PENTECOST SUNDAY

Genesis 11:1-9

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Acts 2:1-21

John 14:8-17; 25-27

Prayer of the Day: God our creator, the resurrection of your Son offers life to all the peoples of earth. By your Holy Spirit, kindle in us the fire of your love, empowering our lives for service and our tongues for praise, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. John 14:26.

Over the years I have often been accused of being a “liberal” or a “conservative” or asked to declare myself one or the other. I hesitate to respond to such queries or accusations and often find myself equivocating. That isn’t because I am afraid to own up to my convictions. It is more that I feel as though I am being asked to sign a blank check. I am not sure those terms mean much of anything anymore. They are more tribal identifiers than descriptions of what a given person believes. People who press these questions are usually asking, “Are you in my tribe?” “Are you one of my people?” “Are you on my side.” I cannot honestly say that I am conservative or liberal when so confronted because I don’t know exactly what I am signing on to. There was a time, of course, when the terms “liberal” and “conservative” actually had content. Furthermore, they were not mutually exclusive. If I am allowed to return to what conservatism and liberalism actually mean, I am probably both in roughly equal parts .

Literally speaking, a conservative is one who desires to conserve. To be conservative is to believe that what has happened in the past is worth remembering. What we have learned in the past is worth preserving. Because I am conservative in this sense, I continue to consult with the likes of Ignatius of Antioch, Athanasius, Augustine of Hippo, Irenaeus of Lyons, Ignatius of Antioch and the other women and men who throughout the ages have reflected deeply on and articulated our faith. I believe their insights are as valuable and important today as ever. Because I am conservative, I believe the ecumenical creeds should be a prominent part of every worship service. They reflect centuries of the church’s best thinking about the scriptures’ testimony to the God we worship. As a conservative, I favor hymns, liturgy and music that are deeply layered, nuanced and have stood the test of time. I should add that I am not overly concerned about whether a first time visitor to my church can easily understand our worship. Any faith that can be sized up in an hour’s time probably isn’t worth having. I care less about what is relevant and more about what is and always has been true, beautiful and good. Not everything that is trending on Google is worthy of one’s attention. To be conservative is to believe in the Holy Spirit and be confident that the Spirit continues to remind us through centuries of testimony what Jesus has said and done.

By contrast, to be liberal is to be generous and, in particular, generous in one’s understanding of all points of view. It is to recognize that, being finite, we each occupy a unique space in history, a particular cultural milieu and imbedded biases that govern our thinking. I am liberal because, though I affirm the canonical scriptures as the source and norm of the church’s faith and life, I recognize that they are not the sole source of truth. Because I agree with Saint Augustine’s affirmation that truth exists, that it is knowable, that our senses are capable of perceiving it and our minds are capable of understanding, I welcome scientific discoveries. I am not threatened when they challenge established church dogma, but rather welcome such instances as opportunities to think more deeply about the meaning of our faith and its implications. Liberals do not see the creeds as boxes neatly containing the sum of all truth, but rather as portholes through which we gaze at a mystery finally beyond understanding. To be liberal is to recognize that, however much we might admire and learn from great teachers and theologians of the past, we also acknowledge their shortcomings, blind spots and biases. To be liberal is to welcome the testimony of persons historically excluded from the church’s moral and theological deliberations, recognizing that they are essential in assisting us to repent of our sins, correct our erroneous views and deepen our understanding of the good news that is Jesus. In short, to be liberal is to believe in the Holy Spirit and that the Spirit is still calling us to greater faithfulness through the testimony of contemporary prophets, preachers and teachers.

Jesus tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything, which means that they do not yet know everything-any more than we do. If the church really were in possession of the whole truth, there would be no need for the Spirit. As it is, “we see in a mirror dimly” and “know only in part.” I Corinthians 13:12. We need the Spirit to guide us into “all the truth.” John 16:13. There is no inconsistency between learning from teachers of the past and honoring our traditions on the one hand, and openness to the prophetic voices addressing us today, often from those historically neglected or rejected, on the other. Though it works through humanly constructed institutions and agencies, Saint Paul reminds us that the church is a body-The Body of Christ. It is organic, not inert; evolving, not static; living, not dead. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8. No such guarantee is made regarding the church!

Here is a poem by Wendy Videlock that might well serve as a Pentecost prayer for the church.

Change

Change is the new,

improved

word for god,

lovely enough

to raise a song

or implicate

a sea of wrongs,

mighty enough,

like other gods,

to shelter,

bring together,

and estrange us.

Please, god,

we seem to say,

change us.

Source: Poetry (January 2009). Wendy Videlock is a writer, visual artist, teacher, and a life-long student of the world.  She lives in Palisade, Colorado. Her books include Nevertheless (San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2011), Slingshots & Love Plums (San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2015), The Dark Gnu (San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2013), and a chapbook, What’s That Supposed to Mean (New York, NY: EXOT Books, 2010). You can read more about Wendy Videlock and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 16:16-34

Psalm 97

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

John 17:20-26

Prayer of the Day: O God, form the minds of your faithful people into your one will. Make us love what you command and desire what you promise, that, amid all the changes of this world, our hearts may be fixed where true joy is found, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:21-23.  

Jesus prays that his disciples will be one. He would have his church prefigure what God intends for all people, nations and tribes. The day will come when “God is all in all.” I Corinthians 15:28. God smiles at the border walls, frontiers and barbed wire we erect to protect our sovereignty-because God is thinking of how much fun it will be to knock them down. Those who cry “America first,” and all others throughout history who have pounded their chests boasting of their empires, most of which are now relics of past history, are living in the past. Disciples of Jesus are called to live in God’s future where there is but one Sovereign and one kingdom encompassing all peoples of every nation, tribe and tongue.

Of course, that does not comport with the church as we know it. The “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” is as much an article of faith as the Incarnation and the Resurrection. What we see is a church that has been riven with divisions from its inception. We are divided on matters of doctrine. We are divided by nationalist loyalties that, sadly, are larger than our loyalty to Jesus. We are divided by the fault lines of class distinctions, disparity of wealth and racial identity. We have allowed these differences to become larger than what should be our common commitment to Jesus. Instead of a counter-cultural alternative to human life as it is lived under the worldly machinery of violence and oppression, the church is often simply a microcosm of that world.  

While I lament this state of affairs, I have to confess that I am part of the problem. There are plenty of Christians with whom I have no desire to be one. I don’t want to be associated with a community of faith that rejects my daughter’s ministry because she is a woman. I don’t want to be one with a community of faith that rejects the families of my LGBTQ+ friends and family. I don’t want to waste my breath trying to talk to Christian communities that swallow hook, line and sinker the crackpot conspiracy theories churned out by right wing crazies. It is hard enough maintaining a semblance of unity among people whose understanding of the Christian faith is roughly the same as my own. I am part of a community that has struggled and still struggles with accepting the ministry of women, welcoming gay, lesbian, transgender and nonbinary folk and recognizing the need for dismantling white supremacy. I have no desire to take any backward steps in order to refight those battles all over again, especially when we still have so much further to go. The advice of Anita from West Side Story is appealing to me: “stick to your own kind.”

But Jesus, not Anita, is Lord of the Church. His prayer that we might all be “perfectly one” controls, unappealing as it may be to my tastes. That means we, that is, I have to try overcoming our divisions. To be perfectly honest, though, I don’t even know how to begin this task. I Know that trying to conduct a dialogue along the contours of our differences is unlikely to be productive. Nothing either of us has to say is likely to move us from our entrenched positions. We have reached a degree of polarization in which we find ourselves in tribes, like minded in groups insulated from one another and receiving our news, getting our socialization and obtaining religious training from completely different sources. We cannot even agree on common facts, much less find common ground.   

Perhaps, then, at least when it comes to dialogue, we need to focus less on issues and more on the individuals with whom we speak. Maybe we need to adopt a more inquisitive and less apologetic posture. Instead of responding to an argument with a counter-argument, we might try asking, “how did you come to that belief?” As a good friend often reminds me, no one is ever only one thing. There is a story that goes with each person. There are events, traumas, triumphs and failures, fears and hopes that bring us all to where we find ourselves. And somehow, all of us who bear the name “Christian” find ourselves associated with Jesus of Nazareth. If there really is a way forward to unity for this fractured mosaic of institutions, gatherings and individuals we claim to be Christ’s body, then it must be found in our common humanity where we encounter the Word made flesh and try to make sense of him.

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that differences can be swept under the carpet or that some “middle ground” can be found. We may not be capable of healing our rifts. But by listening, by learning one another’s stories, by opening our hearts to one another, we give the Holy Spirit an opening. And once the “God factor,” is introduced into the equation, who can predict what the outcome will be?

Here is a peom by Emiy Dickenson describing the way we might begin to dialogue toward oneness within the Body of Christ.

Tell all the Truth, but tell it Slant

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, (c. 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; edited by Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.) Emily Dickinson (1830-1866) is indisputably one of America’s greatest and most original poets. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, she attended a one-room primary school in that town and went on to Amherst Academy, the school out of which Amherst College grew. In the fall of 1847 Dickinson entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary where students were divided into three categories: those who were “established Christians,” those who “expressed hope,” and those who were “without hope.” Emily, along with thirty other classmates, found herself in the latter category. Though often characterized a “recluse,” Dickinson kept up with numerous correspondents, family members and teachers throughout her lifetime. You can find out more about Emily Dickinson and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 16:9-15

Psalm 67

Revelation 21:10, 22—22:5

John 14:23-29

Prayer of the Day: Bountiful God, you gather your people into your realm, and you promise us food from your tree of life. Nourish us with your word, that empowered by your Spirit we may love one another and the world you have made, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.” John 14:28-29.

The Feast of the Ascension is, alas, one of those unmovable observances, meaning that, unless it falls on a Sunday, it gets lost somewhere during the last couple of weeks of Easter. That is a shame. The ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God the Father is a central feature of our creeds and crucial part of the gospel narrative. This event establishes Jesus’ faithful life, obedient death and glorious resurrection as a truly cosmic event. This Jesus is shown to be that word “upholding the universe.” Hebrews 1:3. He is the one “for whom and by whom all things exist.” Hebrews 2:10. “In him,” says Saint Paul, “all things hold together.” Colossians 1:17. Through Jesus God works “to reconcile to himself all things.” Colossians 1:19-20. As the words of a recent hymn proclaim, “Christ is alive, no longer bound to distant years in Palestine; but saving, healing here and now, and touching every place and time.” “Christ is Alive! Let Christians Sing,” Brian A. Wren (pub. by Hope Publishing Co. c. 1975) Hymn # 389 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, (c. 2006 by Augsburg Fortress Publishers). Jesus, we must be clear, is not anybody’s “personal savior.” He is the savior of the world. The church is not the privileged and exclusive owner of salvation. It is the people entrusted with announcing it and testifying to it.

This word comes at a time when the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. The brutal mass killing this week in Buffalo, New York has exposed once again the ugly face of white supremacy that is now the dominant unifying principle in one of our two major political parties. We find ourselves teetering on the brink of world war between nuclear powers. Our best scientists world-wide are warning us that we are on a trajectory of ecological ruin. Against this grim backdrop of disintegration, the ascension narrative reminds us that the world, indeed, the universe is held to together by God’s Incarnate Word. The nail pierced arms of Jesus hold God’s beloved world together against all the forces threatening to tear it apart. Whatever evil we might do-and we can do plenty-we cannot break God’s loving embrace of all God has made.

Our lesson from Revelation rounds out the Ascension witness in its graphic visual imagery of the consummation of the age. The world spoken into existence by God’s word “Let there be…” continues by the Spirit’s animation and is guided by God the Father’s providential grace toward the eternal embrace of Trinitarian love.

To say that Jesus is at God’s right hand is to say that Jesus is now everywhere. He is not gone, but more intensely present than ever before. Whatever God does is done in and through Jesus. That is to say, we can no longer speak of God apart from God’s Son or speak of God’s acts apart from reference to Jesus. For disciples of Jesus, every effort to understand God prior to, after or without Jesus ends in idolatry. That is why, when a disciple of Jesus picks up the Bible, the disciple reads every word through the lens of Jesus, allowing nothing “to draw our eyes away from him.”

Here’s a poem by Joyce Hernandez speaking to the narrative of the Ascension.

When Jesus early rose and breathed
The pungent air of new-dug earth,
Passed the stone, and passed the flesh,
Passed the mourners of his death,
(and left them dazed, but following)
He rose with such a limpid flight
As wind or wings could only clutter,
And left no scratches on the world,
No broken twig or parted cloud,
To draw our eyes away from him.

(c. 1972 by Joyce Hernandez) Joyce Hernandez is a teacher, nurse and poet living in Yakima, Washington. Her publications include The Bone Woman Poems (c. 2009, pub. by Allied Arts and Minuteman Press). She is also, coincidentally, my sister.

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 11:1-18

Psalm 148

Revelation 21:1-6

John 13:31-35

Prayer of the Day: O Lord God, you teach us that without love, our actions gain nothing. Pour into our hearts your most excellent gift of love, that, made alive by your Spirit, we may know goodness and peace, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35.

Anyone familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures knows that the commandment to love is not new. It is a central tenant of the Torah. Leviticus 19:18. Moreover, as illustrated in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the commandment applies as much to the stranger, the foreigner and the outsider as it does among God’s chosen people. Leviticus 19:33-34. Such love is not to be construed as mere sentiment or as some unachievable ideal. It is central to human thriving. As the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning observes, “[w]e cannot live, except thus mutually [w]e alternate.” The commandment to love is “new” only in the sense that it was actualized in human flesh within time and space by the Incarnate One. Henceforth, it cannot be said that divine love is humanly impossible.

But it’s damned hard. For one thing, love is dangerous. It got Jesus killed. Jesus warns us that the same fate may well await those who follow in his footsteps. John 15:18-20. Furthermore, even when love is not lethal, it can hurt like nothing else. Nobody is capable of wounding me like those I most love. A stranger can insult me, criticize me and call me all manner of demeaning names and it won’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. But when someone I trust betrays me, someone I admire criticizes me, someone I care deeply about turns away from me-that hurts. Perhaps that is why appeals to blood, soil, race and nation are so appealing to so many. Maybe that is why remarks such as “charity begins at home” resonate with us. By keeping the circle about those we love and trust small and well defined, we reduce the chance of getting hurt.

For most of us disciples, love does not take the shape of martyrdom in terms of a violent death. It is more like being nibbled to death by ducks. Church leaders, who thought they were agreeing to a three year term on the council, find out instead that they have been sentenced to life without parole when no one steps forward to take their place when the term ends. And for all that, they frequently receive more criticism than praise for their sacrifice. There are plenty of Church musicians who seldom know a Sunday when someone doesn’t complain about the choir anthem or which hymns are or are not being sung. There are pastors who find themselves held personally responsible for declining membership, sermons that rub people the wrong way and decisions of their national church over which they have little control. And of course, there is no shortage of stories about people who have been judged, rejected and deeply wounded by the words and actions of church people. Church is not for the faint of heart. I can understand why so many people leave it in disgust. Churches are typically not communities in which you find the kind of love Jesus is speaking about.

But the church is not the place you come to find love. It’s the place you come to learn love. You can’t learn to love people different than yourself if you surround yourself with people like you. You can’t learn forgiveness if you surround yourself with people who don’t offend you. You can’t learn to love your enemies if you insist on surrounding yourself with friends. So if you are looking to find in the church the loving, accepting and affirming family you never had; or if you are looking to find in the church a safe place where you can’t get hurt, you are bound to be disappointed. The church has never been such a place. It is, instead, a place where people chosen by Jesus are brought together. They might not be people who like each other. They might not be people who agree with one another. They might not be shining examples of kindness, compassion and dedication to justice. But if we believe what Jesus is telling us in John’s gospel, the church is made up of people chosen by him. John 15:16. That means, hard as it may be to swallow, everyone in every congregation is there because Jesus called them. Everyone in my congregation has something to teach me that I cannot learn from anyone else.

Once again, I understand why people give up on the church. I have been tempted to give up on it more than once in my life. But just about the time I am ready to throw in the towel, something happens to change my mind. The meanest, most bigoted and seemingly heartless person in the congregation knocks my socks off with a selfless act of heroism, courage and kindness. A congregation hopelessly turned in upon itself discovers a new purpose and is renewed by responding to a critical need in its neighborhood. The young person I thought would never darken the church door again after confirmation expresses an interest in ministry. Somebody tells me about how something I said or did that I cannot even remember inspired them in a transformative way. These things don’t happen very often. But they happen just often enough to convince me that the love released into the world through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is real and active in the church.

Here is the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning to which I alluded above.

Love

We cannot live, except thus mutually

We alternate, aware or unaware,

The reflex act of life: and when we bear

Our virtue onward most impulsively,

Most full of invocation, and to be

Most instantly compellant, certes, there

We live most life, whoever breathes most air

And counts his dying years by sun and sea.

But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth

Throw out her full force on another soul,

The conscience and the concentration both

Make mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole

And aim consummated, is Love in sooth,

As nature’s magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.

Source: This poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning is in the public domain. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) was held in high regard throughout her lifetime surpassing nearly all other female poets of the English speaking world eclipsing even the work of her poet husband, Robert Browning. She had a formative influence upon American poet, Emily Dickinson who hung her portrait in her bedroom. Browning was highly skilled in multiple languages reading voraciously the Greek and Latin classics as well as the Hebrew Scriptures. Though the beneficiary of a privileged upbringing, she was a passionate advocate for the oppressed on the issues of slavery, child labor and the exploitation of colonized peoples. You can read more about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 9:36-43

Psalm 23

Revelation 7:9-17

John 10:22-30

Prayer of the Day: O God of peace, you brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep. By the blood of your eternal covenant, make us complete in everything good that we may do your will, and work among us all that is well-pleasing in your sight, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Revelation 7:9-10.

Saint Paul reminds Timothy that “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” II Timothy 3:16-17. Yet in every age, particular scriptures percolate up to address with new urgency the unique circumstances of the times. I can think of fewer passages than this speaking with greater clarity to the oneness of the human family and God’s desire to unite that family as one holy people without regard to “nation, tribe, people or language.” Furthermore, I can think of no period in my lifetime when that message needs to be heard more than the last decade over which we have witnessed in our own country and throughout the world a rising tide of nationalist, populist and racist sentiment often advancing under the banner of Christianity. Under these circumstances, says the Lutheran World Federation in its introductory statement to a collection of thoughtful essays on this subject, “[c]hurches are called to reflect more deeply on their public role in view of populist exclusionary policies. In a situation where populist movements misappropriate Christian rhetoric to justify their aspirations, churches cannot remain silent, but need to resist exclusionary strategies.” Introduction by Eva Harasta and Simone Sinn to Resisting Exclusion: Global Theological Responses to Populism, (pub. by Evangelische Verlangsanstalt GmbH, Leipzig, Germany, under the auspices of The Lutheran World Federation) p. 11.

Of course, it is hard to “resist exclusionary strategies” when you are part of them. And it is hard to deny that Christians in the United States are neck deep in the politics of exclusion as anyone watching news clips from the January 6, 2021 insurrection can attest. Recall the flag at the head of the mob proclaiming “Jesus is my Savior and Trump is my president.” Recall the large wooden cross that stood near the gallows constructed for then vice president, Mike Pence. Recall Rev. Franklin Graham’s bold assertion that Donald Trump’s electoral victory in 2016 was by the will and act of God. Many of us would argue that this is not the Christianity we believe, teach and confess. But the public, particularly those people without much in the way of religious commitment or involvement, frequently do not recognize such fine distinctions. They see the symbols and rhetoric of our faith woven into the hateful ideology of Trumpism and draw the conclusion, quite reasonably, that the two are one. Moreover, as much as we mainline protestants talk the talk of inclusion, we are far from successful in walking the walk. We remain overwhelmingly “white.” Despite our acceptance of women as pastors and priests, these women continue to face obstacles of stubbornly patriarchal institutional frameworks. Though we claim on a national denominational level to welcome persons of all sexual identities, there remain many congregations that are far from welcoming. As long as these conditions persist, the credibility of our prophetic witness to God’s inclusive reign will suffer.

This Fourth Sunday in Easter has become known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” I am not sure whether that is so because the lectionary texts happen to focus on the theme of shepherds and sheep or whether the observance of the day dictated the texts. However one resolves this chicken/egg question, we are left with a day on which we are invited to consider what it means for Jesus to be our shepherd. That is the single most important question for disciples of Jesus. Yet much of what passes for Christianity these days has more to do with “culture war” issues than Jesus and his priorities. I doubt Jesus has any interest in bullying LGBTQ+ families into silence, banning books about slavery and Jim Crow in public schools so as not to hurt the feelings of white people, placing the bodies of women under state control or putting up plastic images of the holy family in the same public parks from which flesh and blood homeless people are chased away. Nor do I believe that congregations consisting in the main of straight, white, upper middle class Americans reflects the kind of Church Jesus had in mind when he sent his disciples to make disciples of all nations. The sad truth is that most of what passes for Christianity these days has little to do with Jesus.

But Jesus has his spokespeople-and they are not all in the church. I recently came across a website run by He Gets Us. I have no idea who these people are and cannot vouch for them except to say that they seem to “get” Jesus in a way that a lot of us in the church don’t. A message on their site states:

“Jesus understood what life was like for people in his day — especially for the marginalized. He was drawn to those on the fringes because he was one too: An immigrant. Homeless. Arrested. Bullied. Through it all, Jesus welcomed outcasts, stood up for women, hung out with troublemakers, even befriended enemies. He did it because of his radical love, empathy, and acceptance for all of us…Jesus’ radical compassion stands in stark contrast to all current hate and intolerance.”

The group claims not to be affiliated with any church or denomination, though it is the initiative of a charitable foundation controlled by the Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City. How passing strange it is that we need a group outside the church to clarify for the world who Jesus is. Have we really gotten Jesus so terribly wrong that he can no longer be recognized among us? Has the cross become so empty of meaning that it can be hijacked by racist mobs? Has the Bible become no more than a rabbit foot for authoritarian leaders exploit for photo opps? Is Jesus nothing more than the embodiment of white American middle class respectability? These are not rhetorical questions, nor are they of recent vintage. They are as old as Jesus’ query to his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” As Saint Peter learned, the answer cannot be given in a glib one line response. It must be revealed within communities for whom Jesus is Shepherd; communities that read the Bible through the prism of Jesus; communities in whom the mind of Christ is formed through worship, prayer, generosity and service; communities that understand themselves to be resident aliens with no true citizenship anywhere but under the reign of God Jesus proclaims; communities that know the only way to serve God is to serve, rescue, heal, advocate for and stand with those deemed “least” among the human family.

Here is a poem by Maya Angelou that speaks of what disciples of Jesus recognize as the reign of God and the way along which the Good Shepherd would lead us.

A Brave and Startling Truth

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

Source: Maya Angelou, The Complete Poetry, (c. 2015 by the Estate of Maya Angelou; pub. by Penguin Random House, LLC.) Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was a multi-talented American poet, author, singer, dancer and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She is perhaps best known for her well known autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. The book earned her the National Book Award. Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2010. You can read more about Maya Angelou and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.