TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us your gift of faith, that, forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to what lies ahead, we may follow the way of your commandments and receive the crown of everlasting joy, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“For I know how many are your transgressions,
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
and push aside the needy in the gate.
Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time;
for it is an evil time.” Amos 5:12-13.
There are times when it is prudent to keep your mouth shut. That is what Dad told my Mom the day one of my relatives over for Thanksgiving dinner made a racist joke employing the “N” word. “We don’t talk about other people that way and we don’t use that word in this house,” she said. “Hey, just making a joke,” our visitor replied. “Well it isn’t funny,” Mom replied. An awkward and uncomfortable silence prevailed over the rest of the evening with a few feeble attempts at small talk. “Why did you have to make a scene,” Dad asked in an exasperated tone once our guest had gone. “You know he’s always spouting garbage like that. It’s best just to ignore him. You are never going to change his mind.”
My Dad was half right. This particular individual was hardened in his racism and not the sort of man likely to change his mind. But his was not the only mind at the table. My siblings and I were there, too. We learned a valuable lessen that evening from our mother. When someone speaks racism, you don’t just let it pass. You speak up, you rock the boat, you make a scene-even if it means spoiling a visit, offending your guest and opening a rift in the family. In the midst of evil times, when the righteous are afflicted, those entrusted with ensuring justice take bribes and the needy are pushed aside at the border, the prudent keep silent, but prophets speak up.
The prophet Amos was no more prudent than Mom. He spoke truth to systemic injustice. It was an act of uncommon courage for this prophet who was a foreigner and an immigrant in the Kingdom of Israel. I have always assumed that Amos spoke with a powerful and commanding voice like James Earl Jones. But these days, I sometimes wonder whether his voice shook and his hands trembled like Mom’s did on that Thanksgiving day decades ago. There are consequences for disturbing domestic, societal and ecclesiastical peace with truthful speech. Mom’s truthful words created a family rift that was not soon healed. Amos’ preaching earned him swift deportation back to his homeland of Judah. For many faithful witnesses, truthful speech has brought violence, imprisonment and death. Thus, while prudence is surely an important virtue, it is not the highest. In evil times, the faithful speak the truth and let the political, familial, ecclesiastical chips fall wherever they will.
This Sunday my congregation celebrated world communion Sunday by acknowledging our Lutheran ministry of welcome through the agency of Global Refuge, formerly known as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. With more than 1,000 partners and 50,000 volunteers, World Refuge is the largest faith-based national nonprofit exclusively dedicated to helping restore a sense of home to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Our hymn of the day was entitled “Build a Longer Table,” the text of which follows:
“Build a Longer Table, not a higher wall,
feeding those who hunger, making room for all.
Feasting together, stranger turns to friend,
Christ breaks walls to pieces; false divisions end.[1]”
Advocating and resettling refugees is nothing new for Lutherans in the United States. We have been doing this work for over seventy years and, until the recent decade, it has been no more controversial than church potlucks. Under the present cultural climate of racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, however, such work is regarded as unamerican and subversive by a large segment of our country’s population. Advocating for refugees in the face of howling MAGA mobs shouting “build the wall” is not for the faint of heart. Moreover, to be perfectly fair and balanced, neither of our major political parties has shown much interest in “building a longer table” when it comes to migrants and refugees. If Republicans have openly “pushed the needy aside in the gate,” Democrats have been doing a pretty good job of “keeping silent” about the tragic effects of our failed border policy.
While keeping silent might be politically prudent, it is not an option for disciples of Jesus for whom the commandment to love one’s neighbor knows no borders. While I applaud the recent statement of ELCA Bishop Elizabeth Eaton supporting the Haitian residents of Springfield Ohio, recently vilified and slandered by the Republican presidential and vice-presidential nominees, I could wish that it had said unequivocally what needs to be said, namely, that the Republican Party, which, through its elected leaders, espouses racial hate is an instrument of oppression no less than the KKK, the Aryan Nation and the Proud Boys. The Republican Party and the deviant expressions of Christianity that give it spiritual legitimacy are as much a threat as was the National Socialist Party and the German Christian movement in Germany of the 1930s.
I know that many will tell me I am being hysterical. “Come on, Peter! You cannot seriously argue that a little trash talk by politicians during an election season is comparable to the systematic murder of six million Jews. We are not even close to that!” In response to those of you who raise this objection, I have just one question: How close do you want to get? Must our Haitian residents actually be killed before you acknowledge the danger? If so, how many? Do we have to reach the full number of six million? Or will a million do? How about five-hundred thousand? And what about other groups oppressed by Republican culture war tactics? Can we tolerate legislation removing protections for transgender kids just as long as it only opens the door for hazing, bullying and humiliation? Do we have to wait until they suffer actual violence? And, again, how high does the body count have to get before you are willing to call it a systemic crime against humanity and name the perpetrators? How long and how far must things go before you throw prudence to the wind and speak the hard truths that must be heard?
I recently issued a call for our church to declare the Republican Party a hate group under the criteria of the Southern Poverty Law Center. I have not received a response and do not expect one. For one thing, national denominations such as the ELCA are not likely to bother reading, much less responding to, the ravings of an old retired pastor. To be fair, there are a lot of us out here in cyberspace and the bishops’ time is probably better spent on matters other than keeping track of a bunch of bloggers. Furthermore, the consequences of such a declaration would be highly disruptive. No doubt, many high value donners would be offended. To the extent that preachers find the courage to bring this hard word to their congregations, we could well see churches split and members lost. Bringing this message into our homes would likely lead to further family rifts and estrangement. Jesus was well aware of these consequences:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” Matthew 10:34-36.
In some places, speaking truth to power can get you deported-or hung on a cross. No, we are not there yet. But, again, I have to ask, how close you want to get?
I cannot deny that remaining silent, inoffensive and soft spoken is the most prudent course during this “evil time.” For all who choose prudence, I commend you to God and your conscience. For my part, I prefer a church divided over the cross of Jesus Christ than one united under anything less. I prefer the enduring peace of God’s just reign to the false, fragile and superficial peace maintained by silence. Disciples of Jesus, I believe, must be prepared to disturb the former peace for the sake of the latter.
Here is a poem by Denise Levertov that shatters the false and fragile peace of silence and complicity.
Goodbye to Tolerance
Genial poets, pink-faced
earnest wits—
you have given the world
some choice morsels,
gobbets of language presented
as one presents T-bone steak
and Cherries Jubilee.
Goodbye, goodbye,
I don’t care
if I never taste your fine food again,
neutral fellows, seers of every side.
Tolerance, what crimes
are committed in your name.
And you, good women, bakers of nicest bread,
blood donors. Your crumbs
choke me, I would not want
a drop of your blood in me, it is pumped
by weak hearts, perfect pulses that never
falter: irresponsive
to nightmare reality.
It is my brothers, my sisters,
whose blood spurts out and stops
forever
because you choose to believe it is not your business.
Goodbye, goodbye,
your poems
shut their little mouths,
your loaves grow moldy,
a gulf has split
the ground between us,
and you won’t wave, you’re looking
another way.
We shan’t meet again—
unless you leap it, leaving
behind you the cherished
worms of your dispassion,
your pallid ironies,
your jovial, murderous,
wry-humored balanced judgment,
leap over, un-
balanced? … then
how our fanatic tears
would flow and mingle
for joy …
Source:Breathing the Water (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1987). Denise Levertov (1923–1997) never received a formal education. Nevertheless, she created a highly regarded body of poetry that earned her recognition as one of America’s most respected poets. Her father, Paul Philip Levertov, was a Russian Jew who converted to Christianity and subsequently moved to England where he became an Anglican minister. Levertov grew up in a household surrounded by books and people talking about them in many languages. During World War II, Levertov pursued nurse’s training and spent three years as a civilian nurse at several hospitals in London. Levertov came to the United States in 1948, after marrying American writer Mitchell Goodman. During the 1960s Levertov became a staunch critic of the Vietnam war, a topic addressed in many of her poems of that era. Levertov died of lymphoma at the age of seventy-four. You can read more about Denise Levertov and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.
[1] Text by David Bjorlin, b. 1984, Music Noel Nouvelet (French Caorl) GIA Publications, Inc. To hear the full hymn, click on this link.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 
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