FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Isaiah 64:1-9

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

Prayer of the Day: Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. By your merciful protection waken us to the threatening dangers of our sins, and keep us blameless until the coming of your new day, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“[God] will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 1:8.

OK. It was cheesy, simplistic, inconsistent with astrophysics and woefully lacking in cinematic effects judged by today’s standards. But it was hopeful, idealistic and forward looking. I am speaking of the original Star Trek series that aired on NBC from 1966-1969. Its producer, Gene Roddenberry, managed to create a universe in which racial, ethnic and geopolitical strife had been overcome on a planet earth united and playing a leadership role within the fictional United Federation of Planets. There were, to be sure, continuing vestiges of prejudice to be addressed. In one episode, Captain Kirk must remind a crew member, suspicious Vulcan first officer Spack’s loyalty, that “bigotry will not be tolerated on this ship.” Yet even this testified to the show’s forward looking world view.  Yes, there were still sexist stereotypes, i.e., female officers attired in miniskirts and usually in subordinate positions. True, the twenty-third century communicators were clunkier than our 1990s flip phones, to say nothing of the smart phone. But the overall message still rings clear. The future lies in global unity, scientific inquiry and ever increasing understanding of the universe.   

Watching the re-runs today, it is hard for me to imagine this series catching on in today’s culture. Perhaps that is why the subsequent Star Trek series tended to be darker, more cynical and less hopeful. So far from a future characterized by a united globe pressing forward to encounter new civilizations where “no man has gone before,” ours is a world where, at home and abroad, the cries of “nation first” and anti-global sentiment are on the rise. Argentina is the latest nation to succumb to fascist populism, joining nations in eastern Europe. Fascism has largely taken over the Republican party[1] and appears poised to seize power in the upcoming election. The old gods of nation, race, blood and soil have all but swallowed up hope for a peaceful and united planet. Indeed, “globalism” is now the major hobgoblin of the populist right.

These fascist ideologues have one thing in common. They are all convinced that the future is in the past, a place in time when all was right with the world and to which we need somehow to get back. Call this “againism.” There was a time before LGBQT+ folk came out of the closet and ruined the institution of marriage; a time before black men forgot their place and started taking our jobs, filling up our television screens with their faces and started dating our women. There was a time when English was the only language you ever saw on a sign. There was a time when the way a man chose to discipline his family was his own damn business and the cops, school teachers and nosey social workers didn’t interfere. There was a time when women respected their men, dressed like women and stuck to the woman’s natural work of homemaking instead of trying to wear pants to a man. That golden age, that time when the country was great, has been stolen from us and we have to take it back. We have to make America great “again.” If you have any doubts about precisely what that means, the leader of the Republican party made that very clear to us on his media platform, Truth Social:  It means to “root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”[2] Only then will America be great-again.

Againism is, of course, a dead end. A future in some imaginary past is not in the cards. It won’t happen. There are too many of us vermin to extinguish, no matter how many of us are killed in the service of futile efforts to get back to “again.” Adolph Hitler couldn’t bring back the mythical golden age of Aryan supremacy and neither can that sad little Mussolini wannabe down in Mar-a-Lago. That might seem like cold comfort and, by itself, it is. But there is more. There is a future. It is not in the past and it belongs to the God who raised Jesus from death. Unlike the “againist” longing for a purified nation, untainted blood and changeless cultural norms which is so lame and fragile that it must be defended by border walls, racial gerrymandering and the banning of books, God’s future is radically inclusive, culturally diverse and wide open:

“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!’
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,
‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’” Revelation 7:9-12

Hanging onto that vision of inclusiveness and global kinship is difficult in times like ours when it seems as though our world is dissolving into nationalism, tribalism and sectarian violence. It was no less so for Jesus’ disciples who weathered the final days of their nation’s occupation and brutal destruction. I can well understand their wanting Jesus to tell them “when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are to be accomplished?” Mark 13:4. But Jesus will not give them either a map or an itinerary. Not only will the temple of Jerusalem be destroyed, but there will be wars, rumors of war, earthquakes and famines. These events will convince many that the end must be near. They are mistaken. No one knows the “when.” Not even Jesus. Mark 13:32. What Jesus does know and what he tells his disciples is that there will be a long road of suffering during which they must bear witness to the just, gentle and peaceful reign of God he proclaims in the midst of rival kingdoms each bent on dominance and control. Those who cling to that vision, who endure to the end will be saved.

All of this might sound bleak, but there is more than a glimmer of good news in all of this. Jesus tells us that all of these dread events are not death throws, but birth pangs. God is at work forging a new creation in the midst of this troubled world. Just as God turned a violent, oppressive and cruel Egyptian empire into the womb within which the people of Israel were birthed and freed, just as Jesus’ death and resurrection transformed the Roman Empire’s symbol of terror into a sign of victory, so you can be sure that God will turn the violence of our nation’s and the world’s racism, xenophobia, patriarchy and homophobic violence into yet another demonstration of its utter impotence. That might take some time. But God has all eternity to work with.  

Ultimately, today’s gospel is, above all else, hopeful. I think that is the right note on which to enter the season of Advent. After all, the failed religion of “againism” is a religion of despair and desperation. It is a religion that lives in terror of the future and spends itself in a fruitless effort to keep it at bay. The good news Jesus brings assures us that the future is not to be regarded with dread, but embraced in hope, a hope enabling one to endure until it is finally realized in its fullness.

Here is a poem that speaks elequently of hope by Emily Dickenson. It sounds the hopeful note on which we ought to enter this new church year.

Hope is a Thing with Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

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.

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[1] I fear my Republican friends might take offense to this characterization of their party. Too bad. You have demonstrated again and again that, as much as you might loath Donald Trump, as long as the clear majority of your party supports him, you will support him also. With the exception of former New Jersey governor Chris Christi, every single Republican nominee pledged to support Donald Trump should he be nominated by their party-and to pardon him of every crime he might be found guilty in the unlikely event they themselves should be elected. If you haven’t the courage and initiative to fix up your home, don’t complain that people criticize you for living in a dump.   

[2] To be fair, Donald Trump’s campaign representative, Steven Cheung, pointed out that these remarks were not threatening in the least. Those who are concerned about Trump violently attacking his opponents are suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” What Trump really meant to say of his political opponents, says Cheung, was that “their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” Whew! I feel so much better now!

SUNDAY OF CHRIST THE KING

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm 95:1-7

Ephesians 1:15-23

Matthew 25:31-46

Prayer of the Day: O God of power and might, your Son shows us the way of service, and in him we inherit the riches of your grace. Give us the wisdom to know what is right and the strength to serve 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.

“Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

No, it doesn’t matter that the least happen to be “collateral damage” incurred while taking out a legitimate military target. It doesn’t matter that the least happen to be on death row for horrendous crimes committed against innocent people. It doesn’t matter that the least were sent to die for high sounding principles like “democracy,” “freedom,” or “national security.” It won’t do to protest that the poor are poor by reason of their own laziness, bad decisions and lack of initiative. There can be no distinction between the least on our side of the border and the least on the other. No one will be heard to argue that there was no room in the budget to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, care for the sick or assist the prisoner and that, of course, the deficit had to be reduced somehow. The nations, all the nations, will be judged under just one standard: how well or poorly they treated the least among us.

This parable of Jesus is just that, namely, a parable. Like all parables, its focus is not on some event in the the distant future. Instead, it directs the disciples to the way Jesus would have them live in the moment. It is, first and foremost, a reflection of the life Jesus lived in the shadow of political violence, imperial oppression and ruthless economic exploitation. It is a life that honors God’s priorities and takes the shape of the cross in a world whose priorities are entirely different. It is life grounded in God’s eternal priorities and in which Jesus invites his disciples to share.   

That brings me to a further point. The parable is directed to the disciples, those who have been called by grace, redeemed by grace and set apart by grace as witnesses to Jesus and the kingdom he proclaims. Theirs is the privilege of testifying, in deed as much as in word, to God’s priorities in the world. As it happens, God’s priorities are those persons deemed the lowest priority among us. Note well that in this parable of the final judgment nothing is said about how many times a person has been married or to whom, what their sexual orientation is or is not, whether any of them has ever had an abortion, what their race or nationality might be, whether they have the proper documentation to live where they are living, what their religious commitments are, whether they have a criminal record, how they voted in the last election or any of those other “culture war” obsessions that posses so much of the deviant, sick and sadly dominant strains of America Christianity. One can only conclude from Jesus’ parable that God does not give a flying fruitcake about any of that crap-and neither should his disciples.

What disciples do care about are the least among us. That includes the millions in this richest of nations living in poverty, food insecurity and without adequate medical care because that clown[1] show known as the U.S. Congress must balance the budget on their backs. It includes the children dying violent deaths daily in Gaza, South Sudan and Ukraine at the expense of nationalism at home and the national interests of superpowers abroad pouring money and weapons into these conflicts. It includes millions of kids in our broken foster care system. It includes millions of incarcerated persons who, if they ever gain release, will enter into a society that stigmatizes them in ways that practically ensures their failure to rebuild their lives. It includes millions living in refugee camps all over the world who are hated, feared and unwanted everywhere. Jesus assures us that these are God’s priorities. They should be the priorities of his disciples, his church.     

The Sunday of Christ the King brings the liturgical year to a fitting close. At the end of the day, we are reminded that we have one Sovereign to whom we pledge allegiance. Jesus stands with those deemed “least.” As he taught us, where he is, there should his servants be. John 12:26. During a senatorial debate in 2021, Senator Raphael Warnock proclaimed that he was a “Matthew 25 Christian.” I have heard others use that term also. Frankly, I was not aware that there was any other kind. Jesus was always crystal clear that the commandment to love God and neighbor was “the first and greatest.” Mark 12:29-31. He was clear in his teaching that treatment of all people in the way we would be treated constitutes the heart and soul of the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12. Thus, the parable of the judgment simply reinforces what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount and lived throughout his ministry. Loyalty to Jesus and submission to God’s gentle reign as it is revealed in his obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection trumps all other commitments.

In our American context, we are confronted with numerous ideologies cloaked under the sheep’s clothing of patriotism, morality and religion. Some of them come from the radical fringe, making their way into the mainstream of our politics and culture. Others are already deeply imbedded in American orthodoxy. They reflect priorities entirely different from those of God’s reign revealed in Jesus Christ. We live under a government promoting, implementing and enabling unjust, inhumane and cruel policies that have devastating impacts on the poorest, sickest, hungriest and most vulnerable among us and around the world. Faithfulness to Jesus is faithfulness to these victims of “our way of life.” If we are not Matthew 25 Christians, then we are simply not Christians.

Here is a poem by Gilbert K. Chesterton. It was set to music and included in the Lutheran Book of Worship published in 1978. For reasons I cannot fathom, it failed to make the cut for our subsequent hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship. That is unfortunate because I can hardly imagine a more appropriate hymn for the Sunday of Christ the King in this day and age.

O God of Earth and Altar

O God of Earth and Altar
Bow down and hear our cry
Our earthly rulers falter
Our people drift and die
The walls of gold entomb us
The swords of scorn divide
Take not thy thunder from us
But take away our pride

From all that terror teaches
From lies of tongue and pen
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men
From sale and profanation
Of honour and the sword
From sleep and from damnation
Deliver us, good lord

Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall
Bind all our lives together
Smite us and save us all
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith and free
Lift up a living nation
A single sword to thee

Source: Gilbert Kieth Chesterton (c. 1906), printed in the Lutheran Book of Worship (c. 1978 by Lutheran Church in America; The American Lutheran Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada; the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) Hymn No. 428. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist and literary/art critic. He was born in Campden Hill in Kensington, London. He is perhaps best known popularly for his creation of the character Father Brown, the priest-detective who appears in several of his short stores. The character has given rise to several adaptations for television in the United Kingdom and in the United States. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an orthodox Christian. Baptized and raised Anglican, Chesterton ultimately came to identify more with Catholicism, to which he finally converted. His literary works are laced with interchanges reflecting moral and religious themes. Perhaps his best known work of fiction is the clever and fast moving novel, The Man who was Thursday. Chesterton loved to debate and often engaged in friendly public disputes with such personages as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. Chesterton delivered a series of radio talks over the BBC, about forty per year, from 1932 until his death four years later.  Near the end of Chesterton’s life, Pope Pius XI invested him as Knight Commander with Star of the Papal Order of St Gregory the Great. The poem recited above was written by Chesterton in 1906. If you would like to take a listen to the hymn version, click on this link.

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[1] When I say clown, I am thinking Pennywise rather than Bozo.

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18

Psalm 90:1-12

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

Prayer of the Day: Righteous God, our merciful master, you own the earth and all its peoples, and you give us all that we have. Inspire us to serve you with justice and wisdom, and prepare us for the joy of the day of your coming, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“So teach us to count our days
   that we may gain a wise heart.” Psalm 90:12.

Counting our days is about the only way to acquire a “wise heart.” It has been said that we learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history. Those of us who are parents should understand that. We ache to see our children making the same mistakes, falling into the same traps and chasing the same illusory promises of happiness that entangled us in our younger days. We would like to warn them of their peril and so spare them the heartaches we endured. Perhaps we have tried. But they are convinced we don’t understand, that we can’t possibly know what they are going through, that we just “don’t get it.” They spurn the hard won wisdom we would share with them. I see their point. After all, we have left them a dying planet, a nonfunctioning government and a world on the verge of potentially catastrophic wars. And now we presume to wag our moralistic fingers in their faces and impart to them our wisdom? I can hear the collective younger generational sigh already: “Give me a break!”

The truth is, wisdom is the product of learning from mistakes. Where there is no freedom to make mistakes, there is little learning and no maturation of wisdom. That point is made with blunt clarity in a saucy little song written by Susan Gibson and made famous by the country western trio, The Chicks.[1] The song Wide Open Spaces reflects the feelings of a young woman leaving home to start a new life in an unidentified western place. It is a place with “wide open spaces” representing a plethora of possibilities, choices and paths. It is a place wide enough to allow for making “the big mistakes.” As the young woman is brimming with excitement and expectation, her parents express the fear and anxiety parents typically feel as they watch their young, inexperienced and vulnerable children venture out into what they know is a dangerous world. We remind our children to do the common sense things like “check the oil,” but the weightier lessons in love, moral responsibility and vocational direction can only be learned the way we learned them, that is, by experience. The kindest thing we can do for our children is give them enough space to make mistakes.

Jesus would have his disciples know that faith gives them the freedom to make mistakes. I believe that is what the parable of the talents in Sunday’s gospel is all about. We might be tempted to pity the poor fellow in the parable who hid his talent in the ground rather than investing it. He had so little to work with compared to his fellow servants. He was afraid of losing that with which he had been entrusted. How could he know that the years ahead would bring a bull market? What if the market had gone south and his fellow servants had lost everything? If that had been the case, he could proudly bring forth his talent and boast of his prudence and care-unlike his risk taking companions. The worst you can say about this poor fellow is that he was “risk averse.” Depending on the state of the economy, that could well be the best strategy. We might view him as simply a victim of market vagaries. But that is a misreading of the parable. Note well that the master does not commend the two servants who increased their holdings for their success and business acumen. Instead, he commends them for their faithfulness. Faithfulness is all that is required of the disciple. God will see to the success.

The servant who hid his master’s money in the ground says to his master, “I knew you to be a ‘harsh man’.” But was that really the case? The servant says, “I was afraid” and that says it all. Perhaps it is because he saw his master, and everything else for that matter, through the lens of fear that he viewed him as a punishing tyrant rather than one who had enough confidence in him to place his own money under his care. The servant was so afraid of making a mistake, so terrified of failing, so fearful of doing something wrong that he did not do anything at all.

Jesus would have us know that ours is a God who gives us plenty of “wide open spaces” to make the “big mistakes.” To be clear, this is not a license to be reckless and irresponsible. It is a recognition, however, that we are creatures who learn the meaning of friendship through disappointment and betrayal; we learn love through heartbreak; we learn about the beauty and complexity of our world by having our simplistic notions about it shattered again and again; we learn to know our God by discovering, through sometimes bitter experience, that we cannot make a mess of our lives bigger than God is able to clean up.

This is incredibly good news for people like me who are by nature “risk averse.” It is incredibly good news for college seniors who are beginning to wonder whether they chose the right major, the right career or the right job offer. It is good news for two people about to enter into a lifelong relationship-and sometimes wonder whether they are doing the right thing. It is good news for a church about to launch an untried program of mission and ministry. The worst that can happen is that you will make a mistake-which means you will have the opportunity to “gain a wise heart.”

Here is the text of the song Wide Open Spaces written by Susan Gibson and performed by the Chicks cited above:

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Who’s never left home? Who’s never struck out?
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out West
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She traveled this road as a child
Wide-eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons, she’ll take this test

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
She knows the high stakes

And as her folks drive away, her dad yells, “Check the oil!”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leavin’ my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks know

She needed wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes (wide open spaces)
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes (wide open spaces)

Source: Susan Gibson (c. Pie Eyed Groobee Music). Susan Gibson is a singer/song writer who works out of Wimberly Texas. She was born in Fridley, Minnesota. She has released six solo albums and was the lead singer for the country western band, The Groobees. You can read more about Susan Gibson and her music on her official website. The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Cicks) are an American country music band from Dallas. The band currently consists of Natalie Maines (lead vocals, guitar) and sisters Martie Maguire (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, guitar) and Emily Strayer (vocals, guitar, banjo, Dobro). The Chicks have won thirteen Grammy Awards. Days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Natalie Maines told a London audience that the Chicks did not endorse the war and were ashamed of President George W. Bush. The remarks triggered boycotts in the United States and a backlash from fans. Still the group’s popularity continued to grow. By July 2020 the Chicks had become the best-selling all-woman band and best-selling country group in the United States.

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[1] Formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, the group dropped the Dixie label following the murder of George Floyd and the civil rights demonstrations that followed.

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Amos 5:18-24

Psalm 70

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13

Prayer of the Day: O God of justice and love, you illumine our way through life with the words of your Son. Give us the light we need, and awaken us to the needs of others, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“But let justice roll down like waters,
   and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24.

More than half of U.S. adults believe the United States Constitution is inspired by God, according to a 2022 Faith in America survey released in March by Deseret News and Marist Poll. Even those who do not equate the document with holy writ still maintain that it represents America’s best hope for achieving and maintaining a just and righteous society. When I was admitted to the New Jersey State Bar and that of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, I took an oath to “defend the constitution.” Again, the underlying assumption was that, as the supreme law of the land, the constitution assures our liberties, equal treatment under the law and protection from government oppression. In fact, the constitution does no such thing.

Here are some facts about the constitution that cannot be gainsaid. First, it was a document drafted by wealthy white men. Second, the liberties it secured were principally for wealthy white men. The belief expressed in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” meant just that. All men-except slaves who were considered three fourths of a person and that only for determining the number of representatives allowed for each slaveholding state. Women were denied the right to vote in elections until a little more than a century ago. The personal and property rights of indigenous peoples were not included among “all men.” Slavery, patriarchy and genocide lived quite undisturbed under the constitution for centuries. The gains achieved in the areas of civil rights, equal treatment under the law and due process throughout American history have been won through political and legal battles by those determined to expand the scope of the constitution’s protections beyond those contemplated by the “Founding Fathers.” Those opposing them routinely invoked the constitution in opposition to these expansios of legal protection. Thus, when you hear people arguing that the constitution should be interpreted in accord with its “original intent,” they are simply saying that the constitution should be construed to protect the interest of wealthy, white men.

Do you wonder why the United States Congress cannot manage to do what churches, school boards and municipal townships do routinely every day, namely, pass a budget? Do you wonder why a single member of the Senate can hold up military promotions and paralyze whole sections of the defense department? Do you wonder why the majority of the populous favors stronger gun legislation, protection of abortion rights and universal health care, though none of these measures sands a snowball’s chance in hell of ever becoming law? Do you wonder why the people of the United States popularly elected Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, but got George Bush and Donald Trump instead? The answer is that our government was designed to work that way. Our government is designed to make change as difficult and burdensome as possible. A single senator can employ the filibuster to delay or prevent legislation altogether. The requirement that significant legislation needs a supermajority of the Senate paralyzes government when, as currently, both houses of congress are narrowly divided. The procedure for amending the constitution is cumbersome, making fundamental changes sought by a clear majority of the country’s population nearly impossible. In sum, the constitution has created a government that is anti-majoritarian and highly resistant to change. Who benefits most from suppressing change? People who enjoy privilege under the status quo, which are, you guessed it, wealthy, white men.

I am not simply dismissing the American experiment in democracy. I gladly acknowledge that our nation’s founders were brilliant thinkers and courageous leaders who broke new ground in the practice of government that, in turn, made way for unprecedented liberty, justice and opportunity for our nation and for countries throughout the world. For that we owe them a debt of gratitude. But we would be foolish to deny that they were nevertheless people of their age formed by patriarchal, class and white supremacist biases. We would be equally foolish to deny or ignore the ways in which those biases have been built into our system of government and continue to function oppressively. It is the job of prophets, such as our friend Amos, to expose the machinery of injustice in their social environments and, more importantly, to reveal God’s holy alternative, namely, to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

American mainline churches, such as my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, are typically long on preachy-screechy social statements condemning injustice and calling for reform, but short on reflecting or acting upon those same injustices within their own polity. That is because, historically, we were all founded and financed to a large degree by wealthy white men. The American church as a whole, in all of its diverse denominational forms, is but a social and political microcosm of the nation as a whole. It need not be so. While reshaping American culture might appear to be beyond our ability altogether, reshaping ourselves is clearly not. The Book of Acts gives us a model for what our life together in the Body of Christ might look like:

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” Acts 2:44-47.

I am not suggesting that congregations become communes. I maintain, however, that there is much we could do to create equity among pastors and congregations. For example, 20% of the pastors in my church are paid well below the church’s salary guidelines. This reflects, in turn, a substantial number of congregations unable to pay their pastors in accord with those guidelines. From a corporate standpoint, we might say, as did a member of our Board of Pensions two decades ago, that “there are congregations that need to come to grips with the fact that they can’t afford a pastor.” ELCA News, 3/17/2003. Saint Paul had a different view. When the Judean churches were experiencing famine, he spearheaded a drive to collect offerings from his churches throughout the Medetteranean basin to relieve those churches. As he explained it:

“I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.” II Corinthians 8:13-14.

I have served and been a member in small churches for all of my life. I know that, due to a number of factors, many of them are struggling to maintain themselves. I can testify, however, that they are lively, vibrant centers of discipleship and service to their communities. Determining that they are “not sustainable” in terms of what they are capable of paying their pastors and thus unfit for anything but dissolution and/or merger while their assets are absorbed by larger, richer and more “sustainable” congregations is not the way of the gospel. Saint Paul’s approach was precisely the opposite. The abundance of well endowed churches should be shared with those churches that are struggling-and their pastors. Not privilege or right of ownership, but equity within the Body of Christ should control.

Our churches also reflect the contours of our segregated society. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once observed, “11 o’clock in Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America.” Not surprisingly, the lion’s share of wealth, resources and opportunities are centered in white churches. There may not be much appetite in the U.S. Congress for considering reparations for these disparities. But there should be no such reluctance within the Body of Christ. I have suggested one way in which our churches might begin the work of reparations leading to genuine unity and reconciliation. See Open Letter to the ELCA Presiding Bishop and Synodical Bishops: A Modest Proposal for Reparational Tithe. Some synods of my church have taken on the important work of making available to persons of color the training, education and exposure to our ministries, thereby preparing them for future leadership. See Jehu Jones Mission-NJ Synod-ELCA. These measures might seem all too small. Still, we have to start somewhere.

Sometimes I think that we suffer from an acute failure of imagination. Nothing changes because we are convinced that nothing can change. We cannot imagine a world different from what we know. We cannot free ourselves from the cultural assumptions about national sovereignty, the sanctity of property rights, the limits of human nature and the necessity of violent state action to achieve peace that shape our world view. The New Testament church was unable to topple the Roman Empire and I doubt that the contemporary church is capable of dismantling single handedly the oppressive structures of oppression in the United States. But, like the ancient church, we can become communities where justice and righteousness are practiced, however imperfectly. I find inspiring communities such as the Bruderhof communities, Reba Place Fellowship and Koinonia Farm. These communities are not necessarily models for what every congregation can or should be. Nevertheless, they spark our imagination, challenge our jaded assumptions and enable us to glimpse in some small measure a day when “justice roll[s] down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Here is a poem by Langston Hughes which I believe expresses the kind of prophetic imagination capable of envisioning justice and righteous, the likes of which the prophet Amos proclaims.

Daybreak in Alabama

When I get to be a colored composer

I’m gonna write me some music about

Daybreak in Alabama

And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it

Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist

And falling out of heaven like soft dew

I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it

And the scent of pine needles

And the smell of red clay after rain

And long red necks

And poppy colored faces

And big brown arms

And the field daisy eyes

Of black and white black white black people

And I’m gonna put white hands

And black hands and brown and yellow hands

And red clay earth hands in it

Touching everybody with kind fingers

Touching each other natural as dew

In that dawn of music when I

Get to be a colored composer

And write about daybreak

In Alabama.

Source: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (c. 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, pub. by Random House, LLC, 1990). Langston Hughes was an important African American voice in the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s. Though well-educated and widely traveled, Hughes’ poetry never strayed far from his roots in the African American community. Early in his career, Hughes’ work was criticized by some African American intellectuals for portraying what they viewed as an unflattering representation of back life. In a response to these critics, Hughes replied, “I didn’t know the upper class Negroes well enough to write much about them. I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach. But they seemed to me good people, too.”  Today Langston Hughes is recognized globally as a towering literary figure of the 20^th Century. You can read more about Hughes and discover more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website (from which the above quote is taken).

ALL SAINTS SUNDAY

Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm 34:1-22

I John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you have knit your people together in one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us grace to follow your blessed saints in lives of faith and commitment, and to know the inexpressible joys you have prepared for those who love you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” I John 3:2.

Duck Creek Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in my now home town of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. It is situated at the intersection of Route 6 and Cahoon Hollow Road-just a long block from my street. The cemetery has been in use since the early 1700s and is the final resting place of many of Wellfleet’s early settlers, some of whom were Revolutionary War veterans. All of the stones and monuments are weathered and worn, some so thoroughly that the inscriptions have been altogether erased. Those remaining are, for the most part, terse. They give the names, dates of birth and death of those resting beneath them. Often they display a favorite bible verse or line of poetry. A few provide glimpse of the deceased’s story. For example, the stone pictured below of Elisha Higgins indicates that he died in a ship wreck. He was the son of Elisha and Rebecca Higgins. Dated 1830, the stone bears the following verse:

“My body in the wreck was found

And now lies buried beneath the ground.

From the raging sea my spirit did fly

To reign with God beyond the sky.”

The rest of his family is also buried in the vicinity.

Recently there has been some backlash against cemeteries. The cost of traditional burials has increased substantially over the years, leading many of us to seek less expensive alternatives, such as cremation. Some folks object to the inordinate waste of space for the dead when there is a critical shortage of affordable housing for the living.[1] There also seems to be a movement away from traditional funeral and burial rites. Many of my friends and family members are opting for scattering of their ashes over the ocean or at some place that is meaningful to them. Others prefer “green burials” in which bodies are returned to the earth without embalming to be naturally re-absorbed into the biosphere.

I do not wish to disparage anyone’s decisions in these matters. But my own preference is for burial on ground that has been sanctified for that purpose. I tend to agree that the cost of embalming, caskets and burial vaults is excessive and wasteful. For that reason, I plan to be cremated and to have my remains interred at the columbarium behind my church. There are two reasons for my decision: the communion of saints and the resurrection of the body. As to the first, we need a reminder that we present disciples of Jesus are but a tiny part of a great parade of saints through time. We need to be reminded that the walk of faith we take from cradle to grave has been well traveled by many millions who have lived faithfully and died well in the faith we confess. The graveyards surrounding churches that once commonly served as a sign, symbol and reminder of that reality have all but disappeared. Our columbarium and those of other churches built over the last decade seek, in part, to reclaim that symbolism.

Burial should also be a testimony to our faith in the resurrection of the body. The grave is not, as is often said in common parlance, “the final resting place.” To be sure, the human body finally does decompose and return to the earth from which it was made. To be sure, there comes a time when even the headstone forgets the name inscribed upon it. But our faith insists that there is One who does not forget. Resurrection faith insists that God is bringing the physical universe into something totally and radically new. Moreover, we believe that it is the will and purpose of God that we share in this “new heaven and new earth.” For that, we will need a body. Think of it: we experience everything through the bodily senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Our bodies are what differentiate us from one another and make us recognizable. For that reason, a body should be treated with reverence and respect in death. It should be planted in or on the earth with the same tenderness as one plants a seed, because that is, in effect, what we are doing in burial.

Cemeteries remind us that we are part of a larger narrative stretching back generations to the prophets and apostles of Holy Scripture. They remind us of who we are: “Beloved, we are God’s children now.” But they also direct our gaze forward. “Very truly, I tell you,” says Jesus, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12:24. As Paul points out, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.”  I Corinthians 15:36-38. The cemetery testifies to God’s assurance that, what in our little lives we can but begin, God will complete and weave into the fabric of a new creation. It is not a final resting place. It is ground in which we plant seeds of hope.

Here is a poem by Don Thompson giving voice to the evocative power of a cemetery.

Oak Grove Cemetery

Just enough rain an hour ago

to give the wispy dry grass some hope,

turning it green instantly.

This place has been abandoned,

the old faith overgrown, confused

by brambles,

and in these hard times,

its upkeep cut from the budget.

But we walk, soaked to the knees,

making our slow pilgrimage

among gravestones, speaking

blurred names back into the world.

Source: The Cortland Review, (# 66,2016) c. 2016 by Don Thompson. Don Thompson (b. 1942) is an American poet born in Bakersfield, California. He has lived in the southern San Joaquin Valley for most of his life. Thompson has published six books of poetry and was the recipient of the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize in 2008 for his book, Back Roads. He retired recently from a teaching position at a nearby prison. He and his wife, Chris, currently live on her family’s cotton farm. You can learn more about Don Thompson and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

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[1] It seems to me that the same argument could be made against public parks, flower gardens, playgrounds and green spaces. I am all for affordable housing, but I don’t believe it has to come at the expense of public space dedicated to enjoyment of nature, play or, for that matter, honoring the memory of our departed loved ones.