to Jesus. If lines are to be drawn, let them draw the line. You must not be the cause of division. Or as Paul put it in one of his letters: “Do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everybody.”

Do your part! Don’t draw lines! They may draw a line between you and them, but you must make sure you draw not a line, but a circle, a circle large enough to include them, and your love, your willingness to listen, your readiness to see what is good in them, may make peace.

“That they may be one.” Jesus’ prayer and the motto of the United Church of Christ. His desire, our mission.

We are not celebrating communion this morning, but know that every time we do, we embody Jesus’ prayer. When we come to the table, what do we celebrate, what do we remember, what brings us together? Jesus, only Jesus. Jesus who with his own body broke down the walls that divide us. Jesus who invites all without condition to come. It is not our table, not the table of this church, not the table of the United Church of Christ, but Christ’s table, Christ’s table where all are welcome.

We come to the table to be joined, body and soul, to him, and by being joined to him being joined to each other, body and soul. When we eat and drink together, we are made to be sisters and brothers, sisters and brothers to each other, and sisters and brothers to all who share this meal, wherever and however.

In the words of our church’s constitution: “The United Church of Christ acknowledges as its sole head, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior. It acknowledges as kindred in Christ all who share in this confession.” Kindred in Christ, sisters and brothers, alike bearing Jesus’ name, made one in him, made one by him.

We don’t have to make the oneness, we just have to live it!

We don’t make the peace, we simply offer it. The peace of Christ be with you.

a safer world

a safer world

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“The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
(Donald Trump in a Dec. 22, 2016 tweet)

This seems to me to be akin to saying: “We must pour more gasoline on the fire that threatens to consume us all until the world learns how to put out fires.” You don’t make the world a safer place by making it more dangerous. You don’t protect the people — your own people or anybody else — by exposing them to greater risk.

“I am the first one that would like to see nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall behind any country even if it’s a friendly country. We’re never going to fall behind on nuclear power.”
(Donald Trump in a February 23, 2017 interview)

Again, the statement is self-defeating. If it is a inviolable maxim that “we’re never going to fall behind,” then the wish “to see nobody have nukes” is an empty and meaningless and disingenuous desire. Peace, real peace, always requires sacrifice. Jesus showed the way. The unwillingness to sacrifice, the unwillingness to love an enemy — where love means the readiness to trust, or even the readiness to risk betrayed trust for the possibility of a better end for both you and your enemy — that unwillingness guarantees perpetual mistrust, perpetual conflict, the certainty of death.

Were it not for Jesus, that would be our destiny, the destiny of all of us, the destiny of the human race — certain death. But Jesus lives and we live, to live for Jesus, by choosing his way. If the world has hope, this is it: that we will choose another way, not the way of Mutual Assured Destruction (MADness!), but the way of disarming, disarming both our arsenals and our hatreds.

No path to peace can work unless it is a path we all walk together. “Never going to fall behind” is not that path, because if we all walk it ……

responding to terror

responding to terror

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If this is indeed a spiritual war, as I believe it is — not Christianity vs. Islam — but the way of peace vs. the way of violence, it must be fought, and may only be won, with spiritual “weapons:” prayer, steady resolve, unflagging attempts at reconciliation, refusal to let fear or grief, as real as they may be, diminish our hope or our joy. We will win, the earth will win, not by annihilating the enemy, but by loving the enemy, not by making war, but by making something beautiful of our selves and our world.

Answering violence with violence may make small gains and win some short-term sense of security, but in the long run, this security is illusory, and the only winner is violence itself and all of us are the losers.

Is this way expedient? Does it pass the common sense test? No … but common sense and expediency are never the arbiters of what is right. Let’s not be stronger, but wiser … and better.

everyone loves a parade

everyone loves a parade

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Last Friday evening, I rode in a parade through the streets of downtown Waterloo. I saw some of you along the route: Lee Jensen and all the Prescotts, Kurt Kaliban, and Grant and Klara Hornung. It was a beautiful early summer evening, a great night for a parade.

It was, of course, the My Waterloo Days parade. I rode in a black Toyota convertible with Frieda and Anna Mae Weems, invited to join them as a board member of the Cedar Valley Civil Rights Peace Walk Memorial Committee. This committee exists to promote the development of a Peace Walk memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington Park, to commemorate Dr. King’s visit to Waterloo in 1959 and to serve as a symbol of our community’s commitment to peace in the midst of an often fragmented and divisive society.

Thousands of Waterloo’s residents lined the streets of the parade route, watching and waving and cheering, and it was a thrill for us in the car, having the advantage of moving among all of them, to appreciate the scope and diversity of the crowd. We have a beautiful city! We are an emblem, a case in point, of the melting pot that is our nation. The parade brought together, side-by-side, rich and poor, mayors and street people, young children and old men, African-Americans and Bosnians and Africans and Hispanics and European-Americans. For a few moments, we existed, not in our isolated and separated neighborhoods and working places, but together, all of us sharing a parade, all of us sharing this beautiful summer evening.

It was a glimpse of what we are, as a community, as a people, a glimpse that convinces me all the more of the appropriate purpose of a memorial, a peace memorial to Martin Luther King, and of the honor it would be to have it here, in our neighborhood. Don Damon said he saw me that night in a TV report about the parade. He scolded me because I wasn’t smiling. Sorry, Don! But I am smiling now as I think about that parade and about all the people, all God’s beautiful children, I saw along the way …

i applaud jimmy carter

i applaud jimmy carter

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I applaud Jimmy Carter for his courage, for engaging the leadership of Hamas in dialogue, for searching out any avenues for moving the peace process forward.

He has been criticized for meeting at all with Khalid Meshaal, by both the Bush administration and the Democratic presidential candidates. Dialogue should be absolutely contingent, they argue, on Hamas’ recognition of Israel and renunciation of violence. But it seems to me if the goal of a peace process is made a precondition to dialogue, then the process will surely go where it has always gone … nowhere.

Start talking! Explore options! Get the people who have a stake in the process — all the people who have a stake in the process — to start talking … and listening. The alternative is to draw lines in the sand (on both sides) and stake out intransigent positions (on both sides) and continue to be mired in the cycle of violence and misery that has plagued the peoples who live on this land for generation after generation after generation.

peace on earth

peace on earth

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Rachel SimonsRachel Simons lives in Galati, Romania, a field worker with Word Made Flesh, an Christian organization committed to “serving Jesus among the poorest of the poor.” She works with Galati’s street children, providing them educational and recreational and spiritual programs, and interacting with them on a daily basis in their own context on the streets.

The following is taken from one of her recent prayer letters:

… around the holidays I constantly run into children begging outside of restaurants, shopping malls, supermarkets and at stop-lights. They know that people tend to give more in December, so they bear the cold, stomp their feet to keep from freezing, and stand for hours outside of places that attract shoppers.

The weight of poverty is felt so deeply this time of year, and the lines are drawn between those who can shop and those who are left on the margins, outside the window looking in. Yesterday as I waited at the bus stop in below freezing weather, I watched some children I know doing their dance outside the pastry shop door … dancing to keep their feet from freezing. One of the boys had courage to step inside the door for a few brief moments of warmth before getting scolded to “keep out!” … Please pray for those who are marginalized and left out. Pray for God’s kingdom of peace and equity to come on earth as it is in heaven.

When people like Rachel have a heart for the “poorest of the poor,” not just generally, but for particular children and women and men they know by name — when they see them and love them and pray for them and choose to be with them — then God’s peace has already come on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is indeed among us!

To learn more about Rachel’s ministry in Galati and about the global ministries of Word Made Flesh, check out the Word Made Flesh website.