RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD

Acts 10:34-43

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Luke 24:1-12

Prayer of the Day: O God, you gave your only Son to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, and by his glorious resurrection you delivered us from the power of death. Make us die every day to sin, that we may live with him forever in the joy of the resurrection, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“But these words of [Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them] seemed to [the twelve disciples] an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” Luke 24:11.

Nevertheless, Simon Peter got up and literally ran to the tomb of Jesus to investigate. If Peter had determined, along with the rest of the apostles, that the women’s account of the empty tomb and the words of the angels was no more than an “idle tale,” why did he go running to the tomb? One possible answer is that he didn’t. The last sentence of our gospel lesson (verse 12) telling of Peter’s sojourn to the tomb is not found in some of the oldest and most reliable Greek New Testament manuscripts we have. This has lead many biblical scholars to conclude that it was a later addition to the story. Some commentators suggest that the account of Peter’s going to the tomb was added in order to absolve the “Prince of the Apostles” from unbelief. There might also be a hint of masculine embarrassment over the fact that the news of the resurrection was given first to women, and all the more so in view of the men’s failure to receive it in faith. Peter’s going to the tomb takes the edge off the apostles’ failure somewhat.

Later on, after the two disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus and recognized him in the “breaking of the bread” return to Jerusalem with their good news, they are told that “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Luke 24:34. But no mention is made of the women. The gospels are generally long on the words and deeds of the male apostles, but short on episodes involving women. Chalk that up to prejudice, cultural subordination of women or misogyny if you like. The fact remains, however, that when women do make an appearance in the gospels, they leave a powerful impression. In Luke’s gospel, it is Mary the mother of Jesus who first says “yes” to God’s redemptive purpose in her life and the life of her promised child. Mary explodes with the radical and liberating words of the Magnificat that prefigure Jesus’ life and ministry. She is the one who ponders and treasures the events of his childhood in her heart. It was the faith of a Canaanite woman that pushed Jesus to recognize God’s saving purpose and the presence of “great faith” beyond the boundaries of his own nation and people. It was an anonymous woman who anointed Jesus prior to his impending death and understood him better than his closest disciples. Moreover, all four gospels are unanimous in their testimony that the woman disciples were the first witnesses of the Resurrection and the first commissioned by Jesus to proclaim it.

Throughout most of its history the church, led principally by males, has had a propensity for ignoring women. Their voices have been left out of our teaching and theology, their unique gifts have been devalued and taken for granted and the door to full participation and leadership in the Body of Christ has remained closed to them. Nonetheless, they have persisted faithfully and forcefully supporting the church in its mission, calling it to account for its systemic patriarchal oppression and challenging it with their own unique and creative insights. This is a critical part of the Easter story that needs telling.

I am old enough to remember the days when ordination of women was first introduced in Lutheran circles. I can still recall a day during my senior year in college when one of my professors hosted a question and answer meeting for those of us considering ordained ministry. Most of us were male, but there were a couple of women present as well, one of whom posed a question to my professor: “What advice would you give to a woman considering ministry of word and sacrament?” His response was instantaneous and decisive. “Don’t,” he said. “You may graduate seminary with a Master of Divinity degree, but there is no Lutheran church that will welcome a woman pastor. That isn’t happening for a long, long time.” Sadly, the professor was more than half right. Women answering the call to ministry have had to swim upstream against currents of congregational skepticism over their capacity to lead, patronization and abuse from their male colleagues and institutional barriers to positions of leadership within the church. Yet they persisted.

The church still struggles with patriarchy. Notwithstanding profound changes in recent decades that have cleared the way for women to serve in capacities unheard of in prior centuries, resistance remains to the voices, gifts and ministry of women. The church still has a long way to go in dismantling the systemic patriarchy in its midst that has silenced the voices of women and thereby compromised its witness to the gospel. Too often, our preaching, teaching and hymnody tells a story about men for men and to men. The gospels, however much they might reflect patriarchal and hierarchical assumptions, nevertheless tell a different story. They tell the story of the first apostles commissioned to preach the resurrection and how the new creation in Christ first broke into our world through the voices of the faithful women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry. They testify to the truth articulated by St. Paul, namely, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28.[1] The Easter sunrise breaks into our world from a future in which such unity, equality and mutuality is fully realized.

The church, like each one of our lives, is “like a broken bowl” says the poet. Yet we pray that God would “[melt] and remould it, till it be [a] royal cup for” God and a faithful witness to God’s reign of justice and peace. Here is a poem/prayer by Christina Rossetti seeking that very thing.

A Better Resurrection

Source: This poem is in the public domain. Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894) was an English writer of romantic, devotional and children’s poems. She is perhaps best known for her composition of two Christmas carols, “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Love Came Down at Christmas.” Rossetti was born in London and educated at home by her mother and father through religious works, classics, fairy tales and novels. The influence of prominent Italian writers filled the home and influenced Rossetti’s later writing. The Rossetti household was open to visiting Italian scholars, artists and revolutionaries. In the 1840s Rossetti’s family faced financial troubles due to a deterioration in her father’s physical and mental health. Her mother began teaching to support the family. At age 14, Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Religious devotion came to play a major role in her life as she struggled with bouts of depression.

Rossetti had three suitors, each of whom she declined to marry for largely religious reasons. Rossetti worked voluntarily in 1859–1870 at the St Mary Magdalene house of charity in Highgate, England, a refuge for ex-prostitutes. She was ambivalent about women’s suffrage, but staunchly opposed slavery in the United States, cruelty to animals and exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution. Rossetti maintained a wide circle of friends, associates and correspondents throughout the remainder of her life during which she continued to write and publish. You can read more about Christina Rossetti and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] To be sure, Paul’s pastoral advice concerning the place of women in the church does not always reflect such an equalitarian viewpoint. Paul, it seems, did not always fully comprehend the radical implications of the gospel he proclaimed. But do any of us fully comprehend the gospel’s implications for our lives? Can any of us claim that we have never had to change our minds, never resisted having to confront our prejudices or have never held an opinion of which we are now embarrassed or ashamed? And are any of us so arrogant as to assume that we have reached the pinnacle of understanding such that our descendants will never look back and question our judgment?   

PALM/PASSION SUNDAY

Luke 19:28-40

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Psalm 31:9-16

Philippians 2:5-11

Luke 22:14-23:56

Prayer of the Day: Everlasting God, in your endless love for the human race you sent our Lord Jesus Christ to take on our nature and to suffer death on the cross. In your mercy enable us to share in his obedience to your will and in the glorious victory of his resurrection, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“I gave my back to those who struck me,
   and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
   from insult and spitting.” Isaiah 50:6.

“And being found in human form,
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:7-8.

“When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.” Luke 23:33

“Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”  Abel Meeropol a.k.a. Lewis Allen

I used to say that one ought not to preach on the Passion Narrative. The Passion Narrative preaches itself. I still believe that to be the case, all things being equal. But all things are not equal in these days of warrantless detentions of legal residents, mass deportations of persons who have lived, worked and contributed to our economy for decades, summary discharge of transgender military personnel who have served this country with distinction and the efforts through ruthless censorship to erase from our nation’s memory the struggles and contributions of black, indigenous and all other nonwhite persons under the rubric of eliminating “DEI.” This extrajudicial oppression committed by our government against vulnerable communities in the name of “making America great again” leaves no doubt that the power of the state is now at the disposal of the MAGA lynch mob.

Contrary to what I was taught in school, the creed of white supremacy did not end with the Civil War. Though formal slavery ended in 1865, the creed of white supremacy that gave it moral justification lived on to be enacted into a matrix of laws robbing Black citizens of the right to vote, depriving black people of basic legal protections and blocking their access to everything from educational opportunities to access to public facilities. As Abraham Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson declared, “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am president, it shall be a government for white men.”[1] Lynching was the ultimate instrument of terror employed to that end. The belief that Black men were inherently inclined toward rape, particularly of white women, was expressed by none other than President Theodore Roosevelt who said that “the greatest existing cause of lynching is the perpetration, especially by black men, of the hideous crime of rape-the most abominable in all the category of crimes, even worse than murder.”[2] The same sentiment was echoed by social reformers like Rebecca Latimer Fenton who endorsed lynching as a necessary deterrent for the protection of women.[3] The same pervasive belief in Black criminality continues to fuel disproportionately high rates of police stops, arrests and incarceration for Black folk.[4]  

Lynching, it must be emphasized, was not a rare and aberrant occurrence perpetrated only by extremists in the most backwards areas of the country. It was national policy. The United States Congress, driven largely by Southern Democrats, defeated both the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1918 and the similar Costigan-Wagner Act of 1933.[5] Such legislation was deemed an infringement on the right of states to frame their own solutions to “the race problem.” Killings of black folk based on infractions of racial etiquette, unsubstantiated allegations and simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time were frequently inspired by the inflamed rhetoric of local leaders and carried out with no interference from and frequently with the assistance of law enforcement. The extrajudicial killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, Sonya Massey and Ahmaud Arbery make it painfully clear that lynching is not merely a grotesque artifact of the distant past. It is still deeply rooted in the American DNA.

On Passion Sunday we recall another lynching-the crucifixion of our Lord. The connection between the Cross and the lynching tree is made articulately by the late James H. Cone, professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in his book by that name.[6] In his introduction he writes:

“The cross and the lynching tree are separated by nearly 2000 years. One is the universal symbol of Christian faith; the other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America. Though both are symbols of death, one represents a message of hope and salvation, while the other signifies the negation of that message by white supremacy. Despite the obvious similarities between Jesus’ death on a cross and the death of thousands of black men and women strung up to die on a lamppost or tree, relatively few people, apart from black poets, novelists, and other reality-seeing artists, have explored the symbolic connections. Yet, I believe this is a challenge we must face. What is at stake is the credibility and promise of the Christian gospel and the hope that we may heal the wounds of racial violence that continue to divide our churches and our society.” Ibid, Cone, pp. viii-ix.

In the world where Jesus lived, the law, both civil and religious, served the interests of the wealthy and powerful. It was the tool of systemic oppression enforced by ruthless cruelty. The ultimate instrument and symbol of terror employed by Rome to keep the “pax Romana” in place was the cross. The sign put up on Jesus’ cross says it all: “This is what happens to people who preach a kingdom other than Caesar’s. This is what happens to people who follow a king other than Caesar.” The meaning of the derisive caption, “king of the Jews” would not have been lost on anyone passing by-just as the mutilated corpse of a lynching victim serves as a warning to every person of color: “Do not forget that we are white, you are not and what that means.”

We are witnessing the cross and the lynching tree today in the work of masked thugs in unmarked vehicles arresting and detaining American people for no apparent reason. We are seeing the cross in relentless efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle the architecture of civil rights protection under the rubrics of ridding our workplaces, schools and government of “DEI,” that is diversity, equity and inclusion. One can only conclude that the objective is homogeneity, inequality and exclusion. Make no mistake, the thinly vailed objective is to enshrine further and ensure the reign of white supremacy. We see the cross in efforts of national, state and local governments to limit access to or outright ban books found to be offensive or contrary to the moral and political agendas of right wing constituencies. These are all means by which we are warned not to “get into any good trouble,”[7] rock the boat or dare to suggest that “Caeser is not Lord. No, we do not yet see the return of state and federally approve lynchings, arrests and execution of dissenters or death camps. But if January 6, 2021 taught us anything, it is that the MAGA lynch mob is prepared to kill for what it cannot achieve through political means.

As Professor Cone points out, “[u]ntil we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.” And I would add that the cross must also be recognized in the bodies of the 36 transgender and gender-expansive people killed in an epidemic of violence in the last twelve months. The cross must be seen in the body of Matthew Shepherd, the young gay college student beaten, tortured and left hanging on a fence to die. It must be recognized among the three young women in Texas who died from lack of emergent care due to the effect of the state’s abortion ban. The cross can be seen everywhere in our culture of increasing oppression.

Of course, the cross is not the last word. Nevertheless, the Resurrection, which is God’s last word, loses its potency under a shallow, sentimental and spiritualized understanding of the cross consigned to the distant past. The miracle of the Resurrection is not simply that God raised a person from death. Nobody in the First Century doubted that God or the gods could perform such a feat. The miracle is that God raised Jesus from death, the one who not only preached but lived God’s gentle reign of justice and peace-and was put to death on the cross for his trouble. Jesus, not Caesar, not any general or political leader, not any successful entrepreneur, not any billionaire was raised from death and exalted to God’s right hand. God stands with the crucified of all times and places, and so must Jesus’ disciples.  

So I would urge preachers to break with the otherwise sound admonition not to preach the Passion. Preach the cross and the way it can still be seen in the suffering flesh of the those most vulnerable among us now being crucified under our government’s oppressive machinery. There are, I know, people in our churches who, to one degree or another, support Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. To these folks, you need to say: “We love you. You are a valued part of our community. But in supporting this man and his cruelty, you have sinned against God and the people made in God’s image. Whether by malice or mere indifference, you have closed your heart to the people nearest God’s heart and so to Jesus. You must turn away from these sins lest they devour your soul.” If you are unwilling to do that, then for the sake of the church, for the sake of the world and for your own sake, step down from the pulpit and make room for someone who will.   

Here is the complete poem of Abel Meeropol a.k.a. Lewis Allen.

Strange Fruit

Source: Music Sales Corporation (ASCAP) (c. 1939).Abel Meeropol (1903 –1986) was an American songwriter and poet. His works were published under his pseudonym Lewis Allan. His poem and musical setting of “Strange Fruit” was famously sung and recorded by the American jazz and swing singer, songwriter, and actress Billie Holiday. Meeropol was born in 1903 to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants in the Bronx, New York. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1921. He e earned a B.A. from City College of New York and an M.A. from Harvard University. Meeropol taught English at DeWitt Clinton for 17 years. During his tenure as a high school teacher, Meeropol taught author and racial justice advocate James Baldwin. He published his work under the pseudonym of “Lewis Allan” in memory of the names of his two stillborn children.

Billie Holiday (1915-1959) was born Eleanora Fagan. She was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday made significant contributions to jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly influenced by jazz instrumentalists, inspired a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. Sadly, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse and served a short prison sentence in the 1940s. She came back following her release, however, to perform a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday’s success continued throughout the 1950s, with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Her last album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of heart failure at age 44. To hear a moving recording of the Meeropol’s poem sung by Billie Holidy, click on this link.

[1] Constitutional Daily, July 31, 2019.

[2] Shapiro, Herbert, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (c. 1988 by Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press) p. 106

[3] “The Nature of Reform in the Early Twentieth-Century South” by Natalie J. Ring, published in A New History of the American South, (Edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Laura F. Edwards & John F. Sensbach, c. 2023 by University of North Carolina Press) p. 378.

[4] Black people made up almost half of the state prison population but only about 13% of the U.S. population. “Racial Disparities Persist in Many U.S. Jails,” The Pew Charitable Trusts, May 16, 2023. According to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office “Racial Injustice Report, 2023,” Black individuals account for 69% of police stops and 62% of individuals arrested while white people accounted for only 18% of police stops and 21% of arrests.

[5] In 2023 Congress finally took the step of making lynching a crime by passing the The Emmett Till Antilynching Act. The law defines lynching as a federal hate crime, increasing the maximum penalty to 30 years imprisonment for several hate crime offences. Reps. Andrew Clyde, Thomas Massie, and Chip Roy voted against the Act.

[6] Cone, James H., The Cross and the Lynching Tree (c. 2011 by James H. Cone; pub. by Orbis Books).

[7] Taken from the now famous quote from the late congressman John Lewis: “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

President Donald J. Trump recently signed an Executive Order establishing a task force to end the “anti-Christian weaponization of government” and “unlawful conduct targeting Christians.” Evangelical Christians, it should be noted, have led the charge to dehumanize and deny medical treatment to transgender persons, gleefully advocated to deprive women access to life saving medical care and fought relentlessly to dismantle civil rights for minorities. Yet these bullies imagine that they are victims in need of government protection. I took this issue up with evangelical icon, Rev. Franklin Graham in an open letter seven years ago. The letter is obviously dated but the nonsensical claim of “persecution” is just as obviously as current as it is asinine. So I am re-blogging it once again.

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm 126

Philippians 3:4b-14

John 12:1-8

Prayer of the Day: Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert. Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing, that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all 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 am about to do a new thing;
   now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
   and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19

My knee jerk reaction is “no,” I do not see anything that looks like a new work of God’s redemptive intent in the world around me. What I do see is an erosion of legal and moral standards from the highest level of government, a growing lack of civility within our communities and a shocking lack of compassion and empathy in the hearts of too many who claim to be disciples of Jesus. Never could I have imagined that I would one day hear the president and vice-president of the United States threaten their neighbors with conquest and annexation in the manner of Hitler and Stalin. Our communal maturity level has dropped to the point where men and women in places of responsibility insult one another with crude language no teacher would permit on the playground. While I have sat through some pretty raucous congregational meetings in my day, never have I encountered the kinds of threats, accusations and intimidation that I see thrown about in so many churches these days. If God is at work in this mess, I cannot perceive it.

Neither could the prophet’s audience. They, too, were living in circumstances that were none too promising. Living in exile after having lost their land, their places of worship and their last shred of autonomy, the Jewish communities in Babylon did not appear to have much of a future. At this point in time, the armies of Persia under Cyrus the great were advancing on Babylon. Though this was surely a profound historical event, for the Jews it only meant that they would soon have a new master. The prophet Isaiah, however, was able to see in this clash of empires an opportunity for his people. Though the waring kingdoms were doubtlessly driven exclusively by their own nationalist agendas, God was also involved in the mix, turning their cruel and self centered designs to God’s own redemptive purpose. Through Persia’s conquest of Babylon, God was making a way out of captivity, through the wilderness and back to the land of promise where there would be opportunities for new beginnings.

I do not mean to say that God is orchestrating events such that, as one bumper sticker has it, “God is in Control.” John the Evangelist tells us that “God so loved the world.” Control is not something you do to one you love. It seems to me the scriptures are clear in ascribing meaningful agency to creation and all of its creatures, particularly its human creatures. The course of human history is not foreordained. The decisions we make have real consequences for good or ill. But our decisions do not have the last word. That belongs to the One whose Word brought creation into being and stubbornly remains mercifully and redemptively engaged with it no matter how often and how far it goes off the rails. God patiently, creatively and compassionately takes up whatever mess we throw at God and makes of it something new, something beautiful, something that opens the way forward where it seems there is no way.

I have experienced something of that divine salvage and repurposing in my own life. As those of you who follow me know, my wife suffered a severe and crippling spinal cord injury four years ago. It was a life altering event in all the ways you might expect. Many of the things Sesle loves to do, many of the things we loved doing together were suddenly ripped away from us. Severe disability is a drain both on the disabled one and the caregiver. But what was truly life altering for us had little to do with all that. Through Sesle’s journey of recovery, we found ourselves in the company of many fellow travelers with whom we found a caring community. We developed lasting friendships with sisters and brothers recovering from accidents, strokes and the effects of birth trauma. At this point, I can hardly imagine life without this community and the love, support and wisdom it imparts. Understand, I do not mean to imply that God caused Sesle’s injury in order to bring about some higher good. What I do believe is that God meets us in the worst of times, when it seems as though all is lost, to open up windows of new opportunity.

Unfortunately, I am not a prophet like Isaiah. Unlike him, I cannot see any “new thing” that God might be doing in the midst of all this Trumpian chaos. And I am certainly not searching the Book of Revelation or any other apocalyptic passage of scripture to find clues that might uncover some divine historical timetable. That is a fool’s game that has made fools of all who have ever tried their hand at it.   Nevertheless, I believe the “new thing” is there somewhere. I believe that because I have been indoctrinated with stories of God’s revealing a way forward just when it appears we have reached a dead end. God introduced the promise of blessing through Abraham and Sarah to a world mired in violence and division. God blessed them with a child when it seemed as though the fertility train had left the station. To a people who knew nothing but slavery for four hundred years, God broke the grip of empire to set them free. And let’s face it, no dead end is deader than death. Yet that is precisely where God worked God’s greatest redemptive work of all. God does some of God’s best work in the dark.

So what do we do until the “new thing” God is doing becomes clear? The prophet makes that crystal clear to us. We are to “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with []our God.” Micah 6:8. Speak good news to the poor; speak truth to power; feed the hungry; care for the sick; stand with the oppressed; shelter the refugee; welcome the stranger; encourage one another; sing, dance and pray as we wait for the dawn. In the meantime, God can be trusted to make a way in the wilderness and quench our thirst as we make our way through this desert.

Here is a poem by Thomas Centolella about hope that survives even when its object is not in view. Perhaps that is the sort of hope we need as we await the revelation of the “new thing” God is up to.

The Hope I know

Source: Almost Human (c. 2017 by Thomas Centolella; pub. by Tupelo Press). Thomas Centolella is an American poet and author of four books of poetry.  He is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award, the American Book Award, the California Book Award and the Northern California Book Award. He is also Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University and lives in the San Francisco Bay area. You can read more about Thomas Centolella and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm 32

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Prayer of the Day: God of compassion, you welcome the wayward, and you embrace us all with your mercy. By our baptism clothe us with garments of your grace, and feed us at the table of your love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” II Corinthians 5:16-17.

From a human point of view, I stand alone and all others surround me in concentric circles on an ever expanding continuum of relatedness. To begin with, there is my small circle of family and intimate friends. A little further out are the members of my church, my hiking group and my coworkers. After that come the neighbors I do not know well, but whom I recognize, greet and exchange pleasantries. Beyond these are the are people I have never met, but with whom I share a common bond of faith, political affiliation or hobby. The further out I go on these circles of relatedness, the weaker my interest and concern. At some point, indifference kicks in. People who live far away, speak a different language and practice a different religion are too far removed and their problems too abstract to move me. Then there is the enemy, people I believe, rightly or wrongly, are a threat to me. These are people I prefer to keep at a distance.   

Saint Paul turns this “human point of view” on its head. “We once knew Christ from a human point of view,” says Paul. From a human point of view, Jesus was just another starry eyed idealist who refused to accept the duality of “us” versus “them.” He dared to cross over the established social, political and religious boundries to touch people consigned to the margins, those on the last concentric circle of relatedness. He did not recognize Ceasar’s godhood. He ignored the distinctions of lineage, class, moral and ritual cleanliness that defined who was who and how they were related. Quite predictably, the imperial powers that be crushed him like a bug. That is what always happens to people like Jesus. Nice guys finish last. But then God raised him from death-as if to say “this,” not Caesar, not religious purity or cultural pedigree, not the claims upon us of blood, nation, soil or race.

Jesus’ resurrection changes everything. God is not who we thought God was. Power is not what we imagined power to be. Glory is nothing like what we formerly called glorious. The concentric circles of relatedness are now dissolved. We can no longer view anyone from a human point of view, that is, in terms of their affinity, association or kinship with us-or lack of the same. All people, whatever their familial, geographical, cultural or national designation, are people for whom Jesus died, people to whom God desires to be reconciled, people to be woven into the fabric of the new creation.

From a human point of view, the cry of “America First” has some appeal. So does cancelation of funding of USAID in support of nutrition, health care and education worldwide. Yes, there is a lot of suffering around the globe. But there is plenty of suffering here within our own borders. Should we not rather take care of our own first? Sorry about the horn of Africa and Gaza, but let’s face it: there is only so much to go around. It is only natural that I consider my struggling fellow Americans to be my first priority.

But from a human point of view, I could just as easily make an argument for “Massachusetts First.” The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is one of the highest contributors to the federal coffers. Our taxpayers bring in far more than most other states in the Union. Why should any of that money go anywhere other than Massachusetts? I am sorry about California’s wildfires and the flooding down south, but we have two aging bridges over the canal to Cape Cod that are now long past their expiration date. Let us take care of our own back yard before worrying about the house next door.

Equally as well, I could make a pretty good argument for “Cape Cod First.” Those of us here in Barnstable county encompassing the Cape contribute a lot to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts-maybe more than our share. We maintain a lot of parks, forests and beaches that entertain millions of tourists frequenting us in the summer months. That generates a lot of revenue for us. So if we are going to be taxed on it, why should our dollars be spent repairing the tunnels in Boston? As noted above, we have two bridges in need of replacement. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and fix your own tunnels Boston!

From a human point of view, I could easily argue for “Wellfleet First.” There are few of us full time residents up on the Outer Cape, but we still need police and fire protection. We also have a school to support. For that we need every penny collected from us. Why should our tax dollars be dolled out to larger towns and villages of the upper, mid and lower Cape, all of which have much larger tax bases? To be sure, they have some expensive problems to address in terms of water quality, transportation and traffic. But why should that be our problem? Just because we happen to be in the same county, does that make us responsible for them?

Perhaps the strongest argument to be made from a human point of view is “Me First.” As I drive through my town, I notice the playgrounds, the programs for youth and our elementary school. Should I have to pay for all that? I don’t have any school age children and I am sure not swinging on the monkey bars. I say let the people who use these amenities pay for them and I’ll keep my money for the things I need-like a new driveway. “Me First” is the clearest and most honest expression of the “human point of view” that Paul insists cannot stand in the presence of the new creation God brings about through Jesus.  

Paul reminds us that our task as disciples of Jesus is reconciliation. That involves crossing over the concentric circles of relatedness, rejecting all religion, politics and ideology that put us at the center of the universe and push others out to the margins. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed in his now well known Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” In God’s new creation, God is placed at the center with all God’s children held together as one in God’s heart. There is no room in this new order for any “First.”  

Here is a poem by Joy Harjo articulating what sounds very much like the new creation in Christ of which Saint Paul speaks.

Once The World Was Perfect

Source: Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, (c. 2015 by Joy Harjo; pub. by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..) Joy Harjo (b. 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation. In addition to writing books and other publications, Harjo has taught in numerous United States universities, performed internationally at poetry readings and music events and released seven albums of her original music. Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry, and two award-winning children’s books. You can learn more about Joy Harjo and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm 63:1-8

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

Prayer of the Day: Eternal God, your kingdom has broken into our troubled world through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son. Help us to hear your word and obey it, and bring your saving love to fruition in our lives, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” I Corinthians 10:1-3.

By ancestors, Saint Paul means the children of Israel. Of course, as the church in Corinth was made up of both Jews and gentiles, the analogy was at least for some metaphorical-as it is for all us non-Jewish disciples of Jesus. We have been incorporated into a story that was not ours to begin with and becomes ours only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ who brings those of us who were “far off” into the commonwealth of Israel. Ephesians 2:13. We are the adopted children of Sarah and Abraham and the siblings of Jacob’s descendants who were delivered by God from slavery in Egypt, led through the wilderness for forty years and finally brought to the frontier of the promised land. Paul insists that there is much we can learn from these, our spiritual ancestors and their experiences.

Other cultures and religions recognize, perhaps better than us Christians, that we live in the shadow of our ancestors. Reverence for the departed and the recognition of their ongoing influence in our lives is very much a part of traditional African religion as well as American indigenous faith. Rituals invoking the memories of the dead give recognition to the reality that our parents, teachers and leaders shape who we have become-for better or worse. For better or worse, we live in the world they have made for us and are constrained by the consequences of their actions. The wise neither blame their ancestors for all that is wrong with their lives, nor worship them as infallible heroes. Instead, they accept their ancestors for who they were and seek to understand and grow from their wisdom while learning from their poor decisions and mistakes. We are both the proud legacy and the shameful product of those who have gone before us or, to put it in the language of Martin Luther, “at once both saint and sinner.”  

Saint Paul tends to focus on Israel’s failures and shortcomings.[1] He warns the Corinthian church about the dangers of idolatry, immoral conduct, faithlessness and ingratitude. These sins are not merely matters of personal morality-though they are that too. They are beliefs, attitudes and conduct that undermine the common good, poison relationships and breed mistrust. Just as the community of Israel was plagued with sins that impeded its progress and sometimes came close to destroying it altogether, so the infighting, partisanship, jealousy, divisiveness and moral laxity within the church of Corinth were hindering the Spirit of God from forming the mind of Christ within it. These sins stood in the way of the church’s becoming all that God would have it be and hindering God’s purpose of uniting all the world such that God might finally be “all in all.”

The church is a pilgrim people. Our problem is that we have forgotten that. We have become too much at home in the Americana landscape where our churches grace the skyline of every city. We have become emotionally attached to ancient buildings and institutions that have long outlived their usefulness. Like the children of Israel, we long for the fleshpots of Egypt, forgetting that the past we long for was actually a land of bondage and oppression. We tend to look upon the past decades when sanctuaries were packed on Sunday, when Sunday school classes were overflowing and membership was on the rise as a golden age. We forget that these same churches existed quite comfortably with racial segregation, judged harshly single parents, condemned persons in love with another of the same sex and silenced anyone who dared question the morality of America’s wars and acts of oppression. I can remember enough about this supposed “golden age” of American Protestantism to know that however large, prosperous and institutionally vigorous we might have been, our faithfulness left much to be desired.

That leads me to Paul’s point. It is important to learn from the past, but not to idolize it. I am currently reading a book entitled A New History of the American South.[2] It consists of several articles by various authors covering the history of the American south from the indigenous civilizations that inhabited the land prior to European colonization up to the present. Unlike the sanitized version of American history I leaned in elementary and middle school, the authors tell the full story of our government’s ruthless removal of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands, the brutality of the slave trade, the betrayal of Black Americans with the failure of reconstruction following the civil war and the pervasiveness of systemic racism throughout the Jim Crow era that was no less prevalent in the northern states. The authors also reflect on how this history continues to shape our country today.  

What I find most interesting is the church’s role in this history. The church can be found on the wrong side of every issue, justifying the institution of slavery, participating in the cultural genocide of indigenous peoples, siding with corporate bosses ruthlessly exploiting child labor and providing a religious framework for segregation. But the church can also be found following the way of Jesus. The Black church built and sustained lively communities of faith under the clouds of discrimination, economic exploitation and the constant threat of lynching. Faith communities like the Society of Friends regularly assisted enslaved persons seeking to escape bondage and find freedom in the northern states and Canada. Some pastors and their congregations fought to educate child laborers who would otherwise lack the opportunity for obtaining basic literacy. Like the history of ancient Israel, that of the church is a mixed bag. Our past can be a source of inspiration and encouragement, but equally as well it can serve as a warning against blindness, arrogance and prejudice capable of derailing our discipleship.

It is well to remember during this season of Lent that Disciples of Jesus are a people on the move. Jesus’ call to “follow me” would not make much sense if he were not going somewhere. When you are going somewhere new, however, you do not leave the old behind. You carry it with you. Disciples of Jesus carry the past in their liturgy, prayers, hymns and preaching. Their spiritual ancestors speak through the medium of worship, sometimes encouraging, sometimes instructing and sometimes warning them. You can think of the faith we confess as a snowball that gathers mass as it rolls downhill. It gathers meaning, significance and nuance through each generation’s efforts to understand, follow and testify to Jesus’ way of the cross. As I have often said before, we never read the Bible alone. Even when reading it privately, we read in the company of the Biblical saints, the teachers of the early church, Saints Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Thomas a Kempis, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Gustavo Gutierrez, John Cobb, Phyllis Trible, Douglas John Hall, parents, mentors, numerous Sunday school teachers, pastors, colleagues and friends. We recognize their triumphs, failures, wisdom and temptations as our own. In that sense, those of us who follow Jesus today have a much richer and diverse treasury of learning and wisdom to guide us. We still do not know where we are in our journey to God’s future reign or what the path in front of us holds. Nevertheless, our ancestors have left behind a wealth of spiritual resources for the journey.

Here is a poem by Rena Pries illustrating how a now landless, oppressed and dispossessed people continues to live and anticipate a better day through song, dance and memory.

Welcome to Indian Country

Welcome to Indian Country.

Welcome to Indian Country.

Welcome to Indian Country.

Welcome to Indian Country.

Source: Poetry (September 2022). Rena Priest is the Washington State Poet Laureate and a citizen of the Lhaq’temish [Lummi] Nation. She earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award and of fellowships from Indigenous Nations Poets and the Vadon Foundation. She currently resides near her tribal community in Bellingham, Washington, where she was born and raised. You can read more about Rena Priest at the Academy of American Poets website and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

[1] This and other passages taken out of context have lent support to the supercessionist fallacy, namely, that the Hebrew Scriptures portray the story of Israel as one of failure and faithlessness. The church, according to this misguided belief, is the “new” Israel that replaces the “old” Israel. Faith in Jesus is the “new” covenant that displaces the “old.” In fact, however, Paul views the gospel not as the invalidation of Israel’s covenant with its God, but the opening up of that covenant to the gentiles. We are actually invitees, though we often act as if we were the masters of the house! As the sordid details of the Corinthian church spelled out in Paul’s letters make clear, the church is no more successful in its pilgrimage of faith than was Israel. For both communities, the sojourn of faith is a story of both courageous faith and spell of unbelief; moments of triumph and instances of failure. Both communities are sustained, not by their own faithfulness to God, but by God’s faithfulness to them.

[2] A New History of the American South, (Edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Laura F. Edwards & Jon F. Sensbach; c. 2023 by The University of North Carolina Press).