THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 9:1-20

Psalm 30

Revelation 5:11-14

John 21:1-19

 Prayer of the Day: Eternal and all-merciful God, with all the angels and all the saints we laud your majesty and might. By the resurrection of your Son, show yourself to us and inspire us to follow Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Note: For copyright reasons, the NRSV is not available to Oremus. They are working on obtaining the necessary updated licenses, but until then are offering only the Authorized King James Version. Nevertheless, the texts I cite in this article will be taken from the NRSV.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” Revelation 5:12-13.

Last Friday the FBI arrested Milwaukee, Wisconsin circuit court Judge Hannah Dugan on allegations she helped an undocumented immigrant try to evade arrest. As I am not sure that a complete and reliable factual accounting of this incident has yet been made available, I will not comment on the legality of the act. But, legal or not, using our courts where people come for justice as a trap for arrest and deportation is immoral. Moreover, resisting immoral action, legal or not, is a moral obligation. We hear repeatedly, from both sides of the political spectrum, that “no one is above the law.” That is not quite true. One there is who is above all humanly constructed systems and institutions of authority, civil and religious. Jesus Christ alone is worthy “to receive all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” To him alone “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” owe ultimate allegiance. Therefore, when it comes to an unavoidable choice between honoring Jesus’ command to love God above all else and to love one’s neighbor as oneself and obeying the laws of the land, “we must obey God rather than human authority.” Acts 5:29

I do not mean to say by this that human authority can be disregarded. Generally speaking, government is one of God’s gifts to humanity. By means of it, human society is ordered. Politics, rightly understood, are the means by which we corporately love our neighbors. Obedience to civil law is therefore our default position. That holds true even for laws that seem unnecessary, burdensome or ill conceived. Where there are procedures for repealing or amending bad law, faithful discipleship requires utilizing them to correct injustice, inefficiency and unnecessary aggravation. But laws should not be casually and arbitrarily disregarded.

The 1908 law allegedly violated by Judge Dugan reads as follows:

Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.”  

The reach of this law is far from clear. Does a church operating a food pantry whose members know that many of its clients are undocumented and makes no effort to contact federal authorities “shielding them from detection?” Is a social services agency operating a homeless center knowing that many of its residents are undocumented guilty of “harboring” illegal aliens? If a pastor gives a person known or suspected to be undocumented a ride to the bus station, is she shielding an illegal alien from detection by “means of transportation?” “Does “harboring” include a church’s finding shelter for an undocumented family?

The law has not been so construed in the past, though it may be open to such a broad interpretation. Prosecutors have a wide range of discretion with respect interpreting laws and determining the scope of their reach. Law enforcement officers have discretion as to whether they will enforce the law in any given circumstance. The officer that pulls you over for speeding could well give you a ticket bearing a stiff fine and points on your license. But if you are sober, respectful and a first time offender, chances are you will get off with a warning, though there is no guarantee. Up until the present time, federal and state authorities have respected the work of churches, schools, courts and social agencies by refraining from prosecutorial and enforcement action against undocumented persons that would interfere with their operations. Such restraint was based mainly on pragmatism. It is well known that undocumented persons make up about 3.3% of the population. Prior to the tidal wave of hysteria stirred up over the last decade, these folks were not regarded as a threat and the government had no interest in mass deportations.

Things have changed, however, and that is putting it mildly. We now have a government that is committed to carrying out the “greatest deportation in history.” We have a vice president who takes pride in spreading outright lies about nonwhite immigrant communities for the purpose of turning public opinion against them. Global Refuge, a ministry of my Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which received commendations from both Republican and Democratic administrations for more than half a century, was recently labeled a criminal enterprise by the governments unofficial Department of Governmental Efficiency.

We should have seen this coming. In 2019, during Trump 101, one of our pastors in training was deported. Betty Rendón, who fled from her native Columbia in 2004 as a refugee after guerrillas threatened the school she directed there, was arrested by ICE, detained and deported. At the time of her arrest, she was studying at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and commuting from the city to Racine, Wisconsin, to work part time as a lay minister in one of our churches. Her application for asylum was denied for lack of documentation leaving her with two options. She could either return to Columbia with her husband and daughter where the danger from which she fled still existed, or she could remain in the United States and hope for the best. Technically, Betty Rendón lacked legal standing to remain in the United States and was subject to deportation. But as with all statutes, enforcement is largely discretionary. Prosecutors need not prosecute and the police need not enforce every law every time against everyone under all circumstances. Indeed, they ought not to waste limited public law enforcement resources when so doing serves no public purpose.

To be clear, the government is responsible for ensuring public safety. To that end, arrest and imprisonment/deportation of persons, documented or not, posing a threat to the public is justified. But such authority must be exercised with care, pursuant to law and consistent with due process. The present administration’s fixation on deporting eleven-million people who are, to a greater degree than the general population, law abiding, tax paying and productive members of society is destined to conflict with the church’s ancient ministry of hospitality to strangers and sanctuary for refugees. It seems to me that we have reached a point at which we must decide whether we will be true to our baptismal covenant of discipleship with Jesus, or set that covenant aside and, by our silence and inaction, become complicit in our nation’s crimes against the most vulnerable among us. If, as my own church declares, walking with immigrants and refugees is a matter of faith, the church must be prepared for acts of defiance, civil disobedience-and the consequences that will surely follow.

Perhaps the greatest temptation facing us comes in the form of despair. What difference can an institutional church in decline hope make in a nation driven by big money and dirty politics? What can a small church struggling to meet its budget and take care of its own aging population do for its neighbors living in fear of violent arrest and deportation? What can one person do against systemic evil infecting all of society? These very sentiments are expressed by in the Hebrew Scriptures to the psalmist:

“Flee like a bird to the

mountains,

for look, the wicked have fitted their arrow to

the sting,

to shoot in the dark at the

upright in heart.

If the foundations are destroyed,

what can the righteous do?” Psalm 11:1-3.

The psalmist replies that “the Lord is in his holy temple,” that “His eyes behold, his gaze examines humankind,” that “his soul hates the lover of violence,” that “he loves righteous deeds” and that the “upright shall behold his face.” For this reason, despite the seeming victory of the wicked, the psalmist nevertheless declares, “In the Lord I take refuge.” Psalm 11:1.  

I believe the visions recorded by John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation have never been more relevant than they are for this day. I believe they offer a wealth of spiritual resources for a struggling church living in a hostile environment. Sadly, Revelation has been highjacked by pre-millennial sects fixated on figuring out when and how the world will end. That, however, is not John’s purpose. If you want to understand Revelation, you need to begin where it does, namely, with John’s letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor. There we are introduced to seven faith communities living in legal jeopardy on the margins of society, divided by false teachings and self-proclaimed prophets, discouraged and on the verge of disintegration. John of Patmos reminds them of their importance and assures them that their struggle to follow Jesus is of cosmic significance. His visions rip away the vail of futility shrouding his church’s spiritual vision. In graphic and lurid imagery, John shows his churches that history is not being driven by the brutal imperial regime of Caesar or Rome’s ruthless economy of greed and exploitation, all of which are symbolized by the grotesque predatory beasts described in his visions. To the contrary, the future belongs to Jesus, “the lamb who was slaughtered.” The churches’ struggle to remain faithful in their witness to Jesus through public testimony, mutual love for one another and service to their neighbors puts them on the side of the God whose determination to redeem a wounded and broken world will not be thwarted. That is as true in the twenty-first century today as it was in the first.

Faithful witness might appear to be futile. As poet Adrianne Rich points out, our resistance to evil, our efforts to protect and preserve what matters seems ineffective, weak and bound to fade with time. Still the faithful hold vigils and protests that seem to accomplish nothing, stand with refugees in danger of deportation when the law and public opinion are against them, work food pantries that cannot begin to satisfy the needs of the growing number of food insecure families. We do this because we know that the lamb who was slaughtered for doing the same has been raised and that to him belong all “blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”  

A Mark of Resistance

Stone by stone I pile

this cairn of my intention

with the noon’s weight on my back,

exposed and vulnerable

across the slanting fields

which I love but cannot save

from floods that are to come;

can only fasten down

with this work of my hands,

these painfully assembled

stones, in the shape of nothing

that has ever existed before.

A pile of stones: an assertion

that this piece of country matters

for large and simple reasons.

A mark of resistance, a sign.

Source: Poetry, August 1957. Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She attended Radcliffe College, graduating in 1951. She was selected by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize that same year. Throughout the 1960s, Rich wrote several collections of poetry in which she explored such themes as women’s roles in society, racism and the Vietnam War. In 1974 Rich won the National Book Award which she accepted on behalf of all women. She went on to publish numerous other poetry collections. In addition to her poetry, Rich wrote several books of nonfiction prose, including Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (W. W. Norton, 2001) and What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (W. W. Norton, 1993). You can read more about Adrianne Rich and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Luke 4:21-30

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove [Jesus] out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” Luke 4:28-29.

How does a worship service turn into a lynching? What could Jesus possibly have said to make the people among whom he grew up want to kill him? According to the account of Luke the Evangelist, everything went sideways when Jesus began speaking about God’s love and attention to outsiders. It was a widow of Zarephath, a city of pagan Phoenicia, that gave sanctuary to the prophet Elijah when he was a refugee fleeing persecution under the reign of the wicked King Ahab. It was Naaman, a general of Israel’s arch enemy Syria, who found healing and faith from the prophet Elisha. To be sure, God is the God of Israel. But God is not the possession of Israel. God’s love is for all people of every tribe and tongue. As Saint Peter would proclaim in Luke’s sequel, the Book of Acts, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:34-35. That message did not go down well with the good people of Nazareth.

Luke the Evangelist portrays Jesus as one who refuses to accept the distinctions of class, blood and soil through which people of his day found their identity. He scandalized the religious and respectable by dining with folks like Levi and Zacheus. But he could just as often be found eating in the home of civil and religious leaders. He had compassion on a leader of the military occupation of his own country and healed his servant. In an age when people feared to touch lepers for fear of being rendered unclean, Jesus touched them in order to make them clean. It is as though Jesus were blind to the “no trespassing” signs we erect to protect our “our people” from the corrupting influence of outsiders.

So, too, the church in the Book of Acts is constantly breaking down ethnic, cultural, religious and class barriers as it expands beyond Galilee and Judea into Samaria and from there into Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Italy and beyond. It was not smooth sailing all the way. Tension and conflicts are reflected throughout the New Testament between Jewish believers and gentile newcomers. Though Paul affirmed that in Christ there is neither male nor female and accepted women as apostolic coworkers with him, it is clear the women struggled to find their voice and place during the formative years of the church. Paul’s pastoral advice on that score was sometimes less than helpful. Still, the church never abandoned its belief in and understanding of itself as a single body with wildly diverse members uniquely gifted for mutual service in pursuit of its mission of reconciling the world to God in Christ.

The church proved to be a destabilizing force, threatening to disrupt the Pax Romana maintained by the Roman Empire through the threat of violence embodied in the cruelest implement of death, the cross. Mary the mother of our Lord sings eloquently about the reversal of the imperial order, the mighty being cast down, the hungry filled with good things and the rich being sent away empty. Luke 1:46-55. Simeon predicts that the infant Jesus “is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” Luke 2:34-35. In the Book of Acts Paul and his associates are accused of having “turned the world upside down.” Acts 17:6. The very existence of this odd community of diverse persons practicing radical equality and showing no regard for rank, status or the emperor’s delusions of godhood threatened the legitimacy, authority and power of the imperial order, built up as it was on distinctions of race, class and citizenship. That accounts for the empire’s vicious and ultimately futile efforts to extinguish the church.

The stability of a hierarchy depends on everyone at every level being content with their place-or at least convinced that trying to rise above it is dangerous and certain to be futile. When those on the lower rungs begin to sense their power, begin to imagine a different arrangement and begin to doubt the religious, ideological and traditional glue that holds the hierarchical pyramid together, the structure begins to wobble. Those nearest the top panic because they have the furthest to fall. Panic breeds hysteria and hysteria produces violence. A lynching is seldom about its individual victims whose only crime is happening to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. It is, rather, a knee jerk reaction against a host of social fears and phobias. Lynching is a frantic effort to hold together a dying regime against a hurricane of change threatening to topple it. Both then and now, Jesus is that hurricane.

So here is the real deal. There are no hordes of lawless migrants made up of criminals and insane people storming across our southern border to invade our country. There is no deep state conspiracy to change the sex of school age children. Haitian immigrants are not eating American’s pets. How could anyone in their right mind believe such malarky? The simple answer is that they need to believe it. These baseless conspiracy theories help fragile people make sense of a world that is changing too fast for them. They see rising prices, more and more black and brown faces in their neighborhoods, schools and workplaces, more stores with signs they cannot read, fewer job opportunities in their communities and decaying towns and cities-and they are mad as hell about it. The lies, propaganda and hysterical rhetoric directed against migrants have been whipped up by our cynical leaders to a give a shape to our deepest fears, put a face on the monsters that terrify us and give us a neck around which to place the noose. Make no mistake about it, that is exactly what this “greatest deportation ever seen” is about. It is a government inspired and sponsored lynching. Migrants are the scapegoats for all that is wrong with America. And you can be sure that when all the undocumented migrants have been deported and America’s problems remain, there will be another scapegoat. There always is.

I read with dismay the pastoral letter from ELCA Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton on President Trump’s Executive Orders calling for mass deportations. To be clear, I appreciate the bishop’s addressing the issue and agree wholeheartedly with her analysis. But we need more than analysis at this point. We need truth telling and fearless preaching. The truth is that the Republican party, now fully controlled by Trump and the MAGA movement, has all the hallmarks of a hate group. See “Time to Declare the Republican Party a Hate Group.” It is time for the church to say so. For my part, I refuse to go on pretending that the GOP, as currently constituted, is just another political party functioning within America’s democratic system. I refuse to allow lies, slander, conspiracy theories and hateful ideology to be invited into serious moral deliberation. I refuse to participate in the normalization of bullying, intimidation and violence under the color of law. It is time to tell the powers that be “We must obey God rather than any human authority” and that we will resist governmental actions that harm our neighbors. Acts 5:29.

To all bishops and pastors, I have a hard word to say: You need tell your people who support Donald Trump and his party, “You are deeply loved by God. You are valued members of our church community. We love you dearly and that is why we need to tell you that by your support for this man and his followers you are grievously injuring your neighbors and scandalizing the Body of Christ. By your association and support, you participate in their hatred and cruelty. For your own sake and for the sake of Christ’s church, you need to repent and renounce your association with this evil movement.” If you are unwilling or unable to say this to your church, then for your sake, for the sake of the church and for the sake of the world, please step aside and make room for someone who can and will.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news. Lutheran’s like me are fond of saying that “God loves us just as we are.” However sinful we may be, God accepts us where God finds us. Nevertheless, God loves us too much to leave us there. That is why God’s Word speaks the truth that sets us free. John 8:32. Jesus loved the people of his hometown enough to tell them the truth they needed to hear-even when it turned them against him. This is not the mushy sentimental kind of love. It is what poet Sonia Sanchez calls “love colored with iron and lace.” It is love that seeks repentance, justice and restitution. The complete poem follows:

This Is Not a Small Voice

Source: Wounded in the House of a Friend, (c. 1995 by Sonia Sanchez; pub. by Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts). Sonia Sanchez (born Wilsonia Benita Driver in 1934) is an American poet, writer and professor. She is a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement. Sanchez has written several books of poetry. She has also authored short stories, critical essays, plays and children’s books. She received Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 1993. In 2001 she was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for her contributions to American poetry. You can read more about Sonia Sanchez and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

For those of you who can still remember the election of 2008, one of the last in which we were assured that, whatever the outcome and however we might feel about it, there would be sanity in the Whitehouse, you will undoubtedly recall the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Rev. Wright is now, like me, a retired pastor. He was formerly the senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and the pastor of then presidential candidate Barak Obama. Trinity is a predominantly African American congregation and the largest one in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white protestant church. Wright gained national attention in the United States in March of 2008 after ABC News disclosed the following quote from a sermon he preached in 2003 entitled “Confusing God and Government.”

“No, no, no. Not ‘God Bless America’; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God Damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!”

Back in the days when journalism was a profession and broadcast news was considered a public service rather than an entertainment cash cow, there would have been at least an attempt to place this quotation in its proper context. But ABC news understands that the American attention span is brief and that sensational bites of “breaking news” grab attention and drive up ratings. Consequently, unless you did some investigative work of your own, you might have concluded, as Obama’s opponents clearly hoped you would, that Wright was simply on an anti-American rant and that Barak Obama’s membership at Trinity was proof that he shared Wright’s unpatriotic sentiments. If you have not already done so, I invite you to read the entire sermon of Jeremiah Wright. Below are my own observations.

Rev. Wright’s sermon, as the title suggests, dealt with the idolatry of nationalism. To put it simply, he was making the point that Americans tend to confuse the demands of government, patriotism and blind love of country for godliness and faithful discipleship. I have often preached and written about the same theme, most recently in my article, “Christ the King and the Religion of America.” Though his critics tried to brand Rev. Wright a terrorist, he makes clear in his sermon that violence is never the answer to injustice. He specifically condemned the practice of Muslim extremists who call for the murder of “unbelievers.” “War does not make for peace,” he told his congregation. “Fighting for peace is like raping for Virginity.” Wright was quick to point out, however, that his own country’s use of violence was equally unjustified:

“We can see clearly the confusion in [the Muslim extremist’s] minds, but we cannot see clearly what it is that we do….when we turn right around and say our God condones the killing of innocent civilians as a necessary means to an end.”

Wright went on to point out this country’s use of violence and oppression against the indigenous peoples of this continent, against the enslavement of African’s brought to this country in chains, against American support of notoriously oppressive leaders and their regimes. He then made the point that we blaspheme God, take God’s name in vain and distort God’s image when we invoke God to bless America, bless its wars and sanctify its oppressive acts:

“That we say God understands collateral damage, we say that God knows how to forgive friendly fire, we say that God will bless the Shock and Awe as we take over unilaterally another country – calling it a coalition because we’ve got three guys from Australia. Going against the United Nations, going against the majority of Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout the world, making a pre-emptive strike in the name of God. We cannot see how what we are doing is the same Al-Qaida is doing under a different color flag, calling on the name of a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem!”

So far, Rev. Wright is spot on. History is not mythology. This country’s genocidal wars against America’s indigenous peoples, the centuries of slavery that produced enormous wealth for the enslaver class, the invasion of Iraq grounded in false claims that it engineered the 9/11 attacks and was harboring weapons of mass destruction, along with the other examples of American violence Wright cites, are historical facts. Efforts to tell the story of our country without them amounts to a flat out lie. Portraying the Unted States as an “exceptional” nation uniquely blessed by God and its crimes as acts of heroism makes of this lie a shameful abuse of God’s name and image. This is the context of the offensive quote from Rev. Jeremiah Wright I cited at the outset.

Did Rev. Wright go too far in damning America? If he did, he was in distinguished company. The prophet Amos, for example, prophesied the destruction of his own country Israel and the violent death of its king. Isaiah warned his nation that it faced defeat and destruction. Jeremiah told his people that their capital city would be destroyed, their centuries old temple burned to the ground and their land taken away from them. Like the United States, Israel understood itself to be “exceptional,” and with far more justification. They were, in fact, chosen by God-but not to privilege, not to special divine treatment, not to blanket “blessing” regardless how they behaved. Israel (as well as far too many Christians) made the mistake of imagining that being chosen by God means being “first,” rather than the least of all and the servant of all. Of course, the United States is not God’s chosen people. But like all nations, it will be judged by how it treated the most vulnerable in its midst, the poor, the hungry, the persecuted, the refugee and the homeless. On that scale, the United States has a damnable record. As offensive, maddening and upsetting as this is, it is true. Rev. Wright is right to say so.

The Hebrew prophets did not hate their nation or their people. To the contrary, they loved them enough to tell them the truth. That is what you always do for someone you love. If Dad has a drinking problem, you don’t make excuses for him. You don’t get on the phone and tell his boss that he has the flu and can’t come in to work when, in fact, he is too hung over to make it to the bathroom to puke. You don’t humor him when he tells you that he just overdid it at the party last night where he tried to grope one of his coworkers in a drunken stupor and that it won’t happen again. You don’t smile and accept his excuses for failing to show up for graduations, weddings and other events important to his loved ones. People who chant “America love or leave it” are like enablers who stubbornly maintain, “My Dad, drunk or sober.” The latter is not love and the former is not patriotism. If you really love your father, you confront him with the truth. You point out to him that he has lost control of his life, that he is hurting the people he says he loves, that he is on a self destructive trajectory. You say what you have to say, however painful it might be, in order to give him the opportunity to change direction before it is too late. You do the same for your country, you tell it the truth it needs to hear to become the nation it claims to be.  

I managed to watch most of the inaugural ceremony of Donald J. Trump. I cannot say that I was overly shocked, angered or dismayed by anything the president or his acolytes said on that occasion. After a decade, my senses have grown accustomed to the stench from that river of sewage overflowing the MAGA cesspool. What I did find disheartening was the parade of well dressed and ornately robed Christian clergy sanctifying this ceremonial obscenity with prayers, scripture and flattery. There was, however, one pastor worthy of that title who stood well above this sorry assembly of clerical clowns. Episcopal Bishop, Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, publicly called Trump out to his face during a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC with these words:

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God, for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.”

Kudos to you, Bishop, for making the voice of Jesus heard in an arena where it has been altogether excluded, and that in the name of God. And kudos to you, Rev. Wright for having the courage and compassion to tell us the truth we need to hear. God send us more faithful, courageous and compassionate preachers for the sake of the church, for the sake of our nation, for the sake of the world!  

SECOND SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 147:12-20

Ephesians 1:3-14

John 1:1-18

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, you have filled all the earth with the light of your incarnate Word. By your grace empower us to reflect your light in all that we do, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“And the Word became flesh…” John 1:14.

Over the years my prayers, preaching and teaching have shifted, slowly and almost imperceptibly, away from a singular focus on the cross and redemption to the miracle of the Incarnation and what the Eastern Church calls “deification” or “theosis.” This, I believe, has nothing much to do with humans attaining divine attributes like “omniscience,” “omnipotence” and “omnipresence.” It is more like Saint Paul’s admonition last week in our lesson from Colossians, urging us “to clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Colossians 3:12. It involves having “the same mind…in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:5. This is a possibility now precisely because the Word became flesh, God became human-and remains so.

I do not mean to say that the cross and redemption have lost any degree of significance in my understanding of the faith. Rather, they have taken on a deeper and more profound meaning as my appreciation of the Incarnation has grown. The Incarnation, as John the Evangelist tells us, was God’s intent for humanity and the world from the beginning. The cross illuminates the terrible price God was willing to pay in order to carry through with this intent in spite of human sinfulness and the worst depravity of which we are capable. However much selfishness, cruelty and indifference is manifest in human existence, God remains indwelt there. Every human being is therefore the image and temple of God. The desecration of sanctuaries, temples and cathedrals can never desecrate or diminish God. But each act of violence, unkindness and indifference inflicts wounds on the body of the resurrected Christ.

It is for this reason that racism, defamation of migrants, vilification of LGBTQ folk, criminalization of begging and homelessness, pouring arms into the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, prosecuting church organizations providing humanitarian aid to immigrants at the border are not merely immoral. They are frontal attacks on the Word that became flesh. That is why, when asked which commandment is first of all, Jesus responded that the first commandment requires us to “love the Lord []our God with all []our heart, and with all []our soul, and with all []our mind.” Note well, however, that Jesus adds that the second is like it, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:34-40. The two commandments are, in fact, one. To love God is to love one’s neighbor and all who love their neighbors are loving God, whether they know it or not. On these two commandments, Jesus insists, rest the entire law and the prophets. Matthew 22:40. Jesus was frequently compelled to point out that the Sabbath and, indeed, the entire law was created to serve the needs of people, people were not created in order to follow rules.  

Much of Christian ethical reflection has been grounded in readings of the scriptures that are not grounded in the miracle of the Incarnation, but based rather on casuistic reasoning from specific biblical texts, often torn from their context. Such reasoning has given us hat mandates for women, exclusion of women from positions of church leadership, prohibitions against long hair for men and particularly cruel treatment of gay, lesbian and transgender persons. Then, too, there are the many prohibitions that find no basis in Scripture but reflect belief in a god obsessed with rule keeping and eternally incensed with the slightest infraction. I refer to the prohibitions against dancing, drinking alcohol, playing pool, playing card games, two piece bathing suits for women and other forbidden practices. Such religion makes of the law a ruthless slave master rather than a servant of humanity for facilitating justice, reconciliation and peace. [1]  

Making the Incarnation the starting point for ethical reflection is transformative. No longer is God’s assuming human flesh a distasteful necessity for dealing with human sin. Instead, it represents the culmination of God’s eternal purpose for humanity and for all creation. The cross, then, is a twofold revelation. In the first place, it reveals the depths of human depravity in our rejection of the very best God has to give us. Second, and more importantly, it reveals God’s determination not to be deterred by the world’s rejection of the Son. God will not be drawn into the vortex of retributive violence by which we are enslaved. Rather than responding to our violence with divine retribution, God responds by raising up the rejected Son and offering him to us again. The cross and resurrection is a triumph of mercy over judgment in the heart of the Triune God, God’s refusal to be driven from the flesh God assumes. At our very worst, God remains Immanuel, God with us. It is this belief that enables disciples of Jesus to meet hostility with hospitality, abuse with forgiveness, violence with a witness for peace, hatred with understanding, the darkness of fear with the light of hope.  

Here is an incarnational poem/prayer by Michel Quoist dwelling on the Word that sanctifies human flesh.

The Pornographic Magazine

Here, Lord, before you tonight, are the bodies of sleeping men:

Source: Quoist, Michel, Prayers (c. 1963 Sheed & Ward, Inc.) Translated by Agnes M. Forsyth and Anne Marie de Cammaille. Michel Quoist (1921-1997) was ordained a priest in1947. A French Catholic of the working-class, Quoist reveled in presenting Christianity as part of gritty daily reality, rather than in forms of traditional piety. He was for many years pastor to a busy city parish in Le Havre, France serving a working class neighborhood and developing ministries to young people through Catholic Action groups. Prayers, the book from which the above poem was taken, has been translated from the original French into several languages including Hungarian, Polish, Chinese, Portuguese, Swedish and English.

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[1] Coupled with this misconception is the over simplistic rendering of the doctrine of “substitutionary atonement,” a rendering of which is spelled out in the tract popular among Evangelicals entitled “The Four Spiritual Laws.” According to this theory, God is in an impossible position. Being completely righteous, God cannot abide the slightest infraction of God’s rules, the punishment for which is eternal damnation. Yet God also desires to show mercy and forgiveness to God’s creatures, but without compromising God’s perfect righteousness by simply overlooking human sin. By taking on flesh in the person of Jesus who, in turn, takes the wrap for our sins, God is now able to forgive human sin while retaining God’s perfect righteousness. Problem solved. While the math works, the theory seems to indicate that God is helplessly trapped in the mechanics of God’s own metaphysic. Like the sympathetic meter maid who would love to give you a pass on parking illegally for just a second, but cannot do it because, alas, the ticket has been written out and is now in the system, so God cannot forgive sin without a payment of some kind. Yet the proposition that God cannot forgive sin without a suitable punishment strains credibility. If my Mom could forgive my breaking an antique lamp she inherited from Grandma that could never be replaced, I find it hard to believe God is incapable of being similarly magnanimous. For more on this, see “The Cross-Because Love Hurts.”  

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Micah 5:2-5a

Luke 1:46b-55

Hebrews 10:5-10

Luke 1:39-55

Prayer of the Day: Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. With your abundant grace and might, free us from the sin that binds us, that we may receive you in joy and serve you always, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“[God] has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.” Luke 1:51-52.

This theme echoes throughout Luke’s gospel and, indeed, throughout the scriptures. God’s preferential option for the poor is unmistakable. As I have said previously, this does not mean that God cares less for the rich. It only means that salvation for the rich means being liberated from the grip of greed and from lives of ruthless consumption and exploitation. For those who have grown accustomed to believing they are entitled to more than daily bread, being reduced to a sustainable lifestyle will likely feel like being “sent away empty.” To those who imagine that they are entitled to taking what they want when they want it, having to take their place in line will no doubt seem like an afront. For those who imagine that they are “self made” and absolutely entitled to everything they own, an economy based on distributive justice will feel like robbery.

None of this plays well in a season where consumption reaches epic proportions. Every year at this time I hear again and again form some quarters, “put Christ back into Christmas.” I am not convinced he was ever there to begin with. Moreover, when I have asked people what they mean by putting Christ back into Christmas, I get answers like “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.” Keep the plastic Nativity display in the town square or that sculpture of Santa kneeling at the manger-it’s that sort of thing people imagine “puts Christ back into Christmas.” But it seems to me that if one really wants to put Christ back into Christmas-and the rest of the year as well, you take the side of the poor, the marginalized, the folks at the bottom of the social later, the victims of the world’s unsustainable practice of exploitation and oppression. Among these are migrants who are facing an unprecidented threat from the incoming Trump administration.

Jesus calls us to take sides. There is no neutrality, no “good people on both sides” waffling, no room for middle ground, not when it comes to choosing whether to stand with the oppressed or join their oppressors. Depending on whether the current administration’s threat to carry out the “greatest mass deportation” in this country’s history is just more Trumpian hot air or whether it actually will translate into policy, we may be confronted with the call to take the side of our neighbors facing deportation in some very concrete ways.    

Now I will grant that it is sometimes hard to find one’s footing under these circumstances. You may find yourself asking, “what am I supposed to do?” I ask myself the same question every day. But I refuse to be cowed by the enormity of the task to which Jesus calls us and I refuse to be convinced that anything I do is too small, too late and too ineffective. So Sesle and I are starting with the opening paragraph to our annual Christmas letter to family and friends which reads as follows:    

“Dear Family and Friends,

Our Lord’s Nativity reminds us that we worship as God’s Son a child born out of wedlock to a homeless couple forced to flee as refugees from political violence in their homeland and to seek sanctuary in a foreign country. So we invite you to pray with us this Christmas for all refugees in our midst who have fled persecution, poverty and violence. May they find among us a warm welcome, a helping hand and friends willing to come to their defense. May we treat these neighbors with such kindness that we shall not have to hear our Lord say to us, ‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.’”

This might seem like a small thing and it is. But the longer I live, the more convinced I am that tectonic changes come through the dynamics of human relationships. Attitudes toward LGBTQ+ folk change when Ms. Jones, who has played the organ and taught Sunday school from the time Adam and Eve were in the third grade, comes out. Fear of “illegals” melts away when you find out that the couple who has lived next door to you for a decade, whose children play with your children, who have been active in the PTA and organizers for the annual summer block party happen to be undocumented. Like me, you may have friends and family who see the world through the lens of right wing media convincing them that undocumented people are criminals, dangerous and need to be expelled from among us, and that people who think otherwise are “enemies from within” seeking to destroy our country. They might be surprised to learn that you, a person they know and love, are one of those “enemies from within” and that might be just enough to give them pause. It might be enough to open up the potential for dialogue and a change of heart. Very seldom does one change minds with a single letter, conversation or sermon. But sometimes it is enough to sow a little doubt into the rock hard certainty with which people hold their erroneous views. Minds often change slowly, but they are capable of change. That is why, folks, it is critical that we speak up whenever the opportunity presents itself. Substantial changes happen one changed mind at a time.

Of course, loving our neighbor requires more than talk. That is why we are also making a substantial donation to Global Refuge this year. For more than 85 years, Global Refuge has advocated for a fair and generous national culture of welcome. It is committed to dispelling disinformation and hateful rhetoric about immigrants and refugees. Global Refuge also provides resources, guidance and community to help restore a sense of home to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Through its persistent and faithful work, 750,000 persons have been resettled in the United States where they have contributed to the nation’s society and economy. Now, more than ever, the work of this organization needs our support.

Finally, we of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) need to think long and hard about what we meant back in 2019 when we publicly declared ourselves a “sanctuary church.” According to our website, being a sanctuary church means “that the ELCA is publicly declaring that walking alongside immigrants and refugees is a matter of faith.” So far, so good. But what does walking alongside immigrants and refugees look like in the face of “the greatest deportation this country has ever seen?” We know the price paid by African Americans in the fight to win equality, human dignity and basic freedoms. The blood shed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge witnesses to the price of faithfulness, of taking the side of the oppressed against the powerful. I am not sure we possess the moral courage, spiritual maturity or theological depth to walk the walk we talk so well in our public declarations. I am not sure we are ready to “offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice” in the service of our neighbors. See Romans 12:1.  

It is therefore important, I believe, that we press our bishops, pastors and lay leaders to open our sanctuaries, colleges and homes to shelter our neighbors against arrest and deportation. We need leadership to put us in touch with persons skilled in non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. The civil rights movement was successful largely because it exposed the depth of our nation’s cruelty and depravity practiced against people of color. It shocked the nation’s conscience deeply enough to turn the tide against overt discrimination. Though the struggle is far from over, there is no denying that systemic racism was delt a substantial blow through the efforts of a movement that began with and was supported largely by the Black churches.

A similar struggle may be required to turn the tide of animosity away from immigrants and refugees. I believe that our leaders genuinely want our church to walk with our neighbors in this way. But they are only human. Within our church there are many who, poisoned by disinformation, share the fear and hatred of migrants so prevalent in our culture. Bishops, pastors and lay leaders need to know that we are there to support them, that we have their backs and that they can depend on us to defend them as they seek to lead us in the way of the cross to which Jesus calls us.

I honestly hope that the threat of governmental action against our immigrant and refugee neighbors is over blown, that reasonable minds will prevail over the harsh rhetoric. But the MAGA mob demonstrated on January 6, 2021 that it is quite capable of lawlessness, cruelty and violence. A pastor recently remarked to me that she met a person who confided that he would probably need to ask forgiveness for what he would need to do as a patriot in the days ahead. Donald Trump has promised retribution against all who opposed him in the past and those of us who might do so in the future. It would, I believe, be foolish to dismiss these threats out of hand.

The good news in today’s gospel readings is that justice for the oppressed is God’s end game. No matter how the scoreboard looks today, Mary reminds us that the outcome of the game is not in doubt.  The wall builders, ethnic cleansers, border hawks and America First adherents are all on the wrong side of history. The earth belongs to the bridge builders, the throng made up of every nation, tribe and tongue, those who seek first the kingdom of God and Gods righteousness. To side with the most vulnerable, join in the divine mandate to upend the hierarchies that imprison the powerless among us is to side with the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

Here is a poem/song by Bob Dylan that I believe sounds the disrupting and liberating note heard in Mary’s Magnificat.

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Source: LyricFind © Universal Music Publishing Group. Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter and a major figure in popular culture, having risen to prominence in the 1960s. The lyrics of the above song written in 1964 became an anthem for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the Vietnam era. His lyrics incorporate political, social and philosophical influences that resonated with the burgeoning counterculture of the sixties. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded him a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.  

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Isaiah 12:2-6

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:7-18

Prayer of the Day: Stir up the wills of your faithful people, Lord God, and open our ears to the preaching of John, that, rejoicing in your salvation, we may bring forth the fruits of repentance; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Luke 3:11.

Last week’s gospel lesson John the Baptist echoed the words of the prophet Isaiah calling upon us to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The Prophet Malachi warned us that the coming mediator of God’s covenant would purge God’s people of sin that they might stand without fear in the presence of their God. The message was as clear as it was unsettling. Repent! That is, change your direction. Turn away from your self destructive and exploitive lifestyle that the messiah’s coming might be for you light rather than darkness; salvation rather than condemnation; vindication rather than judgment. In the face of such a message, one might well wonder, as did John’s hearers, “what shall we do?”

This week John gives us a simple and direct answer. The way you make “the crooked…straight, and the rough ways…smooth” is to erase the gap between the haves and the have nots. You have an extra coat, get it out of the closet and onto the back of someone who needs it. You have food in the fridge nearing the expiration date, get it to those whose fridge is empty. Wonder why God allows people to starve? God doesn’t. God has provided a solution to world hunger, homelessness and poverty. That solution is in your pantry, in your closet and in your wallet. Open your larder, open your wallet, open your home, open your border. God has given you a planet that can sustain you and provide for yours and everyone else’s needs. All you have to do is share it freely and equitably. Is that so hard?

Of course, generosity is hard. In the first place, it is hard because we have convinced ourselves that there is not enough to go around. That lie-which has its origin in the Garden of Eden-has been drummed into us from day one. We have been conditioned to believe that the world is a shrinking pie, that its going fast and that if we don’t get ours now and hang onto it for dear life, there won’t be anything left. There is no shortage of political demagogues these days who know how to exploit that fear, turn us against one another and convince us that we are being robbed of what is rightfully ours. There is nothing like fear to make one stingy, tight-fisted and defensive.

Secondly, we moderns have developed the peculiar notion of “private property” which, according to that religion called America, is a sacred precept. But the notion that near total ownership and control of land and property can be conferred upon any individual or people is foreign to the biblical understanding. Even the promised land was not given to Israel in fee absolute. Abuse of and exploitation of the land and its people could-and ultimately did-lead to Israel’s loss of the land. Inhabiting the promised land, or any land for that matter, is a privilege, not a divine right. Truth be told, most of us are living on land that our ancestors took away from somebody else. Call it settlement, colonization or whatever other name you like, it boils down to theft in the end. Thievery is, to say the least, a shaky moral foundation for claims of ownership. It is reminiscent of the following dialogue:

The bottom line is that the “earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Psalm 24:1. We do not own a single inch of anything in any absolute sense. We are tenants responsible for the earth’s care and the care of all who live on it. Everything we “possess” is merely a trust to be managed with care for the benefit of the true Owner. Our hymnody says as much:

 “We give thee but thine own,

What ‘er the gift may be.

All that we have is thine alone,

A trust, O Lord, from thee.”

There is no room here for any notion of property being “private.”

Jesus taught his disciples to pray only for today’s physical needs. Matthew 6:11; Luke 11:3. Paul reminds Timothy that “if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” I Timothy 6:8. Everything else above and beyond that in our possession has been given for the service of our neighbor and the care of the earth. It’s that simple, hard as it may be to accept for those of us who have been hard wired to accumulate, hoard and safeguard. But as the following poem by Duchess of Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, illustrates, this hard wiring is our undoing, bondage from which we desperately need liberation, both for our own sakes and for the sake of the world. We dare not be caught at Jesus’ coming with extra coats in our closet and expired food in the fridge!

Man’s Short Life and Foolish Ambition

Source: This poem is in the public domain. Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was an English philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction writer and playwright. She produced more than twelve literary works. Her writing became well known due in part to her high social status.  As a teenager, Cavendish became an attendant on Queen Henrietta Maria and travelled with her into exile in France. There she lived for a time at the court of the young King Louis XIV. Cavendish had the opportunity, rare for woman of her time, to converse with some of the most important and influential minds of her age. You can read more about Margaret Cavendish and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.